Faces
We arrive in Lima, Wednesday night February 1, 2006
We checked into our hotel at about 2 a.m. Wednesday. It took us an hour to
get through immigration (59 minutes in line, one minute to get our passports
stamped) and another couple of minutes to get through red or green light comes
on .. green and you are free to go, red -- you get inspected. We were
lucky and passed right through. In the crowd of limo drivers we were
relieved to see a sign that said "Michael Fenn". A half-hour drive later
we were at our hotel.
We got up around 8 this morning and enjoyed a nice buffet breakfast at the
hotel, San Antonio de Abad.
(We always try to pick a hotel that includes breakfast in the room rate.)
When we asked the girl at the front desk for directions to the bus station, she
got on the phone for us and arranged tickets for our next two legs -- Lima to
Nasca on Saturday and then Nasca to Arequipa on Monday. They delivered the
tickets while we were out sightseeing, so that bit of logistics
was all
taken care of.
We took a
taxi downtown to the Plaza Mayor, which is pretty much the center of town.
This
square has the cathedral, the Palacio del Gobierno and various office buildings
and shops. Lots of people were strolling ar
ound
(several of whom tried to sell us things), but in all a very casual, relaxed
atmosphere. The government is making an attempt to get people to use the
crosswalks, so they have young people in yellow T-shirts with mime face paint
acting as crossing guards.
We also
noted a significant police presence in the plaza. We thought this was
routine at first, and then we heard the bull horns. Pam and I can't resist
a demonstration so we wandered off to investigate. It turned out to be a
rather mild demonstration of health care workers who
want
higher
wages.
Nevertheless, the police were prepared. We got a close up of some of their
equipment – an interesting modification of a humvee with a cattle guard of sorts
on the front and a water cannon on top. Apparently they are more concerned
about civil demonstrations than about
invasion
from Chile.
Continuing our tour of the downtown, we visited the cathedral. We were
provided with an excellent English-speaking guide who gave us quite a bit of the
history of the city, the cathedral, and the Spanish conquest. The tour
began with a visit to the crypt of Francisco Pizzarro, the conquistador we all
read about in high school but never remembered anything much about.
An
interesting tidbit: For years the wrong guy was in the tomb. In 1974
a major earthquake destroyed many of the city structures and caused a lot of
damage to the cathedral and the underground tombs. In repairing the damage
they discovered more than a thousand skeletons. In one grave they found a
headless skeleton that, after much investigation and speculation, they decided
belonged to Pizarro. It had been pretty severely hacked up (Pizarro was
murdered) and they were able to put it together with a skull and decided it was
the real Pizarro skeleton. The former resident of the crypt was evicted
and Pizarro's
bones put in his place.
Back on the street, we headed to another church, the Convento de San Francisco,
which was not a
convent at all, but a monastery. As we were walking the few blocks we
encountered another tour group, a group of school children. Clearly they
know how to keep students in line here. They have them hold on to a rope!
Their teacher had them turn around and wave to us. This was not really
surprising. The people are really friendly here. We were pleasantly
surprised to find the local version of Spanish to be easy to understand.
To me it is clearer than Mexican Spanish. Pam says some of the words are
different, but it is not at all like Argentina. We are falling in love
with the country after only a couple of days here. Lima is not what we
expected, at least in the areas we have visited. We think it is very
similar to Madrid in terms of architecture and lifestyle.
On to el
Convento de San Francisco. This was a major church center dating from the
early 1600's. Lima was the capital of the entire Spanish new world so
there was a lot of wealth centered here. It certainly
showed
in the design of both San Francisco and the Cathedral.
An
interesting similarity to Italy. In Milan we visited the painting of the
Last
Supper by Michelangelo. Here they have another version of the Last Supper
with a few similarities and a few differences in composition. The location
of the painting is in the monastery dining hall, just as in Milan. The
difference is the painting in Lima is at the opposite end from the kitchen, so
they did not cut a doorway through it like the Italians did! Other
differences, the Lima version has them sitting at a round table, the room has
several children (and the devil is lurking behind Judas!) and the centerpiece of
the meal is Cuy! This a traditional Peruvian dish, guinea pig. We
are determined to try it before we leave the country.
