Road Trip! Cusco to Puno

Tired from my night of the town the night before, I was mildly checked-out for the 9 hour tour bus ride Mom and I took from Cusco to Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. From this point forward in our trip, I left most of the picture-taking to my mom, which has resulted in me not having photos of some of our key moments along the way. However, I will do my best to tell the stories of our travels with what I have.

Our first stop was at a small but famous church about an hour outside of Cusco. It is known locally as the Sistine Chapel of Peru for its intricate artwork and altar. It was pretty phenomenal inside, although nothing could beat the cathedral we visited in the Plaza de Armas in Cusco, in my opinion. However, it did have an elaborately carved wooden pulpit, multiple paintings, and an altar and other details covered in gold.

Peru's Sistine Chapel.

Next we stopped at another site of some Inca ruins, called Raqchi. The site was a worship center for the Inca god Wiracocha. The most stunning remains of the site are some adobe walls that supported an entire temple. The surrounding site is filled with Inca rock walls and more adobe structures that were used as houses, and some round buildings that were store houses for food. This site was incredibly beautiful, surrounded by farm land, pasture land, a stream and irrigation channels, and hills topped with more Inca walls. The rock the Inca used in this area for their foundations was volvanic basalt. Please note: the funny little cap roofs of tile were constructed by the locals to protect the adobe walls from the weather.

Remains of the Wiracocha temple.

Mom and some Inca walls.


The storehouses.




Farmland.
An Inca water system.
Sheep!!!
The cute little church in Raqchi.
Next, our tour took us to the town of Sicuani for lunch, where the highlight was a baby alpaca that I got to pet! It was less than a month old and so, sooooo cute. It was white and had bright blue eyes and the softest wool. I prettymuch wanted a baby alpaca of my very own after chasing it around the yard for awhile. We ate a delicious buffet lunch where we sampled different Peruvian dishes and listened to some folkloric music. Then, we hopped back in the bus and made another quick stop and a pass that was the highest point of our adventure.

The highest point of our trip.
We made one more stop in the town of Pukara, the site of some pre-Colombian ruins that we did not visit. We did visit, however, an interesting little museum there that had some pre-Colombian statues and rock carvings. After a few more hours on the bus, we pulled into Puno and walked to our hostel, which ended up being an awesome little bed and breakfast called Kusillo's Posada. Mom was having a hard time with the altitude, so I ran out and brought back some dinner. We spent the night resting so we would be ready to explore Puno the next day.

Machu Picchu--Living the Dream

How am I supposed to write about the fulfillment of a dream? I have a list of the places in the world I want to see before I die, and Machu Picchu was always my number one. I can now cross that off my list, although after being there once, I would like to go back. Since we arrived in the middle of Peru's rainy season, much of the ruins were shrouded in thick clouds for most of our day. And, of course, it poured on us, although the most ravaging downpour began at the very end of our tour. At the time, I was devastated that it never cleared up enough that we could see the surrounding mountains in all their majesty, but as the day progressed, I felt that the mysterious veil provided by the clouds was a rather fitting backdrop for the mysteries of the Inca Empire and their most famous city.

Mom and I reached the ruins sometime after 6 a.m., and had some time to wander the grounds before our guided tour at 8 a.m. Theoretically, at this hour of the day, there are less tourists and thus more opportunities to take photos unmolested by large groups of people. We still had to be creative with our camera angles, but I was pretty pleased with the results. And sometimes, you just have to say to hell with it and blast away with the photos in order to capture the scale of the ruins.

Machu Picchu really is everything you expect it to be, which is breath-taking, awe-inspiring, mysterious, beautiful. It is an architectural wonder. It is surrounded by wild mountains and jungle vegetation. The site is richly green. The stones are perfectly formed. Wandering the ruins in (relative) solitude, you can feel the weight of history as you marvel at the Inca's achievements. I wish I were an Inca. The Inca terracing, which we had seen in many other areas, was so beautiful at Machu Picchu, practically clinging to the slope of the mountain. The Incas apparently used the terracing to study the microclimates of each terrace and perfect their crops and farming techniques.

After wandering the site at our leisure, we took a guided tour with a darling and informative guide and were able to learn more about the secrets and marvels of Machu Picchu. I had not known that the site was actually a work in progress when construction was stopped due to the threat of the conquistadores. In places, there are huge piles of boulders that the Inca would shape and use for constructing their buildings. In one area, there was evidence of how the Inca cut the large stones. They would carve niches along natural cracks in the rocks, and then place beams of wood in the niches. Next, they would put water on the wood. As the wood expanded with the moisture, it would split open the rocks. While, standing by the guardhouse overlooking the site, it seemed impossible that a site like Machu Picchu could be built with relative speed, our guide informed us that Incas payed taxes through manual labor, and thus work forces of 20,000 could be mobilized at a time. We stood in the doorway to the site, where the official Inca Trail ended, and learned that the Inca had at one time over 55,000 kilometers of paved trail, stretching from northern Argentina up into Ecuador. We also learned more about their mummies, rituals involving sacrifices to the sun, and the importance of the condor in their worldview. At one place in the site is a ceremonial condor carved out of an existing boulder. Mummified bodies were place on its wings and offerings were made to its carved beak. Other places on the site contained rocks carved and angled to form compasses. We visited the top of a structure that served as an oratorical platform and witnessed the mastery of Inca acoustics, looking down on the field where spectators would stand to listen and where centuries later Che Guevara played a soccer match. Standing among the shadows of the past, Mom and I were mesmerized by the passage of time, the intricacy and achievements of a fallen empire, and our own utter insignificance.

Different views of the living quarters.


Mom is a conquistadora.



Inca walls and a pile of boulders awaiting construction.

From the base of the oratorical platform. The Inca terracing is in the distance.

Mom creeps around Machu Picchu.


Machu Picchu seems to cling to the steep slopes of the mountain.


The phenomenal terracing.
Machu Picchu as apparition.

The surrounding peaks.
The site, as seen during a miraculously clear moment.
I never tire of admiring Inca walls.
After our tour, we ate snacks and waited under a covered area, praying the downpour would stop. No such luck, and I decided to give up and return to Aguas Calientes. I think it was the right decision, since it poured until about 2 p.m., and we had to catch a train back to Cusco at 5. We ate a relaxed dinner and shopped for souvenirs until it was time to board. The train took forever (something like over four hours) and I was anxious to get back to Cusco for our last night because I had a date with a cute boy named Americo! We finally arrived, and Americo took me out dancing at a club where I was literally the only gringa. I was also the tallest person there. This is not an exaggeration; Peruvians are quite short. Due to my gringa-ness and my height, everyone stared at me the entire night, and I was not quite comfortable enough to make a proper show of my dancing abilities. Also, Americo liked to dance to salsa, which I hate, mostly because I can never find the beat and my body does not know how it is supposed to move. However, I was pleased to see the more local scene, since most of our experiences in Cusco were confined to the tourist quarters of the city and thus a little devoid of culture.

So yes, basically, you need to go to Cusco and Machu Picchu. I ended up wishing I hadn't wasted my first three days there being pissy and missing out on all the site-seeing, since Mom and I were unable to do and see it all. Fortunately, it gives me a good reason to go back! I want to try again during the much more popular dry season, which is more crowded but also promises clear skies!

Ollantaytambo--We Hit the Sacred Valley

The first Monday of Mom's visit, we headed into the Sacred Valley. The plan was to hit the site at Ollantaytambo, then take the train into the jungle to Aguas Calientes, the small town near Machu Picchu. I was still feeling pretty tired, but a lunch and a d. coke rejuvenated me.

I think no matter how many ruins I see, I am always blown away when I set foot in a new site. Ollantaytambo was spectacular. First of all, it clings to the side of a hill and some cliffs, and underneath these imposing structures, a small, more modern town has grown. There are also some smaller additional sites on the other hills surrounding the village. What remains of the site is Inca terracing, some incredible Inca walls, and structural remains. We chose to wander the site at random and skip the informative tour, so I have no idea what the structures or the site were used for. However, it was awesome to wander leisurely at our own pace through the site. Also, there were about a million stairs to climb, so in that sense too, it was nice to take our time. Really, I don't have much else to say about Ollantaytambo; the pictures speak for themselves.

Approaching Ollantaytambo on our walk through the town.
The ruins.
A view of the town of Ollantaytambo and the Sacred Valley from atop the ruins.
More ruins and terracing.



Mom getting her Inca on.
Structural remains.
Inca doorway!
More sexy Inca stonework.
Ollantaytambo was so cool that for a brief moment I worried that I would like it better than Machu Picchu. As Mom and I discovered the next morning, however, that was not possible. The train to Aguas Calientes was spectacular, as well. In about two hours, we slowly chugged deeper into the Sacred Valley along a brown river with some wild rapids. The trip was marked by huge rock cliffs and peaks smoothed by rain and the creeping jungle. The closer we got to Aguas Calientes, the more verdant and dense the foliage became. It really was a jungle, which I couldn't believe after seeing the surrounding areas of Cusco and Ollantaytambo. But there it was, wet and dense and vine-ridden. We disembarked in the town and, in typical South American fashion, waited an hour for a promised train station pick-up that never arrived. After some minor setbacks, including the fact that no one I asked had heard of the hostel we were supposed to stay at, I went to an internet cafe and called them, and soon we were escorted up yet another hill to our digs. We enjoyed another fine trout dinner (I think the thing I miss the most about Peru, aside from the men, is the delicious trout that I ate almost every day there!), and then it was off to bed so we could get up bright and early (4:30 a.m.) to be on one of the first buses up the mountain to Machu Picchu!