Jack of many trades

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On the way up to Lima, I passed by Nazca to see the lines in the sand that reportedly have been there since BC. Before getting there, I was thinking how lines in the desert could remain so long without destroyed. When I got there, it was a very desolate place to say the least. Only a highway runs through it and not much else for as far as the eyes can see. Furthermore, there is also basically no wind and no moisture. There are different types of rocks above the sandy earth, each having different colors. When all the rocks in one area are pushed aside, the appearance of a line can be seen. When the highway was built in the 30′s, they didn’t know about the lines and built the highway right over one of the figures.
This is a figure of a hand seen from the observatory tower.

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This one is supposed to be a tree. Yes, it takes some imagination and better picture from higher above to see it.

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I decided not to take the rickety flight to see the rest of the figures, but they look something like this.

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The lines really weren’t too exciting, so I quickly moved to my favorite part, eating!So if you are into sushi, the yellow goo on top of the ceviche might look familiar to you.

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Yes! It’s UNI, or sea urchin. I couldn’t believe it when the waitress brought it out after I ordered a mixed ceviche. So I promptly order another plate of just eriso, sea urchin, like this.

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And then another plate like this.

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And one more like this to go.

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If it’s possible to OD on sea urchin, I was two times over.

My good luck with food continues in Lima. While walking around, I ran into this.

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Dim-Sum! Who knew Lima would have Dim-Sum! I ordered everything including pork buns, siu mei, pork dumplings, chicken clusters, egg tarts, except for the pretentious fried chicken wings and fried wonton that have been sitting there for ages. Within two seconds, I devoured it all and ordered another plate for later. After trying lots of strange Peruvian food, my stomach felt great to have some homely food.

So I went to the Argentinian consulate today and found out I basically have no way to enter that country. Usually I need to get the visa in my country of residence before departing for the trip. However, usually they have a restriciton which is that you need to enter the country within 90 days of getting the visa. As such, it would have been no use for me to get the visa before my trip because by the time I get down to south america, the 90 days would have expired.

So now I will make my way up to Ecuador and possibly a visit to Chavez. At least, these two countries are friendly to citizens of Taiwan.

From 20080905_peru_colca

Up til now, I have had no problems with entering countries.  Usually I show up at the border, get a tourist card, pay a few dollars, sesame-open and I walk in.

Bolivia and Chile are different types of animals.  Apparently, Bolivia put Taiwan in a special category with terrorist countries and at least from Peru, it´s almost impossible for a Taiwanese citizen to get a visa to Bolivia.  So the alternate route to get to Argentina is by land through Chile, however, I don´t hear back from the Chilean consuladore for another 10 to 15 days. 

So what to do.   I have now bussed up to Lima through Nazca to try to get an visa to Argentina. 

I can´t wait until I have an US passport – that would be another 4 and half years.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures from Colca canyon, said to be twice as deep as Grand Canyon, although I think Grand Canyon itself is more impressive.

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This is a condor. They fly in the early morning over the canyon. Their wing span can be up to two meters in adults. They looked awesome flying overhead.

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Alpacas! They come in white and brown. Aren´t they cute??

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And .. alpacas in the market.

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Back to roaming in the wild.

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From 20080902_peru_chachani

Pictures here

So I tried to hike this 6075m mountain called Chachani.  After about 7 hours hiking and occasional rests, we got to 5800 meters.  The guide told me that at the pace I was going, it would take 10 hours to summit and back down to base camp.  There were 8 of us.  Two French didn’t quite make it out of base camp at 5300 meter because of altitude sickness.  Andre, a Brazilian, and I turned around at 5800 meters and the other four probably made it to the top.
One word describes the experience pretty well – painful.  It’s probably the most physically challenging activity I have ever done.  I took two aspirins for my headache, drank a triple coca mate before setting off at 1am.  The air at that altitude, as you can imagine, is very thin and makes walking or doing anything active difficult.  It was cold but not unbearable.  Even though we hiked slowly, my heart was racing at 100 mph. Even at rest, my heart pounded. We used crampons, metal spikes that attach to the bottom of the boots and ice picks to go through ice sheets.

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In other places, we used ropes to climb steep faces.  I really thought I was going to make it to the top, but as we got close to summit Fatima, the mountain next to Chachani, fatigue set in.  Andre and I fell behind, and the steepest part was still yet to come.

The mountain will always be there.  On the way down, we both thought it was a good decision to turn around.  As I write this, I still have a headache.  Time to sleep it off.

