Cusco

Hola, Buenas tardes from Cusco, Peru.

It's been a while, so as a reminder we were last in Arequipa, Peru. Our last day in Arequipa included a cooking class at the hostel where we were staying. Here is a new Peruvian chef in the making -



Unfortunately, cuy (guinea pig) was not on the menu. Should have put that down on the suggestion sheet.

From Arequipa, we took the overnight bus to Cusco, our last major stop before heading off to Lima and home. Cusco is a relatively large city located in a valley with a great view of Andean peaks in the background -



The city was the capitol of the Inca empire before the Spaniards came and conquered most of the continent. Most of the large cathedrals are constructed on bases of Incan stonework. Outside of the city are many ruins, including Saqsaywaman, where the Incas started retreating when the Spaniards arrived -



The site has impressive stonework (some of the individual stones are over 300 tons and use no mortar) -



Outside of Cusco is the Sacred Valley. This valley is located along the Urubamba River and things are done here quite as they would have long ago. The town of Ollantaytambo is at the base of more ruins, to which the Incas retreated further while fleeing the Spaniards -



Our purpose for coming to Cusco was to hike the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, which was one of the last places the Incas fled to. This place the Spaniards never found, so was not destroyed. We set off with 12 of our newest friends in a group to hike over four days to the hidden city. The scenery was impressive - such as this complex of terraces located in the valley -



And the trail took us over passes and through cloud forests -



The view from the second campground -



And more ruins along the trail -



Wouldn' t you like to have lived here? The hike the grocery store would have been a bit rough, though.



The intrepid hiker -



And finally, the lost city of Machu Picchu. We woke up at 3:30 in the morning to get this view. Yes, it was worth it.



And the Temple of the Sun -



Another view out into the mountains surrounding the site -



Well, this will probably be the last post with pictures, so hope you have enjoyed looking in these past five months! We fly to Lima tommorow, then back to the States on the 29th. We are looking forward to seeing everyone when we get home!

Arequipa

Hola, ¿que tal? from Arequipa, Peru.

From La Paz, Bolivia, headed north to Copacabana, which is located on the highest lake in the world, Lake Titicaca. I guess we were both a bit disappointed that you really can´t tell that it is the highest lake in the world (except for being out of breath all of the time), but the scenery is spectacular. And one of the methods of getting busses across short distances is by barge. This is our bus coming to meet us on the other side (we passengers took an even more rickety looking boat across):


There´s not much to do in Copacabana - its main point for being a stop on the tourist circuit is as a jumping off point for touring the Island of the Sun and the Island of the Moon, two sacred islands in Incan mythology. The first night we stayed there, it happened to be the 55th anniversary of the university and they had a party. With a very loud band. Playing right outside of our hotel room window.

The next day we took our tired selves on a two and a half hour boat ride to the Island of the Sun. Here is Melanie with the lake and some of the Bolivian Andes (the Cordillera Real) in the background:

The Island of the Sun has been inhabited since before Incan times, and so is a patchwork of terraces and agrictultural fields (and breath-takingly steep hills), all interspersed with ancient ruins. Many of the people who live on the island still live the way their forbears did centuries ago. Here are some of the Incan ruins, which according to the ticket-taker at the gate are not reconstructed:

And looking out from the walls to the Island of the Moon, which is ground zero for creation in the Incan religion:

After we returned to Copacabana, we headed north into Peru. Puno was our next stop, which is a medium sized city located on the northwestern shore of Lake Titicaca. Again, the main reason tourist go to this city is not for the city, but for the islands in the lake around it. The islands we visited are floating islands made out of reeds. They are constructed of mats of reeds on a base of roots that are anchored to tree trunks embedded in the lake bed. The reeds have to be replaced every 15 days to a month. Here is one of the many little islands that make up the group:

And some of the traditional reed dwellings:

Many of the islanders still live a very traditional living by fishing and fish-farming, but the islands have become very commercialized for the tourists. Still, there is nothing like them in the world.

