Peru's Sacred Valley

After Titicaca, we headed deeper into Peru. Our first stop was Cusco, which became a home base for some sightseeing near the city.

Cusco is located within a very large valley, known as the "Sacred Valley", because it has many ancient ruins that were sacred places for the Inca Empire. Below is a shot of a ruin within the city limits of Cusco, called Koricancha, which is the Inca Temple of the Sun. The Spanish Conquistadores then built a cathedral over this sacred place, so it has an interesting combination of architecture.

Another nearby ruin that we visited was Saqsaywaman, which had an excellent view of the city behind it. Our guide made sure we pronounced it correctly, as it sounds like "sexy woman" in English. I probably never would have thought of that without him pointing it out.

At this site, we were given our first close up glimpse of the architectural workings of Inca walls. The sites are known for being built without using any mortar between the rocks. The rocks were cut perfectly to fit each other, and as you can see, have stood the test of time.

Below, you can see how big some of these rocks actually are. Many of the rocks at this site weighed tons. You can also see that the fitting together of the rocks was nothing less than perfection. They didn't just pick out some rocks that looked good next to each other, they worked them over until they were made for each other.
I should mention that the section that looks a bit shoddy was a reconstruction effort that was poorly done.

Saqsaywaman would have a lot more and maybe bigger walls at the site, if people hadn't been taking the stones from here to construct buildings within Cusco. It wasn't until 50 years ago that this became officially banned.
These places are so authentic that you can sometimes see women in traditional outfits leading around a llama. But be careful, should you take a picture that they might be in, you will probably be asked for money. I think I was far enough away from her that she didn't notice me.

Here's another nearby sight, called the Red Fortress. Laura is spreading her wings in what is now our favorite pose for photos. We call it: Condor.

We actually saw these sites on a tour bus with a bunch of locals, which we regret because we could have done it all on our own. Probably for cheaper, and probably without the abundance of annoying, inconsiderate, and slow moving people you can see in the next shot. This is a natural spring and fountain that with Inca walls surrounding it.
After the tour, we enjoyed some excellent street food from a roadside grill. These sorts of roadside grills are abundant in Cusco, and as long as it looks pretty clean, I would recommend the meat on a stick to anyone. It's also an extremely cheap way to eat in a town that caters to the wealthy tourists.
The ruins of the Sacred Valley extend far beyond Cusco, and into neighboring towns and villages. After an hour or two on a bus we found ourselves in the Town of Pisac, where we climbed the mountainside to some highly elevated sites that offered excellent views.

Behind the ruins below, you can see the road that now exists to just be driven to the top of this site. But that just feels like cheating. And for about 10 bucks? I think I'll just walk.

Pisac is also known for a huge market that takes place on Sundays. There was a whole lot of things from veggies to stone carvings to alpaca sweaters.

Here a few women are selling vegetables, and sometimes trading them. It isn't all that unlikely to see a bag of carrots change hands for a sack of onions. It also isn't that unlikely to see the women eating their inventory. I personally watched the woman on the left eat about 3 carrots.

As Sunday is a pretty big deal here, there were many restaurants open for business with some excellent smelling foods. And this place had pets! A cool little guinea pig pen! Aren't they cute?

Wait a second...... Ohh. They have cuy on the menu. That means guinea pig!

Our final trip within the valley was to Ollaytantambo. This one was also along a mountainside with terraced walls. This site is still being uncovered at the base of the mountain, so there will probably be more to see in the future.
The walls are not always equal at all sites. Though this one did have some of the enormous rocks fitted together, there were also walls that clearly were put together with mortar.
Our final night in Cusco, we decided to go out for a drink with some German friends we made. There are many clubs near the main square that were dying for business at the time who offered a free drink to start, and after that you can still get cheap drinks. However, we made a stop at one particular club that offered the free drink pass as you entered, but somehow, our friend Christine kept acquiring more passes throughout the night. We ended up paying for nothing at this club. HA!
And here we are, with Christine and Ulrich!

Lake Titicaca

Titi-caca. Tee hee hee. Bahahahaha! Hahaha! Let's get all the giggles out. Lake Titicaca. One of the better names for a lake. Tee hee hee. Ok. Now that we have all had a good laugh, I will continue with our tales of adventure and daring. After our jungle adventure and a couple more days in La Paz, we headed to Copacabana, which is on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world.

Copacabana is a friendly small town with a great church. But let's face it, we were there for the lake.

