Saludos from Qosqo!

We have had a wonderful few days in Qosqo (the Quechua spelling of Cuzco)! It feels like we´ve had the first few days of what will be the best year of our lives! The trip here was good and pretty uneventful except for our mad run through the Lima airport which, coupled with several days without a shower, left us smelling like true backpackers.

We´re at a nice hostel where we met a new friend, Valeria from Argentina. Yesterday, Valeria and Gary and I went to four Incan ruins near Qosqo. We got a ride up to the highest ruin, then walked down stopping at each one. We ran into a group of students having a class at one of the ruins, and after noticing that we were listening they invited us to join their group. They were students at an institute, studying to be guides, and it was nice to hang out with them for a few hours. They took us on a countryside route down the hills, rather than the highway route, which was fun. One of the students had worked in the US for a couple of years. He said that those two years were constant work, nothing else, and he was exhausted all of the time. The students were really nice and fun to get to know.

Qosqo is about 10,000 feet in altitude, if my metric conversion is anywhere close to correct. (I need to download a metric conversion table and get used to this system!) After chewing a few coca leaves, one can hike downhill all day without getting sore knees! The weather here is beautiful, and reminds me of Colorado or Northern New Mexico in that it´s dry and the sky is a beautiful blue. It gets pretty hot for about an hour in the afternoon, and very cold at night. The rest of the time is really comfortable. So every day I find myself in a tanktop in the afternoon and long underwear and a sweater in the morning and evening. Luckily, there are plenty of alpaca wool sweaters, mittens, scarves, etc. for sale here. And I´ve learned that it´s really easy to get a sunburn at this altitude.

A traditional shaman spotted Gary on the plaza and liked his hat, which lead to a conversation in which the shaman offered to accompany us to Machu Picchu and do a ceremony with us. Gary is ecstatic about this! We´re most likely going this weekend, and we are going to do a ceremony at his house tomorrow.

The people here are really nice and helpful with everything. Restaurant staff have been happy to accommodate Gary´s eating restriction of no vegetable oil. We have to ask about the oil everywhere, but people have been willing to cook Gary´s food in olive oil or butter, or to boil it. Speaking of boiling, there are thirty some varieties of potatoes here. I´ve had a few of them already, but I can´t name them. And favorite local dishes around here are alpaca and guinea pig. Valeria, our new friend from Argentina, tried the guinea pig (cuy in Spanish) which comes complete with eyes and teeth on your plate. I´ll upload a picture later, for those who dare to look! Does anyone know, is the guinea pig native to South America? Why is it called guinea?

One negative thing here is that the police really seem to harass the indigenous people. Several times we´ve seen the police chasing indigenous people out of the public streets and plazas. One officer came up behind a woman who was sitting on some steps, and knocked off her hat and told her to get out of there. The other indigenous people nearby went running away. Police also harassed the shaman when we were talking with him on the plaza, twice. They told him to keep moving, not to stay in one place. Qosqo has upped the police presence in the tourist areas because there has been a lot of crime against tourists, but it seems like they harass indigenous people who are doing nothing but talking or offering to be photographed by tourists.

Qosqo is the capital of the gringo trail, with tourists from all over the world. It´s kind of nice that they are not all from the US. We´re having a beautiful time, and will try to keep posting every week or so, depending on internet access. We´d love to hear from you!