July 25, 2007
Day 665

Tina, me, Q, and Helen in front of an Inca tunnel.

Zach, Tina, Q, Helen and I all piled into a taxi before sunrise this morning and went to the Pisac ruins, far above the town. Nobody was there yet, including anyone checking for tickets. It was great walking around the ruins as the sun came up and not having to waste the little precious energy I had on walking from town. The houses, terraces, and urinals seemed incredibly well-preserved, but when I followed a flowing stream of water back to its source, I found a rubber hose. I don't think I was supposed to see that. My favorite part of the ruins was the door with the dish next to it for leaving your keys and cell phone when you came home. Those Incas were great future thinkers.

The photo album for this entry is here.

July 24, 2007
Day 664

There is one more set of ruins near Ollantaytambo called Pumamarca, and you don't even need the tourism ticket to see it because it's not on the radar of the big tour groups yet. I went there this morning, but there was a problem: I barely had the energy to make it there, despite it being only a short walk from town. As I tried to catch my breath while looking at the ancient terracing, I realized there was no way I could do a long trek in my current condition. I think I still had giardia, the nemesis of my entire trip. You get it by drinking contaminated water, which is practically impossible to avoid sometimes in the Third World. You can kill it with antibiotics, but if you don't eradicate it 100%, eventually it will gain strength and take over your body once again. I think that's what has happened with me. I simply would have to wait a few more days to recuperate before attempting the Choquequirao trek.

After returning from Pumamarca, I took a bus across the Sacred Valley to Pisac. On the bus I met an interesting group. Zach from Afghanistan, Helen from the Dominican Republic, and Q from Barcelona were all living in New York and on summer break from teaching at the UN school there. Q's sister Tina was working in Lima, and the four of them were traveling around Peru together. They told me there was a conference for the native population this afternoon, so I decided to tag along.

The conference was at the Royal Inca Hotel, the nicest hotel in town. I thought it was going to be about preserving the local native culture, but something seemed amiss when the first presenter to speak was a fat white American woman. She started talking about contributions that have helped build schools where kids were taught Spanish to go along with their native Quechua. That sounded fine, but then she mentioned that the kids were being taught how to heal with musical instruments, and soon they would make fine "doctors of sound."

Next, another white man came out and started playing a conch shell while the woman went around the room shaking a pile of dried leaves in everyone's faces. Exactly which disease was this supposed to cure? Between songs they talked about how the world was coming to an end and women shouldn't cross their legs because they are the key to new life. A lot of the presentation was of a strange, no-so-subtle sexual nature. Whenever I looked around the room, I saw a bunch of rich-looking white people dressed in nice clean clothes nodding in approval. The few local people in the audience were dressed in the jeans and t-shirts that they normally wear and had confused expressions on their faces.

There were a few Indians presenting, but they were of North American ancestry. One guy played a tambourine and started humming a tune that sounded authentic until we realized it was "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." The audience soon caught on and sang right along. Then a boy started singing a song about Mickey Mouse and Donald duck being stars in Disneyland. The bizarre performances continued for three hours.

After the conference, as we were walking out, the audience members started talking amongst themselves about how amazing it was. Someone told me that these people all paid big money for this retreat from the US to get back to their native roots. That sounds fine on the surface, but I saw nothing having to do with the local Quechua culture at the conference. We were all invited to a bonfire afterward, but the UN teachers, who were as baffled by it all as I was, decided they had seen enough.

Later at night in the center of town, we ran into the white guy who was dressed as an Indian and played a mad conch shell. He was standing in the threshold of his holistic healing shop talking to a few of the conference's participants. The light from the shop was glowing on his face like someone telling a scary story with a flashlight under his chin. His eyes were wide, his pupils dilated, and he wore an impish grin across his face. "Come on in, the water's warm," he said as we walked past. Uh, no thanks, maybe I'll join your cult some other time.

July 23, 2007
Day 663

The fortress outside of Ollantaytambo.

