Alpacas, Argentina, Austin...Oh My!: Lost-Shoe Picchu and Other Tales

Hello everyone!

Just a quick note: I wrote this update on Friday, so a few interesting things have happened since then, including visiting Manolo Castillo by myself. However, I’m going to leave it the way it is and add more later! Also, these photos are massively out of order and took a very long time to upload, so I'll post all of the text first and the photos at the end!

Welcome to my second last update of Peru! Christine just left for Canada this morning and I ate some ceviche yesterday that is unfortunately not sitting particularly well so I’m out for the count today...and thus I am in my bed, wrapped in an alpaca blanket, and I have decided to write an update!

Post Isla Taquile we caught an overnight bus to Cusco, arriving tired and grumpy at 5am at the Chakana House Hostel. Overnight buses definitely make economical and temporal sense, but I’m not sure that I could do too many of them in a row! One of the positives of this trip is that I purchased one of the best jackets I’ve ever owned before leaving Puno- it’s polar fleece on the inside, and alpaca and sheep’s wool on the outside. So warm, and so comfortable, and I got to wear it on the bus all the way to Cusco! Our first day in the afternoon we had a city tour already booked, which took us around to Saqsayhuamán, the Qorikancha, Q’enco and other ruins. It was a little fast but it was cool to get to see so many sites in one day!

The next day we had a full-day tour of the Sacred Valley, including Pisac Market. Pisac Market was SO cool and so huge! A lot of the markets sell very similar items at similar prices, but we saw lots of new and interesting stuff at Pisac Market and we could have spent at least another hour exploring it. If you head to Cusco, I’d definitely recommend the Sacred Valley and Pisac Market be on your itinerary! On this tour we met two really cool ladies, Natalie from Boston and Eleanor from Holland. Natalie has worked for EF Tours (the tour company that many high schools use) for 11 years, including living in Switzerland and Moscow for her job and learning 5 languages, and Eleanor is a medical student in Holland and decided to take a year off in between the theory and practical parts of her education. Awesome people! We had lunch in the town of Urubamba, saw some more places along the way, and finished the tour in the ruins of Ollantaytambo. Our tour group continued back to Cusco after this, but Christine, myself, and a few other folks stayed in Ollantaytambo to catch the train to Aguas Calientes that night. We arrived there in the evening, met with a guide to go over the details of the next day, and then attempted to sleep despite the excitement of heading to Machu Picchu the next morning!

Our Machu Picchu day, or as you’ll soon learn more about, our Lost-Shoe Picchu day, began at 4:45am. We caught the first bus from Aguas Calientes up to Machu Picchu, and hiked up to the guard house so we could watch the sun rise over Inti Punku and the ruins themselves. Absolutely beautiful. We hung out for a couple of hours soaking it all in, then met our tour group for a two-hour tour and explanation of the ruins. After this we headed off exploring. First, we headed down a crazy cliff-side path in search of the ruins of an Inca Bridge. The path was fairly narrow, with rock wall on one side and about a 700m drop on the other down into the valley. It was terrifying, and really cool. For those of you who have seen me play Mario Kart, you understand that I get vertigo just playing the Rainbow Road race (the possibility of shooting off the road into space, no matter how virtual and not-real it is, renders me almost useless). Luckily this experience wasn’t quite so dramatic, but it was definitely a challenge to peek over the edge of the cliff, take a big breath, and keep walking!

