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Published: June 29th 2005
¡Hola! from Cusco,
Well, it has been a very busy and eventful and exciting first week here in Peru. As many of you were shocked to hear, this is my first trip to a country off the North American continent. There have been some things that I expected, some things that were surprises, some things that take a little getting used to and some things that are just too familiar that I thought I could escape from for a while but cannot. So now that I’ve settled into a bit of a groove here in Cusco, I have finally made the time to get some details of the trip down before they fade away into blurry and scrambled memories.
Jake and I arrived at the airport right at the same time; we thought this was a good sign until we got into a huge line at check-in. I had to run to the plane while Jake was still going through security but when asked if I could leave without him by the Delta agent at the gate, a firm NO gave him the patience I felt he needed to accommodate us. Of course our flight left late and we were worried we would not make the connection into Lima, but due to bad weather in Atlanta, we made our flight. We had the seats right by the door with full leg room and a crappy meal and crappy movie (The Wedding Date) and the next thing I knew, we were landing in Lima, 11:00 pm local time. Our Hostel had a taxi waiting for us and he drove us through some seriously run down areas of town and then along the coast through fog thicker than anything I’ve seen in SF and finally to our hostel in the heart of the upscale area known as Mira Flores. We check in and the place was beautiful and comfortable. After a long but pretty easy travel day, we slept well.
We barely made breakfast the next mooring having slept in till 10. The hostel had a beautiful patio that is well decorated and landscaped where we had our first cups of Mate de Coca, the local drink made from the same leaves that cocaine is made from (thus, we can’t bring any home with us) The weather was horrible with cold, low clouds and fog typical of this time of year in Lima but there is no wind. We decide to grab a taxi to Plaza Mayor, in the heart of old Lima. The first thing I notice is the serious lack of traffic laws as our driver weaves a rather serpentine route in between busses and trucks and other taxis. He has a very Zen feel to the whole thing, playing classical Gregorian music while coming very close to hitting other vehicles almost every second. Then I notice that he is not the only one with this skill as all the drivers seem to ebb and flow with the general movement of this metal and plastic river. For some reason, this suddenly comforts me. The air is filthy here in Lima, a combination of the low fog and the lack of emissions controls and just getting out of the taxi into this air is not something I look forward to.
We arrive at the Plaza Mayor and begin the classic tourist activities while clutching tightly to our backpacks and to my new camera. We first head into the Cathedral where Francisco Pizzaro, the Spanish conquer of Peru, is laid to rest in a crypt. The cathedral is gorgeous with all the classic elements, high arched ceiling, religious paintings and a quiet and calm that you can almost taste despite the numerous tourist around. It is hard to find this type of peacefulness in most places in the world, even in nature there are so many distraction, but here there is space to think and feel even though there are so many walls around you. We discover a small art gallery located off to the side of the main alters that in the first room there are 12 paintings representing the stories of each of the Zodiac signs. A little odd for a church but as we explore further into the gallery, we find more art related to indigenous tribes mixed with crafts from Spain brought over during the colonial era. Jake then comes running over to tell me that they are changing the guard across the square at the Palace. It turns out to be a very ceremonious affair lasting about a half an hour. It is here I discover that Peru uses El Condor Pasa as a national song. The band plays it for several minutes as my mind tries to recall where I have heard this and then I realize it is from a Simon and Garfunklel tune I learned years ago on the guitar and then forgot. The lyrics conjure up some memories (I’d rather be a forest than a street) some pretty influential words from me at the time but here I am in the streets Lima, far away from any forest. We then grab lunch after wandering lost for a while downtown and head over to visit Cathedral De San Francisco with some more fantastic architecture and trip through the catacombs where we discover thousands upon thousand of bones in open pits. I never get a clear explanation where these bones came from or why they are here.
After shaving off my beard with Jake´s Swiss army knife and a crappy disposable razor, Jake and I spend our one night in Lima sipping coffee and sharing some hilarious stories about love and life and so on, already I’m drinking too much coffee. As it gets dark, 6pm, we head over for dinner a local outdoor patio followed up by some quick shopping. At around 10 we head off to a spot called the Jazz Spot and are very excited to hear some amazing Latin jazz as we walk in the door. The band takes a break but comes back offering us several types of music over the next hour or so. They were amazing playing an incredible range of guitar based Latin jazz and flamenco and the audience, which numbered about 10, knew all the songs and clapped in rhythm during the whole set. They finished off the night with a flamenco dance performed by a woman from the crowd and a song we recognized from a Gypsy King album. At the end of the set Jake turns to me with one word, magical. I agree. We finally feel like we are really in Peru.
