Chinchillas & Llamas & BATS! Oh My! ... Indy''s back from Peru!

[Independent Gal]

Hi Folks! Well, I''m back from my crazy adventures in Peru. Here are some pics for those of you who like the ol'' ''virtual travel'' eye candy.

So, as promised here''s a chinchilla... he was sunning himself in an Inca ruin, along with 4 of his fluffiest friends.

 

[Independent Gal]

....aaaaand a llama. These guys were everywhere. But I like this particular fellow because his head is so bald! What happened, li''l Dude? Where''s all yer hair go?

 

[Independent Gal]

....and... OK, I didn''t get a picture of the VAMPIRE BAT (seriously) that came into my room one night up in the Andes, because, well, I was a little busy trying to chase him out again. Actually, I guess vampire bats don''t usually munch on people unless they''re rabid. But I still don''t want him in my room.

Anyway, so, no bat pic, but will you guys settle for....

...some PENGUINS? These are Humboldt Penguins I saw on a boat trip near the recently flattened city of Ica.

 

[Independent Gal]

OK, enough with the wildlife.

Here is a kind lady with her nina who made me breakfast in a town called Ollantaytambo when I somehow mistakenly got to the train platform at 5:30 am instead of 6:30am (oops!). God knows what THEY were doing up at that hour.

 

[Independent Gal]

And here are some Quechua ladies spinning.

 

[Independent Gal]

Here is why the Inca never invented the wheel.

By the way, I posted before I left about whether to take 'diamox' for possible altitude sickness. So, I DID get altitude sickness, in a major (but not life threatening) way. I was puking my guts out for two days and it felt like someone was drilling through my forehead. Anyway, the Diamox (which treats the cause, not the symptoms, so is safe in terms of 'masking' concerns...since altitude sickness can be fatal) did help after the fact, and the Coca Tea that Surfgirl said her mom had used was also really great. Man, that Coca Tea stuff makes your body go 'WELL GOOD MORNING!!!!!' like the strongest triple espresso you ever had.

 

[Independent Gal]

And here is exactly how crazy the Inca were, in engineering ways of living in that landscape. Would you please check out the insanity of this path?!!?

I was actually following this path and trying not to look down, until I saw this bridge. I mean, how did they even BUILD it? How many people must have died?

Clever though, huh? It's a drawbridge type set up so if they are being pursued, they just lift it up. But what kind of nutbar even considers PURSUING along that bridge?

As my hiking companion and I were following this trail, I was all 'Man, it sucks that we have to keep watching our feet instead of the scenery' (beucase, you see, the path was wet, about a foot wide, and with a sheer drop of 100's of meters). So, hiking companion says 'OK then. We stop. We look down. We &$*t ourselves. Then we keep going. OK?' Good plan.

 

[Independent Gal]

Ooops, forgot the pic.

 

[Independent Gal]

Here is the reason why there is no road to Machu Picchu (you have to walk there, or take a narrow gauge railway).

 

[Independent Gal]

And... here is the inevitable Machu Picchu shot.

 

[Independent Gal]

Near the town of Nasca, there are all kinds of weird lines in the desert sands (you may have heard of them) making the shape of monkeys and birds and stuff. Anyway, this one is apparently more recent then the others, but I just like the shot. The whole coast is a huge desert, including the area around Lima, by the way, where it rains barely 5mm a year.

 

[Independent Gal]

...and, to finish off, the beautiful suburbs of Lima. Shack in a desert, anyone? It's hard to imagine what life must be like for the people who live here. Just think about WATER to begin with.

 

[door knob solitaire]

I am so glad you posted today! I was going to wait until tomorrow and post a question about your wearabouts. Had I known you were one step away from peril...I would have panicked.

Great pictures and I bet you have even more great stories to share. What foods did you eat? Temperatures? How exciting. I wasn''t aware of your trip...so fill us in on more details.

Glad you are back, and in once piece!

§

 

[zoebartlett]

Hi Indy! Thanks for posting your pics. They''re amazing!

 

[Independent Gal]

Oh, and sorry for all the spelling and grammar errors. I''ve been up pretty much since yesterday morning. Sleeeep deprivation.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Oh Indy your pics are fabulous! Makes me want to pack my bags and GO somewhere...

 

[Independent Gal]

Hi DKS, DeeJay, and Zoe!

DKS Foods? Well, some new things I tried were: maize beer (called 'chicha'), an interesting creole soup that has big hunks of corn and meat (or chicken or shrimp) in it, I had a mouth full of wild roasted guinea pig, before the childhood pet guilt set in. Overall though, I didn't find the food that 'foreign'. The most ubiquitous thing is rotisserie chicken with fries. Kind of takes the place of burgers in the US. Temperatures? In the desert it was pretty hot during the day (maybe, 85?) and chilly at night. High in the mountains it was pretty cold during the day (55-60ish?) and since it's the rainy season up there, there was about an hour of drizzle / occasional bits of hail even, every afternoon. So, not exactly sunny tropics! But a nice change from winter proper.

 

[LaurenThePartier]

Indy - what a fantastic trip! Looks like it was an amazing time!

