Peru: Day Six - Part Two

After Ollantaytambo, we stopped for lunch at a mostly outdoor buffet. The food was in a building with open doors all around, and the tables were in gazebos. We had a good time chatting with the other members of the group. They all talked about how exhausted they'd been their first days in Peru because of the altitude. Bergs and I were pretty proud of ourselves for not being affected. We attributed this, of course, to Utah's high elevation.

After lunch, which also involved seeing a wild macaw in a tree (that was quite awesome), we moved on to Chinchero (Wikipedia's article was not really worth linking). The interesting thing about Chinchero is that the Spanish built their town right on top of the Inca city. The stone Inca walls all lean in, which made them more earthquake resistant, and the Spanish walls on top are straight and white.

There's not much else to say about Chinchero, so cue the pictures!

Those last two pictures are a passion fruit tree growing on top of a cherry tree, and some delicious Peruvian chocolate.

After Chinchero, we went down the road (probably still Chinchero, really) to see a silver jewelry making demonstration and a yarns dying demonstration. I didn't get any pictures from the silver place, but I did of the dying. The women who dye these yarns pass their knowledge down from generation to generation, as many of them cannot read or write. They know exactly how various additions to the dye will change the color. It really was amazing. Fun fact: their shoes are made of recycled tires.

After the demonstration, we headed back to Cusco, being entertained by a pan pipe player the tour bus picked up. Bergs and I bought his CD of various covers being played by a pan pipe with accompaniment.

We arrived at the hotel and checked into our room, and I ran around, all excited by the fanciness of the hotel. It was even fancy based on American standards. Tiny cookies on the nightstand between the beds, a space heater, fancy folded toilet paper, A TOILET SEAT! I topped the night off by taking a nice HOT shower. A pretty great day, all in all.

Peru: Day Six - Part One

We woke up that morning at 2 a.m. to catch our flight to Cusco, waking up a taxi driver sleeping on a couch in the hostel lobby. After arriving at the airport, we were informed that we had been bumped to a slightly later flight, so we had another half an hour or so to wait.

The flight was only a couple of hours, and on our way out of the airport, we came across a booth with a woman signing people up for tours of the Sacred Valley, which was exactly what we wanted to do that day. We paid for the day long tour, which included lunch, and were informed that the bus would pick us up at our hotel in about an hour. Perfect!

We took a cab to our hotel, and on the way I absolutely fell in love with Cusco. The city has retained the original Spanish colonial feel (for the tourists, of course) and it was so gorgeous. I really felt like we were suddenly somewhere in Spain, until I saw the house climbing up the hills in traditional Peruvian fashion. We arrived at our hotel (we had booked a hotel in advance so we would have somewhere trustworthy to leave our backpacks), and they were kind enough to hold our bags while we were gone, since it was too early for check-in. A man at the hotel offered us some coca leaf tea, used to relieve altitude sickness, but as we were both feeling pretty good, we politely declined.

The bus picked us up, along with several lovely couples and our English-speaking tour guide (thank goodness). Our guide was a lovely man named Javier, who spoke fantastic English (we later discovered, through discussion, that his first language had been Quechua, the Inca language, and that made it easier to learn English).

The bus drove through the Sacred Valley, which was very green (the name of the valley comes from the Sacred River; sacred because it brought the water necessary to grow the best corn in Peru). We stopped briefly at an outdoor market where Bergs bought the fabulous knife below, decorated with sheep components (hair, teeth, horn) and this lovely overlook. I also took some pictures of the Incan terraces on the hillside. The terraces began naturally, but the Incas improved them to decrease erosion.

Our first official stop was Pisaq. I've decided that in the interest of saving space and the time of my dear readers, I will include Wikipedia links for those who would like more historical information, and focus more on the pictures and experience. You can read about Pisaq here. Here is a close-up view of the terraces, and some houses.

These are tombs. Each small hole is a tomb for a poor person. The finer openings are for rich people. Everywhere in Incan architecture, the rougher stones are for poor people, and the well carved stones are for rich people or temples.

This is me "leaning".

Next up: Ollantaytambo! The temple to the Sun God. There were over 200 steps to the very top. This city was a customs check of sorts for anyone travelling to the Incan Empire. They would be required to check in at this city. Here is the view from the bottom, and a structure across the valley. The shape on the left is a face in the mountain. It is another example of a natural formation that the Incas improved upon.

Next are steps that were used to get from one terrace to the next, and the official entrance to the temple.

Handles used to carry the stones, a storage space, and another door.

The ramp used to pull the stones up (and a more modern bull fighting ring) and me standing at the top in front of some gigantic stones, so close together that you couldn't even slide a piece of paper between them. It was amazing.

Proof of the lack of safety railings, and another view from the bottom.

A recently discovered aqueduct, a bathing house, and yet another bottom view.

Another street market, and the customs doors (I had to take this picture as we were driving away, and a van drove in front of us, most inconveniently).

I'm going to call it good for this post, as there are still so many more pictures for day six.

Thanks for reading!

