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Published: December 16th 2008
It becomes harder to write about everything that has happened the longer I wait. So, I hope that by going back to Arequipa, eleven days ago and starting from there I can jog my memory and tell a fuller story...
After returning from our adventure in the canyon Andrew and I figured we would take a down day to shower, rest, and scratch off all the black stuff on our arms and legs, remnants from the toxic plant. The canyon must have taken more out of us than we thought, or it took more out of me anyway. I came down with a flu/cold like thing that left me inactive but with an appetite at least. So we chilled in our hostel, and ate, and drank tea and sat under a big umbrella in the courtyard and warmed our feet on the hot cement floor. Finally, on the third day (I think, it's a bit blurry now), we left our hostel and the sweet hostel worker sister's Milagros and Angela, for Cuzco.
It was a typical South American bus ride. A long ride through beautiful landscapes with marathon DVD's usually featuring one or two American actors. This time it
A walk to Moray
In the background, if you can see, some kids are playing peruvian double dutch while watching their flock. And in the foreground...hey what are those pigs doing?was Jackie Chan. The bus wound up the same route towards the canyon passing desert hills filled with giant succulent plants and various kinds of llamas licking up what little moisture they could find. We watch the Punisher (I forgot, the DVD was an all Jackie Chan affair plus the Punisher). Where the bus turned to the canyon last week we turn the other direction, east towards Cuzco. We keep going up. The road is paved and the switch backs are often. The landscape starts to look more green, there's more grass, and the waist high stone walls that border cows and sheep eating. A young girl with a flushed face covered in dirt wrapped in a technicolor shawl leans against the wall and knits. We're onto Jackie Chan now, thank the Peruvian bus gods. It's the Medalion. The movie with that girl from Mall Rats (It took me over half the movie to realize this, I knew I had seen her before, but from where?). The road straightens out and we are in high andean farmland again. We're watching Around the World in 80 Days, yes Jackie Chan is in this movie, go figure. Mountains are thick to our
right, left, and straight ahead of us. The ones to our right are snowcapped. The snow is patchy but thick in some parts like the congealed white sugar frosting on a frosted flake. We're headed towards the Andes. We're watching The Tuxedo now, or in spanish, el esmoking, I like this spanish word. Jackie Chan is a taxi driver in New York and comes across a high tech tuxedo that allows him to perform amazing physical feats. Jennifer Love Hewitt is in it too. I wonder how we are going to get over these mountains to our east. They look so rugged. There are so many exposed edges, sharp peaks. Andrew points out these mountains must be younger than the ranges in the States because they DO look so much more rugged. The road is straight now and we start going down. We head for a tiny gap between two mountains and wind up and in between them. When we come out we are descending again towards a flourescant blue lake (I mean really flourescant, like that striking blue color you see in seas in the carribean). Standing in the lake is a goofy looking bird. It has long stick
like legs and a long neck, what the heck are those, oh they're flamingos! We wind up and past the lake and the flamingos. We're watching some movie where Jackie Chan is looking for love or something, I had never heard of it. It's way more tame than any of the other Jackie flicks, which is saying something. We're almost there anyway. We cruise along a river in a lush valley. Soon we start seeing houses, then more houses. Pretty soon we're in Cuzco.
Andrew and I have been on the 'gringo' route in Peru, but we have also been on the Israeli route. There are a lot of Israeli's travelling around Peru, I think because of their 'off year' after their military service. There is a list of 'Israel friendly' hostels on some website or book, and thus Israeli's tend to stay at a lot of the same places. Andrew and I stumbled upon one of these places in Lima, and through recommendations we have been on the 'Israeli Hostel Route' ever since. The Israeli presence in Cuzco is especially noticeable. There are many stores, hostels, and restaraunts with hebrew written on their doors or windows. In our
hostel, posters with pictures of ex/hostelers all written in hebrew fill the walls in the lobby and the kitchen. The hostels are really nice and so are all the Israelis that are staying here. Why else would Andrew and I be here?
