The 20 hour bus ride wasn't too bad because the seats were really comfy so I slept a bit and watched a few movies and it went by quickly enough. I had been looking forward to the views, but we drove through the mountains at night so missed all the good stuff - just saw a lot of dusty desert, which wasn't much anything special.
After settling down in our original hostal in Lima that we had spent our first few nights at, we set off to go out for dinner with Ray, a guy I had met on the train from Macchu Picchu and who we had taken a taxi with back to Cusco. Tried to get a taxi but everyone kept trying to charge us wayyy more than we knew the ride was worth, so we turned down about four drivers before we finally found a reasonable one. The taxi ride was the craziest ride I've been on in Cusco, and that's saying a lot, because they are all crazy there. I'm so surprised we didn't get into an accident, I guess the drivers are pretty skilled at dodging each other and speeding in every which way. So we were trying to find a restaurant in Miraflores but the driver insisted that the street we were going to only existed in a nearby district, San Isidro, so he took us there, and the address was some sketchy old building. After asking a police officer, he found out the street we wanted actually did exist much crazy driving later, we finally arrived to dinner over an hour late. It was a fancy restaurant, but amazingggg food. We started with caprece-type thing and really good potato bread, and then I had garlic-y portabello mushrooms, I wish I knew how to flavor them so well. Yummm. For dessert, they let us try a fried plantain-and-stuff donut with honey and some really good caramel, and I ordered something that I have no idea what it was... I thought it would be a lemon merengue pie but it turned out to be some kind of tart-tasting caramel milk cream topped with lemon flavored merengue. really sweet but delicioussss. After dinner, went to a live music bar for a little bit, and the band was surprisingly really good and did a lot of covers of American music. Off to bed and up early in the morning for more traveling. Managed to get a taxi ride for 20 soles to the airport, which is really cheap - we were expecting them to say 40 and then bargain it down to 30. (1 dollar is about 3 soles). Line at airport check in was ridiculously long, but got through it with plenty of time to spare. Flew to San Salvador, five hour layover here, then flight back to SF, where I have a whole two days before the drive down to San Diego. What a month. Travel travel travel! :)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Nearing the End
9/14/09
Today was my last day of touristing in Peru. The month went by way too quickly! Right now, I’m at the beginning of my 20+ hour bus ride between Cusco and Peru. Right now they are playing the intro film about the bus company and sites in Peru, etc, that I’ve already seen twice on my other Cruz del Sur journeys. Last night, got home from dinner and slept. Slept slept slept from 5pm until 8am. Definitely needed it after sleeping less than six hours over two days. Now I have way too much time today on the bus to get more sleep, but I don’t know how much that will happen. Hopefully there will be some good movies. Anyway, knocked out last night after a dinner of pizza (yes, that’s what they had everywhere, made in a wood fire oven) and pineapple juice. Yum. But strange pizza… the vegetables were carrots, green beans, and bell peppers, from what I could tell. In the morning, walked down the hill and found the train station, and took the train to Ollantaytambo. Abby and I had seats in separate rows for some reasons, but I was sitting with really interesting people and we talked the entire two hour ride. The others were all from the US too. The ride was really pretty, in a valley between towering mountains, the train running alongside the sometimes rapid, sometimes smooth Urubamba river.
In Ollaytaytambo, one of the guys I had been riding with already had a taxi there to pick him up and bring him back to Cusco, and they had extra seats, so he let Abby and I go along for the ride instead of taking our two buses back. It took about an hour and a half total instead of the two and a half it would have taken with the bus. After getting to Cusco and dumping our luggage at a hostal for the afternoon, went back to the vegetarian restaurant for lunch. Mmm salad, soup, bread, tea, and saltado de soya… loma saltado, beef with fries, is a typical Peruvian food, so I had the vegetarian version of that, along with veggies and rice. It was pretty good and a nice filling lunch for 2 bucks.
We were considering going to a zoo in the area to see Andean animals, which I really would have liked to do, but we already had a few museums left in the religious circuit that we had already bought and we only had two hours before we had to head to the bus station, so we skipped the zoo, unfortunately. Went to the two remaining churches on our ticket, both of which were really pretty and fairly interesting, but I think I’ve definitely reached my limit of religious things for quite a while. Every church seems to have a black Christ that used to be white but because of the material it is made from and the ash from the candles that burn around it, has turned dark skinned over the years. A lot of the same styles we had seen in previous churches, the mixture of Catholicism and the Andes culture, Baroque style, very intricate pulpits and altars made of cedar wood and coated in gold leaf. Something I hadn’t seen before was that some of the paintings had coca leaves placed in as part of them, which was interesting. In one of the churches, we went to the second level and had a cool view of the central square, the Plaza de Armas, and the Cuscan hillsides.
Lastly, went to the Incan Museum by myself. The most interesting part was the musical instrument exhibit. Lots of different Incan instruments were on display, and there was a table with replicas of these instruments and a guy was demonstrating them. The instruments with water inside that you moved from side to side and different notes came out, the animal shaped flutes that somehow made the sounds of the animals they looked like, the bird filled with water that tweeted if you blew hard enough (he let me try this one), and lots more. It was really fun to watch and to talk to him about them. Then upstairs to a very extensive collection of pottery, jewelry, masks, cups, replicas of Incan foods, pretty much everything Incan you can think of.. I had less than an hour there and there were 23 rooms, so I had to race through them, but it was still really interesting and a great ending for the trip, I love pre-Columbian and Incan cultures.
Today was my last day of touristing in Peru. The month went by way too quickly! Right now, I’m at the beginning of my 20+ hour bus ride between Cusco and Peru. Right now they are playing the intro film about the bus company and sites in Peru, etc, that I’ve already seen twice on my other Cruz del Sur journeys. Last night, got home from dinner and slept. Slept slept slept from 5pm until 8am. Definitely needed it after sleeping less than six hours over two days. Now I have way too much time today on the bus to get more sleep, but I don’t know how much that will happen. Hopefully there will be some good movies. Anyway, knocked out last night after a dinner of pizza (yes, that’s what they had everywhere, made in a wood fire oven) and pineapple juice. Yum. But strange pizza… the vegetables were carrots, green beans, and bell peppers, from what I could tell. In the morning, walked down the hill and found the train station, and took the train to Ollantaytambo. Abby and I had seats in separate rows for some reasons, but I was sitting with really interesting people and we talked the entire two hour ride. The others were all from the US too. The ride was really pretty, in a valley between towering mountains, the train running alongside the sometimes rapid, sometimes smooth Urubamba river.
