― mitya, Monday, 9 April 2007 07:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Thursday, 12 April 2007 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Thursday, 12 April 2007 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Thursday, 12 April 2007 18:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Thursday, 12 April 2007 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 12 April 2007 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Thursday, 12 April 2007 18:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 April 2007 23:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Friday, 20 April 2007 17:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Friday, 20 April 2007 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Friday, 27 April 2007 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Friday, 27 April 2007 21:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Saturday, 5 May 2007 22:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Monday, 14 May 2007 21:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Monday, 14 May 2007 21:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mike McGooney-gal, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mike McGooney-gal, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 20:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 20:25 (seventeen years ago) link
So, this has been the least amount of time weâve spent in Sipas yet. After my last update, we went up for a day while the market was happening to publicize our stove distribution plan. Laurie already wrote about this on her blog, so Iâll skip that. Tomorrow we are going up for a single-day visit again, hoping that a lot more people signed up on the sheets Laurie left with Adela.
This past weekend we went to one of the private museums that isnât covered by the official 10-day tourist ticket. It was a truly amazing collection devoted to pre-Columbian art, a lot of it on loan from a Lima museum that has the worldâs foremost collection. Many beautiful examples of bottles (carved like cormorants, owls, or realistic likenesses of human heads), strikingly painted plates, and a really stunning wooden staff with a duck head, so simple and so realistic. The Mochila people did the best wood carving, and the Nazca had the most elaborate painted bowls. Also examples of other pre-Inca cultures like the Huari and Chan Chan. As it turns out the Incas were only on the scene for a couple of hundred years â more on that later.
Yesterday Laurie and I took a bus to the town of Urubamba, you go north from Pisac instead of east to Sipas. We passed through the town of Calca, regional pride increases as you travel north and Calca has signs saying (loose translations) âCalca: We Donât Vend, We Defendâ and âTo Lie Is To Act Like A Slaveâ. Urubamba was small, clean, and lazy, with a tiny little Plaza De Armas. We ate lunch at a tourist sofa bar and then continued on by cambi to Ollantaytambo, our destination for the night. Laurie is friends with a family who lives there.
Ollantaytambo is where the royal Incas fled after the Spanish conquest. It has unbelievable ruins that are directly above the town on the mountains, with huge steps that the Spanish couldnât figure out how to climb (there was a secret back path). After the Spanish dealt with that (it took them a while, it seems) the Prince and the remaining Incas retreated to Patakancha, 1200 meters up into the mountains (higher than Sipas!). Today they are 90% pure descendants, but of course have lost most of their culture and heritage (and I note again that the Incas basically gained a lot of their knowledge through conquering others and were really kind of latecomers compared to the Huari empire). Anyway, Ollantaytambo has that ânever really been colonizedâ feeling bigtime. The streets are pretty much the same as they were pre-Conquest, with gorgeous little canals running all through them. I took a ton of pictures. It felt like being at the edge of the known world.
Thereâs a new wanna-be conqueror in town though â global capitalism! Since Laurie was there 3 years ago, hostels and cambis have doubled in price. There is an explosion of turisto type places. The family Laurie is friends with owns some property in town where they have a non-profit restaurant setup that feeds local kids for free. Since the last time, they have moved the restaurant to new digs down the street and are now renting out the space to other businesses. Carlos, the lead kid of the family (there are like 5 brothers) said that it is good for the economy, but that some customs are being lost. Interesting to note that there are a lot of cultural pride type measures going on, though â I kept wanting to mention that thereâs this whole program in Sipas where the kids get traditional style backpacks instead of whatever hand-me-down 1st World Disney or Nike crap comes their way. Thatâs just one example â the Calca signs are another.
Last Sunday we also gave away our first stoves in CâOrao! Very exciting. They have to sign an official contract saying they canât resell the stoves. We are going to post everybodyâs picture when they receive their stove. Tomorrow after our visit to Sipas we will see the first ones fully built and installed in peopleâs actual homes!
I am continually amazed by the hidden courtyards here. A door you never saw open before can suddenly reveal a whole world behind it. That and the narrow stone streets really appeal to my Dungeons & Dragons sensibilities. I bought a map of Cusco and have been studying it, walking around to fill in the gaps of my knowledge.
This coming week Laurie goes to Trujillo (north of Lima on the coast) to visit friends. I will be wandering Cusco solo, perhaps even visit some outlying areas although most have to wait for our ten-day tourist ticket period at the end of June. More news next weekâ¦
S
― sleeve, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 23:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Laurie's blog btw:
http://pencilsforperu.blogspot.com
gonna bump this once more when I get the new flickr photos up
― sleeve, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 23:34 (sixteen years ago) link
OK, I had a big computer crash at the internet cafe and only posted ten photos, but they are really cool ones - link is above in the thread. More will come tomorrow.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 22:55 (sixteen years ago) link
It’s a rainy Wednesday in Peru. Laurie gets back from Trujillo tomorrow! It has been a quiet week, I have had exactly six conversations in English, most of them short. Also have become proficient enough in Spanish to have conversations, which is nice. I keep buying the papers and reading them, looking up words I don’t know over and over. Past tense is still elusive, but whatever. Quechua remains even more elusive, although I can pick out words I know at times I still can’t form sentences more complicated than (e.g.) “don’t touch” (“ama llami”, but different pronunciation than Español). I bought nail clippers from an old guy on the street who was delighted when I thanked him in Quechua, most people here get enthusiastic when I say even my bare minimum of words.
