April 23 2012

We’ve been home for a few days and it is time to finish the blog of our S American adventure. Sorry for the delay but we were quite busy as ‘tourists on speed’ and with limited access to a computer.

I left off with our arrival in the Lake District of Chile which is in south central Chile. We stayed in Puerto Vargas which is located on Lake Llanquihue, an enormous lake. We spent the first day walking around town. Puerto V is a small town of about 35,000. It has many attractive shops for tourists and several great coffee shops. It was sunny and warm enough to sit outside while we ate lunch overlooking the lake. In the afternoon we took a self guided tour of historic homes. That night while walking to a restaurant that we never found, we happened upon a delightful museum put together by an artist, Pablo Fierro. It was filled with his paintings and all kinds of objects he has collected. Many very large heavy metal objects like a cast iron postbox, standing four feet high. Ron moaned in envy. The artist spoke Spanish and we spoke English and had a fun conversation. We walked back to town and ate at a very mediocre restaurant.

The next day we rented a car and drove all around the lake, visiting various towns and taking in the scenery. Gees there were lots of cows, eating…grass! How refreshing. No feed lots with corn fed cows. This region is noted for its lake and extinct volcanoes. We loved the views and seeing all the greenery. There was the beginnings of fall color on some of the trees. We saw waterfalls, llamas, lush vegetation, pastures. We had good roads and no traffic to speak of. This region was settled by Germans in the late 1800’s and consequently the farms are very orderly and the area has the feel and look of Europe. Many of the Catholic churches are painted pale yellow and the outside is covered in corrugated metal siding. Not particularly attractive up close. We visited the German Colonial Museum and Teatro de Lagos in Frutillar. That night we ate in the restaurant we couldn’t fin the night before and it was fabulous. We both had seafood. We met a couple from Portland at our guest house, the second person we have met from Portland in Chile.

On day three we drove around the fjord in the Cochama District. Here we were mostly on gravel roads but what scenery. It was absolutely gorgeous. From where the banks had been cut for the road you could see multiple layers of colored sediment from previous volcanic activity. The vegetation was quite dense with bamboo, conifers, wild fuchsia, pampas grass, giant ferns and eucalyptus. It was a narrow valley with the fjord and very steep mountains that come right down to the water. We passed a car with Oregon plates! The fjord was incredibly beautiful. We took a ferry back to the mainland to get back to our guesthouse. We saw fish farms almost the entire trip. After two full days in the car, we decided to relax our last day. I got a manicure, we went window shopping, had lunch, spent time on the computer at the guesthouse and went to dinner up the street at a delightful place that was decorated with Salvador Dali’s work. The meal was lovely.

The  next day we had an all day bus ride back to Santiago. We left about 8 a.m. and arrived around 9:30 p.m. We had packed a lunch and brought water so did just fine. They showed American movies dubbed in Spanish We skipped dinner however. There was a full moon that night over the Andes. Perfect! We had a short night and then up early to the airport to fly to Lima.

In Chile and Peru we spied street performers at busy intersections, working for tips. Break dancers were a big hit.

