Excursions

We've been using Cusco as a base for excursions around the south of Peru. Here are a few snippets from recent days:

The Sacred Valley

Our trip into the Sacred Valley began with a few hour stop in Ollantaytambo, which is about an hour and a half by collectivo (shared taxi) outside of Cusco. Ollantaytambo is a town that is in the midst of the Sacred Valley, with massive, dry mountains on each side. It's famous for a fort made up of the perfect Inca masonry, with massive stone terraces and impossibly steep staircases. Apparently it was the sight of a battle in which the Inca actually repelled the Spanish successfully at one point (although they lost the second time). Frankly, it's amazing that the Spanish were able to take any of these forts at all. Looking at the sheer impressiveness of the defensive architecture, I can't help but feel that the Inca, while terrific builders, were miserable tacticians.

That night we made it into Aguas Calientes, which is a weird tourist town that serves only one function: extract money from tourists that want to be the first ones into Machu Picchu. I have nothing really to say about this town, other than that I took the coldest shower of the trip in our fleebag hostel. We went to sleep at 8:30 pm, and got up at 3:30 am hoping to be amongst the first in line for entrance to the city.

How wrong we were! Arriving around 4:15, we saw that 100 people or so had beaten us to the bus terminal. Through some logistical masterwork, however, we managed to get ourselves on the third bus up (leaving at 5:30). The bus was itself a surreal experience, as we ascended through the dark, cloud covered shapes of rainforrested mountains. Arriving at the entrance to Machu Picchu, we waited in another line before finally being let in.

Our first experience with Machu Picchu was not one of breathlessness or contemplation, but one of almost comical haste. Among the midst and darkness of the early morning, we ended up in a mad dash for the end of the ruins where the first 400 people were able to get tickets to climb the Wayna Picchu (the big, iconic peak in the back of all the post cards). We didn't know if it was worth it, but sheep mentality drove us there. Getting our tickets (we were numbers 232 and 233), we made our way slowly back to a location where we had heard was a great place to watch the sun rise.

I have to admit, at this point, that Machu Picchu has never really held the appeal for me that other great sights, such as the Roman Forum or the Forbidden City, have had. The reason for this is because I have a natural distrust of the NGO types who go to South America and rave in pluralistic fashion about the achievements of the ancient natives. People who tell me that the pyramids in Mexico rival the pyramids in Egypt are, in my opinion, anti-Western do-gooders who ought to find a shack to live in somewhere. In this spirit, I refuse to gush about Machu Picchu (just in case there are readers out there who share my "imperialistic" worldview). That said, I can simply say that Machu Picchu may be the most beautiful, amazing, terrific man-made thing that I have ever seen. Do yourself a favor and go there.

Lake Titicaca

After a few more days in Cusco, we made a dash to the town of Puno where we ate, checked our internet briefly (we wanted to post at this point, but everybody closed down on account of a parade), and went back to our hotel (yes, a hotel) where we watched Gladiator on Direct TV. That was a great night.

The next morning we got on a boat that had been arranged for us and six or seven other Americans, as we were all going to a "lodge" on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. This was a terrific day. We stopped at man- and woman-made (and I have to stress the role of women, because they really work their asses in this country. They are both bigger than the men here, and they do more work. They also wear bigger hats (bowler hats that they inherited from the English (who ran the Peruvian economy for a large part of the early 20th century in exchange for $50 million dollars)) and carry huge bags on their backs. Once, while on a bus from Cusco to Puno, we saw a lady come onto the bus with one of these bags, only to pull out a huge chunk of unidentifiable meat. She immediately began hacking at this meat with a huge butcher's knife, handing out chunks to people who apparently understood the system better than we did) islands, made out edible reeds. Sorry about that parenthetical.

The highlight, however, was the island Amantani itself. Our first afternoon, we walked to the top of the island, our highest elevation yet at around 4200 meters (close to 13000 feet). On one side of the island we saw beautiful Bolivian Andes with their white peaks just coming out of the water, proof of our high place in the world. On the other side the island sloped downward, and as the sun set it really did appear that the terraced earth was being covered in pure gold. Josh and I got some weak coffee and some fried dough and just enjoyed the view. The island had very little in the way of electricity, and although it made for a dark walk home, the stars were second to none. Best of all, we actually used the Southern Cross to guide us home, something we've been wanting to do for a while.

The next day was quite different. I woke up feeling sick to my stomach and slightly feverish, and I still don't know what it was that hit me. The sky outside was cloudy, and although this made for a dramatic view of the lake, the mixture of hail, freezing cold, my infirmity, and general laziness made us both into great sloths. I think I spent about 7 hours that day in my bed reading, sleeping, or moaning, and Josh was hardly more productive, playing solitaire or doing Blackjack "research" for hours on end.

While the day can only be described as blank, the evening brought bad tidings. Apparently the transportation workers of Peru would be on strike only for the next day, which was the day we needed to get back to Cusco in order to catch our flight into the jungle. A strike, like the kind where teamsters sit on the curb under umbrellas and drink beer out of coolers? Nope. We're talking blockades with boulders and fire on the freeway and rock throwing and bus boarding.

While we were able to catch a local boat back into Puno this morning, getting us into the city much earlier than other tourists in Amantani, we have had a difficult time trying to find transportation out of the city. Hitchhiking, private cars, trains, and other means of transportation are out of the question, at least until the blockades let up. There is no airport in Puno, only in the town of Juliaca which is a good 30 miles away. There are rumors that the strike will let up tonight, but the best we hear from anybody is "maybe."

We'd both like to get to the jungle, and we're quite hopeful about being able to get to Cusco by the time our plane leaves tomorrow. That said, we're both quite cranky at the moment. A union skeptic at the best of times, I have never been so angry at organized labor in my entire life. The streets in Puno are full of people languishing, and it's almost as if I can see economic decline before my eyes. All of that aside, I have to say that this is a perfect example of The Random that I mentioned in my Salta post. Every path in this continent has its unexpected obstacles. Wish us luck!