In Ollaytaytambo, one of the guys I had been riding with already had a taxi there to pick him up and bring him back to Cusco, and they had extra seats, so he let Abby and I go along for the ride instead of taking our two buses back. It took about an hour and a half total instead of the two and a half it would have taken with the bus. After getting to Cusco and dumping our luggage at a hostal for the afternoon, went back to the vegetarian restaurant for lunch. Mmm salad, soup, bread, tea, and saltado de soya… loma saltado, beef with fries, is a typical Peruvian food, so I had the vegetarian version of that, along with veggies and rice. It was pretty good and a nice filling lunch for 2 bucks.
We were considering going to a zoo in the area to see Andean animals, which I really would have liked to do, but we already had a few museums left in the religious circuit that we had already bought and we only had two hours before we had to head to the bus station, so we skipped the zoo, unfortunately. Went to the two remaining churches on our ticket, both of which were really pretty and fairly interesting, but I think I’ve definitely reached my limit of religious things for quite a while. Every church seems to have a black Christ that used to be white but because of the material it is made from and the ash from the candles that burn around it, has turned dark skinned over the years. A lot of the same styles we had seen in previous churches, the mixture of Catholicism and the Andes culture, Baroque style, very intricate pulpits and altars made of cedar wood and coated in gold leaf. Something I hadn’t seen before was that some of the paintings had coca leaves placed in as part of them, which was interesting. In one of the churches, we went to the second level and had a cool view of the central square, the Plaza de Armas, and the Cuscan hillsides.
Lastly, went to the Incan Museum by myself. The most interesting part was the musical instrument exhibit. Lots of different Incan instruments were on display, and there was a table with replicas of these instruments and a guy was demonstrating them. The instruments with water inside that you moved from side to side and different notes came out, the animal shaped flutes that somehow made the sounds of the animals they looked like, the bird filled with water that tweeted if you blew hard enough (he let me try this one), and lots more. It was really fun to watch and to talk to him about them. Then upstairs to a very extensive collection of pottery, jewelry, masks, cups, replicas of Incan foods, pretty much everything Incan you can think of.. I had less than an hour there and there were 23 rooms, so I had to race through them, but it was still really interesting and a great ending for the trip, I love pre-Columbian and Incan cultures.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Macchu Picchu
Train last night was not fun, I was completely sleep deprived and hoping to sleep on it, but after taking forever to come and for them to let us board, it ended up being a long sleepless ride full of lots of bumps, chugga chugga choo choo, and loud German people, who don’t speak a very headache-friendly language. Eventually stumbled up the hill to a hostal and crashed into bed… until we left at 4 am.
We sat in line at the bus station at the bottom of the hill (yes, the whole town is pretty much one big hill covered in hostals and restaurants, tourist land but surrounded by gorgeous hills), waited until 5:30 when the buses came. There were a ton of people in line and they sent about 20 buses supposedly, and we got onto the third one. Turns out that to climb the mountain, they allow 200 people at 7am and another 200 at 10am. I was worried we wouldn’t be in the top 200 but waiting in line to get in, they gave me number 53, so we were easily in. Luckily we did the early one, because it was really hot by 10 or 11 and that hike would have been awful in the heat.
Getting up so early was definitely worth it. Hiked through Macchu Picchu to the back end of it to the base on Wayna Picchu, meaning Young Peak in Quechua. It’s the peak that you see in all the pictures of Macchu Picchu, the giant one sticking up behind the ruins. From the bottom, it looked enormous, and it definitely felt like it when we were climbing. Really intense hike, not helped by the fact that the stone stairs were either huge and far apart or for the most part, tiny, smaller than my feet. I felt so bad for people with bigger feet than me. The first chunk of it was the hardest, really steep uphill, having no idea how much longer it would be, just more and more stairs, really exhausting. There were a couple lookout points along the way with views of Macchu Picchu that were really pretty, and it kept getting smaller and smaller. At some points during the hike, we could see the clouds moving around in the valleys below us…that’s something about the Andes I had definitely remembered and liked from Ecuador. After what felt like forever but was really only a little more than an hour, we crawled through a tunnel, up some more stairs, and up a ladder, and finally, we were at the top of the mountain. Sat up there for quite a while enjoying the view of Macchu Picchu way down below and the valleys and mountains surrounding us, taking tons of pictures. After a while, hiked back down, through some sets of ruins up on the mountain, down, down, down all the stairs we had hiked up. Poor ankles and knees!
Spent the next four hours exploring Macchu Picchu ruins, snacking on granola bars and saltines we had brought along, and needing to pee, but there was no bathroom in the ruins. Didn’t have a guide so didn’t get all of the interesting information about each of the rooms and areas, but it was still really interesting and amazing. Attempted to follow along with the map and figure out what was what, the temple of the condor, the temple of the sun, the three doors, the three windows, the royal palace, the guard’s house, the tower, on and on. There were friendly llamas wandering around everywhere, it was random. The ruins were both smaller and bigger than I thought we would be. When we were actually walking within them, they somehow seemed kind of small, but when we were above them looking down, it was obvious how massive they are. Overheard a little bit from one of the guides about there being sixteen fountains, arranged in a zigzag manner, maybe to slow down the flow of water and maybe to appear like a snake, which symbolizes the connection between earth and the underworld. Tried to listen in on a French guide, but couldn’t understand enough of it to get what was going on. Lost all my French when I was learning Spanish, unfortunately.
The best parts of Macchu Picchu were probably when we were on lookout points and hills above it, looking down and seeing the whole picture, which cannot actually be captured in a picture, it was very surreal. Walked around a lot, up and down different paths, just wandering around, and saw it from different angles, took millions more pictures. Eventually left a bit past one, having been there for seven hours. We thought it would take us a lot longer, but we probably covered every inch of the place, minus the Incan bridge that we started walking to but decided not to when we saw a huge uphill leg of narrow stairs and our legs refused to do it.
