I just tracked my package containing my new waterpump, and found
that it cleared customs in Lima at 2:57PM yesterday and was then marked
Lima, In Transit, 9:45PM. I assume it was leaving Lima last
night - but how? If it goes by land then it's going to take
2-3 days by the slow, nasty mountain roads. If they flew it
to Cuzco then I could see actually getting it this afternoon.
Not knowing makes the planning of a mechanic and/or garage space quite
challenging. However it is quite reassuring to see it so close.
And as I've said before, there are far worse places to be stuck.
The ultra persistant postcard and fingerpuppet vendors had mostly
stopped trying to push their wares on me everytime I step outside.
Even Eric gave in and bought 2 finger puppets from one girl, he was
impressed that she could list all of the presidents of the United
States, in order. But what is he going to do with 2 finger puppets?
I want to walk around and explore more of the city and maybe a few
of the museums, but my legs are quite sore from hiking around in Machu
Picchu yesterday. We took the bus to the bus to the train to
the bus to get there, rather than hiking - it is the wet season and
the hike, aside from being extremely expensive, would have also likely
been quite muddy. We took a cheaper train from Ollanta to save
a few dollars, and this train followed a river down to Aguas Callientes,
which seems to be more commonly known as Machu Picchu Pueblo.
The river was raging muddy water, generally going as fast as the train.
The train track and bed had been replaced in one spot where the river
undercut the bank. That was a bit scary. Snow covered
mountains could be seen high above the valley on the right.
I expected the train to go up to the Machu Picchu Pueblo, so it was
a bit of a surprise that we went down river. IT got warmer,
more humid and the vegetation much more lush as we went down.
Several other rivers spilled into the Urubamba and made it even bigger
and more raging by the time we got there. The town of Machu
Picchu Pueblo exists for no other reason than to support the tourist
industry, so it was fairly commercialized. The one thing that
lags is their Internet connectivity, I could check my DHL tracking,
but that took about 5 minutes, and trying to send an email hung the
service.
I got up at 6am yesterday to get the first bus up to Machu Picchu.
This was well worth the effort as I was able to get some photos of
the places without swarms of tourists. The swarms definitely
came later, but I was still able to take quite a few shots of buildings
with few or no people. The thing I wasn't aware oif before I
got there was that you are able to climb the peak that is ubiquitous
in almost every Machu Picchu photo you've ever seen. Not only
that, but the Inca built some really cool structures up there, some
perched out over cliffs that drop just about forever. I also
hiked down to the Gran Cavern, which was much further in both distance
and elevation than I expected, and then the fact that it can be incorporated
into a loop to the summit was so non-obvious that I didn't do it.
When the trail said Finish I turned around, why would I have thought
it kept going up to the summit? Overall the weather cooperated.
At 6am there was thin clouds with the sun trying to peek through.
By 7am when I got up there the clouds had thickened, but the light
wasn't really that bad for photography. The sun came out on
my walk to the Gran Cavern, but on the walk back it started to rain,
by the time I got to the summit the sun came out again and lit up
the entire site, and on my way back it started to rain again.
It started to pour just as I got to the line for the bus down.
Good timing. A little Quecha kid in traditional costume raced
the bus down the hill. Everytime we got to a switchback on the
same side of the hill, he would already be there screaming at the
top of his lungs. He got on the bus at the bottom and solicited
for tips. I'll tip him when he can get up the hill faster than
the bus!
Overall Machu Picchu delivers. There's a lot of hype and it
is ridiculously expensive to get up there, but I still think it was
worth it. I can even picture coming back in the correct season
at some point and doing the 4 day Inca Trail hike.
On our trip down we got weird seats on the train, the only ones, that
faced backwards. Faced backwards and put us knee to knee with
the competing seat. I was lucky enough to be across from a Peruvian
lady who had just turned 80 and her daughter. He other daughter
was on the other side of the aisle opposite Dick. Both daughters
lived in Florida and spoke English, and we had an interesting converstaion
in English and Spanish, and even tried to throw in some French as
that was a language the older lady spoke (I wish I could remember
her name). She was sharp as a tack, wanted to know if my grandfather
was married, and taught me to say "beautiful day" in Quechia,
which sounded to me like "sumac muchau." Languages
were a hobby of heres and she seemed to know bits and pieces of quite
a few. They took the train down to Urubamba while we got off
at Ollantaytambo, where we were easily able to catch a bus back from
the train station to Cusco for less that $1.50 each. I got the
co-pilot seat, which was fun but a bit scary. This is the only
third world bus driver I've ever seen that didn't have a co-pilot
to help collect fares and navigate through traffic.
It looks like the sun is coming out right now, and I've got some things
to do. I wish I could tell exactly when the DHL package is coming
in, so I could set up some garage time, but it doesn't look like I'm
going to be quite that lucky. Instead I think it is goign to
be laundry day, find a book exchange day, and maybe chill out and
recover from the hike day.
Oh, and by the way, if you are in Cusco (or Cuzco, either spelling
seems to be acceptable), Jack´s Cafe 2 blocks off the Plaza
de Armas down the alley past the 12 Angle Stone, is the best breakfast
in town. For some reason they are not in the Lonely Planet guide,
a travesty, so that is why I mention it here. I was told they
had the best mocha in South America, and so I had to find out for
myself. It may well be true.
Friday January 27, 2006 - 07:29am (PST) |
