Stranded

At the moment, Jason and I and nine other travelers are huddled on the side of a mountain road 40 minutes outside of Chivay. Being stuck here for the foreseeable future, I immediately wrapped my scarf over my head refugee-style, and we each claimed a patch of dust to wait with our belongings for the hopeful return of the van.

We have actually been enjoying the tour up until now. We have seen everything we wanted to see, the guide didn't make us dwell too long at the "villages' (i.e. souvenir stands), and he has been good about moving the group along and keeping to a tight schedule.

The journey from Arequipa to Chivay takes about 3.5 hours and crosses over an incredibly high pass, as you saw. It was fun to walk about in the snow on the 4th of July, and the terrain was covered with stacks of rocks left by wish-making travelers, which gave the entire scene a delightfully eerie feeling.

We stopped at one point and hiked to a bridge stretched over the Rio Colca where Ali, the guide, pointed out the storehouses built into the side of the canyon walls. The local language calls the storehouses "Colca" - hence everything in this valley having that name.

The hot springs we visited in the late afternoon were essentially warm swimming pools. They had 5 different pools, and although Jason, the Belgians, and I tried three different ones, we couldn't really discern a temperature difference and they certainly weren't as hot as Jason and I hoped they would be. Still, it was fun to lounge a bit in the warm water, especially given how cold we were to become.

The tour included an optional folk show last night, but between Ali's promises that they would make us get up and dance, his description of a "very funny Parkinson's dance", and the other travelers' lackluster reviews of similar shows, we opted instead to go out to dinner with the Belgians at the first place we found that looked decent in the main square.

The food was only decent, but the company was nice. The young woman is a pre-school teacher, which led to many comparisons between our experiences in the profession in the two countries. The young man is an engineer who has worked drudging jobs in Dubai and other interesting places. They were both amazed by the idea of living so far away from our families, of traveling like this, and by how much Americans pay for college. It was also highly entertaining when a group of Dutch tourists sat at the table next to ours and the Belgians gleefully mocked their "strange accents."

After dinner Jason and I went back to the hotel to get my iPad for some stargazing. It was the first night without cloud cover since we got here, and the stars were magnificent despite the street lamps above us and the bus headlights that kept blinding us. We could see the Milky Way and, thanks to Star Walk, identified many of the constellations we don't normally get to see.

(Side note: and now it's raining on us refugees! Must pause typing to save iPad from moisture!


...Okay, I am now holding my umbrella telephone-style between my shoulder and chin to keep typing. Hopefully a sudden gust of wind doesn't take it down the canyon. Back to the story:)

We went to bed fairly early, huddled under the apparently now-requisite many layers of clothing and blankets. Breakfast was at 5:30 the next morning, so we dutifully set the alarm for 4:30 so we could both shower.

When the alarm went off, neither of us was inclined to leave our warm beds to brave the cold, cold room, but Jason, gentleman that he is, got up to shower first. I stayed semi-awake, figuring I would get up when I heard the shower turn off.

The sound of the running water stopped, but Jason stepped out of the bathroom fully dressed surprisingly fast. "There's no hot water," he announced grimly.

Much griping ensued about the hotel, the weather, the state of a nation with a high-but-not-very-high HDI. Just as Jason finished getting ready for the day and I summoned the courage to get out from under the covers, our wake-up knock came at the door. Jason asked about the hot water, and the hotel worker assured us that they had just turned it on. I tested it, and sure enough we had hot water... 10 minutes before we were both supposed to leave for breakfast. Jason opted to go without showering, since he was already ready for the day. I hopped in and enjoyed the warmth as quickly as I could.

The tour van picked us up at 6:00 so we could get to the Cruz del Condor by 8:00, prime bird-watching time, apparently. The road to the condor spot was unpaved, despite it's popularity with tour groups. All through the bumpy ride Ali warned us that we might not see condors, fickle animals that they are.

But see them we did! We had about 90 minutes to watch them, and by the end there were five or six condors circling over the canyon with some hawks. I'm not an avid bird fan, but it was pretty spectacular to see such big birds in their natural habitat. I'll attach some of the many, many pictures I took.

Back in the van for a bumpy ride back down the canyon (which, by the way, is the third deepest canyon in the world), we stopped in Chivay once more for lunch.

We were about 30 minutes outside of Chivay when one of the tour group members figured out that she had left her Blackberry back in Chivay. After a lot of discussing, the driver pulled over to the side of the road and Ali ordered everyone out. He explained that the van would be able to travel faster without the extra weight, so only the young Americans who had forgotten the phone took off with the driver to go back to town while the rest of us wait here. Ali half-heartedly tried to keep us entertained by delivering a quick lecture about the local flora, but no one's especially interested. We are getting a lot of stares from other passing tour vans and buses, though, as the passengers thank heaven that they aren't the ones on the side of the road.


P.S. The van did return, the girl found her phone, I dismantled my Les Mis look, and we survived the 3.5 hour trip back to Arequipa. On to the next adventure!

Pre-Inca and Inca Terraces:



Rock Towers and Snow at Highest Point



Condor!



Condor Again!



Condors Flying!



Refugee Jason



A Girl in the Plaza in Chivay


And finally, What was stuck in my head the whole time I was watching that girl.

Colca Canyon

No wifi tonight, so you'll have to settle for a quick update blogged via email instead.

We left Arequipa at 7:30 this morning on a two day tour of Colca Canyon. We joined quite an international group to drive from Arequipa to Chivay, stopping along the way to see vicunas, alpacas, and llamas; to hike to a very Mesa Verde-looking set of ruins; and to shiver and take pictures at 4901 meters high. Go ahead, look up what that is in feet. It's impressive.

We just got dropped off at a dingy and cold hotel after a dip in the hot springs. We're going to meet a Belgian (Flemish) couple who is also on the tour for dinner, then get to bed early since we leave at 6AM to try to see condors.

Fingers crossed!

I'm Choosing Bed Over Blog

Today's stories will come, but for now I tired and tomorrow we leave early for Colca Canyon. Here are some pictures to tide you over in the meantime.

Good night!

In Which We Go to Church

(A late post! This one's for Sunday.)

Between the late hour of our bedtime last night (thanks mostly to this hotel having the fastest wifi thus far, so we've both been on an uploading photos/videos binge) and the amount of frustration the Church's "Meetinghouse Locator" webpage generated, the fact that we both got up early to go to church was pretty miraculous.

Since going to church, especially our church, is not what we do while traveling, we were congratulating ourselves on the advancement of spirituality as we walked the mostly-deserted streets to the chapel we had finally found on Google Maps when we saw a young man moving gesturing slowly in a decidedly off way. Just as we approached him, he collapsed onto the sidewalk.

We both stepped into the street to avoid him and continued walking.

An older man was approaching from the other direction and he gestured at the young man on the ground, at us, and then drew his finger across his throat in a slitting motion while scowling at us.

After walking another block, we started talking about what had happened and how we felt like, as Jason aptly put it, we had just taken the role of the Bad Samaritan. Could we have done something to help? Should we have done something to help? The fact that my instincts were to avoid the person in need and probably would be the same even in my own country bugged me, and I felt horrible about it.

We got to church right at 9:00 and took our seats in the chapel. As the room slowly filled up, lots of women came over to greet us warmly, each one swooping in to kiss me on the cheek and to shake Jason's hand.

The Bishop stood up to start, and one of the women stood up front to conduct the hymn. When the congregation started to sing a cappella, Jason leaned over and said that I should have volunteered to play. I told him I would have, had I known they didn't have a pianist, but how was I supposed to respectfully let them know this now? I was still feeling badly about the man on the street, and now there was a way I could help someone else, if only I could let them know. I was determined to stay for Relief Society and play for them there, if nothing else.