Getting in was cheaper than I would think it to be for how famous it is, the student price was about 14 dollars with our international ID card. But it was getting there that was the ridiculous part. Before coming here, I thought of Macchu Picchu as being in/near Cusco, but no way. We did the cheap route, taking the train from Ollataytambo instead of all the way from Cusco, and this cost 62 dollars roundtrip for a total of four hours. And then, to take the bus from Aguas Calientes to Macchu Picchu, it cost another 14 roundtrip for 25 minutes each way. Stupid government, taking advantage of tourists! So it cost a ridiculous amount of money for seven hours of touristing. Was it worth it? Definitely, but I don’t think I would go back, or if I did, it’ll be a long time from now and I’ll spend the extra money for a guide.
We sat in line at the bus station at the bottom of the hill (yes, the whole town is pretty much one big hill covered in hostals and restaurants, tourist land but surrounded by gorgeous hills), waited until 5:30 when the buses came. There were a ton of people in line and they sent about 20 buses supposedly, and we got onto the third one. Turns out that to climb the mountain, they allow 200 people at 7am and another 200 at 10am. I was worried we wouldn’t be in the top 200 but waiting in line to get in, they gave me number 53, so we were easily in. Luckily we did the early one, because it was really hot by 10 or 11 and that hike would have been awful in the heat.
Getting up so early was definitely worth it. Hiked through Macchu Picchu to the back end of it to the base on Wayna Picchu, meaning Young Peak in Quechua. It’s the peak that you see in all the pictures of Macchu Picchu, the giant one sticking up behind the ruins. From the bottom, it looked enormous, and it definitely felt like it when we were climbing. Really intense hike, not helped by the fact that the stone stairs were either huge and far apart or for the most part, tiny, smaller than my feet. I felt so bad for people with bigger feet than me. The first chunk of it was the hardest, really steep uphill, having no idea how much longer it would be, just more and more stairs, really exhausting. There were a couple lookout points along the way with views of Macchu Picchu that were really pretty, and it kept getting smaller and smaller. At some points during the hike, we could see the clouds moving around in the valleys below us…that’s something about the Andes I had definitely remembered and liked from Ecuador. After what felt like forever but was really only a little more than an hour, we crawled through a tunnel, up some more stairs, and up a ladder, and finally, we were at the top of the mountain. Sat up there for quite a while enjoying the view of Macchu Picchu way down below and the valleys and mountains surrounding us, taking tons of pictures. After a while, hiked back down, through some sets of ruins up on the mountain, down, down, down all the stairs we had hiked up. Poor ankles and knees!
Spent the next four hours exploring Macchu Picchu ruins, snacking on granola bars and saltines we had brought along, and needing to pee, but there was no bathroom in the ruins. Didn’t have a guide so didn’t get all of the interesting information about each of the rooms and areas, but it was still really interesting and amazing. Attempted to follow along with the map and figure out what was what, the temple of the condor, the temple of the sun, the three doors, the three windows, the royal palace, the guard’s house, the tower, on and on. There were friendly llamas wandering around everywhere, it was random. The ruins were both smaller and bigger than I thought we would be. When we were actually walking within them, they somehow seemed kind of small, but when we were above them looking down, it was obvious how massive they are. Overheard a little bit from one of the guides about there being sixteen fountains, arranged in a zigzag manner, maybe to slow down the flow of water and maybe to appear like a snake, which symbolizes the connection between earth and the underworld. Tried to listen in on a French guide, but couldn’t understand enough of it to get what was going on. Lost all my French when I was learning Spanish, unfortunately.
The best parts of Macchu Picchu were probably when we were on lookout points and hills above it, looking down and seeing the whole picture, which cannot actually be captured in a picture, it was very surreal. Walked around a lot, up and down different paths, just wandering around, and saw it from different angles, took millions more pictures. Eventually left a bit past one, having been there for seven hours. We thought it would take us a lot longer, but we probably covered every inch of the place, minus the Incan bridge that we started walking to but decided not to when we saw a huge uphill leg of narrow stairs and our legs refused to do it.
Getting in was cheaper than I would think it to be for how famous it is, the student price was about 14 dollars with our international ID card. But it was getting there that was the ridiculous part. Before coming here, I thought of Macchu Picchu as being in/near Cusco, but no way. We did the cheap route, taking the train from Ollataytambo instead of all the way from Cusco, and this cost 62 dollars roundtrip for a total of four hours. And then, to take the bus from Aguas Calientes to Macchu Picchu, it cost another 14 roundtrip for 25 minutes each way. Stupid government, taking advantage of tourists! So it cost a ridiculous amount of money for seven hours of touristing. Was it worth it? Definitely, but I don’t think I would go back, or if I did, it’ll be a long time from now and I’ll spend the extra money for a guide.
And The Touristing Begins
9/12/09
It’s been a long couple days of traveling. At the moment, I’m sitting outside at Ollaytatambo, way early for our train but the earlier train is all filled up. I can’t believe I was still in Huancayo yesterday. Went to the vet place and cleaned the floor, washed a dog (Pisco was back to get his bandage changed, and they for some reason changed it first and then told me to bathe him… doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of a new dry bandage?)… Said goodbye to the doctors and wanted to take a picture with them, but one of them insisted on taking out his old digital camera, putting the batteries in, and using that to take pictures instead of letting me use my camera. I kept explaining to him that I could email the pictures to him but he said of course, of course, and kept taking pictures of me in every random place of the hospital with his camera. Strange.
After goodbyes at the house, it was off to Lima on the bus. Really really nice bus with seats that reclined back to become almost beds. Really comfortable and tons of room, but it was during the day, so I couldn’t manage to get any sleep. I’ll be on the same type of bus for my long 21 hour trip from Cusco to Lima, so I should hopefully be able to sleep then at least. Watched Slumdog Millionaire in Spanish and a pretty funny Wallace and Gromitt movie, and talked a bunch to the guy sitting next to me. The seven hour ride went by quickly enough. It was snowing for part of it, which was really cool to watch from the window… I hadn’t seen it snow in such a long time, and especially in the Andes, it was really nice. Then off to the airport to spend the night, where I probably got about twenty minutes of sleep total. Wasted time messing around on my computer, snacking, and attempting to sleep but it was really bright and loud so it was pretty hopeless. Abby, of course, is way too lucky and can sleep standing up if she wanted to. No fair!