The next morning we head of to Lima Airport to fly to Cusco, the flight is pretty mellow but the land beneath us is so unusual. It is stark and desolate and tortured. Warm sienna brown as far as the eye can see with sharp ridges and deep dry canyons. There is so little water here but somehow there are villages and towns on almost every impossible canyon wall and the terraced agriculture of the Inca’s begin to be seen as we near Cusco. We cross some very high plains known as the Central Highlands, and then begin our descent into Cusco through a narrow slot in the middle of the range. It feels more like Cusco is rising to meet us rather than our plane descending to land in Cusco, since this city is around 11,000 feet above the coast! It is nice to see and feel the sun for the first time in three days and I instantly enjoy the feel of being in a mountain town again with the strong, sharp sun and crisp air. After a quick check in at Los Niño’s Hostel, which is so nice and is attached to a school, we head straight to the Plaza de Armas for the already happening Inti Raymi (festival of the sun), the largest festival in Cusco during the year. On the bright, sunny square surrounded by 2 large classic Spanish colonial churches and shops, café’s, and a large open park with a magnificent fountain, there are thousands of people lining the streets and up in café’s open terraces watching a parade move around the square. The parade consists of groups of dancers and singers and musicians from all over Peru to celebrate the Returning of the Sun from Winter Solstice. The various groups are dressed in a range of traditional outfits and costumes that reflect the region from Peru that have come from and are very bright and colorful. The music and dancing is mostly the same from group to group but I never tire of the newness and the beauty of the music and the joyful singing. The singers and dancers and marchers all smile so warmly at each other and us with deep soulful eyes and seem so connected to each through this festival, they all share in the joy of this event, it gives them a common identity I have not found in most events like this at home. The parade last for hours as I snap picture after picture for a café balcony and from the street. Jake and I finally tire and head back to get a quick nap though a sudden rain that makes getting though the crowd almost impossible and walking on the now slippery, cobble stone streets more dangerous, good luck trying to dodge the taxis now. We head out to a very good dinner, so inexpensive, and have my first Pisco Sour and Alpaca steak, not bad but chewy. My first surprise is that there are so many restaurants here that serve American and European food and I am also surprised at how many tourists from overseas are here (and how unfriendly they are?) We head out to the parade, which rages on until midnight and beyond but we finally begin the feel all the effects of travel and the elevation is getting to us too. I retire to dreams of bright spinning colors over deep mysterious canyons at sunset and of far away voices I know but can’t respond too.
On Friday, the 24 of June, the more traditional ceremonies of Inti Raymi occur. We head down to the Plaza after breakfast and find the ceremony in progress. There are a few hundred dancers along the square dressed in Inca dress and moving in slow and methodical, almost military, marches back and forth in front of a group of elders dressed in elaborate and formal dresses that give the impression they are the leaders and priests. Even though the whole ceremony is very staged and has lost most of its true meaning for everyone, the spectators remain quiet and respectful as the Sun God appears in the center of the square and begins his long incantations to bring the sun back to the Inca so they can begin to plant and grow food for the coming year. There are several mock sacrifices of animals followed by more thundering incantations and then an exciting fertility dance where several men and woman dressing in nothing but beads and feathers dance provocatively before the sun god with live snakes and knifes. At the end the festival marches around the square dancing traditional Inca dances and singing more songs. I was able to get a great spot along the street to take some photos when an older gentleman saw me trying to shoot over the crowd. He offered me his spot along the railing and said to me after wards very knowingly,” your first time to Inti, maybe your last”. I thanked him, shook his hand and ran off to find Jake in the madness.