In the meantime, for once I was grateful for the predictability of church talk. The meeting was in Spanish, and I paid far closer attention than usual as I tried to work out what everyone was saying. It was actually a relief to enjoy such a mental exercise at church. I did pretty well with the sacrament meeting testimonies, but lost most of the Sunday School lesson. The teacher more than made up for it, though. She was awesome! Even though I couldn't understand 90% of what she was saying, I really enjoyed her excellent teaching style. She was engaging, firm, funny, and kept the class in line and ticking along with what she wanted to accomplish. I was so on her side that when she asked a question and the other students all avoided eye contact, I so badly wanted to answer just to back her up, even though I had no idea what she was asking.

At first Jason and I had stayed in our pew in the chapel, assuming that Sunday School would be in there. A young man, Ruben, came over to meet us and when he found out we were single (or, as he said later, claimed to be single), he told us that this class was for old married people and whisked us away downstairs.

The class had already started when he opened the door, and we walked in the back of a room of twenty or so people. I was startled to see all of the girls sitting on the left side of the room and all of the guys sitting on the right, like the wedding in "Fiddler'," but after introducing us to the class Ruben unabashedly led us to the front row on the girl's side where there were three empty seats together. He turned around to a girl sitting behind us and asked rapidly for something. She handed him her Bible (in Spanish), which he gave to me, gesturing at the scripture reference in Mateo 26 written on the board. I handed it to Jason, since I had my iPhone scriptures with me, and we flipped to the appropriate passages.

After that class, Ruben found the Relief Society president and passed me off to her while he took Jason to Elder's Quorum. Relief Society was back in the chapel, and the woman who had conducted the music in Sacrament meeting immediately took possession of me. She introduced herself as Gloria, then introduced me to every other woman in the room, one by one. Sitting behind us was a row of elderly ladies, and when Gloria ran through each of their names, one dressed in red said, "Your friend is Yak?"

"Yes," I said, nodding (Jason goes by his easier-to-pronounce first name in foreign countries).

She smiled. "He is very beautiful," she said, gesturing to her face. She and her friends all broke into giggles like middle schoolers. I agreed with them.

The president called the group to order then, and as she announced the opening hymn I quickly turned to Gloria and told her I could play the piano.

"You play?" she asked.

I nodded, "Yes, a little," trying to temper my offer since I am certainly not one of those sit-down-and-play-perfectly-on-sight pianists, but she was already flagging down the president and announcing to the group that I could play.

She bustled me to the carved and woefully-out-of-tune piano at the front of the chapel, handed me a Spanish hymnbook, then took her place to lead the music.

I quickly glanced at the music and, seeing the arpeggios, immediately knew which hymn it had to be, even though there were extra notes in the melody to accommodate the different language. I launched into "As I Have Loved You," and the women all sang along.

I swiveled around on the bench for the opening prayer, just like I do at home, then joined Gloria in the audience again. As the president went over the plan for the rest of the meeting, I heard her mention testimonies again.

"After lesson, you will give your testimony," Gloria leaned in to announce to me.

"What?" I stammered. "But... I don't..."

"It's okay," she said, waving her hand dismissively, "You can do it in English. Jesus will understand."

The teacher spoke really, really quickly and cried a lot, so I couldn't pick out much of the lesson. Gloria explained later that it was about not speaking badly about your neighbors. Then came a mini-lesson on what I figured out was visiting teaching when the teacher waved familiar little printed strips of paper around. After she closed her talk, she started handing out the papers and Gloria turned to me.

"Okay, you give your testimony now," and she pushed me up from my seat.

So I did. I went to the front and all of the ladies were beaming at me. I greeted them in Spanish, introduced myself in Spanish, then gave a testimony in simple English. Many seemed to understand me, nodding along encouragingly. I told them the basics of what I believe, of the sameness of the gospel everywhere in the world, and of how much I appreciated Gloria and the others welcoming me and helping me. I closed in Spanish using the phrase I had heard a lot that day, then quickly sat back down next to Gloria, who squeezed my hand.

Just like in sacrament meeting, several people got up to bear their testimonies right when class should have ended. They kept going, though, well past when we heard the men and children clamoring in the hall outside. At 20 minutes after, the president announced the closing hymn and I dove into it, figuring out what song it was a few measures in. When we dismissed, someone opened up the back partition. There were all the men, including Jason and Ruben sitting on the stage, waiting. When I approached them, Ruben exclaimed, "Amanda! You play the piano! That is so good!"

Ruben, Gloria, and some of the girls from the Sunday School class chatted quickly in Spanish, then invited us to join them for lunch. We gladly abandoned our plans for the afternoon and followed them out, pausing to take a group picture in front of the building, as you saw.

The group walked to a square a few blocks down and hailed two cabs. Gloria rode with Jason and me while the other four piled into the second cab. We rode across the river to a more modern part of town and pulled up in front of a big rotisserie chicken restaurant.

Ruben, Alejandra, and Luce had claimed a table on the second level, and Gloria ordered pollo, papas, and ensalade for everyone. Jason and Ruben managed to catch the waiter and get him to drop her order from half a chicken each ("Good to take home!" she had extolled) to a quarter of a chicken.

We ate, chatted, and had a grand time. If I thought it was strange going to church in pants (I had a skirt with me, but it was far too cold to wear), it was even more strange to sit in a restaurant after church with a bunch of Mormons, two of whom were extolling the virtues of mate de cocoa tea. Gloria works in insurance, as does her daughter Alejandra. Her husband is working in Salt Lake City, but he's coming home to visit in a few months. Her sister, Nella, lives nearby and Ruben and Luce are both originally from Cuzco and are studying at the university in Arequipa.

They were a delightful and kind group. We exchanged email addresses and Gloria insisted on ordering us a cab back to the Plaza de Armas. We bade them farewell amidst a flurry of hugging, kissing, and hand-shaking, then Jason and I were back on our own again.

We had a tricky time booking the tour we needed to find for the next day since most of the travel agencies in town were closed by the time we got back from lunch, but we both agreed that going to church and meeting those people was completely worth the hassle. We did manage to find a tour, as you know, and after getting that settled we had just enough time to go through the Santa Catalina convent.

When we got inside, a tour guide offered to show us around. She explained that we could either join a group in French that was leaving right away, or wait 30 minutes for a tour in English. It was pretty close to closing, so we opted for the French tour. Jason asked if I minded not being able to understand everything, and I pointed out that that's been the case for the last two weeks for me.

The guide was good - she spoke clearly with deliberate gestures. I followed along with a lot of it, and Jason was nice enough to summarize the parts I missed in a whisper as we walked from place to place. It was actually a relief to hear French after so much Spanish, even though my French is so rusty.

The convent itself was beautiful. It's a city-within-a-city, and the narrow alleyways are painted bright red or blue with flying buttresses arching overhead and lots of flowers. We were both delighted and disappointed to learn that on Tuesdays and Thursdays they stay open late so you can roam the convent by candlelight. Alas, our schedule would not let that be!

We spent a bit more time looking at the creepy Cuzco School artwork in the gallery before exiting back into the city to find dinner at a restaurant across the street called Chicha.

It was, all in all, a perfectly delightful Sabbath day.

In Which I Play Dress Up

This morning was bus trip #2, and while I was working very hard at not having a repeat of yesterday's adventures (and I succeeded! By taking Dramamine with breakfast and then sleeping through most of the curvy parts! Although I did wake up desperate to go to the bathroom but couldn't because we were on a cheaper bus, which means they pull over to the side of the road to pick up people the whole way and when I tried to go to the bathroom I couldn't even get down the stairs because old ladies in fluffy skirts and shawls were sitting on every step and on the floor and there wasn't any way I was going to get to the bathroom unless I stepped directly on the abuelas and although I considered it for a moment I ultimately decided I wasn't that desperate and instead held it until we got to the bus terminal where there was a really long line for an even grosser bathroom and when it was my turn another lady who barely came up to my waist came barreling through and shoved me against the wall and took my stall and thus ends this terribly long parenthetical summarizing bus trip #2) while I was working very hard at not having a repeat of yesterday's adventures, Jason was blogging merrily away via his Blackberry. I'm pretty sure he wasn't actually singing "Tra, la, la!" while he typed and checked his email and read a Kindle book, but my resentfully-motion-sick-and-grumpy-early-morning brain added that soundtrack while I was banned from all literary/vomitary activities and was forced to look out the window at more snow-capped mountains and yet another herd of llamas.

