Author: bplindsay

4 May:  After our brief stay in Lima, we flew to Cusco, to focus on seeing some of the spectacular scenery and ruins in the heart of the former Incan empire.  Cusco was the capital of the Incas, who dominated the Andean region for roughly 100 years until the Spanish conquest in 1532.  At its greatest extent, the empire extended from present day Ecuador south to present day Chile, eastward from the Pacific coast, up across the highlands and Andes Mountains, and part way down into the Amazonian basin.  “Inca” (or “Sapa Inca”) originally meant the person who ruled over the whole empire, although today “Inca” most often refers to the people of the Incan empire collectively.  The Quechua-speaking people of today’s Peru are their descendants.

After settling into a charming B&B in the San Blas neighborhood, with its great view of upper Cusco and the surrounding hills, we explored the old city on foot.  The streets in this part are narrow and paved with cobblestones, lined in many places by the unmistakeable and incomparable Incan stone masonry with its hand crafted polygonal stones fitted perfectly together.  At the textile museum we saw some exquisite examples of traditional Peruvian woven fabrics and watched a woman demonstrating weaving on her backstrap loom.  We went through displays on the history and process of chocolate making at the chocolate museum then went to a small restaurant to sample more Peruvian cuisine.  We ordered from the menu of the day:  a limited choice of appetizer, main course, dessert, and beverage for one fixed and inexpensive price (a commonly available option at many restaurants).  Among our choices were papaya juice, quinoa soup, and alpaca.

5 May:  While Abby worked on her research, the two of us went on a tour to Chinchero, Moray, and the salineras (salt works) of Maras.  The ride in the tour company’s van seemed to us to be an “adventure tour” in itself—very fast on curvy and narrow roads, often near cliff edges (that’s pretty normal for Peru, as we would find out on later van, bus, and taxi rides).  The village of Chinchero has a reputation for some of the finest traditional Andean weaving; we stopped there to see a demonstration.  Moray was the site of Incan agricultural experimentation.  They constructed terraces in three large pits (built in limestone sinkholes) that differed substantially in temperature at the various levels, so they could determine which crops grew best at which altitudes.  In Maras, the Incas produced salt by diverting a small stream containing highly saline water through a large complex of settling pools, where the water was evaporated so they could collect the salt crystals.  The stream water is 5% salt, compared to 3.5% for seawater, because the stream flows through underground salt deposits.  Back in Cusco after the tour, we went through the regional historical museum, where we saw exhibits on both the pre-contact period and the early colonial period after the Spanish conquest.  Abby took us to dinner at a restaurant specializing in traditional Peruvian food, accompanied by Andean music and traditional folk dancing.  We sampled from their buffet and thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment.

6 May:  Although the Spanish called Saqsayhuaman a fortress, it was really a large temple complex on a hill overlooking Cusco.  It is a prime example of the renowned Incan walls of carved stone fitted tightly together.  We walked up from our B&B to see it and took a tour with one of the guides.  Peru has a five-year university degree program in tourism leading to certification, and the information they impart at the archaeological sites enriches the experience greatly for the visitors.  Saqsayhuaman was built of granite, which makes the cutting and sculpting of the building stones all the more impressive considering that the Incans did not have metal tools.  The complex consisted of three levels, with ceremonial buildings on top.  The stones of the lowest level are huge indeed.  Even though the Spanish destroyed the buildings and removed many of the smaller stones for their colonial period cathedrals and other buildings, much of the walls and the foundations of the original buildings at Saqsayhuaman are still in excellent condition.  We then walked to the nearby ruins of a smaller set of walls and buildings known as Q’enko.  This site is thought to have been used for the ceremonial preparation of a deceased Incan ruler’s body for mummification and burial.

6 May:  From Cusco we rode by van into the Sacred Valley of the Incas to spend a couple of days in the ancient town of Ollantaytambo.  Our B&B was in the old section of town, among narrow cobblestone streets lined by two-story buildings on the original Incan foundations.  A short hike took us up a steep slope to old stone ruins with a view of the town below, ancient buildings above, and the archaeological site across the valley.

