On Sunday morning we checked out of the Pirwa Hostel in Cusco where we had spent the night, and walked around the corner to the OTHER Pirwa Hostel, where there was a free breakfast available to guests of both hostels. It was pretty much the same fare as at the other hostels where we had stayed - just bread and juice or a yogurt beverage, but here it was sit down service as opposed to a buffet. The dining room was on the second floor, and had a nice view over looking the Plaza de Armas.
After eating we went down to find a taxi to take us to the Cusco airport. There had always been a lot of cabs and other traffic around the plaza, but on this morning it was completely deserted. There was some sort of military presence in front of the large Cathedral (the one with the painting of Guinea Pig being served at the Last Supper, which I didn't get to see . . .), and it was obvious that something was going on and the whole area had been closed off to traffic. Whether this was related to the protest we had seen the night before, or something else, I don't don't know.
We had to walk a couple blocks beyond the Plaza before we found a taxi, which drove us the short distance to the Cusco Airport. Before we were even allowed to check in at the Peru Star counter, a security guard made us open our luggage and went through it pretty thoroughly. The Doctor passed the guard's inspection, but in my bag he found a can of insect repellant (recommended by the nurse at the travel clinic, but something I had never had to actually use), and took it out. This was just a short local flight back to Lima, but of all our flights it was the only time we had been subject to such an inspection.
When we checked in at the Peru Star counter we were told our flights had not been paid for. The Doctor had handled this part of the trip, and was sure everything had been charged, but upon closer inspection he could see on his own copy of the receipt that he had only paid a deposit for the flight. He paid it then, and we were able to check in.
The official flag for the Cusco Region of Peru is a Rainbow flag, almost identical to the Gay Pride flag. I had wanted to buy one, and there was a little souvenir kiosk across from the check-in counter that had some small ones for sale. I went over, but there was no one around, which was highly unusual. Sales people in Peru - especially at gift shops - are very good at making their presence known, usually quite aggressively. They stand outside their stores, calling out to you as you pass by, urging you to come in to check out their merchandise. It was pretty odd not to find anyone at the kiosk. I would have just left and got one later, but as it was the Cusco flag I wanted, I wasn't sure I would be able to find any in Lima. Finally we saw an older woman hurrying back with a cup of coffee. I bought both the Cusco Region flag, and the National flag of Peru.
We made it through security and boarded the plane without further incident.
It was a short flight to Lima, and after we claimed our baggage, we found the driver from Pirwa who was there to pick us up. He was the same driver who had picked me up when I first arrived, and he remembered me.
When we got to the hostel we checked in and settled into our room for our final night in Peru. Then we set out to find some lunch and check out the city. The Doctor had spent several days prior to my arrival in Lima, and had expressed his disdain for the city on numerous occasions. Frankly, I didn't see anything wrong with it, it didn't strike me as being too much worse than any city in the US. Granted we were in the Miraflores district, which is supposed to be the nicest part of the city. It was overcast, and apparently it had been during the entire time Doctor had been there the previous week. It seemed that the fog and mist roll in from the ocean, and meets with the smog from Lima and it all just hangs over the city blocking out the sun. I'm not quite the sun worshipper The Doctor is, so I probably wouldn't even have noticed it wasn't shining if he hadn't mentioned it a time or two. The city also doesn't get a lot of rain, so it doesn't get a "natural washing", and so there is a certain amount of grunge and grime everywhere, but it otherwise seemed to be kept as clean as humanly possible. We didn't seen any trash or garbage littering the streets, and the parks we passed through seemed clean and well groomed.
I needed to get some more stamps for postcards, so The Doctor led me to the Lima Post Office or "Serpost".
There only seemed to be one counter open, with a long line going out the door. I got at the end of the line, and was soon approached by a nice looking uniformed security guard wearing a gun (perhaps a police officer?) and he said something to me in Spanish. He pointed at my hands, and I assumed he didn't want me coming into the building with the bag I was carrying, so I handed it off to The Doctor who was waiting nearby. But he pointed again, and I realized he had seen my postcards and was indicating that I could move forward to the head of the line to get my stamps, which I gladly did (not sure how the other customers in line felt about that . . . ). The woman at the counter spoke no English, but I showed her the postcards and she gave me 4 stamps. I needed more than that, so I had to write the desired number down on piece of paper and show it to her. She didn't even have enough international postcard stamps in her drawer; I was willing to to just take the ones she had, but she pulled out some other stamps that were a little more expensive. She very carefully pointed to the prices on both sets of stamps to make sure I knew they cost more, but it wasn't that much so I went ahead and bought the number that I needed. Of course there was an issue with "change" but between the two of us, we managed to work it out. In spite of the communication problems, she was very pleasant to deal with.
We walked on, and The Doctor showed me the sights he was familiar with, the Catholic Church he had gone to Mass at, the movie theatre where he had sat through Captain America entirely in Spanish (which I teased him about mercilessly), and some of the parks in the area.
We sort of stumbled on a Vegetarian restaurant which he hadn't seen before, and decided to have lunch there. I am still not quite sure what happened at the restaurant. We both looked at the menu board posted outside which was entirely in Spanish, and then went in and sat at a table near the window.