Actually the llamas were pretty adorable. And look! We didn't hit any!



This is all to say that Jason was able to post a wonderful entry this morning telling you about our arrival in Puno and how we met Sylvestre. As such, I am going to skip that part and get right to the island.

While the Islas Uros is most definitely a tourist trap, our guide Walter was enthusiastic and funny, and I enjoyed the demonstration they gave about how the floating islands on Lake Titicaca work. Here's a sample:



After the explanation, Walter gave us time to explore the little island. Almost immediately a woman came over, grabbed my wrist, and said, "Come, I show you my house."

Walking on the island felt like walking across an inflated raft, so I tried to keep my balance as she pulled me across to one of the reed huts. I ducked my head to go through the low doorway, and she showed me her belongings lining the walls. She patted her chest and said, "Yo soy Madeline."

"Madeline," I repeated. "Pretty! Yo soy Amanda."

"Amanda," she repeated thoughtfully. Then she pulled a bright pink skirt off the wall. "You wear this."

At first I thought she had mixed up her pronouns, so by the time I started to protest she was pulling the skirt over my head and turning me around to zip up the back. I barely managed to take off my jacket and purse before she wrestled my arms into the bright green embroidered jacket she also pulled from the wall.

It was quite the feat. Jason and I had been absolutely freezing all day, so at the time I was wearing five layers of clothes. Madeline was determined, though, and she tugged the sleeves on over my bulky sweaters. She draped a set of the pompoms they tie to the ends of their braids around my neck, plopped a tiny hat on my head, and announced, "Okay, now picture."

I dutifully handed her my camera and she pulled me outside so we could catch the last bit of sunlight for the photos. Jason was nearby photographing the lake, and when I called out to him he did a double take, then immediately raised his camera, too. I took my camera from Madeline and asked her to pose with me, which she gladly did:



Once I handed back her clothes, Madeline insisted I come look at her embroidery which, of course, she tried very hard to sell to me. I said no as nicely as I could and managed to escape when Walter called me over to another part of the island.

As Jason mentioned, Walter had taken a shining to me for some reason. We bonded on the boat ride to the island while Jason was up on the roof, and since then he constantly directed his presentations at me, even in front of the rest of the group ("Amanda, see how they use the reeds for the boat?" "Amanda, you see the hotel over there?" "Amanda, this lake is 50 meters deep," and so on).

So when Walter called, "Amanda, come see the reed boat," I gratefully broke away from Madeline. I declined Walter's offer to ride the reed boat (for an extra 8 soles), and instead had a few minutes to look around myself. Happily, I managed to spy a little bit of real life on the tourist-trap island:



As the sun set, Walter called "Amanda, time to get on the boat," and we piled in to return to Puno.

I joined Jason on the roof on our way back and we watched the lights of the city on the water. It was beautiful, and it was bitterly cold. We made mental notes to remember this temperature when we go to India in a few summers before climbing back down the ladder to disembark.

The tour Sylvestre set up included a transfer back to the hotel, but we requested instead to be dropped off at the Plaza de Armas so we could find something more substantial too eat. All we had eaten so far that day was a few Ritz crackers and the white-bread-and-grilled-squeaky-cheese sandwich we bought and quickly devoured on the pier before the boat tour, so we figured we would splurge on dinner. We were joined by a trio of American backpackers we met on the tour, and while they were a bit more adventurous with their orders (alpaca steak), Jason and I played it safe with our weakened constitutions and got good, familiar pasta. I also ordered a hot chocolate, which they served bitter with a bowl of sugar so I could sweeten it to my liking. My liking was mostly clutching the warm cup in my numb hands, but the chocolate was also good.

After splitting up the check we bid the other travelers farewell and walked back to our hotel after dinner. In our room we put on as many layers of clothes as we could, crawled under the covers, and went to sleep early.

The next morning was still bitterly cold, and I mustered all of my resolve to dash from under my covers to the bathroom when the alarm when off. There I followed the directions on the wall to turn on the hot water, except the hot water never came. I stood there shivering with a towel wrapped around me like a shawl, holding my hand under the running water until I could no longer feel my fingers. I gave up then and instead quickly washed my face in the sink and put back on all my layers of clothing. Since there had been no hot water at the place we stayed the day before and since we had another long bus ride ahead, I could only hope that I was not too stinky for Jason. Fortunately, the rules of eating garlic also apply to not showering: if everybody does it, no one's allowed to complain about the smell.

I went downstairs to breakfast while Jason was still getting ready. I was determined to be good and eat something before the bus ride, so when the hotel proprietress, Jenny, came over to greet me with a hug and a kiss and rattled off a very fast list of what she could make me for breakfast, I latched onto the only word I recognized: huevos.

She whipped up a batch of scrambled eggs with onion and ham which I dutifully ate, along with two really tasty rolls, some fresh-squeezed orange juice, and some wonderfully hot mate de coca tea. Jason joined me at the table, and Jenny greeted him with a kiss and a hug, too.

Puno is really not a great town. For all of the tourists Lake Titicaca attracts, the town itself is run-down, dank, and dirty. Jenny, though, is a bright spot. I gladly forgive the lack of heat or hot water in return for this woman who treated us more hospitably and more sweetly than any hotel or hostel I've ever stayed at. For example, as we were leaving she insisted on one last hug and then handed us each a bar of chocolate.

We're in Arequipa now, in a hostel housed in an old sprawling Spanish colonial hacienda. We have a double room with a vaulted ceiling, painted brick walls, and huge wooden doors that open windows onto flowered patios. For the first time on this trip we have a room I feel like we can breath in, but although I love the atmosphere of this place, I'm sad that I don't get to have another breakfast with Jenny.


Our Arequipa room


People eating breakfast on the street in Puno

=
Jason on the roof of the boat on Lake Titicaca


Bundled up on the boat


Reed hut and boat


Mate de coca at Jenny's hotel (which, by the way, is the Kusillo Posada)

Bus Ride of DOOOOM!

(Warning: Detailed Grossness Ahead)

About one hour into our bus ride from Cuzco to Puno, I really needed to use the bathroom. I knew the conditions were not going to be that great - we were on a bus, after all, and if their choice of movie entertainment was any indication of taste, the bathroom was not going to be pretty. I waited until it looked like there was a long, straight road ahead, then crawled awkwardly over the dozing Jason and made my way down the double decker's narrow stairs to the first level.

The bathroom was right there, but the "Occupado" sign was illuminated. No problem, I thought, I'll just wait.

I braced myself between the wall handles, the stairs, and the exit door and waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited.

We started up a canyon at some point and the road became more twisty. Thankfully, I could see over the driver's companion's head and through the front window from my waiting spot, so I kept an eye on the road and tried to quell the motion sickness.

After 10 minutes, I started knocking on the door. No answer.

I tried the handle. It was definitely locked.

I was just trying to scrape together a semi-Spanish request to the driver ("Disculpa? Bano? Yo rest aqui vente minutes? Bano occupado mais no personne respondez y yo desperado. Por favor?") when the door to the first-level passengers opened. I was thrilled to see a blond backpacker girl poke her head through and even more thrilled when she said in English, "Oh, is it occupied?"

I had a comrade in arms! "I don't know," I said desperately, "but I've been waiting for 20 minutes."

