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!