Nasca
After a long, somewhat delayed, bus ride we arrived at Nasca. We really
like our hotel, the
Hostal Don
Agucho. It is a short walk from the center of town, but far enough
away to give us some peace and quiet
– at least until the hotels parrots start chattering in the morning.
We
arranged for a flight over the Nasca lines the first morning. We watched a
short video (Discovery channel production) about the history of the lines and
speculation about their purpose. It was interesting to us that they
weren’t discovered until 1927 when the first airplanes flew over the area.
They had already constructed the Pan-American Highway through two of the
figures.
We then took
a half-hour ride over the area and tried to take pictures. It is amazing
how many lines, rectangles, triangles etc. are visible from the air. The
figures of animals are a little difficult to see at first, but we did manage a
few photos. The photo here is one of the most famous, the hummingbird.
Click on the photo for a larger image so you can see the details.
A half-hour ride doesn’t sound long, but the pilot was continually banking 45 to
60 degrees on either side
so we could all get a good view of the geoglyphs. We all managed to retain
our breakfast.
We loafed the rest of the day, checking out the local restaurants. We
found a good one, El
Porton, and had a couple of meals there, serenaded by local musicians.
At lunch we listened to three young musicians who were so bad we paid them to go
away. At dinner there were more proficient entertainers and we decided to
buy a CD.
The next day we stopped at the Cruz del Sur bus company office and bought our
ticket from Arequipa to Puno, staying ahead of the game on logistics. Then
we left at 3 PM on the Ormeño bus to Arequipa.
Arequipa
The coastal terrain here is amazingly dry. We are used to the desert in
Southern California and Baja where there is at least some vegetation. Here
there is nothing at all growing. I guess that is why the geoglyphs at
Nasca have survived so long. As we got closer to Arequipa and started
climbing away from the
coast it was
dark, which was fortunate because the road is really scary.
We
finally arrived in Arequipa at 1:30 am and got to the hotel at 2 am. The
night clerk let us in, handed us a key and said please register tomorrow.
The
Casa de Melgar is an 18th century
residence. The walls are three feet thick, made of big stone blocks our
room has a vaulted brick ceiling and is pretty rustic. We love it.
This place really has character.
Our first day in Arequipa we found a laundry nearby and dropped off most of our
clothing. Then we walked around town and decided to take an afternoon bus tour
run by the city tourist bureau. It was a four hour tour of the surrounding
area and we got a good idea of what life in the suburbs and nearby towns is
like. There are practically no tourists here, the advantage of traveling
in the off season. The weather is the big disadvantage. We have had
a couple of late afternoon showers which have not been bad but the visibility is
pretty poor. We haven’t been able to see any of the surrounding volcanoes
yet.
One afternoon we took the opportunity to visit the
Museo Santuarios Andinos, home of
Juanita,
the ice maiden. Unfortunately, Juanita was not on view (she was
undergoing the annual conservation process). However, we did see another
frozen mummy and learned about the children who were sacrificed.
Much
of the farming is on hillside terraces which were originally constructed by the
pre-Incas.
Our bus to Puno was typical for a first class South American bus.
Comfortable seats, movies etc., as well as the national favorite, Inca Kola.
We bought a bottle of this in Lima just to see what how it tasted.
In my opinion it tastes like bubble gum (Fleers Double Bubble).
One difference in this bus ride was that they asked us to fasten our seat belts.
We soon learned why. Let’s just say there are a lot of hills and turns
between Arequipa and Puno. We climbed from 7,600 feet to nearly 13,000
feet in our five-hour ride.
Puno and Lake Titicaca
As we departed the bus terminal a tour guide latched on to us. He arranged
a taxi to our hotel, the Colon
Inn, and then sat us down to pitch some local tours. We decided he was
just as good and more convenient than going to a travel agency. We
arranged a two-day tour to the floating Uros islands, Isla Taquile, with
an overnight stay with a family on Isla Amantani. He later arranged for us
a tour to some local ruins, seats for the parade on Monday, and our
transportation to Cusco on the Inca Express on
Tuesday.
We had
intended to sample cuy (guinea pig) during our stay, until we learned how it is
prepared. They skin the little critter then put it on the grill
whole (head and feet included), then put a heavy rock on it to flatten it as it
cooks. Here are before and after pictures. It is probably delicious.