"Oh, my!" she said. She also tried knocking and when there was no answer asked, "Have you asked the driver for help?"

"Not yet," I said. "I was just about to."

She pulled the curtain aside and rattled off something to the driver in fluent Spanish. His companion responded, then crawled through the tunnel with a key and unlocked the bathroom door to reveal an empty room.

"Oh, gracias, gracias!" I said to the man and the backpacker.

"Good thing we asked!" she said.

"Good thing you know Spanish!" I said.

I ducked inside the bathroom. The process took a bit longer than usual since 1) I was acutely aware of the girl waiting outside and wanted to hurry for her sake but that just makes it harder to relax and 2) the bus was now fully lurching side to side down a canyon road and I had to brace my feet and hold onto the handles that were attached to every wall and try to do what I needed to without actually touching anything because Ew. Ew. Ew.

30 minutes after I had started the journey to the bathroom, I emerged grossed-out but victorious and made my way back up the stairs.

An hour later I was very, very glad that I had made sure the bathroom was accessible. Since then I had grown more and more nauseous. I had my VomitWatch cranked up as high as it could go, I took some Dramamine, I took deep breaths and tried to watch the road through the foggy, damp window, but I just got more and more sick to my stomach.

Finally, things came to a head and I desperately flung myself over Jason, raced down the stairs, wrenched open the bathroom door, and barely had time to wedge my knees against the walls for the curves and pull the door shut behind me before I threw up what little I had in my stomach.

I rinsed out my mouth as best I could with the water bottle I was clutching, went back upstairs, and dropped into the seat next to Jason.

"Ca va?" he asked.

"No," I replied, unable to muster up the poise to pretend I was fine.

Now, while I do get motion sick very easily, it's extremely rare for it to be as bad as that. So as I tried to go to sleep to avoid getting sicker, I thought about what I could blame this on.

Granted, I did break one of my (now cardinal) rules of avoiding motion sickness - I was traveling on an empty stomach. Knowing how that makes me more vulnerable, I had eaten a granola bar before we pulled out of the terminal in Cuzco. It was not enough and I knew it, but we didn't have time to get a proper breakfast and the rolls we had bought the night before just looked and smelled disgusting in the early morning bus terminal.

No, there had to be another culprit. Sadly, I couldn't blame the cuy anymore, since it had been two days. But then I remembered what we had both ordered on a whim the night before.

We had dinner at a place with a prix fix menu. The dinner was actually very good - taquinos and guacamole for a starter, and I had some delicious and filling spaghetti bolognese for the main course. The waitress had rattled off a list of beverage options and since pisco was out we decided to be adventurous. We picked a drink that, as best Jason could translate, was a) made from corn, b) not made with alcohol, and c) delicious, at least according to the waitress.

Yes, I thought as I clutched my stomach and looked out at the rainy mountain road. It had to be the drink. We both had it, and, as Jason explained in his entry, he was having similar issues that morning. Grimly I recalled the sight of the drink when it first arrived at our table:


Behold the Frothy Pink Drink of DOOM!

Oh, don't be deceived by the pinkalicious-like appearances. It tasted like Pixie Stix and ground-up Pez, and, in retrospect, they probably used tap water to mix it. And as we all know, tap water = DOOM!

Yes. It wasn't my genetic motion-sickness or my lack of morning preparation. Like Gertrude, the drink, the drink's to blame; and I spent the remainder of the bus ride eating a Ritz cracker very slowly and shaking my mental fist at the Frothy Pink Drink.

Of DOOOOM!

Oh, By The Way

That last entry was entry #1000 for my blog.

Huzzah!

So Cold!

2 sweaters
2 shirts
Jeans
2 socks
1 scarf
5 blankets

It's 39 degrees outside and the Peruvians don't use heat. Brr!

Lake Titicaca!

A Stroke of Brilliance

When the passengers disembarked the train at Ollantaytambo, the line for the ladies' room at the terminal was a mile long since the bathroom on board had been occupied for the fasshion show.

But then!

One of the train attendants was waiting at the door to the men's room. When the last mman stepped out, he checked inside, then turned to the long line of ladies and saI, "It's all yours."

"Whoosh!" went half the line into the other bathrooms.

How brilliant is that?

On Traveling South for the Summer

It's really weird to go from being burned scarlet at Machu Picchu to being so cold in Cuzco that wearing a shirt, a sweater, a scarf, and a jacket isn't enough.

It is, however, delightfully European-esque to walk on cobblestone streets in misty rain sprinkles that makes the air smell like snow.

A Low-Key Day in Cuzco

After our adventures at Machu Picchu, Jason and I took a slower day today to enjoy Cuzco. We dropped laundry off down the street and found a restaurant called Victor Victoria for brunch. It was pretty good, but it took 90 minutes for us to get our lunch, a caprese hamburger for me, fried pork and potatoes for Jason, and fried plantains to share. We are discovering that restaurant service in Peru is very slow, as you saw with the anxiety-riddled breakfast before Machu Picchu.

The next stop was the bus station to arrange for our transport to Puno tomorrow. Once that was accomplished, we got in another cab to go to the Sacsaywaman ruins at the top of the hills.

After some misdirection (the driver went right past the entrance and instead of pulling a U-turn, he threw the car in reverse and backed up a half-mile to where we were supposed to get off), we had our Boleto Touristicos punched and went inside the park.

The Sacsaywaman ruins (or, as I called it in my head, the Sacajawea ruins)(that is, I called it that until the Lonely Planet guidebook said to just think of it as "Sexy Woman," which, while strange, helped) are the remains of an Incan military fortress. I had my doubts about seeing more ruins after the introduction to them at Ollantaytambo and the spectacle of Machu Picchu, but these were surprising cool. The walls of the fortress are made of humongous granite stones. And I do mean huge - ranging from two feet to over eight feet tall! The fortress is made up of three terraces built in a zig-zag pattern to break up attacking forces and to imitate the jaws of a puma.

What was even more amazing was learning that the stones we saw are only about 20% of what was there originally. Once the Spaniards conquered, most of the rocks were hauled away for building in the city below.

We took a lot of pictures, watched llamas grazing on the terrace below, and walked around the site before accidentally visiting the Cruz Moqo while trying to find the trail back down the hill.

Down the steep cobble-stone steps we went, following a stream and passing a stray llama as we descended back into town. The steep street opened up onto a plaza with the Pre-Columbian Art Museum, which was on on our to-do list for the day. We bought tickets and followed the red line painted on the brick floor around the prescribed path through the museum.

It was much better than I expected. To begin with, the museum is housed in a Spanish conquistador's mansion built in 1580. The artifacts are nicely displayed, too, lining the walls in glass cases with low lighting. I was expecting artifacts like the ones in the less-interesting parts of American art museums, but there were some really stunning pieces of pottery here. There was one hallway of paintings from the Cuzco school (i.e. Spanish Catholic) and after the personality and the craftsmanship of the ancient Peruvian jars, the paintings of a bleeding Christ and saintly Mary seemed even sillier than usual. Also, they keep painting Christ in a lace skirt when he's on the cross. I'm not sure what's up with that.

We walked further down the hill from there and were surprised to find some street food vendors, which had been pretty scarce up until now. Their sudden appearance made a lot more sense, though, when we came upon the main square and walked right into a massive parade.

There were thousands of people in the Plaza de Armas, lining the streets and park, sitting on the steps to the Cathedral, and leaning out on the balconies above the restaurants and travel agencies. On wooden platforms carried by anywhere from 20 to 60 men rode huge, dressed-up statues of various saints. Each saint was accompanied by its own marching band, and they were being taken out through the giant green doors of the main Cathedral and marched around the square. Worshippers, tourists, little kids, and street vendors hawking popcorn, Jell-o, and fried pork rinds walked in-between and alongside each of the saints, and there we were in the middle of it.

