The Road Less Traveled

Leaving Tacna

I woke up early, showered, and had breakfast. Unlike the Americans who had stayed at the hotel chosen by PeruTESOL, I didn’t have to flip a switch and wait half an hour for the hot water to be ready. I was grateful Kitty had arranged for us to stay at Gran Hotel Tacna instead.

I went to Serpost, the name for the Peruvian postal service, to mail some postcards. When I got there, I was told they didn’t have stamps; they could only print postage from a machine. Since I knew some of my friends collect stamps, I decided to wait until I got to Arequipa.

I walked around to take a few pictures of the pretty sights of downtown Tacna, as well as the not-so-pretty signs like the Chinese restaurant “Salon de Fu Qing.” Then I caught a taxi with Marcela and Jodi to the Tacna airport. (Kitty decided to stay until the end of the PeruTESOL conference; she would be flying into Puno from Lima via Arequipa early the next morning).

Security was relatively heavy at the airport given the size. Someone later said that Tacna is a duty-free zone, so the extra security is related to the transport of goods into the country. We got through it, though, and onto our flight operated by Aero Condor. I have to admit I was a little nervous flying on an airline that doesn’t have planes flying into the U.S., as that could be a sign they don’t meet U.S. safety standards. However, we took off and landed safely so I guess I would fly them again.

Arrival in Arequipa

Unlike Tacna that morning, Arequipa was sunny and warm when we arrived. Even the airport seemed lovely, surrounded by beautiful snow-capped mountains and volcanoes. Patricia from BNC Arequipa met us with a car to take us on our half-hour ride into the city. It turned out our first two stops—the BNC and Hostal (Inn) La Casa de Melgar—were right across the street from each other. Patricia, Jodi, and Marcela went to the BNC while I checked into the hotel.

A clerk from the hotel led me down a tiled walkway to a small courtyard. My room had a locking glass door in front of a set of double wooden ones. The doors were surrounded by a white stone border and were set into a stone wall painted a bright blue similar to periwinkle but brighter and deeper. Inside, the room felt like a cave or a museum made of wood, brick, sillar and wrought-iron but with a high ceiling, a skylight, and a modern bathroom. I’d never stayed anyplace like it, and excitedly took several pictures before I went across the street.

The BNC buildings were also mostly made of sillar. The exception was the new building, a 4-story tower of curved steel and deep red walls. I have to say it is also the only language school I’ve ever visited that had its own little art gallery.

After touring the BNC, the four of us walked down the hill past the San Francisco church to the Convento, a convent that has also be described as a small city. It wasn’t cheap (30 soles to enter), but it was worth it. It was one beautiful turn after another of terra cotta red, periwinkle blue, and sillar white walls occasionally covered with frescos and Cuzco-style paintings. Even the iron bars on the windows were pretty. I kept wishing my Uncle Dan (www.digitalrailroad.net/dano) could be there. He’s a master of photography, especially when it comes to shadows and colors and light. He could have gotten some incredible shots of the convent. I am lucky I got the shots I did, though. My camera batteries gave out halfway through our walk around the convent. Marcela had extra batteries for the new camera she had bought at the duty-free electronics market in Tacna, so she was able to lend me some until I could get back to my room and get my extras.

Lunchtime in Arequipa

By the time we finished walking around the convent, it was time for Marcela and Jodi to go to the airport to catch their flight to Puno. I had chosen to stay overnight and go to Puno early the next morning. I found out the next day that their flight had been cancelled and they had spent 6 hours in a small taxi getting to Puno. I felt sorry for them and lucky I had the afternoon and evening in Arequipa that I did.

It was about 2 p.m., a good time to take a lunch break in Peru. Marcela and Patricia had recommended two Ariquipeno dishes: chupe de camarones (shrimp soup) and rocota relleno (stuffed chili pepper). The latter sounded more tempting, but Marcela assured me I could get rocota relleno anywhere in Peru. chupe de camarones was truly special to Arequipa.

They had left me at an Italian restaurant where I could get the soup. However, when I looked at the menu, I didn’t see anything Peruvian. I got up and looked at the menu of the restaurant next door, El Meson del Virrey. I saw rocota relleno on it, and decided to go upstairs. The restaurant was a lovely one of dark wooden tables and deep red and cream-colored fabrics and walls. It felt like it could be the home of a Spanish viscount.

Although it still seemed too warm a day for soup, I gave in to the recommendation to try something truly of Arequipa. The chupe de camerones, while slightly expensive (29 soles), did not disappoint. It was a bowl of slightly creamy, basil-sprinkled broth with a tower of whole shrimp on top of fresh cheese, rice, lima beans, and huge kernels of yellow corn. I only ate the shrimp tails and put the heads on a separate plate. I was relieved to hear later that this is the way Peruvians normally eat shrimp; I hadn’t wasted anything.

