Cusco, Peru

I am having a great time hanging out with my friend Pedro and his friends, and feel very lucky to get a back-door tour of Cusco from the locals. The striking architecture of this city, one of the most touristed in Latin America, is a mix of Incan walls and Spanish architecture--often the latter was constructed directly on top of the former during the colonial era as a symbol of domination. There are photo opportunities everywhere, but it´s a miracle if you manage to take one without a gaggle of tourists in it.

So much for acclimatizing before undergoing strenuous activity. My friends are pumping me full of mate de coca and taking me on hikes to visit the numerous ruins located on the outskirts of the city. Never have I so clearly heard my heart pounding in my ears. At first it made me nervous, but by now I´m used to it. Thankfully, no altitude sickness has yet befallen me. I don´t know whether to attribute this to headstands, good genes, or the coca, but whatever the reason, I am grateful!

Yesterday we visited a number of ruins located in the mountainside immediately surrounding Cusco. We snuck into Sasquayman (sp?), the largest site, by walking several kilometers around the mountains through the backside -- Krissy and the Getty crew can appreciate how much fun this was for me, although we did not have walkie-talkies it was still high adventure and we got to hide behind bushes and Incan walls and crawl through barbed wire. I don´t feel guilty about skipping the entrance fee, because I promised myself I will make a donation to a relevant non-profit.

I also met a Tony, a Peruvian guy my age who lives up in another set of ruins and is the self-proclaimed caretaker of a particular rock formation that has ancient Incan symbols of a llama and a puma that are visible when the sun hits it in a certain way. Evidently, Tony used to be the number one fighting champion in Peru, and he wrestled on a scholarship for Cal State Bakersfield. For the past five months he has been drinking all manner of psychotropic concoctions and seeing visions in the rocks. He spotted my tattoo and got very excited -- turns out that it corresponds with the Incan trilogy of the puma (sacral area, raw power), the serpent (spinal column, rising energy), and the condor (third eye, higher consciousness). He gave me a brief tour of the ruins and we had a good connection around the concept of Darkness and Light. We decided we´re both non-dualists. Here is an interview from his fighting days:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxEivQqqWhY


Today Pedro, Elias, and I spent the day today at a rarely-visited Incan ruin known as Tipon. Built high up in the mountains about a half an hour from Cusco, it is known as the Temple of Water, and it was built to give thanks for the vital role that water plays in human life in this harsh climate. Because of its remote located, it was barely touched by the Spanish conquistadores, and much of it remains intact. In addition to ceremonial areas, it features agricultural terraces and an elaborate system of canals that was created to pipe water down to the valley below. We had the ruins almost entirely to ourselves, and all you could hear up there was the wind, and the water rushing through the canals. We ate our picnic lunch of canned tuna and fresh cheese in the ruins of the buildings that housed the shamans who presided over the site some 600 years ago.

Right now I am at a hole-in-the-wall internet cafe in Cusco. Andean music is drifting in from the narrow, stone streets, and my belly is full from a tasty dinner of spinach soup and grilled alpaca. I didn´t even know you could eat alpaca. Annie, I had three Doritos and a couple of Peruvian Oreo cookies today (I´ve heard it´s rude to turn down food when it´s offered, ha ha). But stay strong in the sugar-free struggle, Sister.


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Lima, Day 2

Today I visited the Museo de la Nacion, which has a number of artifacts from the numerous cultures of pre-Incan, Incan, colonial, and contemporary Peru. It also has exhibitions on daily life of the various cultures, and their contributions to agriculture, textiles, and the arts. One particularly interesting argicultural technique utilized in the Sierra (a cool, mountainous region) is known as Waru Waru. In this technique, crops are planted in long rows with ditches in between. These ditches are filled with water, which is warmed by the sun during the day. At night, the cold air causes the water to evaporate, creating a cool mist that hydrates the crops.

There was also an entire room devoted to the potato, a staple of the Peruvian diet. Included in the exhibition were over 40 varieties of real potato. Judging from the looks of them, the curators don´t put fresh ones out very often...most of them were sprouting, and some of them were black with mold.