We watched the parade for a while, then went inside the other cathedral in the square. Since everyone was out watching the saints go marching, we had the place mostly to ourselves. We looked at the incredibly Baroque altar, the really creepy statues, and some more paintings of Christ dying in a lace slip before climbing up a ladder-staircase to the choir loft. We followed the sound of the marching bands outside to discover a balcony overlooking the plaza. With that excellent (albeit chilly) view, we watched the crowds and the saints below.

Here, see for yourself:


This saint was one of my favorites because
a) There are so many men carrying him
b) They apparently did some drinking prior to the parade
c) Said drinking made them much more interesting group to watch than the somber-suited and highly regimented saint groups that came before and after
d) Their marching band had the sheet music attached to their backs, and
e) I have no idea which saint it is, but you have to love a guy who's clutching a palm tree and riding a sparkly-fish-filled wave.

When the sun set and the temperature dropped enough that my sweater and scarf and his fleece weren't cutting it, we went back downstairs and cut through the parade route again in search of those food vendors selling bamboo skewers with grilled garlic chicken and a small potato on top. Deliciousness in hand, we circled back around to pick up our laundry and return to our hotel.

Which brings me to the present! We're sitting in the little dinning room in the hotel. The window does little to block out the cold air and the noise of the marching bands that are still playing in the Plaza a block away. My fingers are frozen, but my blog is caught up, and today was yet another good day.

On Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is certainly not the easiest to get to. Even if you get yourself to Cuzco, you still either trek your way across the mountains on the Inca Trail (3 days, $500+) or have to get a train/car to Aguas Callientes (3 hours, $100+), a hotel for the night ($10+), a bus to the site (30 minutes, $8), and the entrance ticket ($45).

It really does take a lot of time and money to get there.

It's also totally worth it.

We woke up just before the early morning train announced its arrival outside our window with a piercing whistle. Because you can't take food into Machu Picchu itself and the only restaurant at the site is outrageously overpriced ($13 bottle of water anyone?), we decided to get a solid breakfast in town before catching the bus up the mountain.

We went to the only open restaurant, placed our orders for pancakes, eggs, juice, and hot chocolate, and sat back to wait for our food. And waited, and waited, and waited. When it finally came, it really wasn't that great. Still, we were both grateful for it later in the day.

The bus ride up to Machu Picchu was 30 minutes of tight switchbacks with absolutely stellar views of mist-wrapped mountains. We made one last bathroom stop (there's no bathrooms inside), and climbed the stairs to the gate. Once we had Ciro and our little tour group put together, we had our tickets stamped and checked our bigger bags for the day.

Ciro led us up the winding path to the high point for our first views of Machu Picchu. I was pretty quick to like Ciro when he noticed I was out of breath about half-way up the stairs. He stopped and said to the four of us, "We will rest for a moment because you are on vacation and you should relax and enjoy your vacation. You should enjoy Macchu Picchu. Take a moment and open your heart and open your hands to Machu Picchu and take it in." Which was a very gracious way to give me the moment I needed.

Ciro showed us our first view of Machu Picchu, and it is stunning. I'll post some of the hundred or so photos I took on my iPhone sometime (but not tonight, it's getting late). It's one of those places you just have to see in person. Learning about the Incas from Ciro was fascinating, especially their mythology, their architecture, and their astronomy.

Ciro showed us a rock carved to indicate the cardinal directions. He pulled his digital camera many times on the tour to show us things like what the Temple of the Sun looks like at Summer Solstice or the snow-capped mountains that were covered in fog when we were there. This time he flipped through his pictures to one of an iPhone held against the rock and apologized for it being hard to see the phone's display. I suddenly realized what he was showing us, and I whipped out my iPhone and opened the compass app. Ciro was delighted that I had one, and took my phone to show us that the rock does indeed point due south.

Other groups gathered around my iPhone to see, and I swelled with pride that my iPhone had made Ciro so happy. Then Ciro asked if I had the "Star App". I figured out he meant Sky Walk, which I had just downloaded... to my iPad. Which was in the luggage storage outside. I told him no, sadly, and he looked so crushed that Jason laughed at how quickly I fell from glory.
After Jason and I reunited again and toured the parts of the site he had missed or we hadn't been, we picked a spot on one of the terraces, sat on the grass, and just looked around. It reminded me of when we sat on a bench in a park in Istanbul and just looked at the Hagia Sofia. There are some places that you can see in pictures or in movies, but it's just so much more breath-takingly stunning in person you can look at it for hours and still not be done. That terrace is one of my favorite places in the world now, and I was reluctant to go, despite the pressing needs of my bladder.

Oh, also? There were llamas:



On the train ride back to Ollantaytamb, I was wondering what I would do with myself for 90 minutes when I could't read and it was too dark to see out the windows. The announcement recording welcomed us back onboard and said, "We hope your trip to Machu Picchu was magical, and we want to make the magic continue."

I thought that the pasta salad they gave us as a snack was pretty magical, since that slow breakfast was a long time ago at that point, but shortly after the meal service ended, the bathroom door at the end of the car burst open and one of the stewards jumped out dressed like an Incan mythological creature:




And then the other stewards put on a fashion show. No, really, I kid you not:

Of course, they proceeded to pass out catalogues and try to sell the clothes, but they were so tongue-in-cheek about it and it was such a strange and silly way to wrap up an exhausting and powerful day, that we couldn't help but laugh at it.

Well, at least when it was over we did. At the time, Jason's expression was more like this:


We got back Cuzco just after 9:00, dusty, exhausted, and starving. So we treated ourselves to dinner at what was touted to be the best restaurant in town. Still feeling adventurous, we ordered an appetizer of guinea pig on polenta. I was not a fan of it, and in fact felt even more not great as the night went on. Jason claims that it couldn't possibly be the cuy, since he felt fine; however, rather than blaming the excellent-tasting calamari appetizer or my delicious prosciutto sandwich (or, for that matter, the hours of hiking without food or water followed by a bus ride, a train ride, and a van ride), I choose to blame the cuy.

(For the complete story, you really should read this as well.)

On Speaking Spanish

Jason has been doing a spectacular job with his Spanish on this trip. He learned Spanish while he was on an extended trip in Guatemala a few years ago (a trip that has also proven immensely useful for this trip in his knowing how to navigate things like transportation and Lonely Planet guidebooks), and he's retained enough of it to be able to converse with a cab driver about Inca monuments, the Latino populations in the US, and the driver's son who went to Colorado last year. There is the occasional "Oui, si, si," which I love, since I'm constantly defaulting here to either French or Russian, but overall we've had a much easier time getting around thanks to him despite his frustrated "Jeez! Why can't everyone just speak French?!" exclamation a few days ago.

This is, of course, in contrast to my own Spanish skills, which come from one half-credit of Spanish for Teachers I took two years ago and whatever I picked up from Sesame Street.

I can actually understand about 70% of what's being said, but I'm just not there yet to respond outside of the very basic "Si" or "Non, gracias". Jason keeps catching me talking to myself, reading signs out loud and repeating phrases under my breath as I try to get the sound of Spanish into my mouth. Despite studying so many different languages and traveling in so many different places, I'm still held back by the fear of making too many mistakes, of not getting the accent right, and of just not being as good as Jason. Which is ridiculous of me, since I know very well that a) just diving in and talking is how you learn and b) the vast majority of people in this world are patient and kind when someone at least tries to speak their language.

Over our incredibly slow breakfast before going to Machu Picchu we sat across from an older couple. The man was quite friendly and struck up a conversation almost immediately after we sat down. He is from Peru but now lives in Florida; and he and his wife had come back to visit Machu Picchu. Jason asked if they had hiked up there or taken the bus. "Oh, the bus," the man replied, "Me, I would have loved to hike but my wife..." he trailed off, indicating his wife who shook her head emphatically and said, "No, no hiking for me."