Juanita

After lunch, I walked back to my hotel and consulted my guidebook. I found out that there was a museum in Arequipa which was also the new home for “Juanita”, the Inca princess who was sacrificed and buried near a volcano near Arequipa and preserved in the ice at the top of the mountain for thousands of years. I asked the woman at the front desk how much a taxi would cost there, but instead she kindly got a map and pointed out how easy it would be to walk there.

I walked down the hill to Plaza De Las Armas, which had arched walkways and cathedrals that looked like the main plaza in Mexico City. That’s the Spanish influence, I guess. I kept walking on the street La Merced to the Centro de Cultura of the Catholic University. I paid the 15 soles and checked my camera the entrance. I was then led into a room with several other people where we were shown a video in English with Italian subtitles about the death and discovery of Juanita. She was a member of the royal family who had been sacrificed to the mountain gods in order to protect the Incas from the effects of earthquakes and El Nino.

The Incas believed that in death, Juanita would gain immortality. I couldn’t help thinking that the fact that all these people were paying 15 plus soles to see her and understand her gave her a kind of second, enduring life after death. Not the kind of ideal immortality in which one truly lives forever, but the kind in which one’s legacy lives on long after death.

After the video ended, an English-speaking tour guide who was a “volunteer” but whom we were encouraged to tip led half of us out of the theater and into other rooms where she quickly showed us the artifacts that had been found at the top of the mountain. I was especially amazed by the royal robes, which only looked a few decades old. Apparently the ice had preserved these too.

Then we saw Juanita. She was being kept in a dark room with low lighting in a glass case set at -20 C. Her legs were curled under her because for the Incas, the fetal position represents the return to life. Her arms and one elbow were visible and looked almost natural despite the frost on them. The tour guide pointed out that one eye socket of Juanita’s was lower than the other’s. That marked the side of the head where someone had dealt her the fatal blow with a rock. I found that extremely disturbing for reasons the other people on the tour probably hadn’t. My mother’s best friend of 25 years, LaWana Clary, had been found murdered in her home in April. Cause of death: Blunt force trauma to the head. Had her head been misshapen in a similar way? Had there been a higher, sacrificial purpose to her death? Would she ever achieve the kind of immortality that Juanita had?

Thankfully, the tour ended before I could spend too much more time contemplating these sobering questions. I got my camera and walked back to Plaza de las Armas. I stopped in a café for queso helado (iced cheese). It sounds disgusting, but it was actually sweet and a little icy. A teacher at PeruTESOL from Arequipa had recommended it. After dessert, I got my shoes shined for 2 soles, and wandered down a passage where I found an Irish pub. I had a happy-hour pisco with Sprite for only 4 soles.

I walked back up the hill towards the hostal. I saw other great bars and restaurants, including a Turkish restaurant with doner kebab and another restaurant with authentic Turkish dishes such as Imam Bayildi (translation: the priest fainted [because the dish was so good]). I didn’t have room in my stomach for more food and drink, though. Instead I stopped at a convenience store and bought Gatorade, crackers, and a giant bottle of water—provisions for my battle with altitude sickness in Puno the next day. I retreated back into my cave-room to try to get some sleep.

Here’s part 3 of the Peru Pages. I’m trying to dribble them out so that people aren’t overwhelmed as they were with the Togo Tome.  This next one is about Arequipa, called “The White City” or “The Jewel of Peru” because of the volcanic ash, sillar, which was used to make most of the buildings.  I had less than 24 hours there, but it was more than enough to discover its visual and culinary beauty. 

The pictures are online at:

http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z72/reisefrau/Peru–Arequipa/

There are also some bonus pictures in there of Tacna, the Peruvian-Chilean border town where PeruTESOL was held and the town from which I flew to Arequipa on my way to Puno.

Take care.

Bridget

We had to be at the conference at 8:15 so that it would end in time for participants to catch their buses home. Thus, we had breakfast at the hotel at 7. In addition to the buffet offerings, there was an omelette menu which included huevos rancheros. In the States, “huevos rancheros” (ranch style eggs) means a Mexican tortilla topped with scrambled eggs, salsa, and cheese. Kitty ordered it but instead got a plate of two fried eggs on a bed of grilled onions. She ate it anyway.

At Hotel Ferrocarril, we had two hours to watch groups of teachers present some of the most colorful, creative, multisensory, artistic activities I’d seen in a long time. I felt humbled watching them. Yet the teachers thanked Kitty, Jodi, me, and the other speakers profusely, assuring us they had learned as much from us as we did from them.

After the final certificates and goodbyes, we (me, Kitty, Jodi, and Marcela) caught a taxi to the port of Puno. There was a pedestrian-only pier lined with trees and outdoor cafes on the right. On the left was an inlet with several duck-shaped paddleboats.

Los Uros

As we neared the edge of the pier, women came up to us selling pencils, pens, and candy to give to the children on the islands. We didn’t want to give them candy, so we each bought a bag of pens or pencils.

We were then offered two choices for getting to the Uros islands: share a boat with many people and have only one hour on the islands at a cost of 10 soles each, or hire a taxi boat that would show us the islands privately and at our leisure for 25 soles each. We chose the taxi boat.

