Learning Spanish Ain´t for the Faint of Heart

SUCRE - So there I was Thursday, sitting across from my Spanish instructor Esthella, confidently responding to every question. My pronunciation still needs a lot of work, but I´d been making remarkable progress. Everything was peachy during our regular four-hour session until... she brought out the irregular verbs! It was as if someone brought out a mallet and decided to play Beethoven´s Fifth Symphony on my head! I immediately accused the diablo of creating these irregular verbs to ruin my waking hours, but Esthella pointed out that if I thought this was bad, just wait until we wandered into different tenses! One mate and saltena later, I recovered, but it was quite a sobering experience. There is still much work to be done!

On Wednesday, nearly the entire city was shut down in protest of the central government. Only a few days after the violence erupted during the independence festivities here, Sucre residents decided to protest by closing their offices, restaurants, markets, Internet cafes and just about everything else. (Luckily, Meghan and I had been tipped off about the protest on Tuesday and were able to make a last-minute trip to the market for food.) It seems President Evo Morales had long ago promised Sucre new ambulances and folks are still waiting. Let´s just say the fleet Meghan and I´ve seen could use an upgrade! Sucre is a fascinating city. It is probably the most affluent in Bolivia and definitely home to the most capitalists in this left-leaning land. Yet, it lacks some of the bare essentials. One prime example, this city of 250,000 has only one working fire truck! Policemen on the streets double as firefighters, but they have little or no training on fighting fires. If a Sucre resident has a house fire, they don´t call 911 -- they knock on their neighbor´s door. And if you live out in the country, forget it.

Thanks for Reading!

SUCRE -- We´d like to take a moment today to thank our readers. The blog hit a milestone yesterday with more than 300 unique visitors since we installed our counter, and 630 page views according to our map. So thanks for living vicariously through our travels. We´ve enjoyed writing and hearing from everyone.

In other statistical news, after three visits to the Feria del Chocolate (Sucre´s chocolate festival), I have decided I like the coffee-cream-filled bonbons the best, with the milk-chocolate bunnies from Para Ti a close runner up. Sadly, the festival ended last night but the chocolate stores downtown are only a short walk from our hostel.

It´s Not the Dynamite; It´s the Tear Gas

SUCRE -- Thanks to Will´s mention of "explosives" in the blog, we no longer have to worry about our friends and family reading the international news briefs buried deep in the A section and consequently worrying about us. We appreciate all your concerned emails, but rest assured we have not heard dynamite in two days. The streets have practically emptied since it´s a federal holiday. And, although it was hard to overcome the remnants of our natural journalistic curiosity, we steered clear of the protests. Besides, what you really have to worry about with these demonstrations is not the dynamite but the tear gas. Police here don´t hesitate to use it. And having experienced tear gas once (sadly, not in a glamorous political demonstration --someone down the hall in my college dorm decided to see what would happen if they opened a can of it) I have no desire to do so again.

For those of you out there still struggling with journalistic curiosity, the indignation pervading Sucre dates back to last year´s ¨Black November¨, when three protesters were killed during much more intense demonstrations during the rewriting of Bolivia´s constitution. Protests and the sound of dynamite have become a fact of life here ever since. The local paper, Correo del Sur (www.correodelsur.net), put out an interesting special section on it Sunday.

If things heat up again, we´ll still steer clear, though now that we have realized that as non-journalists we are free to participate in protests, the temptation beckons.

