The Lost City of.... Rain and Fog!

I am probably the only person in the world who is enjoying the small little gateway town of Aguas Calientes almost more than I did Machu Picchu!

Aguas Calientes is a small town in the Peruvian 'cloud forest' of about 1500 residents and a whole bunch of tourists. Although, this is the off-season and thus the 100 or so restaurants, which open at 5am for the first batch of tourists heading off to Machu Picchu, each have about one or two people sitting in them. Aguas Calientes (hot waters, for the non-Spanish speakers), besides having the amazing raging Urubamba River next to it, which makes me drool about the idea of river kayaking but not drool about the high possibility of a dramatic and quick death, is home to... hot waters. Hot springs to be exact. After a 10 minute walk through a dramatic, dripping with water and ferns and flowers, boardwalk along the river, you arrive at a little resort with about 5 pools. And a bar overlooking the pools. And a bar next to the pools. And a bartender at the pools who comes around and takes your orders and returns promptly with your 4-for-1 drink special. Personally, my favorite part is the bar and balcony overlooking the pools. Apparently it isn't just my favorite, it is also the favorite hot spot of several I am sure very hard-working, diligent, and extremely loyal local guys who like to gawk, I mean, watch over the pools just like lifeguards. They seem especially concerned about the younger more delicate women in bikinis as I am sure they are much more susceptible to those 4-for-1 drink specials. Because you know everyone is safe, you are much more easily able to relax at these pools compared to other more secluded spots. Anyways. If you turn your back to these guys and look around, you see you are surrounded by amazing natural beauty, soft summer rain, and the sound of the Urubamba drowns out the whistles and hi-fives from the balcony. And while this is a small, quiet town without cars, it is still a tourist haven. And despite most people needing to get up at 5am to get to the opening gates for Machu Picchu, I woke up at midnight to a raging, hilarious Capoeira lesson going on outside my window in the main square. Nothing like adding alcohol to the already dangerous and horrendously difficult national martial art of Brazil. Although it looked like a whole lot more laughing and falling down than Capoeira.

Machu Picchu was, of course, amazing, and our group was lucky enough to catch it at 6am right before the clouds from the... cloud forest... moved in. And it disappeared. Fortunately four hours later, it came back. The cool thing about Machu Picchu, like all ruins here, the rooves of the houses were thatched, and therefore there are no more rooves and you can see down into all the empty, rectangular, identical buildings all over the mountain. The bad thing about Machu Picchu is that none of the houses have rooves, which is really smart thinking during the RAINY SEASON IN A RAIN FOREST. I was lucky and happened to find a Model House during a rainy time, which was also the same place that the sick and infirm of the day decided to rest. Which means I got to literally feel the popping that was occurring next to me when some Peruvian Guide with a young altitude-sick client decided to try an 'ancient Chinese' head massage which involves pinching several different bunches of hair and pulling until there is literally a popping sound creating from the skin on your scalp popping away from your skull. Mind you, nothing is being ripped out, that you can see anyway. But if you sit next to someone getting this treatment, you can feel the popping in your own skull. I won't be surprised if this woman is bald by the weekend.

Here is some interesting trivia about Machu Picchu that I hadn't realized. The people of Machu Picchu deliberately left Machu Picchu, which is why there are really no artifacts here. So they had time and planning, and did rituals to say goodbye, but just never returned. Yet, the locals say. Yet. Apparently someone did find a gold bracelet - the only gold object ever found in Machu Picchu - which was part of the goodbye ritual, and the archaelogists took it and put it in a traveling museum (currently in Japan), but then lots of bad juju started happening, so they did a goodbye ritual for removing the goodbye ritual artifacts, and there wasn't bad juju anymore. Also, like other important Incan sites, they deduct (because no one knows the true history of Machu Picchu) that everyone had 7 jobs in their young lives and then whichever one they were best at, that's what job they did for the rest of their lives. Also everyone ages 16-80 had to pay taxes, and at age 16 the boys worked as foot messengers between here and Cusco, and the 80 year-olds got to watch the crops to make sure the animals stayed out. I think my Bacca Gene already does that! Speaking of foot messengers, it takes 4 days to hike the Inca Trail from Cusco to Machu Picchu. It took the Incan foot messengers 4 hours.