We paid the taxi boat driver and climbed in the boat. THEN we were told it would cost 3 soles per person for each island we wanted to visit. There were 35 islands, but we’d probably only see the 3 most important ones. We felt we had been duped. Why hadn’t we been told about this extra fee when we chose the driver? At that point, though, there didn’t seem to be much we could do about it. Marcela managed to bargain and get 3 islands for 6 soles each.

As the boat got further away from the harbor, it started stalling. We thought we’d have to turn around, but the driver expertly got it running smoothly again. We sailed past the Hotel Libertador and marshy areas so thick with algae the birds could walk on it. Then we saw a “Welcome to Los Uros” sign and reed boats. I’ve never been to Southeast Asia, but I imagined that’s what it looks like.

We got out of the boat with the help of two locals and stepped on the soft reed-covered ground. We later learned that the reeds covered roots which were directly on the water. That’s why the ground didn’t feel quite firm beneath our feet. The extra effort to walk on it was excruciating for my colleagues—any extra activity at high altitude can trigger shortness of breath and other symptoms of altitude sickness. I had been taking Sorojchi pills for a few days, and those were helping me function fairly well.

We sat down on a low semi-circle made of tightly bound reeds while our captain gave us some information about the islands. He then lowered a weighted rope into a hole in the middle of the island to show us how deep the water was beneath us. While he talked, a couple of young girls sat with us. They were wearing brightly colored wool jackets and skirts. Their hair was in two braids tied a the end with huge bell-shaped balls of yarn.

A woman had a boy about 18 months old. He kept holding an embroidered cloth out to us like he was trying to sell it. While I was shopping, the mother approached Marcela and asked if she would like to be the godmother of his first haircut. Marcela thought it was a scam for money and declined. The mother insisted, so Marcela did it. The boy cried a little bit, but soon it was over. Then we were all taking turns cutting a matted section of his hair and thus becoming little Anthony’s godmothers. After the procedure was done, a little girl gave each of us gifts made of reeds.

After we had done more shopping from the three vendors on the island, we paid another 10 soles each to be taken on a reed boat to another floating island. 5 soles of that was for the boat, and the other 5 soles was for the chance to see a wedding ceremony.

The reed boat stopped at a bigger island with a bilingual Aymara-Spanish school for the 30 K-6 graders in the area. Inside the one-room school were signs from Poland, Japan, England and the U.S.. A man, the first graduate of the school and resident of the island, told us that France donated a computer, but the school didn’t have any electricity. Marcela suggested they install a system of solar-powered electricity.

We shopped once more, then our captain picked us up to take us to the wedding in the big boat. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any place for the big boat to dock. We also couldn’t make out the bride and groom. We did see women and men in their finest clothes dancing to a band fronted by a woman in a beautiful maroon-and-gold bolero jacket and skirt. We also saw some young people sitting in a reed watchtower shaped like a flamingo.

Chucuito

The ride back to Puno seemed shorter than the trip out. The water was slightly choppier, but not as bad as we had been warned. When we arrived at the port, we hailed a taxi to another place recommended by Vicki, the town of Chucuito. The taxi driver generously agreed to drive us 20 km to the town, wait for us to have lunch there, and drive us back to Puno for only 25 soles.

On the road to Chucuito we saw mud brick houses on the hillside. Further along the same road we saw the Taypikala Hotel and Spa, a gorgeous structure of red rock with indigenous-style carvings. Our driver took us to Plaza de las Armas of Chucuito, another square of topiaries, restaurants, and an old cathedral.

It was nearly 3:00 and we were starving. We went to the nicest looking restaurant on the square, Calabozo de Chucuito. We went to the roof to have huge plates of grilled trout (with and without garlic sauce) and a side order of queso frito (fried cheese). The trout was butterflied and covered three different kinds of potatoes: yellow potatoes, purple potatoes that looked like fingers or thumbs, and diced freeze-dried potatoes. There was also rice and vegetables. The trout plates were only 8 soles each, compared to 25-30 for our dishes at Coca Kintu.

After lunch, our taxi driver took us to another square with a church. We didn’t go in the church, but we were able to walk around the cemetery with its variety of above-ground graves and crypts. Our driver then pointed out a temple across the street. We were tired and didn’t want to go in, but then he showed us a picture of the field of stones inside and we realized there was something worth seeing in there. Kitty and Marcela paid 2 soles and Jodi and I paid 5 to see what turned out to be a field of phallic symbols enclosed in 4 stone walls. Some just looked like skinny mushrooms, but one was detailed enough that I didn’t put the picture on my Web site for fear of having the site shut down or blocked.

We got back in the car. It was now dusk. As our driver was taking us back to Puno, the police stopped him. They checked his registration, then made him get out of the car. It seems the road is a popular route for Bolivian car thieves to enter into Peru with their contraband, get their car registered, then return to Bolivia. Our driver had not done this, but he was fined 5 soles for “being out of his jurisdiction”.

