COVID-19 in Cusco: Quarantine Week 13
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Published: June 14th 2020
Tawantinsuyu Flag
For hundreds of years, the rainbow has been the symbol of Cusco and the Inca Empire, which was ruled from here. They called their country Tawantinsuyu, named for the four parts of the empire.85 days of quarantine down, 23 to go
Yesterday was an incredible success! Frustratingly, Travelblog is not uploading photos this weekend, so If you missed last week or want to see the photos of the second event of the Covid Relief Project, check here.
https://heatherjasper.com Also, here's the
">link to the video about yesterday (which I don't finish until Friday of this week. Sneak peek of the future!).
Another Sunday means another day at home. This is the twelfth Sunday of quarantine, when nobody is allowed to leave their home except for emergency medical services. Only hospitals and clinics are open, no pharmacies, no grocery stores or any of the handful of other businesses that are allowed to be open. That leaves me with birdwatching, reading The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea, blogging and working on a video about yesterday.
I had asked a few friends for tips on fundraising and was advised to make a video of this second event. I took hundreds of photos of the first event on May 16th, but no video. It honestly didn’t occur to me. I’m so used to still photos for the blog and website that I hardly ever
Taking back the Plaza
These hand washing stations, all around town, usually have a big sign about how to properly wash your hands. This one used to have that sign, but it obviously impinged on the beauty of the plaza and was broken off. I do love the ingenuity of making fire hydrants into hand washing stations. shoot video. As my first video, this will probably take me a while.
The same Blue and Yellow Tanagers, Black Throated Flower-Piercers, Sparkling Violetear hummingbirds, sparrows, thrushes, doves and pigeons are here to entertain me. They have been faithful companions these past thirteen weeks. I can still hardly believe that I’ve been sitting on this couch, watching these same birds, for thirteen weeks. Did any of us imagine that Peru’s quarantine could possibly go on this long? Anyone who’s not an epidemiologist, that is?
I am certainly not alone in spending so much time birdwatching out my window, even if most people around the world don’t have an all day Sunday curfew.
This article from the Cornell Lab’s All About Birds starts with the sad tale of a birder stuck in his hotel room in Iquitos, Peru. He came here planning to add more than 100 birds to his life list in the Peruvian Amazon.
He and I are not the only ones doing all of our birding out our windows, the article notes that in many places “reporting rates doubled or even tripled for suburban species.” I am certainly learning a lot about the birds that I
Plaza de Armas
The Tawantinsuyu flag has flown at half-mast since the first Covid-19 deaths in Peru, back in March. can see out my windows and I hope that if that birder is still in Iquitos, that he has trees out his windows.
It is quite unlikely that he is still in Peru. Commercial flights in and out of Peru stopped on March 15th, but many embassies worked hard to get permission for “humanitarian” flights to repatriate their citizens. That evacuated a lot of people from Peru, tourists and temporary residents like my friend Viviana who went home to Switzerland. However, those repatriation fights ended on April 20th.
Since then, I continue to get emails from the US Embassy in Lima about commercial companies who occasionally get permission from the Peruvian government to fly out of the Group 8 Airforce base near Lima. Commercial airports are all closed, but the US Embassy is still facilitating US citizens and permanent residents return to the US. These are still very restricted flights and there are only a few per month. They are always sold out.
My housemate Kerry is still here with me, sticking out the pandemic in Cusco because as a British citizen she wouldn’t be able to fly to the US, where she had a job waiting
Inca and Spanish
One thing I love about Cusco is the mix of Spanish and Inca architecture on every street. The stones along the roofline of the building on the left are very Inca, while the Santa Catalina convent on he right is about as Spanish as you can get. for her that started June 1st. As long as she hasn’t found a job back in England, there’s no hurry to leave and Cusco is clearly a safer place during the pandemic anyway.
Monday, 8 June 2020 I am so thankful to all the donors who made last Saturday possible, but just like after the May 16th event, I feel a bit of a let down. Something I worked so hard for, for weeks, is over. I took yesterday off, and did very little besides birdwatching and blogging, but today I need to concentrate again.
