Experience Cusco

Happy Fourth of July from PERU! I left off last week with our safe return from Lake Titicaca. The excitement didn’t end there. The very next day we went on a tour of Cusco. We went with our new best friends from the “San Pedro” house. I figured it was time for a tour of the city that I had been living in for over a week. The first stop was at the Qorikancha. It’s actually located right across the street from Maximo Nivel’s office. The Qorikancha was a very cool place. It was originally an Incan temple, which seems to be the case for most of the ruins we see. When the Spanish overtook the Incans they built over the destroyed Incan buildings. So the bottom half of the building was built from the perfectly fit, Incan stones. The top part of the building looked similar to the Spanish cathedrals I visited in Europe. Architecture fascinates me. I’m weird, I know. I believe it was used as church. The next stop on the tour was at Saqsaywaman. It’s on mountain that overlooks Cusco. It was my favorite stop of the day merely because you pronounce it “Sexy Woman.” It was first believed that the Incas had used the structure for military defense. False. It was actually the temple of thunder and lightning. The walls were built in the shape of jagged lines, aka lightning. From Saqsaywaman we had an amazing view of Cusco. Very close to “sexy woman” was our next stop Q’endo. It was very unique. It had two massive rocks that had been carved through. It was the temple of fertility. The actual altar had been preserved; this where animals were sacrificed for the fertility gods. Our last stop of the tour was Tambomachay. We got there around sunset so the view was, again, amazing. Tambomachay is also known as the “the Bath of the Princess.” It has two aqueducts that provide flowing water year round. The waters were rumored to be the fountain of youth. I doubt that’s the case since I don’t see any Inca’s running around.

The very next day we set up a full day tour of the Sacred Valley. I didn’t realize it would be a full day trip but I wasn’t mad at it. It’s a HUGE valley between the Andes and is actually very close to Machu Picchu. The Urubamba River flows right through the middle of the valley. We stopped at Tipon first. It was unbelievable complex of hillside farming terraces with water channels built into bare stone. It was mainly used for farming, but it also several houses built on the top of the mountain. They were the houses of the wealthy Incas. Tipon also housed several burial grounds of the Incas. They were built into the top mountain side. Unfortunately, most of the graves had been robbed for their treasures. We stopped after Tipon for lunch at Urubamba and ate the Inca Café, original huh? After lunch, we headed to Ollantaytambo. In my opinion, it might be the most intact ruin around Cusco. It’s set on a mountain. At the very top was the temple of sun, complete with sacrifice altars. The most interesting part was the 25 to 30 terraces built all the way to the top of the mountain. It was built solely to protect the temple at the top. I still don’t see how they hauled massive stones all the way to the top of a mountain with any animals or machinery. Our last sacred valley tour stop was at Chinchero. The main point of the stop was to view another church that Spanish had built on top of the Incans. It was nice and all but the best part of the stop was the amazing sunset. We could see snow capped mountains in the distance and the sky literally looked like it was on fire. Check out the photos on facebook, you know I got picture happy.

Well after all this travel this week I finally had some time to settle down and volunteer at my health clinic. I was assigned to the laboratory this week. The first day I helped identify blood types, test for syphilis, and check for AIDS. I mainly worked with the blood part of the lab but they also check for TB and parasites. I spoke to an actual doctor from the states who had been volunteering all week at the same clinic. He knew VERY little Spanish and he couldn’t do anything to help the clinic. So needless to say, I wasn’t expecting to do anything much more than that because of the language barrier between the nurses and me. I tried to make conversation the first day. The nurses were extremely patient and taught me as much as they could. Surprisingly, the very next day I was ask to draw blood from the patients. I had watched them the day before but I have NEVER drawn blood from anyone. It was a cool experience. I ended up taking the blood from all six patients that came in that day. I’m a pro now. So if you need any blood work done, holla at cha boy. The lab was fun for a couple days, but it was a very repetitive and became boring very quickly. I’ll be headed to a different part of the clinic next week.

This weekend we stayed around Cusco. We went horseback riding, salsa dancing, and went to a professional soccer game. Horseback riding was awesome. I’m not sure I’ve ever touched a horse before this weekend. My horses name was Cabro; Spanish for goat. He was pretty stubborn. We went for about three hour ride through the mountains of Cusco. Our housemate Hillary had a crazy horse that bucked her off. It was quite entertaining. We even met a Belgium couple; they enjoyed making fun of our southern draws. Directly after horseback riding we went to Salsa lessons. I’m not gonna lie I thought I was going to master the salsa in no time. Ha false. It was actually really complicated. We had lessons for about two hours and I finally started to get the hang of it at the end. I’ll continue to practice so I can teach America to Salsa. Today, it was July fourth! I found it extremely weird being in a foreign country for the fourth. I guess I just felt unpatriotic. We went to the cathedral this morning for church. It was a cool experience to hear mass in Spanish, but I basically got nothing out of it. It was very difficult to understand. The cathedral looks extremely similar to the Spanish cathedrals expect slightly less glamorous. We capped off our weekend by attending a local soccer match. Cusco played Lima in a great professional soccer match. Soccer is comparable to SEC football here. The only exception is that the fans do NOT stop jumping and chanting during the game. It was really intense and fun to be a part of. Lima scored right before half and had the 1-0 lead until the last minute of the game when Cusco tied it up with a header. The stands went absolutely nuts! After that I understood why there was an 8 foot fence around the field with barb wire at the top. The game ended in a tie.

Reviewing my last two weeks I’ve noticed how much more comfortable I am here. It’s an extremely cool revelation. I now have the confidence with my Spanish to be able to travel the city alone and bargain with local merchants. It’s comparable to the step you take from high school to college. I feel more independent.

Well I’m done torturing you readers. I’ll leave with you another fun Peru fact. If you want to start a store here all you need to do is end the name in –eria. For instance, if you want to start a hair salon it would be called peluqueria or a chicken place, polleria. My favorite so far is Ferreteria. I’ll let you use your imagination.