It was the only thing she said in the entire conversation. She listened and smiled and nodded her head and obviously understood what we were talking about, but she was obviously just as shy about her English as I am with my Spanish. Which, combined with the husband's restricted yearning to climb that mountain made me turn to Jason after the other couple left and say, "It's another version of us!"

We laughed about it, and even found another parallel couple at Machu Picchu. We hired a guide to take us on a two-hour tour of the site, joining up with a young couple from India, Yessica and Sujoy, to get a cheaper per person rate. As Ciro showed us the sites and the best places for photos, Yessica and Jason would unhesitatingly go out on the edge of the rocks to look down at the 8000 foot drop while Sujoy and I stayed as far away from the edge as possible, keeping near constant contact with the rock wall behind us to make sure it was still there, we were still stable.

At one point Ciro hopped up on a rock to tell us about... something. I honestly can't remember what he was talking about because all I could think was "The edge! The edge! Your foot is right there, your shoe is a millimeter over! A breeze could knock you off! For Pete's sake, get away from the edge!" Which is why I was so relieved when Sujoy interrupted Ciro mid-sentence to say desperately, "Please, please step back." He did, chuckling, and I could suddenly pay attention to what he was saying again, as, I'm sure, could Sujoy.

I can't help it. Heights like that terrify me - If there isn't a solid wall or at least a railing of some kind between me and the drop-off, I look over the edge and the whole world tilts and I have to look away and grab onto something solid until the dizziness passes. Between that and my absolute lack of athleticism, I knew I was holding Jason back. So when we got to the other side of the site and Ciro pointed out the ticket gate for the trail up Waynu Picchu, I knew there would be a gleam in Jason's eyes before I even looked at him. Ciro called over to one of the guards, and the guard reported that there were still some passes left (they only allow 400 people per day on the trail). Ciro passed the news on to us, then resumed talking about the types of animals the Incas domesticated.

I kept watching Jason while Ciro talked, and I could tell that this time it was Jason who couldn't hear a word Ciro was saying. He was positively twitching at the thought of doing that hike. Finally, when Ciro paused for a moment, Jason jumped in and announced that he was going to go on the hike.

"You are?" Ciro looked pleased, Yessica looked jealous, and Sujoy looked mystified.

"Yup!' Jason announced, already backing away from the group and towards the gate.

"Are you going?" Sujoy asked me.

"Nope," I said cheerfully. Jason and I quickly negotiated the return meeting point and time and he bid the group good-bye. As we left the area, Ciro asked me anxiously, "He will be okay? He has his Machu Picchu ticket?"

"Oh, he's fine," I said. "No worries."

"And you two will go off alone like this?" Sujoy asked, incredulous.

"Sure, why not?" I replied.

We continued the tour through the residences and the Temple of the Condor. Ciro wrapped up the tour on a ledge between the terraces and the temple, giving me a big hug (we had bonded over my iPhone, but that's another story). Yessica asked for one last picture and she handed her camera to Ciro and beckoned me to join them.


"Oh, me too?" I asked.

"Of course!" Sujoy exclaimed, putting his arm around my waist when I joined them.

After they left I people-watched for a while, eavesdropping on different tour groups in different languages, then walked through some of the places we hadn't visited on the tour, exploring empty rooms and corridors. I got back to our rendezvous point just before 1:00 and had barely pulled out my phone to send some pictures out when Jason came through the gate, pink-cheeked and beaming.

"You're early!" I exclaimed, since the hike was supposed to take two hours.

"Yup!" he said, "30 minutes up, 30 minutes to look around, 30 minutes back!"

He told me all about the hike - the practically vertical climb, the tunnel you had to crawl through on your stomach, the view from the top. As we walked back towards the Temple of the Sun and I recapped the rest of Ciro's tour for him, we ran into Sujoy and Yessica. lounging on a terrace.

"How was the hike?" they asked, and as Jason told them about his speed and the type of climbing required, Sujoy remarked, "Wow, you must be in really great shape!"

I told Jason later about their comments when he took off, Yessica's thinly-veiled longing to go with him and Sujoy's relief to not have to. Jason laughed and said that maybe we should pair off differently, that Sujoy and me and Yessica and him would make more sense.

I laughed too. It probably would make more sense that way. But then again, without Jason as a traveling companion I wouldn't have hiked up the Ollantaytambo ruins or seen the view and the awesome rocks at Sacsaywaman today or ridden in a collectivo or even attempted to negotiate in Spanish with cab drivers and guides for good deals. So while my accent may be horrible and my hiking may be slow, I am going to keep trying, and I am certainly not going to be so afraid of what I can't do that I won't let my amazingly patient friend run up a mountain when he can.

He Must Be Referring to My Child-Bearing Hips

I'm getting a surprising amount of action here in Peru.

First, as I told you before, there was the fellow who fell into my lap on the train.

Then a stranger got a little friendly with me last night. We were riding from Ollantaytambo back to Cuzco in a collectivo (a real one this time, not just some guy's car, an actual van packed full of people!) and it was my turn to sit in the middle and watch the protective saints swing from the rear-view mirror. Jason was on my left enjoying the view of the stars out his window while listening to opera on his iPod and there were two older Peruvian men on my right, one next to me and one sitting on the ledge behind the front passenger seat facing out the side door. I was totally engrossed in listening to an episode of The Tobolowsky Files and enjoying the thoughtful peacefulness when I suddenly felt a hand on my thigh.

The fellow riding backwards had leaned in to talk to his friend sitting next to me. He had put his hand on his friend's leg to keep his balance while they talked, except he missed and was accidentally grasping my leg instead. I think it was an accident, at least. It was really dark after all.

He sat back after a minute and I had just started to relax again when I felt an arm against my leg and a head on my shoulder. The friend to the right kept dozing off through the rest of the ride and he slumped further and further against me each time his head nodded forward.

To top all of this off, Jason and I were standing in Plaza de Armas this morning consulting a guidebook for suggestions for breakfast. A salesman approached, as they always do there, offering to sell us Alpaca sweaters.

"No, gracias," we both said, and proceeded to ignore him. That usually works, but this fellow was not going to leave us yet.

"Where you from?" he asked.

"The United States," Jason replied, keeping his eyes on the guidebook so as to not engage further.

The guy turned to me and looked me up and down. "You are strong, very strong," he said, clenching his fist in illustration.

We both looked up from the guidebook at that one.

The guy sidled up to me and indicated Jason. "Your husband?"

"No," I said.

"Ah!" he said, raising an eyebrow at me. "That's good. You strong." He indicated the two of us, "Amigos?"

"Si," Jason replied.

The guy turned to me. "Amigos?" he said in a different tone.

"Si, si," I said, assuming he wanted me to confirm what Jason had said. I was confused then when the guy broke into an even bigger smile, said something in Spanish to Jason, and insisted on shaking both of our hands. He then tried again to sell us the sweaters again, rubbing the wool against his cheek and then aiming for mine. We broke away at that, barely containing our laughter as we crossed the Plaza.

"You realize what he meant by 'amigos,' right?" Jason asked.

"Friends?" I asked.

"Maybe the first time. But the second time he said 'amigos' with a suggestive intonation, in quotation marks, and you confirmed it. He thinks we're engaged or something!"

Which is probably a good thing for me, I pointed out, since he seemed to be sizing me up for himself.

Besides, who wouldn't want a good strong woman like me?

So tired...

We survived, hiked, conquered, and loved Machu Picchu.

We are no longer starving to death, but we are dusty and tired. As such, tonight will be for the showers and the beds, and the blogging will have to wait.

And, oh, what blogging there shall be!

And Good-Bye Jason!

(He needed to accomplish something.)

Hello From Machu Picchu!