We haven’t checked for ourselves.
Friday morning we joined 20 other tourists and boarded a boat for our island
tour. Just offshore from Puno is a very large bay filled with reeds.
The Uros Indians construct large floating islands from these reeds, adding fresh
reeds to the
surface every so often as the underneath reeds rot away.
They subsist mainly on fish and birds. We spent an hour or so with them, taking
refuge in their little museum of native fish and birds during a short rain
shower. We don’t see how they manage to stay healthy in such damp
surroundings. The surface of the island is “squishy” and feels a little
like walking on a water bed. Fire is a real hazard for them, as they use
wood do cook with. They make a little cash from tourism with which to buy
staples (rice). We did see that at least one house on ea
ch
island had a photovoltaic cell on the roof for lighting. Low-voltage
florescent lights are very popular here.
The rain
stopped for awhile so we took a ride on one of their reed boats. The
figurehead represents the Andean Puma. We saw one boat with a double hull
and two Puma figureheads. I guess you could call that a Catamaran.
We embarked again in our fairly small cruiser and continued our journey to Isla
Amantani, where we were to spend the night. Lake Titicaca is quite large
and the water was pretty rough. We took some 45 degree rolls for a couple
of hours. Nobody got seasick but a lot of the passengers became very, very
quiet.
We were met
as we arrived by members of the host families with whom we were to stay.
The ladies were all wearing their traditional dress, which they would change
into whenever we would leave their house. Our
hosts
were Felix and Secundina. As we walked to their house, we were glad we had
limited our luggage
to a small day pack with a change of underwear and toiletries. Everything
on the island seems to be uphill. It was pretty damp also. Peru has
two seasons, rainy and dry. We are hear during the rainy season, but it
usually rains at night.
Isla
Amantani is a fairly large island with a population of about 4,000. It is
run as a single community, pretty highly coordinated. It is pretty much an
agrarian economy, with each family raising most of its own food.
Interestingly, the island is divided into four
sectors.
Each sector raises the same crop for one year, potatoes, barley, corn or
livestock. Then the crop is changed for the next year. This way the
crops are continually rotated.
Felix and
Secundina live in a fairly typical island home. It is made of plastered
adobe, with two stories as well as some semi-
attached
rooms. These people are generally fairly short.
The
doorway to our room was shoulder height. The kitchen was an eye-opener.
No refrigeration, a small wood stove, dirt floor and thatch roof. We ate
one meal in the kitchen and it was pretty smoky. Their diet is mostly
starch. Most meals start with a soup of potatoes, a local grain, and a few
vegetables (quite tasty). They then have a main dish of potatoes, rice and
an omelet. This would really get old after awhile. Their electricity
used to be provided by a community generator, but it got to expensive to buy
fuel. Now they have solar cells and low voltage lights.
After we all had lunch and got settled in we walked to the top of the island, at
4,200 meters, to see one of the pre-Inca temples. It was about a mile to the top
and we stopped a few times to get our breath. We have become pretty well
acclimated to the altitude, but it doesn’t take much exertion to make you
short of
breath. Recovery time is quick though. Our daily 3-mile walks at
home have really paid off on this trip!
After dinner they loaned us some traditional clothing and we trudged uphill
(again!) to the community center for a fiesta. I thought Pam and Secundina
were quite fetching in
their
traditional dress. A local group of musicians played traditional dance music and
they dragged us out on the floor to once again test our ability to breath after
exercise.
We were not exactly the life of the party, but we lasted a couple of hours.
Finally we went back downhill to our lodgings and crashed.
I was up at five the next morning (trying to remember the way to the outhouse)
and I saw Felix out in the field with a flashlight digging potatoes. As I
passed the kitchen hut I saw Secundina starting the morning fire. These
are hard working people.
After a breakfast of pancakes we again boarded our boat for the trip to Isla
Taquile. This was a one-hour, very rough trip and a few plastic bags were
filled. Pam and I kept our eyes on the horizon and had no
problem.
