Saturday September 7, 2019

In the Sacred Valley, Peru

1Kings 19:1-18

v. 11b-12  Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  We started hiking at Amaru.  It was about a mile up to the 14,200-foot pass.  It was very slow going and incredibly hard to breathe (though not all the others seemed to find it so) through the spectacular scenery of the mountains all around us.  But the Lord was not in the mountains.  The alpacas were fluffy and shy, grazing on surprisingly abundant growth, but the Lord was not in the alpacas.  Much of the way was rocky with little slippery stones, bigger ankle-twisters and lines of boulders here and there.  But the Lord was not in the rocks.  As I walked through the empty potato field just before our lunch stop there came “a gentle whisper.”  “My Spirit is within those who trust me,” reminded the Lord, “so I am with you wherever you go.”  The day’s majestic mountains, skittish alpacas, too many red rocks, the thin air and the smiles of the Quechua people—my Lord was already there with me in these things, showing me wonder and strengthening me with himself so “the journey [would not be] too great” for me (v. 7).  Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the reminder of your presence in this adventure.

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All ten in our group wanted to do today’s hike so up and up our two vans chugged on ever rougher roads, snaking past tiny settlements above the treeline, slowing down twice for little flocks of sheep ambling along the road. 

“I’ve jumped out of airplanes lower than this,” said Maurice.  At 13,150 feet we stopped on a broad slope near a church a bit frayed at the seams. 

I slipped in for a quick look.  It was the Nativity of the Virgin, and I chatted in my nonexistent Spanish with a local family decorating the sanctuary.

Juan had told us today’s hike would be accompanied by a couple donkeys, one carrying extra water, first aid supplies and oxygen, and the other for transport in case someone couldn’t manage the walk.  I was surprised; none of the information from REI mentioned emergency donkeys (probably because they don’t want you to sign up for the trip unprepared thinking you can easily drape yourself over a donkey and inhale pure oxygen whenever you want).  But there they were, walking down the hill to meet us—three donkeys, not two, with their owner and her daughter.  The donkeys must have had names but we didn’t know them; Monica soon dubbed them Uber, Lyft and Nine One One.

Up we started.  “We’ll take it really slow,” Juan had said several times.  It was a gentle slope, beginning on friendly green grass, and we had our hiking poles—so why was this so hard?  Ah, yes—there’s not a lot of air up here.  We walked and rested, walked and rested, and the rest stops gave us time to look back at the magnificent mountains, and over at the alpacas, and contemplate the rich brown earth of the potato fields, the only crop that grows this high. 

We also looked more carefully at the donkey lady behind us.  What was she doing?  Did she have a rope for the donkeys?  A yo-yo?  No.  She was spinning—spinning wool into yarn!  Walking behind us in her skirt and sandals—behind the wimpy North Americans moving at snail’s pace in their latest REI gear, leaning on their poles and gasping for air—the donkey lady, who had already walked over the pass once this morning, was drawing wool from the blanket tied around her shoulders, dangling her spindle and getting some work done.

We walked for about an hour and twenty minutes to Challwacasa, the pass at 14,200 feet.  Nobody needed oxygen or a donkey.  We took off our packs and reveled in the 360-degree panorama.  Even from the “ladies’ room,” just down the hill on one side, the view was exquisite from every clump of grass.

The descent was easier on the lungs, the rocky ground was trickier on the feet and the vistas were no less beautiful.  The pond we saw from on high turned out to be a water source for the valley, held back by a dam we walked across. 

In an hour and a half we reached the tiny village of Viacha where an al fresco lunch was waiting for us.

There was even a little building with a flush toilet and a sink with soap and paper towels (oh, the luxuries of organized group travel!).  I sampled the local beverage Inka Cola, one of the drink options.  Tastes like bubble gum!  After we ate, two Quechua men in a nearby potato field showed us how they plant potatoes—one of their village’s 230 varieties—with a digging stick, fertilizing each tuber with dried alpaca pellets.

We continued our gorgeous descent.  As we passed small settlements, potato fields, alpacas and stands of eucalyptus trees (flourishing but invasive here too), the intriguing markings on one of the smaller hills below us came into focus as the ruins of an Inca town and terraces.  As we stopped for a few minutes, two little girls appeared selling woven bracelets.  Monica bought one for each of us ladies.

