Peru: Cuzco and the Sacred Valley (August 31-September 14)
Greetings from Peru (well, sort of...we´re in Argentina now)!
It's hard to imagine, but we arrived in Peru a month and a half ago. (Apparently I need to get better about writing these updates!) The time has flown by and we have enjoyed almost every minute of it. My parents, Chris, and I left Quito, Ecuador, and flew directly to Cuzco, Peru, with a one-night layover in Lima. Cuzco sits at a breathtaking altitude of nearly 11,000 feet and was once the capital of the Inca Empire. It also boasts the title of being the continent´s oldest continuously inhabited city. The Spanish conquered the city and the Incas in the mid 16th century, and nowadays it seems like the tourists have taken over. Hotels, internet cafes, tour agencies, and laundry facilities are everywhere, but the city still retains loads of charm. Everywhere you turn there are great cathedrals, amazing Inca wall foundations, and quaint cobblestone streets.
In addition to these sights, Cuzco also has its share of annoyingly persistent street vendors trying to hawk everything from postcards to cigarettes to finger puppets (yes, I said finger puppets). No tourist can say he or she has really been to Cuzco unless they've braved the tiny cobblestone street affectionately dubbed "gringo alley". If you're wearing cargo pants with zip-off legs, Tevas, and Gore Tex (or any reasonable facsimiles), you quickly become a target. People emerge to coax you into their restaurant or internet cafe, or walking street vendors saddle up beside you and beg you to buy their one-of-a-kind postcard or souvenir. It takes several firm "No thank yous" before they become discouraged enough to let you be. It got really annoying at some points...but I was able to keep my cool (and my smart-ass comments, like, "Yes, somehow I will survive another day without a friggin' finger puppet!") to myself!
The Inca Trail
We started our trip with a three-hour bus ride to the trailhead. Once there we collected our rented down sleeping bags and sleeping mats. I hired a personal porter to carry my pack for me (the best $36 I´ve ever spent!), so all I had to carry was a daypack with water and snacks. Chris opted to carry his own pack. Once we were all organized, our group set off. Recent trail regulations have set limits on the amount of people allowed on the trail at once and on the amount of weight that porters can carry. Our group of 13 hikers required a whopping 17 porters, 1 cook, and 2 guides. We were led by two great guides, Marcelo and Alejandro, and we were accompanied by eleven other hikers. To our surprise, we were the only two Americans in a lively group of Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Irish.
Day 1 was relatively easy with just moderate ups and downs. Almost immediately after we started hiking, I noticed how different this trail was in comparison to most other treks I've done. I was surprised to find that there are small towns all along the trail (at least during the first and second days). You quickly realize that although hiking the Inca Trail is pure recreation and a holiday activity for you, it is a way of life for the people that live out there. They hike the trail on a daily basis to transport water, trade goods, farm the land, and live their lives. What must they think of the endless string of tourists with huge backpacks traipsing through their front yards?
We hiked for about two hours and passed a few archaeological sites and numerous houses before arriving at our lunch stop. Now, I fully expected to be given a PB&J, an apple, and a juice box, and expected to sit myself down on a rock and enjoy my lunch....and I would have been quite happy with that. But when we arrived at the lunch stop, a dining tent had been erected and inside was a long table with 13 stools around it. (Heaven forbid we´d have to sit on the ground on a hiking trip.) There were wash basins set up outside the tent, complete with bars of soap and fluffy cotton towels to dry our hands on. After washing up, we all sat down in the tent and were soon served a three-course meal followed by tea, coffee, and some weird Australian powdered drink called Milo. (They seem to love the stuff. But hey, they also like vegemite...so who knows!)