We arrived in Copacabana in the early afternoon and decided we would tour nearby Isla del Sol the following day. This gave us an afternoon to kill. What to do? What to do? How about I fulfill my dream of riding around beautiful Lake Titicaca on a beautiful fiberglass swan?!? It was marvelous.

Ok. So the swan might have been more of an ugly duckling. It was still a fun afternoon of paddling around. We were told we had to stay somewhat close to shore so we decided to check out the boats that were in the distance.

These dragon boats made of reeds are just used for tourist purposes, but they are still pretty cool. It was fun to get close to them, as it gave our paddling a purpose.

The following morning, we took a boat to Isla del Sol, the location of the main Inca Creation Myth. The rumor on the street is that Viracocha, the creator god, had his children, Manco Kapac and Mama Ocllo, spring from the waters of the lake to found Cuzco and the Inca dynasty. A sacred rock on the island is worshipped as their birthplace. Sounds like a big deal. Better check it out.

The ride is about 90 minutes by boat from Copacabana.We were dropped us off on the northern end of the island and walked to the southern end, where another boat picked us up and took us back to Copacabana. Here is Tim, freshly arrived on the northern end.

It was a sunny day and the light quality was really spectacular. Being at high altitude does something to the light, I think.

The hike took us past pre-Incan farming terraces.

Past a sacrificial table close to the sacred rock...

And past some ruins.

From there, it was a lot of uphill walking to reach the other side. It is a 7km walk but we took our time- we were at 12,500ft.

The views from the top most point were gorgeous. I love the blue color! One thing that I will always remember about Isla del Sol is that it smelled terrific. They had eucalyptus forests and other very aromatic herbs growing everywhere. It made every breath heavenly.

Along the way, we had to pay fees for passing through the villages. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, they do keep the old path in excellent condition and they have to put up with a bunch of tourists walking across their island every day. On the other hand, they are charging you for walking through their village, which seems absurd! I guess if it allows them to maintain their traditional way of life and buy food for this puppy that I met, then fine. His name was Jack (like my parents' crazy mutt) and he liked me!

We passed a donkey caravan. We also passed a group of children standing in the middle of the road with a llama, offering to let us take their photo for money or candy. We declined.

The southern end of the island also has some ruins, including this Incan water fountain, which is still used as the village's water supply. The statues were added later, probably with some of that money they charged us for walking through their village.

On the boat ride home, we stopped by some "floating islands". These "floating islands" are not to be confused with Los Uros, a set of reed islands in the lake near Puno, Peru. These, here, consisted of wood and metal rafts with reeds laid on top. Very Wisconsin Dells. If we wanted to get off the boat for 1 sol and buy something from the people there, we were welcome to. We declined and hoped that Los Uros would be much better!

My favorite part was when some some girl heard the description of the islands as floating, she said "aren't all islands floating?"...... Really?!?

Well, we didn't have to wait long to find out if the real floating islands were worth it. The following morning, we crossed yet another border and headed to Puno, where we booked an afternoon tour of Los Uros.

The green reeds in the lake are what they use to construct the floating islands.

The people of Los Uros have an interesting story. Their people came to Lake Titicaca from the Amazon. They had conflicts with other groups on the shore and their solution was to build these floating islands on the lake and live there. We were told that the Uros people enjoy longevity due to their lake sourced diet and stress free lifestyle. I was really excited to see this unique way of life.

However, upon closer observation, I saw that tourism has changed things for them and I was unable to decipher what was real and what was staged. Tour boats are constantly coming to these islands and the people of the Uros are cashing in.

For example, when we landed at the first island, the boy in the photo below made his way over to a hole cut in the island to draw up some crystal clear drinking water. (did I mention that Lake Titicaca is incredibly clean?) You will notice the tourist standing uncomfortably close to him, getting a photo. Did the boy really need water or does he know the gringos think that is cool photo op? I guess I will never know.

The village leader met us and explained how the islands are constructed, using this handy visual aid. The base of the islands is the think root of the reeds. The reed tops are then placed over the roots. More reeds are added every 20 days. They replace the roots as they rot away as well. It is really interesting. I wouldn't recommend wearing high heels on the islands though. You would sink right in.

After the presentation, we were broken off into groups, and invited to chat in people's homes. The homes were right at the boat landing area and I noticed that there was a designated area where tourists could go. Real life seemed to be happening a bit further back from where we were. Was this really the guy's home? I'm not sure. After a brief chat, we exited the homes and discovered that the villagers had set up an artisan market outside. It literally appeared out of nowhere. Now the line was "We invited you into our home. Buy something." It was incredibly awkward.