Lima

Upon arrival at the airport we saw a rather strange sight: a tourist taking a photo of his luggage on the baggage carousel. OY! We arrived early, checked into our $46 a night guesthouse. It was basic, clean and had a very accommodating staff. We were in a good location in Barranco. Peru by contrast seemed more colorful to us, definitely poorer and more affordable. We saw more people in native dress. Vendors in Peru will ask you to buy their products or to come into their restaurants and when we declined the response was always ‘maybe later’. We also found tri-shaws here; small motorized vehicles that are basically built from a motorcycle frame and that will hold a driver and two passengers. These are common in Asia. We also witnessed a lot of road construction throughout our travels in Peru. Villages are in sad shape for the most part with much more poverty than the cities. The roads are mostly two lanes with no shoulders. We saw many unfinished homes where construction probably occurred when money was available so it was a long process. We also saw lots of dogs in Peru and frequently people had ‘dressed’ their dogs in simple t-shirts. We walked around the neighborhood, ate at a pizza place overlooking the ocean and playing god awful electronic music. Most of the patrons were older tourists like us. Afterwards we visited the Museo d’Osma housed in a lovely old colonial mansion just a couple of blocks from our guesthouse. No taxis have meters so you must negotiate the price before entering the taxi. Ron did well with his high school Spanish! We ventured into the next neighborhood, Miraflores and found some great shops here with alpaca sweaters, pottery and textiles. We got a small diorama with figures made from potato starch and chalk dust. Alpaca sweaters and wraps abound and they are gorgeous. I couldn’t get in the mood to buy a sweater in April however. Ron got one right before we left Lima to come home. We found a shop that specialized in items made by the jungle tribe, the Shipibos. I got two skirts which we will use as wall hangings or table covers. These are simple lengths of cloth that are appliquéd and embroidered. We also got a clay figure made by the same tribe. After walking around for a long time, we sat at an outdoor café and had lemonades. Yum! We spied a crafts fair in the nearby park so went there afterwards and I got a lovely small olive wood bowl. Then we went to dinner at one of Gaston Acurio’s restaurants. I must say we loved Peruvian food. We shared a crisp suckling pig with tacu tacu, a dish we hope to be able to replicate when we return home. It is made from lima beans that are mashed and mixed with rice then sautéed until the outside is crispy. YUM yum!! The next day was Sunday and we went into central Lima and watched the changing of the guard at the presidential palace complete with a brass band and drums. Simultaneously across the street the Catholic church had its own band playing as they paraded around the front of the church with a huge structure with a portrait of Mary and laden with flowers. There was a wonderful woman in her 50’s who danced the whole time we were watching the changing of the guard.

We walked around the area after seeing the Presidential Palace with the changing of the guard and the large Cathederal.  Then we visited the Museo of Minerals and Chancay Ceramics in another beautifully restored colonial house. We struck up a conversation with a Peruvian woman who had lived in the US for 30 years and worked as a pharmacist in N.J. We ate lunch is a famous old restaurant near the presidential palace. We took a taxi back to our guesthouse afterwards. That night we walked to a nearby restaurant that was listed in our tour book. OMG is was fabulous Italian. We shared a rabbit risotto then ate a dessert described as orgasmic in our book. It was a typical Peruvian dessert called churro. It is fried dough shaped in a long tube and filled with dulce de leche and sprinkled with sugar. There was six of these. Good lord, thank god we had had a small dinner. We left in a sugar coma.

Cuzco and the Sacred Valley

The next day we flew early to Cuzco, elevation 11,000 ft. It was the Inca capital. Today there are about 600,000 residents and 1.2 million in the region. The only industry here is tourism as most people going to Machu Picchu travel through Cuzco. We got headaches upon arrival as a result of the altitude. We decided to take it easy. We ate lunch nearby and rested all day and scheduled massages for the afternoon. A nurse came to our room with her massage table and gave us wonderful, deep tissue massages. We walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner and after three bites I got altitude sickness in the form of nausea and lightheadedness. I put my head between my legs but couldn’t sit upright again. I got sicker and sicker. Ron had them pack up my dinner and called a cab. I was sitting at the front of the restaurant by the door and I am sure wasn’t doing the establishment much good. I couldn’t walk unassisted so Ron helped me out and I had to sit on the curb until the cab arrived. Oddly enough once I go in the cab I could relax and sit back. I must have freaked myself out thinking I was going to pass out in the restaurant. 

Both of us had recovered by our second day and went exploring. Cuzco is filled with steep hills. Our hotel is at the near top of one of them. We discovered we were short of breath often. We went to the Inca Museum and in the courtyard there were several women who were weaving. A representative from the non profit that promotes traditional weaving was on hand to help us with buying four pillow covers for our new couches that need some color to brighten them up. After lunch we went to the Temple of the Sun that had remnants of the incredible Inca masonry. The original structure had been mostly destroyed by the Spanish and the Dominicans had built a structure on top of the remains. Afterwards we went back to our digs and rested until dinner time. Cuzco is a lovely town with the feel of a small town. We saw women in traditional dress frequently: a gathered skirt just below the knees, sometimes with bright embroidery, several different styles of hats, hair in pigtails, knee socks and flat shoes.  Some were with llamas and for a price would let you photograph them. All over rural Peru we saw more women in traditional dress than modern dress. They wear hats in the summer to protect them from heat stroke and in the winter for warmth. The textiles here are incredible. Women carry all manner of things with a woven ‘back pack’, a small of cloth they tie under their chins or across their chests. Vendors will carry their goods this way, all babies and toddlers are carried this way. It is so colorful to see these brightly woven cloths everywhere you look.