Back in Aguas Calientes after a hard day of taking pictures, I just polished off a strong cup of capuccino and a flavorful, mind you cholesterol-free, alpaca steak. Time to go rest up before I have to board the train for the 4 hour trip back to Cusco.

The Crazy Life

The city fires off canyons every morning to celebrate life, so every morning is punctuated with a near heart-attack before I realize what is happening.

My neighbor's dog has grown on my roommates and I - a sweet heeler mix with eyes lined with eyeliner and a fluffy tail. Sometimes we let her into our house and give her a snack. Sometimes when she sees us on the street she likes to walk with us to school. Normally this isn't a problem. But now it is officially Springtime and apparently she is a hot item on the doggy streets of Cusco. This morning I had a line of four dogs following me into town, arranged by size - in back, the smallest terrier mix just twice as big as a chihuahua and about three times smaller than the much-desired Fair Maiden. She sat with me while I worked at the internet cafe while the gentlemen got chased out by the owner. Speaking of Springtime, my friends and I were walking our little, innocent kids from the clinic around the gardens the other day and the clinic's three llamas were going at it. I mean, seriously, how does that work?? Our kids were seriously confused but managed to double over with laughter during their confusion.

A visit to the local Quiropractico yesterday was a true test of my Spanish skills, and the application took about 10 minutes to figure out. The questions I absolutely couldn't understand I decided were really not relevant to my aching back anyway. After two pages of Spanish words and phrases I have never seen, my doctor turned out to be Canadian. Hopefully he worked his magic because I have spent most of my time this past week laying on my back in bed. Thankfully I have had a good Lance Armstrong-Tour de France book to entertain me, which maybe isn't so good now that I think of it because it makes me want to race bikes. Except when I read about the crashing parts, and there are a lot of crashing parts.

Modern Marvels

Sometimes I walk around thinking, 'These people are the from the same race who built Machu Picchu with exceptionally sophisticated engineering??'

Today I got to experience more Love from the Cusco Post Office. A package, sent from the US one month ago arrived last week and I finally received the pick-up notice yesterday. You can only pick up packages at the post office between 8am-11am. I decided to take a little time off from work this morning to pick up my package, only to end up waiting until 9am before they even called my number (4). Once in the package office, the package people tell me I need to open my package and also need to pay tax. I open the package, which contained some previously frozen ice packs, which, as one might guess, after a month in the post, had melted. But miraculously none of this water leaked out until I opened my package on top of the post office desk. Divine justice, I think. The desk probably really needed a cleaning like everything else around here. Apparently their machine had registered I had CD's (oh god, no, CD's!!) in my package and that had to be verified. To my surprise they told me that I had to pay $37 US in taxes, but do you think you can pay this AT the post office?? Nope. So they sent me about a half-mile up the street to a bank, wherein the bank lady told me the number on my certificate did no exist and I had to return to the post office. Which I did. The post office man told me to go to a different, farther bank. Which I did. But they don't take cards, so then I have to find an ATM, return to the bank, get personally escorted to a special desk where I paid my $107 soles, returned to the post office and had to pay ANOTHER $7 soles to re-pick up my package. Three hours later I officially receive my 5-day Special Post package one month later.

Another thing that makes me question the intelligence here.... electricity is very expensive here, thus most people have propane to heat their water and warm their stoves. The Propane Delivery Boy? Yeah. That is a guy about 15 years-old on a 1970's honda motorcycle with three propane tanks strapped to the back of his bike, and to conserve gas, he turns his engine off while going downhill. I will also mention the police here have the same kind of motorcycles, and they too coast downhill.

Much to my delight, I recently discovered there is a Pentacostal Church on my block, with full-on dancing, singing, and tambourines.