We had to negotiate a steep path made up mostly of boulders before we got to Pisaq, the Inca town we had been approaching. 

Our vans were waiting, but we had the option to walk through the town first, so I joined that group.  Did I mention that the town spilled down the steep hillside of its strategic mountaintop location?  So up we climbed again, the fit young(er) hikers scampering up like mountain goats and me lagging behind unable to take in enough air.  We saw the remains of houses and got the same views from the top as the Incan rulers had as they made sure their slaves were working hard on the terraces below.  On the ascent through Pisaq we paused at a nondescript location.  “Give me your camera,” Saul instructed.  I complied.  He zoomed out the lens, scanned the cliff opposite and took a picture.  “Look at this,” he said, zooming in on the screen.  There were openings in the cliff, with white spots visible in some of them.  Skulls!  To keep animals away, the Incas buried their dead in fetal position in the sides of cliffs, sealing up the holes.  When the Spanish came, they eventually dug up graves as they pushed into every corner of the Incan empire looking for gold (which the Incas did not use much in burials).  Many untouched graves were later looted in the 1940s and 50s when there was no functioning Peruvian government.

Juan is willing to share with us what he really thinks, the real truth about Peru—things like, that the only people who celebrate Columbus Day are politicians, and how the Spanish invaders destroyed native genetic diversity.  Tonight at our meeting he told us about coca leaves:  It’s been scientifically demonstrated that, contrary to popular belief, coca doesn’t do a thing to help with altitude sickness.  The maka it contains is a stimulant and an anesthetic.  Chewing the leaves numbs the mouth and stomach so the person doesn’t feel hungry and can work in the fields all day.  Coca usage is also just cultural.  But 50% of coca production currently goes to drug dealers to make cocaine.  All the jungle countries now deal in cocaine, and it will never be controlled because politicians are in the business.

The hotel toilet paper situation is becoming…more unpleasant.  As nice as this lodge is, what with chocolates on the pillow and a jacuzzi and llamas in the garden, you’d think they’d have the trash can by the toilet all dust ruffled and perfumed.  Sadly, no.  This trash can doesn’t have a swing-top lid like the ones in the previous hotels.  In fact, it doesn’t have a lid at all.  (What is this—an airport bathroom?)  I still had part of the Carroll County Times in my bag, so I tore off the front page and folded it to fit over the trash can.  It’s not a swing top but at least I don’t have to look at the contents.

Friday September 6, 2019

Cusco to Chinchero to Urquillos to Lamay, Peru

1 Kings 18 

v. 38  Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.  Amazing things have happened on mountains.  On Mount Carmel the Lord showed himself to be the true God when he sent fire to Elijah’s sacrifice, leaving the prophets of Baal shouting in vain.  On the Andes, today between Chinchero and Urquillos, the fire was in my lungs, burning up what little air I could suck in.  It was a break-in mostly downhill hike, and I’m not at all sure how much uphill I will be able to do on the real hike at even higher altitude tomorrow.  But the Lord does amazing things, which is why the people watching the spectacle on Mount Carmel cried out, “The Lord—he is God!  The Lord—he is God!”  I declare that truth with them, and beg him to send the Breath of Heaven to fill my lungs and the lungs of all of our little group of adventurers!

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At breakfast I crushed coca leaves and put them in my hot chocolate.  Maybe the coca really will help with the altitude.  We were out at eight, hopping into the second van with our assistant guide Saul.  He pointed out ladies selling breakfast at sidewalk stands—quinoa porridge, papaya juice, and cheese or avocado sandwiches. 

We asked Saul about all the half-finished buildings.  People just want to be able to build a good foundation, Saul said.  When and if they have more money they will build more.  They might even leave it to their children to construct the next floor.

In the tiny village of Chinchero we went to a weaving demonstration in the yard of one of the local families, set up to accommodate visitors.  Three ladies were in traditional dress, but I don’t think that was just for us because I saw other ladies around the village who looked similar.  One of our ladies was spinning wool, one was weaving on a lap-held loom, and the other explained things to us in English, passing around baskets of lambswool, alpaca wool, and baby alpaca wool (aaah!). 

