The Perú Diaries, Numero Cuatro.
Sorry, peeps, I didn't have time to gather up all mah illustrations for Perúness last week. (For the 2 people on the entire big ol' internets who care. Heh.) I've got a whole helluva lot going on right now, and as soon as I am unshackled from this overly-ergonomic-but-still-just-like-prison desk here at work, I shall fill y'all in. But for now, I'm going to go back to pretending I'm still on the fun side of the equator.
Day 4
6fuckinga.m.
1/29/08
Woke up to the calls of a million birds, especially what sounded like owls... and lots of quails, even in the city. If it weren't 6 o'clock in the goddamn morning, it would be pretty cool. Going to get ready for the aeropuerto now.
8:18pm
Ugh. Between the three of us, I figured I'd be the last to get sick. But here I sit in the Royal Inka Hotel in the center of Cusco with an angry belly and a well-traveled path to el baño. Blech. Blah. Poop. Suck. Whine.
Still, it dampened my joie de vivre but didn't slow me down too much. We arrived in Cusco around 10:30am and were fetched immediately by the dude from the fancy tour package my parents paid for. I am still undecided as to whether I am happy or regretful that, because my parents are all about throwing money at shit to make it more convenient, I too am along for that ride. I feel grateful (because they're paying for a good share of it, seau!), but also as though I'm already cordoned off from the place here. I'm not used to travel from behind the velvet ropes, as it were, and I don't really want/need/like/enjoy/appreciate the imposed barrier.
Anyway. After some mate de coca (I'm thinkin' that coca tea will surely become my Breakfast Drink of Champions while I'm here) and a too-brief rest to give us a chance to adjust to the altitude - Cusco is at about 11,500ft(!) while Lima is, obviously, at sea level - our first tour stop was Qorikancha, the Incan temple of the sun. The building is really an immediate smack-in-the-face illustration of the conquistadors' attitude toward the surprisingly advanced Incan people (or Quechuan, if you want to be technical. :-) ).
And kill Whitey, I say, as I'm sure they did in their native tongue. The Dominican missionaries who came in the 1500's stole the temple and used it for their own asap, then set about trying to conceal virtually any evidence that it was ever built by the Incas. The simple but incredibly ingenious stone-block walls were whitewashed and imposing arched ceilings built on top. They gold-leafed and christ-passioned and frowning-oil-paintinged the whole thing and I can only imagine how the indignant natives must have felt at being subjugated in their own temple to an import god. This is not to say, however, that the Dominicans' take on the temple was unbeautiful; it very much was.
On the other side of the Plaza de Armas, which is also the main square in Cusco as it is in Lima, was the also very frightening but even more spectacular Cathedral. Jaw-droppingly wondrous, at least in the eyes of one hardcore religion/history-major nerd... from the absurdly intricate choir room in the center of the cathedral, flaring up delicately from the vast marble floors like a flower, to the "apu" (Andean-native-lookin') jesuses to the silver-plated altar of the Ascension Virgin to the gold-plated and gleaming main altar. I think my parents finally get why I fucking love churches but abhor The Church. Of course, I spent a lot of time looking for the bathroom. Sigh.
From there we went waaaaaay up into the Andes (about 14,500ft!) to see Sacsayhuaman, or the Incan Temple of the Lightning. It's pronounced SEXY WOMAN. Heh. It is something like the Incan Stonehenge, in a way - colossal boulders that fit perfectly together on one side of a massive mountain steppe that, when viewed from just the right angle, form the beautifully clever zigzag shape of a lightning bolt. One thing that I really love about Incan architecture so far is just how much they seemed to enjoy playing with perspective and angles. It was also terribly fitting that the thunderclouds menaced us the whole time. (I wouldn't have had it any other way, though, because the light rain in the 'wet' season is beautiful.) I was soooo fucking pissed that both my and my father's camera batteries died at the same time!! Argh. I only got one photo.
By then I was feeling shittier anyway, like woah, and the last sight to see was rather a blur. The Tambomachay baths were a (relatively) long hike for an underwhelming finish. All I could do when we got back to our swanky hotel was, well, you know. Sick. Ew.
But Cusco is a fucking gorgeous city: nestled in a narrow green valley (the Urubamba) high in the cloud forest of the Andes, with circuitous cobblestone streets around the central plaza, tiny and full of open-faced people in traditional dress, cradling baby llamas in hopes that the turistas will give them some change for their photos, living easily and relatively harmoniously amid the relics of their nearly decimated motherculture. Picture living within a few hours of Machu Picchu and still just walking around on a sidewalk, going on with your life. I certainly can't.
Unlike Lima, practically everyone here has the dark skin, flat faces and tiny stature of the Quechuans. It's the second largest city in Perú, not a small country in itself, and yet a few minutes above the valley around Cusco they herd llamas and alpacas and goats and use burros and horses to farm. I've seen a gajillion stray dogs and not a single cat. Not one. The number of Chinese restaurants here is surprising. Could these two things be related? (Zing!)
I have more I could write, but... sick belly and another 6am wakeup call for the Sacred Valley beckon.
