November 20, 2011 Hiking, Inca Ruins, enjoying the good life

We have enjoyed another full week in Cusco. We have a new friend, Jean-Jacques who owns the Spanish school that we are going to - Centro Tinku, and he and his dog love to walk on Sundays so we have joined him for two Sundays. In less than 15 minutes we are outside the city in amazing mountains with lush scenery.

Plaza de Armas - view from above the city,
the start of our walk last Sunday.

In this blog I am including more information on the pictures to help explain our time here.  We started last week with a city tour of all the major ruins within the Cusco area. Though we have seen some before, I do not tire of them, or the descriptions by the guides. We do some tours in Spanish and some in English and we can usually understand either! I have been reading two books simultaneously while here that have much history and modern explanations of what is going on in the area - one is "Exploring Cusco" by Peter Frost and another is a new book out this year entitled "Turn Right at Machu Piccu" and is a story of present day explorers walking the same path as Hiram Bingham who "discovered"....really...."rediscovered" Machu Piccu in the sacred valley in the 1911.

Always fun to be joined by dogs on our walk.
Our new friend Jean-Jacques has taken us to
 places we would never find on our own,
 along with his faithful companion Corey.
The other dog is Icarus - friend to Thelma.

A niche in Qorikancha - always made in this
shape to be earthquake proof. Again, notice
the stones with no mortar between them.
This site is right in the middle of the city and
is now part of a big church and convent
(minus all the gold that was taken by the Spainards)

Sacsaywaman - some of the most
incredible ruins - also right above the
city.  Some of these ruins we saw
6 years ago but always intriguing.

One of the larger stones - this gives an
idea of their size.

The beautiful colors used
for the knitting and weaving of sheep,
and alpaca yarns

Alpaca factory - shopping trips are
always included in tours.

Dinner with our friend Ru who is
from London - we meet him
at the school in Montanita, Ecuador.
Thanks to facebook - we have stayed
in touch. You might remember him
from the pictures of the mud trip - he was
our buddy there!

One of the fun things about this South American trip has been the people we met along the way in Ecuador and here in Peru and the fact that we can stay connected. Sometimes they are a few weeks ahead of us on a similar path (Fernanda from Brazil) and can advise us of hotels and sights to see; and this week we had the chance to see in person one of our friends from Ecuador. Skype allows us to talk every week with our "family" in Cuenca and some of you. I think I would feel very disconnected without technology. So, though I lived without it for many years of my life, I am very grateful for the connections it allows today.

Very old bags - used by men to hold their
coca leaves. Each is a gift from a woman - first
their mothers, then their girlfriends and
then their wives.

Typical courtyard of the colonial
houses of Cusco

Icarus, dog friend of Thelma who owns
a store with beautiful fabric items. Here he
is showing us his piece of fabric.

 Dogs are in our lives, which makes Richard especially happy. We have a dog "Danke" in our house who visits us often during the day. She has her spot on our couch.

Yesterday's very long day tour of the Sacred Valley took us to Pisac, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo and Chinchero. Now I think we have seen all the ruins that are on the "tourist" list and any more will be ones that we stumble upon during our weekend walks with Jean-Jacques.

Pisac - in the Sacred Valley. Again many levels
of crop planting built into the mountains. We hiked
a precarious walk up and around with a large group.

Again - amazing shapes to be seen from above at Pisac. 

Ollantaytambo - large site in the Sacred Valley built
above the town. The size of the people walking up will
give you perspective of this amazing site.

View of Ollantaytambo from above
 the ruins

Another example of these large stones - here you
can see some placed in between - again to
avoid earthquake destruction. It is possible
that these were pre-Incan.

Today's walk started at this cemetary -
working up rather than taking up
too much space underground.

One of many photos of the countryside

Corey loves the water and the mud.

A ruin in the middle of our walk.

This window/door caught my eye.

We say goodbye again this week, a special week for most of our "peeps" as it is Thanksgiving. It is always a good time to remember our family and friends and we are so thankful to have you all in our lives. We shall miss seeing you and will celebrate in some special way here, because it is also a big day for me...my birthday of the year of medicare! Happy Thanksgiving to ALL with love from Susanita and Ricardo.

Sunday, November 13th...a great week in Cusco

See the two flags - left is Peru and right is
Cusco - looks just like the gay flag.

This was a week of tourist activities as we purchased the 10 day tourist ticket which enables us to visit many of the sights both in and outside of Cusco. We are trying to see the sights that we did not see during our last visit. Try clicking on the above photo and see a short video of folkloric dancing - they use color and costumes so well.

Waterfall in San Blas neighborhood - love the geometric shapes

Sunday hike outside of town to local ruins -
Templo de la Luna

Seems like young girls are always asking
to take our pictures...and we took theirs

 Most of these photos are self explanatory. Incan walls are everywhere, usually the foundation for the churches and other structures in town. It is mind boggling to imagine how they moved some of these stones and how they managed to fit them together so well as to withstand so many natural disasters.

Incan walls which are usually made on an angle. Most
have withstood earthquakes. Notice the smaller stones
at the bottom which is the secret as to why they have remained
after so many years....no mortar, just stone against stone.

Weaving...usually sheep or llama

We have been to museums, monuments, textile factory, churches along with our classes of yoga and Spanish. We are making good use of our time during these 10 days and after tomorrow will get back to a less touristy lifestyle. There is so much to see here and we are really lucky to have a whole month. We have made a few friends as we usually do and that is also nice....Al, our yoga teacher and Jean Jacque who owns our Spanish school.

Pachacutec monument -
Led the Incas in city planning, building,
administration. Walked up to the top for
a great view of town.

Love the fabric here.

