Ken Across America: Peru Trip 2012 -- Part One

The journey is difficult, immense. We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or to learn all that we hunger to know.

--- Loren Eiseley

STARTING OUT

We began our ‘trek’ to Peru on January 11^th. I picked Jill up about 3:30 and we headed off to St. Louis. The weather was OK but they were predicting light snow for the morning. We stopped at an IHOP restaurant in St. Charles and then went to our motel…a Best Western by the airport that offers free travelers’ parking in a covered garage. The motel was fine and we had to get up very early so we went to bed early….but couldn’t sleep.

We got up at 3 AM and got ready for the shuttle to the airport. It was snowing and very windy with ice patches on the road and sidewalks. Our shuttle picked us up at 4:15 and we were at the airport in about five minutes. Our plane was leaving about 6 AM so we went through security and got to the gate in plenty of time. We packed very light for this trip and only had to check one suitcase. All together we had two backpacks, the suitcase and a couple other small personal bags. We boarded the plane and sat on the tarmac for almost 45 minutes while they de-iced the plane. I’d never seen that done and it is a time consuming process, especially in a 30 mph wind. It was after 6:30 before we finally took off. The flight to Miami was uneventful. The moon was out once we were above the clouds. We flew over the gulf and passed over Sarasota when we reached land again. We were on the ground by 11 AM.

In Miami we had to go from the D concourse to the J concourse and that meant a long walk to a different terminal. We managed to get some bad directions before we finally got going the right way. We had a long layover in Miami. The LAN flight to Lima didn’t leave until 5 PM so we took our time. It turned out that we didn’t have boarding passes (although the paper said “boarding pass” on the top) so we had to go back to the LAN counter to get our passes. There was a long line…maybe 50 or 60 people in line…and they had tons of luggage. Some of the people had five or six large suitcases that were big enough to hold all of our stuff. It took forever for the line to move and it stopped for about twenty minutes entirely while one of the workers left to go home and had to say goodbye to each of the other workers. Nobody did anything while she gave out her hugs and handshakes and went from station to station. Amazingly, everyone in line just stood there and fidgeted while this took place. We finally got our correct boarding passes and moved on. We had to go through security again and then stopped to get something to eat for lunch. We finally got to our gate in concourse J with a several hours to spare. Long layovers are incredibly boring and this one was really boring. People watching is OK for a while but even that gets old. As 5 o’clock came around it was clear that nothing was happening and finally we heard that there was a weather problem in Lima that would delay our take off in Miami. We noticed that other flights to Lima – Delta or American Airlines – were taking off on time. We were just getting antsy and wanted to get on our way. We also had people waiting for us at the Lima airport and no way to let them know we would be late. Our plane finally got off the ground about an hour late. The problem in Lima was sea fog at the airport.

We were tired and too anxious to really enjoy the on-board movies or games. The flight to Lima is only about 5 ½ hours…shorter than our layover. They fed us and we had pillows and blankets. At least we were on our way. It was an uneventful flight and we landed about midnight. Baggage and customs was easy and we found our reception folks from the travel company without any problem.

LIMA – FIRST TIME

We were soon on our way to the hotel – Casa Andina San Antonio – Miraflores – but it was a little distance and traffic was busy. We drove along the Pacific Ocean for a while and then climbed up to the top of the cliffs to the Miraflores district and found our hotel. The travel folks gave us some material and instructions and helped us check in. Apparently, no one drinks water from the tap in Peru…everyone uses bottled water for everything including brushing teeth. They said that ice for drinks is OK. Don’t eat lettuce salads because they wash the lettuce in tap water. Fruit or vegetables that are peeled are OK to eat.

Our hotel room was small and had a window out into the stairwell and interior courtyard. The bathroom had a half-sized bath tub. We collapsed in the beds which were very comfortable. When we made arrangements with the travel company we said we wanted mid-level hotels – comfort level but not luxury. Casa Andina is a chain of hotels in Peru that fit that description – nothing fancy but everything was adequate.

We had to get up early on Friday to catch a flight to Cusco. We had another exposure to Lima’s traffic on our way back to the airport. We were taking Star Peru airlines to Cusco….a small domestic company. The plane was small but the flight was fine. They passed out snacks which I should not have eaten but I did.