Peru: Day Five

Day five! This was a calmer day. We spent the majority of it on a bus back to Lima. This time, however, we took a fancy bus! They even checked our bags. We had fancy seats, with pillows and blankets, and screens for each seat to watch movies and check Facebook. They also served us lunch. There weren't very many exciting movies, but I did get to watch Star Trek. And it was even in English!

The ride was really great. There was an incident where I was trying to figure out how to open the lavatory to exit, and then the bus quickly rounded a corner and I was violently thrown out into the bus. That was a good time.

We got to Lima and had time to do some sight-seeing. One of the cathedrals that we were hoping to tour was closed, but we did get to tour a cathedral that had catacombs underneath! We barely got in to the last tour. I was literally running across the courtyard (and jumped over the ledge of the threshold) to get there in time. That cathedral was really cool (and slightly creepy) to see. We couldn't take any pictures in there, but here is the website. Outside, the nice missionaries took some pictures of us. I also got a really gorgeous shot of the Peruvian "White House".

After the touring, we went in search of dinner. There's a large shopping center and we found a McDonald's! Which was exciting. Here's a fun fact about Peruvian money: everything is cheaper in Peru. Here's a fun fact about McDonald's in Peru: rather than making their prices in line with everything else in Peru, they just converted the dollar prices into soles. As such, McDonald's is actually a pretty pricey place. I paid as much for my dinner there as I did in the fancy restaurant in Huancayo. Bergs mentioned that the high price actually makes McDonald's a nice place to take a date, as was made evident by the couple making out directly in my line of sight...it was quite awkward.

And that was pretty much day five. We got to the hostel early because we had to catch a super early flight to Cusco in the morning. Highlights of that hostel: the shower did have some hot water, but the glass door between the shower and the rest of the room was not properly lined, so we covered it with a towel. Good times.

Peru: Day Four

Day four was Sunday, and I was so glad. At this point in our journey, my phone had been stolen and I hadn't had a hot shower the whole trip (hostel desk clerks kept insisting there was hot water, and it was always a lie! Plus the shower the night before had a moldy shower curtain. Gross). I was also homesick for the place where I spoke the language and toilets had seats. Needless to say, I needed a Sunday.

We got dressed up and met Clariza and her kids at their house before going on to the church. It was a short walk through town. I was a little thrown off at the gate surrounding the building (though not too thrown, since everything else had been gated). As soon as we entered the building, though, I felt right at home. The building was a little different from the ones back home, but it was definitely recognizable as an LDS church, and the same Spirit was definitely there. Of course, I still didn't understand what anyone said, but it was nice to sit in a familiar place.

There was no pianist, so the chorister gave us a starting count for the hymns. It was so wonderful to hear melodies that I knew, and so wonderful to be able to take the sacrament in such a faraway place. I must admit to tearing up a bit here and there. The meeting ended with Bergs' favorite hymn, "In Our Lovely Deseret". This was a total coincidence, so Bergs and I were cracking up when I realized what we were singing.

We only stayed for sacrament meeting, so afterwards we went back to Clariza's to change and have lunch. She was going to make us ceviche, chicken style. Bergs was very protective of the food we ate, and she was also kind enough to mention to Clariza that I didn't like onions and peppers. I was really excited. And while Clariza prepared the ceviche, the children put in church movies and let me watch them in English! It was pretty great.

The ceviche was quite the experience. Overall, it was delicious, but Bergs didn't realize that I also don't like celery. Not wanting to offend anyone, I was determined to eat as much as possible. I tried to convince myself that it was raw potato and not celery. I did a pretty good job, but it eventually was too much. I did enjoy the chicken and the lime flavor. It was really good. Here are the pictures of my dish, and Bergs', which was made the correct way.

We also had yucca, which was really good, and mangoes! A whole mango, eaten with a spoon. That was the greatest mango of my life.

After lunch, some members from the ward came to visit. Their bishop, who wasn't much older than us, knew some English and spoke to me a little bit. Clariza's kids were also learning English, but they were better at writing, so they wrote me questions and I wrote them answers.

When the ward members left, we went to do some visits, including this stop at the apartment Bergs lived in.

There was also a lovely woman named Miriam who owned a pink salon in front of her home. She gave us Inca Kola and handmade napkin holders made out of gourds.

We went back to Clariza's to pick up our backpacks; I was slightly exhausted and ready to eat a granola bar for dinner and go to bed. We had decided to splurge and stay in a hotel that night in order to have hot water, plus the hostel the night before had been a little chilly. Clariza surprised us, however, by announcing that she and the ward members were going to give us a farewell pizza party! I was pretty excited because there was cheese involved (still a little homesick at this point), but Bergs advised me to be cautious because the pizza probably would have no cheese and sliced up hot dogs....but it did have cheese! And sliced ham! That pizza was so wonderful. And it was so great to be surrounded by so many fantastic ward members. They were all so excited to see Bergs, and so nice to me. Every one gave me a hug. I even got to watch part of Despicable Me 2 in Spanish!

And there's day four. I even got it all in one post!

P.S. The hotel clerk claimed that they had hot water 24 hours a day...except it needed to take 10 minutes to heat up. Ten minutes came and went...no hot water.