After this, we were also invited to take a ride on one of those cool dragon boats to the next island for an extra 10 soles per person. The people who went were treated to traditional songs sung by the children. The money goes toward their school but it just felt way too fake and staged for my liking so we declined the dragon boat ride as well. Yeah, we are party poopers.

Would I say Los Uros were worth it? I'm not sure. It was cool to see how these people live. They do really live on floating islands, which is amazing. However, I could have done without the "show" and the pushy selling of handicrafts. Maybe they should take a cue from their neighbors on Isla del Sol and just charge money to enter their village.

Although the trip to Los Uros felt a bit staged, the sunset was 100% natural.

And that, my friends, was our Titicaca experience.

A trip to the Amazon River Basin

Facing the option of taking an 18 hour bus ride that utilizes a section of road that is literally known as "The Death Road" or a 50 minute flight, our next move was to spend a little extra money and fly to the jungle. What we didn't know: the condition of the airport we were headed to.

Just a dirt path. For this reason, sometimes the flight is cancelled when rain turns the landing strip into a mud field. We were lucky enough to have a sunny day and no problemas!

This was just the beginning of the interesting things we encountered. On the shuttle ride to our jungle river tour, we discovered a pitstop that was grilling a particularly interesting piece of meat. That would be an armadillo. Apparently, it actually does taste like chicken.

Moving along, the real reason we went to the jungle was to go on a river tour in an area known as the Pampas. Here we have arrived at the Yacuma River, which eventually drains into the Amazon. Boats are being readied for our journey. Each boat has enough space for a driver, supplies and gear, and eight people.

After we got moving along the river, it took very little time to realize that we were surrounded by wildlife. As we saw them, they saw us. In the water is a spectacled caiman, the most common type of caiman we encountered. We saw all sizes of them from young one footers to adults that were 6 or 7 feet long.

There was an abundance of birds along the river. The one below is a type of duck that is drying itself off in the sun. The reason for this is that it doesn't have a type of oil in its feathers common to water fowl, that creates a waterproof coat. The reason he gets so wet, is that without the oils, he sinks farther in the water, getting very wet. They are expert fishers. The first time we saw one of these swimming around, we thought it was a snake, because the only part sticking out of the water was his neck and head, which look a bit snakelike without the rest of the body.
Another animal we saw frequently was the capybara. The largest rodent in the world, the capybara looks like a giant guinea pig. They didn't do a whole lot, but they are funny looking. For perspective, they are about the same size as a full grown pig.

Continuing on, we see more caiman. Many more caiman. Hungry looking caiman.

In the first hour or so, we probably saw a few hundred lurking in the water. They were out in the open, under brush, floating at the water's edge. Everywhere.

Main objective: STAY IN THE BOAT!

Here's a quick shot of our group. We were lucky that we ended up with a really fun group of people on this tour, as we had to spend the next three days together. As a group, we were one Bolivian(our guide, Erick), two Americans(us), two Kiwis, a Brit, a Swede living in Australia, and a South African, also living in Australia. Luckily for me, everyone in this group spoke English, unlike our salt flats trip.

Further down the stream, our guide pulled over to the side of the river. He had spotted some very curious squirrel monkeys. We were instructed at the beginning of the tour to not feed the animals, but no one said that we couldn't just show them a banana and not give it to them. Well, this is the result. They see and smell it from pretty far off, and jump right into your boat.

They scurried around us following wherever Erick held the banana. At one point, he held it just above my head, and one of them tried to jump onto the brim of my hat to grab it. He just didn't realize that it wasn't such solid footing as he yanked it down in front of my face!

We traveled along the river for a total of four hours on the first day, and arrived at a cabin that we were to stay at, complete with beds, hammocks, and a kitchen staff. We were cooked a nice meal by the staff, and relaxed for the rest of the night.

The next morning, we headed to a nice lookout to watch the sun come up over the river. Even though we had to be up early, watching the sunrise never gets old.

After that, there were plenty more exciting activities that were planned for us. But first, a boat ride. Along the ride, we saw the first and only toucans of our excursion. There's three in this photo. See if you can spot them.

Another common bird along the river was the hoatzin bird. These were really funny looking birds that have a sort of spiky mohawk. If you've ever seen the movie "Up", the hoatzin looks a bit like Kevin. For this reason, we began calling them Kevins every time we saw them. It seemed easier, because we didn't exactly know their name at the time.

