Peru: Don't forget the time change! (April 22, 2007)

Sunday morning I woke up to darkness and the sound of rain trickling outside. It was so dark outside and my alarm clock said that we had at least two more hours. Good! I was too tired. So, the alarm went off at 6:00 and we got up. We had a lot to accomplish that morning before church at 8:00 a.m. After the shower fiasco (see the previous post), we got ready in the bedroom and it was pitch black outside. I asked Alison how much time I had and, glancing at my alarm clock, she told me it was 6:37. So, I had a little more than 20 minutes to pack up and get myself ready for an entire day of church and excursion. I grabbed my alarm clock and it slipped out of my hands. I asked Alison to check her watch and tell me the exact time to reset the clock. She said, "Quarter to six." Huh?! I had forgotten to change my alarm clock from Chile time to Peru time, so we had gotten up a WHOLE hour early!! Good grief! We had a good laugh about it, but I really could have used that extra hour of sleep.

In Cusco, you can barely go more than four steps in the Plaza de Armas without someone offering to sell you something...shoe shine, cheap reproduction paintings, dolls, their llama....It gets a little old.

First thing we needed to do that morning, at 7:30 and before 8:00 a.m. church, was go to the train station to buy our tickets to go to Aguas Calientes, otherwise known as Machu Picchu pueblo. We left Alison's debit card in my suitcase and decided that I would pay for the train tickets on my credit card. However, we learned that they don't take credit cards at the train station! Are you KIDDING me? I attempted to take money out of the ATM machine there, but it wouldn't recognize my card. 8:00 a.m. church was looking less and less likely.

We walked back up Avenida del Sol--the main drag--where the banks were. I finally found one, after numerous attempts, that would accept my debit card. Annoyed, we took a taxi back to the train station and had definitely missed the beginning of 8:00 a.m. church. Bummer. We bought our train tickets (which were rather expensive...they really suck everything they can out of the tourists) and the girl who sold us the tickets refused to give us change and NO ONE takes big bills! I was SO annoyed.

So, we decided to go to church at 10:00. In the mean time, we got our breakfast at a small family-run store. Alison asked the woman how she could identify fake money because it is a rampant problem in Peru and got a 15 minute lesson on how to recognize the falso. Meanwhile, not listening, I was trying to decide if the cheese they had in the "refrigerator case" ("refrigerator case" that was probably unplugged) was still edible. The bread wasn't as good as Chilean bread and the cheese tasted like dirty feet, but my mango juice was good...and I was carrying my trusty 2.5 liters of bottled water to drown my cold. So that helped.

We went to take some photos near the statue of Pachacutec, the Inka king and founder of Machu Picchu and the Sun god fountain on Avenida del Sol as we killed time waiting until we needed to go to church.

Typical to South America, the street signs are screwy. One side of the street has numbers completely unrelated to the ones on the opposite side. Despite the confusion, we were able to find the building where church was to start at 10 a.m. Strange, though, were the black tarps covering the inside of the gates and the newspaper covering the windows of the front doors. Hmmm....We waited, doubtfully, until 10:05 a.m. and not a soul had shown up to open the gates. Although, one man passing by did ask me to send someone from the church to see him. When I told him I wasn't a missionary, he apologized, shook my hand and walked away. You could still smell the alcohol a good 20 seconds after he left. We were both very bummed about missing church that day. We went back to our hotel, changed our clothes, had a little prayer and spiritual thought and headed out.

We were both pretty stressed out the day before because of unfamiliarity with the city and the fact that we hadn't really seen anything yet. The prices surprised us and the fact that we didn't know what to see stressed us out, too.

We took a taxi to the bus station and paid to go to Pisac to see some of the ruins. On the road to Pisac, it dawned on us that we didn't have enough time to go all the way to Pisac and really explore it and all the ruins outside Cusco. What do we do?? Should we squeeze past every person in the insanely crowded bus to get off in Tambomachay, the last ruins right before the long ride to Pisac, or just not make a big deal about it, save ourselves from having to displace half the bus as we crawl out, and go to Pisac? Next thing I know, Alison yells out (and loud, mind you) "BAJAMOS AQUI!" (We're getting off here!). It was hilarious to see this tall gringa yell that in the midst of a COMPLETELY packed Peruvian bus. We piled off the bus, permiso-ing as we squeezed past people. I nearly died laughing.

The ruins at Tambomachay have fountains/bathing places. We hiked around a bit with some other confused tourists who, like us, didn't know what there was to see. We hiked up a small hill and asked some local kids whose parents were planting on the hill if there was anything else to see. Not really. We shared our info with Michael, a nice German man who was with a group of three other friends. I talked to him a little about his travels. He's been to southeast Asia a lot. I love how well-traveled Europeans are. We walked to the next ruins, Puca Pucara, with the Germans and were quickly accosted by Javier.

Javier said he was a student at the university and wanted to help us understand the ruins better...so that they ended up being more than just rocks to us. He said he'd give us two minutes free and then we could tip him what "was born from [our] hearts." We listened, with the Germans, and tried to translate Javier's English into English the Germans could understand. After a couple minutes, we thanked Javier and decided to explore on our own. Javier kept bugging us and we kept telling him no. I hate being solicited. It makes me feel like I need to be on the defensive.

We sat on the grassy ruins, eating chocolate and drinking water, while gazing at the gorgeous, green Andes mountains (named for a tribe in the jungle, I learned from my guidebook that day). It was really beautiful.

We walked down the road, thinking we'd shortly come across more ruins. Not so! They were much farther apart than we realized. So, we walked and walked along the road. We were in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing around us...definitely NO bathrooms. So, Alison and I hunted for an ideal potty spot. I'll spare you all any more details. However, I found it pretty liberating to feel as though I wasn't controlled by whether or not there was a bathroom available. It truly is a man's world. I bet men rarely bring their own hand sanitizer, though. We definitely had that covered!

As we walked, we'd ask for directions of whomever we encountered how to get to Salumpunca, more ruins. With so much walking, we were grateful that the weather was nice. It was sunny and warm, however, it did threaten with saturated, dark grey clouds later in the afternoon. We ran into some cops on our way who tried to flirt with us a bit. It's nice to claim a boyfriend in those situations...makes it easy to get out of the awkwardness.

At Salumpunca, we saw the Temple of the Moon. Not much to say (and I don't even have a photo to show it!). We thought we weren't too far from Sacsayhuaman, the next set of ruins. We continued to walk and walk. It was pretty exhausting. We did try to stop at a small restaurant that said it served traditional Peruvian food (including cuy, guinea pig). We walked in and saw about six Peruvian men sitting in a semi-circle. Twelve eyes stared at us as if to say, "What are you two doing here?" but more in a curious way than a hostile way. We asked if they had cuy...but no, only trout. Nah.