On Faith

Faith played a big role in our trip.

Faith for one thing, that the bus we were riding in would not sail off the mountain cliff that dropped inches from our left/right (which bus? Every bus. Every single bus we took for three weeks). Faith that whatever we were eating wouldn't make us sick. Faith that the shower water would run hot, or at least warm.

Beyond these trivialities though, faith was everywhere in Peru and Bolivia. There were the cathedrals with their statues of saints dressed in silks and accented with gold. There were hilltop temples covered in candle wax from yesterday's prayers. There was a cave-like room in Copacabana's cathedral where people melted candles and shaped the wax into the objects they most desired, then stuck the wax to the walls of the church to ensure the reception of their prayers.

(Candlewax prayers over Lake Titicaca)

This was a different faith than the one I'm used to. It was more a blending of Christianity and ancient, native beliefs. Statues of the Virgin Mary were decorated with ancient Andean symbols of fertility. New cars were blessed by a priest but also showered with offerings of alcohol. In the spirit of this faith then, and as a summing up of my time in Peru and Bolivia, a few things I believe:

(Blessing a new car)

* I believe that I never seen so many people in traditional, indigenous dress. No one in Germany actually wears lederhosen, for example. Japanese girls wear jeans, not kimonos. Where we were though, the traditional dress among women is something of a source of pride.

* I believe that Lake Titicaca is just about the most beautiful body of water I have ever seen.

* I believe that llamas/alpacas/vicunas are really, really cute.

(C'mon, tell me that's not cute!)

* I believe that Inca Kola absolutely deserves to be the #1 soda in Peru.

* I believe that there is another Machu Picchu hidden in those hills. Absolutely. People are discovering new sites of ruins every year. Those woods are dense and there are so many hills... just a matter of time.

* I believe that La Paz is the messiest, most chaotic, most awful city I have ever loved.

* I believe that the more of the world I see, the more I realize that I have seen nothing.

A Tale of Two Treks

From the earliest stages of planning this trip, we knew it was going to be an "outdoor" sort of vacation. All our vacations are. Cities and small towns, sure. Those are great. Beyond them though, the great outdoors! Soaring mountains! Endless plains! Startling blue waters of lakes and oceans!

Two specific outdoorsy things dominated our plans: hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, and trekking among the mountains of Bolivia's Cordillera Real. They took about the same amount of time (3-4 days each), and both were amazing. The similarities end there.

(Okay, technically, do the similarities really end there? There are probably hundreds of things that were similar. Both were in Spanish-speaking nations. Both skirted snow-capped mountains. Both were difficult. Both were at high altitudes. Both involved a guide. Both involved us sleeping in tents. And so on. Beside the point.)

(Up at the top of Dead Woman's Pass, the highest point on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu)

Hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu was incredible. You're not allowed to hike the trail yourself, so we signed up with SAS, the Cadillac of Machu Picchu trek companies. Oliver and I were 2 among a group of 8 twenty/early thirty-somethings from the States and Europe. It was like one of those movies of safaris in the 1920s. Porters carried our heavy bags. We ate dinner (a feast!) each night in a tent. We were awakened each day with a cup of hot tea and a bowl of warm water to wash our faces. Our guide told us stories every night about the origins of the Incas, mystical Peruvian beliefs (ghosts and pishtacos, anyone?), the Shining Path, and Peruvian politics today. There was even a shower the night before we arrived at Machu Picchu.

(Our guide Paul explains the meaning behind the Andean Cross)

We woke up at 4 that day to start the hike to Machu Picchu, arriving at the Temple of the Sun in time to see the sun rise. Spectacular. We had a guided tour of the site, then had time to wander around for a few hours, soak in everything. Machu Picchu itlsef was overflowing with tourists, but still majestic.


Contrast: trekking in Bolivia's Cordillera Real. We did a three day hike to Laguna Chillata and Laguna Glacier. This time, our guide was a local guy who took us grocery shopping the night before the trip for our food. He spoke no English and we spoke broken (at best) Spanish. The three of us made our way from arid fields to loose rock of a retreating glacier. We saw almost no other tourists. We got drinking water from a stream rushing down out of the glacier. We saw Incan ruins at one point, but they were just there. No ticket office. No preservation. No nothing.

(Oliver and Eduardo load up the mule)

(Inca ruins minus tourists. Except for us, of course.)