Last Wednesday, we had a successful day at the Sipas market, giving away 16 stoves! Our total is now 20 that are on houses. Soon we will post photos. When we returned to Cusco, there was an email for us from a German guy who is also doing freelance stove projects. He gave us important new info – that the metal rockets don’t last very long in the Inkawasi models and that we should coat them with clay before installing (with the ash layer around that). This results in a fired piece of clay in the shape of the rocket once the metal wears out. So we scrambled around that night to coordinate with Pave about getting a message to the folks we had just given stoves to!
The same guy also told us that they were training ceramicists to make rockets for a tenth of the cost of what we just did. But there is nobody even near Cusco yet who could do it, and we still aren’t sure how they could possibly be transported up the mountains to Sipas! So perhaps next year…
I have been walking a lot, about two weeks ago it was like somebody flipped a switch and there are noticeably more tourists here. New traffic lights keep appearing as well, the latest one right on the street outside our apartment! Yesterday I discovered an entire street devoted to shops with religious wall hangings. Scrounging the few English book exchanges for good books, we have gone through what we came with (me: Ulysses, Laurie: 100 Years Of Solitude).
I have finally managed to stay up late enough to check out some of the bars and clubs, which don’t really get going until 10:30 at the earliest (for bands) and usually midnight (for dancing). Went to Ukuku’s around 1 A.M. on Friday with two friends (Chicho and a Belgian woman named Karen that Laurie and I met in Ollentaytambo) and it was full of dancing and revelry. Last night I discovered a yummy pastry place that serves little savory empanaditas.
Eating breakfast specials in the morning, usually a bowl of fruit/yogurt/granola plus juice and coffee for five bucks, pretty expensive but good fruit is a luxury. I could eat meat and rice down the street for a dollar. And that usually is what I have for lunch, although the lunches are huge and come with soup for about $1.50. I have experimented a little bit with pisco, a clear grape brandy that is Peru’s national drink, but only had one kind that was truly good, very grapey. Mostly I stick with the Cusqueña, brewed locally and quite drinkable.
During breakfast, I can look out a balcony onto the main plaza. There are small armies of cleaning people dressed in blue that totally remind me of Oompah-Loompahs. They sweep the streets and sidewalks. There is another group of people dressed in green – the Garden Gnomes – who tend the flowers and grass of the plaza. Ironically, the dogs are given free reign to run around everywhere including the plaza, while people and even toddlers are chased off the grass. The dogs in the city are totally indifferent to people, often running in groups on some top secret doggy mission. Or else they’re just casually wandering the streets or pissing in the flowerbeds on the plaza. Or sleeping on the sidewalk. This is in great contrast to the dogs of Sipas, who are always scrounging for food during the day and very hostile and territorial at night.
It is moving into winter here, we have learned the meaning of the term “abrigarte!” (“cover yourself”, roughly). Next week we will return to Sipas for three full days and hopefully give away the rest of the stoves for them. Then it’s on to Sonco and one last visit to Sipas before we morph into tourists and then return.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 30 May 2007 19:47 (sixteen years ago) link
Three weeks left! Last week we had a few extremely busy days in Sipas. Of course, everybody waited until the very last minute so Wednesday was absolute chaos, but when the dust settled we had given away every single stove! Early on Wednesday morning I went with a truck and 34 stoves to drop off in Soncco (alternate spelling is Sonqo, Quechua is one of those indefinite languages like Arabic where there is no exact spelling). We were worried, because that left us short on stoves for Sipas, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending, since now we don’t have to buy more) we had enough no-shows that it turned out OK. The last three people had to draw straws for the last two stoves. We included a bunch of new people (around a dozen, I think) who we put on a waiting list until 10 A.M. when we decided we had given the slackers enough chances. Most disappointingly, a number of the no-shows were families we had already taken the time to interview. Sipas has a really bad reputation for this kind of behaviour, we will see if Soncco is different next week.
We also took some time on Tuesday to give out all of the pencils that my nephew’s school had donated. The power outlets were hellishly capricious as usual, so I only got around 8 minutes of video, but that included a class of kids singing the Sipascancha theme song! Also lots of photos, I think we’re going to have a Flickr posting marathon this weekend.
Today I went and got fitted for a tailored suit that I am having made. In my search for the Yanapay school (more later) I found a whole street of tailors and decided to take advantage of the hideously unfair exchange rate to get a suit for about $70 US. It’ll be ready next week. After much searching, I finally found a hat to go with it in the San Pedro market today. The look is very classic, like a Bogart movie.
Next week I am going to spend a few afternoons tutoring math at the Yanapay school, a local nonprofit. It should be fun, the kids range from six to twelve. Discussing the current curriculum with their teacher, I had the horrifying realization that I can no longer remember how to derive square roots (or cube roots, etc.) through the long division type process that you use for such things, I need some math books in Español! Since they (of course) don’t have any I will buy them some and do a quick crash review before next Thursday. The following week, we are going back to Sipas to say our goodbyes and then starting on a crash course in tourism at the end of the week.
