Ilivetotravel's Weblog

Perú – Second Week in the Cuzco Region (and Lima wrap-up)

I left Lima on a Saturday AM to go to Cuzco, the launching point for visits to Machu Picchu (MP).

Lima Wrap-up

Before I tell you about Cuzco, let me wrap up my week in Lima… Some highlights or observations:

• The city streets are kept very clean of trash and all streets have street signs with their name (not something I have seen consistently outside of US/Canada/Europe)
• Though the city is very polluted, it is not as bad as, say, Beijing
• The food is indeed, as many people told me, EXQUISITE; not a bad meal, not A ONE
• They have this dish called tacu tacu which consists of smashed beans and rice served with beef or seafood. I tried it with seafood. Though I don’t eat calamari and other seafood items, I ate it ALL, except the octopus. The sauce was superb.
• They always serve a plate full of corn kernels to snack on while you wait for appetizers or food.  It is a different type of corn than regular corn (it is larger and whiter) and they toast them and put some salt on it.  It is quite nice.
• I tried the traditional mountain / Inca delicacy at lunch one day:  guinea pig.  It took a bit for me to accept the idea I was to take a bite of it but a coworker invited me to her restaurant, her treat, and I could not refuse the hospitality.  I made sure I drove a deep work conversation during the lunch so I would not think of what I was eating. Yes, folks, it tastes “like” chicken though it has less meat on it (some say rabbit but I disagree, though it has been 25 yrs since I had rabbitt…).  I was lucky enough (God takes care of me) to mention to my colleague that I didn’t want to see a picture of one before eating it.  Boy, was I glad I said that flippantly!  When ordering, my colleague was kind enough to specify to the waitress to bring it without the head on mine and on hers. Can you imagine if that had shown up with a head??!!  I would have likely gagged.
• I visited the Lima city center at night.  It was very impressive. Colonial architecture on a grand scale which makes sense since Lima was in effect the capital of South America (more or less) during the colonial times due to the riches of Perú. It was very well policed, lively, and I felt safe.>
• Oh, and did I mention I worked close to Chewbacca from Star Wars?  It took me a few days to realize the Chewbacca noise I heard every 15 mins or so was a creaking door around the corner from where I sat…
• Finally, Peruvians are super nice!

Impressions of Cuzco

I flew to Cusco (the oldest continually inhabited city in the continent for the trivia nuts out there) early Sat AM. It was an hour flight and things went smoothly. Arriving to Cusco which is above 10,000 ft is an experience because of the very thin air (thankfully, it was clean which was a welcome change from Lima).

It was actually hot that morning under a beautiful blue sky. Upon getting to the hotel, I was offered mate de coca (coca tea) which helps the body adjust to the altitude (though I wonder if it is more about one not feeling anything; I didn’t perceive any different sensation out of drinking the half-cup size portions). I also took my altitude sickness med for nausea, lightheadedness, etc. (I didn’t have the symptoms – it was a preventive measure). All day long I had the slightest of headaches. Other than that and shortness of breath when walking up flights of stairs, I was OK. However , you are recommended not to do anything for a couple of hours after you arrive.  Once I got to my hotel, I felt tired and actually slept about 1.5 hrs (deep sleep as I would have late that night too) until my Cuzco city tour was to pick me up later that afternoon.

Around the town square

Cuzco is quite a picturesque and pleasant town.  I liked it a lot.  Its main square (“Plaza de Armas”; there is one in practically every Latin American town) has really beautiful architecture.  There are sights to see within the town itself and around it.  The city tour showed me the key sites in an afternoon (the Coricancha, Saqsayhuaman, etc.). After the tour, I had time to stroll about as I pleased but I pleased to eat and go to bed…  BTW, in Cuzco, as in Lima, hotels had 110v outlets; I have had Blackberry access; there have been ATMs everywhere.  Traveling is so much easier these days than 20 years ago…  (Here is a quick link to a clip from the ruins of Saqsayhuaman and what makes the construction of it so impressive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH6HtFKz63E.)

Getting to Machu Picchu

The trip to Machu Picchu can be done in several ways.  One can certainly do it on one’s own.  There are a few things to coordinate and I didn’t feel like dealing with all that given the altitude “sickness” (slight as it was, you feel drained the first day) and the fact I was going solo and only had one day – I could not afford mistakes…  There are tons of tour companies that will coordinate logistics if you are not inclined to do it on your own.  Due to work constraints keeping my MP visit to one day, I went with an organized tour (the company, “Nuevo Mundo” went above and beyond for me).