For our first few days in Cuzco we mostly wandered around, adjusted to the altitude (Cuzco is at a whopping 11,000 feet), and ate Israeli food. Some excellent Israeli folk we hung out with in Arequipa recommended a couple places to eat, one Abu Marthas is a sandwich bar that makes huge sandwiches with really nice bread and fills em with roasted veggies, avocado, and meat of your choice. Andrew and I frequented this joint early on. Cuzco is a very charming city. With the required colonial narrow stone paved streets and balconies that make a city oh so charming and a plaza de armas backed by two huge red colonial churches, rain or shine Cuzco is pretty city to wander. It is also the most touristy city I have visited yet. Prices are a bit higher than most parts of Peru and just about every street anywhere close to the plaza is built on tourism. Walking
by the plaza you are offered massages 'masage?', tatoos (and then drugs once they get close to you), and enticed into every restaraunt.
Machu Picchu is of course the big draw that brings so many tourists to Cuzco, but there are tons of other ruins in and around Cuzco and in the sacred valley. Up on a hill at the north eastern part of town is a giant ruin of a fortress called 'Saqsaywaman' pronounced 'sexywoman' heh. It's a bit of a hike up but it's absolutely worth it. The fortress was the spot that Manco Inca, the last Inca, that Pizarro put in power as a puppet ruler, staged his revolt against the spanish. From the massive stone fortress he rained attacks down onto the unsuspecting Spanish in Cuzco. Apparently he almost won too. But, he didnt. The spanish fought back and took Saqsaywaman forcing Manco Inca to flee to the sacred valley. Pizarro and his forces tried their best to destroy the Incan fortress but a great deal of the structure still remains. Massive granite stones of all shapes and sizes form the walls and are an incredible testament to the Incan stoneworkers. The rocks that form
these walls are placed together impeccably, there is no space between them, perfectly flushed, like it was planned that way.
The following day Andrew and I took a bus to the nearby town of Maras close to the Sacred Valley to see some more ruins. Maras is a tiny high andean agricultural town maybe two hours north of Cuzco. Tourists frequent the area to visit the incan antiquity, and enigma Moray. An 8km hike from Maras, Moray is a series of concentric and oblong terraced circles built into a narrow depression. Historians and archeologists speculate that it was used as an agricultural experimental area. Perhaps because the terracing was built in this depression, shielded from some of the elements, and well irrigated, Incans thought they could grow some things they normally couldn´t in the highland. Who knows? The hike to and from Moray is beautiful though. We walk along a well marked dirt path (unlike in the canyon) alongside potatoe farms and women herding sheep. Two kids ask us for money or for caramels. This kind of depresses us. To the northeast are massive green mountains unlike any we have seen before. When the clouds clear later in the
day we see that a few of them are snowcapped. Andrew gets a piece of dirt in his eye that kind of worries us for a while because it won´t seem to come out--on the bus ride back to Cuzco, it eventually does. We rest that evening, and eat at a different Israeli restaraunt. I order the same thing I did the other day, a chicken laffa and humus.
I wake up early the next morning and my stomach hurts. This is when the illness begins. I make frequent trips to the bathroom. Only vomitting once. But I see last nights laffa and even thinking about eating something like that now I cringe... I come down with a fever and in between bathroom trips am struggling to stay hydrated. Andrew runs out and buys me my sick food, water, sprite, and tasteless crackers (which I like whether or not I am sick). The women who run our hostel, who are all sisters as far as I can tell and who we have dubbed Las Mamas Paititi, bring me tea in bed, prop up my head on pillows and stick a warm bottle under my feet. In a couple of
Cuzco
One sick day Andrew went out and explored and took some pictures... minutes I am out. When I wake I don´t feel much better, although I am more rested, the bathroom trips are still too frequent. I think I will call this thing that I got "Atahualpa´s Revenge." Atahualpa being the Incan emperor who was captured by Pizarro and started the whole fall of the Incan empire thing. I mean Montezuma, the Aztec emperor gets to come back and reek gastro problems on gringos so why doesn´t Atahualpa? The second day of Atahualpa´s revenge isn´t much better, but at least I don´t have a fever for as long. The third day is much better. I am on the antibiotic and the bathroom trips have slowed significantly but I am still weak. We were supposed to go to Machu Picchu today, but I felt too weak. So we sat around and ate carrs like crackers and watched the HBO series Oz. By the fourth day I am much better and we finally leave for Machu Picchu, which is what I want to talk about next.
