Peruvacation: More Stories From Days 3-5

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Today we'll wrap up everything I remember that's worth telling about days 3-5 of my trip, which were all spent in famous Cuzco.

I mentioned yesterday that I took a 21-hour bus ride from Lima to Cuzco, but I didn't elaborate on it. The bus was actually quite good. There were 2 meals (and I think other snacks were for sale), and there were movies constantly playing in the non-nighttime parts of the trip that were accessed headphonely in case you didn't want them to bother you. (The movie list, from what I can remember: Seven Pounds, Taken, Lassie, Nanny McPhee, Underdog. A bizarre mix.) Furthermore, the seats were very comfortable: roomy, with a high degree of leanbackness, and a leg thing that came down from the seat in front of you so that your legs were inclined at about the same angle as your torso. Like the Z-pattern, where ∠head-balls-knee = ∠balls-knee-foot. My grade 7s know what I'm talking about. I still couldn't sleep, of course, but they definitely did almost everything they could to ensure that sleeping was possible.

Well, except for the geography. Of course there's nothing they can do about that, but the fact that the bus meandered lazily down the coast from the time of departure (2PM) until 8 or 9 in the evening before turning inland and winding stomachchurningly twistyturnily, right when it was time to start getting to sleep, didn't help.

The Sechura Desert, seen before the turn into the mountains, and which I would encounter again at the end of the trip.

On day 4 I decided I needed a haircut. It was the first time I've ever decided such a thing while on vacation, but it turned out to be the first haircut I've been completely satisfied with (except when I get my mom to cut my hair) in years. The place was difficult to find; it was in a courtyard in the middle of a block (which were actually quite common in Cuzco), but it was worth it.

Here's a quick description of a meal I thoroughly enjoyed. I found a German cafe in the course of my wandering (which just meant it was owned by a German guy), and the menu looked pretty good, so I checked it out for lunch on day 4. The dish I got consisted of 6 or 7 different kinds of potatoes (Peru is known for its potatoes), as you can see below: the ones in the middle top and bottom are particularly weird. The sauces in the middle are guacamole and a sweet creamy herb sauce. Delicious.

On day 5 I went white-water rafting with the tour company that was soon to lead me on the Inca Trail. It was just one little raft, with 4 of "us" and one guide. The other adventurers were a British couple who were on an extremely extended honeymoon because they were forced to have like 9 months off because of how law school works in Britain, and a Brazilian guy. The Brazilian guy was supposed to send me pictures, but I lost his e-mail address. Oh well.

Anyway, it was great! I'd never been rafting before, so the whole class system didn't mean anything to me, and still doesn't really, because somehow I doubt the classification of rapids is consistent everywhere you go, but apparently it was mostly craftsmen and got up to merchant once or twice. Um, I mean it was mostly class 3 and got up to class 4 once or twice. Whether that means anything to you or not, I can attest to the fact that it was pretty intense. Nobody fell in, but it was not a gentle ride. And man, the others were in over their heads - luckily, not literally - but none of them had any idea how to use a paddle (when I say "others", fortunately that doesn't include the guide). The British guy (Ollie... of course) did have one redeeming quality, and that was his idea of how to approach the most intense rapids. In order to channel as much energy as possible into the furious flurry of strokes that were required each time we crested a big rapid, Ollie combined his strokes with a torrent of curses. Soon we all caught on, and I think it was pretty effective.

At some point, I asked the guide if he ever went swimming in the rapids, to which he replied: "sure, you can swim in the rapids!" Not really feeling like correcting him, I just said screw it and went for it. It was fun, but it was also really friggin' cold, because the day on the whole was cool and wet, and I spent the second half of the voyage regaining feeling in my hands and making excellent use of Ollie's strategy (and discovering that it works for channeling both energy and heat. This guy should be a physicist, not a lawyer).

The last thing I can remember that's story-worthy is the souvenir I bought myself.

This is a Charango, a common instrument in Peruvian folklore music. It has 10 strings (5 doubled), and the traditional way to play it is the well-known technique INFASTNITY. I haven't mastered this technique yet, though I've improved a bit from when I first bought it, and at the moment would probably put myself at the level of FASTNITY.

Charango Charlie with big brother Wally the Waldorf. Regular guitars are part of the typical Folklorica ensemble as well, as a matter of fact, so along with singing I could probably rig up a 0.6 man band. Wait, I don't think that math works. Here's a better way of expressing what I'm trying to say: a 1 man 0.6 band. Got it? Got it.

