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well, i’m now in juliaca…just outside of lake titicaca. today i saw some more cool inka stonework at moray, then drove into cuzco. in cusco, my exhaust pipe broke again (since lima, it had been broken just before the muffler….which was loud….but not as loud and polluting as the second break before the catalytic converter). so, i stopped by a repair shop and paid $7 for him to weld the whole thing back up. afterwards, i started my drive towards lake titicaca. the first town i stopped by had a nice church, but it was too early in the day for me to spend the night there. the next city was a good time to stop…but the city/hotels were pretty bad. so, i decided to head all the way down to lake titicaca….well, to juliaca…which has nice hotels.

because it was kinda far, i had to drive at night. peruvians have no high-beam etiquette. none. in my experience here, the best way to get on-coming cars to switch to low-beams is to keep your high-beams on….kinda like a game of chicken. most will finally give up and switch. of course, some will stick it to you by turning on their high beams again at the last second. cars behind you are no better, often keeping their high beams on, even when they’re just 20 feet back. i also, may or may not have outrun a police car. i’m not too scared of the cops anymore, so i’ll sometimes pass them (in this case, another car passed the cop first). afterwards, the cop put on his highbeams, then switched his lights so only his right beam was on (which i think is a sign for me to pull over). i figured that if he really meant it, he would put on his siren or pass me. but, i lost him in the dark. the third experience on my night trip was the road detour just outisde of juliaca. the nice paved road detoured into dirt…well, actually, into a desert-like terrain. a few minutes into the detour, i nearly drove into a ditch. at that point, i looked around, and noticed another bus a couple hundred yards away…to the side of me. luckily i was able to get back on course and follow the bus to safety.

tomorrow, i head to lake titicaca, then to chile, then to iguazu falls.

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this morning the friendly receptionist at machu picchu inn let me use their wifi for free (…a good thing, since rooms start at $200). at that time, i was able to read erik’s recommendation to climb up putukusi (the mountain directly across from machu picchu).

the hike up had some cool sections (climbing up ladders on steep rock faces in a jungle-like environment) but can best be described as steep, tiring and boring (for most of the hike, you can just see the trees and vines). i lost my respect for erik during the 1 – 1.5hr hike….but after sitting up top for a little while, he regained my respect. the view is very nice….and has a cool perspective on machu picchu. it was so nice that i sat up there for about an hour. i also met chuck, an engineer from texas who warned me about the dangers of socilaism in america (he also asked me to take a picture of him under the huge gay flag of the inkas…not sure if he realized the double-meaning of the flag). later on, i met carlos, a school teacher from lima who shocked me by suggesting that my spanish accent sounded brazilian…without knowing that i was brazilian (i had earlier told him i was american…but apparently i now sound more brazilian than american!)

Question Of The Day: Are peruvians surprised to find that san francisco’s (homosexual) castro district is not full of inca’s?

PICS:
1) aguas calientes from mount putukusi
2) a ladder on the hike up mount putukusi
3) i wonder where they stole this logo from?
4) the bus mechanic / underwear drying facility (i never thought about it before, but maybe theyre related businesses)

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today i went to machu picchu. it’s an incredible place for a number of reasons:
1) growing up, machu picchu has always been described with awe and reverence. i feel that if i were to say or think anything negative, it would be blasphemous.
2) the site is placed on the top of a mountain ridge and is surrounded by other steep mountains (with a small river surrounding machu picchu). because the mountains are so steep, they’re also quite close, and it’s almost surreal to be enveloped by these massive walls of green.
3) although machu picchu may have looked much different in the past (gold, plaster walls, etc.), it is a really incredible piece of art now. it is grand like an ancient castle or fortress, but it’s also very organic and seems to rise from the mountain top. indeed, quite a few of the walls are actualy built around existing boulders (which were often carved in place to become part of the wall). only a few places have the incredible inca stonework that i expected the whole site to have….although even the sub-prime stonework is still impressive, especially from a distance.
4) machu picchu is quite small (as i learned this morning, you can sprint/jog from one side to the other in a few minutes), however, it’s full of awesome nooks and terraces from which you can sit and admire the stonework and surrounding mountains. indeed, even with hundreds of tourists, you can easily find a quiet little corner to relax in.

so why did i run? well, they only allow 400 people to climb huayna picchu every day (the famous mountain in the background of almost every picture of machu picchu). so, i woke up at 4am, then waited in the bus line in aguas calientes (machu picchu pueblo) for the first buses which leave @ 5:30am. at the top, we waited in line again to enter the park…then sprinted to the other side where you wait in yet another line to sign up to climb the mountain. i ended up being number 87, and got to start climbing the mountain at 7:30am…..then no more lines for the rest of the day!

a few asides:
– getting a tour guide is not necessary, since there are already so many guided groups there. if you wait next to any place for a few minutes, a spanish or english group will show up…and you can eavesdrop easily. also, that way you can see the site in any order you want.
– americans tourists are almost always paranoid about their citizenship, and pretend to be canadian or wear local clothes (i’m no exception, and have chosen to travel most of this trip with my brazilian passport). locals can obviously see through this, but the ironic thing is that most people from other countries try to look american (american brands or shirts with stuff like ‘texas longhorns’).
– my shower in aguas calientes is actually quite cold.