Pictures here

Warning:  2 graphic pictures of food at bottom of this post.
Lake Titicaca by the town Puno is the world’s highest navigable lake around 3800 meters. I am sure there are other higher lakes, but this one is certainly huge, not to mention frigging cold. There are a few islands on it; I visited the Uros islands and Amantani.

Uros islands seen above are man made floating islands using a plant called Totora, which looks like this.

They grow around the lake and float on the surface. The white part of the plant, although edible, can use some BBQ sauce. They make everything out of totora, including their houses, beds, boats and others.

The interesting part of the island lies below totora leaves which cover the island. The root of totora floats, so the people there secure blocks of the root together and grow their island every so often. They do have to keep laying totora leaves on the island for maintenance.

I visited one of the traditional weddings and stayed overnight at Amantani with one of the local families. You can’t really tell from the picture here, but many women at the wedding wore black head covers with some color patterns. That’s probably considered beautiful in their culture.

In the last week, I put my stomach to the test. First I saw a women selling this

Yup, those are two sheep heads on the left. According to the lady selling it, she just butchered them the day of. The heads are worth 8 soles (approx. $2.66) each, which is the same price as one kilo of the leg. I opted for the leg, which I took to a restaurant to be cooked into this.

Super tasty.
I have also been drinking the local warm-me-up drinks on the street.

They boil 6 types of herbs and then add linasa, viscus gel made from boiling flex seeds, limon, airampo and other plant juices. At first, linasa’s texture reminded me of snot, but after the first few glasses, I really started to like it.
After I got to Arequipa, I found myself a fried rabit, whose meat was tender and juicy.

Deep fried pig and sauteed pig’s feet. They were pretty gross.

a strange type of papaya that’s only a handful when ripe
and a quinoa drink

I still haven’t tried the guinea pigs yet.

From Arequipa, two mountains stand in the distance – Misty on the right and the taller snow covered Chachani on the left. Chachani is 6075 meters high or close to 20,000 feet. I will climb Chachani on 9/2/2008.  About 60 percent of the people who try to summit don’t make it. It’s not a technical climb, meaning you don’t need to use ropes or ladders to cross crevices but the altitude makes breathing and hiking difficult. When I get to base camp at 5300 meters tomorrow, I will quickly figure out if my lungs are made for this.

Pictures here

 

I was ready to be impressed by Machu Pichu from all the hype about it, and it definitely lived up to its reputation. Pictures and words can’t really describe the grandness of it. When I was up there, I didn’t take that many pictures, but rather just let it all soak in. More than just being visually impressive, Machu Pichu tells the story of the Incan empire that at its height stretched from Santiago de Chile to Colombia. The construction of Machu Pichu itself only began in the 15th century and abruptly ended in 1530′s when the conquistadores came.

On the site and many of the other ruins near Cuzco, I saw huge rocks like these which were abandoned in place.

When the huge boulders are put in place, they look something like this.

At Ollantaytamco, another Incan ruin, one of the guides explained that the Incans actually moved huge granite boulders from a mountain 10 km away. They would cut it on the mountain, move it down that mountain and down the Urubambo river and then up to the site where they were building the temples. They put small river rocks and llama fat on ramps which led up to the building sites. Here´s another use for fat besides cooking and eat.

Their accuracy of cutting the stones were so accurate, some of the temples did not need clay or mud to secure the stones together. Like this temple

The day after visiting Machu Pichu, I climbed Putukusi, one of the mountains surrounding The Lost City.
There were many gnarly vertical stairs like this one. And here´s a view of Machu Pichu from Putukusi.
Getting crazy on top of the mountain!
And the absolutely necessary dramatic photo of any trip.
This is the actual mountain Machu Pichu that is right above the ruin.

Llama looks like this. They roam the ruin and stalk tourists.

Grandadilla – this is one of my favorite fruits now. I have been gorging on them since Guatemala.
And this unamed fruit is super juicy.

A typical plate in Peru, rice, fries and some meat – sometimes with onions and tomatoes too. This is Alpaca meat, pretty tasty. I haven´t tried the baked Guinea Pig yet because I didn´t want to disgust Daniele too much.

More pics from other ruins at Moray

I am in Puno, Peru now on the shores of the world´s highest lake, Lago Titicaca.  Plan to spend tomorrow night on one of the islands with a local family, down to Arequipa and then Chile!