Another cool ancient culture and birds

Our camera, which is supposed to be waterproof and unbreakable, somehow managed to break in my pocket. The screen no longer functions and it seems to have some other problems, which are hopefully all being repaired as I write this. It means we have a shortage of pictures, though, and some of them look like they were taken by a two year old. In any case, here is what we could manage.

This is the Temple of the Sun of the Moche people in Northern Peru (near Trujillo). It was built around 600AD and was apparently the biggest manmade structure in the Americas for a long time. Basically, these people mastered irrigation and fish farming, so life was easy. As a result, they spent all their free time building cool stuff or making good ceramics and jewellery. The excavation of this Temple and the nearby Temple of the Moon is completely privately funded, so it is officially sponsored by a beer company...
Every hundred years or so, a new ruler would come along and decide to build a bigger, better pyramid. They would just fill in the old one with bricks and build on top of it. This means that many of the lower levels were really well preserved once they pulled all the bricks out.

In the Moche culture, you were taxed in bricks. Every family had to make and give a certain number of bricks to the government each year. Because they had no written language, each family would mark its bricks in some way. Some were boring and just used an X. Some had elaborate designs. We liked the smiley face.

This detailed fresco tells the story of the Moches and was on the outside of one of the pyramids. One of the more interesting parts is that they would sacrifice humans when El Nino screwed up the climate. However, unlike the Incas who would sacrifice children, the Moches would let prisoners volunteer to fight in teams of two. The winners got to go free and the losers were sacrificed to the gods. Seems much more reasonable.

Also in the above is the Peruvian Hairless dog (which actually has a bit of hair). They are still popular and considered to have some sort of mystical powers that allow them to heal people. Here is one healing whatever might ail Tara:

After this, we were off to Puerto Lopez in Ecuador. This turned out to be a rough trip. We made it into Ecuador and took a bus to Guayquil. Unknown to us, Ecuador had a four day holiday weekend and it was one of the biggest travel weekends of the year. When we got to Guayquil, it was the busiest bus station we had ever seen. Every line had a couple hundred people waiting to buy tickets. The line we wanted had even more. So, after waiting in line for about an hour and not moving an inch, we broke down and paid the exorbitant sum of $50 to a taxi to take us two hours away to a town where we could catch a local bus. The local bus had about 300 people crammed in, and Tara calls it the party bus due to the loud salsa music being played on it.

Once we made it to Puerto Lopez, it was wet and muddy. Here is the main street. The mud did not win Tara's heart, but the city was much nicer the next day after it had dried out.

Now you can really see the broken camera impact, which is too bad because the pictures would otherwise be nice. We visited Isla de la Plata, which is a small island off the coast where you can find blue footed boobies, red footed boobies, banded boobies, and other inappropriately named birds. Blue footed boobies are definitely one of the best birds anywhere, so it is a shame that they are hard to see in this photo.

Red footed boobies mostly stay in the trees. Here is one where you can just about see the red feet. They aren't as fun looking as blue footed, but still neat.

After that, we were off to Quito. We'll try to put a few of those pictures in our next post.

A tale of two hikes (and an ill-fated horseback ride)

OK, we are out of order a bit here, but before we went to Lima, our first stop after our triumphant return to Peru was Arequipa--Peru's "second city," and the gateway to Colca Canyon, which is deeper than the Grand Canyon and which is where we planned to do a 2-day hiking trip.

I insisted on a day of relaxation in Arequipa before heading to the canyon, and this was a very good decision. Here is a pic of Andy lounging in a city park. Andy is about as good at relaxing as I am at hiking, but he did his best.
So the next day, a bus picked us up at 3:30AM for the six-hour drive to the canyon. Our first stop was Cruz del Condor, where you are supposed to be able to watch enormous Andean condor birds rise up from their nests in the canyon for their morning flight. When we got there it was a little past peak time and we only saw three or four condors, plus the place was overrun with tourists.

This was kind of disappointing for me, because the whole reason I wanted to go to the canyon was to see condors. The hiking trip that was to follow was kind of an afterthought--we'd spent about 30 hours on buses in the previous three days, so I thought a little exercise was called for. Turns out we had signed up for nine hours of strenuous hiking--six hours down and across the floor of the canyon on day one, and a grueling three-hour climb out of the canyon on day two. Oops.

Here's a shot of the canyon. Beautiful surroundings if you have time to appreciate them...which I didn't, really, because I was struggling to keep up with our group.

If you know me, you know that I'm not a very fast hiker on the best of days. But making matters worse, we had been placed in a tour group with six French physical therapists, who apparently like to tear up and down mountains in their spare time, because even at a flat-out run downhill, I couldn´t keep up with them and our guide. They quickly left me and Andy (who surely could have kept up, but was a gentleman and kept me company) in the dust.