PICS:
– were the sizes of arrows and text on ths sign intentional?
– it’s beautiful how the randomly sized rocks are fitted together to form a uniform object. it’s even more incredible when the boulders are parts of the mountain and are then carved in place. i love it when one rock can be part of two or three walls…or even part of the floor. it’s such a different mentality than what i’m used to: uniform bricks and materials which are repeated to form simple shapes (we live in a world of legos).
– temple of the sun with huayna picchu in the background
– macchu picchu terraced hillside with huayna picchu in the background
– surrounding mountains

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peru offers three different style trains to machu pichu: the simple ($30 – 40), the medium ($40 – 60) and the extravagant ($300). because the fare was only $40, i decided to take the medium (vistadome) to machu picchu and will take the cheap (backpacker) out of here. the vistadome is not as extravagant as it sounds….from the inside, the train looks a little bit like what people in the 1920s thought trains would look like in the future. periodically, pre-recorded messages (in spanish and english) would tell us safety messages, etc. the spanish version was a very proper woman who annunciated everything perfectly. surprisingly, the english version was not from a peruvian butchering english….but instead from an american with no voice training at all…perhaps a tourist who made a few exra bucks. the train steward made his own little inca wall, piling up 20+ bags in the doorway to create a sturdy tower almost 6 feet high.

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so, today, for my birthday i took a train to machu pichu (i visit tomorow) and peru through a bunch of parades and festivals. coincidentally, it was also peru’s independence day. here’s a pic from the small town of pisac. in the background, you can see the gay pride flag (cusco’s flag) and the canadian flag (peru’s flag).

parade in pisac

parade in pisac

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FIRST, some follow-ups:
-like most (all) of my ideas, the inca wall puzzle does exist.
-bembo’s wouldn’t sell me a hat. my brother prob could have schmoozed his way into getting a hat….but the best i could get was a job application

TODAY, i walked all around cusco. it’s a cool little city….with tons of narrow winding stone passages. it’s a fun place to wander around for a day. humans are lazy, with differing consequences. on the plus side, cusco has a cool mix of incan, spanish and modern architecture (it’s easier to build on or around the old stuff). on the down side, people pee in many of the alleys so it smells.

FLAGS. tomorrow is peru’s independence day; apparently, it’s also national law that all buildings must display the peruvian flag. so the streets are filled with peruvian flags (which look surprisingly similar to canadian flags). I’m not sure which came first, but cusco’s flag is identical to the homosexual rainbow flag…coincidence?

THEATER. this evening, i checked out kusikay. it was actually surprisingly entertaining…full of acrobats, comedy, dancing, audience interaction….and no speaking. it wasn’t as polished as a similar program might be in san francisco, but it was still well done.

PICS:
+this is the second country (el salvador) where i’ve seen barbed wire placed at human level to protect a shitty little grass patch…seems dangerous and a waste of money to protect some dried up grass.
+another cool inca wall in the middle of the city.
+cuzco from above (taken from the ‘christ the redeemer’ statue, which is apparently not just limited to rio)
+a cool little [hippie] park in cuzco

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CUZCO! (…or is it cusco?)
today ushi (the sentra) and i finally made it to one of the two major destinations of the trip: cuzco! (the other destination is iguazu falls). the inca stonework really is quite amazing and it’s nice that, as far as i can tell, the knockoffs are pretty obvious…..so you can appreciate the originals even more.

driving into cuzco is a bit overwhelming. it’s a densely packed, stone filled little city. the central area is very easy to manage by foot…but a bit more difficult by car (at least at first). in most cities i follow the major flow of traffic…hoping it will lead me to a major destination (such as the central plaza). here, i followed cars so i could know which streets were passable for cars and which weren’t. like in parts of europe, many streets are barely wide enough for cars. after driving around peru, i think we need to invent a new mode of transportation…in some parts of nepal, they’re using ziplines instead of building costly roads…interesting idea.

SOUVENIRS
souvenirs in peru are, for the most part, very nice and very affordable. instead of the ‘i heart sf’ shirts, they sell intricately carved gourds and nice paintings. so what’s the downside? EVERYBODY sells the same stuff…so it loses it’s value. even in lima, they sell the same stuff. why do we need thousands of identical stores selling the exact same stuff at the exact same price? it’s really ashame — i’m ok buying mass-produced products (iphone, etc.), but mass-produced art work just doesn’t sound right. also…where are the inca wall puzzles? seems like a good souvenir idea, no? 3d or 2d puzzles which interlock like the walls…not like traditional puzzle pieces.
finally, at one of the artesanal markets (‘artesanal’ is used loosely), they had a cool visa card reader, which is shared by all the stands….not a bad idea.