She showed us how to wash the wool, and passed around bowls of natural flowers and leaves that made different colored dyes, all rich and earthy, describing how long various colors had to soak.  An intriguing dye was made from dried cochinilla, a parasitic insect that lives on cactus leaves; our wool worker crushed it to show its rich purple color, then squeezed lime juice over the purple to make flaming orange.  Of course our Peruvian ladies had a whole display of beautiful, authentic, intricately woven textiles that we could buy if we wanted.  Hmmm.  I bought a winter alpaca hat and a baby alpaca shawl—a special deal if I bought both!

Our next stop in Chinchero was a church built by the Spanish when they knocked down the Inca building they didn’t like on that site.  The church had a lovely painted wood ceiling and all sorts of wonders but of course no pictures were allowed.

Maurice went off with our guide Saul’s cultural group for the rest of the day.  They visited the Maras salt production site, a mountainside carved into hundreds of ponds for the evaporation of salt from a salty stream flowing constantly out of the mountain. 

After lunch Maurice’s group explored the stunning and somewhat mysterious Moray site, where the reason for the beautiful curving and concentric terraces is unknown.

During their hundred-year empire the Incas built 50,000 miles of trails, with four main ones starting from Cusco.  The group I was with for the day, led by Juan, was following one of the trails, starting at about 3500 meters (11,500 feet), down to a valley—a break-in hike.  Our descent began along Inca terraces. 

Down into woodlands we wound, along a stream, past fields crammed in between steep mountainsides, needing to watch our footing but stopping occasionally to look at the soaring green walls ahead.  After an hour we paused to remove some layers where the trail came into the open, facing a high mountain ridge. 

“Are you guys adventurous?” Juan asked.  “That’s why we came,” said Monica from Vermont.  “I’m going to take you to see a beautiful waterfall,” Juan told us.  We continued down the slope and soon turned right onto a steeper trail downward. 

“You’re not scared of narrow places, are you?” Juan asked—meaning a narrow path where one side is straight down.  Who, us?  Down and down we went, leaning on our poles, the sound of rushing water growing louder until, rounding a bend, there was Pocpoc Falls tumbling down in two ribbons from the mountainside high above. 

Great side trip!—except then we had to go back up.  Just when I couldn’t get any more oxygen into my lungs, Juan turned again and we were back on the trail and heading down to the valley floor.  Stands of wild geraniums punctuated the wild growth along the Urquillos River.  We crossed little rias that spilled over into clearings.  

A eucalyptus forest around a grassy bank of the river provided our lunch spot. 

After an hour Juan got us moving again, uphill a little to a narrow track along a channelized irrigation canal. 

I had thought we were near the bottom of the valley but suddenly glimpses through the jungle to our right gave views to the cultivated valley floor far below.  “It’s corn for Europe,” Juan told us. 

We had a few more ups and downs with the final downhill slope especially hard on my knees.  Then we turned into the dusty red town of Urquillos. 

Juan gave his uneaten lunch sandwich to a little boy hanging out with his mama and the family chickens. 

The REI van appeared.  We bounced along the road in the Sacred Vally to Lamay Lodge, our home for the next two nights, where the back door of each room opens onto the garden with the giant fire pit, jacuzzi and llamas. 

Shower, laundry, tea time, pisco sour demonstration and tasting with Juan, and a fine dinner, and we were all well done for the night.

Thursday September 5, 2019

Cusco, Peru

Deuteronomy 33 

v. 27, 29  “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms….Blessed are you, Israel!  Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord?  He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword.  Your enemies will cower before you, and you will tread on their heights.”  It’s the final verses of Moses’ blessing of the Israelites that strike me.  God spoke verse 27 to me once before, when I was terrified as a glider on a winch shot up into the sky with me in it.  Now he faithfully speaks it to us, part of the new Israel, as we go up into the high Andes:  “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”  Blessed are we indeed!  Who is like us, sinners by our own choice who have become “a people saved by the Lord?”  Holy God, may we tread on the heights this next week secure with you.  Be our shield against danger and our helper when muscles weaken.  Holy Spirit, please fill our lungs with your breath.

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We finished drying our laundry by laying it on the plug-in heater, repacked and were out by ten in a taxi to our next hotel, the nicer (read “more expensive”) one that came with our REI adventure.  The room is fine, if with a somewhat odd bathroom arrangement, but aside from the basket with three pieces of fruit, it isn’t appreciably better than the one we left.  The public areas are lovely, though, including a comfortable patio filled with chairs and tables for daytime and firepits and blankets to tame the night air. 