7 May:  Before breakfast, we hiked farther up Pinkuylluna Mountain to the ruins we had seen from below yesterday.  These buildings were in very good condition except that the thatch roofs had rotted away long ago.  Known as colcas, these were food storehouses.  Excess food produced during Incan rule provided security against crop failures and also freed some of the labor force for public construction projects and military service.  The high elevation of the colcas (far above the agricultural fields) prolonged the storage period for the food due to the colder temperatures.  We took a tour through the archeologial park on the west side of the valley overlooking Ollantaytambo.  This site includes ceremonial fountains, a building aligned to the June solstice sunrise, an extensive set of stone terraces, some more colcas, and a sun temple.  Some of the original stucco still remains on the old walls:  the Incans imbedded plant fibers and sometimes human hair to give the stucco strength, and used animal fat in the mix to make it weatherproof.  Not only is the stone masonry leading up to the sun temple is superb, but because this complex was not completed at the time of the Spanish conquest, stones abandoned before their final carving and fitting into place provide valuable insight into how the Incan masons accomplished their work.  Some of the stones interlock like puzzle pieces or Legos to give walls structural integrity.  All were fit together precisely and without any mortar.  Some of the largest stones are separated by narrow stones that could have acted as “expansion joints” as protection against earthquakes. Most of the original rustic ramp by which the stones were hauled on log rollers up to the construction site is clearly visible.  The site from which the stones were quarried is several kilometers away across a major river valley, so the river had to be diverted many times to haul the stones across the valley.  In the afternoon we took a hike up the tributary river valley behind the town to see more examples of terracing.

8 May:  We hiked from Ollantaytambo across the river and up to the quarry that the Incas used.  About half of the hiking trail followed the original haul road that the Incans used.

9 May:  Our train ride from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu town (formerly named Agua Callientes) followed the Villcanota River (also known as the Urubamba River) downstream through a spectacular gorge.  The cars were very comfortable, with skylights to enhance the views for the passengers.  Peru Rail provided passionfruit juice, pastries with a sweet quinoa filling, and periodic announcements to “dear passengers” pointing out the sights we were passing, making the ride very enjoyable.  After settling into our B&B we went to the botanical garden, situated on an Incan terrace near the trailhead up to the Machu Picchu ruins.  The garden is very nicely landscaped and the plants are well-labeled.  We were told that one of the plants there was the world’s biggest orchid species.  After lunch back in town, we picked up some fruit and bread at the fresh market for the next day’s lunch up at the ruins.

10 May:  We hiked up to the Machu Picchu ruins from the river instead of taking one of the buses.  The trail is very nicely constructed with stone stairs, and took us an hour and a quarter to climb.  Our guide Gloria gave the three of us the two-hour tour of the ruins (she actually spent about three hours with us and was very friendly and informative).  Machu Picchu was a complex of buildings high on a ridge top, providing the Sapa Inca with a beautiful country retreat from the capital of Cusco.  It housed about 500 people and included temples and royal housing.  When the Spanish invaded, the road to Machu Picchu was hidden from them, so the Incan buildings there escaped destruction by their hands.  It wasn’t until 1911 that Yale professor Hiram Bingham found the ruins and brought Machu Picchu to the world’s attention (although locals knew of the ruins’ existence).

After lunch we hiked south up the ridge on the Inca Road to the Sun Gate, which has a commanding view of the Machu Picchu ruins and the prominent peak of Huayna Picchu mountain behind it.  There we ran into Hal and Hilda from Colorado, whom we had met in Ollantaytambo, and together we hiked back down to the main ruins and then up and down the Inca Bridge trail, which curves around the west side of the ridge across an incredibly steep drop toward the river.

11 May:  In the morning we relaxed in the warm water pools of Agua Callientes, the hot springs at the tributary that flows into the Villcanota River at Machu Picchu Town.  Later we explored the extensive complex of souvenir markets between the river and the rail station, where locals sell a wide variety of exquisite crafts such as the beautiful traditional hand-woven products.

12 May:  From Machu Picchu Town, we traveled by train and van up along the Vilcanota River to another archaeologically important town within the Sacred Valley, Pisac.  From our Airbnb we walked the kilometer into the center of town and went to the fresh market for some fruit and veggies.

