Inca Trail

I´m headed out. Scared to death.

Sexy Woman

So apparently the computer I was using was possessed because it is dead this morning. Now the guy at the lobby desk says- just use mine. How nice ey? So yesterday, where to begin really. . . we got up early to go to the Catholic mass and we attended half of a Quechua mass and half of the spanish mass. We couldn´t understand anything but it was interesting. then we went in search of some alpaca hats with ears for ourselves for the Inca trail. It was fun to look at all the markets- they had all colors and the hats can turn inside out for different patterns.
We met up with the group at noon. There are 9 of us. A family of four from Canada, a lady from Mass. who is around 60 and another lady around 60 who is from New York, another lady who isn´t meeting us until today and claire and I and Arturo our guide. Most everyone is very fit. I already have a p roblem keeping up.
So I really probably should have taken more Cardio Challenge because I was gasping all the way up the hill. So these hills make the hills that I walked with Allison seem like a molehill. We went to Sacayhuanen- thus the title, it´s pronounced Sexy Woman. It was an Inca temple and we learned a bit about Inca history. It started to rain while we were up there and while it was really pretty at first because it was still sunny and raining and there was another rainbow, I ended up putting on my raincoat over my camera bag- had several comments about my being pregnant. We then hiked up to the Christo Blanco- white Christ. Which yesterday when I saw it on the map, I said- there`s no way I´m hiking up there! It got dark very quickly and we hiked back down into the city. I have to go now but I´m sure you`re very interested in the food of the day. I had Quinoto, an Alpaca steak, asparagus and avacado, a soup made of poro a peruvian tuber and andean ice cream with a fruit on it I`ve never heard of- salco, I think. Oh and I didn`t tell you about the market! Meat, animal heads, vegetables fruit- you name it. That may just have to wait for the pictures.. . . Adios, the INca trail is tomorrow. I hope i don`t die!

The Dancing Day

Well, let me tell you about this computer I am using. It looks kind of like the computer that my family purchased for our first computer. It´s acting kind of posessed tonight so I´m not sure how far into this marvelous day I will get. We woke up to sunshine. After several days of clouds, this was a wonderful way to start the day. We set out around 8:00 a.m. ready to discover Cusco. We mainly wandered the entire day and I am very lucky that Claire has a good sense of direction because mostly, I have absolutely no idea where we are. We went to see all of the churches, just the outside because you have to pay to go inside. And we saw many fabulous views. I made up for not taking any pictures last week today and am quite happy about it. We struck out up stairs and down narrow alleys and passed men working on the street by hand and open sewers and little children who want to shine your tennis shoes or who want you to pay them to take pictures of them and their llama. We learned the phrase "No gracias" well because so many people want to sell you something. We wandered through alleys that had open doorways that led to beautiful courtyards of merchants and restaurants and stores selling Alpaca which is very soft- and expensive. We did go into one exhibit Qorikancha and the Saint Dominic Priory. It had beautiful gardens and a bathroom- which is very important! And there are remains of an Inca Temple there. And we learned about the Incas. Cusco was the center of the Inca empire.
Claire and I are good travelmates because we both like to take pictures and because we both want to learn about what we´re seeing. Also her sense of direction makes up for my lack of. It´s amazing that there can be a bit of a language barrier when we both speak English but. . . we just use different words sometimes.
We took a little snack midday of coffees and bread and we bought the bread because the place where we had the coffee smelled so amazing. I wish I could bottle it up and keep that smell with me. The bread came with 4 different toppings, a tomato spice herb chutney (that´s what Claire called it, I´m not sure I´ve ever used the word chutney), guacomole (yes the green stuff-for bread), mango orange jelly, and a really soft cream cheese with rosemary. Cereleun step out of the way!

