Hello! On 3/18 (Happy Birthday Nick!), I flew out of Cuzco to Lima and then on to Guayaquil after a long, boring 9 hour layover in Lima´s airport. On my last full day in Cuzco, I did a few interesting things...
In the morning fo 3/17, I headed out of the hostel for the Museo de Histórico Regional. The musuem was fairly typical except for an Inca mummy and the awesomely gory religious art. The mummy (a lady) was incredible! It was about two thousand years old, but still had a full head of hair and eyelashes! The woman´s hair was knee length rich brown dread locks decorated with beads and various other trinkets and she had the prettiest, longest eyelashes. It always amazes me to see hair on these sort of things- it is so OLD! In the room covering the period of the Spanish conquest of the area, there were about 15 baroque style religious paintings, most of Santiago (Saint James) who, according to the religious chroniclers of the time, saved the Spaniards from certain death and defeat at the hands of the vicious and backwards Inca a number of times. He always came from the sky with a thunderbolt on a gleaming white stallion with an impossibly long and sharp sword and a cape flying out behind him in the wind. Each time the Inca were stunned and shocked by his holiness and pureness and would either die by his sword or retreat in panic, leaving the Spanish victorious. Each painting depicted a separate battle won with the intervention of Santiago and each was incredibly gory and bloody with body parts flung every which way and gashed stomachs and throats spewing blood. Of course, all the Inca were painted in a most hideous way, making them look like googly eyed brown monsters with funny head dresses and spears. I wish the Inca had painted as much as the Spanish- I would love to see their version of the events! After this museum, I relaxed in a little plaza for a bit eating a delicious baked good of some kind with raisins and cream in it. While I was sitting, a woman approached me and gave me a brochure for the chocolate museum. Usually I am quick to shoo such people away, but I am glad I heard her out. Once I had finished my yummy bread thing, I headed for the chocolate museum. It was great and completely free! There was a room about the history of chocolate from the Maya to Hershey, a little factory (where they made all their own chocolate) with descriptions of the chocolate-making process (the beans have to ferment before anything else happens) and a room describing the cacao tree. It is a very strange looking tree- the flowers and the subsequent cacao pods grown right off the trunk instead of at the end of the branches. The flowers can only be pollinated by a certain species of gnat that breeds in the leaf litter provided by the tree at its base. There are also three kinds of chocolate; criollo is the original chocolate that the Maya cultivated and is considered "fine grade" although it makes up less than 1% of chocolate in the world. Forastero is the most commonly used type and is hardy and more productive than criollo- forastero makes up 85-90% of chocolate sold today. And finally, trinitario is a natural hybrid between the first two, combining the best characteristics of both, yet it still only makes up the remaining 10-15% of chocolate sold. I also got 6 free chocolate samples and some free chocolate tea made of the leftover bean husks that are normally thrown away in the production process. I am so glad I went!
On 3/18, I flew out of Cuzco around noon, arriving in Lima at 1:30 or so. The Lima airport is really nice, except once you go through security there is no food except candy or really expensive sit-down restaurants that cost more than at home! Luckily, I had brought some bread and an apple so I didn´t die. Nine hours later, I boarded my flight for Guayaquil. We arrived just after midnight, but had a huge line for customs so I didn´t get to my hostel until about 2 in the morning.
