MACHU PICCHU

Here are some pics of Machu Picchu. The more classic pics are on another CD - I took these on the second day we visited Machu Picchu.

IQUITOS MARKET

One of the coolest things about Peru are the outdoor markets - Shipshewana like assemblages of fruit carts, butchers, bakers, and little shops selling nearly everything else under the sun. There is an energy to the street vendors and sprawling blocks of hastily constructed tables that is missing from just about every American city save New York or San Francisco. I could speculate why that is but I think the fact is just as basic and obvious as the understanding that America is no longer a communal place - we drive home from work in our cars and reverse the trend in the morning. Peru is still largely a country where people gather - they gather in huge churches, they gather in the many plazas, they gather at the beaches, and they gather at the markets when they wish to buy thing. At night, when the teenagers wheel out their iron carts of bubbling hot grease to make churros and crepes, the feeling becomes less like a flea market and more like a county fair - in addition to having the hot fried dough shoved in your face, you also have your barnyard animals wandering about, some for sale, some just domesticated and collared. Music - invariably Dire Straits or Rod Stewart or some other group or artist that last had an international hit in 1987 - blares from battered stereos. On some blocks, street musicians perform with their pan flutes and guitars.

The Iquitos market was the most interesting market that I went to in Peru. This is the case partly because Iquitos is a jungle town, and there is no difficulty in selling alligator tail or fried monkey arms (which I did not decide to take a picture of) or anacondas in a bottle. An entire row of the market is dedicated to the selling of jungle herbs and roots, and there was no shortage of American hippies, self-proclaimed "shamans" scouring the aisles for the next combination of plant derivatives to divine their third eye.

These pictures below were snapped during my last day in Iquitos, as I quickly walked through the market and snapped some pictures. It is difficult to capture the energy of a place in pictures, but hopefully some of these are interesting. Notice the alligator tail in one picture and the conchas in another.

KUELAP

Information about the ancient mountain citadel of Kuelap can be found here.

Like many of the places I visited in Northern Peru, where there seem to be no other backpackers, I wandered alone through the ruins of Kuelap for over an hour without seeing another person. A bewitching, haunting place, and an incredible experience.

JUNGLE FUN

IQUITOS

HEADING TO THE JUNGLE

Looking out on the Amazon River at dusk.

UPDATE

I am alive and well in Peru. Unfortunately, I have found - perhaps predictably - that at the end of a long day of hiking, sightseeing, and eating delicious churros, I´m not exactly clamoring to sit behind a computer for a couple of hours and recount my experiences. I wish I were, because I´d like this blog to be a nice account of my travels. However, at the present moment I just don´t have the concentration to really get all of my thoughts down on paper (in code?) and at the moment I don´t see that condition changing. There have been other setbacks, as well, like finding most internet places ill-equipped to handle my camera, and then, negating the former problem, having my camera break during a camping trip. Anyway, maybe someday soon I´ll hit a wall and spend an entire day just relaxing and writing and checking the entertainment section of CNN.com. Until then, I´ll keep posting pictures when I can. Suffice it to say, I´m having a great time, though am occassionally bummed to meet other backpackers who have the ability to spend a year of two traveling throughout all of South America (losers, right? - I mean, come on, get a job already). But I´m getting some great ideas of where to go next - want to go to Colombia with me, mom? - and am meeting some really interesting people.

Below are some pictures of Bolivia and Lake Titicaca and La Isla Del Sol.


Coralie and I had the unique opportunity to catch a Lucha Libre wrestling match in Bolivia. We arrived in Copabana, a little village on the shores of Lake Titicaca, at 7PM on a Friday night. The event was scheduled to start at 8, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed for the town square. I had read about the women wrestlers of Bolivia in this New York Times article about a year ago and was not expecting the good fortune of actually stumbling across a match during my limited time in Bolivia, but I guess my karma was good for that day. Certainly one of the highlights of the trip so far.


The pavilion was dark so all of my pictures turned out blurry. This is as good as it gets, sadly. The women wear traditional dresses but that is the only traditional thing they do. They fly around the ring slamming into each other and pull hair, throw chairs, and everything else the men do.


To one side of Copacabana sits a steep hill, upon which the stations of the cross have been planted. Bolivianos from all over the country pilgrimage to the site and walk up the steep hill. Inexplicably, at one of the stations, parrots sit tied to the cross and try to talk to you. Spanish speaking parrots. Not really the best conversationalists in the world.

Ok, well, this is exactly what I didn´t want to do, but I´ll have to take a raincheck and try to post more pictures later. It´s taking about 10 minutes to load each individual picture, I have no idea why, and I need to be moving on out. Hopefully in Chachapoyas, where I´m headed next, there is quicker internet service. However, considering it´s in the middle of nowhere, I really doubt it.

I´ll leave you, though, with a picture of the sunset over Lake Titicaca. In the foreground you can see the motorcycle that Coralie and I rented for the day and rode around the city and through the hills, visiting ruins and such. Ah, the good ole days. Take care, everyone.

PERUVIAN POLITICS

One more thing, while I wait for the bus to Lima. This Sunday, Peru will be holding their national election for president. Neither candidate can be considered positive for the country, and most people are resigned to the fact that whoever is elected is going to be a disaster.

