Peru

Peru

We are staying at a highrise hotel in Lima for four nights. I'd hoped to find either an airbnb apartment or a hotel near Plaza San Martin, in the old part of the city. But there are few apartments available, and almost no modern hotels in that part of town. We also read that it's not the safest place to stay, so we ended up in a high-rise hotel in Miraflores, a more upscale part of town. At least from here we can walk to the coast, and find restaurants and the tour services we will want. Lima seems to be a city for cats – we don't see the dogs here that we've seen in other South American cities, but cats are lounging in the parks.

Our first morning here, we find that we are quite close to Huaca Pucllana, a prehistoric ruin. About 15 acres are being investigated by archeologists who know that it was originally considerably bigger. It is, however, in the middle of the city and much of it has been lost to modern construction. It dates from about 400 CE (common era, or AD), and predates the Inca culture by several cultures. Prior to the onging restoration, it was just a dirt mound being used as a motocross location.

We have an excellent guide, who tells us that it is was constructed entirely of hand-made adobe bricks by the Lima People, after whom the city is named. This has always been an area prone to earthquakes, and they set their adobe bricks vertically, and covered each row with a layer of adobe “cement”. This allowed the bricks to sway sideways between the cement, and gave the structure good structural integrity during tremblors. Archeologists are actively surveying the site; they've concluded that each change in leadership led to construction of a new layer of this huge adobe pyramid, and that construction of each layer entailed the sacrifice of a young royal woman. Based on the remains that have been found, most of them were decapitated. The theory is that it was an honor for the family when their daughter was chosen for sacrifice.

At Huaca Pucllana, in Lima

The people of this culture venerated the sea (sharks are a prominent image here) and the moon. The sun was a lesser deity, as they saw the sun consumed by the Pacific Ocean each evening. Many pottery fragments, pieces of cloth, and even remnants such as corn cobs are still being found here. Lima recieves only about 4 centimeters of rain annually, so archeologists must be grateful how well things are preserved by the dry climate.

Huaca Pucllana, Lima - earthquake resistant adobe construction, circa 400

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Huaca Pucllana, model of a ceremonial jar to be broken as an offering

Huaca Pucllana, burial bundles

In the late afternoon we decide to walk along the coast. Miraflores sits on a high bluff, and the city has built a nice walkway along the top of the bluff. Much of the bluff is open, rocky soil. It seems likely to erode, but there are high-rise apartment buildings right up to the edge. There is so little rain the bluff is stable. Most mornings, and all day long in winter, the cold Humbolt Current rising up the bluff fills the air with white fog. It's a bit unsettling to wake and just see whiteness outside the window. However, it's summer here now, and the fog usually dissipates before noon. 


We find that the city has built a new set of stairs down the bluff, so off course we go down and watch the sun set over the Pacific. The shore is rocky and the water feels pretty cool, but people are swimming and lots of surfers are out. The surf is noisy – each time a wave rolls in the rounded rocks on the shore tumble around. Doug uses a geo-location app on his smartphone, and when he looks at it later we find we've climbed 400 feet vertically to come back up the steps. I'm glad I didn't know how steep it was before we did it. I am revived by an excellent ceviche for dinner – here you can order it as a main dish. Lima is known for it's excellent food, a blend of native dishes, creole cooking, Asian, and more.

Lima, the coast at Miraflores

Sunset, Miraflores

In the morning we take a city tour in an open-topped bus. We see the district that neighbors Miraflores (Barranco, also upscale) and then travel on into the old city. We see Plaza San Martin, site of the presidential palace, and watch the changing of the guard (not exactly a precision outfit, they start 15 minutes late, and mostly it's the military band playing tunes).

We walk on to Convent San Francisco, where we tour the catacombs. Here, like the Franciscan catacombs we saw in Rome, the monks have excavated the bones and rearranged them into sections (e.g. femurs here, skulls there). I think the intention is the same, to remind the viewer that we all end up as a pile of bones.

Lima, in the old city

Lima, the Presidential Palace

The next day we join one other couple (Aussies) for a guided tour of two of Lima's museums. The first is the Archeology and Anthropology Museum. Ricardo, our guide, opens our eyes to the long, complex and intriguing cultures of Peru. Most of us tend to think of Machu Picchu and the Incas, but theirs was a late culture – there were many that preceded it – Tawantinsuyo, Lima, Wari, Chimu, Sican, Moche, etc. I think about what my pre-historic European ancestors were probably doing (living in mud and stick huts and clubbing each other), while the peoples of Peru were weaving, metalworking, building cities and water systems, and performing successful cranial surgeries. Ricardo says that the people of Peru are closely related genetically to Mexican people, and through them to those who crossed the Bering Straits from Asia. He points out that some of the features on the pottery have asian-looking eyes. He also says that the “Mongolian spot”, a colored spot on a baby's back that fades after birth, is common in Peru.

