Machu Picchu

There are some things that are touristy for a good reason: Yosemite, Alcatraz, etc. Machu Picchu is a phenomenal experience, something that all the tourism can't diminish. Our morning train crossed the high-altitude farmlands outside of Cusco, over 3 hours wending its way downhill and into the steep ravines where the Andes begin to meet the jungle. The train was a "Vistadome", with windows in the ceiling and very comfortable. The route through the Sacred Valley is chock full of Inca sites, but from the train we saw adobe homes and donkeys and fields full of birds. We are already talking about returning to the area, it needs a week to do it justice. Eventually the hills sharpened up and the Urubamba River canyon closed in. After passing Ollantaytambo, one of the last stands for the Inca, the cloud forest ecosystem grew up around us. There is much foliage, granite cliff faces are peppered with basketball-sized epiphytes (plants who do not need soil to survive) while many trees are host to large epiphytes with big red flowering stalks. Looking up through the ceiling windows, we caught site of the snowy crag that is Mount Veronica, and looking down we begin to see ancient Inca terraces and structures built up the steep slopes and along the river. At one short stop, a little old lady ran up with a bouquet of local flowers (orchids, lilies, etc) and Jen ran out and bought them for a dollar. The lady suddenly had to scamper off the tracks of the train from the opposite direction, then stood laughing and blowing us kisses.

Putucusi hike

Aguas Calientes is the little tourist town down below the Machu Picchu ruins, named for local hotsprings. The streets are lined with restaurants and stores for travelers, with hawkers who don't quite realize how off-putting their constant calls are: "Pizza! Very good! Meester, pizza, you try!" Our little hotel was perfectly clean and comfortable, but nothing special. Part of the view was the soaring cliffs, but part was a tangle of stairways and wires and the neighbors laundry room. Everybody but Dominick headed out for a hike up Putucusi (Happy Mountain), the peak opposite Machu Picchu. We were unprepared for the steepness and were surprised to find that a good distance of the trail was wooden ladders. Carter loved climbing the ladders, though of course Jen and I could imagine the headlines if something awful happened to him: "World's Worst Parents Allow 7yr Old On Cliff Ladders." In the end, we did not make it all the way to the top because the clouds threatened rain and the idea of backing down slick ladders was unappealing. Still, it was really fun.

Aguas Calientes

Dominick and Nicole pretty much slept from the afternoon into the night, so that left Jen, Carter, Mariza and I to a mediocre, overpriced dinner at the hotel restaurant. The barker/maitre'd/bartender/chef was a gregarious guy, but his repeated statements that the place was "3-Star" did not make it so. We were abed soon in order to be up and out by 5am to catch the bus up to the ruins. The line was already a few blocks long, so we were grateful when a woman came up the line selling coffee, strong and dark as you wish. Once the buses started moving, it was clear that the operation was as swift and organized as the Berlin Airlift. After another line at the entrance to the ruins, we hired a guide and went on in.

The ruins

There is too much about the ruins itself to lay out here. There is plenty to marvel at in terms of engineering and ingenuity (water from 2km away! masonry so finely matched that the seams are hard to see!). The insight into the culture and beliefs is also compelling, with stones set as sun dials or to mirror the exact ridgeline of the local mountains, windows set to align with the solstice, and areas for worship, agriculture, fabrication and both a tony part of town and a middle-class neighborhood. Machu Picchu was clearly a significant hub, but perhaps not as significant as a handful of other sites nearby: Ollantaytambo fortress, or Vilcabamba, the final holdout of the Inca, or their capital of Cusco, of course.

Looking past the farm terraces, up to the
peak of Machu Picchu Mountain

After a couple hours at the ruins, and after our bag lunch, some of us headed up Machu Picchu Mountain. There is a small peak rising above the ruins (Wayna Picchu), with ruins atop that people hike up to, but our route was much less traveled (perhaps because it is a steep, 1800ft climb up a lot of stone stairs). Carter was by far the youngest on the trail and the subject of endless commentary by our fellow hikers, and our niece Nicole muscled through it too. They were troopers and seemed unfazed by the sharp incline or the sheer drops, though we were all pretty pooped in the end. From the top we could see down to the ruins and the local river canyon, folded upon itself like origami. The descent was perhaps more agonizing than the ascent, but eventually we met up with Dominick and Mariza and caught the bus down to town.


The hotel was very decent about giving us a room to shower in even though we had checked out. Plus, we had plenty of time for a lunch by the river in Aguas Calientes, so we were clean, happy and tired when we caught our late-afternoon train back to Cusco.

Here are some extra photos:

On the trail up Machu Picchu Mountain

Peak of Machu Picchu Mountain, with ruins below

 

 

Nicole atop Machu Picchu Mt., with
Putucusi & Aguas Calientes below.

Along the tracks.