I found this frustrating and mildly humiliating, but Andy assured me that it was all in my head, and that no one would care if we were a few minutes behind. Well, no sooner did we catch up with the group at a resting spot, than the guide and one of the French hikers rushed over to me. "Are you OK?? What's the matter?" they asked in very concerned voices. I managed to mumble that I was just fine, but they kept up the solicitations. Thank goodness for Andy, who jumped in. "Nothing is wrong!" he told them, "We just hike a little slower than you do. If you could slow down the pace just a little, we'd appreciate it."

Then the guide knelt down next to me, like I was five years old. "It's hard, isn't it?" she said. "Hey, I like your hiking stick!" It was all I could do not to whack her with it. Luckily, Andy jumped in again and distracted me by challenging me to a twig sword-fight. My twig quickly cut his twig to pieces and I felt much better. How great is Andy?

So the Frenchies took off at breakneck speed again that afternoon, and I did better at keeping up once we switched from straight downhill to more undulating territory. I even managed to pause here and there to enjoy the cool scenery. For instance, these neat striated rock formations...


...cacti in bloom...

...and the light and shadow on the canyon-sides.

Also, at our lodging that night on the canyon floor, there was a swimming pool. Andy suggested we both dunk and take an underwater self-portrait together, which resulted in my new favorite picture from our trip so far. So flattering!

Also of note was that, when the couple who had the cabin next to ours opened their door for the first time, out ran a pig. Apparently he really likes that bedroom, and tried to sneak back in again while they were at dinner. They had to bar the door to keep him out at night!

So, the next day we were up at 5:30 for three hours of climbing to get out of the canyon. Ugh. I'll just say that my energy failed about halfway up and it was ugly. Ignore the smile on my face here at the end of the ascent--I'm delerious.

The last stop on the tour was some thermal baths, and boy did they feel good. We then rode the bus back to Arequipa, and were treated to a showing of the movie "Twilight" (I think I liked it better than the book--yes, I admit I've read the book)...and an incredible sunset.

Three days later, after our trip to Nazca and Lima, we were in Huaraz, a town in the Andes and the "trekking capital" of Peru. Yes, more hiking, I'm a masochist.

But rather than starting off with a hike, we decided we would do a horseback trip instead. You know, take it easy. Unfortunately, the horses had other ideas.

Here is the only shot we got of either one of us on a horse.

About five minutes after we took this picture, some fireworks went off (yes, in the middle of the day--the town where we got the horses was having a festival), our guide's horse bolted, and Andy's and my horses followed. I pulled on the reins for dear life, and I believe I screamed a lot, too.

So we dismounted and walked the horses through the town. 10 minutes after that, we ran into a construction site along the horse trail and had to dismount and do a complicated detour. When the guide told us we could get back on, he came over to help me first. We heard a noise behind us, and turned around to see Andy hanging upside down off the side of his horse! He had apparently tried to mount on his own and overshot, ending up in a handstand on the other side of the animal. I WISH we had a picture of this. Everyone was fine, so the guide helped him mount properly and we continued on.

Then at lunchtime it started to pour, so, no more riding for us. We squeezed into a very crowded collectivo van with our guide and went back to Huaraz. A dissapointing outing all around.

The next day, we did a day hike to Laguna Churup. We were told that it wouldn't be too hard, that we'd only ascend 500 meters, and that our guide would speak English. These turned out to be all lies.

Still, it was a beautiful hike, and this time we had the leisure to enjoy the beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and countryside.

Our guide was really nice, and we practiced a lot of Spanish on him. He was always offering to take photos of us at scenic points, like this one.

So, after four hours of mostly uphill hiking, including an unexpected bonus section of slippery rock-climbing, which saw Andy wipe out and me be hauled up by my arms by our guide, we finally reached the lovely elevated lake with the spectacular snow-capped Churup mountain behind it.

Yes!

The hike down was even more treacherous, because it started to rain, and we had to go down the steep, muddy sections on our butts. We felt appropriately filthy and exhausted by the time we got back to the little town at the base.

Also filthy, but cute: These two little pigs eating garbage in someone´s yard in the town.

That night back in Huaraz, we embraced the piggy spirit by downing a "broaster platter por dos": Six pieces of fried chicken, a monstrous plate of fries, a pitcher of limeade, and two salads (you know, for health). The one thing I like about strenuous hiking is that I can eat absolutely anything I want after and not feel guilty about it!