Inca Trail porters are amazing people. We learned that most porters are farmers and that they hike the trail as a second job to help supplement their family's income. They are wonderfully fit and cheerful, something you wouldn't expect given the amount of weight they are required to haul up and down the mountains. (Yes, as I mentioned before, there are now limits to the amount they can carry, but it's still a heck of a lot!) On more than a few occasions I heard the pitter-patter of porter footsteps quickly gaining on me. I would eventually pull over and let him go by, thinking to myself, "No problem. He does this once a week...I don't...so it's okay that I can't keep up." That was all fine and dandy until, of course, I realized that he had a camp stove, a propane tank, my backpack, and fourteen stools strapped to his back. And to top it all off, he was hiking in flip flops.
After lunch we set off toward the first night´s campsite...through a beautiful wooded area with some steep terrain. When we arrived, our tents had been set up for us and afternoon tea was ready to drink, and soon after we finished tea, dinner was ready. What will we do the next time we go camping and have to set up our own tents and cook our own food?
Our wake up call for Day 2 on the Inca Trail included tea delivered straight to our tent door. Amazing. After a hearty breakfast, we started out on what promised to be the toughest day on the trail. Chris opted to hire a porter for this day, his birthday (he would later proclaim that he must be getting wiser in his old age...as he decided that it was the smartest thing he could have done). The two to three hour climb to the top of Dead Woman´s Pass (so called b/c the pass, from far away, looks like a woman lying on her back) at over 13,000 feet was challenging, to say the least. We each took it at our own pace, and we both eventually made it to the top. For me, this required frequent stops during the last stretch to stop the burning in my legs and to catch my breath --- there just isn't a whole heck of a lot of oxygen to go around up there. The Incas did not use switchbacks, but instead went straight uphill and used stone stairs to get there. Whew! Once at the top, the porters had set up a snack and warm drinks to ward off the cold temps. The hike was all downhill for the rest of Day 2. We left the pass and headed downhill for about an hour until we arrived at campsite number 2 --- early enough for lunch. After another filling meal, everyone sacked out in their tents for a nice afternoon nap. At lunch one of our guides discovered that it was Chris's birthday and apparently passed the info along to the cook. Later that afternoon when we were all gathered for afternoon tea/snacks, our guide brought in a two-layer, frosted birthday cake with matches in lieu of candles. Everyone sang Happy Birthday and we all shared the cake. We were completely amazed. Where did they come up with a cake AND frosting?
Day 3 of the hike consisted of two more passes (neither quite as challenging as the first) followed by a descent down what seemed like about a million stone steps. The vistas all along the way were amazing. The weather was a bit rainy, thus making the stone stairs slippery and the going slow. We arrived at campsite number 3 mid afternoon. This campsite was situated near a lodge, where weary hikers could purchase overpriced beers and food.
On Day 4 we awoke at 4am, had breakfast at 4:30, and lined up to leave the campsite at 5:20, as soon as the gates opened. To explain, everyone who is hiking the Inca Trail spends night three where we did. From this campsite it is about a two-hour hike to the Gate of the Sun where everyone converges to watch the sunrise. Everyone lines up at the park entrance (just outside the campsite) to be ready to leave as soon as possible. This makes quite a spectacle, and the trail to the park is crowded with hikers trying to beat the sunrise to Machu Picchu. Anyway, we made it to the Gate of the Sun with time to spare and watched the sun rise over the ruins. From this point it is still another hour hike down to the actual ruins. I was almost the last one in my group to arrive at the ruins as I was stopping every few meters to take another photo. It was really amazing. I've seen so many pictures of this place...it's strange to actually be there taking the same photos you've seen over and over in books, etc.
Once at the ruin site, our group took the requisite "We made it" photos and proceeded to tour the ruins with our guide. We spent a few hours wandering the site and then finally took the bus down to Aguas Calientes, the little town outside Machu Picchu where we would spend the next few nights.
Aguas Calientes
Unfortunately the hot springs (aguas calientes) in Aguas Calientes were closed. Damn!! We were so looking forward to a good soak after our four-day hike. Oh well...
