We entered Peru and passed through customs for the 4
th time on our trip. This time, my mom was with us and we had come to see some of the big archeological sites of the country. We decided to ease her into Peru by staying in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima, which is the most western and upscale in Peru, but still has that unique Peruvian flavor. We walked in the main plaza area and visited a market which had some very unique and high-quality crafts. Among the people cutting stone and polishing it and people making cool souvenirs from olive wood on-site, we also saw a guy who would write whatever you wanted on a single grain of rice! Also in the plaza was a band with this amazing flute player, which we caught on
video if you'd like to hear him:
The day we flew in happened to be Peruvian independence day, but we figured we would miss most festivities since we came in late at night and slept late the next day, but this was not the case. They decided to take the long weekend to celebrate! Since we arrived on Weds, this was quite a long
desfile! This was both good and bad news for us. Good news cause we could also celebrate and witness the city in celebration mode, bad news because all the museums we wanted to go to were closed. So instead we just walked around the old city and the Plaza de Armas. Here's Suzanne and Mom at the plaza with the Peruvian flag:
Our plan was always to get out of Lima quickly and start seeing archeological sites so we quickly left Lima for Huaraz. The big site located near Huaraz was called Chavin de Huantar. The Chavin culture was highly spiritual and intellectual using soft power to extend their influence across modern day Peru. People would come on pilgrimages to hear an oracle tell them messages from the gods. The center of their culture was this site, which consisted of a very large temple and plaza where they would do their ceremonies. It was larger than I had imagined it would be and much more elaborate too. There were labyrinths and tunnels underground that would even go out of the site and under a nearby river. They would use water in interesting ways, using steam that they would push from under the ground to make the priests look more mystical. Mom was in heaven, she loved everything and quickly exhausted the battery on her camera taking pictures. Suzanne was the main translator, using her superior skills to translate for Mom and for me (I was filling in at taking pictures of everything). Finally, we had to bid adieu to Chavin and began the long trip back to Huaraz, which was only 100km away but the road was so bad it took hours. However it was such a beautiful drive over the mountains that we didn't mind it (that much). Picture of Chavin site followed by a couple of mountain shots:
Unless you're an archeologist, you don't come to Huaraz for Chavin though. You come for the amazing mountains that surround the city. The Cordierra Blanca and Cordierra Negra (which mean “White Range” and “Black Range”) are stunning ranges that frustrate attempts to describe. They have the highest peaks in Peru (most over 16,000 ft), are covered in snow (white range at least) and glaciers, and their peaks seem to shoot straight up out of the earth resulting in huge cliffs that just cause you to drop your jaw and wonder. We spent the two other days we had in Huaraz going on day hikes around these mountains. Most people who come though aren't really day-hikers so we found ourselves quite isolated up there. We had to take a taxi to get to a decent starting point but the road quickly got too rough for it and he had to drop us early. So we started in this little village up on the hill. We got to see a true rural Peruvian village. It was great; everyone looked at you and smiled and said “buenas tardes” or good afternoon and wanted to know where you were from. No one asked us for money or wanted money if you took their picture. Then throw in the scenery (rolling hills with wheat, cows, sheep and dogs with a brightly dressed shepherdess watching them graze with the mountains behind) and you get as close as you can to those romantic paintings you see in museums around the world. It wasn't perfectly ideal though. We had been warned that sometimes there is petty robbery up there so we had to leave behind Niko (my camera). Hopefully though we got some good ones with the other smaller camera we brought. Thankfully we never experienced any problems like that.
We ended up not being able to take a taxi back down and had to walk all the way down the mountain to Huaraz, a elevation drop from 13,566 to 10,178 (3,388 ft) over a distance of 5.5 miles (thanks to Google Earth). Mom really impressed us both. She had no problem with the elevation and often took the lead! By the end, we were exhausted and had an overnight bus to take so we showered in our hotel (thankfully our hotel was cool with this since we had already checked out) and ate way too much Chinese food and drank too much beer. But these factors all made us very sleepy and we ended up sleeping the best we've ever slept on an overnight bus!
Our next stop was Trujillo, more of that later...
~Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment