AWOL! Em and Chris in South America

Cusco

Pictures of Cusco etc

A fascinating 600 year old city with a mixture of Inca and Spanish architecture and culture.  But, we stayed for 1 day, and that was enough for us.  Cusco is the height of tourism in South America. As the gateway to Machu Pichu, thousands of tourists flood through every day.  While I don’t have anything against tourists in general, our presence in such vast quantities has had a very tangible impact on the city.  It seems like there are as many touts and hawkers standing on the sidewalks as there are tourists.  They tried to get us to buy any number of things from curios to shoe shines to taking a trip with their company or eating in their restaurant.  We couldn’t walk 2 feet without being practically assaulted by a new person.  If we showed even a glimmer of interest, they followed us down the street persisting in their sales attempts.  I love going to the markets, but this made it very unpleasant to just stroll around the plaza and take in the beauty of the city. 

There was one 10 year old boy who made me laugh though.  He tried to get me to buy some of the finger puppets he was selling.  They were very cute, but I told him no thanks.  He followed us and asked me why I didn’t want to buy any puppets.  I told him that I didn’t have any children, so I didn’t need any finger puppets.  He told me that I should buy them anyways.  So, I asked him why I should buy them.  His answer, I need to buy 5 – one for each finger.  They will be my gloves to keep my hands warm against the cold Cusco nights.  It cracked me up.  He is obviously very clever and his intelligence almost made me change my mind, but I resisted.  I try not to buy anything from the children because it causes them to stay in the streets and sell things instead of going to school. 

(finger puppets – purchased elsewhere)

Tourism keeps the economy of this city flowing pretty steadily, but I think it is a bit of a love hate relationship.  There was a lot of false sincerity.  Many children were dressed up in traditional clothes, but it wasn’t just because that’s what they wear.  It is so the tourists will take pictures of them and then they can ask them for a tip of 50 cents.  The feeling we got by being in the city was really driven home during a bus ride we took in the afternoon.  We drove by a boy selling fruits on the street corner.  He waved as we went by.  Chris saw him, waved and then turned back to face the front of the bus.  As soon as Chris had turned his head the boy’s hand changed shape from a wave to flipping him off.    It really disturbed me that he would do it, but it hit home to the attitude of the city.  The tourists are like ATM machines, they like the money we bring to the city, but we are an annoyance.  I think it would be very difficult to get to know someone here to find out a little more about them and their culture. So, despite its beauty and many interesting attractions we decided to head out to the Sacred Valley first thing the next morning.
Sacred Valley

We decided to escape the tourist life by taking a….um…guided tour. There is no escaping being a full blown tourist in the Cusco/Sacred Valley/Machu Picchu area. We briefly toyed with the idea of renting a car and going through Sacred Valley ourselves but it was cheaper to take the the tour. And actually it was well paced, very informative and quite enjoyable as much as I hate to admit. The most memorable parts of the tour were the market in Pisac and the ruins in Olantaytambo. The market rivaled the Otavalo market in Ecuador. It seemed that everything we ran into we liked. But we were there on the biggest day with all these tour buses rolling in, so a lot of the the vendors jack up their prices to ridiculous levels. So we resisted buying anything. It was interesting, actually, we returned to Pisac a couple days later after all the buses had been gone for a bit and the vendors tended to be a lot more straightforward with their prices. You could still bargain some, of course, but things tended to be more on the up-and-up. The change was disturbing…but if tourists actually pay the prices they ask, I guess they don’t have any reason to do otherwise.

After Pisac, we continued on the tour through a few other villages and ultimately arrived at Olantaytambo. The town is overshadowed by an Inca fortress that was constructed in the mountain behind the town. I wish I could detail all the fascinating things we learned about Inca culture, religion and science. I’m really glad we took the tour because there is so much we would not have learned. To the Incas science, nature and religion were one. Their most sacred places are also sites of incredible astrological precision and natural beauty. They built the fortress with rocks (some weighing up to 200 tons) that were quarried from a mountain top that was across a river and several kilometers away. The walls are constructed to withstand seismic activity. Also, each stone is carved uniquely to fit with the stones that surround it. Yet despite the asymmetry of the individual stones, the fit is so tight and the walls are so symmetrical it’s incredible. There is a picture of Em standing in front of one of the walls, and you can see how intricate the construction is. It really is no wonder that Peru, and specifically Cusco and its environs draw so many people. There were many ruins that we saw in passing, and some that we visited specifically, but everywhere there is such a rich cultural history and beautiful artistry woven throughout everything you see.

At Olantaytambo we stayed the night and took the train the next morning to visit the one thing that draws tourists from around the world (especially the French, they were everywhere!!)….

The gem of Inca history and Peru, Machu Picchu.

For more pictures of Machu Picchu: Click Here (there are a lot)

It is quite expensive to visit the ruins. We had to take a train up to Aguas Calientes, a tourist town at the foot of the national park. The train costs an arm and a leg., On top of that is the entrance fee, which is currently $40 per person. But I guess that’s the price you have to pay to see one of the wonders of the world. And it was worth it. Any description or photograph or anything except visiting the place itself falls far short of how beautiful it is. Despite the futility, I took a ton of pictures of the place. I couldn’t help it. It’s a photographers dreamland….fascinating architecture set in one of the most beautiful natural settings I’ve ever seen. And here I was stuck with my little 2.0 mega pixel, auto-focusing, overexposing, ever-beloved, camera. The whole time we were wandering through the ruins, we were amazed by how much work they dedicated to carving this temple at the top of a mountain. And there were people EVERYWHERE. Gobs of them. We didn’t come with a tour guide this time, so we tagged along with a couple tours here and there to try and snatch a few facts. But we didn’t really feel the need for a full tour, it was enough to just sit and absorb the place. If we wanted to know something about a certain area, we would hang out in the area until a tour group came through with an English speaking guide. We stayed longer than most of the organized groups, so towards the end of the day the people had thinned out a bit. In the morning the tour groups arrive, in the afternoon, the school groups arrive. There were a lot of kids in various uniforms running around. The picture included was part of an amusing chain of events. We ran into a group of these kids, we said hello and started talking with a couple of them. One of the girls brought a shy little boy over and told us he would like to have his picture taken. Well…..once he had his picture taken, everyone had to have their picture taken. We ended up with practically the whole school getting their picture taken, and taking pictures of us…it was a lot of fun. Shortly after that, it started pouring down rain. Sadly, it was time to go.

 

Go to the Ruta del Sol Photo Album – Pictures of whales, la Isla and wildlife

We said goodbye to our host family and to our teachers at Estudio Sampere. My Spanish teacher told me (Chris) that if we returned to Cuenca he would happily trade Spanish lessons for English lessons. Our host family said they hoped to see us again as well, and we feel the same. I don’t know how it is for them because they have people rolling through all the time, but I really enjoyed the time with our host family and it seemed that (despite language barriers) the feeling was mutual. I wish that I was learning more Spanish as we traveled, but I actually feel a bit like I’m regressing. We’re getting quite good at booking hotel rooms and figuring out where buses are going etc, but actual conversational Spanish…we are certainly not using that as much as we were with our host family.

So, yeah. Back to our travels. After a long tearful farewell (hah), we headed down to Vilcabamba, a small town in the “Valley of Longevity”. Apparently, the people in the valley have historically lived much longer than average, with many of them exceeding 100 years in age. Earlier in the week one of the oldest women in the valley had just died at the age of 126. As for the town itself, well……if you aren’t going on a horse ride the place is kind of boring. That’s the thing to do in Vilcabamba, ride horses. Unfortunately the minimum ride is two hours. The last ride Em and I did was about that long and we were both hurting for days after. So, we just lazed around the town instead. There were a group of Swiss folks from Sampere that we were meeting up with, so we hung out with them as well when they got back from their ride. They returned quite sore.

