Peru: New and Improved

I will start off this entry with an apology (to all 3 of my readers) for the lack of entries in the past week or so. I just haven't had any decent time for updates, because in Kaitlin's and my efforts to cover so much ground in so little time, there wasn't a ton of time to sit down and write a decent blog entry. So here is my attempt to make up for that. Maybe even the first of several attempts.

From Copacabana, Bolivia, where we last let off, we took a bus across the border to Puno, Peru, and then to Cuzco. Cuzco is really Peru's showpiece town. It is dramatic and gorgeous: an amazing main plaza whose architecture combines Inca-era stonework (enormous stones--who knows how they carved them and moved them to where they are now--that interlock perfectly, without any need for mortar) and colonial Spanish cathedrals. The cathedrals themselves are a bit politically incorrect, with a ton of depictions of St. James (Santiago is St. James, right?) riding his horse roughshod over bloody (defiant) brown natives, but this can actually be overlooked if you focus on the elaborate stone carvings in the entryways of the buildings, and the bright Andean touches given to traditional Catholic iconogrpahy (ie, the Virgin Mary whose head is surrounded not by a halo but rather by a sun, a nod to Inti, the sun god of the Incas).

Cuzco's main plaza is also surrounded by restaurants on balconies where you can sit and have ají de gallina and a pisco sour (sorry Chileans, but the Peruvian one IS better than the Chilean one) and watch the Cuzqueños chase after the gringos trying to sell them tour packages and/or postcards, and watch the gringos' awkward responses (will they just ignore them? try to engage them in a clunky English-language conversation? run away? We saw all these, and other, variations). You can also dign into some cuy, or guinea pig--an Andean specialty. We didn't, though. I have too many memories of Wickers Berkeley, my fourth grade class's pet guinea pig. May he rest in peace.

Following our explorations of Cuzco proper, we took excursions out of town as well. First to the Sacred Valley, where we saw the Sunday markets in Pisac and Chinchero (pictured)
. There was cool stuff but I didn't get much. We also went to the lesser-known (in comparison to Machu Picchu, at least) Inca archaeological sites of Ollantaytambo and Pisac. Ollantaytambo is one of the few sites where the Spanish colonizers lost a battle to the Incas, so it's an extra special site. It's also lit up really beautifully at night. Here is a pic of the terraces of Ollantaytambo:

And then, of course, Machu Picchu. This was my third time there, and it was just as cool as ever. The sun was shining and we got some amazing photos. One thing I did differently this time was that we went and had lunch at the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge, a 5-star hotel located right next to the ruins. We paid something like $30 each for it, which has to be close to a week's minimum wage in Peru. It was good food, and a look into a whole different approach to tourism in the third world, which basically involves protecting yourself in an uppity little bubble that manages to block you off from all the ugly poverty surrounding you.

Peru has really developed since I first went there in 2001. The changes are really evident. There is much better road infrastructure, nicer green areas, more tourist facilities, and a general feeling of stability and safety. We had a really nice time in Cuzco.

From there, we headed to Arequipa.

To be continued...