Our Last Day in Peru

Well, I have another wonderful post showing yesterday's activities, but of course I'm having trouble getting it to upload. So I'll just have to send it off after we get home.

Today is our last half-day in Peru, we depart tonight at 5:30 PM and spend the next 24 hours taking three different flights to get back to Albuquerque. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cuzco

We arrived back in Cusco late on Sunday evening. We will be here until we depart for the US late Wednesday. We were very fortunate to see the Corpus Christi parade when we arrived a little over a week ago. Yesterday and today the main square was again filled with parades and celebrations. We are told we are very fortunate to see these celebrations, but I'm afraid that my only memory of Cusco will be crowded squares filled with colorful costumes. It isn't going to be anything like a normal, everyday life.

Yesterday, we went to see Saqsayhuaman (pronounced very much like 'sexy woman') ruins. This is very close to the city of Cusco, about a 15 minute drive up into the mountains. And it is now surrounded by the city itself.

One of the more interesting traditions here is that people will go into a park area, dig out a big mound of dirt, form it into an horno oven shape. Then they stoke a fire, let the coals die down, bury potatoes inside and cook them inside this hot, earthen mound.

We spent Monday morning on a walking tour of Cusco's central area. We saw Qoricancha which was originally a golden Inca temple. It was looted by the Spanish, who then build a church on top of the Inca foundations.

We also toured the Cathedral, which is filled with Cusco baroque gold furnishings. They are very elaborate and over-the-top. We did get to see the 14 Saints from last Sunday's parade who will spend the rest of this week inside the cathedral, before returning to their home churches…yes, in yet another parade!

We have a free afternoon today, and I am going to use it to rest my legs and take a nap. Tom is heading back over to the artisan market, to negotiate hat and T-shirt prices with the vendors, LOL. I'll post pictures of his winnings.

Village Life in Peru

While others are traipsing around the streets for an hour, I sat on a shaded bench watching the world go by. Vendors stopped by selling woven trinkets and pineapples. They are not pushy, and work very hard whether weaving their bracelets or hauling their wares. It is not an easy life here, but people seem happy. The life expectancy in Peru is 75, but in these little villages it is closer to 80. We are told that is because there is less stress in the villages, but I think it is because they all do a lot of physical labor, eat a lot of vegetables, and probably have zero heart disease.

On the way here Friday morning we saw a sobering sight, one of the ubiquitous tour buses had missed the turn on the terrace road and flipped over. It happened since we made the same turn Thursday around 2pm. All that is left now (Saturday) is two broken windshields on a patch of grass outside someone's home.

Yesterday afternoon we made our way back from Machu Picchu traveling first by foot down the trail, then by shuttle bus down the mountain, then by train back up the valley to Ollantaytambo, then by tour bus back to Cusco. That took us about 7 hours.

I was struck by the fact that even at six pm which was after sunset and near dark, we saw people working in the fields, cutting and gathering barley by hand, loading potatoes into sacks which were hauled around on people's backs. Families were leading pigs and cows back to the pens with a rope around the neck of the animals as the young (both animal and human) ran along behind.

There is no social security here in Peru, nor is there any government health care. Everything people have they provide for themselves, and we have seen no beggars. Just very hard workers trying to make a few cents profit on watever they can. There has been a lot of government corruption which has made people distrustful of government rules and regulations.

Traffic is an adventure in the villages and a nightmare in the cities. Traffic lights, direction of travel, and lanes are all just a suggestion. There are no guard rails even on hundred foot drop-offs. We have seen two lines of cars nose to nose with each 'suggesting' that the other one back up so their line can go through. Never mind which side of the road it was on. Two lane roads can become three lanes of traffic at any time, and the direction of travel in the middle non-lane can be both ways at the same time. If there is a light, maybe they will stop. Left turns look like a marching band doing one of those reverse criss-cross maneuvers in cars. Parking is wherever you can find it sort of near the curb and sort of out of the flow of traffic.

This was the only tractor we saw in three days.

This is another bus passing us the other way...maybe two inches.

The roadbed we drive on is actually the old Inca Road.

All that is left of the bus crash.