Photos! Car, Olly, and AC

On the car ride to Olly



Also on the ride to Olly



Again on the ride to Olly



Yet still on the road



The market in Olly with the ruins behind



Town view from the top



Ruins



"Temples"



Farm view from the top



The chicken burritos



AC



The market next to the train station in AC



Plaza in AC



The view from our hotel window



Our hotel room in AC (and no, it's not "matrimonial" - you just can't see my bed)

From Cuzco to Aguas Callientes

We are sitting in a cafe in Aguas Callietes, the town at the foot of Machu Picchu. I have a cold bottle of water and Jason's got chamomile tea sitting next to our respective computers. The sun's already set behind the cloud-covered jungle-ish mountains all around us.

This town exists solely for tourists. The window to my right looks onto the main plaza, and we keep flinching as two little girls in navy blue school uniforms toss a yellow rubber ball right next to us on the other side of the glass. Beyond them is a fountain with a taller-than-life statue of an Incan chief, flanked at its base by two painted statues of Inca women, one red one blue. The other patrons in the cafe are all gringos, as are most of the people walking through the plaza.

Still, it's fun to be in a town like this. The mountains are just as mist-covered as the pictures promised, and the effort it takes to get here elevates the whole experience.

We found the PeruRail office in the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco this morning after circling clockwise around the entire square. There weren't many tickets left (whoops), and there certainly weren't any of the Backpacker Train (i.e. cheap) left for today, so we got two tickets on the Vistadome Train out of Ollantaytambo, a town 60 miles NW of Cuzco.

So now we needed to get to Olly (as I will nickname it henceforward, since, like my attempts to say "Thank You" in Turkish, I tend to stick imaginary syllables in the middle of the word). We downsized our luggage for a one-night trip and dropped our bags off at the hotel we are going to stay at when we return to Cuzco before hailing a cab to take us to the street where we were told the collectivos waited.

The cab driver dropped us off next to an alleyway and a man stuck his head in the cab door before we could gather our bags. Jason asked about a ride to Olly and the man said, "Si, si!" and beckoned us to follow.

We did and found ourselves in what might have been somebody's backyard and certainly was a dirt parking lot for cars in various stages of disrepair and at least seven men in button-down shirts and black pants, all of whom seemed to be offering rides.

The original guy explained what we wanted while Jason tried to both confirm and clarify, since we had been expecting the vans we kept seeing drive groups of people around town. When Jason asked, "Where are the busses?" the men would collectively reply, "Si, si" and go back to arguing muy rapido while pointing at each other, the cars, and us with both hands.

Finally the Mexican Standoff-without-guns came to an apparent conclusion when one of the guys directed us to get into the white sedan on our left. It didn't feel like a kidnapping, so we did as we were told. We slid into the backseat and were promptly squished by a scruffy-looking gringo who spoke fluent Spanish appearing out of nowhere and sliding in on the other side. A local guy (at least I assume he was a local, since we stopped outside his house for a few minutes on our way out of the town) hopped in shotgun and we pulled away. Kind of. We actually sat in the lot for 5 minutes of waiting for another car to move out of the alleyway, which prompted a lot more Spanish yelling. But then we pulled out and were on our way.

Once we got on the road proper, it was a great trip with windows rolled down and my hair blown all about. I frequently leaned out the window to try to get a better picture of the mountains we were driving through, only to pull back inside suddenly whenever the driver passed another car on a blind corner with a bus coming straight at us. We passed a few small pocket mountain towns, soaring snow-capped peaks, herds of sheep grazing on school basketball courts, women walking past in red-embroidered skirts with large burdens in brightly-woven cloth tied across their shoulders, and, randomly, a rock climbing wall in the middle of nowhere. It felt an awful lot like driving through a back road in the Rockies, and yet nothing like the Rockies at all.

We pulled into Olly on a very bumpy cobblestone road (which didn't help my very full bladder) and paid the driver 25 soles for the 90 minute drive. After a quick run to the nearest bathroom we had just under two hours to explore Olly before we caught our train, so we headed for the ruins we could see on the mountainside ahead of us.

People have been living in Olly since the 13th century, and it was the site of one of the few victories the Incas had against the Spaniards in the 1500s. Of course, the Spaniards returned with four times as many troops and conquered the town thoroughly shortly thereafter, but still! They won one at least.

We crossed through a souvenir market and bought a ticket enter the ruins. They stretched up the steep mountainside in a series of terraces (probably used for farming) with the ruins of a series of stoney rooms and passageways at the foot of the mountain. A river runs next to the ruins and part of it is channeled through the site underneath the ground, appearing as fountains inside the various rooms. It reminded me of Knossos and of the ruins in Mexico on a smaller scale.

When I post pictures of the site (hopefully in the next entry), I want you to keep something very important in mind: There are views from the top of the ruins. Which means that I hiked up there. Yes, hiked! Up very steep and uneven stone stairs and a dirt path with Jason trotting past me reminding me of my pioneer genetics in what he thought was a very encouraging way.

From the top we looked down on the town, the patchwork quilt farmland, and the Peruvian middle school marching band arranging themselves on the terraces to our left, blowing on pan flutes and cow horns and drumming drums to get ready for a Hill Cummorah-type pageant tomorrow. We were in the middle of the Andes, we kept reminding ourselves. How spectacular!

A perilous descent down the mountain later and we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Puka Rumi next to the ruins. We both ordered chicken burritos, and it was delicious! We each received two thick crepes (not tortillas - crepes. They were definitely made that way, although with a different, thicker batter that had basil chopped up into it) and the waitress set a series of clay bowls on our table with cheese, chicken, red beans, tomatoes, a heaping pile of guacamole, and shoestring fries that were so salty and delicious.

We ate and walked downhill alongside the river to the train station and got on the Vistadome train for the 90 minute ride to Aguas Callientes. Although the car had wonderfully large windows, to my dismay our assigned seats were two of the few that faced backwards. The VomitWatch kept it from being horrible, but I missed most of the views because I couldn't look out of the window for more than a few seconds before the nausea became unbearable. I defer to the entry Jason's writing alongside me, since he was able to take in much more of the sights.

The train car was packed full with a group of hikers who had just finished a three-day trek through the mountains from Cuzco. They were such a cluster of hiker stereotypes, from the brassy Australian woman who pulled a bag of squished and decaying bananas from her bag, leaned across our laps with it and called, "Scusi! Scusi!" at the attendant to get rid of it; to the American ex-grad student who talked loudly about his wealthy uncle and house near the beach in Rhode Island; to the young blond girl dressed up like a hippy and yet sharing her bag of peanut M&Ms with everyone in her group. Between them and the blushing young train attendant who lost his balance on one of the corners and fell into my lap (much to the glee of the Aussie), it was quite an entertaining ride.

In Aguas Callientes we hunted for the cheapest place listed in Lonely Planet and found it on the train tracks at the very end of this little town. Jason was positively gleeful as we climbed the steps in the darkness: "I love that it's the last building between us and the jungle!" We got a room for the night, bought our passes for Machu Picchu at the tourist office, and found this Internet cafe to blog, to hydrate, and to plan.

Buenos noches!

P.S. Jason's version, which made me burst out laughing many times in this quiet cafe, can be found here.

Breakfast

After a solid night's sleep (thanks to earplugs, eye-masks, and half a sleeping pill each), we got up on the earlier side and headed to the highly-recommended Jack's Cafe for breakfast. Since we were both starving, these breakfasts hit the spot!

Jason had the Gordo while I had the ham and cheese on toast with a frothy glass of pineapple juice. We also shared a fruit salad.

Yum!

Now we are hanging out waiting for the train ticket place to open. The rest of our plans hang on when we go to Machu Picchu, so fingers crossed!

Photos! Lima Airport and Cusco Day 1

Sunset on the flight from Houston to Lima!