Peruianas are beautiful people

Cusco at night

Salt mines at Maras

Underground saltwater - different families own
each square and work the salt mines as a
cooperative - has been going on for hundreds of years

Yesterday's visit to Maras and Moray was so interesting from a historical perspective and for me for a design and great photo opportunity. As you know by now...I love geometric shapes and here was a chance in both sites to take many photos. Again, photos do not do justice to the immensity of both sites.

Moray - deep ampitheatre like terracing - the first three were pre-Incan.
Each layer has its own micro-climate according to how deep the bowl is and
 therefore was used for crop experimentation.

Look at the steps and the people to get a feeling of how large
these circles are. So impressive.

Ricardo climbing out of the circles

The steps coming out at each level
with over one foot between in each step.

We have had a chance to talk to some of you on the phone this week which is always great - keeps us connected which we both love. Having the technology that we have makes life so much easier for communication. We do miss you and love you.

November 2011 Lima and Cusco, Peru

A map of the luxury bus company
Cruz del Sur. We took it from Trujillo
to Lima and probably will use it again.
Very comfy "cama" (bed) chairs
as well as a stewardess

I am so glad that I am writing this blog as it is helping us to keep track of our lives during this incredible trip and we know that you are enjoying it also.   We have received many emails from our family and friends but these words from  Barbara Rodbell in Chapel Hill seem important to remember and help sum up our thoughts at this time.


" I love everything I get from you, story and pictures and I think I have it all and can look at it any time I want to. I think it is great that you have started to talk about staying for a longer period in one place: a kind of resting, thinking and getting back to yourselves without looking and gathering new experiences to work on every day. Memory will drop certain things in the long run and what you will have left will be the things which truly meant the most to each of you and might not be the same! I find that it is mostly a feeling of a period of time, a warmth and a color and-----a quiet gratitude to have had such wonderful adventures and having absorbed them well in the rest of life. Thank you for letting me share them! Love, Barbara R"

Lima, in Miraflores.
The city is right on the ocean

So, we left Trujillo for Lima on the luxury night bus arriving in Lima at about 7 am. We have decided that 9 hours by bus is great, especially in this style but more might not be. South America has a great bus system for travel and many travel this way as the airlines are quite expensive. We did fly from Lima to Cusco as that would have been a 21 hour bus ride! We will probably continue with a combination of this travel. We found a hostal which was fine for us - many are places for backpackers as well as travelers like us. Great places to meet other travelers and they are always so helpful.  

Causa - a special Peruvian potato dish made of
many different types of potato and other
ingredients  - this one was avocado.

Lima is a very big city and since we had been here 6 years ago we decided to stay in a different section of town - Miraflores. It was great as the hostal was centrally located and we could walk to so many places. As usual, we found great vegetarian restaurants and walked along the coast both days.

The sculpture at the coast in Lima

I loved the shape of the waves on the shore

Nature is incredible!

A followup to our last blog....we did have a chance to go to the Ecuadorean Embassy and talk about our "blackmail".  They were very embarrassed with the situation though they could not do anything about it except to speak to the lawyers for immigration. The fact of the matter was that we did indeed overstay our 90 days in Ecuador (because they counted the Feb/Mar trip and this past trip together - unlike Mexico and other countries that allow you to start your days over each time you leave and return.) Ecuador only allows 90 days/year so because of that we cannot return to Ecuador at Christmas unless we get visas which together with airfare back to Ecuador would be prohibitive. So, in keeping with Barbara's words above, we are going to stay put in Cusco for one month and then travel to a few places in Peru and Bolivia and hopefully change our return ticket to fly from Lima instead of Quito. (We know all our friends in Cuenca will be unhappy to hear this news as we are also.)

We have moved from the coast in Lima to Cusco -  the Sacred Valley and land of the Incas. We were here in Sept., 2005 to hike the 4 day Inca trail to Machu Piccu and promised ourselves to come back as it is was beautiful with so much to see. We are remembering things as we are here that we had forgotten and just looked at all our pictures and read my "haiku"s that I had written for that trip. We're not sure if we will go back to Machu Piccu this time or just keep our memories from the moment we entered the sun gate 6 years ago - an unforgettable memory. We are off to a one day hike tomorrow on our own to see several of the Inca ruins right above the city. By the way, it is over 11.000 feet here and for the first few days we did feel the altitude - more tired and a little dizzy with light headache here and there. Now as it is 4 days since we arrived we do not notice it. 

Narcissa and her husband in Cusco - our friends from the
Spanish school in Cuenca....what a small world. We took
the city tour together.

Cristo Blanco - copy of the Christ in Rio de Janiero
He watches over the city of Cusco

Special bread for Nov 1
Dia de los Difuntos

We are settling down and have rented an apartment in an old colonial building that serves as a hotel or apartments by the month or longer. Here are a few pictures of the inside and outside. We have one large room and a kitchen and bathroom with plenty of space. Having wi fi allows us to stay in touch with all of you and we are back on skype. Send us your telephone number and a good time to call and we will. You can only call us if you have skype but we can call you on skype or your home or cell phones.

Outside our room - second floor on balcony

Richard in the downstairs courtyard

Our room and little sitting area

Looking into the little kitchen with bathroom
 off to the right

Plaza de las Armas - the main square.

Tile roofs 

An example of Inca stones. They are very large and hard to
imagine how they were moved and put together with
no mortar between them. They still remain as the foundation
for many of the buildings and churches still standing today.

An example of a chess set - with Incans vs. Spainards!

Interesting angles

That's it for this week. There will be many more pictures of this beautiful town as we explore more and more each day. It is much larger than SMA - about 300,000 people. Many many tourists from all over the world and indeed many young people - adventuring for the various hikes and adventure sports in the Sacred Valley. We are going to Spanish school again - for 2 hours/day and have also found a yoga class. There are others that we will explore in the coming weeks.  Once again....thanks for traveling with us.