First Day of Sites

Qoricancha/ Qorikancha

Qoricancha are some old Inca ruins that are in the city center. They were originally called Inti Kancha which means “temple of the sun” and is what a lot of gringos call it. It use to be the richest temple in the Inca empire. Apparently the temple use to be covered with gold, the walls were even lined with it. But as we all know, that didn’t last after the conquistadors came, all the gold was looted and melted down. Anyway when you walk in you come to a big courtyard which is absolutely beautiful! Lucky for us, as soon as we stepped into the confines of the building it started raining like crazy!! It started hailing as well, the weather went a little crazy that day. The building is connected to a garden outside that is really lovely, unfortunately we walked it in the rain, but it was worth it. There is something sort of eerie about the site because there is a big mix between Inca and colonial architecture as well as completely different gods and beliefs. You walk in to one hall and all the paintings and sculptures are about the church, and then you walk to a different area a couple meters away and its about the sun or thunder, which were honored by the Incas.

Moray

Moray is a site outside of Cuzco, 42 miles outside of it. It seems like its in the middle of nowhere. When you step out of the car into the parking area you can’t even see where you are about to go. Its in a very steep valley surrounded by mountains. When you walk closer to trail you see Moray. When you look down there are many circular terraces each with a different micro-climate. It is believed that they were used for experimental farming, mostly with corn. To get down to the bottom you have to walk down a steep slope and then use the stairs the Incas used. Now each terrace is about a meter and a half or so away from the next one below it, and the stairs are about 3 rocks sticking out from the side. It’s hard to explain them, and I for sure am not doing them justice. So hopefully you will be able to see what I’m talking about with pictures. So the other guys went ahead of me and started making their way down the steep steps. And of course I was the idiot that decided to look down (when being afraid of heights…sometimes…usually when most inconvenient) It was crazy steep and all I could think of was that the little rocks sticking out that we had to walk on were going to break and I was going to fall. And of course during times like that you can’t possibly convince yourself that they had been around for so many years and every other tourist there was doing the same thing…geez. So what did I do? Well after having a good freak out and plastering my back against the first terrace, I had to go down on my bum the whole way. Convenient? No. Dirty? Yes. And by the time I had actually finished my freak out my friends were already down there. But once you’re down there it’s amazing. The place is huge and so well designed. We were all convinced that it would be a superb place to have a concert because the sound traveled so far. After taking pictures from the bottom we had the job of getting back up. It was pretty tough and two days after my legs were still hurting.

You can see in this picture how many terraces there were...a lot

These are the stairs I was talking about! At this point I´m still at the top...and about to freak out :) Good times

Salineras

After moray we went to this site called Salineras which is a site built by the Incas as a natural way to collect salt water to get salt. We drove there in a small car and the driver didn't really slow down around the corners. It was crazy, we were literally about a foot away from a sheer drop. The site is HUGE! Unfortunately for us we went a day after it rained, so instead of the areas looking like crystals they were kind of brown, but impressive nonetheless. As you get closer to them you can see each individual pool and the salt build ups on the side where the water evaporates and leaves the white salt. It was pretty amazing to see.

First Day at Huayllarccocha

On Sunday I was picked up from Inkarri and taken to the volunteer house that I`m now staying in. The volunteer house is BEAUTIFUL! It´s like a palace. There are about 15 other volunteers staying there as well, many from the U.S, a couple girls from Canada (Toronto and Vancouver Island), a woman from Australia and a guy from England. We´re all up by about 7 in the morning for breakfast and then we all go off to do our own thing. I´ve taken some pictures of the place but it may take a while to get them on facebook. I´ve decided to stay in Cuzco for a while longer before changing my program to the jungle conservation in Manu. So yesterday I started a different project working at a place called Huayllarccocha. Two other girls are doing this project with me, both from Canada. The place literally feels like its at the top of the world. We take a bus (which is like a minivan) up there and its about a 30 minute car ride to the top. We pass both Jesus and ruins called Sacsayhuaman and when you reach the top you come to this tiny little community where there are pigs, chickens, dogs, and sheep all over the place. So I am now working in a little community center there for the children of the community. They can go there to play, get help with homework, and at about 5:30 get some sort of healthy snack. The volunteers try and teach them that they need to wash their hands and faces and brush their teeth. So thats the first thing they have to do when the volunteers come, before they are allowed to keep playing. It´s hard for the community because they don't have clean water, and the water they do have should not be consumed but is being consumed not only by the children but by the animals they eat. They also do not have a proper bathroom in the community, so they either go to the bathroom in these little dug out holes or just wherever they want. And then they don't have a place to properly wash themselves afterwards. So the people at Maximo Nivel built them a bathroom, and are now waiting on the city to give them a permit to rip up some of the road and connect two water pipes together so the bathroom they built will actually have water. So that´s hard to see, the fact that now they even have a bathroom but cant use it because the city still has yet to give them a permit to complete it. But even though their conditions are not great the children there are in such good spirits, they are really lovely and playful. Straight away they get you to pick them up and spin them around. One little girl got me to read to her in both English and Spanish. I played Uno with two little boys and it was hilarious the rules seemed to change after every hand. Eventually after playing with them for a couple hours we made them a snack that would give them energy. I think it was a drink with oatmeal, something else and chocolate powder for taste. I go again later on today and I can´t wait! I gotta go to Spanish class now! Ta