But there was not much time to indulge in amenities.  After a quick lunch we met our group:  Monica from Vermont who, in spite of her fitness and energy, had already suffered through such severe altitude sickness that a doctor had to be called (she was fine now); Adrienne from Arizona; the sisters Kim and Cheryl from Western states; Gil from San Francisco and his college senior daughter Eleanor; Tony and Mary from Boston; us; and Juan, our experienced and extremely knowledgeable Peruvian guide.  Our quiet group hopped into the van for our introductory outing, through crazy traffic, past all Cusco’s half-built structures sprouting tall rebar bouquets with flowers of overturned plastic jugs.

Our first stop was at an aqueduct built by the Wari people almost a thousand years ago for a city that was never finished.  A few hundred years later the Incas repurposed the site to control access to the valley.  The Inca stone blocks stand out from the rougher masonry of the Wari.  Though the Incas rough-cut their stones at the quarry, amazingly they set them by trial and error:  dropping a stone into place, lifting it again to file it down where needed, then dropping it again, as many times as needed.  When the position was right, the protrusions that had been used for lifting were filed off (unless they hadn’t gotten around to that part—some are still visible).

The unfinished Wari city, its original name unknown, was disparagingly called Pikillaqta (“flea town”) hundreds of years after its abandonment.  Crossed by straight streets and surrounded by a high red stone wall, Pikillaqta was supposed to be a city for about 10,000 but only its builders lived in the adobe houses.

Our final visit was to Tipon, guinea pig capital of the world.  “Don’t bring one home for the kids,” texted Eric when we told him where we were.  Not a problem.  It’s the guinea pig capital because they eat them here.  Restaurant after restaurant lined the main drag, welcoming customers in with signs of smiling guinea pigs apparently not knowing what you’re here for. 

But we had come to see Cancha Inca, the broad agricultural terraces the Incas built, each with a microclimate temperature one to two degrees different from the next, to develop crops for the empire.  The ground in each terrace had been built up in three different layers to absorb rainwater and prevent flooding.  Controlled water channels for irrigation were fed by mountain springs.  A few simple houses for workers were perched at the top of the site, which a sign said was at 3400 meters.  That’s 11,154 feet, about the same as Cusco.  After the climb we were still breathing, if gasping.

Back at the hotel Juan gave us a detailed briefing on the next day’s two options.  He talked about altitude sickness, encouraging us to drink two liters of water per day (right!) and mentioning two symptions I hadn’t heard of—a metallic taste in your mouth and tingly fingers.    We had a fine dinner.  My itching continues to subside and I have no new bites.  I’ve quit the heavy-duty oral meds and just use the cream now.  Surely this high-class hotel will let us flush our TP, I thought, until I saw the admonitory sign, right in front of my face at eye level when I used the facility.  As we went to bed at a reasonable hour to be rested for the next day’s first real hike, my fingers were tingling.

Wednesday September 4, 2019

Cusco, Peru

Deuteronomy 12:1-14 

v. 2-4  Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods.  Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.  You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.  Destruction of these high Inca places in the mountains around here is pretty much what has happened.  Shrines are ruined, buildings are smashed and idols are forgotten.  Some of it was done by the Spanish conquistadors, likely acting through misunderstood tradition rather than true faith in God.  The rest of it happened through the neglect of time and persistence of weather.  It will be amazing to see what is left of these ancient places in beautiful settings; that’s why people are coming and overcrowding Peru’s most famous ruin.  I hope we can still see the wonder of Machu Picchu among the many visitors.  But here’s the warning to me:  God is not now and never was worshiped in the way of the Incas; he is worshipped through the Spirit and truth revealed in his Word.  His people are not to be drawn to whatever spiritual aura lingers at Inca sites, or is imagined or brought in.  We “must not worship the Lord [our] God in their way.”  Lord God, may I see your glory beyond all the majesty of the mountains and creative work of the Incas.  May I give you praise for all the wonders you have made in the earth and inspired among her peoples.

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Maurice seems to be having a bit of trouble breathing; I am OK (so far), as long as we’re not going steeply uphill.  Coca leaves, an Andean favorite, are supposed to help your body adjust to the altitude.  Our hotel lobby not only has the urn of coca tea but also a bowl of dried coca leaves one can take for chewing.  I am not persuaded.