Another highlight was a huge exhibition of photographs related to the reign of terror carried out from 1980 to 2000 by a guerrilla group known as the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). Its highly intelligent but sociopathic leader, Abimael Guzman, used the edicts of Maoism to mobilize the rural poor and the urban youth against the Peruvian government, claiming that the proposed transition to democracy was an affront to the ideals of socialism. Unfortunately, the Peruvian government was not exempt from blame, as during the two decades of fighting against the Shining Path, it carried out its own massacres against indigenous communities and university students accused of participating in the guerrilla movement, some of whom were later found to be innocent. This was a difficult exhibition to view, with news clips and graphic photographs of terrible atrocities, the likes of would never get past media censors in the States.

Leaving the museum, I was picked up by a friendly taxista named Xenon. I inquired as to how he got such an unusual name, and he said his father could never give him a straight answer, but that Xenon is one of the elements on the periodic table. I am not sure whether or not it is just a coincidence that Xenon used to be a chemist. He worked in the chemical dying of textiles until two months ago, when the U.S. economic crisis caused his company´s main accounts to close, and he was laid off. He does not like being a taxi driver because it is very stressful to drive in the Lima traffic. It is also very hard to make a living at it, because so many unemployed Peruvians decide to become taxi drivers and there is a lot of competition for fares.

I asked him for a recommendation for lunch, and he dropped me at an amazing buffet packed with locals and all kinds of comida criollo. Annie, I had two servings of the arroz con leche for dessert, but I did put cinnamon on top, which is evidently good for blood sugar.

Before exiting the cab, I had insisted that Xenon keep the change from my ride - 2 soles, or the equivalent of 70 cents American. I knew he´d already underquoted me on the ride, and he had been so kind as to take me to his favorite lunch spot, so I didn´t think twice about the tip. When I exited the restaurant, he was unexpectedly waiting for me. He said he´d been so touched by the tip that he wanted to drop me off directly at my hostel and make sure I got there safely, which he did. The people here have really been amazing so far, I feel blessed to have such good people looking out for me.






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Lima, Peru

I am south of the equator for the first time in nearly 8 years, and it´s winter here. Winter in Lima is characterized by a thick fog that decends upon the city in April and lifts sometime in October. The sun does not burn through the clouds in the afternoons, and it´s hard to tell how much of the grey is from pollution, and how much is the fog.

I spent the day wandering around the city center. One highlight was the Monasterio de San Francisco, with beautiful moorish architecture of mosaics and carved wooden ceilings, and famous catacombs containing the bones of over 25,000 people, many of which are arranged in decorative circular patterns in pits of unknown depth--they haven´t been fully excavated yet.

Sorry, Annie, I didn´t kick refined sugar for long. I had to sample the amazing churros at what is touted as the autentico Churreria de la Virgen del Carmen. Evidently the Blessed Mother only gets her churros from one place, and who am I to pass that up? They are fried in a huge pot and served piping hot.

My Spanish is coming back quickly, and I find myself talking with the limeños at every opportunity. They all want to know how many children I have back in the States, and why my parents have let me travel by myself so far from home. Mom, Dad -- anything to say for yourselves?

During lunch at Govindas, the Hare Krishna place just of the Plaza Mayor, I sat down next to Carlos, who works at a printing press across the street. His fingers were stained red and his palms were black from ink. He is a vegetarian Monday through Saturday, but on Sundays he eats chicken. I found out that the area around the main plaza is where most of the books and magazines are printed in Lima. After lunch, Carlos took me to his printing shop. It was located in an alleyway that was full of printing presses, with impresoras making everything from magazines to restaurant placemats.


After wandering around the streets some more and taking a great photo of a dog dressed entirely in Peruvian handicrafts, I stopped in the Gran Hotel Bolivar for what is supposed to be the best Pisco Sour in all of Peru. Pisco is the national drink here, and it´s incredibly strong. Lightweight that I am, I caught quite a buzz, and then caught a taxi back to Miraflores to wind down for the night.

ps. If you´re ever in Lima, don´t bother going to the Museum of the Inquisition unless you want to see wax figurines of people being tortured. At
least admission was free.