Well, it's been just about two weeks since I arrived in Peru. I spent almost no time in Lima, just the afternoon and evening that I arrived, really. So I don't have much to report other than it was about what I expected from a coastal South American capital city: crowded, built-up, smoggy and not particularly clean, and yet cosmopolitan and being thrust into the modern era and Western tradition. I caught an early flight the next morning to Cuzco, which is a whole different story.
Situated in a mountain valley roughly 10,000 feet above sea level (its cold and you're stopping to catch your breath if you're walking up stairs), Cuzco is the former Inca capital in Peru and an entirely unique city among those I have visited. It's long history as a site of struggle between the indigenous Inca population and the Spanish conquistadors lends a mixed cultural flavor to the otherwise modern tourist hub, as Cuzco is the launch point for the infamous lost city of the Inca, Machu Picchu, the top tourist draw in the country. In the last 10 years alone, annual visitor counts to Machu Picchu have increased from the tens of thousands to well over a million. Cuzco has figured this out, and as a result, you cannot walk down the street without being bombarded with offers to buy artwork, jewelry, hats, scarves, sweaters, blankets, rugs, wall hangings, finger puppets, flutes, whistles, and any variety of the endless artisanal products Cuzco seems to be capable of pumping out, not to mention the tours (hiking, biking, rafting, Machu Picchu and 20 other surrounding ruins), massages, dinners, drinks ("happy hour, señor!"), shoe shines, candy, and plain old-fashioned handouts. The place is a zoo: making it a few blocks can be exhausting. Despite that (and admittedly sometimes because of it) walking the streets of Cuzco is charming, especially in its mix of colonial, Incan, and modern ramshackle architecture (building practices seem to have been sturdier 3500 years ago). You can walk down a narrow street you would think was pedestrian only until a taxi is nipping at your heels, nudgingly beeping his horn, yet never slowing down and find that the buildings inhabited by the modern galleries, gift shops and restaurants are actually original hand-cut-and- stacked stone blocks put up by the Incas eons ago. And then you'll turn a corner and bump into a several-hundred year old European-style cathedral before passing the banks, 5-star hotels and the Starbucks (yep) on your way home, which in my case was one of the ramshackle jobs.
So it was 2 nights in Cuzco, planning the Machu Picchu excursion before setting off in a minivan packed full of locals and being driven for 2 hours like it was being chased through curving mountain roads and past muddy roadside villages to a train that carries you to Aguas Callientes, a remote, river-side mountain town without roads that now makes it's living as the overnight stay for visits to Machu Picchu. It's a pre-5a wake up call to make the entrance by opening time, 6a and get a rare glance of the ruined city, empty, without tourists, as it may have appeared upon it's discovery in 1911. I took about 200 pictures that day, but none with my iPod, which is what I'm using to update the blog on this trip, so I'll put up pictures another day.
Also climbed the peak in the background, a near-vertical struggle to another set of stone buildings atop the summit and a rare view of the lost city. There's not much to tell about Machu Picchu because there's not much that is known. Clearly, it was a city: there are easily identifiable homes, neighborhoods and storehouses, but an explanation for the temples, an understanding of some of the "how" and all of the "why" is a futile enterprise. There is no written record, and so you are left only to marvel at the miracle of its existence: it is entirely remote (thinking pre-tourist times), buried in the rainforest, stashed in a valley, and hidden atop a mountain. Almost twice the age of Jesus, and it's still there, stone upon stone, for the ages.
I hiked for two days beyond Machu Picchu, following a raging brown river, crossing it once in a 2'x4', cable-suspended basket, sometimes walking along train tracks (nervously sprinting through tunnels), sometimes on narrow, diverging trails through the jungle, or high above the river on stone cliffs with sheer drops above and below, just to see what was out there I guess and not join the thousands returning by train to Cuzco. On that hike, I came across a man with a broken foot (the result of a dropped rock) and left him all the applicable first aid and advice we had, as well as a welcoming family home with turkeys, a parrot, dogs, and a hanging jaguar skin accompanied by a story that ends with a two-month hunt and a borrowed, early 20th-century rifle. Also, a woman with a pet Capuchin monkey. I got to hold the monkey. It was awesome. I thought there was a good chance I would be bitten and die of monkey rabies in the jungle, but it was worth it. This monkey was 9 months old (purchased in Cuzco) and it still had a nursing instinct. We caught him right before his nap time, and as all small and cute things do, he found me endearing and comforting and took to nestling and cuddling into my arms and trying to suckle my bicep, but not before showing me his gleaming, tiny fangs, at which point, like I said, I thought I was going to die of monkey rabies in the jungle. But he was already clinging tightly with hands, feet and tail, and I didn't want to alarm him, so there was no shaking him loose - I just had to let him suck on my arm for a while. I want a monkey now, it's my new goal in life. The lady said he's like a cat - wanders the property, comes back for food and love, except it's a fucking monkey! Awesome. I need one.
At the end of two days, I caught a car 1/2 way back to Cuzco and stayed in small town there for a week, soaking in the empty hillsides and making day-long excursions to the local sacred Inca sites before returning to the madness that is Cuzco.
This trip, so far, has been nothing like traveling New Zealand. It has become impossible to consider them together, as one trip. My first few days on the ground, I kept thinking to myself, "You're not in Kansas anymore." For instance, take the food markets: warehouse-sized, open air bazaars that know no health code - the meat section to be avoided by those with uneasy stomachs - dogs running around looking for scraps and humping under each other in the aisles. Braved it one day for lunch - barely made it to the next morning.
The other outstanding characteristic of Cuzco that cannot go unnoticed or untold is the colorful tradition of the Quechua women and children. These are the ancestral descendants of the Inca, their blood mixed with Spanish; they are the closest thing to a living native culture in Peru. The women are typically short and squat with layered skirts and sweaters, long braids, felt hats and carrying all manner of things in a full-spectrum color blanket slung across their back: usually a child, often food or wares for sale, sometimes sheep, puppies, even turkeys.
I am currently in flight from the mountains and the rain, headed North into the heat and banana fields of Ecuador (so named for its location along the Northern and Southern hemispheres and then on to meet some of my extended family in Panama. I will likely retire my shoes in Ecuador, send home a box of no-longer-needed warm clothes from Panama, and spend the rest of my time in sandals, on beaches. The way it should be. That's the plan for now anyways. More to come, stay tuned...
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