MUNGO EATS Latin America

Another day in Cusco, another day of chores.  Kevin was hoping to get some work done on the van and the trailer and was planning on getting a garage to do the work for us, but for some reason, we can’t seem to find what we are looking for in this town.  We need some muffler work done, and in every other town, every other corner has a muffler shop, but we could not find a single one in Cusco.  Also, the wheel bearings on the trailer need regreasing, but we were having trouble finding someone to do this as well.  In the end, Kevin decided  to just do the work himself.  It’s not that the work is difficult, it is messy, and it has been raining nonstop in this town for the past 3 weeks, so the ground is wet and muddy.  Needs to be done though.  Today we went to buy grease for the bearings.  You don’t learn those words in a language school.  We managed though, found what we need. 

Since I don’t have any great  adventure to write about, I thought I would write about “jobs you would never see in Canada”.  As we travel through Latin America, we have seen many people making a living selling things or doing things that just would not fly in Canada.  Let me tell you about it. 

People will sell ANYTHING in the streets.  Some of my favorites are the following:

TV remote salesman, Cell phone charger salesman, pieces of rope salesman, and the best one…rat poison salesman. 

There are a whole lot of people who sit on the street corners, with half a dozen cell phones on their lap, that will sell you cell time on their phones.  Usually, the phones are tied to them with cords or rope (probably bought from the pieces of rope salesman) so you don’t take off with them. 

In Cartagena, we saw many, many people selling juice on the streets, usually lemonade or orange juice.  Doesn’t sound so strange.  What made it strange was that they pushed their juice around in a big fish tank mounted to a cart.  When you ordered a juice, they would just scoop some out of the fish tank with a cup, and then resume pushing their cart down the street. 

All sorts of food is sold on the streets.  My favorites here are the corn roasters, who just have a small hibachi of coals and roast corn on the cob for you, and in Panama, the vendors cut hot dog wieners in a spiral and then skewered them on a stick and roasted them, so you could have “fancy” twisty wieners on a stick! 

Peru has the best “models” to pose with.  In  all the touristy towns,  mostly young girls are dressed up in traditional indigenous clothing and will pose for a picture, for cash.  Most of them have some type of animal pose with you, an alpaca or, even better, a little lamb wearing a chuyo (traditional Peruvian toque!).

But of all the strange professions we have seen, THE BEST has been the knife/machete sharpening guy that we saw in Mexico.  This was an older fellow, who had adapted a bicycle to spin a sharpening stone as he pedaled, and would sharpen your blade while you waited. 

So anyone reading this, who has not found their true calling in life, maybe one of these jobs is for you!!!

We awoke this morning to the sound of a VERY steady rain, so we were unsure if we were going to hit Machu Picchu or not.  Within an hour though, it had slowed to a barely perceptible drizzle, so we decided to continue on with our plans to visit the site.  I am sure most of you have at least seen pictures of Machu Picchu, but if you are like me, you do not appreciate how large a site it is until you see it.  Large, large, large.  From the pueblo, you have to take a bus to the archeological site.  This really amounts to climbing switchback after switchback as you gain about 1000m of elevation.    

We decided to hire a guide, because we knew very little about this magical place.  Our guide, Gloria, turned out to be quite informative.  She initially took us high above the city, so that we could appreciate the whole site.

Then we were led back down into the town to investigate more closely.  We learned a lot, but  one of the most important things we learned, was that not all Inca walls were built as precisely as we are led to believe.  Only the important religious, royal or ceremonial walls were built without mortar with the famous interlocking, carve rocks.

The everyday, common folk built their walls with regular rocks, and mortar as well.

There are examples of each present. 

The city has many houses, some of which have been restored.

There are many religious elements.  This is the temple of the sun, and the windows present in the curved wall admit the light of the sun, at sunrise, during the summer and winter solstices.

Nearby are temples dedicated to the earth, air and water.  There are other altars at the site as well.  There is a representation of a condor, part of which, uses a natural rock formation as the wings and the body is a separate carving located on the ground below the wings.  See if  you can get what I am talking about from the photo.

Not so easy to see, is it?  Here is a detailed view of the “body” part. 

This is called the ceremonial rock, and apparently it is supposed to represent a guinea pig.  See it?

The head is on the right.  Sometimes I think these archeologists chew a little too much coca leaf!! 

Anyway, let’s just finish off with a few more pictures.

Yep…WORTH IT!

Tomorrow, we begin the trek back to Cusco, hope the roads are okay!! 