We stepped into the Plaza (our main reference point) to see that there were some more festivities going on. We aren{t sure if they´re for Easter or just for the weekend or what but it was amazing. Dancing galore! Many different types of traditional dress, men dressed up as llamas, all sorts of things and we think that they danced througout the maze of streets all afternoon to live music playing so that you could hear it everywhere. And they were so happy and can you imagine- these heavy customes and it was really sunny and dancing all day! And they were cool dances, sometimes acting out some sort of scene. It was just amazing- you can bet that despite the crowd I took a whole roll of film! There was an instance where a little adorable girl, maybe 4, came up and stood with us, talking to us- in spanish so we didn{t understand her, i think she asked me if i was a mother at one point- and put her arms around us. A little too close for comfort. It´s sad when you´re afraid to trust a 4 year old but. . . we got out of there. We had really great up close seats by the street but we moved on.
We hiked up a mountain- or so it seemed, i´m sure in a few days, it will seem like a small hill- to another church and we saw a rainbow over the city!
Then we made an afternoon stop for some maracuya pie (one of those fruits with the gelatinous seeds, I think it´s a passion fruit) and I had strawberry milk- I{m pretty sure they were fresh strawberries.
In all the places we´ve eaten here we´ve had the privelage of sitting on balconies that overlook the street or the plaza with amazing views. I think our eating clock is a bit off so we eat very early- also so we can get in before dark, but it means that everywhere we´ve eaten has been almost empty. Fine with us, we get the good views! A lot of the restaurants here have a wood stove because the evenings get quite chilly.
One scene that made me think. . . as we were looking down into the plaza, a man jogged by and some change fell out of his pocket. There was a little girl who helped him pick it up and handed it over to him. She was maybe 5 or 6. And I couldn´t tell that he even thanked her. He moved on, still at a jog, but she found some more money on the street. I thought she would keep it because he was several yards away at this point. But no, she runs after him, yelling "me amigo" I mean, she sprints after him to give him this change. I never saw whether or not she caught up with him, but really, I hope he either thanked her well or she didn´t catch him and got to keep the money. She was just so sweet and sincere about getting him his change.
Well it was an amazing day and we wrapped it up with a lite dinner- I had a crepe with potato and cheese. There were tomatoes on my plate and I was dismayed at not being able to eat them because I wasn´t sure that they had been washed and then I noticed that the skin had been removed- so I decided they would be okay- right?
Tomorrow we meet up with the tour so I may not be able to post for awhile. Everyone have a lovely and blessed Easter!

Peru, in a better mood

I will first apologize for my typing on any blog posts in the future. This keyboard is not natural. I have not yet told you about my interesting last meal in Quito. We went to a lovely restaurant on the 13th floor of a building with an almost 360 view of Quito. It was quite awesome. I wanted to order something Ecuadorian and Allison recommended the Corvina so we asked the waiter which of the Corvina (a fish) dishes he recommended and he said the Corvina con salsa de mariscos (seafood sauce). Someone taught me that when you ask for a recommendation, it´s rude to not take it. So, I did. And I think it was probably the strangest meal I´ve ever ordered. It was good fish in a good sauce but it also had some strange things on it, I think one was a baby octopus.
Fast forward to today, I successfully met up with Claire and we made it to the hotel and went out to the Plaza de Armas which is fairly close to us. It´s really beautiful here but I didn{t take my camera because im a little unsure how safe it is but i wish i had because its just pretty cool. We each had a soup for dinner, i had a quenoa soup (oh where is Allison who can help me with all my spelling! And im fairly positive would not have allowed me to get ripped off by the taxi today) with vegetables and potato and cheese and split a rocoto relleno (im not sure about that spelling either) but its a spicy pepper with meat vegetables and cheese. Good dinner overlooking this ancient plaza and an awesome backdrop of moutains.
I have read not to stay out after dark here. But the sun did go down while we were eating out dinner. But being that it{s Good Friday, there was a parade and a mob of people crushing us. The parade included a Crucified Christ and i think people must have been throwing flowers. But i didn{t really get to see anything else. We were happy to make it back to the hotel safe and sound. And I was super happy to find a computer with free internet!
I want to congratulate my little sister on her art opening tonight and I wish I could have been there!

Peru

We have made it to Peru. Having trouble getting money because all banks are closed because of Good Friday and the ATM gave us large bills. Got ripped off (over charged) by taxi. Welcome to Peru!

My last day in Quito

So we had Sushi at Sake last night. Yes, again, I am eating non Ecuadorian food in Ecuador. It was some of the best sushi I have ever had- no offense to Caleb and Nate and Noa Noa. We had the spicy tuna, while not too spicy was still excellent. And we had one with white tuna (Ethel, I am so sorry you couldn't join us) that was tempura fried with cream cheese, avocado, and wrapped in a banana. In a peanut and soy sauce- it was amazing. But the best one was called the Volcano. It was tempura fried shrimp with avocado, lettuce, salmon, the usual rice and seaweed. And it was covered in a sweet honey soy sauce. But then they poured flaming alcohol over it. I'm realizing that this blog has become less about traveling and more about food!
Today we tried Pan de Yucca- bread made from the root of the Yucca plant, like the plant we use in landscaping- and mini bananas.
It's rainy and cloudy again today so I'm hoping for better weather when I head out for Peru tomorrow morning!
I am set to meet Claire, who I met in New Zealand, on our flight from Lima to Cusco. Then it's us on our own until Sunday at noon. I'm not sure what I would have done here without Allison so I'm hoping Claire has a better directional sense than me! I enjoyed Quito very much and now I am ready to start the next part of my adventure!