We started out late in the cool morning air and walked to the main square on the truly dangerous narrow streets—smooth stones, about twelve-inch sidewalks before a very shallow but enough-to-turn-your-ankle drop into the street, generally unnoticeable because of all the mottled tan coloring, and then another dropped trough in the center of the street.  We tended to fall off the narrow sidewalks, and we couldn’t pass people and stay on the walks, but we had to watch out for taxis in the streets.  We passed Peruvian ladies decked out in traditional garb carrying baby llamas and alpacas, heading to favorite spots to pose for tourists.

Shops were bursting with colorful textiles.  Vendors approached selling all sorts of wares.  Everywhere we went we almost stumbled over dogs—the street dogs, too many of them.  Most minded their own business, some tried to be friendly and some slept unperturbed in the middle of a plaza or sidewalk.  They didn’t look underfed, and I hope for the best for them.

I decided to visit a museum while Maurice found a place to draw.  I wandered through rooms around the elegant cloister of the Convento de la Merced. No pictures were allowed inside, which is really too bad, as there were some beautifully carved wooden ceilings and an entire carved wooden library. 

There were also paintings, miscellaneous trinkets and a display of elaborately embroidered chasubles, one of which had a picture of Jesus with a llama behind him.  I was charmed by a small contemporary Pietà in one of the rooms, made of some kind of sculpture and cloth.  Peruvian Mary cradled a dead Peruvian Jesus, his head fallen backward from her arms.  Jesus was wearing a colorful wool hat of the type worn by the local indigenous people for thousands of years, a chullo, with earflaps for warmth and an extra long crown for carrying coca leaves.  I went back to look at the Pietà several times.  Should have snuck a picture.

When I came out of the museum a group of red-Peruvian-outfitted dancers was assembling to draw attention to a cancer fundraiser. 

Maurice wanted lunch.  Right across the narrow plaza was a building housing a cafe with a raised porch and a perfect view of the dancers, so we adjourned there and got a seat right in the middle.  The chairs had blankets against the chill, and the porch came with its own cultural event—two guys with guitar and pan pipes—so we were well entertained.  We got quiche that wasn’t really quiche, and I got a tall glass of thick papaya juice (now where else can you get fresh papaya juice, and for only about $3?)

We watched and listened and ate and it was all so pleasant that we even bought two small original watercolors from Luis, a talented and persistent artist who had approached us once before and must have figured our “no” really meant, “oh, you’re a great guy, come back and hustle us later when we’re eating and can’t get away so easily.”

We went back across the main square and up the hill (gasping) to the Inca Museum in the Almirante Palace, which I picked because it had Inca mummies.  Many of the museum’s displays were old, dark and lacking English descriptions, but I found it all fascinating: the pre-Inca pottery with beautiful frog, snake and feline forms, some lovely textiles, models of nearby Inca sites, dioramas of life in the Andes, huge jars, old photos by Hiram Bingham, a whole room dedicated to coca leaves with not a word of English, and finally at last the mummies.  They were crouched in niches, baskets and big pots in a red-lit room behind a wall with peepholes; I was disappointed I couldn’t get up close and personal with them like I could with my Egyptian buddies in childhood visits to the Walters.  Once again no pictures were allowed.  This museum had a comment book, though, and in case someone actually reads visitors’ suggestions, I wrote a plea for the growing worldwide museum practice of allowing photographs.

I met up with Maurice on the main plaza.  Vendors continued to approach us, a constant source of irritation.  You’re eating lunch, or taking a picture, or consulting a map, so of course there’s nothing you’d like more at that very moment than to buy a change purse, or a pair of earrings, or an original painting, or a massage.

Tuesday September 3, 2019 

Lima to Cusco, Peru

Deuteronomy 1:6-8  

The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites….  See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land….”  It was a quick visit with Chris, but “you have stayed long enough at this mountain,” the Lord said to us.  “Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites”—or, for us, the Peruvians.  So here we are in Lima in this two-bit hotel, under a sky that is overcast all the way down to the ground, and I am wondering how I’m going to manage now that I’ve figured out why I kept having to go to the bathroom yesterday when I had very little to eat or drink at all:  Two of my new medications are diuretics!  No wonder I’m uncomfortable.  My itching has subsided and there are no new spots; maybe I’ll stop the meds I don’t like.  But all this is really just pebbles under my shoes.  “Go in and take possession of the land,” says the Lord.  “I’ve given it to you for blessing and enjoyment in this season.  You’ll be fine.”  Are they really his words to us?  Does he care this much about our personal dreams in this world?  Thank you, Lord, for the medical care.  Thank you for this journey that has already been wonderful.  Please strengthen our weak bodies and walk with us every day.