I’m working on the video from Saturday and plan to also video interviews of both Henry and Auqui. Hopefully, with those on Facebook, Instagram and the website, we will get more donations for the next event. For May 16th, we had seven donors but for June 6th we had 21! My goal for the third event is 30 donors. If we can add another 10 donors to each event, it will make my ask of $10 or $20 more genuine. Of course, every person who donated $10 to last Saturday made a big difference, but I was honestly so relieved when a
Qorikancha
This Spanish church was built on the foundations of the Inca Qorikancha, a temple with places to worship both the sun and the moon. The lawn out front is usually full of kids playing, but of course, all kids are confined to their homes during the pandemic. few $100 donations came in. Even with a threefold increase in donors, $10 each would have been only $210. Saturday was wildly successful because we got a total of $1211 in donations.
With that much money, we were able to buy more than just the basics. The rice, sugar and vegetable oil are what people get from most charities. With so much in donations, we were also able to give expensive items like powdered milk, oatmeal and panettone. Panettone is very popular here over the holidays and a must from every employer at Christmas. Rice is a handout, but panettone is a gift. The event felt festive and celebratory, partly because we were bringing gifts, not just handouts.
Tuesday, 9 June 2020 After work today I got to start my new job! Working part time for the trekking agency, from 9am to 1pm, has given me more time in the afternoon than I can fill with birdwatching and finding donors for the Covid Relief Project. I’ve been casting around for new work to both fill the time and supplement my income.
I’m barely breaking even each month, which isn’t too worrisome, since I do have some
Temple of the Moon
These are part of the carvings and caves that make the underneath part of the Temple of the Moon. savings. Still, comfortably breaking even would be much better. I would like to not have to calculate whether or not I can afford the good coffee or if I have to go with the cheap coffee. The coffee in Peru is just too good to drink the cheap stuff.
I’ve put the word out to friends in Cusco that I’m available for one on one tutoring in French, English or Spanish. There are a few foreigners here who have expressed interest in Spanish tutoring, but my first lesson today was English, for the owner of a local coffee shop. He spent at least half an hour explaining about the different coffee brewing methods used in his shop, along with an explanation of the holy triangle of time, temperature and ground which can give you the “gold cup” as he said.
I learned a lot about coffee and got a good feel for what he needs to work on. We settled on one hour every Tuesday afternoon and I have a good list of topics for future lessons. His coffee shop, like all coffee shops in Cusco, is closed. He is still selling coffee as either whole bean or
Inca Roads
Leading from the Temple of the Moon are more than one ancient Inca Road. These roads radiate out from Cusco in all directions. already ground, but nothing else.
Very few people in Cusco have any income anymore. Everybody I know used to work directly in tourism as guides, drivers, porters on the Inca Trail and in hotels and restaurants. Not one of them has had a job since March 15th.
Obviously, I can’t charge much per hour here and almost hesitated to ask for s/20 an hour. (s/ is the symbol for soles, the Peruvian currency).That’s less than $6. Last year, when I was living in Seattle, one on one tutoring in French or Spanish could easily go for $40 or $50 an hour. Nobody in Cusco could afford that, even when things were normal. The sky high unemployment in Cusco now makes me hesitate to ask for s/20, so we’ll see how many people take me up on the offer.
An interesting result in the hard stop in tourism here has been the availability of AirBnbs as monthly rentals. Places that used to go for $50 a night are now offering monthly rates as low as s/200 (about $58). A friend of mine just moved into one, and my price estimates come from his house hunting. I would be
Sparkling Violetear in eucalyptus
All across the hillsides above Cusco, you'll see the same hummingbirds that I can see out my window. They are fiercely territorial and I watched this little one chase off several intruders. very tempted, if I hadn’t signed a year lease, and if I actually wanted to move. For now, I’m content with my location so close to the San Blas market and with the birds I can see out my windows.
Wednesday, 10 June 2020 Today the
presidential decree of an extended State of Emergency begins, for another 90 days. Reading the fine print, this does not extend the quarantine as it is now. However, it does give the president the power to reinstate the quarantine or curfews, as needed.
Currently, besides a 9pm curfew and all day Sunday curfew (is it a curfew if it’s all day?) I don’t feel very restricted in how I move around Cusco. Most businesses are still closed, but we are allowed to be outside for an hour to exercise, as long as we stay within 500 meters of our homes. The Temple of the Moon is about 2 kilometers away, but still worth the risk.
