Land of the Incas

Day Six – 4 October 2011

Weather: Sunny and that scarf came in handy

Silly me actually set my alarm clock for 5:15 and my wake up call was five minutes later. I could have slept another five minutes!

Up at altitude, the dreams get really good.

I put out my luggage and went down for another omelet. We boarded the small buses for the short drive to the big bus where one of the other single females rotated to the front seat for the 10 hour drive.

Then she found out Luis was sitting next to her for half the trip.

<sigh>

Yeah…us single females have been swooning.

We set off driving south towards Puno. Luis is going to be with us until lunch where we leave the Cusco region and enter the Puno region. We also have two stops to make this morning. The first is to another church in a very nice little town called Andahuaylillas.

And yes, I’m reading that off the stub I got for the church.

Like San Blas, this one also had an altar going from floor to ceiling with some very intricate work. It’s undergoing restoration now and in half the church is a unique scaffolding that is literally supporting a second floor of planks close to the ceiling.

Guess Michelangelo would have loved that.

I picked up a bottle of Inka Kola (the caffeine works as a stimulant to pump the red blood cells as we climb). Luis was telling us that once we’ve been at altitude and the body learns to produce more hemoglobin, it takes about a week for it to slow back down once we get back home.

So, that’s the time to run the Boston Marathon.

We left the little town and drove for 1 ½ hours to an archeological site at Racchi.

This has a three story wall left from a huge building built between 1340-1350. It doesn’t have the same precise stonework that we saw in Cusco and Machu Picchu, but the remaining wall was impressive. Reminded me a little of Ephesus.

Luis told us that it had been generally believed that the highland people didn’t have a written language yet managed to pass on the knowledge of cutting the stones with such incredible precision.

Then one man discovered that it might be in the weavings of carpet and clothes where you find a lot of geometrical shapes. He spent years researching it and found that the Andean language contained ten consonants, each corresponding to a number and a sound. The problem is that the carpets and weavings of the time were destroyed by the Spaniards (since, of course, carpet is not made of gold or silver). What little he has found supports his theory and research continues.

Luis answered a question he had been asked about human sacrifices. He said they had been outlawed and that today they are permitted to sacrifice llamas and alpacas.

Good for us. Not so good for them.

But, he said, there is evidence to support the belief that some highland people are still making human sacrifices to Mother Earth in the south.

It’s where we are going.

He said, sometimes they’ll get someone really drunk and push them off the edge of a volcanic crater.

Of course, my question is how do they get someone that drunk up to the crater without them sobering up en route? Or do they just have parties up there and pick the most inebriated one to give a push to? Gotta wonder if those parties have much attendance. No one here plans to get drunk in Puno.

Luis gave us a few minutes to take pictures. Back in the village, we have to pay 1 Soles to get into the bathroom, but we get a souvenir receipt.

Cool.

These two stops may be offered as an optional on the current version of this tour since this leg is now a flight. Would I recommend it as an optional? Probably not. Unless one has a specific interest in either location, there is more to do in Cusco. It’s a long drive to get there and back to Cusco. For my tour, it was simply on the way.

Back on the bus, we began our climb to the highest elevation on tour – 14,200 feet. Everest is 29,000 feet, so we’re almost half way. The terrain began to turn into pure grasslands as we drove above the tree line.

Cesar said it was too high and too dry for trees to grow. The locals depended mostly on animals for their livelihood. It’s so dry, they grow potatoes and leave them out for several days to dehydrate then they can store them for months.

The grass at this altitude is also very dense and tough as it is full of silicate (think I heard that right). The alpacas have teeth that are constantly regrowing in order for them to eat the grass up here.

Snow capped mountains came into view behind the high foot hills. Luis said they were at 18,500 feet and that the area is the continental divide where water on the west goes to the Pacific and water on the east feeds the Amazon. One peak that he pointed out was the source for the Urubamba River.

We pulled off at the maximum altitude to have lunch. There was a small parking lot full of women selling alpaca stuff. Given that the expected high in Puno is 12 degrees, I bought a Peruvian style cap to wear. It didn’t matter if it was real or not. I just think I’ll want it when we get in the speed boat on Lake Titicaca.

The drivers (yes, we require two drivers to do the 380 km to Puno) passed out box lunches for us. There wasn’t much choice in the matter. Short of pulling off the road and having an alpaca roast, there is simply nowhere between Cusco and Puno to eat. The lunch had a piece of chicken with cooked vegetables, orange cake, orange and apple, juice, small chocolate bar and crackers.

The chicken was pretty tasty. Not sure if it was the way they cooked it or the fact that the chickens here are raised differently. Or maybe it was alpaca and Cesar will tell us later.

I finished what I wanted and asked Cesar if I could give the fruit to the children. He said no problem. So, I gave a little girl both pieces thinking she was sitting next to her mother. The girl took them and held tight. Then the woman next to her held up her hand to her mouth and I pointed to the little girl and the woman shook her head and pointed to another woman standing nearby.