More time in Quito

So yesterday morning it was cloudy once again so we decided to go the other Guayasamin museum, farther up on the hill, the chapel of man. It was pretty amazing also- huge paintings and it's at his house so you get to look around it a bit as well. Here's the website if you want to see some Guayasamin work. We went out for a traditional Ecuadorian lunch and the translation in the menu said that I was getting "Chicken Stew with Rice" (Seco de Pollo) but when it came it was this huge dish of like a fourth a chicken, a ton of rice, a tomato, potato and an avocado! And I had juice of tomate de arbol another fruit that we don't have anything similar to. Then we went to have pedicures! I used to think that I would never like such a thing, but I've discovered that I was very wrong. Then we came back to the apartment and took another afternoon nap/read. Allison and I decided to try our hand at cooking a traditional Ecuadorian meal Corn Sango with Shrimp. I will say that we did very well and it was excellent! I wrote down the recipe so maybe I'll make it at home sometime. They use this white corn here that is huge and all puffed up, that was the basis of the dish. We also tried baked tomates de arbol but alas, that was not so successful.

Today. . . you'll never guess. . . it was cloudy again! We went for breakfast at this little cafe and had cappuccinos- so I am not at a total loss here, I can still get coffee with lots of milk in it and we had humitas which are like a corn pudding (I thought it tasted like cornbread) wrapped in a corn husk. Carrie, a friend of Allison's had a tamale, and it's different from a mexican tamale, I'd say it was corn based also with meat and maybe some vegetables and wrapped in bananna leaves! We also had a Quimilito which was a sweet version of the humita and then we finished it up with chocolate cake! You have to try everything, right!?

We decided to try venturing out to the Mitad del Mundo- which is where you get to see the line of the Equator. But it's a bit tricky- there are two different places that claim this status. We went to the original one first. I guess the first people who tried to measure the earth claimed that the line was here. They have a huge sculpture and have marked the line and Allison named it the Disney World of Ecuador because it is very touristy. We took a few photos on the line and went into the Insectarium/bug museum where I let a giant beetle type thing set on my arm (not on my skin- no way- on my raincoat)- Ethel you would be proud. But then we went to the other place and I loved it! It's just 210 meters away from the original spot (so the old guys were pretty accurate) but this is the actual Equator as measured by GPS. They took you on a little tour and did little experiments to show you that you are on the Equator.
Which leads me to the learning section of the day, these are especially for Jason:
5 Ways to Know that You Are on the Equator
1. When you drain water in a sink, the water goes straight down and does not create the spiral that normally occurs. This can be demonstrated by placing little leaves in the water that kind of just stay where they are instead of getting sucked into the spiral.
2. An egg is easier to balance on a nailhead. I say easier because it was still impossible for me to do.
3. It becomes harder to walk in a straight line- making you look like you're drunk. Something about the two centrifugal forces of the earth coming together at the equator.
4. You weigh less and your resistance is less when exactly on the equator. I'm not sure that I understood why on this one.
5. And something about on a sundial on the solstices the dial creating no shadow for a period of time. This was very hard for him to demonstrate as there was no sun today.

We learned all sorts of things about the indigenous people of the area- how their houses were built, and about some of the animals in the area, which I would really not like to think about, but City Mouse he did describe how tarantulas will spring at you while you are taking their picture. And he told us about shrunken heads and really I never have considered that something that is real- but I guess it is, Gross. And I got to try shooting an arrow with a blow gun, and we saw some guinea pigs in a pen- because they eat them, and he talked to us a little about the plant life. A plant that looks like aloe vera but is bluer is what is used to make tequilla, who knew? And also he told us a little about burials and the indigenous people used to bury a person's family with them when they died, it may have just been the prominent people but they would give them this cactus juice that would cause them to hallucinate and then they'd put them in these giant vases and bury them alive. How terrible!
But I think that little place is my favorite so far in Quito. Our tour guide was fun and he spoke english so it was a good experience for me. We also got our passport stamped at both of the Equators so now I have some new stamps.

I tried some empanadas this afternoon, with cheese- excellent! And they flavor (with orange in this case) their soy milk which I also have found that I enjoy.

One note on the driving. I wouldn't make it one day. I really don't think they have rules and sometimes in the taxi I have to close my eyes. Our taxi driver was so nice today- he drove us all the way out to the Equators and waited for us for like two hours while we were there. And he wasn't mad at us or anything for making him wait. Good guy.