Dang It

I have an entire post with pictures to add.....but I'm getting error messages when trying to post. Stay tuned for a better connection.

Too pooped to post....

...a blog entry tonight. We had another very long day, a few traffic jams and we are now back in Cusco and just finished dinner at 9pm! I need a hot shower, and then to bed. We have a late start tomorrow morning, so I will try and get back to you shortly. To be continued.....

Happy 35th Anniversary to Us

Today, for our anniversary we went to Machu Picchu. It has been a long day, but we just marvel at how fortunate we were to have a beautiful blue sky puffy white clouds kind of day. We arose this morning, checked out of the Villa Urubamba hotel, and took our bus back up to Ollyantaytambo. After a short tour of the town, we got on the Inca Rail train for our ride up to Agua Calientes.

That is the end of the line, from there one can take a shuttle bus up the switchbacks to Machu Picchu. Or, if you are really brave and very strong you can walk up the side of the mountain. It is essentially 1000 foot stair case out of rock. Our group was one of the last to leave Machu Picchu at sunset tonight. We have had dinner and are back at the hotel, ready for a fairly early morning when we return to see Machu Picchu in the morning light.

I've taken a few photos to share with you, which are posted below. The one thing to take away from all of this is that the Incas were incredible architects and builders. It is amazing that their structures are still standing in essentially the same condition as when they were built, about 700 years ago. And while Machu Picchu is the best known and most popular site, and is a well known tourist attraction, many Incan constructions are still in daily use up and down the Sacred Valley. Nobody knows what Machu Picchu's purpose was. There are many theories, some think it was a religious site, some think it was the emperor's get away home, some think it was a lost city. Having looked at all of the buildings and seen it from a personal view, I'm going with the emperors vacation home.

Factoid of the day: All Incan construction was built from the lower level of the mountain up. The bottom terraces were first, followed by the next layers until they reached the top of the mountain.

This is Veronica Mountain, with several glaciers. Our tour guide said it was the first time all year that he has seen her without clouds ringing the top levels.

Nobody is sure what this chamber signifies, it probably was an upper class tomb. They did find bones, and it was probably somebody higher in rank based upon what artifacts were also found here.

Llamas were not native to this area, nonetheless there is a well cared for herd of 16 on the mountain. And they are very much photographed.

Inca Survival in a Nutshell

If you are like 3/4 of the people on our tour, what you recall about the Incas is human sacrifice and they died from smallpox brought in by the Spanish. Both true.

But what we have been learning about and seeing over the past couple of days is how the Inca civilization survived and grew and became the dominate tribe for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Spanish. And how they accomplished all this in a very harsh climate and altitude, and without the wheel or a written language.

The terraces you may recall, where they grew crops, not only turned a steep mountain into arable land, but the stone faces of the terraces were what absorbed the sun during the day, warming the imported topsoil behind it so that crops could grow. The lower you went in the circular terrace, the more concentrated the heat, so that the air temperatures in the lowest terraces, even today, measure 20-30 degrees warmer than the top terraces.

Because of this, the Inca were able to grow a wider variety of crops, including potatoes, grains, corn, tomatoes and kumquats. They also developed methods for preserving all of these foods for years, and built great storehouses and distribution centers so their people could survive during the low crop yield years. They developed a method for freeze drying potatoes that is still in use today.

When they expanded their territory, they first negotiated with the soon-to-be-conquered tribe who were given the choice of joining the Inca, keeping all their possessions, benefitting from the Inca foodstores, etc. In return, all they had to do was send their children to Cusco to learn the Inca ways and to work their fair amount of community labor as their abilities allowed. If not, they would all be killed. Most folks went with the Inca rule. Their ability to carve these massive blocks of granite into perfectly fitted pieces means that the twraces and walls are still visible and in some places still in use today

Tom next to a table of locally grown produce.

Today we went into the town of Ollantaytambo, a very colorful little village in the Sacred Valley, which also happens to be the site of a well-preserved Inca ruins.

And yes, while I was slow, I did hike up all those steps to the top and back down again. Yay for me!


Today was our home hosted lunch, which means we ate guinea pig, a delicacy. It tastes pretty much like chicken.

Tomorrow we head off to Machu Picchu, further up the valley.