Peru Day 4 - Sacred Valley

On Monday we went on a tour of the Sacred Valley - the area around Cusco, full of Incan ruins. Our first stop was in Pisac, which had terraces built into the mountains and some small houses.

We had lunch at a cute outdoor buffet restaurant in Urubamba, where we finally got to sample the various Peruvian desserts (they make lots of great pastries and cakes).

After lunch we went to Ollamtaytambo, another site of Incan ruins, with more terraces and houses high up on the mountain.

Chinchero was our last stop - it's a 16th century Catholic Church built on an Incan temple. The side alter is the original stone Incan alter, and since we were there close to sunset, you could see how the light comes in the door and lines up exactly with the alter - very cool. We also saw how the Incans carved the rocks to make them fit together perfectly rather than using filler in between.

Back in Cusco, Jeff and I had dinner on the plaza again, and enjoyed beautiful views again. Jeff had cuy (guinea pig), and I had rocoto relleno (stuffed pepper). We also tried on of the traditional Peruvian drinks - Pisco Sour, which was pretty good. However, the restaurant was completely empty, despite its great location, which was a little weird, so we moved to a different place for tea and dessert.

Peru Day 3 - Cusco

On Sunday morning we flew from Lima to Cusco, arriving around 10am. We checked in at our hostel - Los Portales - which is more hotel-like, with cable TV and a nice room.

After talking to the person who'd be arranging our trip to Machu Piccu in a few days, we went to see the city. We started in Plaza de Armas, or Plaza Royal. We toured the Cathedral, which is very cool and has some interesting art. The art was funded by the Spanish, but done by local artists, shortly after the conquest. There is a painting of the Last Supper done by local artists a couple centuries ago - it's at a round table and the main dish is cuy (guinea pig) and there are peppers and other Peruvian foods. Also, they say Judas' face is modeled after Pizarro - the Spaniard who conquered Peru. Also, in a painting of Jesus being taken away, the soldiers are Spanish instead of Roman, supposedly because the local people said that's the only kind of soldiers they've ever seen.

After seeing the cathedral, we had lunch on the plaza - soup, tomale, chicken and rice for 12 soles ($4)!

When lunch was done, we went to the San Blas neighborhood and toured the church there. It had an amazingly ornate pulpit and some interesting art work. We went in the artisan shops, and I bought some earrings. I also ended up buying a llama-wool knit hat.

We decided to have dinner on the plaza - there are a bunch of restaurants with balconies overlooking the square. We took our time over dinner and shared a bottle of Argentinian Malbec. We had a fruit pizza - normal pizza, but with no tomato sauce covered with banana slices, mango, and apple pieces. It had a very unique taste, but we both really liked it - maybe we'll try to put banana on our own pizza sometime. ;)

Peru Day 1 & 2 - Lima

We arrived in Lima, Peru at 9pm on Friday night, checked in at the Barranco Backpacker's Inn, and slept for 10 hours.

On Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hostel and then met with Julio of Julius tours. We usually like to do as much on our own as possible, to save on costs and be a bit more adventurous, but it was a bit difficult in Peru. We had a short time in Peru and planes were the only realistic mode of travel, since we couldn't spend 24 hours at a time on buses. Also, things like Machu Piccu can sell out.

So we gave in and got a tour - actually, it doesn't include that much guided touring, but does include transport to the places we wanted to go: Cusco, Machu Piccu, and Puno (Lake Titicaca). It was a little expensive, but even coordinating everything on our own, we couldn't have done it much cheaper.

After figuring that out and moving to a new hostel (ours was booked for that night), we finally started seeing Lima. We had lunch at Punto Azul in Miraflores. The food was great - we had a rice and seafood platter in a tomato-based sauce, a plate of fried fish and calamari, and a tres-leches cake for dessert.

After lunch, we went downtown for a walk from Plaza Mayor to Plaza San Martin. We stopped first at the San Francisco Monestary for a tour and to see the catacombs. Downtown Lima is nice - lots of big colonial buildings and a modern pedestrian shopping street.

From there we went to Larco Mar, a very modern open-air mall on the cliffs over the Pacific Ocean. We watched the sun set from the railing.

We had some nice juice at Cafe' Cafe' - I had guanabana. After that we wandered around, indecisive, before settling at 'Sofa Cafe' for tea and an empanada, followed by a glass of Peruvian red wine. We played scrabble, which they happened to have there. We didn't keep score since it was the Spanish version and didn't match up well with English scoring. Still lots of fun!