We visited a non profit that had a three room museum of children’s art. The NGO goes into the most remote parts of Peru to let children have the chance to express themselves in art. It was quite touching. They had another room filled with woven bags that are traditional gifts for men to carry their coca leaves in. Coca leaves are used to help with altitude sickness and used as a stimulant for workers. Men traditionally carried their leaves in these small woven bags. A man would be given his first bag made by his mother when he was 18. His wife would also weave him a bag and present it as a wedding gift. We got to see over 300 of these bags with all kinds of weaving techniques and colors.

Adobe is the building material here: houses, fences etc. Many houses are painted on the street side only as the owner cannot afford to paint their entire house. When we drove out of Cuzco to the Sacred Valley where there are Inca ruins in the form of terraces left over from when the Incas built them 500 years ago.  There is a lot of agriculture here but much of what we saw was small subsistence farming. Once we saw heavy farming equipment but mostly we saw simple ploughs with oxen. We hired a guide to take us through Pisac ruins. He played an Inca pipe as we strolled though the ruins. The climbing was difficult at times. Those Incas only built on the top of the mountains it seems. The Inca descendants are the Quechua people. They are abundant here. They have high cheek bones, are short in statue and have dark skin. They still speak Quechua language and there is no written language, hence most of what we know about the Incas is from what the Spanish recorded. Sidewalks in Cuzco and other parts of rural Peru are about ½ person wide. You often have to step into the street to let someone pass. We noticed that many houses had stenciled political ads on the side of their homes. No lawn signs here.

The Incas were buried in the fetal position. The belief that we came from the earth and returned to the earth is the reason for this practice. We came back to Cuzco and ate at a local restaurant. It was a roasted chicken place with a salad bar. I woke up the next morning with food poisoning. I couldn’t eat breakfast, tried to vomit but was not successful. We left for the Sacred Valley and had a day of sight seeing. I tried to walk up to the first ruin but couldn’t handle it so sent Ron on and waited on a park bench. On one or two of the sites I was able to walk to view the site. We stopped at Salinas where there were some fascinating salt evaporation beds.

We also saw some very impressive agricultural test areas where the Incas experimented with various varieties of corn, potatoes and cocoa to determine optimal growing elevations, orientations, and other factors.

Ollantaytambo

We arrived at Ollantaytambo in the afternoon and I crawled into bed. Ron hired a guide and climbed around the Inca ruins and I slept off and on and finally lost the contents of my stomach late in the day. The local church was built over the foundations of Incan buildings as you can see from the picture.  The Fort at Ollantaytanbo was important historically as when the Incas were defeated by the Spaniards at the Red Fort near Pisco, they retreated to the fort here.

Ron had dinner alone and I continued to rest. The next morning I still was not able to eat much so nibbled a piece of dry toast and sipped a little tea. We boarded a train for Agua Caliente and as luck was on our side we were in car A in seats 1 and 2. This meant we had a picture window seat on the train and the scenery was drop dead gorgeous. 

We had a sunny morning in a narrow valley with cacti, gladiolas, three or four different yellow flowers in abundance. The river Urbamba was on our left almost the entire trip. For a solid hour we watched the rapids with no still water and talked about running various rapids. Obviously this river isn’t raftable with no break for over an hour and many spots were not passable due to the large rocks. But it brought about much discussion and excitement remembering our white water rafting days. The Andes were spectacular, rising straight up before us, some mist clinging to the peaks. The vegetation was changing into jungle. Machu Picchu is the end of the Sacred Valley and the beginning of the jungle. We passed Mt Veronica at 5,000 meters, around  16,400 ft. It was first climbed successfully in 1957.

Agua Caliente/Machu Picchu

We arrived in Agua Caliente around 8:30 a.m. and checked into our eco lodge. They prepared a box lunch and we left around 10:30 to take the bus up to Machu Picchu, a 25 minute ride up a series of switch backs. Our guide met us there and we had a couple of hours with him. Wagner gave us a very technical tour and it really helped to see how incredibly intelligent the Incas were. Their calendar is accurate for 11,000 years! Machu Picchu was magical and is much larger than I had anticipated. It is estimated that 800-1,000 Incas lived there. It was never completed. Scientist estimated the number of residents based on the amount of water that is available there and the size of their grain storage area. The Spaniards never found Machu Picchu which is why is has been so well preserved. Many Inca ruins were destroyed by the Spaniards. Machu Picchu was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham, a Harvard professor in 1911 with the help of a local farmer. 100 % of the profits from Machu Picchu are sent to Lima and 10% of that is returned to Cuzco and 2% of the 10 % is returned to Machu Picchu. This is very little money to maintain this most important site. We ate our box lunches and stayed a while longer. We were blessed with sunny weather. It often rains at MP but we were prepared with rain gear and umbrellas.

