Tag Archives: Cusco

Lima Bean

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We got to Lima at around three in the afternoon after a short flight. We spent last night at another hostel in Cusco. When Dad and I went back to Pantastico to get our laundry, the owner said that our laundry would be ready by this evening. We pointed out that we were leaving Cusco at one in the afternoon, and she handed us our two bags.

In Lima, we got in a taxi and rode for half an hour to our lodgings. After a short while there, we dropped off laundry and went grocery shopping. We decided to eat in our apartment, so we bought ravioli, tomato sauce, green beans, salad, and chocolate ice cream. Dad and I prepared supper, and Ethan eventually washed the dishes. Our salad had lettuce, beet, radish, carrot, tomato, and lots of corn—but no beans, so unfortunately we can’t say we’ve had Lima beans.

Ciao!

Sitting in a Cesspool

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We had breakfast this morning at The Meeting Place, where all of us had waffles. Ethan and I had fruit (cantaloupe, pineapple, and banana) waffles while Mom and Dad selected Monkey Business Waffles, which had chocolate sauce and bananas. We were there to drop off our Spot, which kept track of us in the Amazon (just in case of emergencies). We had gotten it from Mr. Gooey back in Arequipa, so we’ve been carrying it around for two weeks or so.

Ethan and I played Scrabble and, even with my wonderful word “queleas” (which are birds we saw in Namibia), I lost. We had a conversation about homeschooling with the owner (Steve). We also petted the friendly cat, Mz. Socks, who doesn’t purr—she just meows.

We returned to the hostel, where we did schoolwork and such for a while. Then we left to get ice cream. Mom and Ethan each had one scoop, but then we went to the bakery associated with the hostel because there was no chocolate ice cream. There, we ordered a grand total of two brownies, one cookie, a slice of apple pie, and a vegetarian empanada. We ate in the plaza, where a woman tried to sell her wares to us.

Back in the hostel, Dad deleted more pictures before we went out to supper at the place where we had supper our first night in Cusco about a week-and-a-half ago. Mom and I shared a bowl of chicken soup and curry with couscous while Dad chose tomato soup and Ethan ordered vegetarian risotto. Ethan was excited to go to the restaurant because he wanted to have his virgin strawberry daiquiri again.

The lights flickered a few times, but we still left after enjoying our complimentary chocolate ice cream (wow, we’ve had a lot of carbs and calories today!). There was thunder—not very loud, but very often. The lightning came quickly, too, and we hurried to get home to avoid the downpour.

It was not to be.

By the time we got to the hostel, my jeans and pants were soaked. Thankfully I had decided to wear my rain jacket to dinner, so my shirt was dry. I grabbed my long john pants and towel after kicking off my shoes. I slipped into the bathroom, slowly dragging the heavy door closed. The shower drain gurgled.

Wow, we must have got a lot of rain. That’s odd. Wait—why is there more sound? Oh, well—it is sleeting outside.

I had just started to get changed when water started coming out of the toilet.

Um, okay. What is going on?!?!?!

I hastily pulled my pants back on and flung the door open.

“Ethan! Ethan! Get your stuff out and up! The toilet is overflowing!”

“What?”

“Look at that!”

The drain in the bathroom floor, as well as the toilet and shower, was overflowing with brown stuff. I was horrified. We pulled our stuff up onto our beds. It was sickening, but the smell was only overwhelming when you faced the bathroom. Every room on the bottom floor of the hostel was overflowing with brown stuff. It was gross (understatement of all time).

If we had gotten back to the hostel five minutes later, our stuff would have been ruined. If we stay here, we’re going to be sleeping in a cesspool. Right now, we’re standing and sitting in a cesspool. There are at least six inches of water in the common room of this place.

On that cheery note,

Ciao!

The Three Cs

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We’re back to cell phone service, chocolate ice cream, and Cusco!

 

We started out our day at Reve’s dad’s lodge at five in the morning. We loaded up the boat and left at 5:30. At around seven, we had breakfast (kiwi, papaya, and cantaloupe with muesli and strawberry yogurt). Using the tea bag wrappers, Reve taught Ethan and me how to make origami tea-shirts and swans. I was not very good at it.

In about an hour, we arrived at Colorado, where there were five bars of 3G—that’s very good service for being in the middle of nowhere! Reve found us two vans, and all our stuff, Paltacha (the cook. His nickname means avocado), the boat helper (Jonathan), Reve, and the four of us went in them. Down we went down a muddy, bumpy road to another river, where all the stuff came out, into a boat, and across the river. Once across, we met our van driver from last week. He had come with his five-year-old son.

The ride back to Cusco took about seven-and-a-half hours. The highest point was 4,725 meters above sea level. I listened to One Direction pretty much the whole time, except when we stopped for lunch and, as Reve called them, pee-pee breaks.

We’re going to miss Reve. It was good we had someone who spoke English well enough to make us mind our manners. His favorite sayings were “Don’t kill yourself—let the caiman do it for you!” and “Laha muy, Paltacha! Laha muy!” (I’m guessing on the spelling, but “laha muy” means, roughly, ‘Your food is bad but we’ll take it anyway.’ It was a sort of inside joke.) Not in the van were two other important members of our trek: the capitan and his son, who was called Segundo, or the second (he has the same name as his dad, but we don’t know what it is).

So to them we say,

Ciao!

Cocaine and Cuy

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“Here, we aren’t addicted to cocaine. As children we are told, ‘People who make bombs don’t blow up—they sell bombs. People who make guns don’t shoot themselves—they sell guns. Here, we make cocaine and we sell it.’”

