I have been really out there these past two days! Last night, Amanda and I went out to meet with her friends for dinner. They all study in the same Spanish school, at different levels, I am obviously the newbie, who don't speak a word of Spanish. It seemed to me that they pretty much can communicate with the locals, which is good for me, I suppose. We met at the steps in front of McDonalds, their official "meeting place" again. The group of us was like a United Nations. Amanda from the US, me from Hong Kong, Nicolas from Switzerland (near Geneva so he speaks French), Natasha (maybe) from Russia, Jane from Australia, and his friend who seems to be a Latino (not sure exactly). We were just missing the representative of Africa! Anyway, the Swiss, the Russian, the American and the Chinese went to a pub for dinner. We talked A LOT, about travel, language, cultures, abortion, jobs, the school, and social manner. Anything you can imagine. We must have been there for over 3 years. It is interesting experience, I'm kind of enjoy it. Today, Domingo-Sunday, they planned to go to Chinchero, where has a Sunday market and they invited me to come along.
Originally, I need to attend this 1.5 hour city tour the school organized for new students, sort of chance to meet other students. But the Sunday market thing sounds extremely interesting. So, I have been bad, and have decided to skip the city tour and join the gang to Chinchero instead. We meet at 9:00am, walk to the bus stop, which is actually quite a scene. every bus I have seen thus far are always full, not even a standing space you could fit in one more persons kind of full. But this is not what I want to describe about this bus stop. The man's room is actually outside, right across from the ticket stands, I am just causally looking around and at people. Oh my god, this guy is peeing, and then I look up to the wall, it's actually the Man's room right there, out in the open. The bus stop is filled with women, and children, dogs and cats. It is just a weird scene.
About 1 hour journey to Chinchero, I have no idea what to expect, nor have the desire to buy stuffs really, but I would like to take many pictures. So, we got there, the Sunday Market is not too bad, all these people in their traditional clothing, sitting on floor selling handmade stuffs, textiles, and foods. It is just very interesting. I finally took a picture of the Inka woman's braids (found out from Amanda, that's what it is called). I must have taken a zillion pictures there, at the stuffs being sold, at the persons who sell it. It is right around noon though, so the sun is bad. It is so warm, I have to take off my sweater. Oh...oh...oh... I saw a man peeing at the bus stop earlier, and in the market, as I am taking a picture of a roof, suddenly I hear this like river running sound. Holy shit, an Inka woman is doing her business. Excuse me, nice hairs. :P After the market, we find a local restaurant to eat something. 5 Soles (less than US$2) for a bowl of huge soup, beef with veggies and rice, and tea. Nothing can beat that price, BUT two of us find hairs in the soup, which is quite gross. But I guess we should not be surprised in places like this.
Anyway, it turns out the Sunday market is not the only program, we are going to Moray and Salinas - two Inka sites - as well. Again I have no idea what they are or where they are, I am just following the group. On the way, there is two Israeli backpackers ask us if we want to share a taxi, we agree. Instantly, the gang has expanded from 5 to 7 people for the last 2 lags. Moray is our first stop, which is a pretty unique amphitheater-like terraces, it is for agricultural use, I believe. But the circle, the terraces, the lines pattern is just amazing. The steps going down these terraces are pretty neat too. It's hard to describe, so see the pictures yourself. It really takes a lot of effort to climb those rock steps on the terraces, it's like it is difficult, but at that altitude, it simply requires much more to go up. I literally feel out of breath and have to sit down for a while. Luckily I don't feel sick after I rest a little and can continue.
Salinas is a terraces of salt pans, there are 4000 thousands of them together. The Inkas used this to extract salt. It looks like a site I saw in Turkey many years ago. But it's not exactly the same. We also have a glimpse of the Sacred Valley, cause the salt pans kind of lead to the end of the valley. Very beautiful, the rain is behind us though. So, we must leave.
It has been an surprisingly interesting day. Guess I didn't know what to expect to begin with, and ended up seeing 3 very different things, which is incredible, cause this is only my 3rd day in Cuzco. Not bad, not bad. The whole day, including transportation, food and the fee to get into those sites, I have spent less than US$13, which is really cheap. We have a big group to split the taxi cost, so that helps. Tomorrow is my first school day. I must be there at 8:00am to do a placement test. Probably time in Cuzco will go fast, since I have class, and would hang out the other students a lot, especially weekends...probably some of us will do something like this again next week.
Photos here: Day 6 (Chinchero), Day 6 (Moray y Salinas)
Footnote: Just a wonderful day. Nothing more to add, finally feeling myself a bit. I bet you can see it from the sound of this post. But giving you a headup, I am gonna change my route a little bit to fit the budget, since I can foresee that I would spend more than I expected for the local tours. It would be great to see everything, but I don't want to spend every dim that I have, and ask mom for money when I'll get home. Basically I am dropping 2 long and out of the way trips (to some rural areas), instead of I am doing a more easily accessible national park in northern Chile, which I would still see like snow-cap volcanoes, altiplano lakes..etc. More details in my next blog. I am checking with the airlines about the flight availability.
