Outside the road in front of our house . . . amazing!

Now, compare this typical Peruvian pig life with the typical American factory-farmed pig´s life . . . check out the documentary ¨Our Daily Bread.¨Very different.

An essential fact to understanding life in the Andes Mountains is altitude. Cusco is 11,126’ above sea level, which is more than double the height of Denver, the mile high city, which is only a mere 5280´.  I’m told that it takes about six months to become truly acclimated to the altitude of this place, but I’m not so sure. I think it must take a lifetime. While I really like living here, altitude included, I find that it does touch every facet of life, even if in a subtle way.

The air here literally contains significantly less oxygen than the air at sea level. The lungs fill up with the same volume of air as normal, but the body isn’t getting the same amount as of oxygen that it may be accustomed to. Just walking up a slight incline and can leave you slightly out of breath. If walking quickly up a big mountain, it’s not uncommon to be heaving and gasping for air. Of course, this isn’t true for the local population, but it is true for most foreigners, myself included.

Inka messengers were able to cover incredible distances at surprising speeds within this network of oft-14,000’ mountain passes with ease. The indigenous people from this region are small in stature and tend to have barrel-shaped chests, which allow for larger lung capacity. I find myself thinking Gosh I must really be out of shape, but in reality, it’s just that my body has to work twice as hard because its not used to the landscape.

Transportation is certainly affected by the topography of the area. Busses and combis (mini-vans) are slow-moving as they struggle to get up the steep hills and curve through the complicated switchbacks of the area. This pace seems to fit the majestic beauty of the mountains perfectly; to speed through such a gorgeous place at any speed higher than 45MPH would be a shame. Get on a bus, though, with suspect brakes that squeak or make airy gushing noises at every curve and suddenly the romance of the distant mountaintops is replaced by silent prayers or the deep need to just take a nap.

Water boils here at a lower temperature instead of the normal 212 degrees. This affects cooking and baking. I still haven’t mastered how to cook rice to a fluffy consistency. My favorite café, Ulreke’s, serves moist, home-made carrot cake, so I know that success in baking is possible here. I plan to take a foray into high altitude baking. I’ll be sure to post my trials and tribulations.

Coca is ubiquitos in Peru. It’s a medicine as old as the Andes themselves. The locals call her Cocamama. Intricate Qechua ceremonies revolve around the giving and receiving of coca leaves. Chewing the leaves or drinking coca tea, both of which I do regularly,  helps alleviate altitude induced headaches and lethargy. Yes, cocaine is made from coca leaves, but the leaf and the highly processed drug are two completely different things. Without coca, adjusting to life here would be much more difficult.

If I get cranky for no apparent reason, I blame the altitude. Sunburns happen more quickly here, alcohol goes to the brain faster and sometimes folks new to the area just pass out for no reason. I think the general laid back attitude of the people around here has to do with the altitude too. People move slower, but more deliberately and at a steady pace. Things get done when they get done. No one is in a hurry about deadlines or appointments or times – they’re too busy climbing, making a living from, or gazing at the beauty of the surrounding mountains.

A relatively new Peruvian phenomenon are strikes, or los paros. If the strike lasts a longer than a day or so, then it´s called la huelga. In any case, the people of Peru have only recently begun to implement strikes as a form of protest. Usually the strikes revolve around transportation, which can make getting from town to town difficult for locals and tourists alike. (Such a bitch when you´re trying to get to Maccu Pichu, ya know . . . )

Apparently, when the transportation strikes first began,  the protesters would hide on the edges of highways and throw big rocks at passing traffic. But, after several busses were hit with rocks and subsequently fell off of sheer roadside cliffs, killing everyone on board, they´ve re-vamped their stategies. Now they block the roads with huge rocks or cut down giant eucalyptus trees to stop the flow of traffic. I´ve heard also about riots and fighting in the streets of Cusco on occasion.