CUSCO

We were met at Cusco by another travel rep who drove us to the hotel – Casa Andina San Blas – a very nice and comfortable hotel. We had a cup of Coca Mate tea while we were checking in to help with the extreme altitude. Cusco is over 11,000 feet. Our second-floor room was small but bright with windows open to the sunny courtyard. The bathroom was also nice with a full tub. We rested for a while trying to get used to the high altitude.

We were scheduled for an afternoon city tour of Cusco and our guide, Ignacio, showed up right on time. We were joined by a couple from Taiwan and headed out in the van to see Cusco. Our first stop was at San Cristobal church on a hill overlooking Cusco. We had a good view of the city and there were some local people there with llamas and full Andean regalia ready for pictures. The church is built on the site of an old Inca palace so we got to see our first precision stonework. We would see a great deal more. In Cusco, almost every street in the old town has some Inca features.

Our second stop was the Cusco city market. This is a huge building full of vendor stalls and crowded with people buying everything from bottled water to fruit and vegetables, handmade weaving, bread, cheese, clothes, toys, tea and coffee, chocolate, artwork and almost anything else that someone would need. They have a Ceviche vendor selling a variety of citrus-marinated raw fish. Ceviche is the national dish of Peru and is available at most restaurants in some form or another.

From the market we went to tour the Convento de Santo Domingo, also known as Coricancha. The convent is built over the foundation of an Inca temple complex. Parts of the temples were preserved as part of the convent. There are three temples inside the convent incorporated as part of the courtyard. The main building is built on top of the foundation for the major temple of the sun. The stonework is over 500 years old and looks almost new. The stones are so precisely cut that they don’t have any mortar holding them together and they have withstood several very large earthquakes that destroyed many of the later Spanish-built structures. The San Cristobal church that we visited earlier was destroyed three times but the Inca walls behind it were undamaged.

Our next stop was the Cathedral of Santo Domingo (the Cusco Cathedral). And Ignacio, our guide, was very well informed on just about every nook and cranny of the place. It is actually three churches…the main cathedral is flanked by two smaller churches but they are open to each other through several interior doors. The various altars date to the 1600s and are often in solid gold or silver. The paintings are very noteworthy and some are attributed to artists of the “Cusco School” of art. Some have both Christian and Inca features. The painting of the Last Supper has a cooked guinea pig on the table. Some of the carved statues were made by local Indian craftsman and carved from agave wood. We were not allowed to take pictures in the three churches but they were very beautiful. Side altars were very impressive and were dedicated to various saints. There is also a large crucifix with a black Christ that has been stained by candle and incense smoke over the centuries. Some of the altar pieces and saint images are carried outside during religious festivals.

After the Cathedral we went up to the San Blas plaza area, which is known as an artist district. We stopped off in a couple shops and met an artist who is still working in traditional styles. There was also a gallery/museum dedicated to an artist who made carved statues with exceptionally long necks.

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon and we headed back to our hotel, which was only a couple blocks away from San Blas plaza. We settled in for a while and then headed back to San Blas for supper at a restaurant called Pacha Papa. We were warned against eating too much at such a high altitude so we decided to have an appetizer and then a dessert. I had Quinoa Tabbouleh and Jill had roasted potatoes in butter and herb sauce. I ordered a beer and was asked if I wanted small or medium. I said medium but it was a huge Cusquena beer…a locally brewed lager beer…big enough for two people. We had great desserts including some wonderful cinnamon ice cream. We headed back to the hotel and went to bed.

THE BUG

At 2 AM I was sick with food poisoning. I had been feeling a little funny before we went for supper so I have to assume that it came from the snack they passed out on the airplane. The snack included a roll that has some kind of chicken salad inside of it and I bit into it and ate a little bit before I decided not to eat any more. That was just enough to make me sick. I managed OK if I just didn’t move in the bed but even that was not enough after a while. I hit the Imodium until I couldn’t take any more and then I switched over to Pepto Bismal tablets. The alarm went off and Jill got up in time to meet our guide for the day’s tour. It was a half-day tour to Sacsayhuaman and other archeological sites close to Cusco. I would have liked to go along but I was in no condition to leave the room. I stayed in bed until about 10 AM and slowly got up and tested myself. The situation had improved and I was beginning to feel like I was going to be OK. I was really sick for about eight hours but when it was over I started to bounce back. Jill came back from her tour before noon and we began to think about what we would do for the afternoon that we had free.