That wraps up our tales of hikes in Peru. Andy promised me that we would have no more hiking for at least a month after Huaraz, but of course we have already been on a four-hour rainforest hike in Ecuador since he said that. I plan to exact my revenge in Colombia and subject him to many hours of salsa dancing lessons. Stay tuned!

What's in Lima? Not a bean...

I have been assigned the task of writing about Nasca and Lima because my significant other found Nasca boring and Lima is fairly boring without the food pictures. I will do my best to entertain, however. Let's go straight to the photos.

Nasca, sometimes spelled Nazca, is a city where about 800 years ago the Nascas, a pre-Incan people, carved these huge pictures in the soil. From the pictures and documentaries I have seen, I always thought they were carved in stone. Afterall, how else could they last so long? It turns out that the lines are basically just dug into the rocky soil with a hoe. Less impressive in terms of labor, but still impressive. For those who aren't familiar, there are about a dozen pictures and a bunch more random shapes that are thousands of feet long. The photo below is of the one called the tree. They still don't know what these were used for. Some theories include a calendar, to praise the gods, for decoration, or that aliens made them.
We only stayed a few hours at the lines and then on to Lima, the capital of Peru and a city of almost 8 million people. Lima is mostly a gray and dirty town. However, parts of it are really nice. We stayed at Hostal Espana, which we recommend. Here is a picture of the atrium.

As soon as we were settled in, we went in search of street food. The street food in Lima is excellent and will be covered in the food post. So, you get the dregs. Boring things like buildings. Here is the main cathedral at night. Pizarro is "buried" here in a glass case, we hear. We were unwilling to pay the $7 to see it in person.

We went to visit the free Inquisition museum. They went on a lot about how terrible it was, but based on my knowledge of the European Inquisition, Peru had it easy. Really only a couple of standard torture techniques. Here they show you the rack. The Peruvian inquisitors couldn't even spring for a real rack. They had to make one on the cheap.

Tara was never seen again after she entered the torture cellar. Okay, so I rescued her. Mostly they just threw people in dark holes for a few days until they confessed something. Again, no imagination.

We traveled to the posh Lima neighborhood or Miraflores partly because Tara wanted to see Lover's Park, where we thought there would be statues of lovers everywhere. Only one lame statue existed. Despite Tara trying, I refused to recreate this same pose for a picture in front of the statue. Call me lame, I know.

We took a tour of San Francisco Monastary, which was really great. Unfortunately, they didn't let us take pictures. This is the ceiling of the church. Most of the place is in Moorish style. The 25,000 skeletons buried in the basement are arranged in a more modern style, though. Apparently, in the 1940s, they thought it was a really great idea to arrange all the skeletons into fun geometrical patterns. I just wish we had the pictures to show it...

It took me about 5 seconds to snap this picture of the house where the president lives. For four of those seconds, guards were blowing whistles at me and about to raise their guns. Apparently, you can't stop in front of it. How was I to know? Surprisingly, they let me keep the picture. Please don't use this photo to plot any attacks or I will probably get into trouble.

This is another picture of the church with the archbishop's residence. Note the very fancy wooden porches. Don't archbishops take some kind of vow of poverty?

At the mall, between the gym and a shoe store, was the plastic surgery store. Walk in, get your plastic surgery, walk out. Terrific!

That's it for Lima. It was a mixed city. Would never want to live there, but interesting to visit. And great street food.

Obsessions

Time for some updated obsessions! I believe we left off with Argentina. For those who are new readers, for each country we decide, in our sole discretion, what that country is most obsessed with. If you are from that country and disagree, we don't really care.

Argentina- Uruguay. We thought long and hard about this. From what we can tell, Argentina wants to be like Uruguay in almost every respect. They also like cow products. They also like Italian things. We ran this idea by some Argentineans and they seemed offended, but we're sticking to it.

Chile- Receipts. A typical exchange to get an ice cream cone in Chile goes like this: 1.) I tell the person behind the counter that I would like an ice cream cone (or more likely a gallon). 2.) That person prints out a receipt saying what I want. 3.) I take this receipt to a cashier who fills out a form in triplicate stating what I want and the price. 4.) After I pay, the cashier keeps one copy and gives me two. 5.) I walk back to the original guy and give him both copies. He writes that I have given him this receipt on both of them, returning one to me and keeping the other. 6.) He scoops my ice cream. Anyone who wonders why carbon paper is still produced need only visit Chile.

Bolivia- Stealing from tourists. We actually believed this long before our bag was stolen. It is part of the culture to take as much as you can from tourists. I don't think people gave me correct change when changing anything greater than a ten ($1.50) ever. At first you think they are honest mistakes, but they always have the extra money ready if you ask so that it looks like they just hadn't finished counting. We also met more people with stolen stuff in Bolivia than anywhere else. We understand that it is a poor country, but theft is not a good development plan.

