We are five days into our Peru trip. We arrived into Lima on Monday in the late afternoon. It was still daylight for our drive to the Hotel Antigua Miraflores, which happens to be in the neighborhood called Miraflores. Miraflores is upscale. There are Embassies, red clay tennis courts, the city’s top restaurants and it is all fronting on the Pacific Ocean. In fact the drive from airport to hotel was quite similar to driving on Pacific Coast Highway with tall irregular bluffs on one side and ocean waves full of surfers on the other. The bay here even curves much like Santa Monica’s.
I had low expectations for Lima. I know it was a long time ago, thirty nine years, but when I was first there it seemed hard and urban. Maybe I did not know what to look for. This time, I liked it a lot. The city, at least on the surface, seems well managed. Basics like police patrols, garbage collection, transients and litter seemed under control. We went to two classical concerts. They were well attended by well behaved audiences; many young children showed wide eyed enjoyment. In the mornings, we saw uniformed kids being walked to school by parents. Then there was the food.
Maybe, food is not a reason to travel somewhere. But it makes a trip quite a pleasure when the standard of restaurants is as high as Lima’s. Our dollar is very strong in Peru which makes the absolute top, highest quality, highest priced restaurants seem know more than a drop in the bucket in cost. Ingredients are fresh. Presentation is beautiful. Portion sizes are perfect. Several of the restaurants are listed in the “top fifty best restaurants in the world”, a distinction given usually to European or North American restaurants. Does that distinction mean something in practical terms? Sometimes it does not. If it has the highest rating, but the food is too fussy or gimicky or too precious you might not enjoy it. But in all the places where we ate, the food made us ooo and aaa.
Yesterday, Friday, we flew to Cuzco. It is high in the Andes Mountains, but not in the highest part. The highest peak of the Andes is 22,800 feet. Can you imagine? The next highest is in the Himalayas. Relative to that, we are in baby altitude territory. The mention of Machu Picchu usually stirs discussion of “the altitude”. Machu Picchu is 7,900 feet. Durango, where we spent the past eight summers is 8,700 feet, so we will be just fine.
From the Cuzco airport we were driven to Ollantaytambo. Okay, take a deep breath and break down this name. Repeat after me: oh yawn tie tom bow. On the drive to Ollantaytambo Wes arranged for us to pass through Maras to see a unique ruin. It is not of a building. It is an agriculture site. Imagine excavating eight large concentric circles into the earth to a depth of 450 feet. From the air it might look like an archers round target board. Each circle is made tidy by a precision cut stone wall. Each circle also is a, was a, planting bed. The Incas brought soil from different regions and crops from different regions. Then the circles were planted as a science project to see what crops would thrive in what soil. The descending, terraced circles also created different exposures to sun and wind to see what effect it had on crops. Crops were potatoes, quinoa, various peppers (not necessarily hot, though some are extremely so).
Everything was going very well in these mountain realms until Pizarro showed up in the 1520’s. He seemed to measure himself against Cortes. Cortes had clobbered Aztecs, gave them small pox and took their gold. Pizarro maneuvered the same destiny for himself. It is recorded history that he captured the Inca’s leader, Atahualpa and demanded ransom. The ransom amount is shocking. He asked for a room full of gold. Then the same room filled twice over with silver. The gold totaled 14,000 pounds. He got the ransom, then murdered Atahualpa. I think he even made off with his wife or daughter. The gold was brought in the form of intricately worked ceremonial and decorative objects. It was all melted down. Centuries of historic gold smithing melted.
Similar to the Aztec situation, when the Spaniards arrived the locals thought they were gods. The Spanish arrived on horses. They had iron weapons. The Incas knew how to work gold and silver, but the technique of creating and forging iron was foreign to them.
Today, we walked through the terraced ruins of Ollantaytambo. The first Spanish attempt to take the town was unsuccessful. The second attempt succeeded. The locals who survived retreated deeper and higher into the jungle. They may still be there. The locals speak Spanish. They also speak Quechuan for the past 900 years.
We also visited an unusual salt site, Salinas. There are mineral springs, salt springs, which in a particular area bubble up from underground with double the salinity of ocean water. The bubblings are directed to a patchwork of adjacent flat pools. The sun dries the liquid. What remains is the salt.
Tomorrow, we will take the train for thirty-some miles to Machu Picchu. Six months ago we visited Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is part of a collection of ruins. Yes, it is extraordinary, but in it’s area there are many extraordinary ruins, yet Angkor Wat through the star power of it’s name recognition gets all the glory. It is the same here in the Andes. There are many extraordinary ruins, but Machu Picchu gets all the attention. What is undeniable and without question is that this entire region is rich in natural beauty. The mountains tower around us. The peaks are dramatic. There are rivers, audibly rushing, crisscrossing the area; the snow melt from the snow capped peaks.