I thought I’d describe the journey to Sipas in a bit more detail, it is just a little too familiar to me now. We get up at 4:15 A.M. on Mondays. Usually we walk to the Puputi bus station, only about 10 minutes away. We catch a bus to Pisac at 5 A.M. which is invariably packed to capacity. It takes maybe 45 minutes to get there. In Pisac, we fight our way off the bus through pushy crowds of Peruvians vying for seats, and then we immediately go to the panaderia to get fresh hot bread – the best part of the morning! Then we wait with the other teachers for the combi (basically a stripped out VW van type vehicle with seats) and pile in with (not kidding) twenty other people. They usually insist on us sitting, so I’ve only had to stand once so far. It can get really insane.
The combi travels up past Pisac, and the road turns into a dirt one. We drive along the side of a mountain for a while (see earlier picture on Flickr of the view down 1000 feet to the river), and then climb through a number of different communities. One of these is the Parque De La Papa, essentially a bioreserve for potatoes with over 200 varieties cultivated and studied. Then comes Cuyo Grande, then Quello Quello, and there are a few more. All of these places are a little more urban and well-off than Sipas.
Finally we come to the last pueblo and the road continues to climb through grazeland until it starts a series of switchbacks that take us over the mountain pass into the next valley – the District De Colquepata. Sipas is just over the mountain, down another set of switchbacks. The combi lets us off up above the pueblo because the road is too rough for anything except big trucks (although some hardcore Peruanos do drive their cars down it on market day). Then it continues on to Soncco, which we will also do next week. The trip from Pisac takes about two hours. It can be very bumpy, some combis are worse than others. Finally, we hike down the hill to the clinic, usually arriving around 8:30 or 9 A.M.
Yesterday, as usual, we walked unsuspectingly down the street towards our fave breakfast spot and were confronted with a massive hoo-ha (word coined by my friend Rachel, means a big party essentially). It was El Dia De La Corpus Christi! The cathedral had a huge amplified mass out on the front steps. Everybody eats a traditional meal on this day called chiriuchu, which we had for dinner at Eggo’s. It consists of indigenous food – cuy, chicken, toasted corn kernels, seaweed, fish eggs, dried and reconstituted mutton (salty, like a lunch meat), and sausage (which they were out of). Also, everybody eats coconuts and sugar cane. It was the biggest fiesta I’d seen yet, at 2:30 I tried to go to the Yanapay school and literally could not get into the plaza. Around 4 in the afternoon it started clearing out a bit and Laurie and I walked around some. I made field recordings of the numerous different brass bands competing with each other, and we drank a bottle of beer with two older Peruano men who turned out to be artists. One was the director of the Museum of Popular Art in Cusco, and he gave us free tickets! We talked to them for a while, it was fun to converse with intellectual left-leaning atheistic Peruvians. Definitely a different perspective. We asked them what they thought of Bush and they said they thought he was a dry drunk who beat his wife. We also talked about the U.S. treatment of indigenas and as usual I had to apologize for my fucked up country, which they really sincerely appreciated. EVERYBODY was drinking in public, it is one of the few days where that is tolerated. Corpus Christi is not, apparently, an official Catholic holiday, this is another example of syncretism.
Next week we will report back from Soncco, and then we start to say goodbye and wrap things up!
Love to all,
― sleeve, Friday, 8 June 2007 22:40 (sixteen years ago) link
Wow, they must have extended the text limit for posts! Thanks!
― sleeve, Friday, 8 June 2007 22:41 (sixteen years ago) link
will bump for photos this weekend when they are up.
― sleeve, Friday, 8 June 2007 23:42 (sixteen years ago) link
First of all, you folks who aren’t on Laurie’s email list should read her last two posts about Soncco, she says a lot more (and a lot better) than I could this time around for sure.
We have been back in Cusco since Wednesday afternoon. As Laurie says, the Soncco giveaway was a big success, 34 families in one day. We had so much basic interviewing to do that I started doing my first solo ones, getting a crash course in Quechua at the same time. I learned like 5 new words, fortunately I have a more extensive Spanish-to-Quechua dictionary than my English-to-Quechua phrasebook.
Nonstop fiestas seem to be the order of the day, both today and yesterday were holidays. I spent the afternoons at the Yanapay School, but they were slow days and I only helped one little girl with triple-digit multiplication. Yanapay is really an afterschool program for kids (many of them orphans) with nowhere else to go. Lots of volunteers, usually there are more kids. Thursday afternoon we watched Shrek in Español! English subtitles helped a lot. I had never seen it before! What a great flick.
We have spent the last two days cleaning up, preparing for our thank-you party tomorrow night that we are having for all the people who have helped us here. Next week we will spend one morning in Sipas saying goodbye (and giving out our last seven LED lights to the teachers, some of them got defective ones). Then on Tuesday we are going back to Quiquihana (where the nun’s pirate radio was, site of our first two stoves) to go up into the mountains and check out a village called Usi, where we are tentatively planning to do a stove project next year. Laurie is thinking about forming a 501(c)3! Wednesday we start our real vacation, we will head out for Machu Picchu but haven’t formulated a definite travel agenda yet (except to be back in Cusco for Inti Raymi on the 24th).