Aguas Calientes is an extremely touristy towns that exists mostly to serve the needs of millions of visitors that come to see Machu Picchu. The streets are lined with anything and everything a tourist might need...including dozens of restaurants advertising pizza. Somewhere along the line, someone got the idea that tourists like pizza...and EVERYONE in town ran with it. Almost literally EVERY restaurant in Aguas Calientes is a pizzeria...in fact we talked to another traveler who said that when he was in AC he actually tried to find a restaurant without pizza. He was not successful.
The next day the four of us hopped a train and headed just a few kilometers into the mountains to do a short hike. We walked along a small stream and soon came to a descent sized waterfall. A light rain had started to fall, so our visit to the fall was short and sweet. Instead of taking the train back to Aguas Calientes, we walked back along the tracks, all the while hoping that the train wouldn´t come along! We made it back without incident...although we were soaked from the rain. We took refuge in a pizza place (where else?) with a huge wood-fired oven, zipped the legs off of our pants, and dried them on the oven.
The next day we decided to head back into the park to do some additional touring and picture taking. Machu Picchu is the most well-known of the various Inca sites. It was never discovered (and thus destroyed) by the Spanish conquistadores, and so it was left untouched and pretty much forgotten for hundreds of years. An American explorer, Hiram Bingham, "discovered" the ruins in 1911 and soon after started the difficult task of clearing out overgrown vegetation and mapping the site. (If you have $400 to burn, you can take the Hiram Bingham luxury train from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes...visit the site...and return to Cuzco all in one day!) Many groups have done studies throughout the years and it still remains unclear what the major function of Machu Picchu was. Whether a ceremonial or agricultural center, the size and complexity of these ruins is astonishing.
In addition to exploring the ruins, my dad, Chris, and I decided to climb the steep hill called Huayna Picchu situated at the back of the ruins. (This is the hill seen in many photos of the ruins of Machu Picchu.) The hike is about 45 minutes of huffing and puffing up steep steps and rock slopes where, in some places, cables or other handholds are necessary to help you keep your balance and pull yourself up. After squeezing through a rock tunnel we reached the "peak", which is actually just a pile of boulders with no real place to relax and enjoy the view. To make matters worse, we were greeted by a swarm of wasps and some crazy naked guy getting his picture taken. (He apparently wasn´t shy, as there was no shortage of hikers on this pile of boulders.) Needless to say, we quickly headed down the hill for about five minutes and instead stopped there to enjoy the views, sans wasps and naked guy!
We arrived back in Cuzco eager to enjoy some down time and wash our stinky clothes! The day after we returned from our Machu Picchu adventure it was time to say goodbye to my parents. After nearly two and a half months on the road and an adventure that started in southern Mexico and took them south through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru, they were ready to head back to California. Imagine that!! It was great traveling with them....we wondered what life on the road would be like on our own.
Okay, time to do some serious sightseeing! We spent a few days visiting the sites in town (cathedrals, museums, cathedrals that used to be marvelous Inca sites but were destroyed and looted by the Spanish, etc.) before heading outside the city limits to see....more Inca ruins. One day we took a city bus out to Tambo Machay (Inca baths) and walked back to Cuzco, stopping at three other sites along the way. We saw Puca Pucara, Quenko, and Sacsayhuaman (loosely pronounced "sexy woman"). Sacsayhuaman was by far my favorite, partly because of its cool name, but mostly because of its amazingly huge zig zag walls, rock slides, and carefree kids flying kites!
Getting to the more remote ruins in the Sacred Valley requires taking a tour, especially if you are short on time. Chris and I normally steer clear of the ultra touristy stop-here-stop-there-for-twenty-minutes-take-some-photos-and-get-back-in-the-bus kind of tours, but we figured we´d go for it anyway since we were getting short on time and options. Well, the tour was sort of okay, but it seemed to make just as many stops at craft markets (unadvertised) as it did at the ruins. All in all we visited three sites (Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Chinchero).