Burial Bundle in the Archeology & Anthropology Museum

Well-preserved textiles from royal burials

Healed cranial surgery, trepanation to relieve pressure from concussion

Ricardo shows us the many different forms of the god Mama Huaco, with multiple vertical mouths, and shown holding a staff on each side. This image has preserved itself through eons in various Peruvian cultures; he says it has even been absorbed into Catholicism in the image of the black Jesus of Aguas Calientes, a crucifix apparently darkened by candle smoke, and allowed by the Spanish church to stay dark because it appealed to the Peruvian people. Ricardo also shows us the common images of the owl, the panther and the snake, representing the Incan gods of the sky, the world we live in, and the underworld. He shows us some images of cuy, or guinea pigs and comments that Peruvians know they are often children's pets in the U.S. He says “We love your pets – they're delicious.”

We go on the the private Larca Museum, a famous repository of Peruvian pottery. Ricardo tells us that the thousands of faces we see formed into clay pots are believed to be actual portraits of the people of the time. He points out that everyone seems to be shown, young, old, amputees, conjoined twins, dwarves, the young, the old. The textiles are also amazing, the intricate weaving and beautiful colors have been well preserved in this dry climate. Ricardo cautions us that the fabrics and fine metalworking that we see have been found in royal graves; very little is known about the lives of the common people. The royals were buried in the fetal position, so they'd be ready for rebirth into the next life.

At the Larca Museum

Our guide, Ricardo

Pottery believed to be actual ancient portraits

One of the many galleries at the Larca Museum

I ask Ricardo about the highland areas on the slopes of the Andes – I've been intrigued by a photo book in the lobby of our hotel showing the beautiful landscapes of the north, where the east slope of the Andes drops toward the Amazon below. I found, however, that there were no flights to this area. He says it's because much of the area was depopulated during the time of the Shining Path, from 1980 to 1999 (there are still a few places where they are active). Much of the population fled to Lima due to the violence. The Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) was the Peruvian Maoist Party whose methods included brutal terrorism against rural farmers, trade unions and government officials. It's founder, Abimael Guzman, was a former university professor of philosophy, who is now in jail. Their methods included strangulation, throat slitting, stoning and burning. One of their beliefs was that they would not accord dignity to the bodies of their victims through burial. The group was so opposed to capitalism that they attacked local market places, the heart of peoples' livelihood. The government's eventual response included arming right-wing paramilitary groups, who engaged in their own forms of violence; in total about 70,000 people were killed. The President of Peru during much of the violence, Alberto Fujimori, is in prison for governmental human rights violations during that period.

Incan royal gold, a few pieces that didn't get melted down into ingots.

Ceviche for the main course, Lima

Our last night in Lima we have an unusual phenomenon – rain!, or at least a light drizzle. It rarely rains in summer, and actually rains very little here at all. As we walk back to the hotel from dinner we decide we won't miss the heavy traffic, kamakazee bus drivers, unguarded major intersections and unregulated taxis with no meters in Lima.

Cusco and Machu Picchu

We fly over the Andes to Cusco, which is just on the eastern side of the Andean mountain peaks. Cusco is at over 11,000 feet in elevation, and immediately I don't feel well. I figure it's altitude sickness and it will pass – I'm weak, want to sleep all the time, my balance is off, I have a constant headache, and Doug says I'm wheezing at night. I have alternate chills and fevers. Hence, I have no photos of Cusco.

Peruvian mom with baby in traditional sling

Wearing the Peruvian cloth sling, ready to carry anything

We're met at the door of our hotel by a travel agent who has an office next door. She's selling, of course, package tours to Machu Pichu. We don't want to go in a bus with a pack of other people, so she offers us a private tour and convinces us that tomorrow will probably be the best weather. It's rainy season here, and sunny days aren't common. I'm convinced I'll feel better in the morning, so we decide to do it. This means we need to leave right away this evening, take a 90 minute cab ride to the village of Ollataytambo, then get on the train for another 90 minutes to get to Aguas Calientes. We'll spend a night in Aguas Calientes in order to get into Machu Picchu early in the morning. Aguas Calientes is the closest town to Machu Picchu, and you can only reach it by train. The agent buys the tickets for us, and we manage to negotiate all this, and check into our Aguas Calientes hotel about 11:00 pm.