Peru Trip Highlights

Jeff and I were in Peru from Friday, March 13th until Sunday, March 22, 2009. It was a great trip, and I kept a journal while we were there, so I'm going to transfer my notes into this blog!

Highlights of the trip:
*Amazing seafood at Punto Azul in Lima.
*Spending over six hours at Machu Piccu so we could hike, tour, and still have time to relax and read a book.
*Actually making it to the top of Waynu Piccu!
*Trying fruit pizza and finishing a bottle of wine while looking out over the Cuscu Plaza de Armas.
*Sitting on top of the boat in the sun, looking at Lake Titicaca.
*Seeing (& walking on) actual floating islands.
*Driving, training, and boating through beautiful Peruvian scenary.
*Randomly running into Francios on the street in Lima.
*Finding the Mariel Hotel in Lima!

Watchmen

Our book club book for March was "Watchmen" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It's a graphic novel (actually originally released as a set of individual comic books), but now hailed as one of the top 100 novels (by amazon.com).

I did really enjoy the book - all of the heroes (except one), are just normal people that for varying reasons decided to dress up in a costume and fight crime. Some are insecure, or crazy, or have other issues, and most seem aware of how weird it is to, for example, dress up like an owl and fight bad-guys. I thought this aspect of the book was really interesting to think about - the nature of a hero and what makes people do what they do.

It also presents a very interesting basic ethical dilema - what's more important - principles, or accomplishing the best end result. In Spiderman, when he has to choose between saving his girlfriend or saving a speeding train, in the end he's able to save both. In this story, the characters don't get to skirt around the difficult issues. I think this makes you think about what makes a hero (or a person) seem 'good' - is it because they actually make the right choice, or just because of the situation they were in.

Of course, the movie "Watchmen" has now been released, and having read the book, I had to go see it. I did enjoy the movie, and there were some aspects in the beginning that were remarkably similar to the book - including the way the scenes were set up and shown. The characters, particularly Rorschach, were very well cast. There are some changes from the book that seem major on the surface, but the spirit of the book is definitely still there.

However, the fighting in the movie was a big 'larger than life', which took away from one of the aspects of the book I really enjoyed - that they were all real people with no special ability, just an odd urge to dress up and fight crime, all for very different reasons.

It's hard to judge the movie, having read the book, because it's hard to imagine how it's perceived by a first-time watcher, without all the background included in the book. I'd be interested to hear how other people like it.

Charleston, SC

This week I headed to a work meeting in Charleston. The meeting actually ended a day early, and rather than go through the hassle of trying to change my ticket (flights were pretty full and it seemed likely I would just sit around at the airport hoping to get on as a stand-by), I decided to do a bit of sight-seeing.

I've been to Charleston before, but always for business, so I've never had much chance to wander the city. This Friday was 70 degees and sunny, so it was the perfect opportunity. (In fact, I think I got a little sun burnt.)

One of the nicest things about Charleston are all the old, giant, Southern style houses - the residential streets south of Broad Street are beautiful to walk through.

I was staying downtown, so I could walk from my hotel. I headed down King Street, which is a big commercial street with lots of boutiques and little shops.

I spent a good amount of time seeing all the architecture in the southern-most tip of the city, including the famous mansions overlooking the water on East Bay Street.

Lunch consisted of a great salad and Blue Crab Bisque, after which I decided to be a real tourist and take a carriage ride. The carriage ride was actually a lot of fun, and it was nice to hear all about the city and learn some of the history.
Around 3pm, having walked quite a bit, I decided to leave downtown Charleston and head to the nearby Isle of Palms, which is right on the Atlantic Ocean. I spent my last couple hours in town walking on the beach.

Snow Day!!!

Yesterday we had a snow day - it was actually the most snow I've ever seen in DC. Usually snow days happen here because it is snowing lightly, and they have no way to move the snow, so they just wait until it melts (almost always less than a day). This time it actually started at night and looked like a blizzard, and all the next day there were a couple inches of snow covering everything - it looked so cool! Unfortunately, I only ventured out once, and forgot my camera, so no pics here.

Snow day for me didn't actually change much, since I work from home most of the time anyway. But Jeff's school was closed, so he was home too, which was nice. And I didn't have class in the evening.

Mostly we just did work and errands all day. Reading and writing papers, mostly. We did take a break at one point to watch "Idiocracy" which is a really stupid movie, that is sometimes funny and has a basis in an interesting idea - that we've gotten to a point where evolution and 'survival of the fittest' is no longer based on being smart or strong. The plot, according to imdb is: "Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive." It was sometimes funny (Luke Wilson is good), but had tons of bathroom humor, and maybe would have been better at one hour instead of two.