Robbery attempt #1 (thwarted)
On one of our last days in Cuzco, we made our way to the Plaza de Armas (Cuzco´s central square) to discover what seemed to be ALL the inhabitants of the city. It turns out that fans had come out to welcome Cuzco´s victorious soccer team (Cienciano del Cuzco) home after winning the Recopa Sudamerica 2004. They had beaten Boca Junior from Argentina for the title a few days earlier. This was a HUGE deal...and we thought "Oh, how nice. We´ll get to experience a local event." Well, we hid out in a little bakery along the parade route for about an hour...waiting and waiting for the team to come by. When it seemed like they were never going to arrive, we decided to go about our business. This meant heading out into the madness and the crowds. Just as we did, the team started to come by in cars. Throngs of cheering kids were coming toward us, as we were heading in the opposite direction. At this moment, I thought, "Okay, this is a bad situation for us tourist types." Minutes later, Chris is shouting at me. I look over and he has got this kid who looks to be about thirteen in a sort of half nelson, and he is saying, "This kid took my wallet. This kid took my wallet." Chris had his wallet in his cargo pants pocket, zipped and velcroed (We know, we know....DUMB). He felt someone brush up against him and when he felt the pocket the wallet was gone. He turned and grabbed the kid. I then started yelling at the kid in Spanish, "Where´s the wallet? Where´s the wallet?" At this moment an older lady noticed the ruckus and came over and said that the police were close by and that we should take the kid to them. She then started yelling at the kid, "Why do you have to rob people?" All this time, the kid isn´t really saying anything at all. Just when we were about to take the kid to the cops, another kid, about seventeen, shows up and pats me on the shoulder and tells me that everything is going to be okay. A few seconds later, he points in the gutter underneath the kid and says, "Is that your wallet?" We look down, and lo and behold, there is the wallet. I picked it up and Chris then let the kid go. We think that the two kids were working together (and that the younger kid passed the wallet off to the older one) and that when the older kid realized that the younger kid had been nabbed, he came back and made the wallet appear.
And so ended our time in Cuzco. Peru, Part 2 to come very soon (I promise.)
It's hard to imagine, but we arrived in Peru a month and a half ago. (Apparently I need to get better about writing these updates!) The time has flown by and we have enjoyed almost every minute of it. My parents, Chris, and I left Quito, Ecuador, and flew directly to Cuzco, Peru, with a one-night layover in Lima. Cuzco sits at a breathtaking altitude of nearly 11,000 feet and was once the capital of the Inca Empire. It also boasts the title of being the continent´s oldest continuously inhabited city. The Spanish conquered the city and the Incas in the mid 16th century, and nowadays it seems like the tourists have taken over. Hotels, internet cafes, tour agencies, and laundry facilities are everywhere, but the city still retains loads of charm. Everywhere you turn there are great cathedrals, amazing Inca wall foundations, and quaint cobblestone streets.
In addition to these sights, Cuzco also has its share of annoyingly persistent street vendors trying to hawk everything from postcards to cigarettes to finger puppets (yes, I said finger puppets). No tourist can say he or she has really been to Cuzco unless they've braved the tiny cobblestone street affectionately dubbed "gringo alley". If you're wearing cargo pants with zip-off legs, Tevas, and Gore Tex (or any reasonable facsimiles), you quickly become a target. People emerge to coax you into their restaurant or internet cafe, or walking street vendors saddle up beside you and beg you to buy their one-of-a-kind postcard or souvenir. It takes several firm "No thank yous" before they become discouraged enough to let you be. It got really annoying at some points...but I was able to keep my cool (and my smart-ass comments, like, "Yes, somehow I will survive another day without a friggin' finger puppet!") to myself!