P.S. Oh! I forgot. There seem to be a LOT of Anglo hippies here. Almost all the young white people are complete hippies. No wonder they call Cusco 'Gringo City' when the tourist season for Machu Picchu comes every May. Heh.
Day 4
6fuckinga.m.
1/29/08
Woke up to the calls of a million birds, especially what sounded like owls... and lots of quails, even in the city. If it weren't 6 o'clock in the goddamn morning, it would be pretty cool. Going to get ready for the aeropuerto now.
8:18pm
Ugh. Between the three of us, I figured I'd be the last to get sick. But here I sit in the Royal Inka Hotel in the center of Cusco with an angry belly and a well-traveled path to el baño. Blech. Blah. Poop. Suck. Whine.
Still, it dampened my joie de vivre but didn't slow me down too much. We arrived in Cusco around 10:30am and were fetched immediately by the dude from the fancy tour package my parents paid for. I am still undecided as to whether I am happy or regretful that, because my parents are all about throwing money at shit to make it more convenient, I too am along for that ride. I feel grateful (because they're paying for a good share of it, seau!), but also as though I'm already cordoned off from the place here. I'm not used to travel from behind the velvet ropes, as it were, and I don't really want/need/like/enjoy/appreciate the imposed barrier.
Anyway. After some mate de coca (I'm thinkin' that coca tea will surely become my Breakfast Drink of Champions while I'm here) and a too-brief rest to give us a chance to adjust to the altitude - Cusco is at about 11,500ft(!) while Lima is, obviously, at sea level - our first tour stop was Qorikancha, the Incan temple of the sun. The building is really an immediate smack-in-the-face illustration of the conquistadors' attitude toward the surprisingly advanced Incan people (or Quechuan, if you want to be technical. :-) ).
And kill Whitey, I say, as I'm sure they did in their native tongue. The Dominican missionaries who came in the 1500's stole the temple and used it for their own asap, then set about trying to conceal virtually any evidence that it was ever built by the Incas. The simple but incredibly ingenious stone-block walls were whitewashed and imposing arched ceilings built on top. They gold-leafed and christ-passioned and frowning-oil-paintinged the whole thing and I can only imagine how the indignant natives must have felt at being subjugated in their own temple to an import god. This is not to say, however, that the Dominicans' take on the temple was unbeautiful; it very much was.
On the other side of the Plaza de Armas, which is also the main square in Cusco as it is in Lima, was the also very frightening but even more spectacular Cathedral. Jaw-droppingly wondrous, at least in the eyes of one hardcore religion/history-major nerd... from the absurdly intricate choir room in the center of the cathedral, flaring up delicately from the vast marble floors like a flower, to the "apu" (Andean-native-lookin') jesuses to the silver-plated altar of the Ascension Virgin to the gold-plated and gleaming main altar. I think my parents finally get why I fucking love churches but abhor The Church. Of course, I spent a lot of time looking for the bathroom. Sigh.
From there we went waaaaaay up into the Andes (about 14,500ft!) to see Sacsayhuaman, or the Incan Temple of the Lightning. It's pronounced SEXY WOMAN. Heh. It is something like the Incan Stonehenge, in a way - colossal boulders that fit perfectly together on one side of a massive mountain steppe that, when viewed from just the right angle, form the beautifully clever zigzag shape of a lightning bolt. One thing that I really love about Incan architecture so far is just how much they seemed to enjoy playing with perspective and angles. It was also terribly fitting that the thunderclouds menaced us the whole time. (I wouldn't have had it any other way, though, because the light rain in the 'wet' season is beautiful.) I was soooo fucking pissed that both my and my father's camera batteries died at the same time!! Argh. I only got one photo.
By then I was feeling shittier anyway, like woah, and the last sight to see was rather a blur. The Tambomachay baths were a (relatively) long hike for an underwhelming finish. All I could do when we got back to our swanky hotel was, well, you know. Sick. Ew.
But Cusco is a fucking gorgeous city: nestled in a narrow green valley (the Urubamba) high in the cloud forest of the Andes, with circuitous cobblestone streets around the central plaza, tiny and full of open-faced people in traditional dress, cradling baby llamas in hopes that the turistas will give them some change for their photos, living easily and relatively harmoniously amid the relics of their nearly decimated motherculture. Picture living within a few hours of Machu Picchu and still just walking around on a sidewalk, going on with your life. I certainly can't.
Unlike Lima, practically everyone here has the dark skin, flat faces and tiny stature of the Quechuans. It's the second largest city in Perú, not a small country in itself, and yet a few minutes above the valley around Cusco they herd llamas and alpacas and goats and use burros and horses to farm. I've seen a gajillion stray dogs and not a single cat. Not one. The number of Chinese restaurants here is surprising. Could these two things be related? (Zing!)
I have more I could write, but... sick belly and another 6am wakeup call for the Sacred Valley beckon.
P.S. Oh! I forgot. There seem to be a LOT of Anglo hippies here. Almost all the young white people are complete hippies. No wonder they call Cusco 'Gringo City' when the tourist season for Machu Picchu comes every May. Heh.