In Ruins: the Sacred Valley

"One problem for serious-minded archaeologists is that ancient Peru seems to have flirted with every element of archaeology that the public most like to sensationalise and which as a consequence professionals like to downplay: human sacrifice, stargazing, wild sex, psychedelic drugs and the mummification of the dead, let alone leaving treasure concealed in pyramids."

-- Hugh Thomson, Cochineal Red

It may look like Lhasa, but the Inca were no Buddhists

Even if you're not into the sensationalism, you might think Machu Picchu has it all: lawn-mowing llamas, massive rock, sun worship, vizcachas.

But there's more to Peru than the greatest hit. We hopped back on our Peru Rail train and alighted at Ollantaytambo, which is a small and beautiful village near the confluence of the Patakancha and Urubamba rivers.

Ollantaytambo was the royal estate of Emperor Patchacuti, who conquered the region, built the town, and moved many a stone. The town itself is full of Inca walls and waterways, and has been consistently inhabited for nearly 700 years!

What remains of the Inca compound is above the town, set around terraced hillsides with an elaborate irrigation system. It, like much of the Urubamba river valley, catches beautiful late-day light.

A few days in the so-called Sacred Valley offered a nice way to slow down before returning to Buenos Aires.

If we understand it correctly, these bulbous extrusions allowed greater leverage when moving the stones -- usually they were then removed once the stones were in their final place

The chakana, or three-stepped cross, is faintly visible at right. This was a symbol the Inca borrowed from an earlier culture, along with the meaning of the "trilogy" their architecture sometimes refers to: the snake of the underworld, the puma on earth, and the condor in the heavens

A dry waterway

Going up the ingenious stairs in one terrace: just long flat rocks extending out -- these are used today, too

A working waterway

A tiny oasis around another fountain

Ferns aside, this valley is generally very dry and warm during the day, quite unlike the lushness around Machu Picchu. (And like any desert, cold at night.) Hugh Thomson, whose book we were reading as we were there, compares it to southern France. He lived here for a year and so it is possible this is wishful thinking on his part, but in any case it was a good place to hike.

One thorny plant thriving in the dry climate

Lupine, familiar from dry California

From Ollantaytambo, we hiked an hour or two back along a valley, contouring among crop terraces and surprising the occasional goat, to reach another Inca site called Pumamarca. There was no entrance fee, there were no signs, and there was no one there at all, so we wandered around guessing at the function of the various crumbling walls, then had a picnic.

The remains of the Pumamarca site

On our final morning in Ollantaytambo, some wrangling with a cab driver got us a ride to the Urubamba bus station. From there we caught a slow but pleasant local bus down the Sacred Valley to Pisac, our last stop before returning to Cusco.

Pisac was another small village set below steep Inca terraces. Usually people bus up and walk down to explore the extensive ruins, but we figured we'd walk up. Turned out this was one of those enterprises where, when you reach the top, you're glad that at the bottom you didn't know how far you'd need to go. Anyway, it offered spectacular views.

Rings made of stone on either side of a doorway -- perhaps a red velvet rope passed across...

One especially interesting thing about this site is that, at the top and across a valley, there are pocked cliffs that acted as an Inca burial ground. I don't know whether the holes have always been there or whether they were made by grave-robbers, but it's ultimately an enormous vertical cemetery.

The scale may be tough to see, but the green stuff is trees -- it's big

After sitting up top, watching the early sunset (early sunsets and late sunrises are an occupational hazard of valleys), and listening to the evening sounds of the town drift up, we descended to Pisac for the night. In the morning, we wandered through the lively market.

Traditional dress... and yes, that squash is bigger than that baby

Powders for painting and dyeing: the colors they make aren't necessarily the colors they look -- want purple? try the green

After almost a week of climbing Inca stairs and relaxing in the Sacred Valley, it was time to go. We shouldered our bags, walked to the edge of town, and got back on a crowded minibus to stand and sway our way up the switchbacks to Cusco.

Sucre sweet and bitter

The steep streets of Sucre

Teetering here at 13,000+ feet in Potosí, I thought I´d follow the advice to rest at a high elevation and so am catching up with another blog post, this time about Sucre. Marty has already done some great posts, but I couldn´t resist chiming in. (This will surprise no one.)

Sucre is a lovely tranquil city, full of narrow cobbestone lanes, whitewashed buildings, red tile roofs, and teenagers. (OK, sometimes it´s not so tranquil -- especially when on Saturdays at siesta time the teenagers in the brass band practice a song that lasts 2 hours.)

Its streets are steep -- it´s sometimes reminiscent of San Francisco -- and the sidewalks are narrow. So narrow that it´s not uncommon to actually bump into people when rounding a corner!