The Inca Trail
We started our trip with a three-hour bus ride to the trailhead. Once there we collected our rented down sleeping bags and sleeping mats. I hired a personal porter to carry my pack for me (the best $36 I´ve ever spent!), so all I had to carry was a daypack with water and snacks. Chris opted to carry his own pack. Once we were all organized, our group set off. Recent trail regulations have set limits on the amount of people allowed on the trail at once and on the amount of weight that porters can carry. Our group of 13 hikers required a whopping 17 porters, 1 cook, and 2 guides. We were led by two great guides, Marcelo and Alejandro, and we were accompanied by eleven other hikers. To our surprise, we were the only two Americans in a lively group of Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Irish.
Day 1 was relatively easy with just moderate ups and downs. Almost immediately after we started hiking, I noticed how different this trail was in comparison to most other treks I've done. I was surprised to find that there are small towns all along the trail (at least during the first and second days). You quickly realize that although hiking the Inca Trail is pure recreation and a holiday activity for you, it is a way of life for the people that live out there. They hike the trail on a daily basis to transport water, trade goods, farm the land, and live their lives. What must they think of the endless string of tourists with huge backpacks traipsing through their front yards?
We hiked for about two hours and passed a few archaeological sites and numerous houses before arriving at our lunch stop. Now, I fully expected to be given a PB&J, an apple, and a juice box, and expected to sit myself down on a rock and enjoy my lunch....and I would have been quite happy with that. But when we arrived at the lunch stop, a dining tent had been erected and inside was a long table with 13 stools around it. (Heaven forbid we´d have to sit on the ground on a hiking trip.) There were wash basins set up outside the tent, complete with bars of soap and fluffy cotton towels to dry our hands on. After washing up, we all sat down in the tent and were soon served a three-course meal followed by tea, coffee, and some weird Australian powdered drink called Milo. (They seem to love the stuff. But hey, they also like vegemite...so who knows!)
Inca Trail porters are amazing people. We learned that most porters are farmers and that they hike the trail as a second job to help supplement their family's income. They are wonderfully fit and cheerful, something you wouldn't expect given the amount of weight they are required to haul up and down the mountains. (Yes, as I mentioned before, there are now limits to the amount they can carry, but it's still a heck of a lot!) On more than a few occasions I heard the pitter-patter of porter footsteps quickly gaining on me. I would eventually pull over and let him go by, thinking to myself, "No problem. He does this once a week...I don't...so it's okay that I can't keep up." That was all fine and dandy until, of course, I realized that he had a camp stove, a propane tank, my backpack, and fourteen stools strapped to his back. And to top it all off, he was hiking in flip flops.
After lunch we set off toward the first night´s campsite...through a beautiful wooded area with some steep terrain. When we arrived, our tents had been set up for us and afternoon tea was ready to drink, and soon after we finished tea, dinner was ready. What will we do the next time we go camping and have to set up our own tents and cook our own food?
Our wake up call for Day 2 on the Inca Trail included tea delivered straight to our tent door. Amazing. After a hearty breakfast, we started out on what promised to be the toughest day on the trail. Chris opted to hire a porter for this day, his birthday (he would later proclaim that he must be getting wiser in his old age...as he decided that it was the smartest thing he could have done). The two to three hour climb to the top of Dead Woman´s Pass (so called b/c the pass, from far away, looks like a woman lying on her back) at over 13,000 feet was challenging, to say the least. We each took it at our own pace, and we both eventually made it to the top. For me, this required frequent stops during the last stretch to stop the burning in my legs and to catch my breath --- there just isn't a whole heck of a lot of oxygen to go around up there. The Incas did not use switchbacks, but instead went straight uphill and used stone stairs to get there. Whew! Once at the top, the porters had set up a snack and warm drinks to ward off the cold temps. The hike was all downhill for the rest of Day 2. We left the pass and headed downhill for about an hour until we arrived at campsite number 2 --- early enough for lunch. After another filling meal, everyone sacked out in their tents for a nice afternoon nap. At lunch one of our guides discovered that it was Chris's birthday and apparently passed the info along to the cook. Later that afternoon when we were all gathered for afternoon tea/snacks, our guide brought in a two-layer, frosted birthday cake with matches in lieu of candles. Everyone sang Happy Birthday and we all shared the cake. We were completely amazed. Where did they come up with a cake AND frosting?