But that is not the end of the Festival. We hiked up to the ruins just outside of town with the throngs of people for the final portion of the day. We climb up a step canyon to the Ruins known as Sacsayhuaman; these is where the Inca’s fought there last battles against the Spanish and were finally defeated by a better equipped but out-numbered Spanish force. The way to pronounce the name of this place sounds like”sexywoman”, this drove me nuts the whole day as I did not know that and everyone around kept saying to me “sexy woman”, my neck was killing me by the end of the day. At the ruins there were the same thousands of Peruvians cooking and dancing and playing music in a big open field awaiting the arrival of the Sun God for the final ritual. The hill over looking the main area of the ruin was packed with spectators so Jake and I never saw the final ritual, instead we shared lunch on the field with a woman and her 2 children. They were very friendly and both the boy, Jose who was 5 and the daughter (can not remember her name) who was nine, were both very inquisitive and precocious. We dine on roast pig, with a little hair still attached, and potatoes, a real locals meals cooked in the open air. As the festival winds down we head back to town and take in the views of the city from above. On the way down we pass through the more gringo area of San Blas. This area is loaded with hip, swank café’s and shops and hotels and restaurants that rival SF in style and hip factor. There is a hotel that cost 330 dollars a night, a far cry from our 5.50 a night room. We, however, are determined to come up here and go out some night soon. We then head over to the plaza for some late afternoon coffee at a café over looking the Plaza. This is the first time in about 4 days that Jake and I have relaxed and begun to reflect on how much we have seen and how powerful this has been so far. There is so much beauty in visiting another culture but it is so hard to feel like an outsider. I feel like there is a richness of spirit here that you have to really look for at home, here it is obvious. Who knows what causes that, the common identity of the people here, their religious background, the common struggles they all face, I just don’t know. The other surprise is that of globalization, I had no idea how far the hand of American consumerism has traveled and how deeply it has changed cultures. There are so many products available, the styles of clothing look American and there are so many of us here consuming this culture that I almost don’t know how to proceed. I thought I could be conspicuous on some level but that is now apparently impossible. Jake and I head to dinner and finally meet some nice folks from Ireland, although when pressed for what they have been doing they say mostly drinking, a little disappointed with that. After a great pizza we head over to the wine bar around the corner. The place is very hip with a good mix of gringos and locals and the wine, from Chile, is great. It is nice to be in a place where no cell phone rings but the smoking is killing me!
On our third day in Cusco, we take a bus ride over to the sacred valley to visit the ruins at Pisac. This is one of the largest ruins in the valley outside of Macchu Picchu. The bus ride is amazing as we head out of town past smaller ruins and then over a pass into the Sacred Valley. The Valley is long and narrow and is steep on both sides. The Urabamba River snakes its way along the valley floor past patchwork plots of agriculture and the hills rise sharply with terraced ruins from the Incas. We pick up a taxi from Pisac and drive up a step valley to the top of the ruins. From there we hiked down through the ruins of homes and garrisons and other structures and looked out onto the valley below. There is an expansive terraced growing area leading thousands of feet down to the valley floor on both side of the ruins that are no longer used by local farmers, there is just dry brown grass there now. We finally make it to the ridge over looking the Temple of the Sun, the center of community for the Incas. This is the place where the Incas built structures that allowed them to follow the movements of the celestial bodies and track the seasons. It was their center for science and knowledge as well as the place where the most important rituals took place. I enjoy that sort of synergy between scientific knowledge and the celebration of the unknowable the mysteries of the universe. A good example of this that I read about was a symbol that lives on the side of the Temple called an Chacana. It is diamond shaped stone that contains multiple meanings, each corner of the stone represents the 4 corners of the Inca Empire and so on. But at the Pisac ruin, the Chacana is a triangle, only a half a diamond. There is a pillar above the temple that when the sun hits the pillar on Winter Solstice, it cast a shadow completing the upper portion of the symbol thus signifying the beginning of the harvest season.
We hiked thought the Temple but it is closed off. We were able to get into the Temple of the Moon and see some unique and technically perfect forms of irrigation where the water for the crops flowed through the Temple and then down to the growing areas in stone canals. The stone everywhere is intricate, geometric and stunning in its construction. We visit the last of the residential areas of the ruins and then hike about 45 minutes back into town along endless terraces that fill up the sides of most the mountains as far as the eye can see. We arrive in Pisac and find that there is an amazing market going on. We have some lunch of avocados and cooked chicken at a surprisingly good restaurant and then do some shopping in the market where I find a rug I like for about 30 dollars. The bus ride back over to Cusco is very crowded and we have to stand but it goes fast and we get off the bus at the top of the ruins (sexy woman) and walk down the hillside through the poorer part of town and into the square by sunset. Another killer dinner and another night filled with colorful dream.
The later part of the week is filled mostly with getting oriented to the language school, which I will write more about next time, and of dealing with getting sick! I first had trouble sleeping and was having body aches but the you know what happened. Luckily, it came and went in about 36 hours and the doctor at the school saw me right away and hooked me up with some cheap anti-biotics and rehydration fluids. So, with some rest and drugs, all is well.
That is it for now, sorry about the long entry, the next several will shorter and more frequent and less eventful since I have school for the next 10 days and only a weekend trip planned to more ruins in the Valley.
Adios for now!
Joe
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Twirl girl
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"retire to dreams of bright spinning colors over deep mysterious canyons at sunset"? We seem to have lost Joey to a south American vortex of ancient, primal psycadelia.