It actually took me quite a while to buy this thing, because I was an extremely conscientious and comparative shopper, something I usually am not. And because it was Christmas Eve when I bought it, the main square of Cuzco was wall-to-wall, so hopping between the two finalists, which were really not that far apart, took like 15 minutes each way. All this shopping resulted in me being 30 minutes late for my mandatory pre-Inca Trail meeting. I'm not sure if anyone else had been late, but either way I was the latest, and I felt like an idiot showing up so late, especially carrying a pretentious tiny guitar, kind of like when people carry annoying tiny dogs in their annoying tiny clothes. Personally, I hate when people are late for that sort of thing, and in that situation I'm the first to jump to conclusions. I thought that the other 16 travelers in my group would instantly judge me and I would be ostracized from the group for the next 4 days.

So, what happened in the end? Did I overcome my bad initial impression and win their hearts, or was it the most miserable 4-day-hike-ending-at-one-of-the-seven-modern-wonders-of-the-world in my entire life? Keep tuning in to Xave's Xlog to find out!

We'll leave you with some pictures of Cuzco to cap off tonight's entry. Click to embiggen.

The "Chocolatada" on Christmas Eve. Kids lined up and got chocolate.

Previously:

The Preface

Day 1: Travel

Day 2: Miraflores Slideshow

Stories from Days 3-5

Peruvacation: Stories From Days 3-5

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I'm not going to do a full re-cap tonight, but I thought I'd just share a couple stories from the second destination on my trip. After spending a day in Miraflores (a touristy suburb of Lima), I took a 21-hour bus to Cuzco, a city of about 300,000, the nearest city to Machu Picchu, and the former capital of the Incan Empire.

Arriving in Cuzco

Upon staggering off the bus around 11 AM after predictably not being able to sleep, a cab driver recognized my exhaustion and gringo-induced cluelessness, and I had no chance. He had me at "hotel?".

When I got to the hotel and was shown to my room on the 3rd floor, the altitude really hit me for the first time in my life. My apartment here in Barranquilla is on the 5th floor, and even when I walk home with a ton of groceries I'm not nearly as out-of-breath as I was climbing a mere 3 stories at 3000 meters. I acclimatized quickly, but that first stair-climb was definitely a shock.

Shortly thereafter, I headed out with the intention of finding Plaza de Armas, the city's main square, for some lunch and as a launching pad to the city's attractions. But the map I was using was just a little corner of a pamphlet from my hotel, and I ended up going the wrong way and quickly finding myself off-map. I walked around for about half an hour, taking wild guesses at streets that looked like they were about to become touristy. But none of them ever did, and this wandering around gave me the impression that Cuzco was much less touristy than I had originally thought, since I hadn't seen a single other tourist the whole time.

Eventually I found a little mall where I settled in for some lunch, which I'll describe in a moment, but first let me conclude my discussion of getting lost in Cuzco's nether-regions. After lunch I got lost for a little while longer, but finally I turned a corner and there it was: the Cuzco that all the guidebooks talk about. (It really was as abrupt as that - I couldn't believe the change when I turned that one corner. It sounds cliche, but it was the most extreme version of this phenomenon I've ever seen.)

When I discovered where that part of Cuzco was, I realized I must have gone the complete wrong way when I left my hotel in the morning and ended up much farther from Plaza de Armas than when I started. OR SO I THOUGHT. More exploration eventually revealed that the mall I ate lunch in was actually like half a block from my hotel. So I walked in a giant circle for half an hour, thinking I was going in the direction of the center of town. So much for my innate sense of direction.

Anyway, I wanted to describe lunch. I was in, as mentioned, a little mall type place which had a bunch of food-stands on one side. I didn't really know what anything was, so I just ordered something called "Chaufa con Tortilla", because I like tortillas, no matter if they were talking about soft tortillas or tortilla chips. Well, turns out tortilla means doesn't actually mean tortilla in Spanish! (Um, what?) But that's okay, because it means omelette, and I like those too. I figured out Chaufa refers to little tiny slivers of some kind of meat, and the dish named after it is basically fried rice with some veggies thrown in. And the omelette goes on top. But what made this meal unique was its sheer immensity. Look at this thing.

That is a veritable mountain of food. Or, to be regionally specific, that is a veritable Andes of food. I ate until I was fuller than I had been in years, and I only got about 2/3 of the way done. It could have fed 3 people, easily. And I think it cost something like $1.70.

Oh yeah, and I got a drink, too. Banana juice with milk. (That's what it's called in Spanish, but it's really just your standard banana and milk smoothie.) And, continuing the tradition, check out the size of this thing:

That's gotta be like a liter of drink. I honestly think this is the biggest meal I've ever attempted to eat (aside from things like buffets).