On 3/19, I woke up after only 5 hours of sleep because it was so HOT! And so HUMID! I could barely even sleep. The hostel was really funny- it had a bunch of cages with parrots and lizards and even pygmy marmosets! The marmosets were really fun to watch- they look like monkeys but were about the size of my palm! They had really intelligent faces and kept staring at me and cocking their heads to figure out what I was. The hostel also had a really good inculded breakfast. I left for the bus terminal after breakfast to get a bus to Cuenca. Guayaquil´s terminal looks like an airport and a giant mall combined- there were three departure floors for buses! Luckily buses leave even 15 minutes or so for Cuenca, so I didn´t wait long. Leaving Guayaquil, we passed through miles of suburbs and strip malls that really looked just like home. They even have the same freeway signs here as at home (and of course the currency is the US$). Outside of the city, we drove through lowlands and farmland that reminded me alot of los llanos in Venezuela- lots of marshy water hyacinth and similar trees. I think most of the fields were rice paddies. In a couple of the fields there were farmers riding around on really weird looking tractor contraptions- the seat was really low so that the farmer´s butt was almost in the water and they had huge wheels without tires. They kind of looking like the skeleton of a tractor + a bicycle + a generator engine. Unfortunately, I didn´t get any pictures. After awhile, we started up into the foothills and drove into some of the thickest fog I have ever seen! The driver had to straddle the white line on the shoulder (I amazed they even had lines painted on the road) just see where the road was. We would come up on slow trucks and not even see them until they were 20ft off our front bumper! Once we cleared the fog, it started POURING, but was pretty. The mountains and little lakes looked just like the Scottish highlands. When I arrived in Cuenca, I checked into the hostel and then went for some yummy (and very cheap) lunch and then wandered.
On 3/20, I got up early after sleeping really well and caught a bus to the little village of Chordeleg for their Sunday market. The ride was really pretty with lots more steep green foothills like in Peru, except the ones here are covered with feathery pampas grass. There were lots of swift little rivers running between the hills and lots of farmland and little country cottages. Chordeleg´s market was mostly fruits, vegetables, and meat and I was the only tourist there! Most stalls sold the same colorful assortment of local produce and the meat section was hunks of cow and lamb hanging from the ceiling and stacks of yellow plucked chickens. There were even 5 huge whole pigs monitored by women ready to slice a hunk off at your bidding. Most of the women were dressed in dark skirts and beaded blouses with little woven shawls. They wore their hair in two braided pig tails with a panama hat and carried everything (from babies to little bleating goats to produce) in a woven sash on their backs. After exploring the village for a bit, I caught a bus to the next village, called Sígsig. Their market was more of the same, but with a kitchenware section and more dead chickens. I sat in the main plaza for a bit admiring their pretty little stone church and watching the kids dare eachother to run through the fountain. It was a beautiful day perfect for visiting the little villages. Once I was back in Cuenca, I was caught in a thunderstorm and took shelter under the eaves of a building with about a dozen others to wait it out. It rained the rest of the night and a little this morning, AND I am noticing now that another thunderstorm seems to have some over the city at this moment!
This morning I slept in and am feeling MUCH better (I can actually talk now without croaking). The sun was out and it was nice and warm. First, I went to the national bank´s museum to check out their coin collection, ethnographic, and religious art exhibits. The coolest thing by far was the shrunken heads. Yuck! They look so life-like! The Shura (?) people famous for their shrunken heads often practised on sloths first when they were young, so there were some sloth heads too. Usually a shrunken head was the head of an enemy (even of their tribe) that was taken in retribution for some crime. The assassins were agents of one of the gods and thus believed they were not personally guilty of killing anyone. Anywho, the heads...All of them still had a full head of hair, eyelashes, mustaches, hair coming out of their ears, and one even had 3 long hairs coming out of his nose! You could even still see the fine little peach fuz on their cheeks and what not. I could just picture one of them opening its eyes and staring at me. After the museum, I wandered over to a panama hat factory and was tempted to by one until I found out they were $85-500!!!!!!!!! Yikes! They were really pretty though and the place had hundreds of them. There were also some ladies sitting in the back making them by hand. Since then I have just been wandering through the city- it is very beautiful with lots of old colonial buildings, cobble-stone streets, churches and little markets. Tonight I have a bus at 8:45 for Quito, arriving tomorrow morning at 6. I then have three days in Quito then I come home! I am getting really excited and seeing the weather here (it is pouring again right now) makes me happy I changed my flights. I´ll probably only do one more entry- from Quito.