The buildings are made mostly from adobe. It amazes me, the uniform ingenuity of the human brain, to develop the same solutions for their survival. Adobe can be found here, in Africa, in New Mexico. And the same type of stone walls (precisely cut, interlocked, without mortar) are found here, in Cambodia (Angkor Wat), in Spain (Segovia’s aqueduct). How did they all develop similar techniques when there was no communication between the continents? It, in mind, just has to be, the human brain wherever it finds itself, has the consistent ability to analyze a problem and develop a solution using materials at hand.
Our hotel in Ollantaytambo is the El Albergue located at the train station, ten feet from the tracks. It has been here for decades. The owner, Wendy Weeks runs it with her two sons. We are staying in a fairly large room. It’s style is a blend of adobe, hand hewn wood, stone, and iron framed windows and skylights. Two bedrooms. A full kitchen. A dining room. Outside our door is a lawn with hammocks. Also on the lawn are moveable bunny cages. The bunnies keep the grass nicely short. There are gardens jammed with fragrant flowering trees and shrubs and flowers. Then just up a few stairs and across a path is their organic garden. It is big operation. The beds of vegetables are planted quite freely with volunteer flowers popping up and weeds, too. They have pens with animals. On cage has turkeys; small, medium and large. There is a long table, piled with ears of purple corn. Under the table is a long caged space with the cuyes. A cuy is a guinea pig. They are so cute. I put my camera to their cage mesh and they cowered at my presence. They practically lifted their little paws to their faces and shivered with fear. I do not intend to eat them. Though we did have some alpaca skewers. It tastes like lamb. There are a lot of lambs here. There a lot of pigs here, too. Big ones followed by their little itty bitty ones. There are bulls with horns tethered in fields on leashes twenty feet long.
Today, after climbing down from a ruin we sat on a bench. Behind our backs was a barbed wire length. Beyond the wire was a narrow, twisting, rushing river. A fifty-something year old woman was doing the laundry. I guarantee she does not have to join a gym for exercise. She and three small grandsons gripped their heavy blanket as the river ran over, under and through it. Then they put it on the grass and beat it with a plank. Meanwhile, a small boy, shirtless and barefoot in shorts jumped up and down in a large plastic cauldron. His feet smushed clothes in the soapy water. She saw me watching. I felt conspicuous. Other people blatantly pointed their cameras at her. Speaking for myself, I would not feel kindly toward strangers putting their cameras on me as I did my chores. At the foot of 800 year old ruins with the sound of the rushing river and the sun shining and breeze blowing and a bull wandering the field and a woman doing her laundry the old fashioned way, it was a sweet moment. I walked to the barbed wire fence and called out to her. I said, mi abuela tambien lavaba ropa en el rio; este me hace recordarla. (My grandmother, also, washed laundry in the river; this makes me think of her). She gave me a lovely smile and we went off to wander the old Inca village.
I had low expectations for Lima. I know it was a long time ago, thirty nine years, but when I was first there it seemed hard and urban. Maybe I did not know what to look for. This time, I liked it a lot. The city, at least on the surface, seems well managed. Basics like police patrols, garbage collection, transients and litter seemed under control. We went to two classical concerts. They were well attended by well behaved audiences; many young children showed wide eyed enjoyment. In the mornings, we saw uniformed kids being walked to school by parents. Then there was the food.
Maybe, food is not a reason to travel somewhere. But it makes a trip quite a pleasure when the standard of restaurants is as high as Lima’s. Our dollar is very strong in Peru which makes the absolute top, highest quality, highest priced restaurants seem know more than a drop in the bucket in cost. Ingredients are fresh. Presentation is beautiful. Portion sizes are perfect. Several of the restaurants are listed in the “top fifty best restaurants in the world”, a distinction given usually to European or North American restaurants. Does that distinction mean something in practical terms? Sometimes it does not. If it has the highest rating, but the food is too fussy or gimicky or too precious you might not enjoy it. But in all the places where we ate, the food made us ooo and aaa.
Yesterday, Friday, we flew to Cuzco. It is high in the Andes Mountains, but not in the highest part. The highest peak of the Andes is 22,800 feet. Can you imagine? The next highest is in the Himalayas. Relative to that, we are in baby altitude territory. The mention of Machu Picchu usually stirs discussion of “the altitude”. Machu Picchu is 7,900 feet. Durango, where we spent the past eight summers is 8,700 feet, so we will be just fine.
From the Cuzco airport we were driven to Ollantaytambo. Okay, take a deep breath and break down this name. Repeat after me: oh yawn tie tom bow. On the drive to Ollantaytambo Wes arranged for us to pass through Maras to see a unique ruin. It is not of a building. It is an agriculture site. Imagine excavating eight large concentric circles into the earth to a depth of 450 feet. From the air it might look like an archers round target board. Each circle is made tidy by a precision cut stone wall. Each circle also is a, was a, planting bed. The Incas brought soil from different regions and crops from different regions. Then the circles were planted as a science project to see what crops would thrive in what soil. The descending, terraced circles also created different exposures to sun and wind to see what effect it had on crops. Crops were potatoes, quinoa, various peppers (not necessarily hot, though some are extremely so).