Finally, took our one hour plane ride to Cusco. Really gorgeous trip, going over the Cordilleras Blancas and watching the sun rise. We landed just at 7am to reports that it was going to be 5 degrees Celsius outside. Eek. I didn’t remember where I had packed my gloves! But luckily, it ended up being a pretty nice day, a bit windy, but not too cold at all. Dumped our stuff at a hostal in central Cusco for the day, wandered around dodging the people offering us hostals and breakfast and massages and on and on. Cusco is a really pretty city, reddish brown and green hillsides accented by rows of red roofed houses in the mountains. I loved the narrow cobblestone streets at first, but soon, my feet were not very happy with the slippery and sometimes sharp stones. Definitely wearing my other shoes tomorrow.
Nothing was open at first, but eventually found Iglesia Santo Domingo. It was interesting at the time but not particularly memorable aside from a really nice bathroom, pretty flowers, and a cool architectural structure. Oh, there were also some ruins inside, mostly empty rooms with unknown purposes, some with holes in the walls that used to allow sound to come in from the street. Lots of stones carved in different styles from Incan times. Ooh, there was a cool room with a description of Incan astronomy and a painting of the way the dark and light spots around the stars line up to make a llama and her baby and some other animals that are very important in the culture.
Then walked around trying to buy tickets to get into Macchu Picchu and also to get from Aguas Calientes, the nearby town, to Macchu Picchu in the morning. We asked a ton of people and just got sent in circles over and over again, it was really frustrating. Finally found the place to buy the tickets, and had to go somewhere else to buy the bus tickets. Took way longer than it should have and it was hidden in this tiny little place because almost everyone goes with a tour, so no one tries to buy tickets just on their own. Oh such fun.
Our errands finally done, we set off to the Cathedral of Cusco. Was pretty expensive (by Peru standards) to get in, but we got a ticket that covered that and three other places as well and it lasts for ten days, so we can finish them off on Monday when we are back in Cusco. Did an audio tour of the church… they have headsets and numbers of what you are supposed to play at which place in the church. It was really, really long and got a bit tedious and too much religiousness for me, but overall, it was interesting and worth doing. The church was gorgeous. Simple but huge domed ceilings, fourteen chapels, countless paintings. The tour talked about a bunch of the different saints, including the one that women pray to to get a certain man to marry her (they write him messages and turn his figure upside down every Friday to remind him of their wishes), the one men use to keep these women away, the one that wards off earthquakes, etc., etc. There was a lot of pure silver and gold shaped into people and birds and basilicas. Paintings over all the domes by a famous painter whose name I of course can’t remember, all very red and blue in color. Lots of paintings showing the cross and combination between the local Andes culture and Catholicism… one of the last supper where the foods on the table were local fruits and cuy (guinea pig. Ick). They talked a lot about the Mestizo presence in the church, how it had a lot of Spanish influence from the conquistadores but also so much from the natives, all meshed together into one. And then of course different bits and pieces of it redone in different time periods thanks to earthquakes and damages so of different, more modern styles altogether. In the choir, there were two organs that were made when the cathedral first opened in the eighteenth century and have been since refurbished and are still used today.
Last museum was of religious art, which I wasn’t really into. Had the audio recording thing again. Lots of paintings of bishops and priests, angels and other religious figures, all meaning something to so many people but not too much to me. The one group of paintings I liked in there were a set of zodiac paintings that each represented one member of the zodiac and were based in the Netherlands, because basing them here in the Andes would be too normal and not special enough for the zodiac symbols, which were tied in these paintings to Incan gods. There were only nine of them – the painter didn’t start them until he was 70 so he died before he got around to finishing all twelve.
Lunch at a vegetarian restaurant was very yummy… wheat bread, salad from a mini salad bar, lentil noodle vegetable soup, a broccoli dish with rice, and chamomile tea… all for 2 dollars. I can never get such full meals at normal restaurants because they offer cheap big meals all the time (set menus are always wayyyy cheaper than any of the things would be on their own)… but this is the only time it isn’t meat. So stocked up on all the veggies I had been missing from the last week. Then got our stuff back, took a bus to Urabamba. I actually fell asleep on this bus even though it was a completely rickety old bus with tiny uncomfortable seats. I woke up to amazing views outside and tried to keep myself awake for them but couldn’t. Then had to take a shared taxi into Ollaytaytambo, where we were going to see the ruins. They turned out to be almost as expensive as the entrance to Macchu Picchu and we only would have had just over an hour to see them, so we gave up on that and just wandered the tiny town a bit and ate. So now I’m still stuck way too early at the train station, just over an hour to go until we leave. It’s supposed to be a really pretty trip, but it’s nighttime so there won’t be much anything to see… we’ll see it on the way back on Monday. Have to find a hostal once we get there and then get up super early, 4 something, to be in the first 200 people to get to Macchu Picchu so that we are allowed to climb the biggest mountain there…. Number 201, too bad. So we’ll have to get to the bus station super early to make sure we can do it.
It’s been a long couple days of traveling. At the moment, I’m sitting outside at Ollaytatambo, way early for our train but the earlier train is all filled up. I can’t believe I was still in Huancayo yesterday. Went to the vet place and cleaned the floor, washed a dog (Pisco was back to get his bandage changed, and they for some reason changed it first and then told me to bathe him… doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of a new dry bandage?)… Said goodbye to the doctors and wanted to take a picture with them, but one of them insisted on taking out his old digital camera, putting the batteries in, and using that to take pictures instead of letting me use my camera. I kept explaining to him that I could email the pictures to him but he said of course, of course, and kept taking pictures of me in every random place of the hospital with his camera. Strange.
