because they usually take that as a sign that they have to speak English which is worse. I finally got most of what he was saying by moving increasingly closer to him. That probably made him nervous and even less inclined to raise his voice above a whisper. He seemed to want to go on forever, but I couldn’t stand the strain of trying to hear him, so we excused ourselves and went to the dining room which was empty of course; as we had only seen one other group in the hotel. After several minutes shuffling about trying to attract some one’s attention, the waiter arrived—it was Nelson.
February 22, 2010 Cusco:
The Indians are driving me nuts! I don’t mean the ones that want to sell little woven things, shine your shoes or get a tip for taking their picture in traditional garb. I mean the ones that won’t enunciate. I made a bad choice of where to have lunch. The waiter was so backwards and completely unable to open his mouth when speaking I wanted to run out of the place screaming.
I made a worse choice for dinner. It was a place called Inka Grill that our fired tour guide had recommended. I should have known better. There was really very little of interest on the menu. Sandy only wanted onion soup and I ordered lamb and was advised that they didn’t have any, so I joined the onion soup bandwagon and added prosciutto with mushrooms, then some gin to take the edge off the situation. Everywhere we have been in South America where music is played in public places it has been old American rock and roll, and occasionally odd mixes, for example Chuck Berry segueing into Pavarotti. At the Inka Grill they played an Andean flute band doing the Rolling Stones. When I heard a wispy little female voice singing Under My Thumb to accompanying flutes while I steadfastly avoided eye contact with the waiter who whispered in English things that I never really heard, I felt like I was trapped in a Fellini movie on bad acid.
Exiting the Inka Grill we were prevented from crossing the plaza by a demonstration. A group of perhaps a hundred people of all ages was carrying a banner trumpeting the recent decision to found a new Organization of American States that excludes the U.S. and Canada. This was the result of a summit meeting the previous day at Cancun, hosted by Cesar Chavez that also excluded the U.S. and Canada. I'm surprised they didn't ask the U.S. and Canada to cater their summit meeting. Well, maybe they did. Their banner was a map of the western hemisphere that ends at Mexico. One does tire of the bullshit.
Detailing the unhappy encounters with tourismo has prevented me from describing the good things we have seen. Before lunch we strolled to the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art past Incan walls in pedestrian alleys and were delighted when we found reliefs on the face of the stones, mostly serpents, or unique stair step joints that fit with cracks too small for spiders to pass. You can clearly see where the Incan stops and the colonial wall begins.
Between lunch and dinner we took a taxi to Saqsayhuamán. This is an Incan site perched above Cusco, only a couple blocks as the condor flies, but a couple kilometers by road due to the switchbacks. The entry fee was complicated. For seventy soles we could enter Saqsayhuamán or for seventy soles each we could buy five day passes for all kinds of things. Either way that’s quite a bit of money for archeological sites. So we bought the ‘E’ tickets and were scanned into Saqsayhuamán which is another innovation that has little place at ruins. We dodged the English speaking guides without asking what their fee was, and went into the central plaza. Incan sites are different from Meso-American sites. I find it hard to grasp what the walls are defining. Of course the Spaniards razed much of what had been there so it becomes doubly hard to understand the context of the structure. This is why I felt it was so important to see Machu Picchu because it was never disturbed after its abandonment.
While wandering Saqsayhuamán we were accosted by Eduardo who became our guide. He did well, and showed us details we would have missed, and he used his familiarity to get a guard to take pictures for us of two places that were off limits. Before the rain returned he led us to the taxi stand and gave us over to Waldo—yes, Waldo—who became our driver for a day trip on Tuesday.
Waldo was telling me about Saqsayhuamán and kept repeating the name (pronounced Sack-say-wa-MAWN. Sandy didn't connect it to the place we had just been—it is, after all, a word that takes some time to assimilate—she thought he was telling me about a "sexy woman".