Where the island of Amantani has a population of 4,000 Isla Taquile has only
about 3,000. They have
been in the tourism business for about 30 years, compared to five years for Isla
Amantani, and the difference shows. There are several restaurants on the
island, some gift shops, and plenty of photo opportunities as the people are in
traditional dress all of the time. We met these kids escorting their cows
along the path. We debarked on one side of the island, climbed
to the top, and had lunch in a nice restaurant. The menu was traditional,
soup, fish or an omelet, French fries and rice.
One of the traditions that has survived is the men’s knit hats. Bachelors
wear all red hats and married men wear red and white. I’m not sure who
this is intended to benefit, the men or the women. Women have pom poms on
their shawls, and the colors indicate their marital status as well. All
the men on the island knit their own hats, as well as much of their other
clothing. We saw men sitting around knitting all over the island.
We
also saw women weaving. They must make all of the cloth as we saw no men
involved in this activity.
Like
Amantani, Taquile is a beautiful island. It is completely terraced (with
terraces dating from pre-Incan times) and very green at this time of the year.
After a couple of hours on the island we started down the 400-plus steps to the
boat landing. We met several locals on the way up, carrying various loads
on their backs. The two in the picture on the left were carrying barrels
of chickens
in preparation for a fiesta the following Sunday. We were pleased that
they were stopping to rest frequently and seemed to be breathing
heavily.
We were still at about 13,000
feet and it
doesn’t take much effort to get winded.
We finally reached the lower gate (used as a good perch for anoth
er
young man intent on his knitting) and embarked again for a three hour ride back
to Puno. Luckily the wind had dropped and we had a calm ride all the way.
We returned to Puno on one of the more important days of the two-week Candlemas
celebration. On Saturday a dance competition is held in the city stadium,
and then on Sunday all of the dance groups have a parade through the city.
We were offered the opportunity to sit in the stadium all day, but decided it
would be better to visit Sillustani and then see the parade the next day.
Sillustani
The Colla people who once dominated the Lake Titicaca area (and later became the
southeastern arm of the Incas) buried their nobility in funerary towers.
These towers often contained an entire family. From the stonework it
appears that some Incas followed the tradition after they gained power.
This was our first look at Inca stone work, at the precise way they fit the
blocks together. We were impressed, but little did we know what we would
see later in the Inca cities!
We enjoyed the ride around the countryside, but we were still a bit tired after
our two-day island adventure.
Back in Puno we found the dance competition in the stadium was sell under way.
After each group competed they marched through town, and happened to
pass our
hotel.
It was pretty
obvious that they had been working at their dance, and
that some of the costumes were pretty hot. They were still enjoying
themselves and responding to the crowds of spectators. We
reciprocated.
Some of us even tried to get into the act:
Later Pam and I walked around town to watch them setting up bleachers for the
parade. The town was full of peop
le,
and some were staking our t
heir
locations for the next day. The main plaza was to be the focus of the
presentation of awards (the opportunity for the politicos to get their time in
the spotlight) and there were lots of people hanging around looking as if they
had nothing better to do (like us!).
The big parade!
We had heard
varying times for the parade to start, from 7 AM to 10 AM. As it turned
out, the official start
time
was somewhere around nine. At least that is when the music started in the
plaza, which was only two or three blocks from our hotel. We had arranged
with our tour guide to get us seats along the parade route, so we were in place
by ten.
We probably missed the first hour of the parade, but no big deal. There
were 66
dance
groups, each with its own
band and 100
to 200 dancers. The parade went on and on.
It appears there are about 50 traditional categories of costume, ranging from
devil
dancers to gorillas. Most of the dance groups would have several of the
costume categories represented.
Pam
and I lasted until about one PM, when our butts could no longer tolerate the
seats. We decided to head back to the hotel, have some lunch somewhere,
and watch some more later. That turned out to be a little more difficult
than expected. Crossing the parade route wasn’t particularly difficult as
people wandered through the dance groups at will, often providing glasses of
beer to the dancers. The hard part was getting through the crowns of
spectators. At one point we had to walk
down the parade route about a block to exit
to the other
side. We found a gap between dance groups and followed along. Pam
just couldn’t resist the urge to dance (she watches way too much of the
Ellen
DeGeneres show). Suddenly a large block of spectators started cheering her
on!