13 May:  A long taxi ride took us to the end of an unpaved road up a valley to a dam at a high elevation laguna (lake).  From there we hiked on a rough trail up past that laguna and up above a second laguna to a ridge where we had a distant view of a snow covered mountain.  We were in the puna, the high elevation zone where grasses and occasional wildflowers grow, but but no trees.  Peru is a little south of the equator, and basically has two seasons: the rainy season (mainly January-March) and the dry season (the rest of the year), with relatively little seasonal change in temperature or day length.  We descended to the upper end of the higher laguna and found a trail that led us back around the far side of both lagunas to our starting point.  All along our hike we could see rough terracing and isolated steep farm fields (mainly for potatoes).

We walked down the road, past green fertile land in the valley below the dam where there are houses, farm fields, and grazing livestock (alpacas, sheep, horses, burros, and cows).  At a third laguna lower down, we stopped to eat lunch and wait for our taxi to return.  Four women were weaving and selling their handiwork there, and one demonstrated to us how they weave narrow belts and straps in colorful traditional patterns.  Our taxi then arrived and took us to the upper end of the Pisa archaeological site.  From there we hiked the trails among the ruins and down into the town below.  Similar to other ruins we had visited, those at Pisac were situated high on a ridge above the town and demonstrated the high degree of masonry characteristic of the Inca period.  The steep hillsides were terraced, and the buildings on the top of the ridge included a temple with an astronomical alignment.  We followed a trail from the ruins down the steep ridge into the town below, leading into the market section of the old part of town.

14 May:  We devoted our second morning in Pisac to exploring the market stalls to buy some souvenirs and gifts before traveling back to Cusco by van.  In Cusco we visited the museum at the Qorikancha.  This was an important Incan temple until the Spanish destroyed most of it and built a cathedral and convent on its foundations.  The museum next to the site had detailed displays explaining Incan beliefs and customs and a timeline along one wall showing much earlier Peruvian cultures known through artifacts uncovered by archaeologists.  One of the museum staff members gave us a personal tour, explaining the symbolism behind many of the customs.  After dark, Abby took us to dinner at a great little French quiche restaurant she had discovered previously.

15 May:  While Abby spent a few days conducting interviews for her research in Cusco, the two of us went on a four-day, three-night tour down into the Amazonian basin in Manu National Park.  We were the only two people signed up for this tour, so we not only benefited from the undivided attention of our 11-year veteran guide Tass, but we were also accompanied by David, who was finishing up his training as a guide.  On the way between Cusco and our first night’s lodging, our van stopped at the small village of Paucartambo, which is renowned for a huge festival it holds in July, featuring parades, dancing, and traditional costumes.  On display in the museum were examples of the extremely elaborate handmade costumes and masks.  The dominant trees in the sierra (mountain) zone are eucalyptus, which were imported from Australia around 100 years ago.  The eucalyptus thrived and now provide wood in areas with no large native trees, however they have become an issue if growing too near streams in arid areas because their roots draw so much water.  We continued up into the high-elevation treeless puna zone and over a 12,000-foot-high pass before descending into the cloud forest zone.  The vegetation was there was lush and varied, and the river valleys were very steep and narrow.  Much of this unpaved road was only one lane wide, with many blind curves next to the abyss.  We stopped occasionally to get out and look at plants and birds.  Shortly before reaching our destination for the night, San Pedro Lodge at 5,600 ft, we had a great look at a male cock of the rock, the Peruvian national bird, with its brilliant red head and cockade, named for its habit of nesting in rocky areas.

16 May:  In the morning we descended through the cloud forest, where we looked more birds and also saw a wooly monkey, and entered the relatively flat rain forest below, where we drove through banana, yuca, pineapple, and coca fields.  Coca leaves are widely used in a tea or simply for chewing, to combat the effects of high altitude, but it is a highly regulated crop because of the illicit cocaine trade.  After quick stops in small villages to buy bread, pineapples, and yuca (cassava root), we left the van to paddle down the upper Madre de Dios river for about an hour from Pillcopata to Atalaya in a whitewater river raft with our two guides and a river rafting guide, who steered and called out when to paddle as we passed swiftly downriver through rapids.  That was a lot of fun.  We traveled the rest of the way to Erika Lodge in a motor launch.  After lunch and relaxing a while we went for a hike in on trails behind the lodge.  We wore rubber boots because of muddy trails (and possible venomous snakes, though we didn’t see any).  Tass pointed out some of the rain forest fauna and flora, including some huge nests of leaf cutter ants, wasps, and termites.  We saw walking trees (we had seen those in Hawai’i), belly palms (the fruit bounces outward off a swollen section of trunk below so they don’t grow too close together), and a very large kapok tree.  After supper (it doesn’t get dark late in the tropics, even in the summer) we went for a short hike to look for spiders and saw some very large scorpion spiders and wolf spiders.  One kind of spider spins a huge web several feet through in every dimension (unlike the two-dimensional webs in geometric patterns we are familiar with).