We took some fantastic photos today, we should get them up by this weekend.
More next week!
― sleeve, Saturday, 16 June 2007 02:04 (sixteen years ago) link
What a week. Many things to write, best to go day by day…
Last Saturday we had a little party for all the people who had helped us here. Attendance was kinda low, but it was fun. We stayed up pretty late talking to Pave and her sister Sefora about all kinds of stuff. And we had leftover guacamole and bread and soda!
The next day, Sunday, we went out to C’Orao where there was a little goodbye party for us in the Purikuq weaving market. Most of the families came, and a couple of other ones showed up to present us with a very official (stamps and all) request for 14 more stoves. Apparently they are all part of some neighborhood association along with the 4 stove recipients (who actually got theirs for helping with Purikuq as I understand it). Unfortunately we are too broke right now, and we need to research the ceramic rockets. We told them we’d get back to them. There is a very sweet 13-year-old girl (named MaFre, for Maria Fernanda) who has adored Laurie since L made a special trip back to C’Orao with pain meds for her when she had a bad tooth. They walked around arm in arm the whole time and she made Laurie a special deep-fried cuy that was much yummier than the usual oven-baked version (which I got, along with one for Laurie, giving her two cuy). With Pave’s guidance Laurie cut the heads off and gave them to the little kids, who sucked happily on the brains.
Later that afternoon we went to a chicken dinner fundraiser for an artists’ collective that Chicho joined recently, basically a way for some of the more creative types to legalize their street vending. It was the first time that everything clicked socially and I actually knew more than one or two people. There were lots of different performers with an MC and a PA and a beautiful view over the city. People played music, told stories, read poems, juggled, did a little play, it was a lot like some talent show night at Sam Bond’s in Eugene. We bought lots of beer and shared it with people. Then we took Chicho out for an extravagant dinner at Perro’s.
The next day we went to Sipascancha for our goodbyes. Took a few more photos and bought some really nice weaving. For a bunch of reasons Laurie outlined last time, we felt kind of bittersweet about leaving, definitely mixed feelings about the experience there. On the way back down the mountain range we stopped in Cuyo Grande for lunch with another one of Laurie’s godchildren, little Jose Anderson and his parents Quintin and Paulina. Jose’s adorable 4-year-old cousin was also there, can’t remember her name. I pleaded vegetarianism, having tired somewhat of cuy the day before. Ours came without heads this time, and I tore the little legs off for the kids.
FRUIT INTERLUDE: While we were there we tried yet another new fruit, the tumba. Kind of like a very sour, orange pomegranate with more fruit on the seeds. Looks more like a cucumber though. We have also tried:
Lucuma – very sweet and avocado-like. Starfruit – crunchy and super tart, more of a garnish fruit. Chirimoya – luscious, more melon-like, need to try again. Pepino – super delicious pear-sized cantaloupe-ish yumminess. Granadia – another melon-like thing, but you suck the pulp and seeds out of a harder shell.
There is also maracuya which I have not yet tried.
On Tuesday we took the Sicuani bus to Quiquihana to say goodbye to Hermana Nellie and the pirate radio nuns. We also went to check out a potential project for next time, the village of Usi. Nellie lent us her car and found us a driver and we went up a ridiculous road (4WD necessary). Sister Luz Marie accompanied us and said an elaborate prayer as we began our steep climb. When we arrived in the village we found the presidente and talked to him and a few other guys. We learned they have village meetings on the 30th of each month and decided to try and get Pave to go to one in the next few months. The scenery was even more beautiful and mindboggling than usual, and the village also seemed much more compact (houses closer together, little tiny streets, etc.). They have a tiny little school with maybe one teacher and a health person visits once a month. That’s absolutely it. They also have water, but no electricity. The poles have been laid on the road going up, but it will probably be a few years before lines get added to them and fully installed. All the roofs are straw, they have no access to the clay tejas that more populated areas use. We got a good vibe from the place.
After inspecting the initial rockets (one of which works great, the other of which does not have enough space around the edge of the pot for the heat to rise up the sides and needs either a chisel or a skinnier pot), we headed back and turned in early. Wednesday we got straight back on the bus and headed to Ollantaytambo, but we took a different route that was a bit shorter than last time and through different country. After arriving in Ollantaytambo we hooked up with Laurie’s friend and local dude Carlos, and we got a ride up to a tiny village about 10 minutes away. There Carlos recruited a local kid and we set off on a trail up to a pampa (grassy, shrubby plain) that overlooks the valley and city. The entire valley has been laid out as a solar calendar, and the light does very specific things on the dawn of the solstices and equinoxes. We ran kind of late and ended up hiking the last 20 minutes or so in the dark, but had plenty of light to set up our tent. Carlos and the boy (13-year-old Isaac) went scrounging for wood and we built a fire, ate food, and had a bit of rum (except for Isaac). We didn’t really sleep much, but we were warmer than we expected to be (Ollantaytamba is about 500 meters below Cusco). The light in the morning was predictably amazing, but I don’t think we’ll have flickr pictures up until this next Thursday or Friday. Sorry.