Our quest to get to Machu Picchhu continued today.  We packed up the van, under the watchful eyes of the restaurant owners in whose parking lot we spent the night, and were on our way.  The road was rougher than yesterday, gravel, not paved, but there were fewer dicey spots.  Our drive took us to Santa Teresa, which is the last town that you can drive to before making your way to Machu Picchu.  The train departs from a hydroelectric  station about a 15 minute drive from the town.  When we reached the town, a local fellow took an interest in Mungo (insisted Mungo wanted to be  set free) and the van (he loved the fridge!).  We had to wait for the train ticket station to open after lunch, so we spoke to the fellow for a while.  He gave us  some great info, regarding getting to Machu Picchu.  First of all, we could drive to the hydroelectric station in our own vehicle, and we were told that there was a fellow at the end of the road, that we could pay to watch our vehicle.  Super!  He also thought that we might be able to get Mungo on the train, although in cargo, but that bit of info turned out to be wrong.   In the end, we went with the original plan.  The kids and I took the train into Aguas Calientes (or Machu Picchu Pueblo) and Kevin and Mungo walked in along the tracks, a two hour walk.  He left before us and got to town before us.  He wasn’t sure what to expect of the walk, but it turns out HOARDS of people walk into the town, so it was like a 2 hours stroll with many other travellers.  The kids and I did fine on the train.  We met a German fellow, who spent the whole trip complaining about the drivers in Peru.  Apparently, he took a bus to Santa Teresa from Cusco this morning, and swore he would take the train back, because his life is worth more than the $30 difference in fare.

I was quite worried about this trip.  I was unsure if we would be able to find a hostal  who would let Mungo in.  As a back up, we  actually brought all our camping gear with us.  As it turns out, a gal approached us the moment we got off the train to ask us if we needed a hostal.  I told her we did and explained that we had a dog with us.  She hesitated for only a moment before telling us that she would put us on the top floor, so that we didn’t disturb any of the other guests with the dog (there are no other guests as far as I can tell).  We found Kevin, waiting at a table outside a bar, at the end of the rail line.  Apparently, he got all of 30 feet into town before some locals accosted him and asked him to share a drink with them, admiring the hound at the same time.  The greater fascination was with the dog, and  they introduced Mungo to all their buddies, and apparently were toasting Mungo as well.  Rough life, Kevin!!

So all my apprehension about getting here was largely unfounded.  Tomorrow we will visit the sacred city, and the morning after we will start our way back to Cusco. 

We were about due for a driving adventure, right?  Well, today was it.   Today we left Cusco, in an attempt to go to Machu Picchu.  Most tourists visit this important Incan sight in one of two ways.  They either hike the Inca trail, which takes about 5 days, or take the train from Cusco to Machu Picchu.  Because of the dog, neither option was open to us.  Well, I guess maybe we could have talked our way into the hike, but it is a very wet time of year to be hiking, and I really don’t think the  pack donkeys and Mungo would have gotten along very well.  The last option, and the one we decided to try, is to drive as close as possible to the site, and then either hike or take a train the rest of the way.  Actually, 3 of us plan to take the train, and one of us (most likely Kevin), will walk the rest of the way to the site.  So today, we started the drive.  It takes about 5 1/2 hours to drive to Santa Teresa, which is the last town you can drive to .  The road twists and turns through the mountains, and we were warned that in the rainy season, there are frequently landslides to navigate around.  We decided to go light, and left the trailer at the campsite in Cusco, so we could travel faster and be more manoeuvrable for the drive. 

All was going extremely well until we hit this!

Yep, that is a whole lot of river running across the road.  There were half a dozen vehicles on either side of the river, and the occupants of these vehicles were just standing on the road, watching the water rush by.  The water was moving very fast, and it looked quite deep.  It was obvious to me that we were not going anywhere for a while.  No work crew was on the scene yet.  I really wasn’t sure why everyone was waiting.  On our side of the barricade, at the front of the line was a group of young guys on motorcycles.    I REALLY didn’t understand what they were doing waiting.  It seemed quite obvious to me that it would take a long time to get this road open again, and if it opened at all this day, it would not be safe to cross on a motorbike.  In addition to the great amount of water rushing down the river, it was still raining.  The boys on bikes looked pretty cold, and after a while, I just couldn’t stand to see them shivering anymore and I offered to make them some tea.  They accepted, even though I could barely get them to come warm up in the van, and we got to chatting.  They were Australian, and were supposedly out for a six hour tour.  They were with a guide and were awaiting the guide’s decision as to whether they should turn back, or wait to get across  the river.  I would have turned around. 

