Looking out at the sacred valley below the ruins of Pisaq

We recently returned from our second trip to Cusco and Machu Picchu. I never really wrote about the first trip, but after this second foray I feel like I learned a lot more about the area and travel options, and I wanted to make sure to share those with other future travelers, so I’m going to try and write a couple posts on tips and travel advice for visiting Machu Picchu, especially because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good, easy-to-find information out there on the subject. However, first I just want to share some of the awesome experiences we had!

So, Machu Picchu is cool and all, but you know what’s really cool? A billion dollars. Er, I mean, Huayna Picchu. So what is Huayna Picchu? It’s the big hill you see in the back of all the traditional photos of Machu Picchu.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

For several reasons, visitors to Huayna Picchu are limited to 400 per day, so if you want to go up then you have to get up ass-early (like, 4am) to line up for the first buses going up to Machu Picchu. Once at the MP gates you can get a special stamp on your entrance ticket allowing you access to HP. Actually getting up HP involves crossing all of the MP ruins. Then there’s a crazy path full of switchbacks and uneven stairs hewn right from the mountain rock (and even a couple ladders) leading to the summit. It’s a taxing climb, even for someone in good shape, but when you reach the top all the effort and lack of sleep is immediately validated. You’re rewarded with a sweeping vista of snow-capped peaks, lush nearby mountains, the winding river valley, and a bird’s-eye view of the MP ruins. There are ruins all the way up here, too, which the Incas may have used for religious or astronomical purposes. But just the fact that they exist, at the top of this climb that I would’t want to go up burdened by anything more than a day pack, really says something of the temerity and capability of the Incas. Don’t get me wrong, Machu Picchu itself is impressive and worth a visit, but the easiest way I can explain it is that you experience Machu Picchu, but Huayna Picchu is an experience.

Daypack and glasses. So cool.

Sitting at the very tippy-top.

Relaxing after a hard morning's climb.

After visiting Machu Picchu, we spent a whole day climbing around the ruins in Ollantaytambo, a small town in the Sacred Valley about halfway between Machu PIchu and Cusco. The main ruins there are a common stop on tours of the Sacred Valley region, but rarely do you get enough time to really explore them. And there are more ruins on the surrounding hills that you can only see by taking your own initiative. The “grain houses” on the facing hill are an excellent example, as they’re no farther away than the main ruins, they’re free to go see (the main ruins require an entrance ticket), and like Huayna Picchu they provide a very different and in many ways superior vantage point for viewing the landscape than the more popular ruins across the valley.

Mike's a pretty tall guy. Used here for scale.

One little, two little, three little tourists

At the grain houses

Main Ollantaytambo ruins as seen from the grain houses

My favorite part of the trip, however, may have been our stop at Las Salineras de Maras, or The Salt Pans of Maras. Here the salt from a naturally (incredibly) salty mountain spring is harvested using an intricate system of shallow pools terraced into the cleft of a mountain. It’s all very old fashioned, with not a single piece of modern technology to be seen anywhere to aid in salt production. The “farmers” literally use things like big wooden blocks (to flatten out the pool bottoms), plastic sieves (for collecting salt), and small stones and bags (to redirect water streams). And yet it also feels incredibly clever and advanced. This system has been around since at least the Incas, and it’s still run as a community cooperative. Walking around it feels like you’re on an alien planet. At the entrance you can buy salt from the pans in various forms, for cooking, bathing, etc. as well as other little knick-knacks and snacks. One lady was selling fried platinos (little bananas) that were absolutely heaven – we bought 5 bags.

Panorama of the salt pans

A dude farmin some salt

The Great Salt Lake (not really)

Getting my daily recommended value of sodium

Wall-o-salt

Back in Cusco we took a city tour (Mike’s first, but our second time around), where you get to see a lot of the coolest Inca ruins around the city and learn more about Incan history. It was interesting going a second time, because our guide (always a Peruvian with passable but certainly not impeccable English) provided new and different information than the previous trip. Getting a guided tour by a Peruvian of all the ruins in the Sacred Valley is culturally interesting, because it’s all basically one big story of how the Spanish conquistadors showed up and wiped out an entire civilization, as told by that civilization’s descendants. Peruvians in general seem to think lightly of this horrific tale of genocide. They’re not holding a grudge, or even unwilling to laugh at the absurdity that the largest pre-Colonial civilization in the Americas could be completely obliterated in a clean four decades. See, for example, this graphic that can be purchased on t-shirts and other kitsch from a popular Lima-based gift shop. But Peruvians are also a somewhat reserved people when it comes to negative emotions. They seem to rarely admit to being angry, upset, outraged, or pissed off.