I decided on a change of venue for a few days. Last time I was in the area, I briefly went to the Sacred Valley of the Incas on my way to the Inca Trail, but I wanted to see it more thoroughly this time around. I took a bus to Ollantaytambo, a small town with hundreds of hour groups visiting every day. It was more laid-back than Cusco, but so small that I had already seen it all shortly after arriving.

For me, the main attraction in Ollantaytambo was the Inca fortress just outside of town. I walked to the entrance, but learned that I would have to buy a tourism ticket, at a cost of $22, just to enter. Ah yes, I remember the good old tourism ticket. The government claims that you only have to buy one ticket to see all the attractions around Cusco, but then you learn that if you want to visit any of the best museums, churches, or ruins in the area, they're not even included in the ticket. What is included in the ticket? A couple museums the size of living rooms, one or two churches that you can enter for free anyway, and some of the crappier ruins, most of which don't even have anyone checking for tickets at the entrance. It's a big rip off. I bought the stupid ticket last time and was hugely disappointed. This time I decided to give it a miss and took a few pictures of the fortress from afar.

The photo album for this entry is here.

July 21-22, 2007
Day 661-662

Today I met up with Katie, a French girl I originally met through Couchsurfing back in Olinda, Brazil. She was traveling around with several of her fellow countrymen and happened to be passing through Cusco at the same time I was there. We got caught up and all of us went out for some laughs in Cusco's thriving, if freezing, nightlife.

I still haven't gotten any takers from my trekking offer. It's really frustrating because I spent two full days planning the entire trek, but I can't find anyone to go with me. On top of that, I've been sick lately, first with a head cold, then likely another bout with my old friend giardia. I've barely been able to eat anything the last few days, and tonight when I finally tried to force down some food, I had to excuse myself from the Frenchmen to empty the contents of my stomach and bowels. I've decided to take a short trip into the Sacred Valley while I'm recovering, then if I still don't have anyone to go with, I'll do the trek on my own.

July 20, 2007
Day 660

Young soldiers getting ready to march.

This time of year is graduation in Peru, and today there was a large parade in the central plaza of Cusco to celebrate it. The director of the private schools in town began the proceedings with some announcements, and then the kids began marching. Their uniforms were either military style or more traditional, and a band constantly played while they marched. The parade drew a large crowd of gringos, parents, vendors, and bored siblings. It was great to watch.

The photo album for this entry is here.

July 18-19, 2007
Day 658-659

I saw an article about Choquequirao a few weeks ago and decided it was somewhere I wanted to go. The ancient Inca site has been known about for a long time, but archaeologists have only recently discovered how important it really was. In fact, people are now calling it a sister city of Machu Picchu. Only a small amount of it has been excavated, there's no road or rail line to the site, and only a few thousand tourists go there each year, so it still has an adventuresome feel to it, and I'd love to see it before it's discovered by the mainstream tourists. The problem was how to get there.

I did a lot of searching and found a decent topographical map of the area in a bookstore. I talked to a guy at my hostel named Jose who has been to Choquequirao as a cook, and he figured that most people walk there from the nearest town for two days, stay for a day, then walk back on the same path. That sounded a bit boring to me, but I soon discovered that it is possible to continue walking all the way to Machu Picchu.

Jose gave me a lot more info about the region, and now I definitely want to do the longer trek. I've already been to Machu Picchu, but it's been a year and three quarters, so I figure it's worth another look as long as I'm already in the area. The only major task remaining was to find some people to go with me. I printed up a dozen notices inviting anyone interested and put them up on message boards and in bars around the city. The waiting game has begun.

July 17, 2007
Day 657

This morning I took a bus to Cusco. The bus originated back in Puno, and at least half the passengers were tourists. Juliaca doesn't get tourists for obvious reasons. The ride took most of the day and passed through some pretty empty high altitude territory.

It was strange walking around Cusco again. I last was there in October, 2005, about one year and nine months ago, at the beginning of my trip. I had forgotten how nice Cusco was, with buildings that actually had completed roofs and paint, colonial architecture everywhere, two huge cathedrals in the central plaza, and no garbage in the streets. The center of the city was full of upscale restaurants, jewelry shops, and friendly police officers.