So far, the strikes have not directly affected me, as I usually stay close home. The strangest thing of all about the strikes are that, believe it or not, they are actually scheduled events. This is very helpful and considerate of los paros in my opinion, because at least it gives people a chance to make alternative arrangements.  Most of the time we find out the day before about an impending strike from Ulreke´s, the local ex-pat cafe.

One day when we went to Ulreke´s for breakfast, we noticed that there weren´t very many vendors set up in the market, which is usually packed. There was a military truck parked in the town square filled with soldiers in full riot gear, guns and sheilds ready. Although there were children scrambling all over the hood of the truck, there was an unsettledness in the air.

Ulreke, the cafe owner, came to take our order. She informed us in a very matter-of-fact way that the neighboring city of Calca was demanding Pisac´s solidarity in their strike over a land dispute with the jungle provinces. Any shop or vendor caught doing business by any of Calca´s protesters were promised to receive broken store windows and smashed stalls and merchandise. Ulreke just shrugged her shoulders and said, ¨If los paros show up, then we´ll just lock the doors and the shutters and we´ll have a party.¨

And about 25 Calca protesters did show up that day, brandishing broomsticks and chanting in the streets. No broken windows or looted market stalls to speak of – in fact, most of the vendors kept right on selling their food and wares. 

Today there was supposed to be a strike, but it was cancelled. There´s talk that it may happen on Wednesday instead, but everyone just kind of shrugs their shoulders and says, ¨who knows?¨ I´ve noticed a bit of a lackadaisical attitude in local people and tourists alike regarding the strikes. The issue at stake this time is a bigger one: the people are angry about possible government privitization of water. With such a bigger issue looming on the table, it will be interesting to see if strike days remain business as usual.

Yesterday was the ultimate day for Carnival in Pisac. The whole town goes up to the terrace ruins and has a giant party while watching groups of traditional dancers from the entire Sacred Valley vie for the title of first place. The caretaker of our house, a local Peruvian, said that for sure, yesterday would be a free day. This sounds familiar . . . I’ve heard this story before . . . just last week . . . and was told by the guards that it wasn’t true.

“No matter that Turistico Control told me that there are no free days, ever?” I asked.

He reassured me that the day in question would indeed be a free day. I was still skeptical. I went to the local bakery for my daily Coca-Cola in a glass bottle and carne empanada fix. Conception, the girl who works there and knows me as a regular customer, asked me why I wasn’t up at the ruins. “It’s free today,” she said, “because of Carnival.”

So, Heather and Maria and I decided to splurge the US $3.00 for cab fare up to the top of the ruins since it was already well past noon. On the way up, I decided to ask our driver about it.

“No,” he said. “There are no free days. If you are Peruvian, it’s free. Don’t you have a ticket?”

We explained that we did not. Then our cab driver did something unexpected, fun and truly adventurous. “OK,” he said, “Hide your faces and your hair.” He spoke in fast Spanish. I could only understand the gist of what he was saying, but I got the idea that he was going to help us sneak in.

He stopped the car when we got close to the control station. He motioned for us to put the hoods of our raincoats on and duck down together in the backseat. He gave me a newspaper and motioned for me to put it over my face and hair. Then he hit the gas. We went a little way and then he said, “OK!”

We made it! He snuck us past Turistico Control! He then explained that if we walked down the other side of the mountain toward the market after exploring the ruins that the guards at the other gate would stop us and ask for our tickets. So, he offered (for an additional fee, of course) to wait two hours for us at the top of the mountain and then take us back down into town. The total fee would for the three of us for this scheme would be the same as one regular ticket, so we said yes and thanked our driver graciously.

There are alternate ways to get to the top of this mountain after all!

The verdict is still out as to whether Turistico Control really was open and checking tickets or not. We wouldn’t know, because we were hiding in the backseat of the cab. But I really don’t care.

My little friends who live down the road still pop out from the pigpen occasionally and scream, “Ho-o-o-ola!!” in a low growl. Sometimes, they can be mean, and try to act like they are going to hit me with their tiny fists, but of course, they never do. I surmise that some day soon when they are a bit older that they might be troublemakers. But for now, I just try to do what little I can as a transient foreigner in the neighborhood and keep them from punching or throwing things me. I greet them with humor and smiles always.