Okay, fast forward 8 hours or maybe 32 hours. On either day 3 or 4 I had dinner at a touristy place near the Plaza, and while sitting there bored I noticed another dude looking bored and invited him to join me. He was some sort of secret engineer who couldn't talk about his work (or maybe he could but just didn't want to, I forget), but he did tell me some other stuff, and this is the best story he had (and the only one I remember):

So I guess there are people in India who are considered gods. I didn't know this... maybe this was a serious gap in my knowledge, and if so, I apologize profusely for my ignorance. But I didn't know this until he told me. I guess the idea is that they're re-incarnations of Hindu gods. Anyway, this guy's secret engineer work takes him all over, including to India, and he went to check out a god's house, where 20,000 people regularly pray simultaneously. It turns out one of the guy's co-workers knew the God, so they got to hang out. Apparently he's "a pretty cool guy".

Okay, one more story before I go to bed. There's more to tell from days 3-5 in Cuzco, hopefully I'll wrap it up tomorrow. Anyway, on day 5 I had to get some things in preparation for my 4-day hike to Machu Picchu which was to commence the following morning, so I went to the mall which I now knew was only a few doors down from my hotel. Now, this was Christmas Eve, so the mall was packed. Especially with shoes. Look at all the shoes!

One of the things I needed was a sweater. I checked out a bunch of different stalls, inquiring whenever I found one I liked. One of the stalls was run by a kid of about 12, and he seemed nice, so after wandering a bit more I went back to his stand. But I wasn't just going to pay the 30 soles ($10) he was asking. Oh no. This is a bargaining culture, and I wasn't paying a dime more than 25 soles. So I told him that, and he said 28. So I said "okay, see ya later!", and walked off. I had only gone a few steps when I heard him call after me "okay, 25 is fine!" I returned, triumphantly paid my 25 soles, thanked him, and left. I haggled the #$@% out of that kid.

And this got me thinking: does this make me a bad person? I mean, anytime you say "I ____ed the #$@% out of that kid", that doesn't sound good. I think I'm going to hell.

Christmas Eve at the mall

Peruvacation Day 2: Miraflores

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I know I said I'd keep this updated daily, but I really do have a good excuse - I wanted to make a slideshow for day 2, something I'll probably do for many days of the trip when I don't have stories to tell, and it took me a while to figure out how to embed a slideshow exactly the way I wanted.

After arriving in Lima, I got a cab to the suburb of Miraflores, the most touristy part of Lima. My plan was to go to Cuzco ASAP, but after realizing that Miraflores is pretty nice, I decided to stay for a day, and here's some of the stuff I saw.

Instructions for watching: actually, this turned out to be pretty easy. The video is embedded in HD quality, so just full-screen it for the optimal viewing experience (that's the button with outward diagonal-facing arrows in the bottom right). You might also want to let it fully load before watching for maximum smoothness. And turn the sound up, there's music!

Previously:

The Preface

Day 1: Travel

Peruvacation Day 1: Travel

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Day 1 was mostly spent traveling - from Barranquilla to Bogota in the late morning (1.5 hour flight), followed by a several hour layover, and then a 3 hour flight from Bogota to Lima. After a mostly boring day, I got on the 2nd plane of the day, and discovered my seat was somehow in first class.

I have no idea how that happened - my first suspicion was that the check-in lady had bumped me up because I was a clueless gringo and she felt bad. But that story falls flat because I wasn't actually that clueless, since I've been living in South America for 5 months now, and my Spanish is actually kind of decent, but also, and more importantly, because when I booked my ticket I reserved the specific seat, so the seat I ended up in was the same one on the itinerary I had printed off ahead of time. But my ticket (and itinerary) said economy class, so I don't think I was paying for first class.

Anyway, it happened somehow. And it was great.

The seats were big and comfy.

There was some sort of buffer seat between me and the other guy in our row of 3. And there was, contrary to what the itinerary said (and probably contrary to what the lowly peasants got), dinner. And dinner was amazing. Here's what it looked like:

I wrote the exact description from the in-flight menu in my journal, but as you all know I lost it, but here's what I can remember: Lomo Saltado, a Peruvian dish of strips of marinated beef mixed with sauteed onions and peppers (which I would eventually decide is one of the best Peruvian dishes), accompanied by rice and potatoes, a truly delicious salad (from what I remember the deliciousness came from the dressing and those little cubes of cheese), fresh (well, okay, not fresh) fruit for dessert, a dinner roll, a personal oil bottle AND vinegar bottle for the salad, and a little chocolate at the end. Oh, and you might have noticed the FIVE pieces of cutlery. And finally, if you squint, you can see the glass of wine in the shadows on the right. This was on LAN, a Chilean airline, so of course the meal came with wine, and there was a choice of three, each one matched to one of the three meal options. These matches were made, according to the in-flight menu, but LAN's Master Sommelier, who was also referred to, I've just remembered, as "The Only Master Sommelier in South America". I don't know what it means to be a Master Sommelier, and how there can possibly be only one in all of South America, but it sounds impressive. (And the wine was delicious too, so I guess he nose what he's doing!!!!)