Day 3 of the hike consisted of two more passes (neither quite as challenging as the first) followed by a descent down what seemed like about a million stone steps. The vistas all along the way were amazing. The weather was a bit rainy, thus making the stone stairs slippery and the going slow. We arrived at campsite number 3 mid afternoon. This campsite was situated near a lodge, where weary hikers could purchase overpriced beers and food.
On Day 4 we awoke at 4am, had breakfast at 4:30, and lined up to leave the campsite at 5:20, as soon as the gates opened. To explain, everyone who is hiking the Inca Trail spends night three where we did. From this campsite it is about a two-hour hike to the Gate of the Sun where everyone converges to watch the sunrise. Everyone lines up at the park entrance (just outside the campsite) to be ready to leave as soon as possible. This makes quite a spectacle, and the trail to the park is crowded with hikers trying to beat the sunrise to Machu Picchu. Anyway, we made it to the Gate of the Sun with time to spare and watched the sun rise over the ruins. From this point it is still another hour hike down to the actual ruins. I was almost the last one in my group to arrive at the ruins as I was stopping every few meters to take another photo. It was really amazing. I've seen so many pictures of this place...it's strange to actually be there taking the same photos you've seen over and over in books, etc.
Once at the ruin site, our group took the requisite "We made it" photos and proceeded to tour the ruins with our guide. We spent a few hours wandering the site and then finally took the bus down to Aguas Calientes, the little town outside Machu Picchu where we would spend the next few nights.
Aguas Calientes
Unfortunately the hot springs (aguas calientes) in Aguas Calientes were closed. Damn!! We were so looking forward to a good soak after our four-day hike. Oh well...
Aguas Calientes is an extremely touristy towns that exists mostly to serve the needs of millions of visitors that come to see Machu Picchu. The streets are lined with anything and everything a tourist might need...including dozens of restaurants advertising pizza. Somewhere along the line, someone got the idea that tourists like pizza...and EVERYONE in town ran with it. Almost literally EVERY restaurant in Aguas Calientes is a pizzeria...in fact we talked to another traveler who said that when he was in AC he actually tried to find a restaurant without pizza. He was not successful.
The next day the four of us hopped a train and headed just a few kilometers into the mountains to do a short hike. We walked along a small stream and soon came to a descent sized waterfall. A light rain had started to fall, so our visit to the fall was short and sweet. Instead of taking the train back to Aguas Calientes, we walked back along the tracks, all the while hoping that the train wouldn´t come along! We made it back without incident...although we were soaked from the rain. We took refuge in a pizza place (where else?) with a huge wood-fired oven, zipped the legs off of our pants, and dried them on the oven.
The next day we decided to head back into the park to do some additional touring and picture taking. Machu Picchu is the most well-known of the various Inca sites. It was never discovered (and thus destroyed) by the Spanish conquistadores, and so it was left untouched and pretty much forgotten for hundreds of years. An American explorer, Hiram Bingham, "discovered" the ruins in 1911 and soon after started the difficult task of clearing out overgrown vegetation and mapping the site. (If you have $400 to burn, you can take the Hiram Bingham luxury train from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes...visit the site...and return to Cuzco all in one day!) Many groups have done studies throughout the years and it still remains unclear what the major function of Machu Picchu was. Whether a ceremonial or agricultural center, the size and complexity of these ruins is astonishing.
In addition to exploring the ruins, my dad, Chris, and I decided to climb the steep hill called Huayna Picchu situated at the back of the ruins. (This is the hill seen in many photos of the ruins of Machu Picchu.) The hike is about 45 minutes of huffing and puffing up steep steps and rock slopes where, in some places, cables or other handholds are necessary to help you keep your balance and pull yourself up. After squeezing through a rock tunnel we reached the "peak", which is actually just a pile of boulders with no real place to relax and enjoy the view. To make matters worse, we were greeted by a swarm of wasps and some crazy naked guy getting his picture taken. (He apparently wasn´t shy, as there was no shortage of hikers on this pile of boulders.) Needless to say, we quickly headed down the hill for about five minutes and instead stopped there to enjoy the views, sans wasps and naked guy!