The taxi driver took us to the pedestrian street. We gave him 40 soles for his time and trouble. We did one more round of shopping, then took a taxi back to the hotel to try to fit all of our purchases into our suitcases.

We had breakfast at the hotel, then I had two presentations in the morning. During lunch, we (me, Kitty, English Language Specialist Dr. Jodi Crandall, and Marcela) took an extremely short cab ride to Calle Lima, a long pedestrian street. We did some shopping, then dropped into a restaurant for lunch. It might have been called El Porton Colonial; if not it was right next door. What I do remember is that the inside it was shaped like a boat and the walls were made of woven reeds.

We all ordered “chicken diet soup”, which is basically chicken soup. Then we went back to the conference. In the evening, we took a taxi to Plaza de Las Armas, which had a beautiful topiary, a statue of Bolognesi (a famous general), and a cathedral. The cathedral had beautiful baroque carving on the door outside. Inside it had plain stone walls with white carvings at the front of the cathedral. It was just the kind of cathedral I like—a mix of beauty and simplicity.

We stayed a few minutes for the service, then walked down the hill to Calle Lima. Vicky from BNC Arequipa joined us for dinner at a restaurant she recommended, Coca Kintu (Coca Leaf). Since we were so close to the lake, the logical food to order was trucha (trout). I ordered Trucha Escobechada because I thought it would be like ceviche (sometimes called cebiche in Spanish). Instead, it was lightly breaded and covered with olives, onions, and a kind of Peruvian paprika. It was good anyway. So was the trout in creamy Andean herbs and the trout in creamy Andean herbs with pine nuts that Kitty and Jodi ordered. Vicky ordered “trout from three corners”, trout prepared in 3 ways. I only tried the kind that seemed like sashimi; it was excellent. Marcela ordered “chulpas”, small potatoes stuffed with meat and cheese at the top so that they resembled tombs (chulpas) in the region. We broke the rules of altitude sickness prevention and washed it all down with a bottle of Peruvian red wine.

Kitty and I arrived at the Juliaca airport around 8:30 am. As in Cuzco, a Peruvian band was playing music at the baggage carrousel. I ended up buying a CD.

A driver wearing a jacket with the Hotel Libertador logo picked us up for the hour-long drive to Puno, the main town on Lake Titicaca and the town we’d be having our conference in. I found out later that the driver’s name was Percy, a decidedly non-Spanish name. He was named after a soccer player his father adored. He had been a professor at the University de Altiplano (University of the Highlands), but his contract hadn’t been renewed. I asked Marcela if the phrases “office politics” and “they have their heads stuck up their asses” can be translated directly into Spanish; they can.

Once we passed through the arid countryside, over a hill, and into and through the town of Puno, I could see a white building loosely shaped like a ship sitting on a small island on the lake. This was the Hotel Libertador.

We checked in and were given welcome cups of mate de coca (coca tea), said to help with the headaches and loss of energy associated with altitude sickness. I went to my room. It had a mini bar, plush bathrobes, slippers, and toiletries that indicated it was a high-end, luxury hotel like any other in the world. But looking carefully in the bathroom, I saw a sign that was uniquely Peruvian: a picture of someone throwing paper into the toilet with a red circle around it and a red line through it. Kitty said that at that altitude, there isn’t enough water pressure to pull the paper down and through the pipes. I understood, but to be blunt it took a while to override 30-some years of potty training.

I looked at the view of Lake Titicaca out my window, and was again surprised to see that it looked more like a bay with algae floating in it than a great lake. Still, the view of the water surrounded by the red hills and houses of the town was pretty, as was the view of alpaca chomping on the grass in the front drive.

I skipped lunch because I was told that one should eat light when arriving in a high-altitude area to avoid altitude sickness. (When I write about the previous week’s trip to Cuzco, I’ll talk about my experience with altitude sickness. After that it will be clear why I was trying so hard to avoid it again).

Marcela, Kitty’s assistant who had arrived in Puno the night before and who had been at the conference all morning, came back to the hotel after lunch to fetch me and the CD player for the conference. We went downtown to Hotel Ferrocarril (Railway Hotel), a lovely old building with orange-cream colored walls, black-and-white or wooden floors, and a switchboard with cable switches.

I had two presentations that afternoon that went well. In the evening there was a reception at the same hotel hosted by the Cultural, a binational center (BNC) that provides language training in centers throughout Peru (and, I believe, much of Central and South America). A band played Peruvian and Bolivian music for the participants from the two countries while waiters brought trays of bocaditos (hors d’oeuvres) and cocktails to the people sitting in white linen chairs surrounding the perimeter of a large wooden dance floor. I got to try Huajsapata, a local cocktail made of a kind of warm fruit punch spiked with pisco, the national liquor. I imagine they prefer warm drinks in Puno because of it can go below freezing at night in the winter. Later, people got up to dance but I declined.