Violence in Sucre

SUCRE, BOLIVIA -- Violence broke out Saturday afternoon in the country´s official capital. Protesters armed with rocks, old tires and dynamite caused quite a scene in this city, which long ago ceded much of Bolivia´s government to the bigger La Paz. Police responded with force, with at least four people wounded in fights with authorities. Melees near the soccer stadium made up an entire edition of the Saturday evening news. But Sucre has a past of this sort of thing, given it is the site of South America´s first push for independence from the Spanish 199 years ago today. Things settled down today, and we were on hand for a peaceful parade through the streets, similar to our Fourth of July celebrations. Every church bell in the city tolled before the event at 10 a.m. to memorialize when they first rang in 1809. Given their independent past, Sucre citizens don´t like to be told what to do. One Sucre gentleman in the crowd screamed¨Viva Sucre, down with Morales.¨ That would be Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia who just a day or two before had been in Cuba meeting with other leftist leaders. Morales, who had been openly mocked at the podium at last year´s celebration, canceled his planned visit because of the violence. Meghan and I missed most of the explosions because we were on a field trip into a crater deep in the mountains and the little village of Maragua. These little mountain towns separated by hills are the best places to connect to this country´s past. Sadly, the old hamlets like Maragua are dying off as the young children head to the mines of Potosi or domestic jobs in Argentina to make money. Only the town´s elderly and abandoned clay-brick houses remain.

Happy 25th of May

Tomorrow Bolivia marks the start of its long quest for independence from Spain. The ¨First Shout of Liberty¨ in the Americas rang out right here in Sucre (still the official capital though La Paz ranks as de facto) on May 25, 1809. It´s a very big deal here and throughout the continent. You hadn´t heard of this? Apparently the Bolivian community in Washington has parades and festivals as well, for those of you DC-area blog readers looking for a Sunday activity.

Rest assured the expat festivities cannot match Sucre´s celebration. People here have grown quite emotional about it this year -- since we arrived, protests have intensified, and who knows what will happen tomorrow. At first, this May 25 was shaping up as one for the history books because it kicked off a year of bicentennial celebrations. Then, for what would probably be the first time in 200 years, it looked like the president would not come to Sucre for the events. Apparently last year´s celebration not go so well for the leftist Evo Morales, with angry words from the crowd, etc. And it was just as well, because many here did not want him to come. But now, it seems, he´s changed his mind. He´s coming, whether Sucre likes it or not. And many of those same people still do not.

So, stay tuned. If the drama stays to a minimum, we´ll be able to enjoy another very important event celebrating the city´s confectionery achievement: the chocolate festival. A miraculous accident of the calendar has squeezed all of these monumental undertakings into one week: in addition to the bicentennial May 25 and chocolate festival, we also have the Corpus Christi religious holiday, the human-rights film festival and after that, Sucre gears up to host the Bolivar games, an Olympic-like series of sporting events featuring several South American countries next year. We hope the Internet cafes stay open.

Insomnia Over the Andes

SUCRE -- Since infancy, riding in cars, planes and trains has worked like a sleeping pill for me. On the four-hour flight from Miami to Lima, I fell soundly asleep on takeoff and apparently snored so loudly -- through dinner, drinks and the movie -- that it disturbed the other passengers. Last summer I slept through about 12 hours of a 22-hour train detour in Russia after a bombing on a train ahead of ours kept the entire nation and my friends and family at home wide awake and on edge.

But today I met my match in the flight from La Paz to Sucre. It was early, and I was tired. I was looking forward to the air nap. Driving out of the literal concrete canyon that is the city of La Paz to get to the airport was, I thought, the hard part. The airport is in El Alto, a vast, growing, impoverished city on the flat plain on the canyon rim above La Paz. From our vantage point on the ground, it looked like the pilots would have plenty of room to fly around those snowcapped mountains surrounding the city. Right?

We took to the air, the pilot sounding just as bored as usual giving details of weather and estimated arrival time. The mountains just kept getting bigger and bigger, as we got closer and closer. Black rock and white snow filled the horizon, vertical and menacing.

¨Oh my God,¨ Will said. ¨Do we have to clear THAT?¨

As we approached a ridge, the ground seemed to speed up under us like it does when the plane comes in for a landing. The flight attendants did not seem worried. They were giving the oxygen-mask demonstration. I paid extra close attention.

Then, as we passed the snowy peak of Illimani and his mountain friends, I saw what lay beyond: MORE mountains. Jagged spikes and soft folds appeared behind the first wave and stretched into the horizon. You could almost see the geologic forces twisting and shaping the Andes below us, the tectonic plates crashing together. This was why it took 15 hours to reach Sucre by bus, but only 45 minutes by air.

