"Some experiences simply do not translate. You have to go to know." - Kobi Yamada
Saturday, November 26. Today we walked up to an Inca ruin
located right above Cusco, at 3700m. Cusco is at 3300m. The ruin is called
Sacsayhuaman (and that's a link to Wikipedia, if you want to know more about it.)
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| View of Cusco from the Sacsayhuaman ruins vista point. |
They charged us 70 Soles for a “boleto turistico," which was valid for only
one day. This would be $25, a ridiculously overpriced fee for what it is. And
of course, as everything else in touristy areas of Peru, there is always a
different price for tourists than for locals. The price for tourists is always
double or triple of what locals would pay. We know we are getting ripped off,
we sometimes try to bargain, but even if we manage to bring the price down a
bit, we invariably lose. It will always be way more than the locals pay. But
sometimes it’s ok, because these people are so poor that a few dollars for us
make a lot of difference to them.
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| When we were about to leave the Sacsayhuaman ruins, this cute Quechua grandma and her alpaca were on the side of the road and we couldn't resist the temptation to take photos with them. |
The “sexy woman” ruins were ok, not too impressive. Layers
of terraces made with meticulously carved stones. If there’s anything memorable
about Inca constructions, it would be the stone walls. The way these huge
blocks of stone are so perfectly carved and fitted is mind-blowing to me. I
don’t believe in aliens, but seeing these structures makes me think of
super-human forces.
Being whiter-skinned and taller than most women here, we
can’t escape being singled out as “gringas” everywhere we go. So, while we were
visiting these ruins, a group of school children of about 10 years old of age
saw us and asked to be photographed with us. What we thought was going to be
one photo turned into a 30-minute long photoshoot. Every kid in the group
wanted to be photographed with us. Even the moms accompanying the group wanted
their own photos. The teacher diligently took all the photos with the same
camera and thanked us countless times at the end. A girl started crying, we
assumed it was because she was filled with emotion that we hugged her while we
were taking photos. Just when we thought we were done with our moment of being
in the spotlight, a group of local teenagers approached us and asked if they
could take photos with us as well…
Stray Dogs
Peru must win the record for number of stray dogs. But then
again, I haven’t been to India yet. I thought Bucharest was high up there, with
about 60,000 stray dogs, but Peru definitely trumps that number. If there’s one
thing that terrifies me about walking around on the streets here in Peru are
the hoards of stray dogs. They seem to be peaceful and even little kids walk carefree around
them, but I can’t get past the fear that one of them will attack me. Many of
them wear a blue collar, which means they were vaccinated by a non-profit, so I
take it that Rabies is not an issue in Peru. Some of the stray dogs seem to be
nice breeds, like cocker-spaniels, and I’ve been told that they are not all stray,
but that their owners leave them loose, pretty much like all other animals
around here. It is not unusual to see
chicken, piglets, ducklings, donkeys, cows, sheep, etc. walk around freely on
the side of the road. Somehow, all these animals know where their home and who
their owner is. It reminds me a lot of the cows in my grandparents’ village,
that would come home from the pasture in the evening and stop in front of the gate of their owner, mooing and
waiting patiently to be let in.
Visiting Tipon and
eating Cui
Sunday, Nov 26 – we decided to go see the Tipon ruins,
located about 30km outside Cusco. A British girl we met at the hostel told us
about these ruins and how to get there. There’s obviously guided tours for
everything, but they are always very expensive, so we decided to do it on our
own for a lot cheaper. We first took a cab from our hostel to an intersection
where we could catch a “collectivo” towards that direction. The cab was 3 soles
(about 1 USD). Then, we took a collectivo, which is a minivan filled to the
brim with people. Local men and women are sitting anywhere they can. A woman
was sitting with half her ass on the stick-shift area near the driver. Kids
sleeping on people’s laps, other people standing in the isle, a warm sweaty
ooze in the air, but not too bad. We had to stand the entire 40 minute ride,
but for 1.2 soles (40 cents) a person, you can’t complain.
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| Tipón, located east of Cusco, are Inca ruins that may have been a park for upper class or agricultural centrum. Still today, water is rushing though the channels, which is seldom, and the wide terraces, masterpieces of mortar-less walls, are in perfect condition. (from Wikipedia) |
Once we got to
Tipon, we had to find transportation to the ruins themselves, as they are
perched up a steep hill, 8km away from the village. A guy with a car asked 15
soles to take us there, which is a lot of money, so we said no. No local in the
right mind would ever pay that. We ended up sharing a cab with a Peruvian
family. The cab contained the following people: driver and visiting Peruvian
grandma in the front seats, Peruvian husband and wife, Monica and Anne on the
back seat, young Peruvian couple in the trunk. So cabbie and 7 passengers drove
up a steep, windy and unpaved road. For this, we paid 3 soles (1usd).
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| The Tipon ruins were absolutely amazing and totally worth the effort to get there. |
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| The ancient Inca irrigation system at Tipon is still working even today. You can also see the steps made of over-sized pieces of rock, used to move from one terrace to another. |
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| The amazingly perfect carved stones that make up the Inca irrigation system at Tipon. |
Towards the end of our visit it started to rain and we
couldn’t find any cars to take us back down to the village. We ran into a few
other gringo kids in the same situation as us and we decided to hike back
together. We were 8 total: a guy from Austria, 3 girls from Holland, one girl
from Berkeley and the two of us. The girl from Berkeley was Japanese, one of
the two Dutch girls was of Carribean descent. I love how you get to meet
diverse and interesting people when travelling.
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| Our little group decided to take a different path down the hill than the main road, which ended up being an enjoyable 1h hike. |
Once back in the village, we all got cui at the local restaurant.
Restaurant is too big of a word to describe the dirty little hole in the wall
on the side of the road. It was overpriced (we were charged “tourist” price, of
course) and kind of disgusting. Cui means guinea pig and it’s a specialty and
delicacy for this area.
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| They either roast or deep-fry the entire animal, including feet, claws, head, teeth, eyes, internal organs. |
Needless to say,
these little guys don’t have much meat on them, we were hungry still and
disappointed at the end of the meal. Between Anne and I, one fluffy and cute
little guinea pig would have been better alive than on our plates. At that
moment, I really contemplated becoming a vegetarian. We both decided this was going to be our first and last time
we tried guinea pig, same as with Inca Cola, the national Peruvian fuzzy drink
that looks like pee and tastes like bubble gum. Two Peruvian staples that
unfortunately didn’t resonate well with our Western palates.