Hello everyone,

I got back safe and sound to California late Tuesday night (the 7th). I spent the next few days unpacking, seeing friends, reading the last Harry Potter book, and trying to readjust to American culture.

Here is the second installment of the Peru Pages: Puno and Lake Titicaca. I had said it would be hard to be impressed by Peru after Machu Picchu, but the floating islands of Lake Titicaca (Los Uros) really blew me away. The town of Chucuito on Lake Titicaca was also worth a brief visit.

The link to the pictures of Puno, Lake Titicaca, Los Uros and Chucuito are at:

http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z72/reisefrau/Peru–Lake%20Titicaca/

Thanks for reading.

Take care.

The alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. Breakfast at the hotel was from 5:00 to 9:00. The first bus left for Machu Picchu at 5:30 a.m. We wanted to be on that bus because we wanted to get up there early to enjoy the site before the crowds got there. They usually arrive on the train from Cuzco around 9 or 10 and leave by 2:00 p.m. We had also heard that sunrise over Machu Picchu was beautiful. Finally, we wanted to have time to do as much as possible before our train left at 4:20 for Ollantaytambo.

We had breakfast, checked out, and walked to the bus station. We had bought our Machu Picchu entrance tickets the night before. I waited in line while Kitty bought the bus tickets.  Two busloads of people were in front of us, so we didn’t get on a bus until well after 6:00 a.m.

A  GUIDED TOUR OF MACHU PICCHU

While we were waiting in line for the bus, I saw the woman who had offered us a tour of Machu Picchu the day before. I saw her again in the bathroom, and again waiting outside the bathroom. I started to believe it was our destiny to have her as a tour guide. Kitty and I approached her. We explained we had seen the site yesterday, and we were interested in seeing only certain things we hadn’t found on our own.  We agreed on a price of 100 soles. For a group of two, that was $15 a person.

She introduced herself as Esbet, which I assumed was a variation on Elizabeth.  Then she explained a rock protuberance as “mala” restoration.  I confused the Spanish word “mala” (bad) with the Russian word “mala” (small).  After Kitty corrected me, I laughed at my mistake and then explained to Esbet why I was laughing. Esbet in turn told us that her aunt loved Russia and that was how she got her name. “Esbet” was actually the shortened, Spanish version of “Svetlana.” 

Esbet started our tour at the colcas, and pointed out that the aqueduct we had seen the day before was also the dividing line between the agricultural and religious sectors of Machu Picchu.  We saw the Royal Mausoleum, two tall, smooth slanted rocks with jagged crocodile-like teeth inside which sacrifices had been made.  We also saw the ceremonial spring and the temple to the air.  The Incas paid respect to the four main elements—sun, air, water, and earth.

Our next stop was the Royal Chamber. We saw the space where the king’s bed of grass and llama skin would have been laid. We also saw the royal bathroom, which was strictly for bathing. 

We went to the Temple of the Three Windows again. This time we learned that the windows reflected light onto a stone with three angles cut on the left (the world above, the present world, the underworld) and three angles on the right (past, present, and future).  At noon on the winter solstice on June 21, the light shines through the window and the shadow from the rock contains all six angles perfectly.  During the rest of the year the shadow is not as clear. 

We also went to Intiwatana and the Temple of the Condor again (without taking the scary path down the mountain from Intiwatana).  We walked with Esbet to the main entrance and gave her our money.  Kitty and I both felt we got our $15 worth of information.

THE HIKE TO INTIPUNKU

Kitty had a friend who had been to Machu Picchu and had said that she would have liked more time to walk around the back part of Machu Picchu. Kitty interpreted that as meaning we should take a little walk to Intipunku, the Sun Gate. 

We hit the bathroom (since there are no bathrooms inside Machu Picchu itself) and took a walking stick we had seen near the entrance. At first the guard wasn’t going to let us in with walking sticks, but we explained we needed them because we had knee problems.  That was totally true for Kitty and true enough for me. Plus, we had seen people many people carrying hiking gear in. 

It was now 8:45.  Esbet had told us it would take 3 hours to hike up to Intipunku and back.  That would give us plenty of time to go and come back, eat lunch at the Sanctuary, and get the bus back down the hill. Maybe we’d even get a massage or do some more shopping in Aguas Calientes before our train.

We walked up the same path we had taken the first day.  We asked a woman if she knew where the entrance was to the Intipunku trail. She told us where, then told us she had heard it was a rocky trail with no guardrails or coverage. Kitty agreed that we should still at least walk a little bit of it.

Our first sight was llamas. These were an unexpected surprise, and they walked right in front of us without showing or inspiring any fear.  Turning back around, I could see the Funerary Rock (a memorial to Hiram Bingham) and the guardhouse.  Walking ahead, I saw a series of small stones stacked on top of each other. They reminded me of prayer stones I had seen in Korea; I’m not sure what they were for here.

