2-5-02 Tues
We depart for Peru, flying through La Guardia (a reassuring name) to Miami; as we fly over New York City I look for the holes that were the trade towers. I could see the Chrysler building but nothing more. I imagine the pilot knew where to look; perhaps he said a silent prayer for his lost fellows.
On the flight from Miami to Peru we glance at our fellow passengers, trying to spot likely candidates who might be making the same trip. When we arrive at Peru around 11 PM, despite the hour, the airport is teeming with people. In the customs lines we spot four other OAT yellow luggage tags. Finally we find the OAT sign and our guide Percy, or should I say he finds us.
We go by van to the hotel in the Miraflores (Look at the flowers) district of Lima. The roadway to the hotel overlooks the Pacific Ocean – there are no water front houses and hotels; it is beaches and parks. This is refreshing to one from Bar Harbor where possession of the waterfront and its use is a cutthroat activity. Percy is a joking young man, perhaps in his 30s with a clear and excellent command of English. In Peru, to be a guide, one generally completes a college degree in tourism.
2-6-02 Wed.
Lovely hotel. Not accustomed to summer warmth. Yesterday it rained, which is a rare event for Lima in the summer season. Our fellow travelers are gray hairs (guess we are, too), all with a love of travel. Among our companions are George and Nancy, his wife. He was a foreign correspondent for many years, later working for the state department under Kissinger during the Nixon years. He is an outgoing and fun loving man. Lucille and Jeanne are old friends, both widowed and from New Jersey. They remind me of Helen Keeney and her friends. Staunch and beautiful both, Jeanne tasteful and fashionable – they are informed and interesting. Karen and Ed, respectively nurse and dentist - Joan and Ajit (doctor and professor). We cover the professional spectrum. Marilyn and Art, Mimi, Don, Russell and Ramona. All funny, warm people.
No time to waste. We visit Lima’s Archeological museum, then lunch at a soccer bar. Later we tour the Franciscan Monastery with Sheila, a well-informed student and guide. Dinner at Senor Manu. Introduction to Peruvian foods and the Pisco sour at the first dinner as a group. Percy sits at our end of the table. The group hones in on his marital status – single – and proceeds to consider matching making plans for him. Mother has osteoporosis and lives in Cusco with Percy’s sister. Dad had diabetes and drank his own urine every morning and subsequently tested negatively for the disease. Percy speaks of The Shining Path and how things were in the universities before the terrorist groups were defeated and Fujimori become the president. The students had to conform to the politics of the extremists who controlled the universities. Abundant propaganda covered the walls in the classrooms; not conforming had consequences. Fujimori was Percy’s hero because of all of the work he did to create openness in the universities and because he was a builder of schools. The schools were built in the communities in a very short amount of time (the goal was one a day) and all were painted a yellow tan with brown trim.
I learn of the customs – when eating or drinking, a drop or bit must be flicked to the floor as an offering to Pacha Mama (Mother Earth). Salute is the “god bless you” to a sneeze. The way to refer and defer to an elderly woman is to call her mama. The word friend is often used; others are viewed as brothers and sisters.
2-7-02 Thurs. Up early (3:45) and off to the airport to fly to Cusco. During the rainy season there are days when all flights are cancelled. Cusco is at 11,000 feet in a mountain valley; if there is rain and cloud cover, the pilots can’t land. After spending six hours in the airport, the flights are cancelled. We are told we are on our own for costs of tonight’s hotel room, transportation and meals. This does not make the group happy. For many reasons, sometimes I hate group dynamics.
2-8-02 Fri – Success – we are miraculously loaded on to the plane – no English announcements, only Spanish. I say a few prayers when we prepare to land in this bowl between mountains that is Cusco. I wonder how the altitude will feel. Percy, our guide tells us to move slowly and not to exert. People dressed in colorful local costume are selling, selling, selling. We are besieged with men, women and children as we walk to the van. I can feel the altitude.
The first Incan site we visit is Pisac but we find the roadway to the ruins is blocked by a mudslide.
Because of the lost day yesterday, this is to be a busy day. We descend to the Sacred Valley and go rafting down the swift water of the Urubamba River. We are encouraged to drink Mate de coca to help with our altitude adjustment. After lunch on to the ruins at Ollantaytambo with its stone stairs and many terraces. Exhausted, we arrive at our hotel in Urubamba. The evening is not as warm as I would expect.
2-9-02 Sat. We train from Urubamba to Machu Picchu. Very modern – train stewardesses flirt with our guide and serve us coca tea.
Because of the rains, the river through the Urubamba Gorge
is high, the water muddy, rushing and fast. Arriving at station, we walk through
the market area to our hotel on the river. 
Our rooms are on the second floor off a balcony overlooking the ground floor and a central staircase.
The restaurant is at the front of the building overlooking the river and the muddy mists from all the spray.
After lunch we take a bus from the town up the switchbacks
to Machu Picchu. The ruins are above the town but not visible from the hotel.