17 May:  We did some morning bird watching around the lodge (colorful tanagers, oropendolas, jays, and several kinds of hummingbirds).  In the afternoon, the motor launch took us across the river to a trail where we saw several more kinds of birds.  We hiked into a small oxbow lake and explored that on a balsa raft, spotting a variety of birds that Tass named for us, such as the hoatzin, a pheasant-sized bird of tropical swamps with a spiky crest.

18 May:  The final day of our Manu tour consisted mainly of traveling all the way back to Cusco, with occasional stops.  One was at a wildlife sanctuary, where orphaned or injured animals are rehabilitated to be released back into the wild.  There we saw a very cute baby two-towed sloth, some small but highly energetic monkeys, peccaries, a South American tapir, and “Stuart Little,” a very large capybara, all very tame except for the tapir (it was caged, while the others were out loose in close contact with their keepers and visitors).  Jaguars prey on tapirs, but the skin of the tapirs is so tough that they can take refuge in thorny underbrush where jaguars are not able to follow.  We knew the capybara’s reputation as the world’s largest rodent, but to see one up close, brushing against your legs, gives a real sense of how big and solidly built they really are.

19 May:  This was a quiet day for us back in Cusco, as Abby was busy with interviews for her research.  We took a load to a local laundry and did some more exploring of old Cusco on foot.  A door labeled as a tapestry museum caught Amy’s eye, so we went in to investigate.  This was an unexpected treasure:  the gallery displaying tapestries designed by world-renowned contemporary Peruvian artist Maximo Laura.  We were both hugely impressed by the magnificence of his work.  Although modern in style, he incorporates a wealth of traditional Peruvian imagery.  The colors and shading are exquisite, and several of his tapestries have won international competitions.  Some of his tapestries are hanging in places like the World Bank and some corporate headquarters.  These are large, often floor to ceiling and several feet long, and each one can take many months to weave.  As a museum attendant was showing us around the 30 or so tapestries on display, he introduced us to Maximo Laura himself, who happened to be in his Cusco gallery for the day although his main studio is in Lima.  Mr. Laura generously took the time to talk with us, despite clearly being a busy man.  We were excited to bring Abby to see his work when she was free in the evening.  The quality and style of Maximo Laura’s designs reminded us of some of the winning entries we had admired at the Paducah quilt museum—in both cases, modern artists had selected a type of fiber art as their medium of choice to display their colorful and creative designs.

For dinner, we tried something new to us, cuy (guinea pig).  It is a traditional Peruvian treat.  There isn’t really much meat on them.

20 May:  Our next place to visit in Peru was Lake Titicaca, where we spent three nights.  At 12,500 feet of elevation, this is the highest navigable lake in the world.  It was home to the ancient Tiwanaku civilization, known for its impressive stone temples and exquisite art long before the time of the Incas.  Some elements of Incan culture (and perhaps even the people themselves) may have originated here before becoming established in Cusco.  Lake Titicaca is also where Thor Heyerdahl had his reed boat Kon Tiki constructed by ancient methods for his famous voyage from South America to Polynesia in the 1950s.  To get there from Cusco, we had front row seats on the upper deck of a big inter-city bus, giving us a nice view of the high country.  We spent our first night in the port city of Puno, where we met a water engineer professor friend of Abby’s for hot chocolate.  He showed us his wife’s collection of family stones.  These are small locally carved stone items that are treasured heirlooms, each representing a specific family, brought out on special occasions to appeal for good fortune.  Later we walked among the local markets and had a nice dinner at a restaurant on the main square (trout kabobs and roasted lamb).

