Back from South America...

I actually came back several months ago, but I haven't had a chance (or haven't gotten around to) updating the blog. So here goes:
By the time my sister Colleen and I arrived in the Lima airport, I was a little exhausted. Still, I was not exhausted enough to go with the cheaper option for the taxi to the hotel. I soon learned that I made a mistake when the driver crossed himself and proceeded to take us through a maze of dangerous-looking sidestreets... and keep in mind that this was at 1am! There were a lot of scary-looking locals. Finally, we arrived at the hotel with the thought that we might just not leave it for the three days that we were there. Then, when we signed in, I learned something about Peruvian customs: you need to keep a tiny slip of paper they give you upon entering the country. Of course I had managed not to do this, and was therefore alarmed at the possibility of being turned back onto those dangerous streets. Fortunately, we were allowed to stay and the next morning we learned that it wasn't a big deal, it just meant that I would have to pay USD $25 upon leaving. I think it's just a conspiracy to rip off foreigners.
Once we managed to sleep off the trip and muster up the courage to leave the hotel, we learned that Lima is much safer-looking during the day than at night, although the hotel clerk still wrote down the license plate numbers of the taxi cabs he stopped for us. In Peru, anyone can be a taxi driver. It's just a matter of putting a cardboard sign on the roof of your car. We went to an old colonial church, one of the oldest in Peru and one of the most spectacular as well, with a dust-filled library and scary catacombs.

The next day we headed for Pachacamac, which is an archaeological site located close to Lima. After trying with broken Spanish (I've had exactly one lesson) to find out how to take the bus there, we headed back to the hotel and got a cab. The site was interesting with the Temple of the Sun being a highlight, as well as there being some other Incan ruins. We managed to take the bus back to Lima, and were dropped off not far from the museum of erotic art. It was news to us that the Incans were so famous for their erotic art, but indeed they are, and it made for some interesting photo-ops and souvenirs.
The next day we went to the national museum of Peru, which holds the largest collection of Incan antiques. It was interesting, but the highlight was really a photo exhibition of the recent civil war from which the country is still recovering. What made it even better was that we met some locals around our age who spoke good English and were able to tell us quite a bit about it, and then invited us out to a restaurant to try the local ceviche, a dish of raw whitefish, onions and lemon juice that was really good, and then back to one of their houses.

Unfortunately, it was time to leave for Cusco, which is half modern city and half ancient colonial style city. You can take a wild guess which part is meant for tourists and which we stayed in. There were a lot of beautiful cobblestone streets that winded around and lots of big, open plazas. We enjoyed it while frantically trying to book a trip to Machu Picchu the next day, which was a little difficult because it just happened to be peak tourist season AND a national holiday in Peru. We still managed fortunately to book a trip there, where we went the next day, and all I can say about it is that words cannot do it very good justice. Maybe pictures can be a bit better. I don't know. I was interested to see it because parts of the area were used in Werner Herzog's nutty, mystical, brilliant movie "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and I could understand why he was drawn to such an intriguing place. There's something about a small city on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere that gives it a sort of transcendent quality.

After this, we quickly jetted to Puno, located at the mouth of Lake Titicaca, which is close to the Bolivian border. The titi is for Peru, the caca for Bolivia according to the tour guide. We took a cheap night bus there and got the most comfortable seats that lean back for the trip. Unfortunately, we were not aware that the bus would not have heating, and we nearly froze to death in the high altitude late at night.

Lake Titicaca, once we got there, was definitely one of the highlights, as it was fascinating to see an indigenous culture that has been largely preserved, even though it raises the question of how much tourism impacts it and to what extent the influence is positive. I tried to rationalize it by believing that at least the tour group was locally owned and treated the locals well according to Lonely Planet, but I was still left with some questions. We saw the locals who worked on islands made entirely of reeds (historically, but mostly for the benefit of tourists today) and then went to a bigger island where there was a festival, put on mostly for tourists but which was interesting nonetheless. The lake offered some stunning views and once we returned to Puno we got to observe some locals who dressed traditionally but normally, not for the sake of tourists. This got me interested although there was still an extent to which we were kept at arm's length.


From there we moved on to Argentina... more on that later.