We were in Vilcabamba for two nights, the Swiss had left to go back to school so we changed hostals for the second night and stayed at this sort of hippyish hotel called “Madre Tierra”, relaxed in their jacuzzi and finally made up for the massage I missed in Cost Rica when I was sick. The place is eclectic with funky rooms and waterfalls. Pretty cool. Except I think I confirmed that I am just not a massage person. I thought maybe a professional massage would change my mind……but no. It was nice, I guess, and waaaay cheaper than in the states but I just don’t know what all the fuss is about. Call me crazy.

Anyway, after our relaxing little weekend, we headed up to the coast. We took the scenic bus route which follows the coast all the way up to Puerto Lopez, our main destination. Any Ecuadorian that we talked to said that the coast is just amazing and very beautiful. Right now it is nearing the end of the dry season, so I’m not sure if it is a seasonal thing or if we have just been spoiled by the beautiful Californian and South African coasts, but we weren’t exactly blown away. It’s the ocean and the ocean is always beautiful, but a lot of the coast was dry and a bit drab looking. Once we hit the Puerto Lopez area, things started becoming a little greener, but nothing like Costa Rica’s coast. I think the rainy season may change the landscape drastically, so if we return to Ecuador, we’ll have to hit the coast at the end of the rainy season to see the difference. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the Ecuadorian coast, but perhaps my expectations got in the way a bit. Also, it was completely overcast the entire time that we were there, so instead of sun (sol) we saw many clouds (nubes), and then many more clouds after that, hence the title of the post.

The whales, however, were incredible. We were afraid that we might not get lucky since we were coming in at the tale end of the migration season, but instead we got an amazing show. We took a tour that goes whale watching in the morning, visits Isla de la Plata at midday and then goes snorkeling. It was a pretty good package to start with and we definitely got our money’s worth and then some. After about twenty minutes on the boat, we spotted the first humpback. We followed it for some time and it would surface, spout some, and it dove down once and we saw it’s fluke. So that was pretty exciting. After it dove down, however we didn’t see anything for a while. Then suddenly everyone (except for Em) saw a whale come clean out of the water. Of course everybody freaks out. We had come across a small pod of whales and they kept breaching and waving their fins and everything. It was amazing. The best one was when two of the whales breached at once going in opposite directions. Unforgettable.

The rest of the day was cool too. We went to Isla de la Plata (also called the poor man’s Galapagos) where we saw blue footed boobies, a baby albatross, and a few other species of birds. It is really fascinating how little fear the wildlife has. The boobies just sit there in the path and you can walk within a few feet (or even closer) of them and they just watch you go on by. Oh, and on the island, we actually saw some sun! And I got a little burnt despite the fact that I was wearing sunscreen…hrrmf. The snorkeling was nice too, the water was a little chilly but there were a couple nice large schools of pretty fishys. I don’t think we saw anything that we hadn’t seen before, but it was beautiful all the same.

I liked Puerto Lopez. It is still very much a fishing town, so it doesn’t have a lot of the glitz and polish that some of your touristy beach towns have. At the same time it IS a tourist place because of the whales and Isla de la Plata, so it does have various quality restaurants. The hostel (Mandala) we stayed at was really nice too. It was very artistic with nice touches everywhere that you went. It also had a full percussion section above the restaurant, which is pretty awesome. I played with the marimba and jimbes a little, but nobody else really used it while we were there….pity.

And that was about it for Ecuador! After a few days in Puerto Lopez, we went to Guayaquil with only a couple bucks left in our wallets (again! we’ve really got to stop that nonsense), caught our plane to Peru and that’s where we are now. We’ll post more on that when we get the chance….I think right now though, we have to go buy more Peruvian stuff.  