We arrived back in Cuzco eager to enjoy some down time and wash our stinky clothes! The day after we returned from our Machu Picchu adventure it was time to say goodbye to my parents. After nearly two and a half months on the road and an adventure that started in southern Mexico and took them south through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru, they were ready to head back to California. Imagine that!! It was great traveling with them....we wondered what life on the road would be like on our own.
Okay, time to do some serious sightseeing! We spent a few days visiting the sites in town (cathedrals, museums, cathedrals that used to be marvelous Inca sites but were destroyed and looted by the Spanish, etc.) before heading outside the city limits to see....more Inca ruins. One day we took a city bus out to Tambo Machay (Inca baths) and walked back to Cuzco, stopping at three other sites along the way. We saw Puca Pucara, Quenko, and Sacsayhuaman (loosely pronounced "sexy woman"). Sacsayhuaman was by far my favorite, partly because of its cool name, but mostly because of its amazingly huge zig zag walls, rock slides, and carefree kids flying kites!
Getting to the more remote ruins in the Sacred Valley requires taking a tour, especially if you are short on time. Chris and I normally steer clear of the ultra touristy stop-here-stop-there-for-twenty-minutes-take-some-photos-and-get-back-in-the-bus kind of tours, but we figured we´d go for it anyway since we were getting short on time and options. Well, the tour was sort of okay, but it seemed to make just as many stops at craft markets (unadvertised) as it did at the ruins. All in all we visited three sites (Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Chinchero).
Robbery attempt #1 (thwarted)
On one of our last days in Cuzco, we made our way to the Plaza de Armas (Cuzco´s central square) to discover what seemed to be ALL the inhabitants of the city. It turns out that fans had come out to welcome Cuzco´s victorious soccer team (Cienciano del Cuzco) home after winning the Recopa Sudamerica 2004. They had beaten Boca Junior from Argentina for the title a few days earlier. This was a HUGE deal...and we thought "Oh, how nice. We´ll get to experience a local event." Well, we hid out in a little bakery along the parade route for about an hour...waiting and waiting for the team to come by. When it seemed like they were never going to arrive, we decided to go about our business. This meant heading out into the madness and the crowds. Just as we did, the team started to come by in cars. Throngs of cheering kids were coming toward us, as we were heading in the opposite direction. At this moment, I thought, "Okay, this is a bad situation for us tourist types." Minutes later, Chris is shouting at me. I look over and he has got this kid who looks to be about thirteen in a sort of half nelson, and he is saying, "This kid took my wallet. This kid took my wallet." Chris had his wallet in his cargo pants pocket, zipped and velcroed (We know, we know....DUMB). He felt someone brush up against him and when he felt the pocket the wallet was gone. He turned and grabbed the kid. I then started yelling at the kid in Spanish, "Where´s the wallet? Where´s the wallet?" At this moment an older lady noticed the ruckus and came over and said that the police were close by and that we should take the kid to them. She then started yelling at the kid, "Why do you have to rob people?" All this time, the kid isn´t really saying anything at all. Just when we were about to take the kid to the cops, another kid, about seventeen, shows up and pats me on the shoulder and tells me that everything is going to be okay. A few seconds later, he points in the gutter underneath the kid and says, "Is that your wallet?" We look down, and lo and behold, there is the wallet. I picked it up and Chris then let the kid go. We think that the two kids were working together (and that the younger kid passed the wallet off to the older one) and that when the older kid realized that the younger kid had been nabbed, he came back and made the wallet appear.
And so ended our time in Cuzco. Peru, Part 2 to come very soon (I promise.)
posted by Amy at
Friday, September 24, 2004
2 Comments