I spy with my Mormon eye...

A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!


The Fateful Hostel Rec Room, Minutes Before Disaster!



Luggage Wrap in Lima Airport!



Andes!



Airplane Snacks!



Cuzco! (Plaza des Armas)



Pollo!



A Gate!



View from our hotel room window at night!



Pastries on a Bed!



Jason taking a picture of the pastries in the closet because the bed background wasn't good enough for him!


And... fin.

The Journey Begins

I must start off by reminding you about Jason's blog. Thanks to work, he has his Blackberry on him and therefore can email/blog as we go. Hence the posts this morning, and hence the fact that you knew that he had recovered his passport before I knew.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When last I left you, we were in the airport in Houston. After the 6 hour layover, we had a happily uneventful flight to Lima. We watched Rango (strange movie), read, dozed, etc.

We rolled into Lima at 10:30 PM, picked up our luggage (yay!) and went through customs. After adding another stamp to our passports (yay!), we stepped through the doorway into a sea of drivers holding signs.

Really, it was remarkable. There was such a crowd of people pressed against the gates, most of whom were holding signs. I despaired about finding ours in the sea, but happily Jason spotted my name on one of the whiteboard paddles in the crowd.

The driver led us outside, then scurried off to pay for the parking while we waited and enjoyed the cool temperature (66!). He then drove us through the city, pointing out the sights and jamming to American techno.

We arrived at the hostel in Miraflores a little after midnight. By the time we checked in and the clerk led us upstairss to a bunk-bedded dorm room with a green door, it was almost 1 AM. We crept through the other sleeping travelers, set our alarms for 7, and went to sleep.

Dorm sleep tends to be light sleep, so we were both still blearied-eyed the next morning. We ate some "breakfast" provided by the hostel (a piece of white bread and "juice") while waiting for the cab to the airport.

We traced our way back to the airport, taking a different route along the coast (ocean!). It took twice as long as the night before, being rush hour Monday morning. The driver dropped us off at arrivals and we towed our selves and our luggage to the door. "Passporte?" the young guard at the gate asked. He checked mine and waved me through, laughing about my last name ("Si, si, Aguacasa" I replied smiling). As I went inside, I heard Jason call my name in a panicked voice. He had stepped to the side and was frantically going through his bag. I went back out, pointing "mi amigo" out to the guard when he blocked me with his arm.

"My passport," Jason said as I approached, "I can't find my passport."

Duh, duh, DUH!

I gave him my phone and he called the hostel. Sure enough, the front desk checked and found the little black bag in the living room area where we had eaten breakfast. Two hours away. And our fight was leaving in 90 minutes.

With a very Fonzi-like "Hey...!" from the passport guard, I went back inside to ask an agent about changing our tickets. There was quite a line, though, so I went back outside ("Una vez mas!" says the guard) and suggested that Jason go back to the hostel while I tried to change our tickets.

He headed over to the masses of cab drivers and the guard waved me through, scoffing at the idea that he needed to see my passport again.

I spoke to a ticketing agent, and happily we were able to switch to a later flight. I emailed our hotel in Cusco to inform them of the pickup time change and then I went back to the windows near the door and my friendly guard and sat on the window ledge-bench-ish thing and waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited.

It wasn't too bad. I mostly had to work on
1) not obsessively checking my email to see if Jason had reported yet (he had not),
2) not thinking about how much I needed to use the bathrooms that were all located on the other side of security, and
3) learning how to secure luggage in green plastic wrap.

I was right across from one of those wrapping luggage stations, and I watched them wrap a lot of bags while not checking my email.

A little under two hours later I spotted Jason coming up the walk right after getting an email from him saying he was almost there. He seemed to be searching for the door he had left me at, so I stepped up next to the guard and called "Jason!".

"Jason!" the guard immediately echoed, waving at him, too, then grinning triumphantly at me when Jason turned around.

He passed through this time, we got boarding passes printed for the next flight out, and we dashed through security to the gate. Happily, we even had enough time to go to the bathroom.

And so we settled in for our flight to Cusco, relieved and a bit high from the adrenaline rush.

The flight was lovely. Once we got out of the Lima fog, we could see the Andes mountains the entire way there. Despite being a short flight, they handed out drinks and snacks (Ritz crackers!), prompting Jason to point out how yet again a third-world country does a better job treating people than ours does.

The plane descended onto Cusco through a series of figure eights (Vomit Watch Level 4!) and stellar views.

We landed, claimed our bags, and looked for our pickup from the hotel to no avail. I had no idea if they had gotten my series of emails from the morning, but since we didn't see my name on any of the signs, we accepted a ride from the guy who flashed a very fancy-looking badge to prove his taxi officialness.

He spent the cab ride trying to talk us into coming to his travel agency to get free information about tours. His partner was actually waiting for us in front of our hotel and followed us inside, determined to get us to come listen to their spiel. Jason finally managed to shrug her off by getting her phone number to call later that day.

We dropped off our bags, got a map of the town and a restaurant recommendation from the very friendly clerk, and headed out to see Cusco.

So far, I love it. We followed the Lonely Planet walking tour and saw some of the churches, plazas, and Inca walls that are indeed impressive in their ability to carve and place such tight-fitting stones without mortar. I like the atmosphere here. There were people everywhere, mostly a lot of non-gringo families. We hit Plaza de Armas right when school was letting out and there were kids everywhere in brown or green uniforms chattering as they walk home from school. There are the salespeople, of course, coming up every few steps to offer "Massage?" or "Painted cups?" but they're not as persistent as the ones in Turkey and a polite "No, gracias" seems to do the trick.

We had some tasty fried chicken at the restaurant while King Kong (the newer one) played in Spanish on the TV overhead, then walked about more, enjoying the thin, dry mountain air and cool temperatures until the sun set and we decided that bed was calling. We stopped off at a pastry shop on the way back to the hostel (pear pie for Jason, a banana wrapped in puff pastry for me), and settled into our room to enjoy wifi, power outlets, and a clean bathroom with the prospect of a full night's sleep ahead of us.

Despite the panic of this morning, it wound up being a pretty good day.

Photos to come! (Again, Jason beats me here since he has his laptop and is uploading from his good camera to blog. Oh how the technology-tables have turned!)

P.S. I apologize here and now for not proof-reading these posts. I'm typing on my iPad keyboard, which tends to double letters without me seeing it. Sorry!

Airport Star-Dome

Houston Airport

In Which We Get to Houston

So. Here we are in Houston. It's very exciting.

Four hours into this six hour layover of ours. We killed an hour eating lunch at Chilli's Too and another hour with Jason wrastlin' with Comcast about his bill. (I can say wrastlin' because I'm in Texas, right?)

The plan next is to wander around.

I know you're jealous of my glamorous international lifestyle.

The plane here was really cramped, although the view was enlightened by being surrounded by the Houston Dynamo Soccer Team. At least it was for me. Jason might not have enjoyed the view as much as I did.

Okay, off to wander. Toodles!

On Sleep

Dear Self,

Please stop staying up so late the night before a flight.  Three hours of sleep is not the way to start an international trip.

Sincerely,
"I'll sleep on the plane" is a load of crap.

In Which We Pack for Peru

A day of laundry, packing, shopping, and generally getting ready for our big trip tomorrow. Woot, woot!

We paused the packing to eat pizza while sitting on the floor of the living room to watch The Emperor's New Groove (Jason's quoting most of the lines along with it. It's a favorite, and rightly so). Woot, woot!

And now we continue packing while finishing the movie, hopefully getting to sleep before 1:00 seeing as how we have to get up by 4:30.

And still I say woot, woot!

Adios until Peru!

Just as Everything was Beginning to Suck

I discovered the airy and air conditioned courtyard in the midst of this museum. I believe I shall read some Sherlock and nurse my waterbottle for a while.