The Blaus - South America and Europe

28 de Abril - Cusco, Peru

Here in Cusco, we have enjoyed a forced break from being on the go while we await availability on the Inca Trail. We`ve spent evenings playing Spanish Scrabble (with letter tiles like LL, RR and Ñ you can spell words like llama, churro and año) over dinner while sipping on Inca Cola. Inca Cola is the Peruvian-produced rival to Coca Cola, but they are nothing alike, aside from the fact that they both contain caffeine. Inca Cola is flavored with lemongrass and tastes like bubble gum. It is a flourescent yellow color and it is less carbonated than other bottled beverages (we have noticed that drinks like Sprite and beer behave strangely at high altitude). Another beverage that we have discovered here in Peru is Chicha Morada, which is a refreshing purple maize juice drink that looks and tastes a bit like grape juice. Another beverage we have sampled that is also made from maize is Chicha de Jora, which is a frothy beer that is served in a large ceramic mug and sipped with a straw. Chicha de Jora is the alternative to beer, which is expensive here (as it was in Bolivia). A medium size bottle of Cusqueña (the local beer) costs the same as a 3 course meal. We are enjoying the food and drink in this city that caters to the tastebuds of Gringos and also offers the best of traditional Peruvian cuisine, while exploring the less epicurean offerings of Cusco as well.

Cusco (Qosqo in Quechua) is a beautiful locale set in a bowl-like valley amidst green rolling hills. This city is the epicenter for tours to Machu Picchu and other Incan Ruins in the Sacred Valley. Cusco is a modern city of tourism peppered with traces of its history as the ancient capital of the Incan empire. On almost every central street you can find remains of Inca stonework, built by skilled masons hundreds of years ago, which inspire awe and wonder. How were the Incas able to construct walls, temples, and edifices from these heavy stones (often weighing over a ton) that fit together like pieces of a puzzle? We hope to learn more about these hypotheses on our trip to Machu Picchu.

We´ve spent our days walking around the city (to get into shape for the Inca Trail) and getting lost in the windy, narrow cobblestone alleyways of the San Blas district. The streets hidden high up on the hill have names like Siete Diablitos (Seven Little Devils).

We have visited two incredible museums here. Today we went to the Museo Inka to brush up on Incan culture before our hike on the Inca Trail begins tomorrow. We admired Inca ceramics, weavings, wood carvings, metalwork, agricultural innovations and architecture, which provided us with a window into the Incan world. We were even more impressed with the Museo de Arte Precolombino, which houses examples of jewelry, pottery, shells, and wood carvings from civilizations like the Moche, Nasca and Huari. This museum also gave us an idea of how Peru`s ancient people viewed their world and the creatures that inhabited it before the arrival of the Europeans in South America in the late 15th century. Our favorite feature of this museum were the enlightening quotes on the walls about the important influence of pre-Columbian art on the artists in rest of the world (quotes from Pablo Picasso and his peers).

Our Spanish is improving daily. We conducted a pop quiz at breakfast this morning to see if we could name everything on the table as we ate, and then continued to name everything in the restaurant. This is a true measure of progress, because we knew none of these practical nouns when we arrived here 4 months ago. Not that our vocabulary is limited to items found in a restaurant, we have picked up so many words by watching subtitles on TV and from hearing other people speak. We have been writing new words down and trying to commit them to memory everyday. We have made friends with Edoardo, who works at our hostel. He is studying English and Health at the local university. We have breakfast with him every morning and he teaches us Spanish (we speak in English and he speaks in Spanish, so that we can practice and teach each other) and he tells us about his hometown Huancayo in the Peruvian jungle.

We have managed to learn a few travel tips from Dutch travelers (we have learned a thing or two about futbol from them as well...they are soccer fanatics and PSV Eindhoven made it to the semi-finals this year). The Dutch are great travel companions and there are many of them traveling in South America. In fact, they are expert travelers. They have been world travelers since the inception of the Netherlands. Foreign travel, trade, and colonization are part of their rich history. We have spent some time with this Dutch couple that we met in Bolivia, who caught up with us in Cusco. This is the couple that had expired visas in Nigeria. They have told us many stories about their travels in Africa. Another story that we found interesting is that in every hotel room in Ethiopia there is a bible and a condom in the drawer of the bedside table. An ironic combination of things. According to the Dutch couple`s observations, there are high awareness levels about AIDS in Africa today. Condoms are widely available and inexpensive, but unfortunately they are low quality.

The Dutch couple suggested that we go to a restaurant on the main plaza for dinner one night, where we discovered the otra menu (other secret, local menu) under their tutelage. Outside of each of the restaurants and shops on the main square are shoe shine boys, kids selling cigarettes, women and their children selling woven finger puppets, and touts who stand outside of each of the restaurants trying to usher Gringos inside for a free drink or some other tantalizing special offer. The kids who sell woven finger puppets on the street are undeniable. We have bought tons of these finger puppets from these little hustlers. Warning to friends at home--if you have children, you will most likely be receiving one of these woven finger puppets as a souvenir. These Peruvian kids run up to us with a finger puppet on each digit and beg us to buy from them...comprame por favor...so that they can eat lunch or dinner. Peru has well trained young salesmen and saleswomen. They won`t stop following you until you echo the promise of "maybe later." The touts are the most crafty of everyone you encounter, we learned this from the Dutch. They sell you on a menu del dia, in which they offer a 3 course meal for 10 soles ($3 dollars) to get you inside their eatery, then when you sit down at a table they hand you the tourist menu with a la carte items that are each more expensive than the 3 course menu del dia. Bait and switch. The trick is to ask for the other menu everywhere you eat in Peru, even if you did not see it advertised outside the restaurant. Thanks to the Dutch, we are managing to save some money here in Peru, where things are much more expensive than they were in Bolivia.

Cusco, overall, is a beautiful city. It has very well restored churches, classic buildings, cobblestone streets, and small walkways everywhere. The city actually reminds us a lot of Potosi, Bolivia from how it looks. Potosi, however, is much more run down, and without a the large tourist attraction of Macchu Picchu nearby, Potosi has not had the influx of money that Cusco has. We see many of the same features in buildings though, especially the large second story balconies made of carved wood that we have only seen in Potosi before. This is an excellent city to walk around, and even though we have been here for longer than planned, we have enjoyed the time and the city a lot.

posted by The Blaus @ 5:07 PM