VIVA EL PERU

I just got back from the post office, which is about a 35-40 minute walk from Inkarri, depending on which route you take. As soon as I stepped outside it started raining...and raining. Lucky for me I had decided in the morning that I didn´t need a rain jacket...I was wrong. It was funny though, the streets are so narrow that the bigger cars almost hit everyone with their mirrors as they drive by, and the streets are so busy with cars you can only really walk along them for a couple seconds. The ¨sidewalk¨ varies in width but generally is a little over a foot, and they are all very smooth stones. So it was pretty slippery coming back, but good fun.

One thing that I´ve noticed a lot of since landing here is that drivers use their horns like nothing else. You hear them all the time. On my way home there was a man in a car at an intersection waiting for room to cross a busy street but there were so many cars he never got a chance. There were three cars waiting behind him and they were honking their horns like crazy!! poor guy, he really didn´t have a chance to cross. It seems like it doesn´t matter how bad the driver is as long as he has a working horn. One final thing about horns, ha!, the cab drivers use them the most. Especially if they are driving down a one way street and you´re back is towards them, they will honk to let you know they are driving up behind you (and are free to give you a lift) convenient eh?

And last but not least I found the Viva El Peru mountain side!! There is one side of a mountain surrounding Cuzco that has that written on its side. I have been looking for it since I arrived and I finally found it by fluke yesterday. I also found Jesus...but who cares.

Artista and the Market

Alrighty so today I woke up and had to walk to the main square to re-take the pictures that were deleated yesterday. It started off as a really nice day, sunny, still a bit cloudy, but otherwise really nice. So I got to the square and walked up onto the steps of one of the cathedrals. After taking my pictures I sat down and a man who had been there all along, just sitting a couple meters away came and sat with me. I can´t remember his name AT ALL, but he told me he was an artist in Cusco. I was thinking he might be before he told me because he had long black hair and one ear periced, which he was wearing an earing with two feathers on it. It was hard to have a decent conversation with my lack, and broken Spanish, but I was glad someone was finally letting me attempt it. (usually when I try and say something the person says hold on a minute and gets someone who speaks English) Eventually I got tired of talking and just wanted to walk around, I wanted to find the market, so I said goodbye and went off to find it.

I got to the market and immediatly fell in love! It´s so packed and there´s everythig in it. I bought some pretty earings and decided to buy some food for lunch. I probably spent no more than 10 nuevos soles (less than 5 canadian dollars) and I bought lime, avocado, tomatoes, red onion, green beans, spring onion...I can´t remember what else. But it was amazing, I went straight back to inkarri and made a salad!!