Everything was going very well in these mountain realms until Pizarro showed up in the 1520’s. He seemed to measure himself against Cortes. Cortes had clobbered Aztecs, gave them small pox and took their gold. Pizarro maneuvered the same destiny for himself. It is recorded history that he captured the Inca’s leader, Atahualpa and demanded ransom. The ransom amount is shocking. He asked for a room full of gold. Then the same room filled twice over with silver. The gold totaled 14,000 pounds. He got the ransom, then murdered Atahualpa. I think he even made off with his wife or daughter. The gold was brought in the form of intricately worked ceremonial and decorative objects. It was all melted down. Centuries of historic gold smithing melted.
Similar to the Aztec situation, when the Spaniards arrived the locals thought they were gods. The Spanish arrived on horses. They had iron weapons. The Incas knew how to work gold and silver, but the technique of creating and forging iron was foreign to them.
Today, we walked through the terraced ruins of Ollantaytambo. The first Spanish attempt to take the town was unsuccessful. The second attempt succeeded. The locals who survived retreated deeper and higher into the jungle. They may still be there. The locals speak Spanish. They also speak Quechuan for the past 900 years.
We also visited an unusual salt site, Salinas. There are mineral springs, salt springs, which in a particular area bubble up from underground with double the salinity of ocean water. The bubblings are directed to a patchwork of adjacent flat pools. The sun dries the liquid. What remains is the salt.
Tomorrow, we will take the train for thirty-some miles to Machu Picchu. Six months ago we visited Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is part of a collection of ruins. Yes, it is extraordinary, but in it’s area there are many extraordinary ruins, yet Angkor Wat through the star power of it’s name recognition gets all the glory. It is the same here in the Andes. There are many extraordinary ruins, but Machu Picchu gets all the attention. What is undeniable and without question is that this entire region is rich in natural beauty. The mountains tower around us. The peaks are dramatic. There are rivers, audibly rushing, crisscrossing the area; the snow melt from the snow capped peaks.
The buildings are made mostly from adobe. It amazes me, the uniform ingenuity of the human brain, to develop the same solutions for their survival. Adobe can be found here, in Africa, in New Mexico. And the same type of stone walls (precisely cut, interlocked, without mortar) are found here, in Cambodia (Angkor Wat), in Spain (Segovia’s aqueduct). How did they all develop similar techniques when there was no communication between the continents? It, in mind, just has to be, the human brain wherever it finds itself, has the consistent ability to analyze a problem and develop a solution using materials at hand.
Our hotel in Ollantaytambo is the El Albergue located at the train station, ten feet from the tracks. It has been here for decades. The owner, Wendy Weeks runs it with her two sons. We are staying in a fairly large room. It’s style is a blend of adobe, hand hewn wood, stone, and iron framed windows and skylights. Two bedrooms. A full kitchen. A dining room. Outside our door is a lawn with hammocks. Also on the lawn are moveable bunny cages. The bunnies keep the grass nicely short. There are gardens jammed with fragrant flowering trees and shrubs and flowers. Then just up a few stairs and across a path is their organic garden. It is big operation. The beds of vegetables are planted quite freely with volunteer flowers popping up and weeds, too. They have pens with animals. On cage has turkeys; small, medium and large. There is a long table, piled with ears of purple corn. Under the table is a long caged space with the cuyes. A cuy is a guinea pig. They are so cute. I put my camera to their cage mesh and they cowered at my presence. They practically lifted their little paws to their faces and shivered with fear. I do not intend to eat them. Though we did have some alpaca skewers. It tastes like lamb. There are a lot of lambs here. There a lot of pigs here, too. Big ones followed by their little itty bitty ones. There are bulls with horns tethered in fields on leashes twenty feet long.
Today, after climbing down from a ruin we sat on a bench. Behind our backs was a barbed wire length. Beyond the wire was a narrow, twisting, rushing river. A fifty-something year old woman was doing the laundry. I guarantee she does not have to join a gym for exercise. She and three small grandsons gripped their heavy blanket as the river ran over, under and through it. Then they put it on the grass and beat it with a plank. Meanwhile, a small boy, shirtless and barefoot in shorts jumped up and down in a large plastic cauldron. His feet smushed clothes in the soapy water. She saw me watching. I felt conspicuous. Other people blatantly pointed their cameras at her. Speaking for myself, I would not feel kindly toward strangers putting their cameras on me as I did my chores. At the foot of 800 year old ruins with the sound of the rushing river and the sun shining and breeze blowing and a bull wandering the field and a woman doing her laundry the old fashioned way, it was a sweet moment. I walked to the barbed wire fence and called out to her. I said, mi abuela tambien lavaba ropa en el rio; este me hace recordarla. (My grandmother, also, washed laundry in the river; this makes me think of her). She gave me a lovely smile and we went off to wander the old Inca village.
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