We spent the next day and night in Ollantaytambo. Having bought our ten-day tourist tickets the day before we were now authorized to enter the ruins. So we spent the afternoon hiking around the last true Inca stronghold before the Spanish took over, marveling at the engineering and general scale of things. On Friday morning we took a combi to Urubamba and hired a taxi to take us to two famous places nearby – the 1000-year old salt mines of Salinas and the Inca agricultural laboratory of Moray.
As we approached the salt mines I was totally flabbergasted yet again, even more than any mindblowing mountain scene so far. The scale is huge, the construction is intricate, and this giant complex grows out of a tiny little stream only a bit bigger than Cougar Hot Springs. Plus, it is at least 1000 years old, people have built successive layers of pools and gathered salt there for a really long time. Now it belongs to the nearby village of Maras.
About 8 kilometers down the road from Maras is a restored agricultural site that the Incas built that looks kind of like an amphitheater, except the successive lower levels are all terraces. Here they experimented with different plants at different altitudes (at least, that’s what most of the folks who studied it think). It is also huge and amazing, with an irrigation system and clever little stairs made of long flat rocks that stick out of the walls at intervals. We returned to Urubamba, had lunch, and then made our way to the nearby town of Yucay in order to discuss an impending baptism with a priest friend of Laurie’s. Laurie is probably writing more about it, but we are arranging a baptism (in Cusco, by request of the family of Pedro, Juanita, Laurita the godchild, and the other two sisters). It takes place the day before we leave. Knowing no priests in Cusco proper, we were very lucky that Laurie knew this guy (Father Rene) from before. He is the pastor for the oldest church in the whole Sacred Valley, dating to the year 1600. We didn't look inside but the grounds were quite beautiful with lots of peach trees, although it is definitely a fixer-upper and one whole living quarters building is unusable without a lot of work. He arranged everything for us, got us a priest and a church and a time, and generally saved our asses. Some of the family has never been to Cusco before, and I’m sure none of them have ever been in a Cusco church (well, maybe Pedro since he went to school here). We had this vision of the hopeful family arriving on Sunday morning and us having nowhere to take them! So after breathing a big sigh of relief, we headed back to Cusco and arrived around 7 last night. Sometime during this week we discovered we had miscalculated our budget a bit, so now we are going to go just a bit into the red for our last week (don't feel sorry for us, we have been more extravagant than planned). On Monday we are going to do Machu Picchu, and then we have more ruins and museums to visit than we probably have time for until Friday evening, when our tickets expire.
Today is the day before Inti Raymi, the traditional festival of the Sun/Solstice, and the whole week in Cusco has been nothing but parades, 7 A.M. firework explosions, and huge-scale events in the main plaza. Last night there was a full on rock concert, right now there is another parade and announcers. Tomorrow is the big day... Inti Raymi was banned for almost 400 years, the Catholic church only relented in the 50's (we think).
― sleeve, Saturday, 23 June 2007 16:35 (sixteen years ago) link
Another busy week…
After I wrote the last email the parades just kept going, all of Saturday night. I was stupid (not used to carrying the money) and took some cash down into the crowd where I was promptly pickpocketed in the crush of people. No ID or cards, just cash and my goddamn 70-sole tourist ticket which I had to buy again.
Sunday we got up early for the festival of Inti Raymi (Quechua for “Sun Festival”), which brings in some hideous number of tourists (like 80,000). The day begins at the ancient Inca temple of Qorikancha with a 10 A.M. ritual. We skipped that and decided to head up the hill to the Inca fortress of Saqsaywaman to try and get an early seat for the main ritual. Got there around noon, thinking that it started at 3, fortunately it started at 2. We were some of the last people to get decent seats (which was nothing but a steep hillside, the “real” seats cost $80 US). At 2, elaborately costumed actors began the performance of this ancient solstice ritual, which involves over 600 costumed participants arranged in groups all over the different levels of the fortress. Very impressive, although the entire thing was narrated in Quechua and therefore difficult to understand.
That night I went out to Perro’s and the owner got me sick-drunk on too much free pisco, which he kept pouring into my glass. I met a cool older guy from Montreal and took him to Ukuku’s to see Amaru Puma Kuntur one last time. Fortunately I got sick later that night instead of in the morning, because we had big plans for Monday.
On Monday afternoon we took a bus back to Ollantaytambo, had dinner, and caught the famous train to Machu Picchu at 8 P.M. – the only way to get there. We arrived in the Pueblo Machu Picchu (until very recently named Aguas Calientes after the hot baths there) at 10 P.M. and got a hostal room (El Tumi, very nice, cheap, and recommended). In the morning we arose, got a ridiculously expensive breakfast, and got our bus tickets to go up the road to the site.
Nothing I have seen here previously could possibly have prepared me. The scale is immense, the scenery is more amazing than anything I have ever seen, and the sound was also just unbelievable – you can hear everything from the valleys down below rising up the mountain chasms along with the songs of dozens of bird species. These days, scholars think the site was a summer resort for the Inca royals, not primarily a ritual site as had previously been thought. It was also possibly a retreat/refuge, which I can believe due to its ridiculous inaccessibility and the fact that it is totally hidden from below. We spent all day there, but were unable to make the climb to the adjacent (and higher) peak Waynu Picchu due to it being an unusually busy tourist day. Still, there were many times when we were totally alone. We also took a short hike to an ancient Inca bridge that you can view from a distance, however the rest of the trail to it is in ruins. Really, words fail me, I promise to have Flickr pictures up this weekend.