There are only two ways to access the greatest piece of archeological history in the western hemisphere, and both by Peru standards are expensive. One is by
train, the other is by foot along the ancient Incan trail. We choose the train, because the trail is booked up and way more expensive. We wake at 5 o clock for our train ride and sit across from a lutheran mission group from Wisconsin. Later that evening we have dinner with them at a really nice French-Peruvian joint, where Andrew has the first really good restaraunt cooked pasta. Everybody but myself and the kids order a pisco sour (I got a rum and coke, and the kids get incan cola except for one girl who orders a coke), Andrew praises the girl for not ordering Inca cola (a peruvian soda that sort of tastes like a mix between bubble gum and red bull, but diet like) and everyone clinks glasses. It was a lovely meal.
When we arrive in Aguas Calientes, the tourist boomed town outside of Machu Picchu we hop on the first bus we can get up to the ruins. The dirt path winds up through lush greenery which everyonce in a while opens up to the air and we can catch a glimpse of the ruins. The air has changed a lot since Cuzco. It´s
hot and muggy now. When we arrive to the the ruins the first thing we see is giant hotel-restaraunt complex just outside the ruins--typical. But it doesn´t matter. The tourist town below doesn´t matter, the expensive train ticket, the expensive train ticket we couldnt use because I was sick, the sickness, none of it matters when we walk through the first door to Machu Picchu. I think Machu Picchu is one of those places that no matter the high expectations will never cease to amaze.
I can´t say much that hasn´t already been said about the ruins...It´s shrouded in mystery, like the whole valley. It is impeccably preserved, the spanish never found it, it was abandoned before their arrival, maybe because of small pox, or a draught, no one knows. Even the story about the guy who "discovered" it is shrouded in mystery. Hiram Bingham, Yale grad, intrepid explorer (supposedly where the idea for Indiana Jones came from) came to Peru in 1912 looking for Vilcabamba the lost city of the Incans, the city that Manco Inca retreated to after he was defeated in Cuzco. In Aguas Calientes Bingham hired a farmer to take him up to some ruins
(Machu Picchu), duitifully noted it in his notebook then didn´t do much about it until a year later when he declared that IT was the lost city of the Incans Vilcabamba. Of course years later it is discovered that it is not in fact the lost city, but some other city, incredibly well preserved, perhaps a summer get away home for Inca ruler Pachacuteq. Today, Binghams name still gets alot of credit for the discovery, a train to the ruins is named after him along with a handfull of restaraunts, hotels and tourist services. Right by the entrance to the ruins is a metal plaque with his name inscribed as the discoverer, however right next to it is a stone plaque carved in 1999 commemorating the true discoverers of the ruins, three farmers who lived very close by.
In the end it doesnt really matter. The ruins built on a narrow plateu on Machu Picchu (mountain) facing northeasterly mountain Wayna Picchu will never cease to amaze. The architecture is fascinating. The stonework like in at Saqsaywaman is impeccable. The incans take great care to fit each rock together perfectly and build around any mother rock (already residing in the
mountain). The way the architecture jibs with nature is also fascinating. The incans clearly took great pains to pay homage to their natural surroundings with their buildings. Doorways frame the mountain Wayna Picchu upon which is built the moon temple, and the roofs of urban buildings are triangular but with the tip cut off so if seen on the same line of vision as the mountain look eerily similar. It rains, and then clears up and is hot and muggy, and then rains and mists again and a rainbow appears in a perfect arch to the south towards town. The rainbow held great importance to the Incans, it´s their flag which can be seen flowing in the plaza de armas and all around Cuzco (and must be often mistaken for the gay pride rainbow). We see why it is so important now. Rainbows must have been fairly frequent in this damp but sunny environment, and from on high at Machu Picchu really do seem magical. Yes, maybe that is the best word to describe Machu Picchu. Magical. One day is not enough time spent there. The sun sets and casts an orange light onto the city and the western side
of Wayna Picchu. Andrew and I sit on a big boulder overlooking the city and watch the birds zip around and pick up bugs. When we are ushered out at closing time we keep looking back, trying to think of something to say or someway to always remember these ruins. But we will remember.
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