Cusco

We are in the middle of a 2 week visit by our niece and nephew from Oregon. They were here for less than 12hrs before we packed them up and we all headed off for Cusco and, ultimately, Machu Picchu. Dominick, Nicole, Carter, Jennifer, Mariza and myself. The flight to Cusco cruises over some snowy crags of the Andes before banking sharply around a mountain and landing in the town at 11,200ft. I had been drinking coca tea all week, plus we had all superstitiously taken the anti-altitude pills, and in the end no one suffered overly much from the altitude. Cusco was the center of the Inca empire and, later, the symbolic victory of the conquistadores. Many, many of the narrow streets are lined by ancient stone foundations with lots of colonial structures built right on top of the Inca masonry. For palaces and temples, the Inca masons were so precise that no mortar was necessary.

Daybreak down the street from our hotel.

Our hotel was on one of these small streets, a typical colonial building set around a courtyard, with a breakfast room looking out over the terracotta roofs, many with the ceramic bulls that Cusqueños place up there to protect their homes. We immediately set out for a walk, succumbing happily to the first poncho saleswoman we encountered. Eventually, we found a place for dinner where I enjoyed the very local trout. Cusco is the hub through which travelers get to Machu Picchu and we had to leave the hotel for our train at 7:30am. Even so, we were all up before daybreak to go see a local market. The market was a failure (closed), but being up at daybreak was fantastic. We walked the streets, some of us stumbling upon one of the most famous Inca foundation walls, a mortarless wall that includes the famous "12-angle stone". We still had time for breakfast and the half-hour taxi ride out to the train station.

36hrs later we returned from Machu Picchu (see the next post for that trip), and checked into a different hotel. This hotel was bigger, snootier, but very nice; it was clearly once a very important building and was right next door to what was once the Temple of the Sun, the most important of Inca temples. Jen and I were celebrating our anniversary (16!) in a happily NONfancy way. We picked up some street sandwiches (pork, onion, avocado) and a couple of beers and ate in the corner of the room as Carter slept. There was plenty of time on Sunday prior to our return to Lima, so we walked the city again. Our first stop was the Temple of the Sun, but it was closed. There was a very cute little girl, dressed in native dress and hugging her lamb. We were taking photos and talking to her when another tourist came up and accused us of harassing her, a poor native girl alone in town. It was a strange moment and it was only later that I put together the proper imaginary response: the girl was put there by her family, his belief that little girls in Cusco just wander around in full fancy dress with their lambs was naive, and after 500 years of oppression and corruption and poverty, it just didn't seem so bad to give the girl a dollar for the privilege of appreciating the native dress. What, he would prefer that she grub for potatoes instead of milking some of the huge flow of tourist money running through Cusco?
 

Dominick at the market

Anyhow...we headed off and this time found the Cusco market open. We had fun exploring the exotic offerings: pigs heads, trout roe, fabulous fruit smoothies, aromatic herbs and many things that remain a mystery. Eventually we found our way around a couple of other plazas and the central plaza. It's a beautiful town, and the sun was out, so it is easy to forget the bloodletting that permeates Cusco's history: battles and executions and later even more executions. Many people feel a spiritual power in the area, but I'm not convinced that it is anything more than this powerful resonance of a history both glorious and terrible. But forget all that, it was a lovely day and we found a cool, weird little lunch place. It supports a charity for children, near as I can tell it is a charity that runs community events for kids with clowns and facepaint, etc. They served me a very nice quinoa stew and our vegetarian niece Nicole was able to enjoy a papaya/banana pizza.

Carter's "vintage" poncho.

Mariza and the 12-angle Stone

Santa Eulalia

Weekend before last, after a few hours at the Hogar with the kids, we continued up the Rimac River valley for another 45-minutes, heading for an overnight getaway with our friends Julio, Maureen and Julito. Our destination was up a tributary where both the little village and the river are called Santa Eulalia. Many Limeños have rustic getaway homes here and the area is known for horses. We showed up, diverted around the little plaza because they were setting up for their annual founder's day fiesta, and made our way to a little walled retreat with 4 bungalows and a small, unheated pool.

We shared a bungalow, spending our time barbecuing and drinking beer while the boys ran around. The amenities were minimal, but we had come with coolers well stocked and our bocce set, so we had a lovely time. It was the warm weather for which we were totally unprepared...Santa Eulalia is so far inland that the Lima marine layer cannot reach it. One big topic was Julio's recently completed 2nd short film, completed just in time to make the 14-film cut for the Lima film festival (out of 300 entries). As I type now a week and a half later, the films have all been shown and we are crossing our fingers. In the meantime, I helped him with a poster design.

At one point on Saturday, the boys ran ahead of us to throw rocks in the little river (big stream?) as locals emerged from dusty roads, heading for the village celebration. At one point, back at the bungalow, the caretaker's small dog "Colita" ran out and barked at 4 passing horsemen, to their great amusement. They were dressed up and heading for the fiesta. Peru's national dance is called the marinera, in which a barefoot lady in a gown twirls a white handkerchief while the gentleman steps around her twirling his hat. Though I did not know this at the time, it turns out there is a version of this dance in which the men are on horseback, dressed as these 4 horsemen were.

Sunday we had a slow morning, barbecuing for lunch and then packing up. I was harboring the idea we might stop on the way out to see some of the fiesta, but bad luck struck in the form a gut-wrenching attack on Jen's stomach and it was all we could do to make the drive home without a messy mishap.