Weaver in native dress, Peru

Coco leaf seller

Harpist at Pisac

In the morning our guide Edwin meets us at the hotel and the three of us get on the shuttle bus up the hairpin mountainside road to Machu Picchu. The weather is as promised – warm and sunny. Machu Picchu is not as high as Cusco, and the countryside here is beautiful. Tall, steep mountains dripping with greenery – ferns and orchids and streams and birds. Machu Picchu is so remote it was not discovered by the Spaniards when they arrived in Peru. Edwin tells us that Peru is experiencing a resurgence of Inca pride – some people who have been raised Catholic, like himself, prefer to be respectful of the mountains and the waters that give life, rather than respectful of the traditional church. Even within the Catholic church, many images here have a native flavor. For example, the Virgin Mary is often shown in a skirt that shows the rivers of the mountains flowing around her hem.

Machu Picchu

The Urubambu River, surrounding Machu Picchu on three sides

The temple of three windows, Machu Picchu

The Incans didn't live in the valleys, they saved the valley soils for crops, and were aware that they were safer from landslides living higher up the slopes. Their towns were specialized – some were for training priests, some for training architects, some for astronomers, etc. They recruited young men for training based on their natural abilities.

Machu Picchu is everything I expected, a stunning setting and amazing stonework. In a few places the park has replaced the wood beams and thatched roofs so you can get an idea of what it would have been like to live here. Only the royals lived in the stone buildings, workers lived outside of the main area. Clearing, research and restoration are ongoing. Archeologists are still unsure what Machu Picchu was and how it was used. The current theory is that it was a mountain retreat and holy place for the Incan king Pachacuti, who lived from 1438 to 1472. Edwin shows us the stone channels that drop water into sacred pools, and the altars and stones that allowed them to predict the solstices and equinoxes. He shows us the image of the condor, which the Incas believed transported the souls of the dead into the next world.

Solstice & Equinox predictor, the "Hitching Post of the Sun", Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu Lawnmowers

Apparently the Incas believed that a soul could be reborn, but not always and never right away. The Incas were buried in the fetal position so they would be ready for rebirth. Machu Picchu is surrounded by 1500 foot cliffs ending at the Urubambu River which surrounds it on three sides. During the solstices and equinoxes the rising and setting sun aligns with the temple structures and with the holy mountains surrounding the site. The Incas used natural mountain springs to construct channels and fountains to bring water into Machu Picchu. The area includes four times the agricultural terraces that were needed to support it's population at it's peak. The stone homes of the royal families were laid out to take maximum advantage of the sun for natural light. The trapezoidal doors and windows tilt slightly inward, making the structures earthquake resistant. L-shaped blocks wrap around corners, adding to the strength of the walls. Artifacts found at the site include products of the west coast of Peru as well as the Amazon basin to the east. And toys found here indicate that the Incas knew how to make a wheel and axle, but the steep terrain and lack of strong draft animal made the wheel impractical for transportation.

Doug takes a walk to the sun gate, which was the last stop on the Inca trail before reaching Machu Picchu. My energy is flagging, so I lay down in a grassy area and take a nap while he hikes this small section of the Inca Trail. It starts to drizzle, but my poncho is just long enough to reach from my hat to the tips of my shoes, so I have a pleasant nap listening to the rain fall on the poncho. Doug returns about an hour later, pretty tired. The Incan paths probably were smoother a few hundred years ago, now the stones have shifted enough to make them a hard slog.

The Incans used knotted strings to keep numerical records, but did not have a written language. They were very well organized administratively, and chasqi runners relayed messages along the Inca trails from the king to his various regional administrators. They also brought the king fresh fish from the coast in two days. The runners would go 1.4 kilometers at top speed. There had relay stations every 1.4 k and there was always another runner ready to take the message the next step. The penalty for a runner messing up the king's message was to be tossed down the cliff.

Edwin says each Incan male was required to provide three months of labor per year to the king. That explains how they managed to build Machu Picchu by hand, using stone tools, in 25 to 30 years. UNESCO has asked Peru to limit visitors to 2,500 per day (we're in the off season, so didn't need to contend with nearly so many). But Peru is a poor country and Machu Picchu is a major source of income, so Peru has not limited visitors. Edwin says only 10% of the visitor fees generated here at Machu Picchu come back for research and restoration, the rest is used by the central government, mostly for social programs.