After goodbyes at the house, it was off to Lima on the bus. Really really nice bus with seats that reclined back to become almost beds. Really comfortable and tons of room, but it was during the day, so I couldn’t manage to get any sleep. I’ll be on the same type of bus for my long 21 hour trip from Cusco to Lima, so I should hopefully be able to sleep then at least. Watched Slumdog Millionaire in Spanish and a pretty funny Wallace and Gromitt movie, and talked a bunch to the guy sitting next to me. The seven hour ride went by quickly enough. It was snowing for part of it, which was really cool to watch from the window… I hadn’t seen it snow in such a long time, and especially in the Andes, it was really nice. Then off to the airport to spend the night, where I probably got about twenty minutes of sleep total. Wasted time messing around on my computer, snacking, and attempting to sleep but it was really bright and loud so it was pretty hopeless. Abby, of course, is way too lucky and can sleep standing up if she wanted to. No fair!
Finally, took our one hour plane ride to Cusco. Really gorgeous trip, going over the Cordilleras Blancas and watching the sun rise. We landed just at 7am to reports that it was going to be 5 degrees Celsius outside. Eek. I didn’t remember where I had packed my gloves! But luckily, it ended up being a pretty nice day, a bit windy, but not too cold at all. Dumped our stuff at a hostal in central Cusco for the day, wandered around dodging the people offering us hostals and breakfast and massages and on and on. Cusco is a really pretty city, reddish brown and green hillsides accented by rows of red roofed houses in the mountains. I loved the narrow cobblestone streets at first, but soon, my feet were not very happy with the slippery and sometimes sharp stones. Definitely wearing my other shoes tomorrow.
Nothing was open at first, but eventually found Iglesia Santo Domingo. It was interesting at the time but not particularly memorable aside from a really nice bathroom, pretty flowers, and a cool architectural structure. Oh, there were also some ruins inside, mostly empty rooms with unknown purposes, some with holes in the walls that used to allow sound to come in from the street. Lots of stones carved in different styles from Incan times. Ooh, there was a cool room with a description of Incan astronomy and a painting of the way the dark and light spots around the stars line up to make a llama and her baby and some other animals that are very important in the culture.
Then walked around trying to buy tickets to get into Macchu Picchu and also to get from Aguas Calientes, the nearby town, to Macchu Picchu in the morning. We asked a ton of people and just got sent in circles over and over again, it was really frustrating. Finally found the place to buy the tickets, and had to go somewhere else to buy the bus tickets. Took way longer than it should have and it was hidden in this tiny little place because almost everyone goes with a tour, so no one tries to buy tickets just on their own. Oh such fun.
Our errands finally done, we set off to the Cathedral of Cusco. Was pretty expensive (by Peru standards) to get in, but we got a ticket that covered that and three other places as well and it lasts for ten days, so we can finish them off on Monday when we are back in Cusco. Did an audio tour of the church… they have headsets and numbers of what you are supposed to play at which place in the church. It was really, really long and got a bit tedious and too much religiousness for me, but overall, it was interesting and worth doing. The church was gorgeous. Simple but huge domed ceilings, fourteen chapels, countless paintings. The tour talked about a bunch of the different saints, including the one that women pray to to get a certain man to marry her (they write him messages and turn his figure upside down every Friday to remind him of their wishes), the one men use to keep these women away, the one that wards off earthquakes, etc., etc. There was a lot of pure silver and gold shaped into people and birds and basilicas. Paintings over all the domes by a famous painter whose name I of course can’t remember, all very red and blue in color. Lots of paintings showing the cross and combination between the local Andes culture and Catholicism… one of the last supper where the foods on the table were local fruits and cuy (guinea pig. Ick). They talked a lot about the Mestizo presence in the church, how it had a lot of Spanish influence from the conquistadores but also so much from the natives, all meshed together into one. And then of course different bits and pieces of it redone in different time periods thanks to earthquakes and damages so of different, more modern styles altogether. In the choir, there were two organs that were made when the cathedral first opened in the eighteenth century and have been since refurbished and are still used today.
Last museum was of religious art, which I wasn’t really into. Had the audio recording thing again. Lots of paintings of bishops and priests, angels and other religious figures, all meaning something to so many people but not too much to me. The one group of paintings I liked in there were a set of zodiac paintings that each represented one member of the zodiac and were based in the Netherlands, because basing them here in the Andes would be too normal and not special enough for the zodiac symbols, which were tied in these paintings to Incan gods. There were only nine of them – the painter didn’t start them until he was 70 so he died before he got around to finishing all twelve.
Lunch at a vegetarian restaurant was very yummy… wheat bread, salad from a mini salad bar, lentil noodle vegetable soup, a broccoli dish with rice, and chamomile tea… all for 2 dollars. I can never get such full meals at normal restaurants because they offer cheap big meals all the time (set menus are always wayyyy cheaper than any of the things would be on their own)… but this is the only time it isn’t meat. So stocked up on all the veggies I had been missing from the last week. Then got our stuff back, took a bus to Urabamba. I actually fell asleep on this bus even though it was a completely rickety old bus with tiny uncomfortable seats. I woke up to amazing views outside and tried to keep myself awake for them but couldn’t. Then had to take a shared taxi into Ollaytaytambo, where we were going to see the ruins. They turned out to be almost as expensive as the entrance to Macchu Picchu and we only would have had just over an hour to see them, so we gave up on that and just wandered the tiny town a bit and ate. So now I’m still stuck way too early at the train station, just over an hour to go until we leave. It’s supposed to be a really pretty trip, but it’s nighttime so there won’t be much anything to see… we’ll see it on the way back on Monday. Have to find a hostal once we get there and then get up super early, 4 something, to be in the first 200 people to get to Macchu Picchu so that we are allowed to climb the biggest mountain there…. Number 201, too bad. So we’ll have to get to the bus station super early to make sure we can do it.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sick
It was bound to happen, hard to go through a trip like this without getting sick. Of the five volunteers... all of us are sick. Last night we were all crashed out on the couches watching tv forever because we were too out of it to do anything else. Surviving on carbs and lots of tea. Skipped work today and yesterday, so not much exciting news going on here. I was the only one who felt well enough to go to Urpaycancha with the kids yesterday (along with Eli and Neto, the volunteer coordinators).. and there were only five kids so we ditched the lesson again and just let them color. We were going to have class again today because the others were going to go to the jungle on Friday and we are leaving, but thanks to sickness, jungle is postponed for them and the Thursday class is pushed to Friday. Meaning yesterday was my last day with the kids but I didnt know it till I was actually there, so I dont have any pictures of or with them and I didnt get to say goodbye to most of them. Boo. I´m going to definitely be stealing someone else´s pictures.