It went on like this forever. Then the ground started to speed up again, closer and closer. We must be landing, I thought. But there was no flat land in sight.

¨Where is he going to land this plane?¨I asked Will, like he would know. He just shook his head. ¨Where is he going to land this plane?¨ I might have repeated it a few more times.

No one was bracing for a crash. The other passengers were sipping their drinks, working on their laptops, harrassing the miniskirted flight attendants.

Then, just as we cleared a steep dropoff, a tarmac appeared. The wheels touched down. We breathed a sigh of relief.

The businessman next to me was sleeping. At least someone got a nap.

The Ruins at Tiwanaku

The small town of Tiwanaku is about an hour and a half´s bus journey from La Paz on the rugged and dry Altiplano. Meghan and I made our way there on Sunday. It doesn´t look like much but dust from the highway, but scholars say this town holds one of the most important archaeological sites in the Americas. Long before the Incas dominated this portion of South America, the Tiwanaku culture thrived, impressing their religion and beliefs on all that came after. According to our local tour guide Freddy, in 1,000 B.C. Lake Titicaca´s currently vast waters reached even further to this point and the Tiwanaku people perfected a system of raised fields and irrigation canals to turn the normally harsh hillsides into fertile ground, even during persistent drought. Based on a genius for farming and llama herding, this civilization lasted until 1,000 A.D. The ruins of the cultural and religious center of the Tiwanaku remain half buried in a valley below the Cordillera Real, the famous snow capped Andes peaks that make La Paz one of the most beautifully situated cities in the world. The sacred center of the Tiwanaku, called the Kalasasaya, is entered through the memorable ¨Gateway to the Sun,¨ an entrance carved from a single piece of adesite rock weighing more than 10 tons. At the top of the door, the Tiwanaku´s creator god, named later by the Incas as Viracocha, is carved with rays sprouting from his head. Intricate figures of what were likely three upper classes (governors, noblemen and wise men) are intricately shown below. The door was placed to fit astronomical needs and more importantly to these people, foretold through the slanting sunlight a change in the seasons. Another interesting find was a sunken temple area with more than 200 carved stone faces on the walls. Freddy said the ancient people honored their leaders by creating likenesses of their heads in this place. Tiwanaku is still revered by millions today, who once a year converge to be blessed by the god of the sun. Freddy said even Bolivia´s leftist president Evo Morales took the oath of office here.

Given all this sun worship, you would imagine I would have taken the proper precautions. But, I wandered out into this sun-baked land sans hat, sunglasses, sunblock and water. I figured I was a tough Florida native, no problem. I was wrong. Tiwanaku is more than 12,500 feet (over 2 miles) above sea level. Lesson learned!





(photos from L. to R., Priest, Sun Gate, Wise Man)

Serendipity in La Fiesta del Gran Poder

LA PAZ -- I thought arriving in the capital, unknowingly, just in time for the city´s biggest festival was punishment for not paying attention to the intricacies of the religious calendar in CCD classes as a child, or perhaps for a lack of appropriate reverence at shrines during this trip (though not a churchgoer, I do maintain every Catholic superstition). Entrances to the city and most businesses have closed, and the guidebook promised rollicking drunken debauchery in the streets, something foreign travelers might want to avoid.

But our timing turns out to have been serendipitous. The colorful Fiesta del Gran Poder - an amalgam, like most festivals in South America, of Catholic and Aymara tradition - is raging all around the city, and the route runs only a block or so from our hotel. We woke to the music of marching bands, and spent the morning taking photos of participants in bright yellow feathered costumes and masks with fake pipes as long as an arm, dancing and clattering through the streets. Our favorite so far -- the man in the condor headdress who looked like he might take to the air at any moment.

Photos to come ... when the memory-card places reopen.

Bolivia Is Full of Surprises

The snowy peaks over the deep blue lake, the persistence of life on the bleak Altiplano, the extra charges here and there at tourist destinations: Bolivia always has something unexpected for the visitor.