Boy, did I feel like a heel. So, I went back to the group and found someone who wasn’t eating everything and gave the woman the whole box with fruit and crackers and juice.

After taking some pictures, it was time to go, but Luis wasn’t coming with us. I gave him his well deserved tip and he was really humbled that we wanted to come this far to see his home. He has to be one of the best guides I’ve ever had. The amount of patience he had was amazing. It didn’t matter how slow the slowest person was, he was there to make sure they didn’t feel rushed or got left behind.

We left him on the side of the road where he was going to wait for a local bus to take him back to Cusco. There was supposed to be a bus there that he was going to take, but we were too late. There is a fair amount of construction on the highway, so we’ve been delayed a few times. Best part is getting held up by construction when there is a flock of sheep and llamas right outside your window. I must have taken 20 photos of this little guy.

After driving for an hour or so, we pulled up next to a store in a little town where we could have a bathroom break. We have another hour and a half to our next stop, so I picked up another Inca Kola and a bag of chips to tide me over.

The scenery flattened out as we drove. Not much to see except hundreds of llamas, alpacas, sheep and cattle. We drove through Julianco which Cesar said wasn’t a pretty city and that there was nothing there.

Except the airport.

He was right about it being an ugly city. Lima wasn’t very clean and Cusco was actually quite clean, but Julianco was a state. We passed through and soon after turned onto a road where we picked up our local guide, Rosario.

We drove towards an archaeological site called Sillustani (stands for finger nail). En route, she gave us some basic information about the area and the site’s history. She said since there is so little wood at this altitude, that people had adapted to burning animal droppings for fuel and that the droppings were divided into two groups. Large and small.

I’ll leave that to your imagination.

The small stuff is compacted into patties the same way Italians get wine from grapes.

I’ll leave that one to your imagination too.

The compacted patties are better than the large size as it’s less porous and burns longer. There’s apparently quite the “collection” that goes on after they have the livestock market on Saturdays.

A shitty job, but someone has to do it.

She told us that the site was the capital of the Q’olla empire which had built numerous towers in the area.

All except one were destroyed by the Spaniards and the last one was struck by lightning in 1920. They were conquered by the Incas in the 1400s.

The towers are the main attraction at the site. They were burial chambers and built using the same precise stonework. The towers were built somewhat like a finger nail – narrow at the bottom and expanding outwards at the top with one row leaning in on the top to stabilize the structure. The high class were buried in there with their servants.

Not all were volunteers. The servants were killed by stuffing their mouths with cocoa powder than holding their nose so that their next breath brings the dust into their lungs. Archeologists discovered cocoa dust in the lungs of some of the mummies.

The area also practiced human sacrifices in which children were taken from families and brought up to believe this was a great honour through brainwashing so that when the time came, they volunteered.

That actually makes it an “offering” and not a “sacrifice.”

So, if the rains didn’t come or the earth trembled too much, an offering was made. They saw it as one life in exchange for millions.

Rosario put it that way to give perspective noting that all religions had their “sacrifices.”

The Inquisition, for instance.

A sacrifice by any other name.

She showed us an incomplete tower that had been half torn down because the Incas had tried to build it but made a mistake. Archeologists finally figured out that two lower rows had the same size stones when they should have been alternating large small large small for stability.

Earthquakes, you know.

They also inserted one small stone in the structure so that it would pop out in a quake and give the larger stones room to move.

Then she showed us the one perfect tower that had been hit by lightning. Behind it was a huge lake with a mesa type island where one family lived to care for the vicuna on the island.

The sun is quite bright at this altitude. Rosario told us this lake was higher than Lake Titicaca, but that it wasn’t navigable, so Lake Titicaca maintains the record as the highest navigable lake in the world.

She said we were at 13,200 feet and asked if we could smell anything.

Burning compacted patties, I wondered? I couldn’t smell a thing through my sinuses.

Nobody could and she pointed to some lichen on the rocks and said the air was pure enough for the lichen to grow.

Then we began the descent. We had walked up on a long winding flat and wide path and descended down steps.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard. A little hard breathing but again, nothing more than I would do on a similar hike at sea level.

I got back to the bus to find a dog lying down in front. I’m guessing he figured out how to get tips.

Or ear scratches at least.

The ride to the hotel was a further 40 minutes in the dark, so there wasn’t much to see. Rosario pointed out the city lights and said that some say this is when the city looks its best.

Nice to know they can joke about it.

We arrived at the Libertador Hotel which overlooks the lake.

The hotel is 5 star. I got my key and decided to skip dinner. Too many snacks on the bus.

I get to my room, and for the first time in eight tours, I have a single bed!!!

And my first thought was, what’s the big deal? The room is very cozy. I have more room to move around than in some of the rooms I’ve had with one or two beds where I’m always squat between the beds and the wall etc. There is probably enough room here for a double, but you’d have no room to move. With the single bed, I have a space here.

The room also has a TV with Direct TV. I can actually watch Syfy. There’s a bar fridge, robe, hair dryer, shampoo stuff, safe and a great view of the lake. The internet connection sucks though. I can’t even upload my photos or tour tale.