Aguas Calientes, Peru

I spent the last few days wandering around Cusco, and am finally getting a feel for the twisting, turning streets. Many of the roads that lead up from the main plaza date from Incan times. They are so steep that cars cannot climb them, and so narrow that if two cars are heading in opposite directions, one has to back up and pull into a side street so that the other can pass. A good 95% of the cars on the streets of Cusco are taxis, and it costs less than a dollar to get from one side of town to the other.

One recent highlight was the Museo Precolombino (Pre-Colombian Art Museum). Unlike most of the museums that I have visited here so far, it was very well-curated, and the English translations of the exhibition text was actually readable. It had examples of art from many of the pre-Incan cultures of this area, including the Nazca, the Moche, and the Chimu. The artwork of these cultures consists largely of stone and wood vessels, textiles, and metalwork. These cultures were actually much better artists, in terms of understanding of color and mastery of form, than were the Inca. The Incan culture is more widely known, however, due to its impressive architecture, and the many dozens of ruins that remain in Cusco and the surrounding areas.

Speaking of Inca ruins, tomorrow we are hiking up to Machu Picchu. We´re staying the night in a little town a couple of kilometers away from the ruins called Aguas Calientes. There are hot springs here, hence the name, but I have been told they are more like Lukewarm Springs. The train ride here was beautiful. Non-Peruvian nationals such as myself have to pay about five times as much for the train ride (a staggering $53, which is two days worth of my budget so I guess I´ll fast this week), and we actually can´t ride with the locals so my friend Pedro and I had to take a separate train. The upside, however, is that tourists get to ride in a train with large portions of glass on the sides and ceiling, so the views of the rushing Rio Urubamba and the snow-covered peaks are phenomenal. I met a bunch of contestants and film crew for the Latin American version of Discovery Channel´s Amazing Race, which is a Survivor-style reality TV show that involves racing round the continent finding clues to your next destination--they were headed to Machu Picchu. The cameraman I made friends with told me in confidence that their next destination is Bogota, Colombia--the contestants are not allowed to know this. During the 90 minute ride, we decended from a more typically Andean climate into what is known as selva alta, or higher-altitude jungle. It´s beautiful here--much greener, and warmer, and unlike in higher-altitude Cusco, here I am spoiled with plenty of oxygen and am not losing my breath climbing the steep streets around the markets.

Right now as I am sitting in an internet spot (to call it a "cafe" would make it seem a lot more cosmopolitan than it is), there is a loud parade going on outside in the streets. Young people dressed in colorful, traditional costume are dancing and flinging their shawls about in an impressively synchronized way. Parades of this sort go on all the time here--I saw at least one a day in Cusco. Some coordinate with traditional holidays, but it seems that they are generally put on for the benefit of tourists. In fact, students appear to spend so much time parading around the city that I am always joking to my Peruvian friends that they should be in the classroom learning math or science or something.

In general, Peruvians are very warm towards tourists, who make a large contribution to the country´s economy. This year, the worldwide economic crisis has affected the number of tourists coming to the country, with disastrous effects for some smaller businesses. Two things that many Peruvians want to talk to me about: how the economic crisis is looking in the United States, and how excited they are that our backwards country actually managed to elect Obama!