Where I’m going with all of this is that our guide this time seemed to be more forthcoming with information. For example, there is a huge temple in Cusco called Qorikancha, once one of the most resplendent buildings in all of the Incan empire. Of course, the Spanish ravaged it and built a Catholic church on top. But what we learned from our guide is that while most of it is now open for tourists to view the remains of Incan stonework, there is a part that is still “owned” by the church. And it is believed that there are more undiscovered ruins and possibly other extremely valuable archeological remains beneath this church, but the monks won’t cede the site or let the Peruvian government excavate. We got a sense, as our guide was explaining this, that it was not ok with her, nor should it be for anyone. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it caught me off guard, and I have to say I was glad to hear the discontent in her voice. Peru recently won a big archeological victory over Yale University, who will finally be returning a ton of valuable artifacts from Machu Picchu that were taken unauthorized to the U.S. by Hiram Bingham back when he first discovered the ruins. The Peruvian government had been fighting for years to get the material returned, and Yale finally acquiesced. I bring this up because it’s another example of Peruvians being “pushed around”, and now finally standing up for themselves. In Sandra’s most recent blog post, she talked some about the new phenomenon of Peruvian pride. It’s wonderful to see a colonized country finally taking ownership of its heritage and rights. So thank you, tour-guide Martha, for not being afraid to speak out against established authority, even if it was done with subtlety and under the guise of simply piquing some tourists’ curiosities.

There are far more pictures from the trip, which I’m ever so slowly uploading to the internet so you can view them here. And I’ll be back soon with some more detailed posts on tips for travel in Peru, plus of course I’ll need to highlight all the planking we did.

It's fun to stay at the...SAQ-SAY-HUA-MAN

The announcer was taller than the average Peruvian

After the game, Turiaf peaced out real quick without signing autographs or anything. He looked a little overwhelmed and/or uncomfortable. We were part of a crowd swarming the bench and heard him urgently ask his handler “Where’s the car?” It’s too bad because, unlike maybe some places in the world that he’s traveled for exhibitions, there was absolutely no danger here. Just a bunch of eager kids who’d probably never stood next to anyone over 6’3″. Diaw was a lot cooler, signing things and posing for pictures while throwing around some Spanish. He signed my friend’s basketball, and I got this picture by just stepping in front of him while he was posing for someone else . Dude is freakin’ tall!

NBA players are kind of tall

But the best part of the game wasn’t even the basketball. There had been a women’s exhibition game first, and in between periods there were some dance performances (some salsa, some hip hop) which were quite enjoyable. So during halftime of the men’s game, with the referees just milling about on the court, a couple people came on and started to dance. Ok, whatever. And then, the refs joined in! And then the coaches! And a whole bunch of other people in random basketball jerseys. Here’s a quick video I shot:

Traditional Peruvian Basketball Halftime Dance

It was like a guerilla performance art number. They danced a traditional Peruvian dance, with scarves and leg kicks, and the entire crowd got into it. Then suddenly it was over, and the refs mopped their brows and gave the crowd a little wave and the second half started and it was business as usual.

I think this is the sign for excessive celebration?

So now you don’t have to ask me anymore why I love Peru. THIS is why.

Want to see more pictures? Check out the picasa gallery here.

Ideally, the service would have some kind of gallery viewing ability, with privacy settings for photos/albums. There should be a way to prevent hotlinking. It should support different image formats (at least jpg, png, gif) and allow me to upload very large uncompressed stuff. It doesn’t really need to serve as backup, but being able to download the original file (say in raw format) would be nice. Video hosting would be cool too. I’d rather not pay, but if the service is good enough I’m certainly willing to shell out. I’m not a professional photographer and don’t need to sell my stuff, I just want to have a clean and centralized way to organize and share it.

I’m open to anything, including installing self-hosted software on my own server, using some kind of cobbled-together solution with Amazon S3, a straight-up paid service, or something in between. I know there are a lot of options out there like smugmug, picasa, shutterfly, etc. but I’m hoping I can get some first-hand knowledge instead of just trying to peer through all the BS. C’mon internet, don’t let me down.

Clearly a creature of great intelligence

This popped back into my head recently when I walked past a group of motorcyclists. Even though these weren’t a bunch of leather-clad harley riders, it seemed appropriate to refer to them as a Gang of motorcyclists. Which got me thinking, what other names do we have for groups of people? And more importantly, what can we make up? Here’s what I’ve got so far, and please please please add your own ideas in the comments.

First, the obvious ones:

• Gang of motorcyclists
• Board of executives
• Legion of fans
• Band of musicians
• Class of clowns (wocka wocka)
• Chain of fools

And now, the new ones:

• Brief of lawyers
• Bundle of babies
• Corollary of mathematicians
• Function of programmers
• Furrowing of farmers
• Hush of librarians (my favorite! courtesy of Sandra)
• Irony of hipsters
• Jam of motorists
• Palin of idiots
• Round of doctors
• Scoop of journalists
• String of physicists

That’s all I’ve got so far. What else can you come up with?