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Cusco, Peru and Copacabana, Bolivia- According to the Incan creation myth, the creator god Viracocha emerged from the waters of Lake Titicaca and created the sun, moon and stars. The sun sent his son, Manco Capac, and the moon sent her daughter, Mamo Ocllo, to the surface of the lake, born from the Sacred Rock of the Isla del Sol, to found the Incan empire in Cusco. The empire spread throughout the Sacred Valley of the Incas and high up into the surrounding mountains. The architectural and astronomical wonder known as Machu Picchu is just one of many stone villages and fortresses found in the sacred valley. At its height in the mid 1500s, before the Spanish arrived, the empire spread from Ecuador to Chile. It’s center was Cusco.

What was the center of Incan culture is now the gringo capital of Peru. And along with the gringos come droves of poor Peruvians, most of Incan descent, trying anyway they can to make a living from the money we seem to carry in endless supply. From high dollar posh hotels and luxury train tours to dirty shoeshine boys and little girls selling finger puppets for pennies, the visiting gringo is inundated with constant persistent requests to buy something. “No gracias” is the gringo mantra, chanted over and over. Some people just print it on their shirts. Cusco has everything. There are Irish pubs, discos, expensive jewelry and art boutiques, shiatsu parlors, bungee-jumping parks, whatever you want, all literally built upon Incan ruins. After the Spaniards sacked the city and killed the inhabitants, they simply built their colonial mansions right on top of the existing Incan stone foundations (Typical Cusco alley with Incan stone foundation shown right). As a symbol of their triumph, they purposely constructed their (quite amazing) churches over previous Incan temples. It is widely believed that the famous lost treasure of the Incas is buried in tunnels underneath the city. (more…)

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La Paz, Bolivia- It’s been weeks since my last post. I skipped through Lima, stopping only long enough to catch a night bus out. It´s smoggy and dirty and surrounded by endless slums built on lifeless desert sand and grit. I didn’t stop to visit the more upscale areas, which I´m sure would have given a different impression. But what I saw on the way in and out was enough. It’s the inverse of most American cities, where the wealthy suburbs sprawl out from an often impoverished core. In Lima, the wealth is concentrated in a few exclusive areas and the poverty just spreads out in all directions forever.

I didn´t like it. So I headed back up into the mountains. Such a contrast. It could only be an act of desperation that would drive so many campesinos from the almost idyllic Andean hillsides to the harsh life (it seems to me) of the Lima “suburbs”. I spent several days working my way through central Peru on local buses crawling over gutted roads, sometimes 10-15 hours a day, just to travel a few hundred kilometers. I felt like I was seeing Peruvian life as it is. No tours, nothing packaged or presented, very few gringos. … and then I landed in Cusco.

But I’m out of time on this drunk snail of an internet connection here in my hostel in La Paz. I have to get up at 5am to ride a mountain bike along “the worlds most dangerous road” in the mountains above La Paz, and then I´m heading off to the jungle for several days. As luck would have it, about a dozen young hip backpackers in the hostel have just decided to have a big party right outside my door. God grant my earplugs strength.

So Cusco will have to wait. And Machu Picchu. And Lake Titicaca and the Island of the Sun. Each of which deserve a full post in themselves. It has been an amazing couple of weeks. And now I`m off for another week of adventure. It´s a big commitment to try to keep up the travelogue. Each post can take hours, depending on the connection and the number of pictures I put up. But I will try to dedicate a day to writing when I return to La Paz in a week. The stories are worth telling.

There are many new pictures in the Peru section of Photos- including the sunrise over Machu Picchu.

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Huaraz, Peru- The village of Huaraz, at 3,091 meters, is a launching pad for the hundreds of trekkers and mountain climbers heading out into the Cordillera Blanca or Cordillera Huayhuash, two spectacular mountain ranges in central Peru. From Huaraz alone you can see 23 snow-crested peaks over 5,000 meters, including the highest mountain in Peru, Huascaran at 6,768 meters (roughly 22,200ft). After warming up in Chachapoyas by climbing through the mud and rain up to the massive mountain-top Pre-Incan walled city of Kuelap (see Photos), I decided it was time to head to Huaraz and spend a few days trekking at some higher altitudes. Two nights traveling in rather luxurious buses and I arrived in Hauraz at 5am, bleary-eyed and hungry. I was immediately beset by several ¨capturadoras¨ offering “un buen precio” on various treks and hostels. Knowing better than to ever follow a tout, I nevertheless let one lead me to a spot for breakfast.

The breakfast was nice, and Percy was persuasive and persistent. Before I knew it I was following him to a small home with cheap rooms and listening to his pitch selling treks in the Cordillera Blanca. Over a cup of mate coca (coca leaf tea- good for altitude adjustment), I told him that I had to check other agencies for prices. I went to one other place in town and was quoted a price of over $300 for a 4 day trek from LLanganuco to Santa Cruz. As I left the place, Percy magically appeared and offered the same trek for $120, leaving the next day. Figuring I was getting a good deal, I handed over the cash. I spent the afternoon hiking up to a viewpoint above Huaraz, surrounded by striking rugged mountain peaks. Then I returned to the home/hostel for my first taste of Cuy (Guinea Pig) roasted over hot coals by a very pleasant señora in traditional garb with silver-capped teeth. Despite the rat-like feet sticking out of the hind quarter I was served, the cuy was quite tasty, somewhere between chicken and pork. The family pets agreed, the dog sitting at attention salivating quietly, the cat mewing loudly and pawing at my plate. I was thinking- it’s a fine line between family pet and dinner on the table.

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Chachapoyas, Peru- I am always amazed at the difference a border can make. These political lines we draw in the sand marking our territory apart from theirs can seem so arbitrary. The border at La Balsa from Ecuador to Peru is just a simple bridge over a river. There is no indication that things will be different once you cross to the other side. But within minutes of crossing, Peru started to reveal itself. The open-sided trucks (rancheras) of Ecuador turned into small Toyota wagons, in which you were expected to cram up to eight grown men (3 across the front- knees up to allow the stick to shift. 3-4 in the rear seat. One more plus produce or animals in the hatch). The grey concrete-block homes turned into mud-brick huts. (picture of mud home to left) The hills grew rockier and more spare. Drivers dodged black sheets full of coffee beans laying out on the roads to dry. We made our way to the steep village of San Ignacio, where I switched from a car and crammed into a combi van with about 20 other people, then descended for hours along a river valley to Jaèn. The milk cows of Ecuador turned into longhorn cattle, with groups of them wandering along and blocking the roads. Acres and acres of rice paddies appeared, old men thrashing armfulls of grain against the ground. Smoke filled the sky from the burning of harvested fields. The towns grew even more haphazard and cacophonous and dusty. Ecuador is not rich. Peru is poor. (more…)

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