Modes of travel include the Vistadome train (roof is partly glass so you can see more and not feel enclosed) which takes 4 hrs.  My train left at 6 AM with my pickup at 520 AM.  There were later trains but I needed to go as early as possible.  Waking up around 445 AM wasn’t an issue as I crashed at 9 PM the night before out of sheer exhaustion…  Another way of getting there is hiring a helicopter and getting there way faster – for a price.  Finally, one can spend a few days hiking the Inca trail that the Incas used to take to get to MP in its heyday.  Secondary trails are being developed and I am sure they would be better than the more popular one…

I had met some interesting folks on the city tour and ran into them again on the trip/tour to/of MP; they were neat people to hang out with and it made the tour a little more enjoyable.

At Machu Picchu…

Visiting the ruins wore me and others out. There are steps to be walked up and down and, though MP is lower in altitude than Cuzco, it is still over 8000 ft high. I strongly recommend that if you want to see it, see it sooner rather than later!  However, you can see it at any age, you will just have to go slower or perhaps arrive 2 days ahead to better acclimate.  There was a man who I estímate was around 80 yrs old (and who didn’t look younger than his age) and he was doing it! One recommendation I was given but could not do was to stay in the town at the base (Aguas Calientes) so you can go back up to see sunrise (if it isn’t foggy which I heard it was that day) and to hike up to the mountain you see on the famous shots you see of MP (which is NOT Machu Picchu; when you see the famous pictures of MP, you are standing on the mountain called MP). Me? I hope to come back and go up that mountain and then see the rest of the Sacred Valley which probably can use a few days to explore.  I have heard a good place to stay is the town of Ollantaytambo.

My impression of MP? Tourist trap? Amusement park? Overrated? Most absolutely not.  It is as impressive and magnificent as people say it is and it exceeded even what I envisioned encountering. It is a powerful place due to the history, the architecture/engineering feats, and one of the most beautiful natural settings on earth.

At the end, we visited the market and I had a slightly different experience. While you have to haggle, two things they didn’t do:

• Be pushy or be “cat calling” you to come to their stall; when they did it was very soft and they only did it once
• They didn’t run after you when you walked away to sell whatever object you had tried to haggle on; they left you alone and/or they had a price point after which, they were just not interested. I kind of liked seeing that as they seemed proud of their goods and didn’t seem to feel they had to make a sale if they didn’t get what they wanted.

Visits to Economic Development Projects

Kiwicha field near Mollepata

I visited some development projects my organization had worked on. It was neat to see, as I saw in Tanzania, how my organization makes a difference. My first week in Lima I heard everything about our approach in Peru and was impressed at how progressive they were in advocating the governments at various levels to take on their responsibility, and in building the government’s capacity to do so. The scale of poverty in Peru, while it can be extreme, takes place in a country with more human capacity and better infrastructure than sub-Saharan Africa. We are working to help mountain communities diversify their economic activities so not all are farmers or so those that are farmers don’t all plant the same thing (which depresses crops’ prices).  Also, they receive help to find products that aren’t commodity (say, in the textile industry) so they can reach and be successful in international markets, since China and India can produce things cheaper than countries like Peru. They can differentiate their products from the mass scale production that takes place in Asia by producing better designsor distinctive (not mass-produced) products, by developing organic produce or things that can address more discerning developed world consumers (think premium coffees vs. Maxwell House – no offense to any M H drinkers!). Anyway, the economic activities I saw were:

• an artichoke farm (new product being grown in the region and sought after by the U.S. and European marketings), growing proven varieties and continuing to experiment with new ones
• high quality and design textile workshops where the women can work from their homes to produce for the larger entity they belong to and be able to pick up kids from school and take care of them (vs. being at a factory for the entire day) with minimal disruption to their work activity
• jewelry artisan workshops producing (or trying to) for the international market.

Next up:  Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, after a 6-hour bus ride with the weekend all mine for tourism

11 September 2008 Posted by Raul | Travel Journal | cuzco, lima, Machu Picchu, perú | 2 Comments