I can´t believe its already almost time to go. Leaving tomorrow at 1:30 for the long journey back to Lima and so on. Time went way too fast.. always slow at the beginning and then boom it´s over. I hope I can go to work tomorrow just for a few hours to say goodbye and take some pictures, I´ll see how I´m doing. We may all take a trip to the doctor today to get some antibiotics, maybe. Way cheaper here than in the US and not even worth using travel insurance because it costs way less than the deductible.
Okay, I still havent written about Saturday´s adventures... Started out early driving out to the valley to go horseback riding. My horse was named Harry (with a Spanish accent.. though I keep thinking of his name with a Harry Potter accent for some reason).. and he was the crazy of the bunch. Yay. We rode for three hours, which was awesome, but we were all really really sore for the few days after. Completely different than riding in the US... our guide was in the back and when we were at a juncture and asked him which way to turn, he just shrugged his shoulders and let us go wherever we felt like going, most of the time. We got to lead and my horse being himself, always pushed up to the front and started running off way ahead of the others. So I got an amazing view of the valley and a really fun ride. Went really deep into the valley and up a mountain, and we could see in the distance the glacier that we had climbed to the weekend before, just the tip peaking over other mountains. Passed through a little pueblo (town) where a costumed band was practicing, and through another pueblo where a celebration was going on, and we stopped for a few minutes to watch them dance and sing. At one point, got off our horses and let them rest for a bit while we climbed up part of a mountain to an amazing view of the entire valley. Called Wawi wawi, it means baby in Quechua. Hard to describe what it looked like; I´ll post pictures later. But it was breathtaking. Back down with the horses, we climbed up another hill and felt horrible for the horses because it was really steep and rocky and hard to climb. Harry liked to wander off in his own direction and when I steered him back in the other direction, he trotted off the wrong way instead. Naughty horse! But it´s more fun that way :D Passed by sheep, cows, locals wandering around doing who knows what in the middle of nowhere, far away from their towns. When we were almost back, Harry´s harness decided to break off and suddenly I had no control of him. I held on to his mane and tried to get him to stop, but he kept running away from the guide, who was trying to catch us to put it back on. Eventually cornered him next to a wall and the guide ended up taking out one of his shoelaces and using it to tie the harness back on. The rest of the group had gotten way ahead at this point and Harry, wanting to be the leader, went off at a full paced gallop to catch up with the rest of them the moment the guide let him go. Weee. He was also quite a nasty horse and liked to nip at his cousin and some of the other horses. I almost got nipped at once in return. At the end of the ride, had to go through a river, where I luckily didnt get wet because Harry was the tallest horse, but the others got soaked because the river was really deep.
Drove through a town and stopped to watch part of a wedding, where we felt completely out of place in our disgusting horse clothes and just being foreigners, but it was interesting to see. Stopped by a dairy factory and had the most amazing ice cream ever, the fresh cream from the cows stuck directly into a machine and then right to us. Yummm. Then we went this really pretty place for lunch.. yes, it was completely man made fountains and stones and everything, but it looked almost real and they definitely knew how to make it look good. Everyone else got fresh trout from the river right there, and I got.. yup, potatoes! Was still hungry after so ate a granola bar too. After lunch, we visited a silver factory in another town, where they showed up how they make jewlery using these cool old methods, and for some reason, we have no idea why, put on this really creepy costume and said something about it really quickly in Spanish. Was really cool to watch the jewlery being made and just know that all the really intricate pieces there were pure silver and all made by hand. Then we went to a fabric factory and saw them weaving on their looms and they told us a bit about that.
Back home, we had been planning to go to a Peruvian rock concert of a band whose song we kept hearing on the radio, but we were too exhausted, so rested for a bit and then went to a karaoke bar at night. Yumm pina coladas are good. But actually really expensive (for here) at the place we were at. Went home and crashed after a long day and spent Sunday just lazing around.
Hmm what else.. food is always potatoes potatoes potatoes. One day we went to a chicken restaurant and I asked for potatoes and a salad and my potatoes were a giantttt plate of french fries. Really good fries with a good sauce, but still, I dont think I´ll be eating fries for a while. Another day, we went for pachamanga, a type of food cooked in an underground oven with coals, and almost entirely meat. I got potatoes and this sweet cornbread thing, humitas, wrapped in leaves like tamales are. Actually was a really good lunch. Tried Inka Kola, the most popular soft drink of peru, a neon yellow soda, and it was really really overly sweet and just..yuck. But I had to try it sometime since I´m here. Another night, we went to a Chinese restaurant, and I got a break from potatoes and had really good fried rice. Also had an amazing pisco sour, the famous drink of peru, really really good at that restaurant.. I had tried one somewhere else and this one was a million times better.
Okay, well, I think I´m mostly caught up on everything now, nice super long blog. Goodbye.
I can´t believe its already almost time to go. Leaving tomorrow at 1:30 for the long journey back to Lima and so on. Time went way too fast.. always slow at the beginning and then boom it´s over. I hope I can go to work tomorrow just for a few hours to say goodbye and take some pictures, I´ll see how I´m doing. We may all take a trip to the doctor today to get some antibiotics, maybe. Way cheaper here than in the US and not even worth using travel insurance because it costs way less than the deductible.