After this we started our hike up to Inti Punku, where Erin, Christina, Michelle, AJ, Drew, and myself walked back in May. Being at altitude for a little while first and doing some other hikes along the way definitely helped- we booked it up the trail in just 30 minutes, including stopping for a couple of photos! The last time I hiked this it took nearly an hour and I was out of breath and gasping an embarrassing amount the entire way. I arrived a little bit ahead of Christine and headed to the best lookout point to take off my shoes and take in the view. Unfortunately, I took my shoes off with so much gusto that one of them bounced once, twice, and right over the edge just as Christine arrived to see it all happen. Oh dear. Once it disappeared over the edge I just held my breath and hoped, but was pretty sure I would be heading back down the mountain barefoot. Thankfully, by some miracle of nature and gravity, my shoe managed to get itself caught in some plants growing on the terraces below! At which point the question of whether I would ever see my shoe again morphed into whether I would ever be able to retrieve it. Luckily (again) at this point a group of guys arrived, including the gentlemanly and brave Jose Luis, who saw my predicament and without a moment’s hesitation jumped down the terraces to try to find my shoe. Keep in mind that the top part of the mountain was terraced, but below that is the 1000m-ish drop into the valley. Somehow this didn’t seem to phase Jose Luis, who pulled my shoe out of the weeds and returned it to me, saving me from a) walking barefoot back down to the ruins, b) wearing only my smelly birkenstocks for the rest of the trip, and c) being forced to buy both new running shoes AND new orthotics, all because I was a little too excited when taking them off my feet. All’s well that ends well, I suppose, and for the rest of the day all I would have to do is take a glance down at my feet to start giggling wildly over what a ridiculous situation I had found myself in. Just another example of why the Incan method of terracing was so darn useful! Seriously, friends, you can’t make stuff like this up. I’m still in shock over the image of my shoe bouncing, bouncing, and disappearing over the edge of a sharp drop high up above the ruins of Machu Picchu, and then looking up to see Christine’s face with her expression of, “Oh, dear God, what just happened?” written alllll over it.

We hung out at the top for a while getting some photos, including some for Mr. Drew Cumpson himself, and then headed back down to the ruins. We had heard that you could walk down from the ruins to Aguas Calientes, so after some juice and water we did just that. Along the way we were accompanied by a dog whom a Peruvian woman dubbed “our guide,” and he actually was- he guided us almost the whole way down the mountain, leading us to the next part of the path when it would break off, and waiting patiently as we tried to keep up. Pretty awesome. We walked the whole way to Aguas Calientes, then went to enjoy the hot springs nearby (hence why this town is called, in English, “Hot Waters”). After soaking there for a while we grabbed some food, and headed back to Ollantaytambo by train, and then to Cusco by bus.

The next day we finally got to sleep in after a solid week of overnight buses and early morning tours. The room that we were staying in oddly resembled the nuns’ rooms at Santa Catalina, and was so well-protected from noise and light that we’re pretty sure we could have slept there all day if we didn’t have to pee!

As part of our purchased tour we had received tourist tickets to Cusco, which are good for 10 days and allow you to enter a number of museums and ruins sites. We decided to use this to visit a bunch of museums for the day, so we ended up going to the Korikancha museum, the museum of modern art, the regional history museum, and some others. We also found one museum near the Korikancha that has been set up to help preserve and supporting spinning, weaving, and knitting traditions in Peru. Mom and Kate, it would have been heaven for you! I took photos of every single display so that you could have a virtual tour.

One of the museums, “Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo” or the “Centre for Cusco Native Art,” didn’t open until the evening, and we weren’t sure why. When we arrived however, we realized that the museum itself wasn’t very big, but the main purpose of it is to showcase live presentations of native music, art, and dance! So we ended getting to watch a free show of dancers performing various traditional dances, including explanations by a Peruvian woman closely resembling Sofía Vergara from Modern Family about their purpose. Then at the bookstore nearby I found a copy of “Open Veins of Latin America,” by Eduardo Galeano, and when we went looking for dinner we managed to find a full meal, complete with appetizers, soup, main course, and two drinks, for only 12 soles, or about $4.50! Walking back to our hostel, we found a massage place offering a promotion of 60 soles for a 90 minute massage, so I obviously took advantage of that, and it was a great night overall.

We headed back to Lima on the 7th and spent some time doing some last minute pre-departure stuff for Christine, including hitting up the Inca Market again, getting some frozen maracuya juice, and seeing some friends. We also met up with the principal of Ramiro Priale for lunch yesterday. He took us to an incredible fish market nearby which was quite the experience. Note: Pictures of this will likely be in the next blog post, as I have to download them first and I forgot to do that until just now. Apparently it’s at its busiest at 4am, and there is every kind of fish imaginable there! It was really cool and everyone was very eager to get photos with us. One lady handed us the egg sacks from inside the fish to get a picture with, “so that we would remember Peru.” I had hoped to remember it regardless, but I think that sealed the deal!

We took Chelo, Victor, and Lizeth out for dinner last night, and then Christine left for the airport this morning at 10:30. It was a very teary good bye, with Chelo repeating, in English, “I love you so much!” and in Spanish, “Solo una mas semanita y estoy solita!” which means “Only one more little week and I’m alone!” so it was pretty emotional all around. Unfortunately the delicious seafood lunch from yesterday has killed my stomach, so I’ve been pretty out of it all day, but I’m hoping to feel well enough tomorrow to attend the Christmas campaign in Manolo Castillo where we built the stairs. Hopefully I will be able to bring some gifts along for Jenny, Natalie, Mardalie, and Juan. And tomorrow evening is Lizeth’s baby shower!!!