PLAZA DE ARMAS

This was Saturday and I had made arrangements on our city tour to go back to one of the shops and buy an Alpaca woven scarf. I tried to pay for it using my credit card but the clerk was not familiar enough with the credit card machine to make it work so I had to come back with cash. We walked to the shop and got that taken care of and then walked down to the Plaza de Armas, about five blocks. We took some pictures and found a bench to sit on while we watched the people in the plaza. It is a pretty lively place. There were a couple kids who were brought down to feed the pigeons. The kids had a great time throwing bird seed and running after the birds. There was a wedding at the Cathedral and the bride and groom came out into the plaza to have some pictures taken by the fountain. They posed with tow little kids who must have been in the wedding party and the littlest one decided to wash his face in the fountain so he was pretty wet by the time they got the pictures taken. The wedding was very traditional and the bride and groom were roped together with an extra-large rosary called a Lazo.

We decided to get lunch somewhere and found an English pub …the Cross Keys Pub…just off the plaza across from the Cathedral. We ordered a small pizza and sat out on a balcony overlooking a small alleyway. The pizza was OK but not great. The pub was advertising that they were going to have the NFL playoff games on TV and were inviting folks to come to the pub to watch.

There were a few people in the plaza who were trying to sell postcards and various trinkets to the tourists. They were persistent if you even made eye contact or tried to be polite. The police were keeping them away from the Cathedral and there were only a few on the plaza. The kids have an interesting strategy…they ask if you want to buy postcards or whatever they have and when you say no the whine and say “why not?” like maybe we will relent if they act pitiful. It didn’t work on us but we had the same experience in Lima later in the week.

We wandered around the streets for a while. We found the twelve sided stone in the Inca wall on one of the streets. This is a famous stone that was precisely cut to fit in a specific spot on the wall. Of course, there were people stationed near the stone trying to sell stuff. One guy, self-identified as a college student, gave us a short lecture on the stone and then pulled out his packet of photographs of Machu Picchu that were somehow significant and we surely wanted to purchase. We left him with his pictures.

We went into a few shops and bought another hand-woven scarf as a gift. Jill bought a small coin purse. They have some very nice things for sale and the prices are listed in Nuevo Soles, the Peruvian currency. Soles are worth about 42 cents so that means 100 soles is about $42. We are hit with sticker shock a little because we think in dollars. If something costs 150 soles if is really about $63 in US dollars. This was especially notable in restaurants. We frequently paid 60 or 80 soles for a meal and that sounds like a lot but it is really somewhere between $25 and $33….not too much to pay for a good dinner and the food was always good.

We wandered around and ended back at the hotel. There was some kind of music and dance performance going on at the Plaza San Blas so we watched a little of that. Later we went to a little vegetarian café we found a few blocks from the hotel. The name escaped me but the food was pretty good. I opted for spaghetti because I didn’t want to test my delicate condition. It wasn’t the best spaghetti I ever had but it was OK. The place seems to be a hot spot for backpackers or those non-Peruvians who are somehow bonded to the cosmic vortex of Cusco. One fellow in particular seemed to be a regular and the waitress seemed like he had been there maybe too often. There might be a backpacker hostel nearby – there were several Americans in the café. We enjoyed our day…it ended better than it started.

SACRED VALLEY

Our tour for Sunday was to go up into the Sacred Valley (probably not up but down) and visit some small towns, markets, see some llamas and alpacas and visit some ruins. It was a little chaotic in the beginning because we met our van and then the van had to race across town to meet a bus that was going to take us, and about 25 other people, on the tour. Most of our tours were personal or with only one other group but this was a little busy. We got our seats on the bus and waited a few minutes until our tour guide, Janet, arrived. She was late and a little flustered but laughed it off and we were on our way. This was an English language tour but I’m not sure everyone could understand.

