Tramites, ruinas, y soroche (or the lack thereof)

Greetings from Cusco!

I have now been at this high altitude (11,000+ feet/3,400 m - or as Jeff said, wow, that's twice as high as Denver) former capital of the Incan empire for over a week, and I impressed my airbnb hostess mightily by not suffering from altitude sickness (or, as the Peruvians call it, soroche). Many people spend their first day or two at high altitude feeling listless, nauseous, headachy, etc. I had two cups of coca tea and then went out for a huge slice of cake from the pasteleria. Kind of amazing considering my issues with motion sickness, but hey, I'll take it!

Convento de Santo Domingo / Qorikancha

Santo Domingo grounds

Last Sunday I strolled the historic part of Cusco, wandered through some markets, and visited the Convent of Santo Domingo, which the Spaniards built on top of the Incan temple of Qorikancha. Santo Domingo has a number of paintings from the Escuela Cusquena, or Cusco School, a Spanish-led art institute from the 16th century on that taught indigenous people to paint religious scenes in the European style.

Santo Domingo courtyard

Awesome ceiling tiles @ Santo Domingo

Monday I got down to business and visited no less than FOUR governmental offices trying to see if my application for research (i.e., tramite) was in order and if the permissions had come through. I only had to call Alejandra once to translate, so all in all not too bad. I finally ended up at the Gabinete de Antropologia Fisica (although almost not because the security guard didn't even realize it was in the building...), where the extremely amiable curator and her assistant made a few phone calls and told me I could (unofficially) begin work the next day. So, for the rest of the week I have been working at the gabinete studying the high altitude human remains. Fortunately, a good amount of the bones are in a decent state of preservation, and the collection is fairly large so I think I should be able to get the sample sizes I need here by the end of the month. Fingers crossed, anyway!

Inca Road

Yesterday I decided to put my free weekend to good use touristically, and I went and purchased a boleto touristico - a ticket that is the only way to gain admission to many of the ruins in and around Cusco. I started with one of the closest set of ruins, Sacsayhuaman, where the huge Inti Raymi festival is held in June. You can reach this site by picking up the old Inca road from the neighborhood of San Blas and then heading up for about a mile. From there I walked another mile or so outside of town to the site of Q'enqo. After touring the ruins (and meeting a couple of nice med students from U Florida), I headed back into town and visited a couple of the smaller museums that are also part of the boleto touristico. I also had a delicious dinner of aji de gallina con quinoa, which turned out to be a tasty variation of one my favorite Peruvian dishes, followed by a slice of cheesecake with maracuya (passion fruit) topping.

Ruins @ Sacsayhuaman

Sacsayhuaman is known for its megalithic walls

Sacsayhuaman amphitheater

The Sacsayhuaman slides!

Today I waffled about heading out to the town/ruins of Pisac, but eventually decided to go.  It's 45 minutes outside of Cusco by bus (on winding mountain roads - bleh). The town has a huge crafts market on Sunday, with a large set of ruins nearby. I'm glad I went because I ended up making the acquaintance of two ladies who teach in Toronto - one French and the other Quebecois. We strolled the market for a bit, had lunch, and then decided to tackle the three mile walk up to the ruins - the key word here is UP because the entire trail was a set of stone steps that curved up, up, and UP. After about ten minutes, Geraldine decided this steep and narrow trail was not for her and decided to return for more shopping in the market. Evelyne and I decided to soldier on and, after numerous stops for photos and water and general trying-to-keep-hearts-from-exploding, we made it to the main part of the ruins. The complex is extensive and quite spread out, and as the hour was growing a little late (and we had no desire to descend those narrow stone steps in the dark), we didn't ramble over the entire site, but we did see quite a bit. The location is amazing, with commanding views of the valleys below. Climbing up all those stone stairs you tend to think the Inca were freaking crazy to build their cities on mountain tops, but they are definitely impressive.

Hiking up Pisac

Yup - we started in that town. And this is the path.

Ruins @ Pisac

More ruins @ Pisac

Pisac

Oh yeah, and did I mention it's FREEZING in Cusco at night? I don't think I've ever woken up on the 4th of July to 35 degree weather. At least it warms up during the day. But still! Speaking of the 4th, I was a little bummed to not have any fireworks, but the restaurant I had dinner in last night was right on the Plaza de Armas next to the Catedral, and there were actually a few fireworks in the plaza after a wedding took place! Bonus!

Ciao til next time - this gringa is tired after two days of hiking around ruins!