Today, we found another hidden gem. Our 3.5-hour bus ride to La Paz included a scenic boat tour. How fascinating! We got on the bus in freezing Copacabana and enjoyed an ear-popping ride over the lovely lake, above the tree line, hanging out the window snapping photos all the way (and once I find a store that does memory-card reading, you too can enjoy the scenery, sans altitude sickness). About an hour into the trip, our driver announced that we would need our passports and 1.5 bolivianos each for a boat ticket. Boat ticket? We stopped lakeside, where a fleet of aging wooden vessels, each flying the Bolivian flag, waited. Our bus, with our luggage, drove onto one, nearly sinking into the lovely azure depths, and we crowded onto another with two women on their way to the market with enormous bags of handicrafts to sell.

Fortunately, the captain of our vessel was able to restart the engine when it conked out mid-trip. Swimming the freezing lake is not an option for more than a few meters, and you´d better have a warming station ready on the other side if you attempt it. We made it to the other side, dry, and eventually our bus reappeared.

We reached breathtaking La Paz in time to see the sun set behind the mountains, only 1.5 hours late. Another nice surprise.

The Other Copacabana

Maybe once we leave Copacabana tomorrow, the Barry Manilow song will finally leave my brain. We paid homage to the Virgin of Copacabana at the cathedral yesterday, braving a tunnel with soot-darkened walls in the Chapel of Candles to at last reach the gold and silver image of the Virgin Mary, which cannot be moved lest it provoke catastrophic flooding from Lake Titicaca. It would have been quite the spiritual experience had I not kept thinking her name was Lola, she was a showgirl, with yellow feathers in her hair ... aaaaagh!
Today we made another pilgrimage to Isla del Sol, about an hour and a half off Copacabana. We were only the latest in a centuries-long line of pilgrims to the island believed by the Inca and pre-Inca cultures to be the birthplace of civilization. Apparently even during the Inca days the pilgrims flocked here to see the rocks shaped like a puma and the face of the god Wiracocha. Only they were not allowed to get as close as we did and pose for photos; they had to stand back outside the sacred circle and peer at the rock formations from a distance. This seems unfair. Photos to come once we reach La Paz tomorrow.

Too Late To Join the E.U.?

Do you think the European Union would entertain an application from the U.S. without responding with peals of laughter? It might not be too late. Someone really ought to make this suggestion to the presidential candidates. I knew things were bad, having read stories before we left about Bolivian banks encouraging customers to save in euros, not dollars. But the situation didn´t hit home until we tried to use dollars to pay for dinner in Cuzco our first night, and the waitress refused to take singles. She only took five-dollar bills and higher denominations. And just six months ago, this same restaurant had happily accepted Will´s credit card and U.S. currency on a previous visit. Now we´re in Bolivia, where our dollars buy 7.3 bolivianos to the European travelers´ 11. 3 (which is also much closer to a nice round 10, rendering calculations much easier for them). This has been a long time coming, and is our just desserts after globalization, but really, isn´t there still time? Where do we apply?

A Heart in the Sacred Valley and Confusion at the Salon

We have crossed the border into Bolivia, but wanted to add some final thoughts on Peru:

Hearts Cafe in Ollantaytambo
I only got a ham sandwich and a side of papas fritas at this nondescript little restaurant on the Plaza des Armas in Ollantaytambo, but Meghan and I left with great admiration for one woman and her passion to make a difference. Hungry and dehydrated, we wandered into the little establishment owned by a Sonia Newhouse, a woman from England. We were lucky to run into Sonia during lunch and she told us how she came to create the restaurant where nearly all proceeds go to projects aimed at Andean women and children of the sacred valley. It all started when she was doing some volunteer work in the area several years ago. When she returned to England she was proud to tell people how she built beautiful homes for needy families. But, later she found out those homes were being used by the men of the village to drink and hang out. Angry and upset, Newhouse came back a year or two ago to make things right. On the day we met her, Newhouse had just returned from a trip deep into the Sacred Valley where she received an award from a local village for helping to build a new school. She said she was in need of used cameras and computers for the children. Meghan and I offered to ship our old equipment sitting lifeless in Florida, but she said she doubted it would get to her intact. Instead, she told us to tell our friends about her cafe and if they visit to bring some of those old unused items with them. And so we have. You can read more at www.heartscafe.org.