The difference in the treks is the perfect symbol for the difference between Peru and Bolivia (from my admittedly limited point of view). Peru is like the older teenage brother. Machu Picchu has been attracting tourists for decades, and Peru knows what to do with the hordes that come in. Bolivia is more of a wilderness. Fewer tourists, fewer amenities. More of an unknown entity. A little grittier in terms of getting from Point A to Point B, perhaps. But.

Absolutely.

Indescribably.

Stunning.

The Clash

Cusco. I know a small handful of people who have been there before, and all came back raving about it. Naturally then, I had to see it all for myself.

It's a beautiful city. It's also full of bars specifically opened for tourists, and its streets are full of people trying to sell you this or that, trying to convince you to go on their tour of the Sacred Valley, trying to get you to eat at their restaurant. Cusco is the stepping-off point for Machu Picchu, so it is used to tourists. Lots and lots of them. At times it almost seems as though it is set up specifically for them. On our days there, we spent a good deal of time wandering here and there, trying to get an understanding of Cusco that went beyond its tourist facade.

We had varying levels of success at different times. At one point we managed to find a great market that was so "authentic" and "local" that it made us both ill, Oliver violently so. (Does it sound like I'm complaining? I'm not! I swear!)

In all our walks, I kept seeing a common theme, and it sort of defined Peru (and later Bolivia) for me: the great clash of civilizations and ideas. Bear with me here. Cusco was the capital of the great Inca Empire, an empire the people of Peru still very much associate with themselves today. When they were Incas, the people of Cusco sat at the very center of (and controlled) an empire that passes through several of today's countries. When the Spanish came in the 1500s, they destroyed that empire and went about converting the people from heathens to Christians. The Spanish even went so far as to tear down the greatest Inca temple of them all and use the stones to build the foundations of a great church. The church still stands today, and the Inca stones at its base can still be seen. Isn't that what the entire world is? Aren't we all a jumble of clashing cultures? Of beliefs and traditions layered over older beliefs and traditions?

(Inca stonework overlooking Franciscan courtyard)

Cusco was beautiful to me because the clash was so obvious - the people have a mix of Indian and Spanish blood in their veins, their streets are a mixture of Inca stonework and Spanish colonial architecture. And the clashing isn't over; it's just taken a new form. Hungry for a Big Mac? You can get one at the McDonald's in Plaza de Armas.

Xs on the Map

¨Don´t go there,¨ said our friendly host at the guest house in Lima. He had a map of downtown Lima on the table in front of us, and big sections were marked with black Xs.

I know why he was saying it - danger, right? South America, two wealthy looking gringos with a guide book and a camera... bad things can come of this in the wrong neighborhood. I appreciated his telling us this. At the same time though, I couldn´t help but wonder what those Xs really stood for. I mean, they obviously meant ¨dangerous neighborhood¨. But did they mean that all poor people are violent thieves? What if we wanted to go to those neighborhoods? If we did, how big a risk would we be running of being those naive tourists who think they can do anything because ¨hey, we´re on vacation! Everything is so ethnic and quaint here!¨

This is my first time since China traveling in a non European/caucasian North American place. I´d forgotten what it felt like to be the wealthy tourist. People come up to you constantly and ask you to buy this, buy that. Some ask for money. What do I do with the guilt that comes along with these things? Buy every alpaca doll that comes my way? Stuff myself with Peruvian breads and sweets? This trip so far, aside from being exciting and beautiful beyond belief, is a stark reminder that much of the world does not live the way I do. What am I going to do about that, ignore it?

A couple months before we left for our trip, Oliver and I went to go see a documentary called Oblivion. It was about the poor and desperately poor of Lima. One of the people featured was an older gentleman who ran a leather repair shop. He had lost everything in the hard times of the ´90s, and he actually broke down and cried when he talked about how he and his wife had been forced to rely on their children for support. Would you believe it, Oliver and I walked right past his shop in Lima! What are the odds? I had to go in and talk to him in my pitiful Spanish. An English translation for you (r amusement) : ´¨I´m sorry... I´m crazy. You... movie?¨When he smiled and said yes, I started beaming like an idiot. ¨I... New York. You... very good! I saw... in New York!¨I wish I could have appropriately conveyed to him how much I respected him, how it was his strength and not the hardship that showed so clearly on the screen.

I hope at least he was able to go home that night with a good story to tell his wife. ¨These two New Yorkers came into the shop today... I´m famous!¨


(Editor´s note... no pictures now - too difficult to upload here. I might come back and add them once I come home. I´ll let you know when I do, because I think the pictures will really add to the stories!)