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Published: December 8th 2005
November 24, 2005 (Cuzco, Peru)
Sean: From Pisco we hopped in another Royal Class bus to head to Nazca to see the world famous Nazca Lines. These are mysterious figures etched into the brown desert by unknown ancient peoples for an unknown purpose. Curiously the only way to view them is from a high altitude so theories abound about their purpose - from deity worship to astronomical calculations to extra terrestrial communication. The town offers plenty of plane rides and all manner of ways to get you to see them (the touts were unrelenting again). We chose the more mundane route and took a bus to a lookout tower where you can get a view of a couple of the images from a height of about 100ft off the ground. They’re spread out over 500 square kilometers so we obviously didn’t see them all, but the majority of them are just very long straight lines (not that thrilling). The pictures that we took don’t convey the Lines very well - it’s a desert so the images are brown on brown and they don’t exactly jump off the page at you. We noticed that in most of the pictures and postcards
The Hummingbird
This is a picture of a picture, but the lines have been enhanced to make them appear more impressive.sold of the Lines, they actually color them in white to make them more dramatic. But to give you an idea of what the more interesting Lines look like, here is a copy of a photograph from the Nazca museum.
But there is a lesser known “Line” that is probably one of the best examples that we saw. It was viewable on the way to Isla Ballestas when we took the boat tour (so it’s quite a distance from Nazca). Again, no one’s sure what its purpose is nor who etched it into the cliff facing the water, but at least you can see it without taking a plane and it sticks out pretty dramatically. It’s called the “Candelabra” as the shape is reminiscent of one. It could also be a trident (or flaming torches) - again no one really knows, but it is neat. Navigation aid or extra terrestrial communicative symbol, you be the judge.
Shannon: Nazca was a bit of a one-show pony, honestly. Like many other tourist towns, it exists solely for one reason - the Nazca lines. It’s a very small town, way out in the middle of nowhere. Sean mentioned earlier that we
The Candelabra
From afar, it looks as though it is just scratched into the sand. Our guide informed us that it is actually carved into some very hard rock and therefore doesn´t suffer much of an erosion problem. could have chosen to take a plane ride to see the lines from the air but that we decided not to. Maybe one day I will regret getting cheap at that moment, but honestly, sometimes we just feel like one big dollar sign walking around. People are constantly coming up to you on the street trying to sell you something and at a certain point you just get tired of always fending them off. While we were in Lima, a girl about my age approached me and asked where I was from. Positive that she was either going to try to sell me something or ask for money, I rather briskly replied that I was from the United States and brushed her off a bit. Then I felt like a total heel when she said “Welcome to my country” and walked away without wanting anything more. But honestly, what made that incident stand out in my mind is that she’s the exception. She didn’t want anything from me and she wasn’t looking at me as a way to make money. Quite the opposite - she saw me as someone traveling in her country and just wanted to wish me well.
Desert Around Nazca
A completely brown landscape. We learned that this region of the country can get as little as 2 cm of rain a year. But when you’re traveling, it’s hard to remember that there are people like her out there when out of 100 people that you meet, 98 of them don’t care to know anything more about you than how much money you have in your pockets. This leads me into the story of Luis, an 11 year old boy we met in Nazca and the one reason why I will remember that town positively. After a long day of walking around, visiting the local museum and seeing the Nazca lines, Sean and I were sitting in a park in town. We really just wanted to find a little shade, get a little rest and not be bothered. Luis approached Sean and asked if he wanted his shoes shined. Sean, having a fetish for getting his shoes shined, accepted. Luis bent his head down intently and diligently worked on Sean’s shoes (which, by the way, are suede - it’s only the rubber portions that Louis can “shine”). But he did a great job. And after Sean paid him, he left. But then he came back. And I thought for sure he was going to hit us up for something. We’ve both gotten very
The Sacred Valley
This region of the country is very dramatic with it´s rugged beauty. It is still a very poor region, though. Driving through the area in a bus, we saw farmers still working their fields with oxen and a plow. jaded - when someone comes up to you and starts asking questions, it’s extremely rare that they are truly interested in anything other than your money - and trust me, we’ve gotten hit up in all sorts of imaginative ways. So as Luis talked to us, I kept waiting. But Luis was the other exception on this trip - he didn’t want anything either. He was just curious and wanted to know more about us. We had a really good conversation with him, just killing time in the park. We showed him pictures of Peru in our guidebook and he told us places that he had been in Peru that he thought were really nice. We told him a little about the United States, he told us all about his family. He’s the youngest of 5 children and goes to school in the mornings and then works as a shoeshine boy in the afternoons. His brother works as a shoeshine boy in the mornings and then goes to school in the afternoons. They both do it to make money for the family. (
Sean: He makes about 3 dollars a day. He actually did want something, he asked after some American
Misty Mountains
What a sight to wake up to! coins for his collection. I’ve got a bunch of change that amounts to about a $0.50 that I had left over from Panama, but didn’t have them on me, otherwise I would’ve given it all to him and I think that would’ve made his week). It’s not to say that Luis probably couldn’t have used a little extra money - just like the hundreds of people that try to sell us something every day, he’s only trying to make money for his family - but it was nice to be looked at as a person and not a money-making opportunity. To say that this kid was one of the bright spots of visiting Nazca tells you a bit how I am feeling these days - but without dwelling on any sort of negativity about how foreigners are sometimes treated, I just wanted to relate how nice it was for someone other than our fellow foreign travelers to show an interest in us as individuals. So if you’re ever in Nazca…
Sean: From Nazca it was on to Cuzco (the launching off point for Machu Picchu) and we decided that it would be really smart to take the 14 hour
Majestic Setting
The green valleys of the Andes - so different than the dry coastal region. bus ride as an overnight jaunt. We’d save a little money by not having to get a hotel that night and we’d arrive fresh as daisies while traveling in what is known here as a “Bed Bus”. What’s not to love?
The fact that I’ve built it up as such, you can tell where I’m going.
We arrived absolutely sore all over and exhausted from the limited sleep afforded. We tossed and turned all night as the bus driver swung around switchbacks like he was filming a Porsche commercial. The “beds” on the bus weren’t a misprint in the advert (you were able to recline quite a bit), but because I’m no bard with the English language, I can only use the words
extremely uncomfortable and hope they convey the discomfort experienced with these horrible seats. (Note from
Shannon: Sean forgot to mention my favorite part of the bus experience, perhaps because it wasn’t an issue for him. There was a bathroom on the bus, which I didn’t really have an occasion to use until about 3 hours into our journey (by this time it is very late in the evening). The interesting feature of this bathroom is
Seanzo Exhausted
Time for a late afternoon nap. that it had a spring-loaded toilet seat, presumably so that women are not subjected to sitting on a wet seat caused by the misguided aim of a former occupant. In theory, this probably sounded like a good idea. And maybe in the sterile, stationary confines of a factory it even works. But apply this situation to the reality of travel in a developing nation and you see how it can quickly go wrong. Just imagine, if you will: it’s late at night, in a dimly lit and extremely chilly bathroom. I’m a bit queasy already from the altitude and the bus driver is careening around corners so that it’s hard
enough just to stand upright. With one hand I’m trying to undo my pants without letting any part of them touch the floor (which is not very clean at this point) and with the other hand I’m hanging onto a grab bar for dear life so that I don’t end up
in the toilet. And somehow, I’m supposed to push down a spring-loaded toilet seat, which as fate would have it, had a curiously strong spring. Let’s just say that it didn’t take any imagination to figure out how the
Mate de Coca Tea
It´s not much more stimulating than a good cup of coffee, but chewing on the leaves makes your mouth a little numb. floor got so dirty. And to top it all off you had to dispose of all paper products in a special waste bin, which involved pulling a door open. So while trying to maintain my grip on the toilet seat, the grab bar
and my pants, I’m trying to figure out how to open a door. If I was the Hindu god Ganesha, with his four hands, it wouldn’t be an issue, but it’s an awful lot to ask of a mere mortal, let me tell you. When all was said and done, a well-placed foot and elbow helped - but I won’t pretend it was pretty.) As soon as we disgorged from the bus (the touts were weak here by our jaded standards - they accepted our “no, gracias” on the second or third try. Rookies…) we had to go buy tickets for the train leaving from a town about two hours away, catch a bus to that town and, of course, walk to the bus station. All this while carrying quite a load on my rapidly compressing spine (we started out with very manageable packs, but we’ve mushroomed a bit as Christmas gifts have become the cool things
The Hut of the Funerary Keeper
This is at the top of the hill overlooking the site. From here most people have their first view of the ¨classic¨ Machu Picchu picture. to buy in Team Sean and Shannon).
Shannon: To say that the trip to Cuzco was uncomfortable is a gross understatement, but there was something magical about “waking” up in the morning and looking out the bus window and seeing green valleys through the mist. We started out at basically sea level in Nazca, but through the night we climbed in elevation right into the heart of the Andes. It was such a dramatic change. The barren hills of the coastal desert gave way to these incredible little valleys and mountains. It almost made up for the bus ride. Almost.
Sean mentioned that upon reaching Cuzco, we turned right around and took another bus and then a train ride. It was brutal, but there was a method to our madness. To explain, the majority of tourists to Machu Picchu visit on a day trip from Cuzco. There are several tourist trains that leave daily in the early morning, arriving at Aguas Calientes (the town at the foot of Machu Picchu) around 10:30 in the morning. Most of the day-trippers then return on the tourist trains around 3 p.m. There were a few negatives about this proposition for us,
though: first, we weren’t sure that the 4 ½ hours would be enough time for us at the site and we had heard that it was much nicer to be there in the early morning (the site opens at 6 a.m.). Secondly, this is the most expensive way of getting to Machu Picchu. Deservedly so, this is Peru’s most visited attraction and one which brings in a lot of money. It is a remote site and the train is the only way to get there, so you can imagine that Peru Rail knows a good thing when it sees one. Train tickets from Cuzco are over $100 each in the “Vistadome” class and $65 each if you want to go “Backpacker” class. That’s not a fortune by western standards, but Sean and I are trying to stay on a rather fixed budget for this trip. So by sacrificing a little comfort, taking a local bus ($3 each) to the town of Ollantaytambo (which is a cute little Andean town closer to Machu Picchu), we saved about $25 each off the price of the train ride. It meant taking a “Backpacker” class train at 8 p.m. at night (arriving around 10
p.m.) but by doing so we would end up staying the night in Aguas Calientes and be able to get to the site first thing in the morning if we wanted to. Plus, by booking a return ticket for the morning after our visit, we could stay as long as we wanted at the site. It worked out well on all accounts. It just made for a REALLY long day of traveling.
Sean: Did I mention that Cuzco is at 11,000 feet? You can imagine the heroes of this tale in quite sad straights after living
below sea level for some time and then going right up to this altitude without the benefit of bottled oxygen and some Sherpas. “Exhausted” and “oxygen deprived” are adjectives you don’t want to use to describe yourself. Take our word for it. We’re livin’ it so you don’t have to. By the time we got to Aguas Calientes - after “sleeping” on a bus the previous night and not arriving until after 10 p.m. - “wiped out” is a phrase that is a smidge inadequate for the extreme fatigue we were feeling. We wound up sitting down and getting some tea (Coca leaf
tea - used by the Incas to combat altitude sickness) and then passing out when we hit our room.
The next morning, feeling very refreshed after a good night’s sleep in the cool mountain air, we got up and headed toward Machu Picchu.
Shannon: There are a few sites in this world that are simply iconic, easily recognizable by most people. The Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, Petra and the Sydney Opera House easily come to mind. Machu Picchu is one of these and to come around a corner and see it spread out before you for the first time is really beyond description.
Sean: It is as amazing as everyone says it is. It’s got the whole package of traits that make it an international draw (I swear I heard every imaginable language spoken by my fellow tourists on the mountain): an absolutely breathtaking setting, interesting and original architecture, it’s well maintained, it’s a bit difficult to get to, and of course, the mysterious history that surrounds it. While they know that it is Incan in origin, there is no recorded history of its purpose or even who exactly lived there and why they left. The Spaniards
never found it (which is a good thing as they had a tendency to tear down anything they felt was pagan and non-Christian) so it sat undiscovered until Hiram Bingham, a great American (later in life he became a Senator and a Governor and is buried at Arlington) who happened upon it in 1911. He was looking for another, more famous Incan city but found this previously unheard of one instead.
Another trait I forgot to mention above is that it comprises a HUGE expanse of grounds. There is so much here that you could get lost for days wending your way through the alleys and running the halls of the Incas. There is so much more to it than you can see in the pictures. (Note from
Shannon: While we were there, we learned that the terracing that you see now in all of the pictures actually comprises a
fraction of the original terracing built by the Incas to sustain their city. It appears that the terracing once extended much further down the mountain, and it was probably an incredible site. But the entire area was overgrown with vegetation when Hiram Bingham came along in 1911. Since that
The Current Natives
The llamas at Machu Picchu were actually ¨planted¨ there for the tourists. Knowing that, though, doesn´t matter so much as they just seem to go with the scenery... And to assure that no tourists go home with something nasty on their shoes, we did see the secret ¨pooper scooper patrol¨ who clean up after them. time, most of the buildings and some of the terracing have been restored, but they hesitate to restore any more of the terracing lest they create an erosion problem on the mountain.)
Sean: It’s difficult to convey the majesty of the setting so I leave you with the pictures (we filled up two 512 memory cards at the site, so there are no lack of images available).
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Nona
non-member comment
Amazing
You two are doing an amazing job of taking us all along on your around the world trip. The photos are just amazing. But, Sean -- why don't you take some pictures of Shannon???