Peru: Day Three - Part Two

Day three continues with the tale of the "gringo killer". After the phone theft incident, we boarded a commercial bus for Huancayo. Since the driver was below the passenger level, we were able to sit in the very front of the bus, right up against the windshield. We had to put our backpacks in front of us, so there wasn't an enormous amount of legroom, but the view was amazing.

As we settled into our seats, I pulled out my breakfast tamale. Apparently, Peruvians often eat tamales for breakfast. It seemed a little odd, but I was hungry and still a little shaken from the theft, so I dug right in. Bergs did warn me, however, that there was a large purple olive in the middle of the tamale. She said Peruvians call it "the gringo killer". This concerned me, but I figured that if I ate carefully, I could pull the olive out when I got to it.

I reached the olive and pulled it out. There was a small pool of olive juice in the cavity left behind, but I figured it would be drowned in the flavor of delicious tamale. I was wrong. I took of bite of tamale and olive juice..and very nearly threw up. VERY nearly. Many of you know that I have a weak stomach, but this was bad. I did manage to get the rest of the tamale down, mainly because I had to get rid of the super gross olive taste.

The rest of the somewhere between 6 and 8 hour ride was filled with gorgeous Andean scenery. Well, that and the bus driver risking crazy car passes over double yellow lines. That was sort of terrifying, especially from the top of the bus. But the Andes are gorgeous. Once we got further into the mountains, they were green instead of looking like piles of rocks. This was my favorite spot:

Bergs told me that this was the place that a lot of people start feeling altitude sickness, but I felt just fine. Her theory was that it was because we already live in such a high elevation. Coming into Huancayo, I almost felt like we were driving home to Cache Valley. See?

Once we made it to Huancayo, we made our way to Clariza's house. Clariza was Bergs' pensionista in that area. Clariza had, hanging on her wall, a picture of Bergs that was drawn while she was there.

We left our backpacks at Clariza's and headed into town to shop. There is a wonderful mall of sorts, Casa de Artisano, where people sell things that they have made. I bought scarves for the girls in my family, as well as a stone nativity scene and a beautiful sweater. After that, we wandered about the streets of Huancayo in search of a store that sold really inexpensive ties. We finally found it and Bergs and I purchased some ties. It was quite the exciting journey.

After the shopping, we had dinner at La Lena, where I ordered another delicious chicken dish with fries. Very delicious chicken in Peru.

At the end of the night, we picked up our backpacks and found a hostel to sleep in. This one featured beds that dipped in the middle. We were sort of concerned that the beds were going to eat us...but we survived.

And that's day three!

Peru: Day Three - Part One

Day three started with a cold shower. So cold. I thanked my lucky stars that my hair didn't need to be washed (and I hoped that we would have hot water by the time my hair did need washing).

We originally had planned to have breakfast with a family in Chosica, but the timing didn't quite work out. The person from that family that Bergs had wanted to see ended up walking with us to the bus stop. She brought tamales for us to eat for breakfast, which I was pretty excited about.

We got on board one of those crazy buses and took a seat, backpacks and all. I had my smaller backpack (which I used when we had somewhere to leave our big backpacks) on my lap, and my phone in my front pocket. It occurred to me that my phone could fall out of my pocket, so I moved it to one of the mesh pockets in the front of my small backpack, holding it with my hand from the outside of the pocket to keep it from being pilfered.

Tragically, I had greatly underestimated the ingenuity of Peruvian bus thieves. Attend the tale of the theft of my phone.

A man got on the bus and reached up to hold the bar above his head. In doing so, he dropped a handful of coins, which came cascading down upon my head, and down to the bus floor. I bent over to help him retrieve the coins, releasing my hold on my phone. After straightening and handing the man his coins, I went to return my hand to my phone, only to realize it was gone. Desperately, I checked the pockets to my bag and the pockets of my pants, but it was useless. The phone was gone. And we had to get off the bus right then anyway, so I had to buck up and move on.

We crossed the road to the cross country bus station (or really just the place where the bus stopped; it wasn't a station by any means). Sitting on a plastic chair outside a roadside market, the theft of my phone sank in and I did start to cry a little bit. It was a very sad moment. Once I calmed down, though, I started to see how the situation wasn't so very bad. First of all, Bergs had free international texting, a fact we had only learned upon landing in Peru. She was able to text my mom and have her call to have my phone turned off.

Secondly, I had removed all of my pictures from my phone before leaving home. I had planned to use my phone as my camera, so I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of room on my phone. All of the pictures that were on my phone were safely saved on my laptop at home. I had lost a few pictures from the last couple of days, but not very many. My phone had died the evening before, so I took all those pictures of Chosica on my camera anyway (which I had brought as a backup, just in case).

Lastly, I was safe. We hadn't been harmed in any way during the theft. I hadn't even realized it happened until it was over.

Before I went to Peru, I had prayed that the Lord would help me to see His hand on my trip. I had meant in the people we would meet or in the beautiful Inca ruins we would visit. Of course, He had another plan. It really touched my heart to be reminded that He was looking out for me, and that even though I had lost my phone, I hadn't really lost as much as I could have.