The next 8 days are going to be busy for me! I plan on writing a guide to composting at home for San Juan de Miraflores, building a compost bin for Chelo, compiling packages of information for other schools to use to start a composting program, and writing a guide in English for future volunteers who come to stay with Chelo or work with SEM. In addition, I’d like to make it to Cerrito Azul and Ramiro Priale most days to help there, attend a couple Campañas de Navidad, and have some private Spanish lessons before I fly out on Sunday. I’ll write another post once I’m home to let you know how it went!

I’m looking forward to seeing you all soon! I will arrive home at 11:30pmish on the night of the 18th, and will be heading back to Guelph that night. If anyone will be around Guelph please let me know, because I’d love to see you! Otherwise, my sister and I will head home by the 21st at the latest for my mom’s birthday and be there until after Christmas :)

Thank you all so much, once again, for reading my blog! It’s been wonderful to share these stories with you from across the equator, and I feel so touched and blessed every time someone tells me they’ve enjoyed what I’ve written. I have one more Peru-related post left, but I will certainly keep up this blogging thang when I head to Argentina at the end of January! By the way, a big shout out to my new travel agent, Tiffany Johnson, for finding me a wicked sweet deal to Buenos Aires and Austin, Texas for the new year!

Enjoy the photos and you’ll hear from me again soon!

Love,

Cassie

P.S. A quick note of love and support toward Raoul Masseur, for reasons that many of you are aware of. If you haven't yet written your letter of support, please do it now! There's still time! Raoul, you are one of the best people I have ever known, and we're all behind you <3

Watching the sun rise over the ruins

Somehow these photos always end up looking like I'm standing in front of a giant Machu Picchu backdrop. I swear I'm actually there!

This is when we were doing the tour of the ruins and were at a bunch of rocks shaped like a condor. At this point the guide told us that we were about the enter the "entrails of the condor" and this is how I felt about that.

Part of the path to the Inca Bridge with the lovely drop of hundreds of meters beside it.

The valley surrounding the walk to the Inca Bridge.

I once lost a shoe,

On Machu Picchu.

The End.

My hero, Jose Luis, and my gravity-defying shoe. Thank you for coming back to me.

Saqsayhuamán! Complete with a little Christine.

Saqsayhuamán without the little Christine! I really wish we had more time here- it was super beautiful and green and seemed like a wicked place for a picnic!

At the ruins of Q'enco, I believe.

Tambomachay! Apparently the fountains down below are supposed to bestow eternal life on anyone who touches them. Obviously I stayed far away. That shit sounds dangerous and very impractical.

The cutest, funniest alpacas ever near the Pisac Market!

Some lovely examples of the Incan method of terracing for agriculture at the ruins of Pisac. Michelle Teepell, this is for you!

All of these holes are places in the mountain where the Incans buried their dead. They've found thousands surrounding different ruins!

Mmm. Cuy. Roasted. Complete with heads and teeth!

One of the many examples of the phenomenal shops in Pisac Market. This one had just about every single type of bag I think has ever been made!

At Ollantaytambo. In the rocks, to the left of the rectangular ruins, you can make out a face of a God or a man or an Incan (I unfortunately stopped listening to the guide at this point) who is trapped in the rocks. I stopped listening because I spent the rest of my time there wishing the rock-man would burst forth in a blaze of modern day graphics-technology magic, like Transformers or something. It didn't happen, unfortunately, but then again I also wasn't stomped flat by a rock man, so every cloud has a silver lining I suppose.

Traditional Dances at the Q'osqo Centre for Native Art!

Our cell-like room at Chakana House. Surprisingly comfortable.

Me walking along the path toward the Inca Bridge, gripping the rope staked into the rocks because beside me is a drop of hundreds of metres to certain death and likely doom as well. This explains the next photo.

How I feel about how high up I am and how close I am to the edge of how high up I am.

Photos of the shoe rescue itself! This photo illustrates Jose Luis' fearlessness toward the drop into the valley, as well as my lack of shoe. Kudos to Christine for snapping all of these shoe-rescue photos as they happened!