This morning we got to sleep in. The night was cold and neither of us slept well. Casa de la Gringa was cute and eclectic, but breakfast didn’t start until 7:30 am. We packed up out things and left the hostel to walk down to San Blas Plaza to grab a taxi to the Inca Express buses. We were two of the first to arrive. We found our seats and began eating yet another Cliff bar. We’re getting pretty sick of Cliff bars. The buses began to fill with passengers from all over: Japan, France, and the U.S. As the buses were preparing to leave, a group of three women and one man (obviously from the United States by their accent and snottyness) began to quarrel with the bus company about seats. They were yelling and arguing about giving up seats, etc. It certainly made me feel very embarrassed to be from the United States. Despite this hiccup, we were on our way.
On the Inka Express tour, which would take 9.5 hours from Cusco to Puno, we would stop five times. The bus was nice and the tour guide was very friendly. He translated everything he said in Spanish to English and always began his comments and explanations with “Ok, my friends.” Before our first stop, while driving through the countryside of Peru, our guide explained to us that the many eucalyptus trees on the hillsides are not native to Peru. They were planted so that the roots would hold together the hillsides to reduce landslides.
Our first stop was at Andahuaylillas, and named the “Sixtine Chapel of America” (meant to be “Sistine” but is constantly spelled “sixtine”). The church is a mix of both Inkan and Catholic beliefs. The original foundation was built by the Inkans and inside was an impressive display of gold leaf overlay on wood. Many of the paintings inside had been done by students from the Cusco School of Art. A blessing from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was painted over one doorway in five different languages. This was a great example of how many different cultures are blended together in the region. There were working on several restorations in the church to make it usable again for the people of Andahuaylillas.
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The next stop was at Raqchi – the temple of the Wiracocha God. The temple had been built of lava rock and mud brick. The Inkas shaved down the lava rock to fit together perfectly like a puzzle piece, up to three meters high. The temple had 11 giant columns on each side of the main wall. Close to the temple, there were circular shaped buildings known as ‘Qolqas’ for food storage. There were 156 of these perfectly shaped circular buildings, all made of lava rock. Also close to the temple were 12 houses, six on each side, with a wide path down the middle. Our guide told us (“Ok, my friends…”) that when the sun rises directly in line with this pathway, the Inkans knew it was Summer Solstice – December 24th. The houses were all perfectly aligned with each other so that the Inkans would know when the rainy season was coming or going.
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We continued our trip. Our guide pointed out (“Ok, my friends…”) that some houses had tin roofs, while others had Andean wheat grass roofs. He said that the natural roofs had to be replaced every year or they would rot, but that tin roofs were expensive and noisy when it rains.
The next stop was lunch in Sicuani. Lunch was buffet style with several different options. We had fresh cucumber, tomato, carrots, and bread. We had a quinoa soup with potatoes and vegetables. Also, fried quinoa and potato pieces, tasting very much like a Chinese dish. We had beef and chicken (well…I did. Not Jill), both very flavorful, and a pasta salad. Finally, we had a black cherry jello desert. Overall, a lovely lunch.
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Next stop, La Raya. La Raya was the half point between Cusco and Puno. It was also the highest point on the tip at 4,335 meters (14,222.44 feet). It is the geographic border between the two cultures of the Quechua and the Aymara. We could see a bit of snow on the tip tops of the mountains, but our guide said (“Ok, my friends…”) the mountains aren’t snowy all year long like they used to be…due to (you guessed it!) global warming. Wah wah.
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Our last stop on our bus tour was Pukara. The Pukara culture began about 1500 BC, much earlier than the Inkan culture. The Pukara domesticated the guinea pig and the alpaca. The site we stopped at demonstrated the similarities and differences in the Pukara culture and the Inkan culture.
Before we hit Puno, we took a drive through Juliaca first. Juliaca was a dirty, grungy town and our guide told us that (“Ok, my friends…”) Juliaca is known for their big participation in the black market. All the buildings and houses have rods sticking straight up from the rooftops, making every building look very unfinished. That’s because they are unfinished! And if they stay that way, no taxes have to be paid to the government yet. Sneaky, sneaky.
Finally we made it to Puno (“Goodbye, my friends!”). Unfortunately Puno did not look much different than Juliaca. We took a taxi to Inka’s Rest and checked in. The wife (Gilda) and her husband were very friendly. She showed us our room and how to use the hot water. It was a decent place, but it smelled like crap. Literally. We were still having trouble contacting Go2Peru (don’t do it, people!) for our flights to Puerto Maldonado; Gilda helped us call, but still no success. Gilda recommended a good place to eat, so we set out to find it.
There was only one restaurant on the block, so this had to be the right one. Inside was filled entirely with Peruvians. We got some odd looks and some stares as we made our way to a table. The waiter got up from his dinner and came to get our order. I tried to explain that we weren’t eating meat (again, I lied and said it was stomach sickness), but the waiter was very confused. I tried to explain again, but still no light bulbs. Finally, he seemed to understand and went to put in our order. This was the kind of place where they only make one kind of dinner per night, so any changes seemed to be a BFD. He came back with our first course, the soup. I began poking around in the liquid and sure enough, chicken. Chicken. I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I said “We can’t eat meat”, I didn’t specifically “We can’t eat beef or chicken”. To him my explanations probably meant “We can’t eat beef”; not taking the word meat as all inclusive. Shit. I looked over at Jill. She had discovered the chicken too and silent tears began to stream down her face. She said she didn’t realize she would be so emotional about eating chicken and just couldn’t do it. Well, there was no way I was eating it either. Usually I’m a pretty open minded person, but this chicken looked way to sketchy for me. The waiter came back to see if we wanted chicken or beef for our main entrée. … I explained that we didn’t want any meat. “How about chicken.” I said no chicken either. Hmm…. I asked if we could just have a plate with rice and a potato. He was confused. But walked away. He came back with two plates of rice, each with two potato slices drenched in beef gravy. If we weren’t so emotionally and physically exhausted this would have been more hilarious. I ate a potato slice and a few nibbles of rice and spread the rest around on my plate to look like I had eaten more. Jill scraped the beef gravy off the potatoes and created a rice dyke to keep the beef gravy at bay. We ate our not gelled enough warm jello and drank our mate de coca and went to the front to pay. In all the dinner was s/2.50 each (about 86 cents). We walked back to our hostel. I went to bed hungry on a very lumpy mattress.