The other great thing about the flight was the music selection. There were around 10 radio stations, and the playlist for each one was printed in the in-flight magazine. Nothing particularly special there. But one radio station really stood out. "Radio Horizonte Chile" featured about 30 songs, and approximately half were from Indy Pitchfork-type bands. I wrote down the whole list in my journal, but again... okay, I'll shut up about the journal. Anyway, from what I remember, there was Vampire Weekend, Animal Collective, two Camera Obscura songs, Arcade Fire, and even Junior Boys, a fairly obscure Canadian band who I saw in Ottawa last summer at a show with about 200 people. In their HOME PROVINCE. What they were doing on a Chilean radio station, I have no idea. But it was great.

Arrival in Lima

Well, thanks for reading about day 1. I will really, truly, try to keep the trip journal updated on a daily basis from here on out, and if you want to read previous days' entries, you can always check down here at the bottom.

Previously:

The Preface

Peruvacation: The Preface

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Hey guys! Long time no see! I got back from my 3-week vacation in Peru on Friday, and I've been pretty busy since then with school starting again, and buying/assembling a desk (which took about 3 times longer than the equivalent Ikea desk would have), not having any way to get cash (coming soon to a blog entry near you), almost flooding my apartment, seeing Avatar, etc, etc....

Anyway, we're gonna start with some bad news. I forgot my trip journal, which I had been about 75% faithful about keeping, at the LAST hotel I stayed at. Now, of course I remember all the stuff I did, but telling you about my life straight up has never really been what this Xlog is about. It's about finding the tiniest, boringest details, and making stories out of them, and it's been about taking the big, obvious stuff and approaching them in a different way than most would, because, for example, I could never satisfactorily describe my experience visiting Machu Picchu to you guys, so some would say what's the point of even writing about it, but I want to write about it, so I try to find a different way to tackle the topic.

(By the way, I admire Ian's take on writing about Christmas vacation - and Ian's blog is my favourite friend-written travel blog, so go check it out now - and I thought about going his way and just posting a few pics and mostly keeping stuff to myself, but you know what? That's just not me. My long-windedness is a result of that affinity for searching for narratives in the obscure, and looking at events through weird-coloured glasses. Or, more directly, I just like to write.)

Right, but as I was saying, I lost the journal, which sucks, because there was some writing in there I was really happy with. On the other hand, the simple act of writing stuff down serves as a memory reinforcement technique; it's not like that stuff is totally lost, and I remember it better now for having recorded it.

Also, I had been writing my journal in a completely sporadic, out-of-order way, and I really wasn't sure how I would schedule the blog postings, but now that problem is solved. So there's that.

Anyway, there's your preface! Over the next few weeks I'll be posting pictures and telling stories about my time in Peru - I'll try to update daily to give a bit of a feel for the ebb and flow of the trip. I hope to whip off the first one tonight, so stay tuned.

(P.S. Avatar was great. Make sure you see it at the theater while it's still there. Oh and who knew 3-D glasses weren't 1 red and 1 blue and made of paper anymore??!)

Happy Birthday, Xave's Xlog!

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Right now, I'm in Peru, probably somewhere between Lake Titicaca and Arequipa. Actually, right now, it's December 14th and I just finished making study guides for my students for their upcoming tests. No, just kidding, right now it's the year 2183 and I just woke up from my cryogenic nap to re-calibrate my omega-level cyber-spleen.

Right, well whenever it is, the day on which this blog post is published happens to be the first birthday of Xave's Xlog. Even though I won't be (or wasn't (or am not)) available to publish this in real-time, the magic of the internet gives me the ability to write this ahead of time and set it to publish at the correct time in the future. Or the past. Or the meta-futurepresent.

It's been a great first year! In case you missed out on the early days, the blog was sort of a New Year's Resolution whose inception was inspired by the events of last New Year's Eve. By now I've celebrated at least 1 (and possibly hundreds) more New Year's Eves, and hopefully those stories will be coming soon.

The blog has seen over 100 posts, spanning a diverse range of topics including poop, dumpsters, and farts. Okay, seriously, it does get more diverse than that. Also, the blog has inspired a few recurring series', including Me Being An Idiot, excerpts from my Europe journal from a couple years ago, and (Colombian) Kids Say the Darndest Things.

Overall, I'm very proud of the blog, and never honestly thought it would last this long. I think calling it "not really a New Year's Resolution" was the key. Anyway, in 2010, the 4th decade in which I've been alive (isn't it weird how that works?), Xave's Xlog promises to be bigger and better than ever! I don't know what it means for a blog to be bigger.