Our eco lodge had gone to great lengths of make the building eco friendly. They built with used wood, the roofing material was some sort of compressed cardboard that had been treated to withstand the rain. Unfortunately when it rained that night it sounded like elves having a hammering contest on the roof, making sleep all but impossible.. Ron tried to take a shower before dinner but quickly ran out of hot water. We informed the night receptionist but couldn’t understand anything she said. The next morning Ron again had no hot water. He got up at 5:00 in order to get up to MP to take sun rise photos. Needless to say he was pissed about no hot water. Since I still was not feeling 100% I agreed to meet him at 9:00 at MP. I also had no hot water. I ate breakfast at the hotel then caught a bus to MP. I went to a view point that required a bit of climbing, gasping for breath. Fortunately just about when I was ready to give up someone passed me and told me I was quite close. I reached the view point and wept at the beauty. Again we had a sunny day. I hooked up with Ron who told me MP was totally engulfed in morning fog until about 8:30 so his getting up early was a waste of his time. We sat for a while at another view point and talked about how impressive the Incas were and how incredible MP was. After a while we headed back down to our lodge. When we complained to the day receptionist about no hot water, she said there must be a problem and offered us a free salad for lunch. We tried to get earlier train tickets to return to Ollantaytambo but were not successful. Our train was to leave at 5:30 p.m. so we walked around town and scheduled a massage for after lunch. We ordered two salads at our lodge but they got Ron’s order completely wrong so we switched salads as his was full of tiny pieces of cucumbers which he hates. I had ordered a red quinoa salad with duck prosciutto. Afterwards we went for our massages. The massage salon advertised free hot showers. Ron had an oil massage so jumped into the shower which was adjacent to our massage room. No hot water. I asked the owner why there wasn’t any hot water and she said he had to go out of the building and upstairs. Ron tried to rinse off the soap and oil in the frigid water and then went upstairs. He declined to use the shower as it was not clean. By then he started feeling badly and he the discovered he had food poisoning. Great. All the way on the train that night he thought he would vomit. But luckily, nothing happened.

Ollantaytambo

We checked into our previous guesthouse and he went to bed. I ordered dinner and ate in our room. The next morning I walked around the beautiful grounds of our guesthouse while waiting for our driver to take us to the Cuzco airport, about two hours away. The sun was out and I was glad to have seen the grounds of this lovely place. Above me were the Inca ruins of Ollantaytambo. Ron still wasn’t feeling well. We went straight to the airport and saw more wonderful scenery during the drive. We were able to get on an earlier plane and had to dash to make boarding in time. We were grateful to not have to wait in the crowded airport. Our short flight to Lima was uneventful then we grabbed a taxi to our previous guesthouse. By dinner time Ron felt better and we walked to a neighborhood place and had a simple sandwich.

In the morning Ron was back to normal so we went shopping in Miraflores and found a great Diablada mask from the Puna region. These masks are made for a festival dance and we were thrilled to have found one we liked after looking in three countries for a mask to add to our collection. That night we dined at the great Italian restaurant in our neighborhood and I had the most delicious pasta with veggies. We struck up a conversation with the Peruvian couple sitting next to us and had a great time chatting.

On our last day we decide to relax. We read, did emails and went out to eat. Our plane was leaving at midnight so we paid for an extended checkout and had our room until 7:00 p.m. It was great to shower before boarding and to have the day to put our feet up. United had upgraded us to business class but the seats did not have a place to put our feet up. We had a 6-7 hour flight to Houston, dashed through customs and caught our next leg to San Francisco then another plane to Portland. It wasn’t as grueling as flying halfway around the world but we were tired from having been sick. Fortunately Lima is only two hours different in terms of the time zones so we had a minimal adjustment.

When people asked us what part of the trip we enjoyed the most, we responded ‘every minute of it’. We couldn’t believe how wonderful the trip was. We have never taken a trip like this, seeing so many countries and sights over a five week period. Each place was unique with wonderful memories.