My childhood Spanish teacher learned Spanish while on his Mission to Peru, so he had loads of pictures much like this. I''ve always wanted to go there!

 

[diamondfan]

I love the sand shot.

I went on an extensive tour of South America as a kid, and went to all those spots. I recall staying in Cuzco before taking the switch back train to the top of Macchu in order to get used to the altitude. I loved the llamas then too!

What gorgeous shots!

 

[Skippy123]

Date: 12/25/2007 8:20:36 PM
Author: Independent Gal
And... here is the inevitable Machu Picchu shot.

I am dying to see Machu Picchu!!!! It looks incredible! Thanks for sharing these awesome shots!!!!

Wow, that is cool you went too DF!

 

[Harleigh]

Ok...the pix are great, but I didn''t see any of YOU in them! Are you sure you were there?

It looks like you had a blast! Thanks for sharing with us, Indy, and welcome back!

 

[Independent Gal]

Fine then, Miss Harleigh.

Here is one with me in it. There are only two in the batch (well, and I only took 50 pics in all in the two weeks I was away... taking too many photos can make you forget to actually LOOK where you are an experience it first hand).

 

[Independent Gal]

The most interesting things I learned were about the engineering techniques of the different ancient cultures in Peru to deal with the constant problem of earthquakes. I visited an adobe temple ruin in the middle of Lima which has only just begun to be excavated and restored. They used vertical mud bricks, fitted together in inverse trapezoids (so, think upside down triangle, right side up triange, upside down triangle... except with trapezoids). There was a huge earthquake about two months ago, and the walls the excavators had dug out that had been built more than 1000 years ago withstood it fine, while the modern restoration work was all completely destroyed.

The Inca used stone, with each one cut into a trapezoid, and then fit together irregularly. You can see this wall in the pic (and many, many like it) in Cusco, which was the Inca empire's capital, and it is still standing 750 years later. Inca stonework, in places, was totally lovely and artistic. surely the hand of a particular man in those places.

The Nasca people built their aqueducts in spirals, and they've stayed pretty solid for 1600 years.

Anyway, I love to think of the endless powers of human innovation and adaptability. Cool.

The INCA built wall is the bottom part on the left. The one on the right is modern.

 

[Independent Gal]

One more thing... Peru is a huge producer of gold. There''s a communal mine in Nasca, meaning it belongs collectively to the citizens of the town and anyone can go in and mine. Then some pople own the equipment to get the gold out of the rubble. Anyone can use their equipment, as this (rather handsome) man here is doing, and they pay by leaving the leftover sludge for the equipment owner to sell in bulk to a company with more sophisticated extraction equipment.

I love that the mine is communal and no one is being exploited. Everyone belongs to an association that helps regulate what is going on in the mine. It also provides a huge boost to the local economy, providing employment for about 40% of its citizens in one way or another. But what was sad is that there is apparently a macho thing against wearing protective gear, particularly gloves since they use mercury to separate the gold. The man I talked to said everyone KNOWS the dangers, but they do it anyway. Now that''s a sad and senseless waste of life.

 

[Deelight]

Indiegal you pictures are amazing

Sounds like you had an awesome time it truly looks like a magnificant place to visit.

WB

 

[Aloros]

It''s really too bad you didn''t get a photo of that vampire bat

.

My brother went to Peru a few years back. Him and his friends all got altitude sickness!

Gorgeous photographs - I love the one of the bald llama. What happened, dude?

 

[Harleigh]

Ok, Indy, I'll let you slide with the one you snuck in, but only because the view behind you was absolutely AMAZING!

I know what you mean about not wanting to waste time taking too many pictures while you are somewhere, but then I get home and I hate that I didn't take more! A Catch-22, I know, but I guess I like to go back to the memories of where I'd been.

Thanks again for sharing!

 

[DiamanteBlu]

Looks like it was a fantastic trip! Thanks for posting the pics!

 

[monarch64]

IndyGal, great pics, so glad you posted them--great Christmas present for moi! I''ve been yearning to go to South America for some time now, but DH and I have been trying to figure out a way to pay for a trip there which would consist of more than a couple days, hee hee. We can''t even decide on which countries we''d like to visit, but we like to have fun dreaming about a "someday" trip that would encompass several. Lately we''ve been talking about the Galapagos islands, Ecquador, etc...our bench jeweler where I work is Ecquadorian and highly recommends that we visit there, of course. He''s wonderful, he''s taught me a lot about South America in the last few months and now I''m just dying to go.

Glad you had a wonderful vacation. My favorite pics were the chinchilla and the llama! So cute!

 

[Independent Gal]

Yeah, isn''t that Chinchilla just so SNUGGLY!?

Monarch, Ecuador shouldn''t be too expensive, although going to the Galapagos is REALLY expensive. Do you guys have airmiles? That cuts the cost of the trip in half.

Just as a gauge, my trip cost about $450 / week including taxis, food, guides, decent accomodation, transport (by plane, train, boat, and bus), and entrance fees, including the exhorbitantly priced entrance fees to Machu Picchu. Going in low season means you can usually get your accomodation for about half the usual price. The flight to Lima would have cost about $800-1000 I think, but mine was through a birthday gift of airmiles from my dad.