February 23, 2010 Sacred Valley:
It was a big day in el Valle Sagrado. Waldo showed us Chinchero, Písac, y Ollantaytambo. Písac was the most impressive with Ollantaytambo a close second. Chinchero is largely over built by colonial buildings, although we never scoff at sixteenth century artifacts. The flood damage along the Urubamba River is quite terrible to see. The mud brick houses simply melted in the torrent of the flood that rose as much as twenty feet inundating the valley floor. Fields of corn sat in casual water but most were flattened by the inexorable mudflows. The retreating water left more trash than I have ever seen outside of a landfill. People displaced by the water were given blue tents of rubberized canvas by the government and have established tent cities near to their collapsed houses, and hoards are working at removing the rubble of the bamboo roofs. The walls have simply returned to the riverbank from whence they came.
February 24, 2010 Sacred Valley:
Waldo so endeared himself to us that we retained him again for a half day tour. We saw Tipón and Pikillacta (why that is spelled with a 'K' since there is no 'K' in the Spanish alphabet eludes me). Tipón is an Inca site with a beautifully engineered hydraulic system. I was induced to drink from the Fountain of Fertility and suffered no ill effect either intestinal or reproductive. Of course someone earlier in the day had scattered coca leaves in it to appease the spirits which no doubt was beneficial. Pikillacta is pre-Inca and is completely unique to my experience. The Pikillactans’ stone stacking prowess is second to none, but they lacked the Incas’ penchant for carving, however, their city planning model is like nothing I have seen. The site is surrounded by a double defensive wall with an odd scalloped shape at the top. That is not so strange, but they carried the double wall concept to their streets as well. All through the place the streets were walled and the dwellings and ceremonial areas were in courtyards created by the walls lining the streets. On examination the genius of it became clear. If your perimeter were breached you could ambush the intruders with impunity at any intersection. The place was very large, and fragments of it were visible on the hills outside the archeological zone as we drove back to Cusco.
En route I quizzed Waldo about cuy, a local delicacy better known to most as guinea pig. He directed us, in fact drove us past, the premium cuy house in Cusco. It was toothsome but had a hide like shoe leather and can only be eaten by unceremonious gnawing. They serve it whole so you can photograph it to disturb your sensitive friends but we hadn't carried a camera to dinner and they returned it to the kitchen for dismembering.
February 25, 2010 Lima:
A tour guide collected us and her tip on Friday morning for the five minute trip to the airport. When we arrived in Lima I expected the parasites to be waiting to take us to the hotel, but they had finally dropped us, however, since nobody advised us of the status, or lack of status, of our prepaid services, we were not sure if we had hotel reservations or not. We did not but they had plenty of space.
February 26, 2010 Earthquake:
That night there was a nine-point earthquake in Chile. No one felt it in Lima but tsunami warnings were issued. We discovered it after breakfast when we checked our email. By then the tsunami warning had been lifted which was good to know since we were about five blocks from the beach. It was said that the water at the Costa Verde receded two hundred meters but when it returned the sea rise was only ten inches. The first thing we did was to send an email to Chris on Easter Island to inquire his wellbeing even though we figured we would not get a response anytime soon. The news told of tidal waves on Robinson Caruso Island and forecast tsunamis in Hawaii. It seemed impossible that Rapa Nui could be spared. Remarkably, and happily, Chris answered the following day from his cell pho
ne to report that they had evacuated to high ground, but no tsunami materialized.
We passed the day in the care of our new driver, Cristián. The Museo Larco has the best collection I have ever seen. Scarcely any had ever been broken. The scope and quality of the exhibits is unparalleled. Two things in addition to the main chambers that make this museum remarkable are the room of erotic art and the warehouse. The erotic pieces must strike a chord in every human being, no matter how inhibited, to confront the pervasiveness of sexuality in art, as well as art in sexuality. We had encountered a piece in Montevideo that epitomized the spirit and intent of pre-Columbian eroticism which was mainly bawdy humor. The two rooms of similar pieces in Lima simply took the genre to its pinnacle. A little intruder in the bedchamber was a common theme. I wondered if there was story behind him.
The storeroom was another matter. In room after room were glassed shelves from floor to rather high ceilings that were packed completely full of ceramics. If the museum displayed a couple thousand pieces, the storeroom contained a