Inti Raymi pictures are up!

https://picasaweb.google.com/chou.davidw/PeruPt2

So last Friday was the Inti Raymi Festival in Cusco, one of the largest tourist festivals of the year. (In Quechua, Inti = Sun, Raymi = Festival/Party).  The cool part of the festival is that they celebrate both the Incan sun god, and the Winter Solstice.  I'm not sure I understood everything that went on, but there was an Incan, and he basically made a grand entrance and spent some time making speeches...I think.  It was all really cool to see (since we were at the Incan ruins of Saqsaywaman), and it was really, really well done.  I suggest checking out pictures at the link above to see what I mean.

The Incan

#picturesarecool #sowasintiraymi #sickagain

Update: sickness is only an intestinal infection. Not giardia!  Cipro for 3 days and I'll be good to go.

#Yaynotgiardia

G(astronomical) Tour of Cusco!

So our Spanish teacher, Reyner, took us out on a food tour of Cusco instead of Spanish lessons (win!). We first went to a Cebicheria, and we ordered a giant 50 sole platter (for three people) that had ceviche (best I've ever had), Paella, seafood curry-like thing (with mussels), and fried fish/squid.

Spectacular

So after that (my stomach was stuffed to the brim), we walked for a ways until we reached a pasteleria. It looked pretty amazing all around, and it was one of the nicest places I've been in Peru so far. All of us ordered our own cakes (6 soles per slice), and I settled on a traditional Tres Leches cake. Needless to say, it was mouth-wateringly delicious!

Tres Leches

We then went on over to a cafe, where "the best coffee in Peru" was made, according to our teacher. I ordered a black coffee, for tasting, and an espresso, since my food coma was coming on strong. I'm going to have to rate the coffee as good, but not great (best coffee still gets awarded to Blue Bottle drip coffee in San Fran), but the espresso was one of the best I've had. Definitely the best coffee I've had in a while (Peruvians seem to enjoy instant coffee a lot…blech). Para continuar, we went on to a chocolate shop, which specialized in delicious coca chocolate. Nom nom. Finally, we went to get dinner at a place that specialized in cow hearts and intestines grilled on a stick. Upon our teacher's recommendation, I ordered the corazones. Putting aside the fact that they're hearts, they taste pretty good! It's similar to a really savory beef, and meat-lovers would appreciate it, I think. That ended our food tour, and we all went back to Urubamba to nurse our aching stomachs.

Hearts on the right, papas on the left

#somuchfood #goingbackforceviche #cuscoisprettysweet

aaaand we're back!

It looks like blogger's been down for the past few days, and kinda erased all of my formatting. Oh well...

Since I haven't had much internet access over the past few days, there will be a quadruple post coming up. (whoa there)  So upon arriving to Cuzco by plane, I awoke to see mountains everywhere. To paraphrase Neil, one of the Dukies, "walking from the plane was one of the coolest experiences I've had." We soon arrived to the hotel, and explored the city - the architecture is amazing, and the city as a whole is simply breathtaking. I'll do my best to upload a slideshow of Cuzco when I have better internet access (y más tiempo). The city is fairly large, pretty urban, maybe like a smaller city in China. Every 5 meters in one of the main plazas, you can find people selling postcards, paintings, dolls, knockoff ray-bans, etc. It's not uncommon to some cities outside of los EEUU I guess.

A building near the main plaza in Cuzco

As always, exploring a new city is exciting, and Cuzco is just excellent - there's so much to do! ProPeru took us on a trolley ride that went around the outskirts of Cuzco, and we ended up at the Cristo Blanco - a giant white statue of Christ that overlooks Cuzco. From the top, the view is breathtaking. Also, there are llamas. everywhere. It's awesome. Then this past Friday, we went to go explore ruins close to Cuzco, like Saqsaywaman. Calling it one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen cannot do this place justice. The highest point of the ruins were at about 3800 meters, so these sights were literally breathtaking. The mountains, the sky, the sun, the moon - all are so visible and crisp!

Inca Ruins near Cuzco

 

Speaking of the sun, it's incredibly strong here - sunscreen is just about a must. Since we're at 10,000+ feet above sea level, the sun is closer by a significant amount. The high altitude is not that problematic, except when you're exerting yourself. There's less oxygen at this altitude, and you definitely notice it when climbing stairs - you get out of breath much faster and can feel light-headed at times. The weather in Cuzco is kinda cold - it is winter here after all, and if you think of Durham in the fall, that's about accurate. It's about 60+ in the daytime, but can get pretty cold at night (50s and below). Hopefully this gives a general idea of what the Cuzco experience is, and there's definitely a lot that I glossed over, but I'll come to it later.

#isthisreallife #perurocks