Okay, that's all. Now it's time for us to go eat some dinner.

How would you like your llama? Food in Bolivia.

Despite having had some of our food pictures from Bolivia stolen with our camera, we still seem to have an awful lot. We give the food high marks in Bolivia. Lots of street food and lots of cheap food along with a better mix of ethnic food than most of the countries in South America.

Our first night in Bolivia was in a city called Copacabana. They were having some kind of festival, and had lots of street food. We found this little old lady selling various fried items, complete with salad and a few fried potato pieces on the side, for 28 cents. She wasn't the only one, but hers seemed the best to us. Here I am eating what we are going to call a Bolivian latke, which is a fried potato pancake stuffed with meat. Very tasty.

If you are like me, you just thought, "Wow, stuffed with meat? That sounds great. Why don't they stuff everything with meat?" Indeed, they do. Here is a fried banana. Stuffed with meat.

We also tried some meat on a stick served with a couple potatoes. The somewhat spicy saucy on the potatoes was sort of like a curry sauce. Not bad.

We went to a restaurant in Copacabana that was just decent, but Tara wanted a picture of the vegetarian dish. I think it was some type of pumpkin dish. What I do remember is that we both had salad, soup, and dinner and the total bill was about $5.

On our first (and what was suppose to be our only) night in La Paz, we rushed to the Indian restaurant in town. We have been craving Indian for about a month now and it is really hard to find in South America. We tried to go to a place in Cusco, but it was closed. This place was owned by a Brit, so it was British style Indian, but still very tasty. I had llama tikka massala and Tara had something less interesting.
Bolivia has a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables than most anyplace else in South America. People sell little cups of fresh fruit salad all over the place for 20 or 25 cents. We ate a lot of it and will actually miss this about Bolivia.

This was probably the first time I had eaten after we had our bags stolen. I was still really upset, but they were selling fried dough things for 15 cents on the street, so I got one without filling and one with. The filling wasn't that great, but the other one was good.

Had we not been stuck in La Paz for three days getting new passports, we might never have discovered the amazing 50 cent street hamburger and fries. That's right, 50 cents for a really nice hamburger with fries. We give this street food five stars.

The woman that sold us this banana-peach-pineapple shake might have been the most honest woman in Bolivia. She gave us the shake and we were drinking it. We gave her back the cup and she refilled it because she had extra still in the blender. Hooray for someone doing something nice for us in Bolivia!

This is quinoa, the grain that is most often consummed in Bolivia. We ate it in New York, but it isn't very common in America. It cooks a lot like cous cous. Light and fluffy. They also make drinks out of it and oatmeal type foods.

This is the Bolivian version of lomo saltado, the national dish of Peru. It is a mix of french fries, sausage, beef, tomato, onion, and egg. The egg is easy to pick off and the rest is pretty good. Especially with mayonaise and some hot sauce, which Bolivians put on just about everything.

Tara managed to take a bag of "granola" with us after the Uyuni tour. Granola here seems to be Sugar Smacks cereal with a few raisins added. For those who don't know, Tara really loves cereal, so this suited her just fine.

We can't go to the salt flats and not try the salt. It is nearly pure. They dry it, package it, and sell it. Tara got a bit dehydrated after having this piece for lunch.

We found this candy called cat tongues, so we had to try some. Little chocolate tongue depressors filled with caramel. Our cat's tongue is definitely bigger than these were, but they tasted good.

In Rurrenabaque they had these things for breakfast that looked like little fried donuts. This excited me a lot until I bit into one and discovered that they were cheesy. When I rule the world, there will be a law that no item that looks like a donut shall contain cheese.

One of the most exciting parts of our trip to the rainforest/pampas in Bolivia is the return to sno-cone climate. We hadn't seen any since Brazil and I was happy to have them back. Here is me eating a mint one. Note that I ate most of it before Tara could snap a picture.

These sno-cones cost a whopping 15 cents each. That makes me so happy that I'm going to show you Tara eating one, too. What made me unhappy is when we went back 10 minutes later for me to buy a couple more and the guy was gone.

Desperate for a snack, Tara bought this chocolate bar in the Pampas. It turned out to be from Chile, which isn't surprising given how much Chileans love chocolate. Also, that is probably why it tasted good.

Lastly, after a long and hard trip in Bolivia, Tara had this drink, called "Welcome to the Jungle". She could still walk after, so it must not have been that strong.

That concludes our foods of Bolivia. Hope that you enjoyed it!