On the one hand is Alan Garcia, a charismatic orator who already served as Peru´s president in the early 1980s and is roundly considered the worst leader in the country´s history. During his tenure, inflation soared over 3,000 percent. Before his term ended in a shroud of conspiracy, he left the country to live in exile. It is widely assumed that he had pilfered money and lined his own coffers during his time in office. The funny thing is that currently, Garcia is leading in all of the polls. Now, I know what you´re thinking - why would the people of Peru elect the worst president in the history of their country a second time?

Well, I guess the only answer is that American influence spreads further than Coca-Cola and Michael Hasselhoff.

The other candidate, Ollanta Humala, is a former military leader who was relieved of his post in the Army after attempting a coup in 2000. I think that in most countries that would win you a date with Monsieur Guillotine, but apparently not in Peru. His idea of a strong and united Peru is one in which the gays are killed, foreign corporations are expelled, the military is aligned with Russia, and a war with Chile commenced. He has ties to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

To be honest, I think that Humala would make an awful president and would further ruin this already struggling country, but in a selfish way I am hoping he wins. The reason I´m willing to sacrifice the future of all Peruvians for my own flippant desire is because I´m actually a bit frightened that if Humala loses the election, he will declare it fraudulent and attempt to take control of the government through less democratic means. And I don´t really want to be around for that.

Luckily, I´m leaving Ayacucho tonight - in the 80´s and 90´s Ayacucho was the hotspot for Shining Path terrorist activity - and heading north before the election, where I hope things are a little bit more mellow. Even if things get dicey, though, I have my Swiss army knife and my water purifier. And let´s not forget that I once successfully participated in that proud band of brothers, the Webelos.

In other words, if it comes down to me against the world, I´ll at least know how to make a hobo hamburger in a bonfire.

So, well, you know. That´s something.

WWTRD?

What would Teddy Roosevelt do?

Well, I just spent an hour detailing my trip to Bolivia and Lake Titicaca, and the power in the entire city of Ayacucho went out. I don´t really have the energy at the moment to retrace everything again and infuse my tale with the same level of devastating wit and heart-breaking pathos that I think we can all agree is certainly not becoming my trademark.

Tonight I motor back to Lima and then tomorrow it´s up to Huaraz in the north, where I hope to do some hiking.

When I get a chance I´ll post some nice pictures and a few words about Copacabana and La Isla del Sol in Bolivia, on the beautiful shores of Lake Titicaca.

AREQUIPA

After the Colca Canyon hike, Coralie and I returned to Arequipa and fell almost immediately asleep, our legs and backs wrecked from the demanding hike that morning. The next day we woke early and performed our mandatory touristic duties by visiting a couple of Arequipa´s most famous destinations. The first stop was a museum that holds the frozen but nearly completely preserved remains of a young Incan princess, sacrificed by her people at the altar of an erupting volcano about 500 years ago. In Incan times, a limited number of the brightest, most attractive children in the empire - mostly heirs to highly prestigious families - were placed in special schools where they ate the finest meals, suffered through the most rigorous studies, and wore the finest clothes. They were treated like gods because their fate was to one day join them. When the time was right and the gods demanded it, the children were carried on the backs of llamas hundreds of miles and up staggering heights to the rims of volcanoes, given a strong sedative so the pain would not be too great, and then, in the midst of ritual and song, clubbed forcefully in the back of the head, their human life ending instantly and their spiritual bodies tranported to live among the gods. It was in this spiritual realm that the children were meant to speak with the gods and ask them to relent their anger on the people of the Incan empire.

The girl preserved in the museum, Juanita, was sacrificed to appease the erupting volcano Misti, an impressively huge mountain that had been spewing ash throughout the area around Arequipa for some time, causing agricultural and health problems for a large swath of people. Since mountains were gods in Incan religion, they assumed Misti the god was angry and demanded a sacrifice. They obliged by giving three of their most beautiful girls, and three of their most beautiful boys. Juanita was the only one of the six that holds the distinction of freezing almost instantly and, later, becoming unfrozen only two weeks before she was found, strokes of luck that aided in her excellent preservation. For a five hundred year old mummy, she doesn´t look half bad, and, as a matter of fact, even Bill Clinton apparently made the remark that "If I were a single man, I might ask that mummy out. That's a good-looking mummy!"

Unfortunately, we are all painfully aware of how lacking in discrimination Bill Clinton can be, and therefore his comment should be taken with a healthy grain of salt. Here´s a good article about Arequipa (and the place where I found the Bill Clinton quote) and here´s the wikipedia article on Juanita.

Later in the day we travelled across town to the Santa Catalina Monestary, a relatively huge complex that rests almost exactly in the center of the town. Created in the sixteenth century, the monestary was completely self-contained - once a nun took a vow to live there, she never left. Outside the monestary, Arequipa is a loud, busy, dusty and dirty place. Inside the monestary feels like another city completely, its orange and blue painted walls and narrow sidewalks giving the impression of a small Mediterranen village. Apparently, nuns still live there but are cordoned off in an area not accessible to tourists. Here are some pictures.


The monestary is filled with small courtyards, most of which contain an orange tree or two.


The orange and blue colors contrast really well in the intense Andean sun.


My uncanny knack for observation couldn´t help but notice that Catholics seem to enjoy displaying the image of Jesus on the cross.


Coralie cranes her neck to read the panels of some truly odd paintings.


The typical bed of a nun living in the monestary.


Outside in another courtyard, light filters nicely through the spaced columns.


Looking down one of the "streets" of the monestary.


Another street. So quiet and peaceful.


Pretty flowers in a window.


The white dome of the cathedral towers over the rest of the monestary.