From Puno, we headed northwest into Arequipa, the ´White City´. Arequipa is named so because the volcanic rocks that the buildings in the colonial center are made of are white and gleam in the sun. Arequipa is a pleasant old city with plenty to do and nice restaurants and cafes. And one of the local specialties is chicha, or fermented corn-juice. That might not seem too extraordinary, but the way that it is made is interesting - the corn is first chewed by someone and spit back into the container. This starts the fermenting process. We ate at a restaurant far off the tourist track and (only Dave) sampled some chicha. It tasted good, but it was hard to keep my western indoctrinated mind from thinking that there were some bad-breath flavors in the background. Even though I am sure there were not.

Some chicha urns:

From Puna, we went into the world´s second deepest canyon, Canyon de Colca. It is hard to grasp the depth of the canyon because it is not as dramatic as, say, the Grand Canyon. But you really get the idea when you are trying to get from close the bottom back to the rim of the canyon where you are staying for the night, as we did on our hike into the canyon. The hike was all backwards - you are supposed to get the hard work of climbing the slope out of the way in the beginning, not at the end of the hike. Oh, well. We got to see an Andean condor, too.

From here we head to Cusco, where we will do the Inca Trail. Hasta luego!

La Paz

Hola from La Paz.

We are back in La Paz now for a couple of hours after some time down in the lowlands. Here are a couple of shots from our time in La Paz - there´s not much to photograph here, unless you like street stalls and busses. Here is a view of the city coming down from the airport -

While we were in La Paz, we went to the ruins of Tihuanaca, which are about 70 kilometers from the city. The most famous piece here is the Puerta del Sol (Sun Bridge), which allowed the Tihuanacans to guage the seasons (it was inside of a temple that let the sun through on the solstices) -


From La Paz we headed for Rurrenabaque (see previous post) . While in Rurrenabaque, there are basically two things that you can do - go on a jungle tour or go on a pampas (basically a big swamp) tour. The pampas tour route led up a river on which much wildlife could be seen, and the animals seemed to be the emphasis (as opposed to plants and insects on the jungle tour), so we chose this one.

After a three hour jeep ride along a very bumpy, very dusty road, along with three Czechs, two South Africans, one Dane, one other American, and us, we reached the river. This area is amazingly rich - as soon as you leave the mud bank (or, as they like to call it, a dock), you start seeing animals -

These are crocodiles. There are also caiman. Caiman are darker.

Birds abound, a lot of them are herons. This one is praying to the heron gods, I guess -

We also saw condors, macaws, kingfishers, cassowaries, hornbills, storks, ibises, . . . I could go on.

One of the big selling points for the tour agencies is swimming with the pink dolphins. We saw several groups of them during the trip - they are buggers to get pictures of, though. Several of our group swam, but with crocodiles mere feet away and piranha abundant in the water, we decided to stay in the boat.

Yes, that´s a dolphin. They´re called pink river dolphins, but they´re more mottled gray and pinkish.

And we saw ginormous overgrown rats, otherwise known as capybaras -

And other giants, these being snails -

And to put the icing on the animal cake, we saw thre species of monkees. Howler, capuchin, and yellow (in order of size).

After another night in Rurrenabaque, we flew back to La Paz, spent the night, then went mountain biking down the World´s Most Dangerous Road. Don´t worry - just about every gringo who comes through La Paz does this, and we went with the expensive ones because they stressed safety -

We made it down fine. And stayed for four nights on a hilltop not unlike the one in the picture above that was run by a European woman with a passion for gardening - a great place to stay and relax.

Chau! Off to Lake Titicaca!

Rurrenabaque

Hola from Rurrenabaque, Bolivia.