Once we landed back on shore, our next activity was to go looking for anacondas. We weren't sure why we were going to go and actually search them out, because we weren't necessarily comfortable with the idea of an coming upon an anaconda in the wild, but Erick assured us that they are not aggressive, and if attacked we could always bite them. WHAT!!??! Yes, if they wrap themselves onto you in any way, your best defense is to bite the snake. Our saliva is apparently venomous to the snake. I then asked Erick, as our guide, if we were to be attacked, if he would bite the snake for us. His reply, "No". Better be prepared to bite a snake today.

Here we are trodding through the tall grasses and the marsh looking for snakes.

When we started this little hike, I was a bit worried that it might turn out to be a little like the jungle night tour we went on in Costa Rica. There were about 5 tour groups of people out in this marsh looking for the Anaconda, and I was worried that we were going to "find" snakes that the guides already knew where to find. But no, it was a genuine search. There's really only a slightly better than 50% chance of finding one.

And out of the forty or so people spread out with eyes glued to the ground, I spotted an anaconda! Dumb luck really, but as I was walking, I saw a slimy 9-10 foot snake slithering through the grass. At first I almost wet myself, but stayed a decent distance from it, and managed to call Erick over to confirm if it was what we were looking for.

And this is just the first foot or so of her. It was a girl.

I didn't know it at the time, but there was a prize involved in spotting the anaconda for the day. Or at least, Erick made it sound that way when he presented me with a bottle of wine and a cake that was shared with everyone. Though, I think it was just an excuse for him to request these things from the cooks.

I mentioned the spectacled caiman earlier, but there is also a black caiman in these waters. This breed grows to 12 feet at its biggest, but are generally as big as this one below, around 9-10 feet.

They are monsters.

Later in the day, we attempted what felt like the dumbest possible thing we could be doing in this river. We swam in it! With caiman in full view, no more that 50 feet away from us on the shore, we swam in the water. And, oh yeah, there's piranhas in this river as well! We were even told not to put our hands or feet in the water while riding in the boat.

The reason we attempted this ridiculousness is because there are pink river dolphins that patrol the river where deep enough. They are the only reason this is safe. They eat piranhas, which won't actually attack unless you are actively bleeding (as if that makes me feel safer), and their presence in the water keeps the caiman away.

We though it would be kind of fun to take a picture of us in the water with a caiman in the background, so here we are. My words: "He moved. I swear he just moved. Laura, he moved."

He didn't move.
We were told that there would be dolphins and they would want to swim with us. However the two dolphins that we did spot stayed pretty far from us, only giving us periodic glimpses. The disturbance in the water below, was a dolphin. I guess he was pink. The murky brown of the river doesn't allow any visibility either.

After a busy day of doing things I never thought I would, we headed to a riverside bar and soccer field. We were the first group there, so Erick and I did some practicing before the other groups arrived and full field games began. It was a lot of fun.

Next day, back in the boats. On our way to the next stop, we spotted an Amazon King Fisher bird. This was my favorite bird to spot. There weren't many of them, but their colors were really pretty. The head and back were forest green, with a white neck and a red belly.

Today's activity: Fishing for piranhas.

No one caught anything big enough to eat, but it was fun anyway. We caught quite a few and can see why this activity is held AFTER the swimming. For the most part, we were only able to catch them by quickly tugging the line, and flinging them into the boat where they flopped around, but Laura managed to actually hook one.

As always in this river, a caiman laid nearby. I think he had his eye on the fish we were catching. As we continued fishing, our fearless leader, Erick, hopped off the boat and approached the caiman. We all held our breath a bit, but he knows what he's doing, right?

Then Erick waved a few of us over, and I did something that made swimming in this river seem like no big deal. I touched the caiman on the nose. It took me a while to complete this, as I kept imagining him taking off my entire hand, but I did it. I don't know why, but I did. Not that it was any easier as a result, but Erick explained that the animal actually liked being touched. It seemed plausible, as it shut its eyes when I got closer, almost submitting itself to touch. Though, I shall never test this theory, as I don't currently plan to pet any more crocs.

To finish off the tour, the river was full of turtles. There was something new every time we hopped on that boat!

Well, that's about the whole tour. But just the exciting parts. (There was very little down time on this one)

And in then end, we took the long bus ride to get out of the jungle that we previously avoided, and saw something I don't expect to ever see back home. On the side of a country road, a man and woman stood by a pile of bananas. The bus stopped, the driver and his helpers got off and purchased three or four bundles. They loaded them up, and we continued on our way.