Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is 4 hours from Cusco via a very comfortable train that winds its way slowly, slowly, through the countryside. 

This is one of those sites that are known in magazines and TV specials around the world. You've all seen it. But, like Monument Valley, having some inevitable expectations when you arrive doesn't diminish the feeling of astonished wonder when you get there. The Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum in Rome, other places I've been, I've kind of said to myself, yeah, here it is in person. Cool, but it would have been better to keep the surprise. Here, the reality surpasses any iconic ideas laid down by media-saturation.

Ya gotta go. 
So here are some pictures anyway.

Machu Picchu Village: time to switch to the bus

The hill next door

Arriving

The Southbound Inca Trail, where they would just destroy the bridge behind them if pursued

Bromelaids everywhere

The Temple of the Moon, if I remember correctly...

Just imagine that covered in crops

The sights around Cusco

Not even grass growing between the stones, after all the centuries

The first Inca site we visit is Sacsayhuaman (pronounced « sexy woman », a very large complex of terraces and angles made of stonework so perfectly fitted that little has changed in the centuries since its construction. The work is incredible. You won't find anything like it today. Niether time nor wind and rain have reduced the walls to rubble, though earthquakes have taken a toll and the thatched roofs are gone.

Alpacas!

The closest we came to a group photo

Looking down from Sacsayhuaman at the main square of Cusco

The other sites, Tambomachay, Puca Pucara, and Qenqo, are all different and all fascinating. Puca Pucara is a bare lookout hill with a perfect view in all directions, at the point where the roads from the four quarters of the ancient empire came together. Paths, really, not roads, since without heavy pack animals or wheels, they travelled on foot, often single file, along these long distance paths.

The captured spring at Tambomachay

Tambomachay is just across the modern road and a short ways up a canyon: a spring where the paths to the south and west come together. The astonishing Inca stonework makes the spring area look as if it was built just recently. Most of the walls just held up the earth for the nice level terraces - they were never any higher than that.

Unpronouncable (even to our guide!) Qenqo is a maze through a jagged mass of rocks jutting up like fangs from the ground, used for mysterious ceremonies. On the solstice, the shadow of one rock on another makes a sacred puma silhouette. You'd never know just by looking at it today; it's just one rock in front of another.

We have a wonderful visit, and an excellent guide. At times it's a bit ridiculous, though – the people in 'traditional' dress gathered at tourist spots when nobody seems to dress that way anywhere else. The alpacas and llamas paraded around the same photo-op spots when there are only cattle and sheep to be seen on the neighboring farms. 

At the hotel in the evening the group is divided between those who prefer to turn right around and go out for dinner, and those who prefer to wait just a little because 7 just isn't « dinnertime ». So the Scandanavians go in one group, and the rest of us (all 3 of whom live in France, although only one is French) take a longer break first. It's unlikely we'd find a table for 13 anyway.

Before Xana ('shana', short for Alexandra), JB and I go out, it starts to rain, and rain pretty good. I've finished my shower and am having a quick nap (jetlag!) when I hear dripping and other noise in my bathroom. The ceiling leaks in there, and the plaster just above the sink is coming down in sodden chunks. I ask if I can change rooms, and tonight the hotel is full, but tomorrow they'll move me. I'm not the only one to move – Inge comes back from dinner to find a leak over her bed has made things rather uncomfortable as well. In fact, the whole idea of water-tight building appears not terribly important here, with leaks all around.

Heading for Cusco

At the airport we are even more than previously. 13, I think, though it's hard to tell, with people coming and going. Our flight was listed for 10:00 on our e-tickets, but is posted at the airport for 9:30 (since when are flights half an hour early??) and doesn't board until 10:20 (never mind...). No matter. We are all together and we will be met in Cusco for lunch and an afternoon tour of the city. Over an extended coffee pause I'm introduced to friends of friends and indirect colleagues whose names I instantly forget, but there's a good atmosphere; a good feeling about this trip.

Wait, let me write them down. Helle, Eva, Inge, Mef, Patrick, Pauline, Carl, Erasmus, Christina, Jenny, Alexandra, and Jean-Baptiste.

They pretty much all know each other already, everybody naturally knows Mev, and to my surprise most have heard of me. Only the couple working in France, Alexandra and Jean-Baptiste, don't already know the Scandanavians. It's a fun group so far, nice and casual and with lots in common but also more to talk about than our common work.

Our Cusco hotel has a glorious little courtyard with the rooms all around on 3 levels. We're treated to coca-leaf tea, which is recommended in quantity to combat the least signs of altitude sickness. Coca leaf is a cure for all ills here, to which we all nod and agree before heading out for the city tour. Lunch, we gradually discover, is not a big thing here – graze if you're hungry!

The view from the rooftop terrace.

Mosiac on a wall of St Catherine's

The first stop is in the center of town, at the church and convent of St Catherine (?) built on the site of the Inca Sun Temple. The colonizing Spaniards made sure that all the impor:tant holy sites in the city were not put into competition with the Church, but were taken over/crushed by/hidden under the buildings of the new order. So this major temple became the building site of a church and monastery, as did other sites across the continent. We are here today for a tour on Inca history, and as we go around the cloister not a word is said about history any more recent than that of the coming of the conquerers and the building of the convent. This will be a constant theme, the deep interest in everything pre-Columbian, a little on the painful conquest itself, and then not more than a brief nod to Peruvian independance.