Okay, I still havent written about Saturday´s adventures... Started out early driving out to the valley to go horseback riding. My horse was named Harry (with a Spanish accent.. though I keep thinking of his name with a Harry Potter accent for some reason).. and he was the crazy of the bunch. Yay. We rode for three hours, which was awesome, but we were all really really sore for the few days after. Completely different than riding in the US... our guide was in the back and when we were at a juncture and asked him which way to turn, he just shrugged his shoulders and let us go wherever we felt like going, most of the time. We got to lead and my horse being himself, always pushed up to the front and started running off way ahead of the others. So I got an amazing view of the valley and a really fun ride. Went really deep into the valley and up a mountain, and we could see in the distance the glacier that we had climbed to the weekend before, just the tip peaking over other mountains. Passed through a little pueblo (town) where a costumed band was practicing, and through another pueblo where a celebration was going on, and we stopped for a few minutes to watch them dance and sing. At one point, got off our horses and let them rest for a bit while we climbed up part of a mountain to an amazing view of the entire valley. Called Wawi wawi, it means baby in Quechua. Hard to describe what it looked like; I´ll post pictures later. But it was breathtaking. Back down with the horses, we climbed up another hill and felt horrible for the horses because it was really steep and rocky and hard to climb. Harry liked to wander off in his own direction and when I steered him back in the other direction, he trotted off the wrong way instead. Naughty horse! But it´s more fun that way :D Passed by sheep, cows, locals wandering around doing who knows what in the middle of nowhere, far away from their towns. When we were almost back, Harry´s harness decided to break off and suddenly I had no control of him. I held on to his mane and tried to get him to stop, but he kept running away from the guide, who was trying to catch us to put it back on. Eventually cornered him next to a wall and the guide ended up taking out one of his shoelaces and using it to tie the harness back on. The rest of the group had gotten way ahead at this point and Harry, wanting to be the leader, went off at a full paced gallop to catch up with the rest of them the moment the guide let him go. Weee. He was also quite a nasty horse and liked to nip at his cousin and some of the other horses. I almost got nipped at once in return. At the end of the ride, had to go through a river, where I luckily didnt get wet because Harry was the tallest horse, but the others got soaked because the river was really deep.
Drove through a town and stopped to watch part of a wedding, where we felt completely out of place in our disgusting horse clothes and just being foreigners, but it was interesting to see. Stopped by a dairy factory and had the most amazing ice cream ever, the fresh cream from the cows stuck directly into a machine and then right to us. Yummm. Then we went this really pretty place for lunch.. yes, it was completely man made fountains and stones and everything, but it looked almost real and they definitely knew how to make it look good. Everyone else got fresh trout from the river right there, and I got.. yup, potatoes! Was still hungry after so ate a granola bar too. After lunch, we visited a silver factory in another town, where they showed up how they make jewlery using these cool old methods, and for some reason, we have no idea why, put on this really creepy costume and said something about it really quickly in Spanish. Was really cool to watch the jewlery being made and just know that all the really intricate pieces there were pure silver and all made by hand. Then we went to a fabric factory and saw them weaving on their looms and they told us a bit about that.
Back home, we had been planning to go to a Peruvian rock concert of a band whose song we kept hearing on the radio, but we were too exhausted, so rested for a bit and then went to a karaoke bar at night. Yumm pina coladas are good. But actually really expensive (for here) at the place we were at. Went home and crashed after a long day and spent Sunday just lazing around.
Hmm what else.. food is always potatoes potatoes potatoes. One day we went to a chicken restaurant and I asked for potatoes and a salad and my potatoes were a giantttt plate of french fries. Really good fries with a good sauce, but still, I dont think I´ll be eating fries for a while. Another day, we went for pachamanga, a type of food cooked in an underground oven with coals, and almost entirely meat. I got potatoes and this sweet cornbread thing, humitas, wrapped in leaves like tamales are. Actually was a really good lunch. Tried Inka Kola, the most popular soft drink of peru, a neon yellow soda, and it was really really overly sweet and just..yuck. But I had to try it sometime since I´m here. Another night, we went to a Chinese restaurant, and I got a break from potatoes and had really good fried rice. Also had an amazing pisco sour, the famous drink of peru, really really good at that restaurant.. I had tried one somewhere else and this one was a million times better.
Okay, well, I think I´m mostly caught up on everything now, nice super long blog. Goodbye.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
House Calls
No blood and gore today at the veterinary clinic. Instead, we were out and about. First went with the doctor to the house of a really old, kind of out there lady. Took the bus there but it wasnt too far so we walked back. Took stitches out on a dog who had anal gland abcesses a few weeks ago, from what I could understand of the conversation. There were a ton of dogs in the house and I met a Peruvian breed dog - its a hairless dog with a fuzzy white head and tail and besides that, its just a bald dark grey. Look it up - hideous but cute at the same time. Apparently they do house calls a lot - the old lady lived with her kids who easily could have brought the dog in, but the doctor went because he said the lady couldnt go.
Back at the clinic, a dog was getting a warm water bath, which is pretty rare up here. Then came a haircut, where they actually used electric blades like we use in the US. I asked why they didnt use them during surgery and he said using it on dirty hair dulls the blade so they only used it for grooming after baths.
Then a woman came by and told the doctor about her very sick cow, so we got on a combi and rode for about 20, 30 minutes out into the countryside to Cullpa. Twas my first time being in a rural home here, and it was really interesting. Walk in the gate into a courtyard full of dogs, cats, roosters, chickens, pigs, and cows. The sick cow is tied up under a roof. Clothes hanging on the lines to dry, screaming children, extended family everyone. Such a scene from a movie, and also reminded me of backyards in Ecuador. The cow was giving milk from one of her teets but from another came a weird liquid that looked like oil. Not eating, etc, etc, lots of problems, the doctor diagnosed her with mastitis. Gave vitamins and another injection. The part I had to try so hard not to laugh about - the doctor asked for a beer bottle and warm water.. empty beer bottle it turned out, luckily. poured a powder into the bottle, filled it with water, shook it around, pried open the cow´s mouth, and poured in all the liquid, and did this twice. it was really funny to watch a cow drinking out of a beer bottle. yepp.
Finally figured out my schedule for the rest of the trip. Took forever and involved my credit card being frozen and having to defraud and authorize it, and lots of websites just not working. But finally we have a plan. It sucks cause I dont get to do Nazca lines or the jungle, it was a lot of back and forth ridiculous travel just because of the way the buses work. Ugh. But I´ll fly out of Lima to Cuzco Sat early morning and spend Monday at Macchu Picchu and then take the 21 hour bus ride back to Lima and then fly back to SF through San Salvador. Oh it´ll be a crazy couple of days with wayyy too much travel in between the fun parts. But the buses are nice ones, with bed seats, so hopefully I´ll just sleep and watch the scenery.
