We leave tomorrow for the Inca Trail. Still have a hard time getting enough air when doing the steep stairs around town, but figure I should be ok for the trail. I’m sure it takes longer than a few days to build up enough red blood cells to manage it with usual exertion. Makes you even more amazed at the Inka priests and soon-to-be-sacrifices that climbed up 7000m peaks in straw sandals.

We will be on the trail for 3 days, arriving early in the morning at the sun gate to Machu Picchu. I hope I can get a night ticket to MP, but it depends on the season. We overnight at a town a few miles a way, then head back up the next day. Then it is the train back to Cuzco.

I’ve been meaning to post some pictures, but none of the computers here seem to have image editing programs. That and usually only one of the computers has USB and a CDROM. I might get around to it, but no promises.

(Photos for this entry can be found here: Cuzco, Peru)

Anna and I had an absolutely amazing dinner last night at a place called Greens. Really hit the spot. With two great dinners in a row, I figured we were ready for an upset tonight, but we are in luck again. Another great meal from a place called Granja Heidi.

Anna and I spent the day wandering around Cuzco. The stairs were a bit easier today, but by the pounding of my head, we overdid it. We managed to hike quite a bit into the local areas of Cuzco. Probably not such a great idea at night, but it seemed quite safe in the day. Found some really great views from a point called the white tower. I will have to see if my gimpy picture taking actually lets me stitch together a panorama from it. Funny how the worst houses in a poorer city have all the great views. Mind you, there are those pesky mudslides.

I blew through a full memory card today, 512 of Cuzco goodness. I’m not sure how many pictures will make the cut, but the visuals of this city are impressive. We got to check out some of the original Inka walls on a street near us. Very impressive. Can’t even fit a piece of paper into the cracks, but the stones are all different sizes. It is like a giant jigsaw puzzle with massive blocks of stone.

You can’t help but feel a bit of despair over the treatment of the city by the spanish. Just the foundations of the Inka structures are amazing, one can’t imagine what the full palaces must have been like. The original city was designed to look like a jaguar. They made visuals and symbols such an important part of their life here. Everything was in its place, and meant something.

(Photos for this entry can be found here: Arequipa, Peru)

We didn’t end up doing Toro Muerto, as I was sick the night before (Inka revenge?). We spent the day cruising the city and snooping in on church services. San Francisco lit fireworks of some bizarre burning man-esque structure in front of the church. Good thing the church was made of stone, as some of them didn’t quite fire right.

We flew from Arequipa to Cuzco with some famous (not to us) futbol players and about 20 boys from the San Francisco catholic school. It was most of the boy’s first flight, so there was a chorus of squeals on take off and turbulence. It was a nice flight though, got to see a bunch of the mountains and terraces on the way in.

Cuzco is a very beautiful city, much more lush than Arequipa, which has more of a SoCal environment. The streets here are amazing, and the surviving dogs know to hug the walls when they walk around.

We are staying at Hostal Marani for 4 days, then it is the Inka Trail for 4 days, then Machu Picchu. Hopefully we aren’t too soft.

Hopped up on IncaKola, Anna and I survived the 30 hours of travel and managed to make it to LAX, San Jose (CR), Lima, and finally, Arequipa. It is a great city. We did the local thing today and checked out the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. The site is amazing, even more impressive is how they managed to lock themselves away from the public for almost 400 years.

Tomorrow we make our way out to the petroglyphs at Toro Muerto. A bit more local stuff Monday morning, then we take off for Cuzco.

This will be my last posting until I make one from Peru, or when I get back. I hope everyone has a nice holiday.

I should have started my Spanish weeks ago, but instead I started a day before I leave. Oh well. I rely on Anna too much for her Spanish I guess. I found in Costa Rica I could understand a great deal of it with my French background, I just couldn’t speak anything back. Baja is a different story. I understand very little Spanish there. It is way too fast and the words are run together.

I’ve been meaning to do the whole community college class for the past three years, but something always gets in my way. Software and tapes it is then. I started out on Rosetta Stone a month back, but gave it up fairly quickly. It seemed to just be teaching me how to say crap like, “the blue car ran over the red dog”. Over, and over again. Maybe that’s the way the brain learns the best (interactive repetition) but I seemed to get much more out of 30 minutes of Michel Thomas this morning. He goes right for the core of the language and focuses on that. It is definitely harder to keep up to speed with him than the Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur, but I seemed to get much more out of the time spent.

————————————–

Most of what I know of Lawrence is from the glossy movie. It seems his writing is getting another look these days: Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” tells how a 1917 Arab revolt against Ottoman rule – which he helped to organize – crippled Turkish supply lines in Arabia with guerrilla raids. It was No. 2 of 100 recommended books for US commanders in Iraq.

Dick gets some questions from U.S. soldiers: “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?” Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense. Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

It was suspected before, but looks like it is official: Ukraine’s Yushchenko victim of bio or chemical agent