Our guide Edwin at Machu Picchu

The next day Doug walks around Cusco a bit, while I try to sleep off the altitude sickness. Then we decide to walk to Sacsayhuaman, the Incan ruins on the north edge of town. Like everything else in Cusco, it's very steep. As we're puffing up the steps we meet a guy selling horse rides. He assures us it'll be a great ride and easy to see the ruins from horseback. We agree – but this is not one of our better decisions. We have to pay for the cab ride to the “stable”,and our guide turns out to be an 11-year-old boy who speaks no English, follows our horses on foot, never indicates which way to go, but yells when we start to go the wrong way. It starts to rain as soon as we get on the horses, so the narrow rocky path we're climbing becomes a slippery, narrow, rocky path. When we get close to Sacsayhuaman the boy holds the horses by the reins and indicates we should walk thataway for about 10 minutes. We're nowhere near the main part of the ruins, and have no way of knowing what we're looking at. After we remount and go on in the rain, we decide we're not enjoying the ride and it is probably getting a bit dangerous due to the slippery soil. After much broken Spanish on my part, and lots of raised eyebrows and arm-waving by the boy, we manage to communicate that we want to end the ride wherever we can catch a cab back to Cusco. He leads us to a ridge where we can see buildings below, tells us to get off, points down the hill, and asks for a propina (a tip). We walk down the hill and find we're actually on the outskirts of Cusco, and two bus rides brings us back close to our hotel.

Condor at the animal rescue center

Condor landing in the grass

The following day we hire a cab and a guide to see the sacred valley, the beautiful green area along the Urubamba River, where the Peruvian government has limited development. First we visit a small non-profit animal rehabilitation center, where we learn that an alpaca is a cross between a vicuna and a llama, and that a puma can leap 20 feet to catch prey. They also have several condors, which fly across the enclosure and land near us, giving us a great view of this great bird. These animals have all been rescued, mostly from private owners. Though the goal is to return the animals to the wild if possible, but our guide says none of the animals we've seen today will be able to return. Our guide also shows us the small stuff. There is a tiny worm that lives in cactus plants. Since Incan times people have collected these worms, which they press to make a bright red dye that is still used to color their yarn.

In the Sacred Valley

Next we visit Pisac, which truly gives us the understanding that Machu Pichu was just one of many cities in the mountains built by the Incas. Pisac's Incan ruins include a temple of the sun, water fountains, baths and altars. There are extensive agricultural terraces, with complex construction. Each terrace has is a porous gravelly base, covered by sandy soil, and finished with topsoil. The Pisac area was apparently one of the first places where the Incan people specialized in growing corn, and there are still a wide variety of corn species grown here.

In the sacred valley, the bottom lands were saved for agriculture

Incan terraces at Pisac

Doug takes a hike up the ruins; I'm still feeling punky so I sit and talk with Gladys about modern Peru. She says like many other developing nations, young people are flocking to the cities and delinquincy and drug and alcohol problems are growing. She says a 2012 survey showed that a quarter of Peruvians are malnourished. Sometimes, in the isolated highland villages, a teacher will spend four days of the week walking in and walking out, and one day teaching. These same high villages are subject to loss of their crops in periodic freezes. There is one species of potato, however, that is not good to eat unless it has been repeatedly frozen at night and thawed during the day.

We go on to the village of Ollataytambo, which preserves many Incan walls into builidings that are still in use. In Incan times king Pachacuti built his town and ceremonial center here. The village was originally laid out in the shape of a corn cob. Our next stop is Moray, a huge ring of concentric terraces that is believed to have been used for agricultural experimentation. The Incas used the various elevations to determine the best crops to grow at various altitudes. The center of the ringed terraces has no visible outlet for water, but Gladys says it has never flooded, so clearly the Incas constructed some internal drainage system. Our final stop is Maras. Here, a hot spring in the side of the mountain brings very salty water to the surface. The Incas built hundreds of shallow ponds to dry the water and collect the salt. These salt ponds are still in use today, having stayed in the same families for generations.

Incan fountains at Pisac

Incan water channels

There's a lot more of Peru we haven't seen, but you can't see it all, at least on one trip. We haven't gone into the Amazon Basin at all, or seen the desert, and there are lots of other cites to visit some other trip.

Incan experimental agricultural station, Moray

Incan salt evaporation ponds, still in use by local families

Incan granary, built high on the hillside