“Mis amigos! Hola!!” I called out when I saw the two of them on my way into town yesterday.

“No-o-o-o!” the little one cried as he stuck out his fist when I got near.

“Hey,” I said calmly, stretching my palm out flat toward him in an effort to gently correct his behavior. “No. Pare,” I said, which means ‘stop.’ He’s so tiny that as I did this, I had to bend my body down toward him.

He put his fist down and his gaze fixated on my necklace. “Daime esto,” he said as he pointed to it, which means ‘Give me that.’

I sighed with a little smile. “Creo que tu nombre es Daime, Daime,” I said, which means, ‘I think your name is Gimme, Gimme.’

Pisac sits at 9,800 feet above sea level. The stars here are amazing, bright and they seem so close you could almost reach out and touch them. Peru is an amazing place in general and because of that, full of folk-lore about mysterious happenings. The energy here is certainly strong, just about anyone here can feel it. Numerous New-Age Westerners have settled here for just that reason. But, you don’t have to be into New Age stuff to notice the lights flashing in the sky.

“It can be whatever you want it to be,” says my friend Javier.

Javier officially explains that the quick flashes that sometimes light up the night sky are from lightning in the jungle, which is only about fifty miles away just across the tall mountains of the Sacred Valley, where Pisac sits. The flashes appear to be heat lightning to me. There’s never any accompanying thunder, but I don´t think there ever is with heat lightning. Anyway, the weather here isn´t the humid kind that usually causes heat lightning.

“No,” another American friend who’s lived here for over a year says, “That’s not heat lightning. I have my theories, but that is not lightning.”

Whether the flashes are lightning or not remains to be seen. But what I do know is that the other night, as we lay out on the front patio, looking at the stars, we saw a  moving point of light that did not appear to be an aircraft. It zoomed across the sky, grew in size about ten times bigger than it was with a warm, steady glow and then went back to it’s original size as a small point of light. Then it disappeared.

Airplane? I don’t know. I’ve never seen an airplane do anything like that. It was a completely clear night. Matt laid in bed a few nights ago with a torn knee muscle, alone in the house, waiting for my friends and I to return. When I got home, he said he’d heard a strange, sustained humming noise for about 30 seconds that seemed to envelop the entire house.

“My knee hurt. The dogs were going crazy. I wasn’t about to get up and investigate,” he said.

I guess these things can be whatever we want them to be.

Well, this post isn’t really about sneaking into the ruins, so much as it’s about going on a free day, so I’ve decided to post this entry along with the Sneaking Into The Pisac Ruins saga. So, this week is Carnival here in Pisac. I’ve heard through the local grapevine that the ruins are free today. Perfect timing as my friend Heather has just arrived today for a two-week visit.

There are two legitimate entrances to the ruins. One is just off the square in the middle of town at the foot of the mountain. From there, the walk up is about one and a half hours. The second entrance is via taxi about 9 kilometers out of town on the road. We all decided to head up to the entrance to the ruins at the bottom of the mountain in town. I wasn’t even sure if Heather, who just landed in Peru after traveling for two days, could make it up to the top because of altitude issues. Turns out that altitude would not be the issue.

We honestly believed that today was a free day because of Carnival – that’s what everyone in town has been saying. So, we were surprised when we got stopped at Turistico Control office and the guard asked for our tickets. “But I thought today was a free day at the ruins because of Carnival!” I said.

¨It’s free to come to the market in Pisac,” the guard said. “But there are never any free days at the ruins! Never!” he yelled.

I was confused by his comment because every day is free to go to the open-air market in the town square. But, Heather and the rest of us were winded from our short hike anyway, so we just went to Ulreke’s and had a few beers. We ran into a couple of other longer-term tourist friends there and asked them what they’d been doing all day.

“Well,” Jake replied, “We got caught up at the ruins without a ticket because we thought today was a free day and they threatened to take us to jail.”