About an hour into the hike, we caught our first glimpse of the Sun Gate, two tiny stone colums in the distance where two mountain slopes meet.  There was something closer that looked like the Sun Gate, but that was not it.  (I later came to believe that this first gate was actually a temple).

Twenty minutes later, we made it to that temple.  As we wondered whether to continue on, two boys stopped on their way down from Intipunku.  They said it was maybe “15 minutes” to the gate.  But they were probably talking about how long it had taken them to get down from Intipunku to that point. It is faster going downhill then uphill. And they were in much better shape than we were. 

It took us another hour and a half to get from the temple to the gate.  Along the way we often had to stop to rest, take pictures, and enjoy the mix of excitement, fear, and mild altitude sickness as we climbed to literally dizzying heights.  Sometimes I’d look out from the trail and have to lean back against the rock wall behind me to be as far away from the edge of the trail—and the drops—as possible.  A couple of times I thought we’d give up. Then someone would come down the mountain and say it was “close” or “only another 10 or 15 minutes”.  The real last 10 minutes were the worst. The rocks were at their highest and narrowest, and had the most exposure.  Even though I could see the gate, I was beginning to wonder if it had been worth the two-and-three-quarter hour journey up there.

At the top there was a cool breeze to refresh us from the hot, humid, and sunny climb.  The views along the way and at the top had been spectacular.  I now believe we were meant to and determined to get to the top of that mountain; if we weren’t we wouldn’t have heard those low time estimates and wouldn’t have walked on even though deep down we had suspected those estimates were not accurate. 

After about half an hour of resting and taking pictures to record our achievement, we started our descent.  Again, our first ten minutes down were the most frightening.  The steps were high and seemed to want to lead us literally and figuratively over the edge.  Once we got past that, though, it was a pretty smooth walk down hill.  It took us less than an hour to get to the turnoff for the Guardhouse and the Funerary Rock. To see those sights we once again had to walk up high, narrow steps. Our “5 minute” stop there turned into 20 minutes.

LUNCH AT THE SANCTUARY LODGE

We made it back to the main entrance of Machu Picchu at about 1:30 p.m.  That was just enough time to have lunch at the Sanctuary Lodge. This is the only hotel located on the grounds of Machu Picchu. A night’s sleep there costs nearly $1000.  A gourmet buffet lunch is a mere $28 a person.  It was the perfect way to relax and cap off our visit to Machu Picchu. The highlights of the meal for me were: trucha salmonada (trout that looks and tastes like salmon) mousse; elderberry cheesecake; and free bathrooms (Machu Picchu has the audacity to charge 50 Peruvian cents to use the ones outside the entrance).  The lowlight was looking in the bathroom mirror and realizing that not only had I gotten sunburned on the trip, I had a white stripe between the red where my water bottle strap had been. 

LEAVING MACHU PICCHU

We got our passports stamped at a tourist office just outside the entrance.   A little after 2:30, we got in line for the bus to Aguas Calientes.  Kitty was still a little nervous about the drops on the bus route. For me, being in a bus with windows and a good driver seemed relatively safe after our hike.  As we got off the bus, we saw groups of other people whom Kitty said must have been just arriving.  I felt like I had just gotten off a roller coaster and was watching others get on. They were in for quite a ride.
 

THE JOURNEY TO AGUAS CALIENTES

The taxi came for Kitty and me at 8:00 a.m. at Hosteria Rumichaca, a guesthouse in a small town of a 100 people (Rumichaca) where we had been staying. Our driver was taking us on a 20-minute drive to Ollantaytambo. We would catch our train there for the one-and-a-half-hour train ride to Aguas Calientes, the public transportation gateway to Machu Picchu. The only other way to get to Machu Picchu is by walking on the Inca Trail for 1-4 days depending on the starting point.

There are three classes of train service to Aguas Calientes. The highest class is the Hiram Bingham train, named after the Latin American history professor who accidentally discovered Machu Picchu when he was looking for other ruins in the area. The train is decorated inside in turn-of-the century luxury and passengers are waited on hand and foot. It costs about $500 from Cusco.

The second class of service is the Vistadome train. Kitty and I thought we were going on this train, but Jose, the manager of the Hosteria, booked us on the 3rd class of service, the Backpacker train.

Because the Vistadome train arrived at the time the Backpacker should have arrived (making the Backpacker train late), we had a chance to see the two trains and compare. The trains looked identical on the outside—interestingly enough, they had a similar design and colors as trains in Ukraine. Inside, the Vistadome had bucket seats with nicer-looking upholstery than the seats on the Backpacker trains. More importantly, the Vistadome train has a glass roof (the Vista Dome) so that you can lean back and see more of the mountains as you go by. I’m not sure if this feature is worth paying double the price of the Backpacker train. Kitty later heard that the Vistadome train also has a fashion show. I didn’t feel I had missed that, either.

When we arrived at the Aguas Calientes train station, we went to the exit and found the man holding a sign for our hotel, the Machu Picchu Inn. He loaded our luggage with that of several other people onto a mule cart and pulled it through the Indian market, over a pedestrian bridge, and down a short but steep hill to the hotel.