All
of the groups were from the Puno area, so the crowds contained a lot of
relatives and friends. The dancers were of all ages, from small children
to people considerable older than we are. The dance groups represent
schools, clubs and even an extremely large group (250 or more) called the
“Friends of the PNP” (Policia Nacional de Peru).
Sitting
directly across from us were typical local spectators.
Sixty-six dance groups, with as many bands, and they all played the same music.
The dance steps were pretty much the same also, except when a group would cut
loose with something fancy. It was truly one of those memorable
experiences.
The parade continued until midnight!!!
On to Cusco.
The bus trip from Puno to Cusco is about five hours by regular bus line.
We elected to take a tourist bus, the Inka
Express, which takes eight hours. The extra three hours includes stops
at several small towns enroute for visits to a church, a museum, a couple of
sets of ruins, and lunch. It was worth the $30 ticket cost.
We arrived
at Cusco and were surprised to be met by someone from our hotel, the
Hotel and Mirador Los
Apus. When we arrived we learned that our reservation through
hostel
world was messed up so we had to negotiate a rate for our stay. Since
we were there off-peak, we were able to agree to $35 a night. Excellent
hotel, good location. We arranged our trip to Machu Picchu through the
hotel, at what we learned later was an inflated price. I guess it all
evens out.
Our plans were to stay two nights in Cusco, then go to Aguas Calientes (at Machu
Picchu) for two nights, then to Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley for a night,
then back to Cusco for three more nights. We were able to do some
re-packing to get down to a single suitcase and leave the rest of our gear at
the hotel.
We
decided to make our first day in Cusco a day to loaf. We spent the day
taking care of errands – turned in some laundry, stopped by Gringo Bill’s office
in Cusco to confirm our reservations at Aguas Calientes, bought our Cusco Pass
(a ticket for multiple entries at the museums and ruins), and visited a museum
or two. Cusco was (before the arrival of the Spanish) the Inca capital,
and it was quite a large city. The first Spaniards to arrive recorded that
there were more than 90,000 residences in the city. There is still a lot
of Inca stonework, which is very distinctive because the stones are fitted
without mortar. We located an ATM and replenished our cash, as we learned
there are no ATMs in Aguas Calientes. Pam also made the acquaintance of a
couple of ladies and their llama. We later learned each of the women had a
baby in the bundle on her back.
We were still in the Plaza de Armas (the city square) when it began to get dark.
The street lights came on and all the second floor restaurants were lit up.
It really made the square attractive. This is really a nice town. We
elected to stay in the plaza for dinner, at one of the upstairs, balcony
restaurants. We decided to
splurge,
with Alpaca steaks and a bottle of wine. It was well worth the $30 for the
meal!
Early
Thursday morning we caught the Vista dome train to Aguas Calientes. This
is
about a four-hour train ride over the mountain to the Sacred Valley. It
takes four switchbacks just to get out of Cusco. It is a very comfortable
trip, with good service (including a snack) and wonderful views of the mountains
and countryside.
We arrived at Aguas Calientes at 11, and were met by a representative from our
hotel, Gringo Bill’s Hostal.
Most of the tourists arriving on the train from Cusco immediately hop on a bus
for the 20-minute ride to the ruins. Since we had included two nights at
Gringo Bill’s, we decided to wait until the next day to visit Machu Picchu.
We had a leisurely lunch and wandered around town looking at all the souvenirs
for sale. Aguas Calientes is at the end of the rail line, and is full of
tourists, so prices were fairly high. We didn’t buy anything but food.
Two rivers
join in the town, and the larger river (the Urubamba) was pretty
exciting to watch. There are so many boulders in the river bed that the
rapids are tremendous. The town itself is in a little valley with the
railroad in the center of the main street. While we were there, one of the
presidential candidates visited, which resulted in most of the locals
congregating downtown, to be entertained by a speech and music. Later
there was an impromptu parade through the streets.
Machu Picchu
Friday morning, anticipating the crowds that would arrive from Cusco at eleven,
we picked up a bag lunch from our hotel and caught the first bus to Machu
Picchu, 6:30 am. There is a footpath up to the ruins that
takes about an hour to get there. Much as we like walking, we decided to
skip it. We saw hikers on their way up as the path crossed the road –
uphill all the way.
We met our
guide at the entrance and walked into the fog! We had heard that the sun
doesn’t burn through the fog until 10 or so. It didn’t detract from the
awe of this site in the least.