Israel women are pretty, no?
I am sure this kind of thing happens to everyone learning a new language, but this particular incident happened to me. I stopped into a salon on the Avenue del Sol in Cusco for a haircut. My hair was getting rather unseemly and I needed to get it cut before someone mistook me for some crazy hermit who lives in the sacred mountains. Anyway, using my limited Spanish I somehow convinced my stylist that I was from Israel. I can not tell you exactly how I did this, but once established, she kept talking about the girls in Israel and how pretty they were and if I agreed. By the end, I was too far in the one-sided conversation to try to reverse course. So I played along. Only later, when the owner of the salon asked where I was from did I fess up. My poor stylist was completely confused -- that made two of us.

The Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca

Puno, Peru -- It´s easy to understand why Lake Titicaca is the world´s largest high altitude body of water when you´re on a boat heading for its many islands. One island we visited today took us two and a half hours to reach! Just when you think Peru can´t offer anymore stunning beauty, it ups the ante again. This morning we took off from Puno for the Uros Floating Islands in complete awe. We talk about lakes acting as mirrors and this is easily the biggest mirror of them all -- clouds and mountains mingling in amazingly placid waters for miles upon miles. The Uros Islands are 48 islands made up by piling up layer upon layer of tortora reeds , a plant found near the shallows of the lake that is also a source of food for the Uros indians, who originally built the first islands centuries ago to remain far away from more powerful forces, like the Incas. Amazingly, many of their descendants still live on the islands. Our guide said today´s Uros love the fact they don´t have to pay property taxes. The islands can be moved in only a matter of weeks. In fact, family feuds on one island often result in one family using a saw to cut themselves away from their neighbor. It happens all the time, said the ¨president¨ of the island we visited. The islands are anchored to the lake bottom using rope and all a person has to do to send it floating off is a snip or two.
To get to Puno, we took an 11-hour tourist bus from Cusco (the public bus would about been about 8 hours, but withoug the stops ), which stopped at some less known but still amazing historical landmarks including one of the largest remnants of an Incan temple anywhere. But, the payoff is the final four hours of the trip, where you seem to fly upward through mountain passes and watch as the snowy peaks wink at you in the afternoon sunlight. It´s the best bus ride I´ve ever been on. Frankly, I didn´t want it to end.

The Uros Islands:

Granja Heidi, We Miss You Already

It is with much wistfulness that we report we just ate our last meal at Granja Heidi, a superb restaurant in the San Blas neighborhood of Cuzco with an admirable devotion to dairy products. With a smiling cow for a logo, it serves fantastic, organic food amid pared-down decor reminiscient of an upscale farmhouse. Alas, we head to Lake Titicaca tomorrow and must forgo the pumpkin soup, thick hot chocolate, beef tenderloin, tziki, fresh bread and Nelson Mandela cake. Sigh. We shall return one day.

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Clarity in Guidebook Writing Can Save Lives

Third-grade teachers and newspaper assignment editors have touted this mantra for ages: Write clearly and concisely. Well, someone should have told the guy who wrote the Footprint guide, ¨Cuzco and the Inca Heartland´´ because one vague sentence, coupled with our lack of preparation, made for a rough time getting out of Machu Picchu yesterday. And really, buying the guide (er, borrowing it from someone, technically) should count as preparation, right?

We knew the Peruvian tourism authorities had -- as well they should -- taken an aggressive approach to limiting the visiting hordes´ effect on the spectacular mountaintop ruins of Machu Picchu. So it didn´t surprise us to see notices warning against plastic water bottles at the ruins. Still, Footprint´s advice that backpacks were not allowed past the gate seemed a bit extreme. But we heeded it and left them in our hotel. We drank gallons of water and slathered on sunblock, and filled our pockets with Chapstick, passports, tickets and Peruvian soles. Then we headed to the ATM to take out enough money for a guided tour and more water at the ruins, which, we knew, charged Disney World prices. Oh, and for the bathroom, which cost one Peruvian sole to enter.