21 May:  Our main activity at Lake Titicaca was a two-day, one-night, tour by boat to an island for a home stay with a local family.  Shortly after leaving the Puno waterfront, our tour boat stopped near the mouth of the bay to visit one of the floating islands.  These small islands are floating platforms constructed from the local marsh reeds, each large enough to support a few reed huts.  They were originally built when the people took refuge from the Spanish conquistadors, and roughly 2,000 Aymara-speaking people live there to this day, subsisting mainly on fishing, supplemented by tourism.  Our tour guide gave a talk about the lake in general and the floating islands in particular.  We took a short ride on one of the traditional reed boats and had a chance to learn about the construction and maintenance of the islands and to see the huts and admire the colorful embroidery created there.  Each island must be rebuilt after about 9-10 years, with reeds freshly harvested from a protected reserve on the lake’s shore.  Trout were introduced into the lake in the 1930s by Peru and kingfish were introduced in the 1940s by Bolivia.  Those predatory species have devastated the populations of the smaller native fish.

The tour boat continued about two and a half hours to our overnight destination, Amantini Island, out in the main part of this very large lake.  Our hosts met us at the landing and took us to their homes for lunch.  The ten communities on Amantini Island take turns hosting tourists as a boost to their economies.  Our host, Eduardo, spoke Spanish in addition to the native Quechua of the island, so Abby was able to converse with him and translate for us.  In the late afternoon, our tour group reconvened in the town’s main plaza for another talk by our tour guide and a two-hour hike up to the top of the island and back to see the temple dedicated to Pachatata (Father Earth).  The fairly steep slopes of the island are terraced to grow crops of corn, quinoa, barley, squash, sweet potatoes, peas, beans, lentils, and lupines (which they raise for the edible beans)—the people here are vegetarian.  Each meal was accompanied by muᾔa tea, made from a fragrant herb believed to be good for digestion and altitude.  After dinner, we were dressed by our host families in traditional costume and met in the local community hall for traditional Andean music and dancing.

22 May:  On the way back to Puno, our tour boat stopped at Taquile Island for a few hours.  We hiked up to the main town square, had some time there to browse around, then hiked along the shore to a restaurant for another informative talk by our guide and to eat lunch before our return the trip to Puno.  On Taquile, elderly men, rather than women, are the ones who produce most of the traditional knitted items for the tourist trade.  The island is also known for mashing a local plant into a frothy pulp and straining it to make a foamy solution that makes an excellent soap or shampoo (our guide demonstrated the process).  It has no chemicals, is effective in washing raw wool, and is said to keep hair from turning white.  We also learned how the colors of traditional Taquile clothing such as hats and sashes signify things like the age and marital status of the wearer.

23-26 May:  These were travel days, flying back to Colorado via Lima, Panama City, and Los Angeles, then repacking to get back in camping mode, and driving to western Colorado to our next camping destination, Colorado National Monument.

27May:  Lowry, Kyle, and Corwyn camped with us over Memorial Day weekend.  At nine months old, this was Corwyn’s first camping trip, and she adapted well, having a great time discovering new sights, sounds, textures, tastes, and toys.  While “Mimi” and “Grampy Juniper” watched Corwyn, Lowry had a chance to show Kyle the spectacular scenery by bike.  Paul’s new nickname alludes to Corwyn’s observation that the texture of the branches of Utah juniper is similar to the texture of his beard—she would alternately feel one then the other.  Colorado National Monument features a series of rugged canyons cut into the edge of a high plateau, with a scenic drive along the rim and several hiking trails.  Along the Alcove nature trail, we put Corwyn down in the shade of an alcove to play a while in the fine pink sand.  She didn’t want to be put back into her carrier to resume our walk for at least a half an hour.  The Entrada sandstone formation was prominent here, with cross-bedded layers of frequently changing angles indicating its history as sand dunes bordering an ancient sea.  This was the first of many different sedimentary rock formations we would be hiking through in the next couple of weeks, each deposited in a different geologic era.

28 May:  We hiked into Monument Canyon, with its views of tall sedimentary spires with names such as Independence Monument and the Kissing Couple.  After finding a shady spot for lunch, we hiked back out.