The first views of the city are awesome. The ancient ruins of the city of Machu
Picchu are spacious, terraced to withstand centuries of heavy rains and to hold
the soil. It was peaceful and comfortable to the eye. Percy informed as a
teacher would – almost to the point of having pop quizzes. The incredibly large foundation walls perfectly
joined with the subsequent rocks were impressive. We were taught to identify the purpose of a structure by the type
of wall that surrounded it. Walls were
made to lean in so it was easy to determine the inside walls. Doorways to important places such as temples
and holy places were double framed with a smooth, finely textured rock used for
the walls. More ruggedly surfaced rock 
was
used for common spaces. In the midst of
our exploration it started pouring rain and the clouds rolled in. All the
people with a birth month in the dry season were told to blow three times to
the east to make the rains go away. The
rain normally is intermittent so the odds were with the success of the dry season
babies. Percy is convinced the Inca did
not perform human sacrifices but rather sacrificed the llama. However, if you
were criminal, a body part was cut off (ears, lips hands, etc) as befitted the
crime. There are many rocks monuments used to tell the seasons by measuring the
alignment of north, south, east and west with the Southern Cross
constellation. The culture was advanced
in astronomy, agriculture and stone architecture. I felt it was sad that during some of the years of The Shining Path
and cholera, Americans did not come to Peru. I feel very welcomed here.
Stupidly the great sundial was chipped at one corner when a camera fell during the filming of a Peruvian beer commercial. This place in its beauty and history has been given by the people of Peru to the world as a humanitarian site. It belongs to me and to you. I don’t know how much longer it will be as openly accessibly as it is now.
Back at the hotel, the old reprobates gather in the bar and have to be summoned to dinner. The merchants hang around outside the hotel door peering into the glass walled dining room still hoping for a sale – their small children with them although it is dark and late.
2-10-02 Sun. Up
early and back to Machu Picchu before the train comes in carrying
day-trippers. The sun is shinning and
we plan a walk to the Inca Gate of the Sun along the old trail that enters the
city. I imagine what it might be like to be entering the city along this
route. Paul and I try to find the Inca
Bridge but run out of energy and time.
I feel a little sad to leave this remarkably beautiful place, which 
would
disappear back into jungle if it were not constantly tended. For each bus that goes back down the
switchbacks there is a boy dressed in red Incan style who races the bus by
taking a trail that cuts across the switchbacks. At each of these crossovers he
is ahead of the bus and when it passes, he yells ‘goodbye”. He is still ahead of the bus at the bottom
and beats it to a bridge where he is picked up and passes his bad for
well-earned Solis.
Wash your hands; don’t eat raw or unpeeled veggies or fruit. Don’t drink any but safe water. Despite all the don’ts, lunch is delicious – farewell Machu Picchu as we board the train for Cusco. In late afternoon, after hitting someone’s cow that didn’t get off the tracks in time, we are back in the high altitudes of Cusco. We board our bus at the last station before Cusco. We look for festival parties where a live tree is decorated with colorful balloons or anything bright in color. It is a pre-Lenten party where there is much eating, drinking and dancing. The tree is chopped down and the person dealing the final chop is required to host the next year’s festivities.
We struggle to acclimate to this altitude, some with more success than others. If you eat or drink too much, the process of digestion seems to strain the adjustment and a headache or worse results.
2-11-02 Mon off to the weavers at Chinchero, a Quechua
village at 12,000 feet. It is an 
opportunity
to observe the effort to keep the art of back strap weaving alive in the young.
Of course the shoppers are ready to buy some of this beautiful
workmanship. We learn of the dying and
spinning of the wool before it is woven.
We lunch in this place – guinea pig, mashed lupine seeds. To a Quechuan person, guinea pig is a treat for a birthday celebration or any other. My piece was not all that easy to chew as I choked it down. In the afternoon we took a walking tour to the temple of the sun upon which the Spanish conquerors built their basilica.
Playing soccer in brick red mud
Festival balloon trees
Red dirt covers the feet of the
children
Pigs, dogs, chicken at the side of
the road
Happy green mountains.
I feel young again.
2-12-02 Tues by bus with a healer (curandero) who performed a ceremony to the spirits of the many mountains. One of the older women passed out cold in the middle of the ceremony and oxygen was brought from the bus. The Andean medicine man blew the good things of life, wine, grain, corn, candy as an offering to the gods of the mountains and rivers and chanted as these were tied into a bundle. He prayed for each of us brushing our heads and bodies with the bundle as we thought of our life’s wishes. The bundle was then burned.
We spent the afternoon in the market – fruits, veggies, chicha (corn liquor) fermenting in open containers. Our guide herds us like sheep, fearing for pickpockets. We are continually followed by children begging and selling paintings, postcards, shoeshines. This is our last evening in Cusco – the mountains can be seen from the window of our hotel room as we relax before dinner. It is dusk and there are white clouds over the mountaintops
2-13-02 Wed
Adios Cusco
Even at 11,000 feet
I miss you, my brother
Amigo,
You touched my hand, my arm, my heart.
Cusco
loves its dark Christ,
Savior of the earthquake
The people throw flowers at his leathery skin
On first the temple, now the cathedral
Shines the silver and the gold.
Good is not the same as guilt
Even the Spanish did not remain the same.
Early to airport for flight to Lima. It is sad to say good-bye to Percy, for we all have become close. Sheila brings us to see the gold museum in the afternoon but our hearts are not in it. Farewells at dinner to the six who are not going to the Amazon.