The bus left Cusco and went by several of the sites that I missed on the day before so I got to see some of them in passing. Jill was good at pointing them out and explaining what they were. We drove for a while and then pulled in at a small country market. They had a small corral containing llamas and alpacas and a little girl who could point out which was which. There is a lot of variation in color and coat as well as size and shape so it isn’t readily apparent which one is an alpaca and which is a llama. Llamas are generally bigger but that seems to be the main rule. The market was run by local people and they had some really nice stuff at good prices. I bought a table runner and Jill bought some leggings and some socks.

Our next stop was in Pisac, a small town with a big market. As we entered the town we encountered the elected mayor of Alcalde dressed in his official “going to market” clothes and accompanied by his grandchildren. Apparently his arrival at the market is a big deal. Since it was Sunday the market was exceptionally full of vendors and buyers. Janet warned everyone to be very careful to manage our belongings because there could be pickpockets or thieves in the market. She also gave us strict instructions on how to find our way out of the market and back to the bus. Janet led the way as we plunged into the market. There were tons of produce and lots of handmade items as well as paintings and carvings. We went into a little bakery and bought empanadas for 5 soles ($2) that were filled with fruit or meat. I had one filled with apples that just came out of the oven and was very warm and very good. We went into a small art gallery/studio and bought a couple small water colors. The artist pulled out a newspaper article that showed he was a nationally recognized artist. His work was pretty good and offered a good representation of rural Peruvian village life. We found our way back to the bus without any problem and with all of our belongings.

As we drove through the countryside, it was amazing to see the terraces used in farming. Some of them were hundreds of feet up the mountain slopes. I don’t see how the local farmers can even get up to the terraces and when they do they have to work the land with hand tools. They use a crop rotation system that allows each terrace to lay fallow for seven years and they plant only on the eighth year. Each farmer has to have a number of terraces in order to feed his family.

URUBAMBA

Our next stop was Urubamba, a town located along the river of the same name (well, sometimes called the Vilcanota River but I'm sticking with the Urubamba) . This was our lunch stop and we went to a very nice hacienda style building that is a nice restaurant that offers a full buffet lunch of Peruvian food. Some of the food was identifiable. Much of the food was composed of ingredients that were identifiable but put together in different ways. I had some raw trout with white rice that resembled sushi. There was a cold marinated vegetable salad; potatoes in different forms; some red beans (tasty); roasted alpaca; some ceviche; steamed green beans; fruit and olives. Desserts included fruit tarts, flan, a cheese cake, and a mocha cake that had whole coffee beans inside. The food was very good and there was plenty of it.

We had a little free time so we walked around the grounds while a guy in an Inca costume played an amplified panpipe that was about four feet long. The ground sloped down to the river and there was a corral in the back that held a llama and a vicuna. Vicunas are endangered and this was the only place that we actually got to see one. They are quite small and look something like a young deer with thicker fur.

There were flowers everywhere. The hedge between the properties was made up of large cactuses. There were several local ladies selling handicrafts on the lawn. All of the items we saw that were for sale looked genuine…not Chinese or cheap imitations. I didn’t expect to see as much jewelry. By the time we left I had heard about as much panpipe music as I wanted.

OLLANTAYTAMBO

We all piled back into the bus and headed to our next stop, Ollantaytambo, a town that is considered to still be much as it was as an Inca town. This is one of the last Inca strongholds. Manco Inca Yupanqui, the Inca ruler following the invasion of the Spanish and the destruction of the Royal nobility, used the town as a fortress and defeated the Spanish in a battle at the town. The major attraction is the Inca ruins of a religious center perched above the town on a series of terraces.

Janet, our guide, shepherded the group into the archaeological site and lead the way up several hundred feet of Inca terraces. Ollantaytambo is almost 10,000 feet above sea level and it was a hard climb at that altitude. Luckily we stopped several time to rest but I don’t think I’ve ever exerted myself as much on any walk or climb. I had my walking stick (a monopod) and my knee support on but this was an exhausting climb. The terraces have been restored back to the way they were except that they are no longer irrigated. The Incas brought water from the mountain lakes and glaciers through a series of aqueducts to their agricultural terraces.