After spending the last several days in La Paz, we are now in the jungle. The flight from 11,000 feet in La Paz down to near sea level in Rurrenabaque (we can´t pronounce it, either) was spectacular. Flying over the Andes in a 20-seat puddle jumper is quite an experience - you are so close to the mountains you can almost reach out and touch them. Melanie asked if there was an airport where we were landing when she looked out the front window (no pilot´s door on this plane) and saw the dirt strip we were about to land at. There was an airport - it is just very small and hidden in the trees.

All this so we can take a tour of the savannah located outside of the city - with promises of seeing aligators, snakes, birds, pink dolphins, and most importantly, monkeys. We will have pictures to post when we get back in three days (and some from La Paz, too).

Chau!

Sucre

Hola, ¿que tal? from Sucre, Bolivia.

Here´s a picture from our first stop in Bolivia - Tupiza. This is the Puerto del Diablo, or the Devil´s Gate, which is a vertical wall of sandstone jutting up off the floor of the desert with an opening in the middle:




And a shot looking out over the vineyards outside of Tarija - it is the beginning of winter, so everything is brown:



We flew into Sucre early last week after spending six days in Tarija because of the bus strike. The long-distance bus companies do not want to have to pay taxes for the highways, so they aren´t going. Judging from the state of the roads here, either the bus companies are justified in not wanting to support such a transportation system, or on the other hand, they need to start paying up in a bad way.

We are in the former capitol of Bolivia, which is nestled on the side of a (relatively) small mountain range in the middle of the country. Most of the government functions have since moved to La Paz, but the supreme court of the country convenes here. There is also a university here giving the city an energetic vibe.

Sucre has a great market - one of the things that Melanie and I love to do is walk around each city´s market. For anyone who hasn´t wandered around a Latin American market before, they are an assault on the senses. There is the pleasant smell and bright colors of vegetables and herbs, and the earthy, almost rotten smell and gory sight of meat (from complete carcasses to guts) hanging on hooks, and also the smells and sounds of people cooking up meals from ingredients fresh from the neighboring stalls. The kids rushing up to you trying to sell you trinkets and the vendors yelling at you to have a look at their oranges completes the experience.

In Bolivia, you can get just about any type of potato you could ever imagine:

And the women (they are almost exclusively women) selling herbs are members of the local indigenous tribe:



One of the handcrafts that the local indigenous people have been making for centuries is woven tapestries and cloths. You can tell one tribe from another by the different style and colors of the woven clothing they wear. There is a museum in Sucre dedicated to preserving these arts and employs locals to weave on the premesis:

Outside of Sucre is the world´s largest site of dinosaur tracks in the world, which are located in a limestone quarry:

This picture shows the side of a cliff that is about 250 feet high. Here´s me for scale on some of the tracks:

Maybe the tracks were made by this creature:

(Why didn´t we have sweet slides like this when I was growing up???)

Some of the colonial architecture in Sucre:

A two and a half hour cab ride from Sucre is the mining town of Potosi. This used to be the richest city in South America because of the silver found in the surrounding hills. The mountain on whose base the city sits looks like it has been shaved by the miners:

Some of the churches also have very ornate carving around their entrances, probably paid for with silver money:



And, last but not least, some things just don´t translate:

Tarija

Buen dia from Tarija, Bolivia.

We have made it into Bolivia! We are in the southern city of Tarija, which is in the main wine producing region of the country (it seems like we visit a lot of those types of places). We came to this place from Tupiza, which is the jumping off point for tourists heading north into Bolivia from Argentina. The main attraction for Tupiza is the surrounding scenery and a town nearby where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their demise. We enjoyed the scenery, but didn´t make it to the famous town where the bank-robbers careers ended.

We wanted to get to Tupiza on the train that heads north, but the mob of people milling about at the train station told us we probably wouldn´t get the ticket. A nice gentleman told us that in order to have a chance to get one, he had arrived at 6 AM in the morning - for a 3:30 PM departure. So we decided to take the bus.