Our first roadblock surfaced: the town´s only ATM had broken down. No matter, we pressed on to the bus, which took us up a series of sharp switchbacks to the gate at the top of the mountain. A tip: get the window seat, but try not to look down. Getting a car around a switchback is hard enough, but the bus barely fit on the road, and traffic goes two ways here.

Then our second roadblock surfaced: The concession stand charged us 10 Peruvian soles for a bottle of water. That´s a little less than $4, and, for purposes of comparison, three times what I paid for twice as much water at the last rip-off tourist trap we visited. We had to choose between water and hiring a guide, and we chose water.

Hydrated, we charged up the main stairs to the overlook, a breathtaking vista of an ancient stone citadel against jagged, green peaks. The subtropical humidity recharged our reptilian Florida metabolisms, and with renewed energy we took off up a long, steep fork in the road marked Intipunku. We didn´t know what that meant, since we had left the guidebook in our backpack at the hotel, as per its erroneous instructions.

Intipunku turned out to mean ´Sun Gate´. This is the first glimpse hikers on the Inca Trail have of the ruins, and it is a long, long way off. Oops. I had led us into roadblock No. 3, depleting our energy, leaving us with with no food or water and a long trip back in the afternoon sun.

Still, the Sun Gate was worth the hike, on a shady trail past ancient stonework, past showers of yellow and purple orchids, with the sound of water trickling and rushing somewhere deep in the jungle. And now we can say we approached Machu Picchu as it was meant to be approached, from the Inca Trail. We watched the sun dip lower in the sky behind the mountain Huayna Picchu, the iconic postcard image, as we explored the Sun Temple and its astrological functions; the Condor, massive boulders shaped like a condor in flight; the Sacred Rock; and the still-functioning Inca waterworks, as llamas grazed among them. And because it was the end of the afternoon, we had the world´s most notoriously crowded ruins almost to ourselves.

We noticed something else among the few tourists there: they all had backpacks. Clearly, the policy outlined in the guide was lassiez-faire. We should have at least tried to bring our packs in, we decided, as, shaking, exhausted and dehydrated, we slowly crept down the stairs to the exit. Then we saw the notice posted outside: ¨No backpacks over 20 litres.¨

´´Over 20 litres,¨´ is what I would call an essential clause, if not necessarily in the strict grammatical sense. Damn you, Footprint guide!

Machu Picchu

Aguas Calientes, Peru -- We woke up at 5:30 a.m. Thursday in Cusco and grabbed a taxi to the Cusco train station for our four-hour Peru Rail trip to Aguas Calientes (the little town in the valley above Machu Picchu). This is known as one of the greatest train journeys in the world and rightly so. Towering peaks, breathtaking country side and the small clay brick towns made the time run by. We took the Backpacker Express, which stopped a few times for hardened hikers to catch little known treks along the way, but eventually ends up at the rather ugly tourist town of Aguas Calientes. Once there, we caught a bus to Machu Picchu, a good 25 minute ride to the top. As we climbed astonishly fast along the narrow winding road only feet from empty space, it occurred to me that less than five months ago I had actually climbed the near vertical old stone stairway in the predawn with a flashlight from Aguas Calientes up to Machu Picchu, a good two hour hike and probably the most strenous activity I had ever been apart of. As I climbed the same route in the comfort of the bus, I couldn´t help feel that the bus was much saner way to do this. Meghan and I entered Machu Picchu in the early afternoon, when the sun is high and conditions were extremely hot. Meghan took off on foot and before I knew it we were on the Inca Trail heading up above Machu Picchu, where after a 45 minute hike we ended up at the Sun Gate, a group of ruins that would have offered weary Incan travelers their first view of the ancient city. After hiking down, Meghan and I explored the main portion of Machu Picchu, including the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Condor, one of the most extraordinary man-made sites I have ever seen. I tried to act as a tour guide for Meghan, but I think I mixed up a few things along the way. Thankfully, Meghan was very forgiving of her guide´s many references that included ¨I think that´s a temple of some kind.¨ Back in Aguas Calientes, we drank Cusquena beer and agreed that Machu Picchu is awesome even in the hottest part of the day!