On the other hand, I had also forgotten how many tourists Cusco has. In the center of the city, tourists easily outnumber the locals. Many of them walk around in large guided groups, while others take along the whole family. They bring in a lot of money to Peru, but they also drive the prices up in the city and attract a multitude of thieves. It's not even possible to sit on a park bench for five minutes without ten different people coming up to you and trying to sell you something. Walking around is even worse. People constantly attempt their sales pitches on me: "My friend, come eat at my restaurant, only fifteen soles" (never mind that you can get a meal for two soles at many places), "Painting my friend?" "Finger puppets my friend?" "Massage my friend?" "Weed my friend?" (before shaving), "Charlie my friend?" (after shaving).The sheer amount of these annoying types is greater in Cusco than anywhere I've ever been, and this is only due to get worse now that Machu Picchu has been named one of the new seven wonders of the world, and Cusco is on the radar of high-end tourists around the world. Still, for better or worse, Cusco now is the center of tourism in Peru because it once was the center of the Inca empire, a fact that the Peruvians are quite proud of and tourists come here to experience.

July 14-16, 2007
Day 654-656

Leo and Keru before the concert.

Today I had to get up before sunrise to get as early a start as possible. The plan was to go to Juliaca, Peru for a heavy metal festival with Keru and his friends, who play in a band. They used to be called "SadomasoChrist," but now they're simply known as "The Undead." I met Keru, Eaves, Leo, Marcello, and Krubs near the cemetery where all the buses would leave from, while it was still dark and freezing cold.

We took the bus up the hill through the city to El Alto just as the sun was coming up. Once we got past El Alto it was just a few hours through the Altiplano to get to Desaguadero, on the border with Peru. I got my passport stamped out, walked across the open border, then got stamped back in on the other side. The others filled out some forms and hired a cart to take their luggage across because they had to cover their instruments, less they face a steep charge from the customs officials. We then had a longer ride around Lake Titicaca to Puno, then finally an hour or so in another bus to Juliaca.

Juliaca is different from most cities in Peru in that it's flat as a pancake. This makes the city perfect for tricycle taxis, which we rode to our hotel. At first it was great riding in front of a tricycle through the city, being free from a noisy, polluting engine, but soon the novelty wore off when a hundred cars, each sporting a noisy, polluting engine spread their fumes upon us.

We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and took a walk around town. Right away I noticed how, uh, unaesthetic it was. The buildings all had steel rods sticking up from them and looked unfinished, nothing was painted, there was garbage everywhere, there was not one tree or even a patch of grass, it was cold (Juliaca sits at 3840 meters), windy, and dusty. On top of that, there were disorganized markets everywhere, selling just about everything except paint, shingles, and garbage cans. The vendors flowed over the sidewalks and into the streets, so there was nowhere to walk. Cars kept passing us and nearly hitting us, but they weren't the biggest problem. The aforementioned tricycles, silent with no lights or reflectors, were constantly sneaking up on us and trying to put us out of commission. On several occasions, I witnesses a tricycle driver attempt to plow through an uncontrolled intersection rather than waste energy slowing down and speeding back up, only to come within inches of getting sideswiped by a motor vehicle.

After eating lunch and spending the afternoon shopping for heavy metal t-shirts, we went back to the hotel where the band prepared for the concert. We took another tricycle taxi to the outdoor arena just in time to see another band starting. I didn't recognize any of their songs, but the music was loud and fast, and the lead singer's voice had a certain simian quality to it. The audience was about ninety percent male, and everyone wore but one color: black. At one point, someone asked me with a straight face if I preferred death metal, black metal, or death black metal. I told him I liked Black Sabbath and he seemed pleased with my response.

Keru's band started playing later, and I decided to make the most of it and joined the mosh pit. It was great fun slamming into the Peruvian metalheads who were half my size and ten years my junior. I think I was the only person there who was not from Peru or Bolivia. Even though everyone tried to look as tough as possible, I didn't see any fights break out, nor were there even any police in sight. The night turned out to be a lot of fun, and I was glad I traveled as a roadie of sorts with The Undead.

The photo album for this entry is here.