Spent a leisurely night in the Pueblo before catching the 5:45 A.M. train back to Ollantaytambo, where we had breakfast and continued on by bus to Pisac. There we presented our tourist tickets and hiked the Pisac ruins, some of which are pre-Inca. They have a pretty amazing volcanic rock sundial thing as the centrepiece, which of course is totally invisible from the valley floor. It was a long hike and we took an even longer pathway down a side canyon instead of the terrifying stairs that are the main access. It seemed to me, like Ollantaytambo, to be an almost impenetrable fortress and I can’t imagine how the Spanish dealt with it.
Today we tried to get maximum use of our tickets (since Laurie’s expires tomorrow) and went to Qorikancha (the Temple Of The Sun where the morning Inti Raymi ritual is performed), the Santa Catalina Monastery Museum (tons of hideously gruesome Christian death-worship, even more than usual, along with a lot of really cool stuff like wall frescoes and this amazing “trunk of the Story Of Christ” that folded out into a 300-piece diorama of staggering intricacy and detail depicting various biblical scenes), and the Regional Museum of Cusco (more pre-Columbian stuff and some later Christian paintings and furniture). Tomorrow we visit Tipon (an aqueduct site) and some pre-Inca ruins in between here and Pisac. Then our tickets expire, although we still have personal invites to the Museum of Popular Art that we plan to use on Saturday. Sunday is our baptism, on Monday we leave!
I’ll write one more update after we return discussing this last weekend. Friday the 6th slideshow is still a go as far as I know. And, of course, I’ll let y’all know when I get the pictures up.
― sleeve, Thursday, 28 June 2007 22:48 (sixteen years ago) link
you're fighting the good fight, right on.
― Wrinklepaws, Friday, 29 June 2007 00:20 (sixteen years ago) link
bump for new photos, update to follow in an hour or two along w/more photos.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stovesforperu
― sleeve, Sunday, 1 July 2007 23:14 (sixteen years ago) link
So yeah, lots of even newer photos just went up on Flickr, check it out.
Well, here we are in the internet café. On Friday we went to the ruins of Tipon, a massive terrace and aqueduct site about 10 miles from Cusco. That night we went over to Humberto and Maribel’s house for dinner, it was nice and relaxed and we compared cultures and lives. Saturday morning I went by myself to the ruins of Q’enqo (“labyrinth” in Quechua) where there is an amazing underground grotto with seats and windows carved into it, plus a giant amphitheatre with 19 carved seats. That afternoon we had lunch with Pave at a ceviche place, and that night we had planned on checking out a 10-band punk show! We did go to the show, but a band was setting up at the time. While we were waiting, I had some kind of massive allergic reaction (probably to a previously uneaten species of shellfish in the ceviche) and we had to go home where Laurie dosed me with Benadril.
Today we got up at 7, and were at the bus station at 8 to meet Pedro’s family – who had gotten up at 3 A.M. and walked to Pisac to catch a bus. We went to the church and the padre that was Rene’s friend was doing mass (there were two, a smaller later one that was mostly for kids and the big early one). After everybody cleared out, he did a simple baptism in Quechua (Laurita the 3-year-old only speaks Quechua so that was cool) and we were done. Laurie went off with them for lunch and I went home for a nap, still suffering from post-allergy effects. The thing about baptisms in this country is that it is like a legal document or birth certificate, and Laurita will benefit from having those records as an adult, I'm not exactly sure how but it is a privilege that not many campesinos get. I'm not a godfather (I was more of a photographer), but they gave me gifts anyway.
For the rest of the day, people came by and gave us gifts, and we gave them stuff in return. First Pedro and Martin showed up, then Pave, then Chicho and his visiting Trujillo friend Vanessa – we’re going out to hear music with them later.
Tomorrow we’re spending seven hours in the Lima airport before our redeye flight. We have books and a blanket. I’ll write later this week with some loose ends and post-journey thoughts…
― sleeve, Monday, 2 July 2007 01:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Great thread. I'll be in Peru the first week of April and will undoubtedly be taking some of your recommendations. I'm flying to Arequipa to meet my girlfriend, who will be there on business. We're probably going to do some hiking around there before heading up to Machu Picchu and then I'll fly home from Cusco. Airfare was pretty expensive, but I am hoping the trip will be worth it.
― jaymc, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 21:05 (sixteen years ago) link
cool man! I don't know Arequipa but that is close to Colca Canyon, the condor refuge. I recommend getting up early for Machu Picchu since it easily takes a full day.