Reve, our English, Spanish, Dutch, and Quechua speaking guide, was explaining uses of coca to us. We were standing in the field of coca at our lodge for the night. The other three uses of coca were to chew, to make tea, and to offer to gods.

 

We finally arrived at our lodge after eleven hours on the road: from five a.m. to six in the evening. We descended over 2,000 meters, passing waterfalls and mudslides in the little van that could. We had two meals—breakfast and lunch—and a snack of fruit and doxy. Dad saw a feral guinea pig, our only mammal of the day. We saw lots of butterflies, everyone else saw a non-venomous snake, and we all saw a “cock of the rock,” which is the national bird of Peru. Actually, we saw several of these red and black birds, but only one or two were picture-worthy.

Ciao!

Sweet to Be Swiss

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We got to make our own chocolate today!

Dad didn’t, but he still gets to enjoy the results, which were 12 little pyramids, 11 Reese’s Pieces-style chocolates, and six chocolate bars. We could choose from twenty-two flavors to stick in our creations at ChocoMuseo, but I only used thirteen: pink marshmallows, sprinkles, coffee beans, Oreos, Peanut M&Ms, nibs (bits of cacao bean), mint, cloves and cinnamon, chili, sea salt, coconut, and quinoa. I could have used coca but decided not to. Some of the women who worked there were making “experimental” chocolate bars: white chocolate bars with coffee beans, coca, chili, or coconut. The museum doesn’t actually sell full-sized white chocolate bars, so they were definitely experimental.

At the beginning of our “lesson,” Manuel took us upstairs (us being Mom, Ethan and I—we were thankfully a small group) and asked us which country was the leading producer of cacao.

“Peru,” someone guessed.

“Venezuela.”

“Ivory Coast,” I said. (I was right, of course.)

“What’s the second-largest producer?” Manuel asked.

“Brazil.”

“Ecuador.”

“It’s in Africa,” he said.

“Ghana,” I answered. (Right again!)

It was also interesting to learn that, on average, a Swiss eats more than 11 kilograms of chocolate a year, while Americans (on average) eat only 5.3. I can’t wait to get to Switzerland!

Ciao!

Happy Flowers and Plenty of Capers

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Sacsaywaman was our destination today (pronounced like “sexy woman”). Well, it was our goal. We didn’t actually make it in because it was 70 soles (about US$30) per person—that wasn’t gonna happen.

So we walked down the hill and up the hill to El Cristo Blanco, the white Christ. You can see the statue at night from Plaza de Armas since it’s lit up like the statue in Rio—it’s not as big, though.

Dad took a lot of pictures (of course) and then we walked down a loooong set of stairs and to our plaza, then on to Pan…tastico! (That’s the name of our B&B.)After a little while, we left for supper at Pachapapa. It was closed, as before, so instead we went to Sara, which is the Quechua word for corn.  All of us had pasta: Ethan had ravioli, Dad selected spaghetti, and Mom and I chose rigatoni. All four had different sauces. Mine was the most flavorful. It’s a good thing I like capers (a lot) because that sauce was very, very caper-y.

I decided not to have ice cream (since we’d already had waffles at The Meeting Place, where I also beat Ethan at Scrabble), but Dad and Ethan decided on chocolate. We ate by the puma fountain, which we’ve passed many, many times.

“There’s a wedding,” Ethan announced.

“Huh?”

“A car with flowers on it drove by.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a funeral?”

“They were happy flowers.”

Ciao!

Casts and Couscous

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The first half of our day was devoted to (a) learning more about our trip to the Amazon on Monday and (b) trying to get Mom’s cast off. Guess what? It didn’t come off! Instead the doctor told Mom to get it off in two weeks (when we’re in Morocco). While Mom and Dad were working on that, Ethan did schoolwork and I read Code Name Verity, which is an amazing book (I spent most of supper telling Ethan to read it).

Eventually (at around 5 p.m.) we went out for a walk, which ended up with us finding a place for supper called Greens Organic. Mom and I shared a bowl of pumpkin soup and chicken on couscous. It was delicious. So was the (free) dessert: the brownie to compare to all brownies.

On the way home, we stopped at Plaza de Armas to take in the atmosphere. Every Peruvian town/city has a Plaza de Armas—the main square. Dad and Ethan started being embarrassing, so I was relieved when we left the public eye.

Ciao!

The Rain in Peru Falls Mainly On You

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“So what does Cusco do—mining? Farming? Manufacturing?”

“Solo turistico,” Ronnie replied. We were within a five minute drive of our B&B (Bed & Bakery), and Mom was questioning our driver from Ollantaytambo.

In the morning, we’d been given a tour by Elvis, who met us at Apu Lodge at 8 a.m. He walked us around Ollantaytambo in the rain, telling us about how the Incas moved huge stones (by either having people pull the rocks that were on logs, by sending them down ramps, or by some other way), how you can tell from which town women are by their hats, and how messages were sent from Cusco to Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu to the coast (on foot in a relay). He also told us how Ollantaytambo got its name: Ollantay is the name of an Incan king, and tambo means lodge. Ollantay hid there from the Spanish, and once the Spanish captured him (and eventually killed him in Cusco), the Incas were defeated.

After our tour, we checked out the ice cream place, which unfortunately had no place to sit. So we took our ice cream to Corazones Café (Heart Café), where Mom and I shared a piece of cake and a bowl of soup and Ethan and Dad split a grilled cheese sandwich while Ethan indulged in a brownie and Dad enjoyed a huge cookie. Yes, it does sound like we went a little bit overboard in the sugar department, but Dad’s excuse is that we climbed Wayna Picchu and walked around in the rain for four hours.

Ciao!