THE TICKETS TO MACHU PICCHU

We checked in, freshened up, and followed the hotel clerk’s directions down the hill to the Machu Picchu ticket office. We learned that since Kitty works in Lima, she gets the national rate for the ticket (61 soles/20 dollars) instead of the foreign rate (120 soles/40 dollars). If only I had gotten my student ID or ISIC card before leaving the States, I too could have paid the discounted rate.

We had heard from the desk clerk that a ticket was good for three days. This was good news because we wanted to go on two different days. However, when I got my ticket printout, I noticed it said in Spanish “only for one entry.” I asked the ticket clerk about it; she said the ticket was good for unlimited entry ON ONE DAY WITHIN THREE DAYS. If we wanted to go a second day, we would have to pay again. Kitty suggested that we go up there, walk around, and then decide if it was worth the extra cost to go again a second day.

From the Machu Picchu ticket office, we walked through the main plaza to the street where the tickets for the bus to Machu Picchu were sold. Unlike the tickets for entry in Machu Picchu, which can only be paid for with Peruvian soles, the bus tickets are paid for only in dollars. Kitty paid $9 for a round trip ticket, and I paid $12.

THE FIRST VISIT TO MACHU PICCHU

Kitty and I waited in line and got on a bus pretty quickly. By the time the ride was over, I was thinking I should have paid $40 for the bus ride and $12 dollars for the entrance to the sanctuary. The driver spent 15 minutes taking us in a medium-sized Mercedes Benz tour bus up the highest, most winding, narrowest dirt road I’ve ever been on in my life. There were several sheer drops without guardrails protecting us from them. I was clinging to the two straps on the seat in back of me and thanking God my parents didn’t know where I was at that exact moment. When I got off the bus, I thanked the driver profusely for his good work.

When we arrived at the entrance to Machu Picchu, it was close to 2:00 pm. We wrote our names on our entry tickets and had them stamped at the entrance. A woman offered to be our tour guide through the park (for a fee of course), but we had been paying so much for tours and services already that we decided to explore the park on our own first.

We followed the signs for the “long walk” and took about 15 minutes walking up a dirt and stone switchback road until we got to the point where we got our first glimpse of the Machu Picchu complex with the big mountain behind it. This is the view you may have seen in pictures and which some of you will be seeing on postcards in the mail to you. Words can’t do justice to the view of stone and grass terraces, stone houses with the straw roofs missing, and mountains thousands of feet high rising up dramatically around it all. Perhaps Kitty summed it up best: “Oh my God!”

According to a guidebook for Machu Picchu that Kitty bought at the end of the day, we continued on the path through the Main Gate and saw the rock quarry and then the Sacred Square. In the Sacred Square we saw the Main Temple and the Temple of the Three Windows. The windows represent the world above, the world we live in, and the underworld. We stopped in the Chamber of Ornaments, a storehouse for religious objects. A guide talking with another group explained that the walls of the chamber lean inward, but the individual stones that were used as shelves lean backward. He demonstrated by putting a Coke bottle on the shelf as we all watched it roll to the back of the wall.

Near the Main Temple was the Southern Cross, a diamond-shaped rock. Another tour guide demonstrated with a compass how the rock pointed due south exactly.

We walked up a set of steps near the Southern Cross to Intihuatana (the place to catch the sun). It is the highest point in the Machu Picchu sanctuary. It has a large sundial in the shape of a guinea pig. The steps down the other side of Intihuatana seemed to lead off the face of the earth. Just looking at them gave me vertigo. We didn’t want to turn around and go the same way we had come, though. Fortunately, a nice tour guide named German gave Kitty and me a hand getting down the first few steps.

Our next stop was the main square, a large grass field with nature’s lawnmowers, llamas. (I’m not being ironic here—the llamas are kept there to eat the grass). Kitty and I had not only seen llamas in the Sacred Valley, we had fed them and petted them. Seeing them here again was anti-climatic. The Sacred Stone on the other side of the square was more interesting. It is said if you stand against this large rock and stretch out your arms, you can absorb energy from the rock. It worked for me. (The next day we learned that the rock has crystals in it which absorb the sun’s rays, and the energy comes from those crystals).

To the left of the Sacred Stone, we saw the entrance to the trail to Huayna Picchu—the Temple of the Moon. The entrance to this very steep trail is limited to 400 people per day, and it is advised that only people who are fit and healthy attempt it. We weren’t sorry we couldn’t go up.

Our next major stop was the Temple of the Condor. German was there again, explaining the temple in Spanish. Apparently the smooth rock was cut in the shape of a condor’s wings. Sacrifices were made in front (on a rock which we later learned was cut in the shape of a beak with eyes). We also later learned that the condor represents the world above.

We followed German’s group through a space in the rock which represented the “stomach” of the bird. The path out also had some narrow paths with drops on the sides I didn’t want to fall into.