I am sad to say this might be my last day in this particular internet cafe. All the desks are slightly tilted toward the left, so I am definitely leaning as I type this. When the 12 year-old girls running the place aren't watching Telenovelas (Soap Operas) on You-Tube, they are blasting old school hard rock on the stereo. The spacebars all stick, and if you type anything remotely 'racy' on a search engine (relationship, kiss) or if you try to look at photos that 'may' contain adult contect (e.g., Dad's Harley website photos), the computer instantly locks down into ANTI-PORN mode and you can no longer use that computer.

My first Art Studio session with my teenage girls went great last Friday. It was the first time I have seen all the girls actively, happily engaged in an activity, and for two hours no less. They were enthralled with all the new art materials (particularly the chalk and oil pastels), they are cherishing their very own art notebooks, and after much giggling, they patiently sat through a short lecture about being non-judgmental about other's art in this particular studio. My favorite moment with this particularly rowdy bunch was when their two directors came in during discussion time and saw all their girls sitting quietly and listening to one another. Completely different young women. Thank you again to everyone who has donated to this project! I am going to try to find another volunteer to continue with the project once I return to the US.

Cusqueña New Year!

Nothing like bringing in the New Year with a big bowl of raw fish in an inland town in a foreign country.

With that being said, the ceviche here is amazing, and is a national delicacy (although generally in seaside cities like Lima). For those not in the know, ceviche is raw fish marinated in citrus for about 5 minutes before it is served, and while still being raw, it has the texture and taste of cooked fish, mixed with chilis, vinegar, salt, and herbs. I have the fortune of having a friend who is a chef at one of the most well known cevicherias in town, Olas Bravas (Brave Waves), and yes, it was delicious - spicy, salty, succulent - and no, I didn't get sick! WOooHooo!

I passed my New Year like the old lady that I am - asleep in my bed, but as one might expect I woke up at midnight to the sound of millions of fireworks. I ran to all the various windows and saw shooting starts surrounding all the hills and the sound of thousands of clapping hands (actually, that is what it sounded like, but it was just the sound of people lighting firecrackers for about 30 minutes echoeing in all the hills). Within about 15 minutes, I thought clouds were rolling in on this exceptionally clear night, only to discover that it was the smoke from so many fireworks for such a long period of time! My roommates reported that the main plaza was insane, even the police were shooting off hand-held fireworks, kids were aiming aimlessly, and everyone was calling relatives on their phones wishing a Happy New Year!! Unfortunately their relatives probably didn't realize that because of that phone call, lines were tied up for, what I imagine, the many people who got shot in the eyeball with a firecracker held by 2 year-olds and tried to call an ambulance. This morning, I dutifully got up at 7am to go to my project and spend my day with 37 little kids who don't understand what day it is, and I got to feed them an amazing lunch of smoked roasted turkey (I snuck a piece from a 4 year-old, shhh, don't tell), baked potatoes, apple pudding, and veggies. Yum. I wish I had an oven. All storekeepers, taxistas, and security guards were in an especially jovial mood this morning, and I expect they were all still very drunk. Within an hour, with barely a hello, I had four grown men ask me my stats: where are you from, how old are you, what is your name, are you single?

Mom, I am losing weight. I am sorry but it is happening. But honestly, I am eating all the time here! The food is amazing, how could I not? Besides normal healthy stuff, I even eat things like Panetone and butter and real hot chocolate, I even have a very mom-like lady at the farmer's market make me extra rich, thick milk and bread with a cream spread. I eat 3-course lunches, sandwiches with 5 different kinds of meat on them. I am trying here, if for nothing else, for the fact that I can't buy pants here in my length or size! Honestly though, I think it is the pilates three times a week. My abs burn, my legs cramp, and dang, it is a good feeling, plus I walk everywhere at 11,000 ft altitude, maybe that has something to do with it too.

I am happy to report to my Divas that, during my island trip the other week, I spent time with 6 New Zealanders, and three of them were wearing Icebreaker! I was wearing my Icebreaker at the time too, so we really bonded. It was beautiful.