Once we climbed up to the top there was a small flat plaza area and the ruins of a religious temple. The temple stonework was as finely cut as that at the temples in Cusco. Some of the stones were so big that it seemed impossible to get them up the slope. Apparently there was a ramp built from the quarry on a nearby mountain that they used to moves the stones on log rollers. They moved rough cut stones and then finished them at the temple site. The broken rock pieces and scraps were used as fill to level the site or to help build the terraces. Some of the stonework was pre-Inca and shows that the town was in existence before the Incas conquered the area. There was a temple wall called “the wall of the six megaliths” that had small stones inserted in the joints between the huge stones that served as expansion joints or shock absorbers for the frequent earthquakes.

Janet was trying to keep her sheep together but we were pretty much spread out and in various states of exhaustion. There was one woman that was afraid of heights and she was having a tough time. We started back down on a more gradual slope but it was still a little risky because there were no railings or things to hold on to as we went down the steps. Again, I was glad I had my walking stick.

I was very impressed with Ollantaytambo. The town was in a very defensible location and I could see that it could serve as a fortified place. Apparently the Incas could flood the fields and make them impassable for the Spaniards who always rode horses. The horses became bogged down in the mud and the soldiers became easy targets for the Inca warriors. Across the valley on the opposite slopes there were a number of store houses where the Incas stored surplus grain to help out when the crop yields were too low.

As at almost all of the places we visited there was a small market with local people selling their handicrafts or bottled water and snacks. Ollantaytambo is the railroad terminus for the train trip to Machu Picchu. In the dry season the train begins at Cusco but during the summer rainy season the tracks are sometimes washed out or there are landslides that disrupt the train service. Keeping the tracks open from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, which is the Machu Picchu station, is a more manageable task.

CHINCHERRO

After some delay we piled back on the bus for the return trip to Cusco. We had one more stop on the way at the town of Chincherro where there was a weaving demonstration put on by a local cooperative association of weavers. The women were dressed in the local traditional clothing and they showed off how their hair braids tell what their marriage situation was. The lead weaver had two braids that were apparently broadcasting that she was living with a man but they were not officially married. The other women had different types of hair braids. It was beginning to rain so we had the weaving demonstration indoors rather that out in the open area. One of the ladies brought us cups of mint tea as refreshment.

With Janet serving as the interpreter, the weaving demonstration covered the entire process from cleaning the alpaca wool through the various natural vegetable dyes and mordants (such as a child’s urine) to spinning and weaving the cloth. The geometric designs woven in the cloth are symbolic of various features in the locale of the weavers. Shapes and colors may represent mountains or lakes and rivers. The four women sang a little song as they were spinning the wool into yarn and it was apparently an obscene little ditty that they giggled and snickered about. Since it was in Quechua we had no idea what it was. They had a lot of weaving work available for sale but we had already bought most of what we wanted by the time we got there. The ladies came on the bus and sang another song as a goodbye gift. I was reminded once again that we had not met a single sourpuss or grumpy person on the entire trip. Even though I’m sure they didn’t sell much to the group they were very happy and pleased to have the opportunity to share their skills with the visitors.

We were soon on our way to Cusco. The bus stopped at one of the main plazas and Jill and I walked back to the San Blas area where our hotel is located. It was sprinkling rain so we stopped off at a little café we found…Tabasco Café…which had some good Italian dishes on the menu. We wanted to get gnocchi to see what the Peruvian potatoes would be like as gnocchi but they didn’t have any made up. We settled on ravioli. Jill had meat ravioli and I had pesto ravioli. When it came it was apparently made up fresh in the kitchen. It was very good and not drenched in sauce. Food portions in all of the Peruvian restaurants were very adequate and not super-sized or wasteful like in many American restaurants.

Back at the hotel we had to repack our suitcase and backpacks because we were leaving for Machu Picchu early in the morning and we would leave all nonessential stuff at the Cusco hotel. We stuffed our suitcase so full I was afraid it would rip out the seams. In the end we had everything we needed including clothes, shoes cameras and ditty-bags crammed in our two backpacks. The train trip and bus ride limits the amount of stuff you can take with you to Machu Picchu.