As
we walked around the city the fog appeared and disappeared, so we couldn’t see
the entire site, only small sections at a time.
After a couple of hours our tour guide departed to pick up another group.
We decided to take a walk on the Inca Trail to
see the Inca
Bridge. We couldn’t get
close
to the bridge as it is closed to the public. We were close enough to get a
good view of it. The bridge was made for a section of trail along a
vertical cliff.
As we
wandered around the ruins our appreciation of the work that went into these
structures grew and grew. There were three types of construction.
The closely fitted boulders were used for temples and the royal quarters.
Lesser structures, storage buildings and middle class residences were made with
stone, but not cut and precisely fitted as in the temples. Lastly were the
adobe buildings, presumably for the workers’ homes. These buildings still
exist because the Spanish didn’t know the city existed. It was abandoned
before they found it.
Gradually
the fog lifted and we were able to see the entire city. We were finally
able to take the classic photograph – the picture that is on all the postcards.
We felt we were really there. Click on the link at the top of the page to
see more photos of the ruins.
The next morning we caught the train back towards Cusco, but got off an hour
later at Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley.
Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo is one of the towns in the Sacred Valley and site of another major
Inca ruin. It is a small town, but has the distinction of having been
continuously
occupied since before the arrival of the Spanish (i.e., since 1300).
The town was laid out by the Inca planners, has narrow streets and Inca walls,
and still has an operating water system built by the Incas. We stayed in
the Hostal Sauce, a very nice hotel
near the center of town. We had a corner room on the second floor, with a
view of the ruins in two directions.
In the picture to the right, Pam is standing in one of the original Inca
streets. The massive rocks that were used to construct the walls are
form-fitted, without mortar.
As
elsewhere, we enjoyed seeing the colorful costumes, which are the everyday
clothing for the local populace, not something worn for the tourists. In
the celebrations we observed, the tourists seemed to be welcome to join the
festivities, but only because they happened to be there anyway.
We could also look down the main street to the town square, which was the center
of festivities during our evening visit. Just below our hotel window was a
water channel, which was put to use by a group of young boys. It is a
common practice to throw water-filled balloons in Peru. These kids took it
a step farther and used plastic buckets to drench passers by. They left
the tourists alone (mostly), although Peruvian tourists seemed to be fair game.
Everyone seemed to take it with good humor, though we saw more than a few people
take a detour around the block to avoid the threat of an impromptu shower.
We had
arrived early in the day, so we walked up to the ruins in the afternoon.
We hired a young guide (from the many who offered their services) and for a few
dollars received an excellent tour of this amazing site. The Inca
stonework is incredible. The picture to the left is of a granite block
weighing probably 30 tons or more, which was moved from the quarries we could
see half-way up the mountain across the valley. This was just one of many
such stones that were moved more than seven kilometers: down the mountain,
across a river, and half-way up another mountain to the site of the temple.
That evening we joined the party in the town square. They had erected a
30-foot tree in the center of the square, all decorated with odds and ends of
colorful plastic and paper. The band played (the same music we had
listened to for hours in Puno) and everyone danced in a circle around the tree.
Every few minutes someone would hack at the tree a couple of times with an axe,
and then pass the axe on to another dancer who would do the same. This
went on for an hour or so until the tree finally fell. Pam says the
tradition is that whoever finally cuts the tree down is responsible for the next
year’s party.
We headed for a little restaurant (to beat the crowd) and had a nice dinner, and
then as we were having coffee the rains started. Although we were visiting
Peru during the rainy season, we had never been caught yet, as it seems to rain
mostly at night. After carrying ponchos and umbrellas everywhere for the
past two weeks, we were finally caught unprepared. Pam had my jacket, with
hood, but I was wearing a sweater. We were pretty well soaked when we made
it back to the hotel. We were pleasantly surprised. When we entered
the hotel lobby a group from Argentina whom we had met earlier was sitting in
front of the fireplace and a roaring fire. They made room for us; we had
hot coca tea, and were soon snug and warm.
Pisac
Sunday is market day in Pisac, and it is a big tourist event. We decided
to stop there for the day on our way back to Cusco.