I always carry an empty ibuprofen box in my pocket, along with some cash and my ID and phone. Hopefully, the story of going to the pharmacy to buy ibuprofen is believable. My Peruvian permanent resident card doesn’t have my current address
The Violetear
In this shot you can see the violet ear that this species is named after. on it, which could be a problem or could be an advantage. It all depends on the humor of the police or military who stop me in the street.
This afternoon, a guide I know came over for some help with a visa application for Canada. He was contacted by a company offering to facilitate applications for a 6 month guest worker visa. Thankfully, he was suspicious when they asked for over $2,000 up front, with another $2,000 when he arrived.
He showed me the emails they had sent and described his phone call with them last week. We looked at their website, which looked pretty normal to me. Then we checked the Canadian Better Business Bureau. The company was founded in 2015 and has been under investigation by the BBB since 2016, though never approved. That was enough for me to tell him that this doesn’t look like a good idea.
Next, we checked the Canadian government immigration website. On their fraud alert page, we read through the list of what to look for when suspecting a scam. On the lists of what they will write in emails and what they will say in phone calls,
Kestrel
Now that I know where to look, I see kestrels every time I hike up to the Temple of the Moon. we checked every box.
I was sad, because people here need work so badly and the prospect of work in Canada, even for only six months, is so tempting. I was also relieved that he knew to come to me, when it started to seem odd to him. Mostly though, I was angry that there are people so willing to take advantage of Peruvians who are desperate and who don’t understand legalese in English.
All of the guides I know here dream of international travel. Temporary work visas are the easiest way to afford that travel. One of my friends here, Gaspar, has traveled to the US (including Seattle), England, France, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, Ecuador and every region of Peru. He is one of the lucky few.
Most guides never have the opportunity to travel internationally, although they spend their days with people who come from all over the world. Tourists tell them about their homes, cities and countries. They also hear innumerable stories about the other countries that these tourists have visited. It’s like working in an ice cream shop but not being allowed to ever taste even one flavor.
Thursday, 11 El Ausangate
I am still waiting for the travel restrictions to life enough to be able to get out hiking and camping farther from Cusco. The quarantine continues, and for now it's still impossible to get there. June, 2020
I am so proud of Seattle!
The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (Chaz) has made national news! Seattle is in the news for more than the Twitter war between the Seattle Mayor, the Governor of Washington and Trump. They have created a new mini-society within the city where cops are prohibited, movies and food are free and those who have been there told me that it feels like a street fair. What a wonderful and constructive part of the Black Lives Matter movement!
Full of optimism, I walked up to the Temple of the Moon in the bright sunshine that we can count on for all of June, July and August. Cusco is emerging from our pandemic scare and every time I go outside, life looks a little more normal. Today I saw a couple with a slackline between two eucalyptus trees, several families picnicking and helped an elderly woman look for her keys, which had fallen from her apron pocket when she had taken her sheep out to graze.
On the way back down I shared the trail with a few people with obvious American accents. It’s a small enough community of expats that I was a little surprised to find people I hadn't
The dogs of Cusco
Every time I go for a hike, I am either joined by a few random dogs, or I see packs of them roaming the hills. Most of these dogs have collars and a home to go to at night. They just obviously prefer to spend the day together, hiking in the sun like I do. met before. One is just waiting for flights to resume so that she can leave, but the other has plans to live here, even after travel is allowed again. We swapped numbers and I went home even more full of optimism.
Friday, 12 June, 2020 Today I am trying to finish the video about last Saturday. (Check out the finished version
">here.) One difficulty to recording sound for a video is how noisy my neighborhood is. It’s normally one of the quietest neighborhoods in the city, but the whole town has recently been flooded with people selling things from their cars. Home delivery is now allowed, which means that people are selling just about anything you can imagine from their cars. Food is by far the most common and people have megaphones, calling out what they’re selling. It would be convenient, if I didn’t find it so annoying. They start early in the morning, selling fresh trout and eggs, fruit, vegetables, cheese, milk and more. Those selling milk have an incredibly annoying recording of a cow mooing, as loud as you could get with a cheap car stereo. Tot: 0.116s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0578s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
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