After we had been waiting at the impasse for a while, a wheeled dozer came on the scene and started pushing gravel and water around.

He was just trying to push some of the larger rocks off the roadway so that vehicles could pass, but he was in no way stopping or slowing the flow of water.  It quickly became apparent that vehicles would still have to drive through the water.  The motorcycle boys’ guide came up with the idea to put all the motorcycles in the back of one of the trucks waiting to cross, so that the riders and bikes could get ferried across the river.  So the motorcycles were loaded into the truck bed.  The riders joined them and they were ready to wait their turn to cross. 

I did not want to be the first person to cross and see if the road was passable, but let me tell you, the Peruvians were lining up, jostling in front of each other, trying to get 5 seconds ahead of the other cars.  Crazy Peruvians!!  A large bus passed first.

It was followed by some larger trucks, and all was going well.  Some smaller vehicles passed through as well without too much difficulty.

Then a motorcycle tried to pass through.  That did not go so well.  It was a large touring bike, and the driver went through, with his passenger still on the back.  They both fell off the bike and the bike went down.  The driver was pushed downstream and LUCKILY came to a stop at some large boulders.  The passenger stayed with the downed bike and kept it from being swept down the river as well.

Kevin ran into the water to try to help the passenger, but someone from the other side reached her first and threw her a rope to hang on to and tie the bike to.  The driver was thrown another rope that he tied around his waist and 4 or 5 guys pulled him out of the water, with difficulty.

I took quite a few pictures of the scene, but I was shaking so badly that almost all the pictures were too blurry to include.  Finally, they hauled the bike out.

I really don’t know what these folks were thinking when they decided to try to cross this water on their bike.  I was worried about crossing it in a vehicle.  They were VERY LUCKY that they were not hurt. 

We finally got up the nerve to cross, but  just before we did, a fellow driving a very small taxi cab asked if we would ferry his family across for him, because he was worried about them going across with him in his small car.  We agreed of course, and so 3 extra Peruvians jumped into our van for the crossing.  It actually was fine by the time we crossed, but remember, we watched about 2 or 3 dozen vehicles cross before we worked up the nerve to try it.  Once on the other side, we offered the drenched motorcyclists blankets, and made them a cup of tea as well.  We tried to get them to warm up in the van, but they were worried about being wet and getting the van wet!!!  Silly people!  We waited on the other side until we were sure the taxi crossed safely as well. 

Tonight we are camped on the side of the road, next to a little roadside restaurant.  We had some supper at the restaurant and asked the owners if we could hang out in the parking lot for the night.  We will continue on to Santa Teresa tomorrow, once it is light again.  We were not up for driving in the dark.  We’ve had enough adventure for one day!!!

Day 4 in Cusco, and we finally managed some “sightseeing”.  Yesterday was another chore day, especially for Kevin who spent almost the whole day puttering on the van.  It has rained a lot in Cusco.  It is the rainy season, but somehow we have been very lucky with regards to rain in most places.  I guess our luck has run out, so to speak.  The campsite is a little soggy, and we have been spending a lot of time hiding out in the van.

This morning we got a bit of a surprise, when a flock of llamas/ alpacas walked into the campsite.  Mungo was beside himself!!!  He has been tied up while at this campsite, because he likes to chase the chickens, but I was grateful he was tied up when the herd of camelids waltzed in. 

They are truly strange creatures!!! 

After lunch we went to see the Inca ruins of Sacsayhuama’n.  These are the remains of an Incan fortress, that sits above the city (really close to our campsite actually).  For the most part only the foundations of the fortress remain, a few walls, but not many.  The walls feature the interlocking stones that the Incas are famous for, walls built without the use of mortar.

Some of the stones are cut with many different faces to “just” fit the specific place they were intended to fit.  Some of the stones are HUGE.  Sara spent a lot of time posing in front of “big” rocks.

In the end, I think this was the winning rock, large enough for 3 people to stand in front of.  Legend has it that 3000 people were killed in the moving/placing of one stone  on the site, not sure which stone.

Amazing!!!  In some places, the original stones had been displaced, finally fallen out of the wall.  The missing pieces were “replaced”, but there was never any attempt to use similar stones, just little rocks were used to rebuild.

Not really the same effect! 

Pretty impressive place. 

Tomorrow, we will likely attempt to head towards Machu Picchu.  Hopefully, the road will be passable.  Keep you posted.