Day 6: High Takes on a New Meaning

Parque Arqueologico Raqchi
Remains of the temple walls

March 12, 2009: 400 Miles from Cusco to Puno

Dear Grandma,

You cannot experience the truly beautiful areas of the world without suffering, and boy, am I suffering! Last night, my ragged breathing worked its way through my roommate’s earplugs and into her subconscious, causing her to wake up and ask if I was dying. Either I had an allergic reaction to the food or the utter filth of our hotel room did me in. I’m banking on the latter as the rain made our room musty, moldy, and just plain gross. I could feel the mold spores nesting in the deepest pit of my lungs, wrapping their tentacles around my alveoli like a jellyfish wrapping itself around a foot.

Well, okay, maybe that’s a little too dramatic.

I can say that I felt like the fish in that asthma commercial. I ended up taking Benadryl, then I took a Zyrtec, then I ate something like eight Tums while drinking carbonated water (a home remedy for altitude sickness). Then, just to be safe, I took some ginkgo biloba (also for altitude sickness). Something in that mix worked because I am still here – miserable, thanks to the onset of Peruvian poo disease, but alive and kicking.

I guess it’s a good thing that we spent all day riding around in the wagon of the proletariat. Okay, now, we didn’t take a public bus, but we did travel 400 miles from Cusco to Puno with only a few stops along the way. I was all sorts of dopey for the first half of the trip, having taken another Benadryl and a Dramamine (the super drowsy kind). I basically floated through our first stop in Andahuaylas where we stopped to see the “Andean Sistine Chapel,” a.k.a. St. Pedro Church. It was pretty colorful and my friend P. had some kind of research-related epiphany while she was standing there looking at the art. She tried to explain it to me, but like I said, I was fairly stoned so it went – SWOOSH – right over my head. But, hey, she was happy, which makes me happy.

All I know is that the painting of St. Agatha with her lopped off breasts on a plate was a bit, err, disconcerting.

Storage Huts @ Raqchi

After a quick bathroom break (no toilet paper, no toilet seats), we loaded up the bus and headed towards Raqchi to see the ruins of the Temple of Viracocha (or Wiracocha, depending on your source). This was one of the holiest shrines in the Incan empire … or at least, that’s what my Lonely Planet guide says. We wandered around the site for a while, looking at the storehouses (an anomaly because they are round instead of square) and exploring the gardens, full of potatoes and purple corn. We even saw a flock of sheep roaming around the area. Oh, and of course, dogs. Lots and lots of dogs. There was this one blonde dog that kept humping a dog that looked remarkably like my dog (i.e., The Black Plague of Death). Sadly, we also saw a half-starved puppy, which tugged on everyone’s heart strings. OnlyStudent ended up giving him all of the snacks she had been saving for the afternoon.

And yes, we had a potty stop here also. Still no toilet paper, but we did get a receipt for the un sol we paid to get in. Too bad the receipt was too small to be used in any meaningful way, eh?

Guinea Pig
Cuy, it’s what’s for dinner!

We made another stop at some shops about 10 minutes from Raqchi, just to play with the animals. Yep, there were more llamas here … and two adorable baby vicuñas. I’m sure it was a tourist trap because the whole place was teeming with Japanese tourists eating takeout sushi, but it was still fun trying to get the critters to eat from your hands. I also found the guinea pig habitat at the back of the property – a room that had tiers of hidey-holes and little ladders for the cuy to scamper around on. Yep, they were destined to become someone’s dinner … just not mine.

I have to tell you, I am feeling compelled to buy a couple of guinea pigs while The Coach is on spring break. I even have their names picked out – Inca and Kola. If I put them in my office, he’ll never know they’re here, right?

Snowfield in the Andes
I took this from our highest point on the trip: 14,222 feet.
For the record, I live 413 feet above sea level.

I wish I could tell you that the rest of the trip was nice and quiet, but I can’t. We did make a couple more pit stops, one to take pictures of the snow fields and another to eat lunch at a roadside restaurant (alpaca, a nice chocolate flan). But then … we arrived at our hotel in Puno only to have ‘Lucy’ break down in tears because she had lost her passport. Yes, the same woman had lost all her money on a plane, had lost herself in a market, and had now lost her passport 120 miles down the road. Or, at least she thought she had left her passport back at the restaurant. In reality, it was still on the bus.

Painful situation avoided.

After settling into the nice hotel, a group of us wandered out for pizza at this amusing little joint called Macchu Pizza. It was, surprisingly, good pizza. The crust reminded me of this great pizza we used to get in Montpelier when I was a child – and can’t get anymore because the place went out of business. Of course, we completely freaked out our waiter when someone asked whether there was MSG in the sauce. He went downstairs with a panicked look on his face and returned with a bag of yeast. Obviously the language barrier was just too high!

Love,
Disenchanted