Ruins at Ollantaytambo

Blackout in Olllantaytambo

Olllantaytambo, Peru - The Power went out just after 6 p.m. here Tuesday, just as Meghan and I had finished our meals at a very divey looking restaurant in the town´s Plasa de Armaz. So, not being able to read, watch Peruvian television or generally see anything but shadows we went to sleep early. It had been a long day. We rented a cab earlier in the day and left Cusco (it´s also more traditionaly called Cuzco) for a drive through the sacred valley with our driver Juan Carlos. We spent four or five hours driving dusty roads and seeing ancient and other sites that I never saw on a half day bus tour during my first visit to Peru. We went to Salinas to see more than 5,000 terraced salt pans still in use after hundreds of years. We held our breath as we drove by the explosive factories that make the explosives used in the salt mines. We stopped at Moray, a remote, but amazing ancient site, where there are three huge terraced coloseum type structures. Each terrace level is said to have it´s own microclimate. It´s also rumored to have mystical powers. We also drove by an old house on a mountain that was the home of a real witch, according to Juan Carlos, but it didn´t look like she was home. Of course, all this took a back seat to the huge snow capped mountains seen along the way. Like everywhere else though, Juan Carlos said the ice is vanishing fast.

How to Descend an Ancient Ruin

OLLANTAYTAMBO, Peru -- Ancient peoples did not build with the accident-prone in mind. Their temples and fortresses aimed to impress and defend against attackers. As a wobbly-kneed klutz, I stick to a few principles when scaling monoliths such as the Inca´s Ollantaytambo, with its impenetrable walls that held back Pizarro hundreds of years ago during his assault on the Sacred Valley.
1. Stay a full body length away from the edge. That way, errant winds and rocks, or a misstep, result not in tragedy but only in a scraped knee or sprained ankle.
2. Before you back up to fit the snow-capped mountain and Temple of the Sun in the photograph, look behind you. Outside the litigious United States, you won´t find too many guardrails or warning signs.
3. You´ve reached the top. Now, how do you get back to the bottom? This is not the time for pride. Just moments ago, Ollantaytambo became the fourth major ruin I have descended in sliding fashion, on my behind (and the first Inca site, as the rest were built by the Maya: Tikal, Uxmal, Ek Balam). As a bonus, this gives your traveling companions a good laugh and photo opportunity.

http://www.catcco.org/en/index.php

Cusco, Peru

After a tremendous going away party at Michael and Allyson´s Flamingo Park hideway on Saturday, which lasted well into the wee hours, followed up by a full day of last minute packing and a 2 a.m. Monday flight on Lan Peru, it´s been a busy three days. Meghan and I finally got to our hostel in Cusco around 1 p.m. and immediately collapsed for some much needed sleep. We went out to dinner tonight on the main square in Cusco, the ancient capital city of the Inca, and we are planning a trip tomorrow into the Sacred Valley to visit the ruins at Ollantaytambo and perhaps spend the night in that town. I have been especialy looking forward to the Peru leg of our trip because it is not often that I have the honor to guide Meghan around a foreign country. I was in this area last year with Mike, an old friend from my Lakeland Ledger days, as part of a three-day trek through the Lares Valley to Machu Picchu. That was an amazing adventure too. Anyway, on to Ollantaytambo....

Hello, Cusco

As municipal mottoes go, Cusco, Peru has the world beat: ¨Ombligo del Mundo,¨ we saw on a sign outside town as we drove in this morning, ¨Navel of the World.¨
I´m not sure how they came up with this, but I love it.
We arrived, exhausted, and spent the entire day sleeping, then enjoyed a lovely dinner on the Plaza de Armas, the city´s main square. High in the Andes, the weather is pleasant and cool, not humid at all, we thought, but apparently many residents feel that they are in the middle of an intolerable heat wave. Our taxi driver shed layers of clothing on the way in and complained furiously.
We can´t wait to explore the city´s ancient and winding streets, lined with a stunning array of both high-end and bargain-cheap jewelry, crafts and textile stores. One can never have too many international knicknacks.