One of the Inca bits of the remaining Sun Temple

Random street in Cusco

It's a little later in the day than planned, so we skip a second planned stop in the city, in order to have sunlight for the Inca sites surrounding the city. 

Arriving in a new continent

Approaching Lima it occurs to me that my friend & host Mev has all my travel arrangements for the next week, including the reservation for tonight's hotel. All I have is a name; I have no idea where it is. Mev offered to have me at her house, but as we're flying out again early for Cuzco and it'll be 3am Paris time by the time I get through customs and all, I figured all I'd want to do is crash anyway. I'm not very sociable when I'm that tired.

My bag is among the last to appear on the carrousel, and when I finally - nearly 2 hours after deplaning - get to the main hall, the others in our group have all been herded together by Mev and her mom. I didn"t know we would be so many! There aren't many flights from western Europe, so it makes sense the seven of us were all on the same one. All the others are staying at the apparently gigantic Dominguez house and now I fell awkward not to do the same. 

I regret the choice even more when I see my sad hotel, but it's too late now. It's a little place in a poor-ish neighborhood just next to the airport. For $60 I expected more, like a shower I'd be happy to shower in, and fewer holes in the tiles or gaps in the paint on the walls. Still, it's fairly clean (just old & rundown), reasonably safe and the bed is perfectly comfortable and that's what matters most.

The view from my room.

In the morning I have time to walk around the park across the street before Michel comes for me at 7:30. Everything reminds me of Algeria and Marrakech, from the tile & linoleum in the rooms to the unfinished upper floors of the buildings, the flat roofs with laundry strung out to dry, the debris in the streets, to the stray (but not threatening) dogs wandering about. Just change the minarets for churches and take out 90% of the satellite dishes, and you have Lima.

The park across the street

Michel is late, and Oscar the hotelman takes an interest in me. At first it's nice to chat - as we can with my nonexistent Spanish and his lack of English - and it's friendly of him to offer to arrange my transportation to the airport. But with time he to starts seriously hit on me: how beautiful I am, my lovely eyes, how long am I staying in Lima, can he see me... He loves me so, I may stay for free here if I would just come back! When I pretend to have a boyfriend he backs off a little and it's a relief to see Michel's car turn the corner.

Nov 16

It's like this all the time now, no matter how much I'd like to catch up and not always be running after deadlines already gone. It's not as if I didn't know I didn't know I would be leaving for Peru today, or that this package had to get out to Romania ASAP, or any of the other things.

I was happy to have an afternoon flight, thinking I'd get all the work stuff done Thursday no matter how late I'd have to stay. Then I could sleep in on Friday, go down to the store for just a bit more catlitter, and make my easy way to the airport.

And it could have been that way if...

... if only my Thursday at the office hadn't been shortened by an imperative to be home by 7 to hand the keys over to the cat guy. Then he was late coming over and by that time I figured I'd stay at home and just go in briefly in the morning to take care of the last details.

In the morning I still wanted to sleep in, so I did. 

And I still needed to top off the catlitter stock, and took time.

And then my boss noticed I was in, and mentioned I should include the pathology department in the little grant we're submitting, a last minute change that makes perfect sense - he's right to have me add it - but it wasn't the print & sign, in & out, that I'd expected.

Taking care of that pushed back getting the package to Romania to the mail office. And that meant I wasn't there to oversee the whole process, and I'd forgotten that the form has to go through the logistics office as well before it's approved. So I gave everything to the mail guy at 11:40, who said it was all in order, and hightailed it to the airport. I learned later that the logistics guy didn't sign before the 3pm deadline, which meant the package could not go out that day but came back to the lab, where I had neglected to warn anybody this might happen. Because the mailguy said it was good to go! So nobody knew what to do with it, and that got around to the boss, who put another black mark next to my name. Just stick it in the fridge for the weekend, and Monday it will leave for the east.

Sigh.

Now in Paris, waiting to fly to Amsterdam. As if that eastward city were between me and my destination, Lima. There's a comfy hotel and a nice glass of wine on the program for tonight, before taking off tomorrow for my 5th continent. Waiting around, I realize I didn't take a spare camera battery. Wonder how much charge I have left ... 2%... great. 10 pictures and I'm done.

In Amsterdam they take their time getting our bags to the carousel. Plenty of time to learn the many ways of getting to the city.

1. taxi. Leaving any time, takes about 30 minutes, costs about 43€

2. shuttle. Leaving every 30 minutes, takes about 30 minutes, costs 15.50€

3. train. Leaving every 10 minutes, takes 12 minutes, costs 3.90€

There will always be taxi people, and they do go exactly to your destination. But who's taking the shuttle?

Schiphol Airport is kind of a big shopping mall with planes. Happily, there is an electronics store just by the exit to the hotel shuttles. They don't have my particular battery, but they have better: a universal charger that will take my dead battery and charge in at wall sockets, or even car cigarette lighters, around the world. Better than the one I left at home. Can rest easy tonight.