Good restaurants in Cuzco: Los Perros for dinner and Tratamundo's for breakfast/lunch (go for their breakfast combos, fruit & yogurt is muy delicioso). They are both either on or close to the Plaza de Armas. My fave club for night stuff was Ukuku's, and if you get a chance to check out that Amaru Puma Kuntur band I totally recommend it.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 21:16 (sixteen years ago) link
also if you feel adventurous you can take a bus to Ollantaytambo, check out Inca ruins, spend the night, and take a shorter and cheaper train to Machu Picchu than from Cuzco. That's how we did it, leaving Ollantaytambo in the evening, getting a room in Machu Picchu Pueblo, doing the ruins the next day, and going back to Ollantaytambo the following morning.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 21:19 (sixteen years ago) link
Sounds great, thanks! Yeah, we've talked about doing Colca Canyon, but I honestly haven't done much reading up yet. Are there any travel guides you'd recommend?
― jaymc, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 21:22 (sixteen years ago) link
I'll ask my girlfriend and get back to you via this thread. Lonely Planet is pretty good as usual, especially with the general historical overview. If you learn even a few words of Quechua you will also be a big hit. 'thank you" = sulpayki (pronounced sool-pai-kee).
Also, our plans are still on for another stove building project in late 2008 as mentioned above.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 2 January 2008 21:30 (sixteen years ago) link
bump
hey jaymc, how are your travel plans shaping up?
Laurie and I have now been sponsored by the same organization as before for another trip, making it official. We leave in late November, tentatively.
― sleeve, Monday, 17 March 2008 20:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Good! It looks like things are breaking down like this: I get into Arequipa on Sunday, March 30 (Krista will have been there for a few days already), we'll do Colca Canyon on Monday and Tuesday, more Arequipa on Wednesday, then (hopefully) an overnight bus to Cuzco, from which we'll try to do Sacred Valley on Thursday, Machu Picchu on Friday, Cuzco on Saturday, and then I leave on Sunday. Kind of a lot to pack into a week, but I think it's doable.
― jaymc, Monday, 17 March 2008 22:58 (sixteen years ago) link
Pics.
(My girlfriend stayed an extra week, so that's why you don't see any more photos of me past the first half.)
Trip was fantastic, btw, and everything went pretty much as planned.
― jaymc, Sunday, 20 April 2008 18:04 (sixteen years ago) link
argh no line breaks, sorry.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 15:56 (thirteen years ago) link
As always, enlightening and fascinating reports you provide.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 15:58 (thirteen years ago) link
whaaaat
https://www.wsj.com/articles/perus-president-pedro-pablo-kuczynski-resigns-1521661203
that happened fast
― sleeve, Wednesday, 21 March 2018 20:45 (six years ago) link
totally fascinating article on recent breakthroughs in the decoding of the khipus (elaborate knotted cords that may in fact be a language)
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931972-600-we-thought-the-incas-couldnt-write-these-knots-change-everything
― #BreakingTheWorld (sleeve), Thursday, 15 November 2018 16:03 (five years ago) link
<3
― marcos, Thursday, 15 November 2018 17:01 (five years ago) link
Cool! I've been interested in these since they were used as a major plot device in Stefano Benni's "Terra!"
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 15 November 2018 17:04 (five years ago) link
have to say though i don't like the headline - "we thought the incas couldn't write" who thought that? maybe the spanish but they burned and destroyed so many of the khipus bc they knew they were sophisticated communication tools
these folks have been doing some cool stuff btw https://projects.csail.mit.edu/khipu/ and there is also this cool database https://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/
― marcos, Thursday, 15 November 2018 17:07 (five years ago) link
good point, and thanks for those links!
― #BreakingTheWorld (sleeve), Thursday, 15 November 2018 17:10 (five years ago) link
not sure what's going on today, but this doesn't seem good:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/10/peru-coup-accusations-head-of-congress-made-president-predecessor-ousted
― howls of non-specificity (sleeve), Wednesday, 11 November 2020 15:21 (three years ago) link
This is bad.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 11 November 2020 17:32 (three years ago) link
Protests in Peru. How it started, how it's going. pic.twitter.com/AjC2CFEw0m— Rodrigo Barrenechea (@RodrigoBarrene4) November 13, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 14 November 2020 21:07 (three years ago) link
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/13/peru-is-fired-up-protesters-police-clash-as-political-crisis
― howls of non-specificity (sleeve), Saturday, 14 November 2020 21:16 (three years ago) link
3 dead in Lima so far in the protests
― howls of non-specificity (sleeve), Sunday, 15 November 2020 05:50 (three years ago) link
anecdotal evidence: we have around a dozen Peruvian friends that we know via FB, across the political spectrum. ALL of them are pissed off at this guy today.
― howls of non-specificity (sleeve), Sunday, 15 November 2020 16:44 (three years ago) link
WaPo reporting that interim president Merino is resigning.