We
had left Ollantaytambo early in the morning, and we arrived at Pisac before the
market got underway. That worked out fine for us, as it gave us a chance
to visit the ruins. Every set of ruins we visited impressed us, and we
found each to be a little different in some way. In Pisac we found the
Inca roadway to be narrow and running along the cliff edge as we moved from one
watchtower or gate to the next. The picture to the left doesn’t do the
site justice. I’m not particularly bothered by heights, but I still stayed
close to the wall at the edge of the “road”.
After a couple of hours of sightseeing, it was time to head for the market.
We were not disappointed. Although we had read that the prices in Pisac
were higher than the markets in
Cusco,
we f alt=""ound it to be the opposite. Prices were very reasonable, and for some
things quite inexpensive. Maybe it helped that the weather was on the
rainy side, with the occasional shower chasing tourists back to their busses.
About
three-fourths of the market is devoted to fabrics, woolen products and the usual
craftwork produced for the tourists. The remainder is filled with produce
and other products for everyday use by the locals. We bought an ear of the
local boiled corn just to see how it tasted. It was probably as good as or
better than any “roasting ear” I have had here. It wasn’t particularly
sweet, but it was full of juice and quite tasty.
The picture to the right is of a lady who was showing Pam how to spin wool.
(Pam has an ear o
f
corn in her hand.) We saw the women spinning wool with these
spindles that looked like tops. They used them something like a
combination of a top and a yo-yo. They would wind and unwind the yarn,
bouncing the spindle on the ground occasionally as they gradually made the yarn
tighter. The women we met on Isla Amantani would be doing this as they
walked around, multi-tasking all day long.
In the
middle of the market place is a small church which has mass in Quechua (language
of the Incas) and in Spanish. The Quechua mass was over as we walked by.
The attendees were dressed in colorful traditional attire. Many of the tourists
were busy taking their pictures. We didn’t want to disturb their religious
sanctuary so we left them alone and we have no pictures.
The market in Pisac was one of the high points of our trip, and we recommend
anyone planning to travel to Peru include a visit in their itinerary.
Cusco
We had scheduled a couple more days in Cusco before returning to Lima, just to
be sure we had time to see everything before our return home. High on the
list was the local fortress or temple Sacsayhuaman,
(pronounced
“Sexy Woman” by tourists). Another wonderful example of the stonework of
the Incas, it took
thousands of
workers more than 50 years to
construct. As impressive as the structure is now, about 80 percent of the
stones were
removed by the Spanish for use in construction elsewhere.
Although there isn’t much in the way of train service in Peru, there are two
train stations in Cusco. One is for the trains to Aguas Calientes and the
other for the daily train to Puno. Adjacent to each train station is a
large market, so we had to visit both. One market was about half full of
things for tourists to buy, and we did our part for the local economy! We
had to buy an extra bag just to carry all our souvenirs.
After a few more wonderful meals it was time to leave our hotel and head for the
airport. We had originally planned to take a bus from Cusco to Lima, but
after comparing the time on the bus (25 hours) with the flight time (1 ½ hours),
we opted to spend an extra $100 and fly.
The airport is only a 10 or 15 minute ride from downtown, or so we thought.
The first thing the taxi driver informed us was that the bus drivers were on
strike and that the strikers were throwing rocks at the taxis. This
resulted in several detours for us. Whenever we saw a crowd of people in
the street ahead, our driver would stop and try a different route. We
eventually arrive at the airport without rock damage, and the rest of the trip
went without incident.
Back
in Lima we had about twelve hours to kill before our midnight flight home.
We had arranged a room for the day at the same hotel, so we dumped our bags and
headed back to the market. We had not bought anything here when we first
arrived in Lima as we didn’t want to carry things around for three weeks.
As it turned out, we didn’t have much left that we wanted to buy as the markets
in other cities we had visited satisfied our needs more than adequately.
We did manage to spend a few of our remaining Soles, just saving enough for
dinner. Walking back we passed a fabulous ice cream parlor and restaurant.
We had a light dinner and a heavy dessert! (Banana splits)
We spent a few enjoyable hours walking around town and looking at the offerings
in the park, then returned to the hotel in time to check out and get our ride to
the airport. From there it was home without incident. Another
wonderful trip.br />