I´m still trying to upload pictures...but i neither have the time nor patience

First Official Day In Cusco

Once I arrived in the airport, getting my bag was very quick and someone from Inkarri (the hostel I’m staying at) was there to pick me up- and three other people who were also on that flight- to take us to the hostel. Inkarri is so beautiful, very, very sweet. Before I go I will take pictures of it. The building is white with blue shutters, there is an old well in the courtyard in the middle, where you can sit outside and do whatever. They say that you should throw a coin into the well and make a wish to Inkarri (the god) and maybe it will come true. Sadly I haven’t got a chance to appreciate outside yet because the weather has been kind of rainy. We were given coca leaf tea while we waited for our rooms to be sorted out; it gave me a lot more energy, which was quite good and very much needed. After showering and having a 2 hour power nap I woke up famished. Which wasn’t good because breakfast was done by then, so I had no choice but to venture out from the walls of the hostel to find some food. The street are amazing, there are all cobble stone, and most only have a tiny curb that people walk on so they don’t get hit by the crazy cars that go everywhere. The streets are wild! They wind everywhere and are so narrow. And when you have a map the streets are VERY easy to work out, and anyone who knows me, knows that I am the most directional illiterate person ever! Within a short walk I was in the main square, with the Plaza de Armas (where I finally found my fellow gringos :P)…. I literally couldn’t do anything but stare for the first couple minutes, it´s breathtaking. The old architecture is beautiful, and the whole place is bustling with activity with people both local and not. There were women dressed in the traditional outfits carrying baby alpaca!! And some were carrying baby babies…human ones, but the alpaca babies took the cake. Right on one corner was a sweet little restaurant that sold really yummy looking pizza, so I got one and ate looking out at the square. After that I walked around some more and bought some water in a grocery store (because you can’t drink the tap water here) and eventually I was so tired that I headed back to the hostel. When I was there I was able to find Friends playing on the TV in English, HA, so that kept me busy so that I didn’t fall asleep at a silly hour like 3.

This is one of the many beautiful buildings in the main square. I would upload more pictures here but it is taking far too long. So check Facebook!

The journey here

The journey was fine from Toronto to Lima; quite painless in fact, I couldn’t get any sleep on the plane but whatcha going to do. When I landed in Lima, however, things got a little trickier. I had been told that my baggage was going to be transferred all the way to Cusco for me, so I wouldn’t need to claim it and then re-check it back in once in Lima. This sounded good to me because my bag is about the size of me and fully packed. So Once I was in Lima it turned out that what I had been told earlier was in fact incorrect. So like everyone else on the flight I stood to collect my bag. As I was standing to get my bag I was hit with a wave of feeling very sick, I had to find a bathroom and quick, otherwise I was scared I was going to throw-up all over the floor. I don’t know what caused it, airplane food...tiredness…or maybe it was the fact that Lima felt like a sauna and I was wearing my Canadian winter layers. I ended up being fine, I just had to put some cold water on my face and conveniently enough by the time I came out my bag was just being placed on to the conveyer belt. Okay so that was stage one complete. I then had to wheel my bag to find the TACA check in, so there I was wheeling it up and down the Lima airport looking for anything that said TACA…no dice. So I finally was able to ask someone who works there, in Spanish, where TACA was, he kindly directed my upstairs. Which truth be told didn’t quite seem right to me because NO ONE else had suitcases upstairs and all of the signs were for departing, not for checking in. As I wove round the second floor of the airport I finally came to a sign that said “All Departures” so I figured the checking must be through the line. When I was entering that area a man that was working it told me I had to check in my luggage down stairs, so I asked again where TACA was because I really had looked everywhere by this point and had no luck finding it, he said downstairs. When I asked “where downstairs” he said, “Yes, down stairs. ” Perfect. So there I went again wheeling my ridiculously heavy bag all through Lima airport, getting redder and redder by the minute because it was so hot. When I got back downstairs I decided to give up and wait. So I sat down and waited for 2 hours. I made sure to sit right in front of their information boards that tell you what the progress on each flight is and which checking stands to go to. Cusco, however, was not on it. With only an hour to an hour and a half before my flight actually left I was confused as to why there was no record of the flight on the information board, As it turned out however if I wanted to know where TACA was checking in I would have had to walk down to the other end and check a different board and then walk back again, And I had been sitting in front of where TACA would eventually check people in, but since it was such a small flight apparently they only leave a short amount of time for everything. So for the whole time I had been looking for something that wasn’t even going to be opened for another 2.5 hours. What a dink! Anyway after all that when I finally checked in I went upstairs and had a large glass of mango juice, which wasn’t as much juice as it was pure, thick, liquidated mango, it was superb! Within about 2 hours after that I was in Cusco!!! When we were almost there, flying low enough to see everything below, but still above the mountains it was absolutely breathtaking. Everything was such deep colours, so vibrant. There were some lower clouds that just hugged the tops of the mountains, and there were lovely trees and rivers everywhere! That sight alone was worth all the strife in Lima. Finally when we were touching down you could see the streets, houses and cars, there were no skyscrapers in sight, no tall buildings at all really. Only similar looking short buildings covering each side of the valley. It looked like a perfect oasis.