Back at the clinic, a dog was getting a warm water bath, which is pretty rare up here. Then came a haircut, where they actually used electric blades like we use in the US. I asked why they didnt use them during surgery and he said using it on dirty hair dulls the blade so they only used it for grooming after baths.
Then a woman came by and told the doctor about her very sick cow, so we got on a combi and rode for about 20, 30 minutes out into the countryside to Cullpa. Twas my first time being in a rural home here, and it was really interesting. Walk in the gate into a courtyard full of dogs, cats, roosters, chickens, pigs, and cows. The sick cow is tied up under a roof. Clothes hanging on the lines to dry, screaming children, extended family everyone. Such a scene from a movie, and also reminded me of backyards in Ecuador. The cow was giving milk from one of her teets but from another came a weird liquid that looked like oil. Not eating, etc, etc, lots of problems, the doctor diagnosed her with mastitis. Gave vitamins and another injection. The part I had to try so hard not to laugh about - the doctor asked for a beer bottle and warm water.. empty beer bottle it turned out, luckily. poured a powder into the bottle, filled it with water, shook it around, pried open the cow´s mouth, and poured in all the liquid, and did this twice. it was really funny to watch a cow drinking out of a beer bottle. yepp.
Finally figured out my schedule for the rest of the trip. Took forever and involved my credit card being frozen and having to defraud and authorize it, and lots of websites just not working. But finally we have a plan. It sucks cause I dont get to do Nazca lines or the jungle, it was a lot of back and forth ridiculous travel just because of the way the buses work. Ugh. But I´ll fly out of Lima to Cuzco Sat early morning and spend Monday at Macchu Picchu and then take the 21 hour bus ride back to Lima and then fly back to SF through San Salvador. Oh it´ll be a crazy couple of days with wayyy too much travel in between the fun parts. But the buses are nice ones, with bed seats, so hopefully I´ll just sleep and watch the scenery.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Pop Eye
Cleaning the vet clinic consists of: every day, sweep the floors and dust off the surgery/exam table. to clean up pee, sprinkle sawdust on top and sweep it up. the end. but on mondays, fill a bucket with water and disinfectant and reuse this very dirty water to scrub the floors and make them cleaner, or attempt to. then take petroleum and coat the floors with it for a final coat of cleaning, and hope that no one decides to light a match. interesting.
the first dog that came in this morning had one of his eyes popping out of his face. knocked him out and tried to stuff his eye back in but they werent using enough anesthesia so he didnt like it too much, to say the least. gave more anesthesia, cleaned off the eye, which was completely out of its socket and oozing pus, beautiful, and then pushed it back in. they sutured it up a bit and used two cut up pieces of plastic tubing to hold it shut. in five days, they will take that out and see if they can save the eye. was a really interesting procedure, ive never seen anyhing like that because they always send eye cases to specialists.
the other case for the day was a dog with a huge bloody pussy abcess on his neck. he seriouly did not want to be aslèep and we had to keep putting more and more anesthesia and pìnning him down while they were cleaning it off. not a happy dog. thery flushed out the absess and put a ton of ampìcillin into the wound, which i hadnt seen before. sutured in a drain and theyll check on it in a couple days. all the owners are so clueless about their dogs... this is something yucky but pretty fixable and the owner was really freaked out and asked me if pisco (the dog, also thew name of the wine here) wquld die. nope, this one has plenty of fight left in him. after the proceudre, they covered his neck in gauze and wrapped masking tape around his head very sloppily. was pretty funny looking. and this keyboard suckssss.
so i´m noticing more and more the huge differences between vet clinics here and in the us. never would a doctor scrub the floor or do the intake on a patient in the us. only in other countries do they reuse bloody pieces of gauze and have such little care for sterility. but thats how it goes when money is such a huge factor. they reuse needles as long as it is on the same animal. owners are allowed to stand in on surgeries and watch, sometiemes even help. so weird. the doctors do everything, there are no technicians to do anything for them, so they do everything from the dirty work to the surgeries. never never never in the US would a vet do so many of these things, its so strange. but definitely good in a way, keeps them from becoming above everything and everyone.
okay, time to go eat lunch and go work with the kids, but ill update about this weekend´s adventures later on. :)
the first dog that came in this morning had one of his eyes popping out of his face. knocked him out and tried to stuff his eye back in but they werent using enough anesthesia so he didnt like it too much, to say the least. gave more anesthesia, cleaned off the eye, which was completely out of its socket and oozing pus, beautiful, and then pushed it back in. they sutured it up a bit and used two cut up pieces of plastic tubing to hold it shut. in five days, they will take that out and see if they can save the eye. was a really interesting procedure, ive never seen anyhing like that because they always send eye cases to specialists.
the other case for the day was a dog with a huge bloody pussy abcess on his neck. he seriouly did not want to be aslèep and we had to keep putting more and more anesthesia and pìnning him down while they were cleaning it off. not a happy dog. thery flushed out the absess and put a ton of ampìcillin into the wound, which i hadnt seen before. sutured in a drain and theyll check on it in a couple days. all the owners are so clueless about their dogs... this is something yucky but pretty fixable and the owner was really freaked out and asked me if pisco (the dog, also thew name of the wine here) wquld die. nope, this one has plenty of fight left in him. after the proceudre, they covered his neck in gauze and wrapped masking tape around his head very sloppily. was pretty funny looking. and this keyboard suckssss.
so i´m noticing more and more the huge differences between vet clinics here and in the us. never would a doctor scrub the floor or do the intake on a patient in the us. only in other countries do they reuse bloody pieces of gauze and have such little care for sterility. but thats how it goes when money is such a huge factor. they reuse needles as long as it is on the same animal. owners are allowed to stand in on surgeries and watch, sometiemes even help. so weird. the doctors do everything, there are no technicians to do anything for them, so they do everything from the dirty work to the surgeries. never never never in the US would a vet do so many of these things, its so strange. but definitely good in a way, keeps them from becoming above everything and everyone.
okay, time to go eat lunch and go work with the kids, but ill update about this weekend´s adventures later on. :)
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