¨What?” I asked. (I don’t even think there is a jail in Pisac.)

“Yeah,” said Sienna, Jake’s girlfriend, “We didn’t have any money on us and we told them that, so they made us give something for collateral and come back with money later. I tried to give them my necklace, but they wouldn’t take it. They wanted my fancy water bottle instead. Eventually, we returned and they let us pay two for the price of one.”

Aha! So, there are no free days, but you can barter with them . . .

Matt and his friends decided to go up to the ruins today – via the alternate route that we successfully took before.

I think Turistico Control is onto us local extended-stay visitors to Pisac because Matt and his friends came home unexpectedly early. They were stopped about halfway up the mountain by a ranger with a walkie-talkie who asked them for their tickets. Matt pretended like he didn’t speak Spanish and they simply turned around after repeated questioning by the security officer and came home.

They said they thought it was strange that as they hopped over the Royal Inka’s fence that some Peruvian kids in a car going by on the road screamed, “Busted!!“

Daily the “Daime Propina” kids continue their ritual of asking us for a tip while their pants are down around their ankles. Matt had a couple of friends in town visiting for a few weeks. One of them, our friend Hardy, pulled out a two sole coin one day and said, “Today when he jumps out and shakes his thing at me, I’m gonna tell him to come and get his tip.”

But that day was different. As we walked by, we didn’t see the children anywhere at first. Then, we saw the little one, fully clothed, hiding in the bushes, watching us as though he did not want to be seen. Although his eyes were dry, he looked like he’d been crying for quite some time. He saw us and didn’t say a word, not even the customary scream of  “Hola!” He just looked at us with a tear-streaked face and great big eyes.

“Aww,” Hardy said. “He looks really sad.”

And ever since that day, they’ve never spoken the word ‘propina’ again.

There’s a bend in the dirt road that leads to our house, right at the point where a mostly clear little fast-rushing mountain stream merges with the Urubamba River. In this crux where the two rivers meet sits a little mud brick house. Almost all the buildings in Peru are constructed of mud brick, mine included, but this one is a bit more primitive. There are no windows, just flour sacks covering the space where glass might normally be and they have no electricity and most likely no running water. The most modern feature of the place is a wooden front door with a padlock.

The family who lives there raises pigs. They have two cute little boys, who are always smeared with grime. One is about five and the other might be two and can barely talk; I sometimes see him still with a pacifier in his mouth. Both of the kids run around all the time unsupervised. This is normal in Peru, and honestly, I think it’s actually really great that kids are able to roam free in nature and play in this country without the need for constant monitoring. So, these two little kids are always running around in the dirt, playing in the rivers, hiding in the bushes and grasses along the road and sometimes it’s their job to chase down errant pigs. I even see the little one sometimes with a stick, herding pigs bigger than he is back home from their daily grazing.

These kids wear the same clothes every day. The little one can’t seem to keep his pants around his waist; they are always falling down. In fact, a lot of the time, these kids wear no clothing at all. It’s not uncommon to see them running around naked. Even if the kids are nowhere to be seen, they seem to know exactly when we are walking by. They will suddenly pop out from behind a bush, or open the corrugated metal door of the adjacent family pigpen and stick their heads out and scream, “Hola!”

“Hola!” we reply.

“Ho-o-ola!” the little one will yell again.

“Hola!” we reply again.

Then the little one, barely even to say the words properly, began to say something quite perplexing and at first, kind of annoying and even slightly alarming. “Daime propina!” he yelled one day as we walked past.

Daime propina?!  Did I really hear that correctly?

“Did he really just say, ‘Give me a tip?!’” I asked Matt.

We ignored him. But after that first day, he and his older brother too, began to say it every single day as we walked past, whether they were clothed or not. Some days when they are naked down by the river, they will shake their little ding-dongs at us and scream it – “Daime propina!”

We’ve learned to laugh only in private as we don’t want to encourage them. We’ve run the gamut of emotions about this whole phenomenon. At first, we were really annoyed, but now, we’ve learned to just accept it and walk on.