BEMBO’S BURGERS
like in n’ out, bembo’s seems to have a passionate local (peruvian) following…and is better than mcdonalds…but is just another hamburger chain (like in n’ out). they wear these really dorky wool hats. well…that’s what i thought at first. then i saw some of their artwork on the wall, illustrating their hat in different styles (lichtensten, warhol, etc.). then i liked the hat. now i want to buy one. i guess advertising does work.

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here’s a pic of the sentra in front of our first inca wall! the site of Tarawasi is small but nice. it’s cool that you can touch and interact with the archaeological site (rather than it being roped off). on the other hand, it’s ashame that dogs defecate near the wall and that people play soccer on the grass right next to an archaeological site. as much as i like soccer, it can’t be good for the wall.

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i took off from nasca bout 7:30am. about 1.5hrs later, i had gone ~30 miles (up hill + road construction), was down to 2/3 of a tank and gasoline was dripping from engine onto the exhaust pipe (and the ground). so, i decided to head back down to nasca to find a mechanic. the mechanic i did find was pretty incompetent, as well as physically abusive to his son. $5 later, he had reconnected a hose (by accident/trial-and-error) and i was back on the road to cuzco. on the way back up the mountain, the fuel gauge sunk even lower….down to ~1/3 of a tank…and i still had ~80 miles to go. i was also pumping the brakes again…and the car nearly stalled several times. at that point, i pulled over and realized three things:
1) the hose he had reconnected was still leaking, but it was excess oil coming from the engine….so not as dangerous as i had once thought.
2) the fuel was actually leaking from the gas cap…i tightened it a bit, and that helped.
3) the mechanic in huaraz was not joking when he said that the sentra was \built for the coast, not the mountains\”
so, back on the drive, i decided to push forward…knowing that i had 4 gallons of super in my trunk (from ecuador). at the next road construction area, a man waved his arm, so i stopped. before i knew it, i had picked up a hitchhiker. the one benefit was that he knew the distance to the next gas station….so that was a bit comforting. he also noticed that the fuel tank was extremely hot (the backseat sits directly on the fuel tank….he thought the engine might be in the trunk). but, like the hannukah miracle, the remaining few gallons burned and burned–much longer than anyone would have expected–and we made it safely to puquin.

the funny thing, though, is that from puquin, i then drove another 200 miles to abancay (nasca to puquin = 100 miles)….but only used half of a tank! seems the sentra has difficulty climbing 2+ miles in elevation….but can stay at a given elevation without too much of a problem.

pic: as tessa and francois can attest to, drivers in peru love driving on the wrong side of the road…..even when there’s no good reason to. why?”

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today, i drove from ica to nazca (aka nasca). along the way there’s a ‘mirador’ which looks out over some of the nazca lines. i was expecting a lookout on the edge of a cliff. instead, i found myself climbing up a rickety metal tower in the middle of the desert. from the top, you can see a couple of the glyphs, but it’s not as dramatic as the plane. as soon as i got into nasca, i hopped on a 6-seater prop plane and got the birds eye view of the lines….which is much more impressive….although it didn’t help that i’ve already been feeling kinda sick since yesterday afternoon. The girl in front of me actually did puke on the plane. a few more turns and i would have been next.

so what’s the deal with the lines? well, supposedly they were ‘drawn’ in the desert 1-2 thousand years ago by removing the top soil/rocks to form lines and shapes. I was actually a bit underwhelmed by the lines….they were smaller and easier to make than i had originally anticipated. with a bit of rope, and some time, i could probably do a comparable job….just not hundreds of them…unless i had the sentra. however, what is impressive is:
-the lines have survived wind and rain for thousands of years. especially when they’re so shallow (6in deep?)
-an entire population has sprouted in the middle of the desert, solely financed by some lines on the desert floor….which were accidentally dscovered about 100 hundred years ago.
-according to lonely planet, there are unrecovered landmines around the lines from their earlier wars — what an ingenious way to keep tourists from destroying the archaeological evidence….much easier, cheaper and more effective than fencing in the entire desert.

aside:
one of the most frustrating things about driving in latin america is not understanding the driving culture/language. sure, i understand most of the basic laws and signs*…but it’s the driver-to-driver language which i lack. for instance, today, a white sentra in front of me was signaling with his hand that i should pull over to the side (he had his left arm on top of the car, finger pointing to the side, and sliding his arm left-to-right). kinda worried, i pulled over, and everything seemed fine….well, \fine’s\” a relative term, when the exhaust pipe is split in two (hanging up with some of mark’s wire) and the brake switch/lights don’t work. later on, two additional on-coming cars flashed their lights at me….but the car was fine, and there were no cops to be seen. on top of that, cars seem to honk all the time.
USEFL COMMUNCATION TOOL: one thing i learned from another cab in guayquil is how to signal to the window washers ‘no’ (at many stop lights, people will come up to your car with a squeege and offer to wash your windshield). simply turn on your windshield wipers and they’ll walk right by.

*according to a taxi cab driver in guayaquil (ecuador), it’s legal–and expected–to turn left at a red light…as long as there are no cops around. even when cops are present, the rules are flexible…such as the cab driver in huaraz (peru), who sped through a police checkpoint (all taxi’s there look the same, so it’s hard to catch them).”