― howls of non-specificity (sleeve), Sunday, 15 November 2020 18:50 (three years ago) link
Instability continues.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/perus-castillo-plays-whack-a-mole-with-crises-impeachment-threat-looms-2021-12-06/
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 6 December 2021 17:18 (two years ago) link
Police repression of a protest of working class people against price rises in Peru... under the new 'socialist' president... we need a revolution, not just new masks for the domination of capital! https://t.co/KulTOlXAKH— AngryWorkers (@WorkersAngry) April 3, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 April 2022 09:13 (two years ago) link
Peru is a never-ending heartache for me. I lived there in the early- to mid-90s. Sad to say, stability is more the exception than the rule.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 6 April 2022 17:11 (two years ago) link
agreed
― thinkmanship (sleeve), Wednesday, 6 April 2022 18:02 (two years ago) link
I'm really enjoying reading your emails, sleeve. They bring back memories. We lived there during the Fujimori years, the "dictablanda" as our Peruvian friends called it. Odd how he ended up in prison and his predecessor, Garcia, who had fled the country, was re-elected. This despite every Peruvian we knew being truly traumatized by the hyperinflation of the Garcia years. There was never a dull moment.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 6 April 2022 18:20 (two years ago) link
thank you. we are still in touch with numerous people from that era of our lives, we even do video calls these days
― thinkmanship (sleeve), Thursday, 7 April 2022 01:50 (two years ago) link
also, I miss eating lucuma
― thinkmanship (sleeve), Thursday, 7 April 2022 01:51 (two years ago) link
"But Ramos Salinas is not entirely without hope. “There can be joy in unlikely circumstances,” he says. “In Callao, during the recent protests, young people who’ve never had access to swimming pools blocked the road with inflatable pools, these cheap ones made in China. And they had the best time.”"
I wrote about the latest crisis in Peru! https://t.co/zhykoRT274— Valeria CK (@valeria_wants) May 9, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 10 May 2022 09:51 (two years ago) link
waht
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazilian-stripper-interrupts-peruvian-presidents-online-corruption-hearing-2022-06-16/
― thinkmanship (sleeve), Friday, 17 June 2022 00:19 (one year ago) link
Well, it gets worse
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 7 December 2022 23:20 (one year ago) link
oh great, what now
― sleeve, Wednesday, 7 December 2022 23:21 (one year ago) link
oh I see. here's what one of my oldest Peruvian friends has to say:
THE RICH AND CORRUPT WON.It's sad to see that in our country since those times of the gamonales the poor, the provincial, the people will always be marginalized, discriminated, humiliated, trampled and mocked. Many of us have lived when we came to the capital to study, there were always these hits and now these times this discrimination is maximized Is it a crime to be poor? Is it a crime to come to power being a provincial? Is it a crime to come from a people? How sad and unfortunate that our corrupt congressmen set a bad example for our children, teens and young people. Perhaps at school we always promote and ask that: when someone has problems we must support, when someone fails we must motivate to improve, when someone is going through difficult times we must give a hand, teach also not judge, be empathetic, active and now what will we say to our CHILDREN ABOUT LOYALTY. But now all we're going to see is hypocrisy, how can there be mediocre people laughing at other people's pain adding that they won. Of course he won power, corruption, mafia, wealthy, ambition. I also once heard that a teacher will always be another teacher's enemy oh how true it had been. But there is a lesson learned THAT SHOULD NOT TRUST ANYONE I believe in moments of sadness, bad luck even our shadows betray us. But if you will happily stay as an example THE LOYALTY OF A MAN TESTED as Doctor Anibal who teaches us that loyalty to someone must be until the end. Now what is the use of the elections if months pass again say VACATION, VACATION, if the rich and corrupt do not give their taste join all the mafiosos of the jam and capitalist press and so they lay it down because they will never leave their m woodpecker, their nests of gold, as it will always be. These are the consequences of no longer educating in values, lack of identity, which are all rights, rights and there are no duties, we are influenced with the external or ideal but does not exist and RESPONSIBLE for all that happens but defend n others have a name, Mrs Keyko who for dignity and record loving Peru should not run as a candidate, so the fate of our country can be different. Not to mention "JUSTICE" everything is taken over by the groups of power, who do and undo what they want in Peru. I better not even talk about congressmen...... Neither will we stay quiet in front of so much mockery and hypocrisy, always for the rich rotten class and the people will be an obstacle, But yes, I feel proud that although short time that the son of the people ruled in a country of rich, Thanks Mr. President. I just ask God to guide everyone. It's my personal opinion. Long live all the peoples of Peru and down with the corrupt and discriminators!
― sleeve, Thursday, 8 December 2022 05:53 (one year ago) link
Did laugh at a random tweet which said that Peru's political culture is what's coming to many countries.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 8 December 2022 08:13 (one year ago) link
another update:
The real issue in Peru is that Pedro Castillo wanted to change the mining contracts to ensure more community support from the profits. Obviously those companies dont want this. Contracts have no end date but have to be renewed every 5 years. According to government info, these are the contracts that would be up for renewal in 2023. No doubt the bastards who ousted Castillo will sign them as they are and get a substantial backhander. There is only economics in politics these days. The ownership of these companies is international, not Peruvian, with most liked to US / Canada.
― sleeve, Sunday, 18 December 2022 17:04 (one year ago) link
and of course
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/12/14/the-us-egged-on-the-coup-in-peru/
― sleeve, Sunday, 18 December 2022 21:01 (one year ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/20/we-feel-betrayed-peruvians-on-anti-government-protests
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 01:45 (one year ago) link
state of emergency in Lima and three other provinces as of Friday
our conservative friend unfriended me on FB, we assume b/c I commented "follow the money" on a post. she's still friends w/ my wife.
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 01:46 (one year ago) link
our other adult friend on FB is a teacher and she is very, very angry right now
― sleeve, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 01:47 (one year ago) link