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The bathroom was Camino-perfect with no place to put things, then I failed to put the shower curtain in the tub and flooded the floor—the kind of error I am prone to and that sets Maurice off, though he helped clean it up.  Breakfast was about the worst hotel breakfast ever:  undercooked scrambled eggs, sort-of roasted potatoes, cups of peculiar tan lumpy yogurt, an adequate fruitbowl from which I could pick the pieces that had been properly peeled, two uncertain kinds of juice, and tasteless plain white rolls with bad butter.  Bad butter! —not rancid, just fat and tasteless.  (How do you ruin butter?)  And there was no jelly. After I drank two small glasses of juice for rehydration (since yesterday’s water supply was gone and there’s no drinkable water in the room) and was pouring another glass of juice into my water bottle, Maurice said, “You know, they probably make that juice with water and concentrate.”  No, I didn’t know, thank you very much, it never occurred to me, and why are you mentioning it now?  I talked myself into keeping my half bottle of juice and went upstairs to brush my teeth in the poison sink water.  Maurice then mentioned he had been using bottled water on his teeth.  I didn’t think we had to because we weren’t in the Andes yet, but Maurice mentioned he had just met a young Australian in the elevator who said definitely don’t use the water.  Well.  Maurice decided to go get some Peruvian money and buy a bottle of water.  Surprise.  He got the money but couldn’t get change for the big bills, so no water.  But he stopped in the hotel restaurant and asked about the juice.  They do reconstitute it but they use filtered water; a guy that Maurice said sounded like he had an English degree pointed out the system to him.  Whew.  When Maurice returned with the report, I had just been imagining that I had tummy rumbles, but suddenly I was all better.

The taxi to the airport arrived, but it didn’t look like a taxi, just a non-English-speaking guy in a car.  There were no accessible seatbelt receptacles though I got grime under my fingernails looking for one.  Ugh.  “No seatbelts?” we said to Silent Sam.  He just smiled and shrugged in a non-comprehending way but he did drive much more carefully than the previous night’s driver.  “He’s not going to have change,” Maurice said.  “This is not a taxi.”  “It’s got to be a taxi, we reserved a taxi,” I said.  “He drives people around, he has to have change.”  But Maurice was right.  Peruvian Pedro had no change.  It was my intention to tell him he had to go find some change, but he had stopped in a lane where a sign that even I could understand said, “One-minute drop-off only,” and he couldn’t comprehend anything I said.  I was fuming as I fished out an American twenty, an acceptable alternative to the sixty soles price (at a rate beneficial to a Peruvian).  As I turned to go, there was Maurice, shaking the hand of Clever Carlos and thanking him for the safe ride.

Inside the airport I needed the baño due to the diuretics and my desperate need to get the grime out from under my fingernails.  After we checked in Maurice bought a bottle of water—finally a customer-friendly business that could change a hundred-soles note (about $32).  Looking around at the crowds I realized we were definitely the foreigners here.  We waded into the melee to get lunch—nice American Papa John’s pizza, and two overpriced chocolate Dunkin Donuts to go.  It’s not fast fast food here, but it was comforting.  The plane was already boarding when we got through security, but I had to find another baño.  One stall was occupied, one had a door that didn’t stay shut and one was locked from the inside.  “We have assigned seats,” said Maurice, and he waited patiently.

The flight was only about an hour, and from the mob of taxi drivers who all wanted us to get into their taxis we found our official REI pick-up guy.  We drove on wide roads through Cusco’s sprawl of colorfully painted but unfinished or abandoned buildings to the old part of town where no cars except taxis are allowed, then we had to get out and do an immediate hike up a mountain of stairs to get to our tiny street.  Did I mention Cusco’s altitude is 11,250 feet?  We could tell by our gasping that we weren’t in Maryland anymore.  The hotel was shabby-quaint, with religious art and urns of mint and coca tea in the lobby. 

We rested, had a light supper at Pacha Papa, filtered some water with the filter we had brought with us (now how hard was that?), moved slowly, and we were still breathing adequately when we fell asleep in the cool Cusco night.

Below: scenes from our street