After the Temple of the Condor, we walked past what I later learned were colcas, storage areas for food. Then we finally found signs for the exit. It was now after 4:00 and we hadn’t had lunch. But the famous Sanctuary Lodge was already closed, and the snack bar was charging more for a sandwich then the high-end sandwich shop in Kitty’s neighborhood. We decided to skip lunch and get on a bus back to Aguas Calientes for an early dinner. We also agreed we would go back the next day to see more of Machu Picchu with a guide, as well as eat lunch at the Sanctuary Lodge.

EVENING IN AGUAS CALIENTES

We got off the bus and walked around the main square until we settled on a restaurant serving Mexican as well as Peruvian food. I ordered Chicharron de Cerdo (pork cracklings). It was all right. Kitty ordered a chicken quesadilla, but it was more like a pancake with marinated chicken inside. At least the guacamole with nachos (the word here for tortilla chips, not tortilla chips and melted cheese) was really good, as was the chicken and avocado salad. I also tried Cusqueno beer since it was cheaper than a soda, but I ordered two so I think the restaurant came out ahead on that one.

After dinner, we decided to go to the hot springs, from which Aguas Calientes gets its name. We gathered our swimsuits and money and got towels from the hotel. We walked up one of the two main roads of Aguas Calientes—a hilly, narrow, cobblestoned street lined with hotels, tourist restaurants, and souvenir shops.

After about 15 minutes, we made it to the entrance of the Hot Springs. Kitty paid 5 soles and I paid 10 to enter. The man at the entrance told us the lockers were ahead. After ten minutes of walking on a long hilly, stone path, we started to wonder. We saw some people coming down and asked if we were close. Not really, they replied.

Despite the fatigue of walking forever to those lockers, I tried to enjoy the view of the trees reflected in the orange lamps (it was already dark outside) and the sound of running water. We finally made it around 7:45. The entrance to the springs closes at 8:30 p.m., and the springs themselves are closed at 9:00 p.m. So at least we still had a decent amount of time.

The springs themselves were more like a series of small baths or swimming pools. Each section was made of concrete covered in light blue tiles. The only difference was that the bottom of each pool was made of silt. Nevertheless, the warm water refreshed our senses and got us physically and mentally ready for our return to Machu Picchu.

Greetings from Lima.  It’s been a pretty good week and a half so far.  I have done a little bit of sightseeing in Lima, and been to the Sacred Valley , Machu Picchu, and Cusco. This afternoon (Monday) I am heading to conferences in Tacna (near Chile) and Puno (Lake Titicaca).

My friend Kitty has a new computer with DSL access, which means I can actually send trip reports and links to photo pages before I get back to California.

This edition of The Peru Pages is going to focus on Machu Picchu because it is so amazing it needs its own email.  I’ll write about the other places either next Monday or after I get back to California.

For those who feel a picture is worth a thousand words, you can go to the photos page at:

http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z72/reisefrau/Machu%20Picchu/

Hope all is wel l in your corner of the world.

We checked out of the hotel and started driving on the Autobahn south. We thought about stopping in nearby Potsdam, a very historic city made famous for the conference that divided Berlin into four parts after the war. But it was raining again so we drove on. As we drove, Peter explained that in the days when Germany and Berlin were divided, there was a two-hour stretch of road outside of Berlin where West Germans could not leave their car because they did not have a visa to be in East Germany. The road conditions were deplorable then as well. Now there is only a brown historic sign indicating where the border between West Berlin and East Germany had been.

Lutherstadt-Wittenberg

About an hour outside of Berlin we started seeing signs for Lutherstadt-Wittenburg, the town where Martin Luther nailed his 95 Protestant theses to a church door. I had wanted to see the town, and Peter wanted a stop, so we got off the A9 and headed east for 14 km.

The town was charming in the style of Rothenburg ab Tauber, but Peter said for him Wittenburg felt more real and less touristy. We saw the church and then walked down the main street. We stumbled on a museum which showed daily life in the DDR (the East German Republic). We saw typical kitchens and bedrooms from the 1920s, 1950s, and 1960s. Peter said he could see the stark contrast between an East German and a West German kitchen. I could only see household goods that reminded me of things I still see today in Ukraine such as washing machines and “schkaffs” (large living room cabinets for books and china). We also saw a replica of a 70s nightclub, and realized that the 70s were tacky everywhere.

For lunch, Peter found a café that had real German home cooking. We each had a meat dish served with Kloesse, a bread-stuffed potato dumpling from the Thuringen region of Germany. We had just seen a news report on TV about how attempts were being made to trademark the Thuringen Kloesse in the vein of Champagne and Greek Feta. I can only wish them good luck for that. It was also served with traditional cooked red cabbage. I liked it–it was surprisingly sweet.

After lunch we finished our circuit of the two-street downtown section, had Peter’s 4:00 coffee and hit the road. We hit traffic on the A9 and the A4, so we didn’t get home till nearly 10:00 p.m. It felt good to collapse.