We have been reading and hearing nightmare stories about the bus system in Bolivia, and our brief experience with it has confirmed the stories. First of all, the roads (at least in this part of the country) are not paved, so the busses require four wheel drive tires and stiff (read: bumpy as hell) suspensions. Then there are the crazy semi drivers that the bus driver must avoid - not a good thing to experience while sitting in the front seat where you can see everything about to happen. The previously mentioned unpaved roads are usually situated along a cliff, the edge of which is inches away from the bus tires. It didn´t make it any better that the night we took a trip along one of these topography-rich roads was nearly a full moon. If that weren`t enough, the long distance bus drivers are striking now.

We do have options, though - ride in the back of a truck that may or may not arrive to your destination, or fly. So, while the adventurer in me would say to take the trucks, the practical side of me (and my wife) says fly. Flying is relatively cheap, too. So we will be flying from Tarija to Sucre on Tuesday, from where we will be able to hop over to a couple more places. And hopefully the bus strike will end before we have to fly again.

Here are some of our impressions of Bolivia so far. The Bolivian people are extremely friendly - that is, when you break the ice and say ´Good afternoon´ or some other greeting. I am always surprised at the huge smile that breaks out of the typical ´stare at the tourist´ look when you make the effor to make contact. The kids, who have none of their adult counterparts´ reservations are always waving hi and saying ´Hola´ (or ´Hello´ if they have learned any English). When we are playing games to pass the time, people come up to us and look at us playing and ask what the game is.

The natural beauty of Bolivia is amazing - and we have seen only a small portion so far. Here in the south, it is arid and the mountains are steep, so the landscape is very striking. There are also not too many people around (at least in the country-side), so it seems like a wilderness. We are looking forward to seeing the central part of the country.

And, finally, they seem to have picked up one thing that I like a lot - the American breakfast. After spending time in Argentina, where the breakfast is - at best - a couple pieces of toast or some stale croissants, coffee, and fake juice, the breakfast here with eggs, bacon, real fruit juice, fruit salad and coffee is great! I guess that will have to be the trade-off for great Argentinian dinners (huge, cheap steaks) - the standard main dish here is a wierd concoction of ground meat and sliced hot dogs served atop a mound of french fries.

Pictures next time!

Chau!

Salta

Buen dia from Salta (again).

Here are a couple of pictures from Salta. An elaborate colonial church - one of the more elaborate we`ve seen (the curtains in the doorways are plaster):



And a carved wooden door on the convent, dating from 1760:



From Salta, we rented a car and drove into the Valle Calchaquí to the city of Cafayate. This is a very diverse area in terms of landscapes. At first you drive through fertile farmland, then you cross the moisture line into arid sandstone mountains that reminded us of Utah or Arizona:



After passing through these formations, you reach Cafayate, which is in the middle of the wine producing area of northern Argentina. We stayed for two nights here and, of course, sampled the local products - not just wine, some goat cheese, as well. in Cafayate, we continued our tradition of attracting all the local dogs. They must be able to tell we are dog people.

From Cafayate, it is a short drive to Quilmes, some of the largest ruins in Argentina:



The ruins are not as impressive when viewed from ground level, but when you climb the hill, the intricacy of the city is apparent.

From Cafayate, we headed along a dirt road through sandstone razorbacks and small indigenous settlements to Cachi - one of the larger of these settlements in the valley. We thought this town was one of our better stops in northern Argentina - the people are extremely friendly and the scenery was spectacular. We got the feeling that the people want to preserve their culture while allowing tourists to see it - a very hard thing to do.

The main agrigultural crop in the area is peppers, which are dried on the sides of hills all throughout the valley:



And there are ruins from the local pre-hispanic population:



Los Cardones - cacti that are similar to the saguaro are abundant:



There are even some foxes left:



The route back to Salta took us over a pass through the Parque Nacional de los Cardones and back onto the wet side of the mountains. The scenery would have been spectacular . . . but being on the wet side also means fog and lots of it. Oh, well, we`ll get pictures next time.