The city is at about 9,000 feet in elevation, which until today seemed quite high; when I arrived a week ago I had to walk much slower than usual. It´s very dry, as well, which makes for gorgeous blazing midday temperatures and cold, starry nights.


A sunny afternoon (like most) at the Recoleta mirador


The always-tranquil cementario

Sucre is a very old and proud city. It was founded in 1538 and is full of churches that actually date back to the 1500s. The declaration of Bolivia´s independence from Spain was signed here in 1825, and Sucre residents call their city the heart of Latin American independence, saying that the first cry for independence was uttered here in 1809. Sucre also is home to a very old and famous university that was founded in 1624; for centuries, the city has produced doctors, lawyers, and other professionals.

Perhaps partly because of a class schism, Sucre residents are on the whole not happy with their president, Evo Morales, widely lauded as the country´s first indigenous president.



Sucre is the original capital of Bolivia and is the seat of its judiciary. It claims the status of ¨constitutional capital¨and doesn´t recognize the move of the capital to La Paz as legitimate.
This may seem like a quibble but is a serious dispute.

Morales declared La Paz the capital in 2007 (among other changes to the consitution) and the residents of Sucre protested. The protests escalated, the military came in, miners came in from Potosí bearing (and throwing) dynamite, and it got very ugly. Three young Sucre residents died.

The way I was told the story, a mob took over the streets, burning buildings. All the prisoners were released for their own safety. The police, overpowered, actually left the city. They walked to Potosí, I was told, as no cars or trucks were allowed in or out by the protesters. They told Sucre residents that everything would descend into chaos, but people actually organized themselves, the mob dispersed, people fed each other, and generally kept order until the situation ended. The prisoners even went back to the jail of their own volition (presumably because without it they were homeless).

Unfortunately, about a year later there was some very ugly retaliation against campesinos supporting Morales.

I heard about all of this from my Spanish teacher, who said that many people don´t like to talk about it. There isn´t much confidence in the government here, though.



It´s hard to know how to evaluate all of this -- some may be class resentment and some may be real fear of repression and autocracy -- but I was grateful to find out more about what goes on beneath the surface of what is, no matter what, a beautiful place.
.

Recoleta cemetery

A couple of weeks ago, we went with our housemate Jorge to the Recoleta cemetery, an exclusive final resting place for some of Argentina's wealthiest families; the cemetery holds generals, businessmen, presidents, writers, Nobel Prize winners, and most famously, Evita. It was first created in 1822 but only gained its present, ornate aspect in 1881.


Marty and Jorge

It's a strange place -- like a tiny city, with narrow streets and small decorative houses for each family. It's also noticeably, remarkably, blessedly quiet. Buenos Aires is a loud city, and there are big streets right outside the cemetery, but it's surrounded by a high brick wall (which reminded us somewhat incongruously of the wall around Chiang Mai), which must mute the noise. The sunny central plaza was relatively full of people, walking and chatting, but the small labyrinthine paths branching out from the center were silent.


The narrow lanes of the necropolis



Many of the tombs are in considerable disrepair (as not all the families have survived, or at least have remained rich). It seemed sad, but also strange to feel sad about what is largely a display of ostentatious wealth.

In some places, this disrepair is very picturesque.



In others, it's just ugly; windows are broken, and there are a few places you could actually reach in and touch a casket, a grotesque thought. My Spanish teacher said that brass is quite valuable and so many plaques and brass or bronze objects have been stolen.


Most of the mausoleums had visible coffins and stairs leading down to lower levels; this one was in unusually good repair


The imagery on this looks quite Mexican

The outside walls of the tombs bear plaques for particular members of the family; an especially popular (or powerful, or rich) person will have several plaques in their name put up by different groups of people.


I wondered if the employees of Señor Lavarello really loved him so much


The Duarte tomb -- Eva Perón's carefully embalmed body lies here after many strange travels, including being hidden here and in Europe, as well as at apparently resting for some time on Perón's dining room table.


My shirt fit right in with the iconography


The comfortable cemetery cats; one particularly friendly fellow had about 24 toes


Not sure why anyone would want a knocker, but it's a handsome lion



Marty had this to add, courtesy of the Smiths:

A dreaded sunny day
So I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
...
While Wilde is on mine

So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
All those people all those lives
Where are they now?
With the loves and hates
And passions just like mine
They were born
And then they lived and then they died
Seems so unfair
And I want to cry
...

A dreaded sunny day
So let's go where we're happy
And I meet you at the cemetery gates
Oh Keats and Yeats are on your side

A dreaded sunny day
So let's go where we're wanted
And I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
But you lose because Wilde is on mine