So…..let’s see here. It’s been a while since our last major post. We’ve been pretty busy in Cuenca with classes and cultural events…and also eating meals with our host family. We have spent a lot of time hanging out with them around the dinner table. My favorite part of Spanish school is conversation hour. We occasionally get to leave class and go visit interesting parts of Cuenca. The Friday before my birthday, my teacher took us to the “mercado”. I like those kinds of market places. They are full of interesting fruits, vegies, roasting guinea pigs (cuy is a common food here), clothes and all kinds of other items you could possibly want to buy. We were wandering through, asking the name for this or that, talking to our teacher, when she pointed out the curanduras (local healers, who are mostly very old ladies, wearing more traditional clothes). Personally, I would prefer a regular doctor. I figure there are some natural remedies that can be very beneficial to people, but this procedure just left me baffled. There was a long line of women waiting to pay $1 to have their child “cured”. First the curandura picks up a bunch of leaves and flowers and proceeds to hit the kid with the plant on their forehead, chest, stomach, back and arms. I could smell the herby aroma from where I was standing. It is possible the plants could be good for clearing up the sinuses or something like that. Then they take an egg and rub it lightly all over the babies body. I am never sure if I am getting to story all right when people explain things to me in Spanish, but I think my teacher told me they are pulling the bad stuff out of the child’s body and putting it into the egg. She also said sometimes they crack it at the end and if there are specks or blood in it, then it proves someone gave them the evil eye. For adults they smell some kind of alcohol and rub it on their faces, but they don’t do it to babies. The next part is the real kicker. The curandura takes a swallow of holy water and then spits it back out on the customers head and then repeats the process for their back. If I was sick, I think the last thing I would want is someone spitting on me…We watched them work for a while and the other thing that surprised me was that it was the same basic treatment for everyone. They didn’t ask what was wrong with the kid to adapt the remedy to the disease. I guess if you believe an evil spirit is causing them problem, then it makes complete sense. I think I will just stick to modern medicine for the time being.

 

Which I actually needed last week (or maybe I needed the curandura! Who’s to know). It seemed to be just a 24 hour bug, but I was miserably sick. I’m glad we are staying with a caring host family and not in some hostel with a shared bathroom. The youngest daughter is 22 and she has a friend who is a doctor, so he came over and checked on me. They got me some medicine and all that. The next morning our host father was flipping through the newspaper and there was a picture of my doctor helping a patient. The article had something to do with senior citizens and medicine. I couldn’t understand much more than that, but it seemed funny that I got a house call from a “famous” doctor 🙂 Both Chris and I really like Cuenca. It is the 3rd largest City in Ecuador, but it is worlds away from Quito and Guyaquil (the 1st and 2nd biggest). It feels so much smaller, more manageable and safer. The people don’t drive quite as crazy and it is also quite pretty with the downtown historical center filled with colonial buildings and tons of catholic churches. 4 rivers flow through it causing trees and plants to flourish, and it is in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains in which ever way you look. It was one of the places on our list of a possible place to return to after our 3 months of traveling and stay while Chris does school and I teach English. So, I thought I had better figure out what schools were out there and get some information. All the Spanish schools we attend are come and go whenever. Many students are there for college credit, and they have a specific schedule, but the rest of us can arrange ourselves. I assumed the English schools would be the same, but I found out that most of them run on the University schedules and will be starting at the beginning of October. We will be in Peru then, so things won’t work out perfectly. Nevertheless, I got offered 2 jobs at 2 different schools in 1 day. I didn’t want any job offers. I just went to get information about the schools, but I guess the normal people who come in looking for a job don’t already have a credential and a masters in Education. Even so, the pay scale for me in one of the schools was $2.50 per hour. A normal work load for the teachers is about 25-30 hours per week, so if you do the math it is about $270 a month. We certainly won’t be rolling in the dough, but on the other hand a nice apartment isn’t supposed to cost more than $150 a month. That is about what we were expecting, and our host family said it was a pretty normal wage for here. So, I don’t know how people can raise a family on that even with the cost of housing and food being so low. If we decide to come back there is a intensive language program starting in November, so we have to get going with the rest of our travels. So, it is off to the coast to try and see some whales before we move on to Peru.