A very cheerful woman came over who spoke no English. Plus she seemed to be missing several of her upper front teeth which gave her a slight speech impediment. The Doctor always tried to be polite and always greeted people with either "Hola", or "Buenas Dias". While I understood why he did this, I found it rather annoying, because it automatically gave the mistaken impression that he spoke Spanish, when in reality that was pretty much the extant of his vocabulary. I always said "Hello", which usually didn't elicit a lot of smiles, but at least we knew where we stood with each other starting out. Out waitress was very cheery and immediately began chattering away in Spanish. To be honest, with her missing teeth, I couldn't really tell what language she was speaking, but certainly had no idea what she was saying. When she finished, she smiled broadly at the Doctor, who paused briefly, then responded with a "Yes". They both looked at me, and though I didn't quite know what was going on, I replied in the affirmative also. She seemed pleased and hurried away.
I asked The Doctor what had just happened, and he replied "We just ordered". I asked him what we had ordered, and he said we had ordered one of the combos. He seemed surprised that I didn't know what had happened, and I was surprised that he DID! I asked how he knew what she had been saying, and he said he had looked at the menu board out front, and had been able to match up some of what she had said with what he had seen on the menu. The menu had been in Spanish so I still couldn't figure out how he had understood any of it. He asked if I would have rather ordered something else, and I said "I don't even know what they have!!!" When the food came it good, so I guess it turned out OK, but I was still baffled by The Doctor's apparent comprehension skills.
It was while we were eating here that I noticed a sudden rush of water coming down the sidewalk. I looked out to see two or three street cleaners going past the restaurant. One had a large plastic trash can on wheels filled with water, and every few feet it would tip it to spill water onto the sidewalk. One of the other men had a push broom which he used to scrub down the wet sidewalk. I was quite impressed with this. As I said, the city seemed to be as clean as was humanly possible.
While we ate I looked through my guide book to see what was available to see and do in this part of town. There was a lighthouse I had wanted to visit, but while it was in the Miraflores district, it was of course near the ocean, which was not really within walking distance from where we were. I had also read about a pyramid that sounded interesting, and when I read the description to The Doctor, he recognized it as something he had seen earlier during his stay in Lima, but hadn't know what it was. We decided to check it out.
We went back to the hostel first and on the way we went back by the Post Office to mail my postcards. The same security guard was on duty, and when I showed him my freshly stamped cards, he led me over to the mail slots. For striking such an intimidating figure with his uniform and gun, he seemed very friendly and helpful.
After a brief stop at the hostel, we went on to the Pyramid, which the Doctor was able to lead us to with no problem. (Below: The Doctor holds The Pyramid Of Doom in front of the Hauca Pucllana Pyramid)
The pyramid sits right in the middle of the Miraflores district of Lima and is known as Huaca Pucllana. If I recall correctly, it pre-dates the ruins at Machu Picchu by approximately 1,000 years.
It only became an archaeologically dig 30 years ago. Prior to that it was buried under a mountain of dirt, and had been used as a jump by Motor Cross enthusiasts. It is not in as great shape as the Pyramids of Egypt, (based on the pictures I've seen of them) but the parts of it that are intact were interesting to see.
After buying our tickets, we looked through the small museum while waiting for the next English speaking tour of the site. There were several interesting artifacts in the museum, small sculptures, pottery, and even a shark's tooth and fin that had been excavated from the pyramid. There was a photo of the shattered remains of large jar that had been unearthed in a pit.
They had been able to piece the jar back together and it was on display in the museum.
After that we waited outside for the tour to begin. An older gentleman with a major limp came over and started talking with us. He spoke fairly good English, and asked us a lot of questions about where we were from, where we had visited in Peru, what the climate and landscape were like where we lived, a whole host of questions. To me, he just seemed like a man who was genuinely curious about the world, but I could tell The Doctor felt a little uneasy with him hanging around. When the tour finally started he said he would catch up with us later, and walked away. He did join the tour after it had started and talked with us a little more, but then seemed to latch onto a European couple and visited with them quite a bit. Later The Doctor told me he had been approached by a man earlier during his time in Lima, who had started out the same way, asking the same kind of questions, but then ended up asking for money to send to his family in Cusco. Given that information, I could understand why our limping friend would have made him nervous, but he never asked us for anything, nor seemed to ask the other couple either.
The tour of the pyramid was quite interesting. It is still an ongoing archaeological dig, and much of it has yet to be unearthed and restored. They are rebuilding it as much as possible with the original bricks. The walls that remain standing are a couple layers of brick deep, and were built with a small gap between each brick. The guide explained that this made the structure virtually earthquake proof. He said Lima had been destroyed 3 times by earthquakes during the last 1,000 years, but Huaca Pucllana has survived them all. (Below: Photo showing how the bricks have spaces between them. The white flecks in the bricks are bits of sea shells that had been mixed with the clay during the brick making process.)
He showed us one wall where the original yellow coloring of the bricks was still visible. Another area had a pit where the remains of human sacrices - all female - had been found.
Some other sacrificial pits had been "recreated" with replicas of mummies (including infants) that had been offered as sacrifices. If I understood correctly, these persons had been from other regions of Peru, and might have been prisoners of war.
Near the base of the pyramid were some other recreations depicting the brick making process.
This area had some actual footprints that the guide told us were from the feet of the actual workers who had made the bricks, and had been preserved in the hardened mud for a 1,000 years. I have to admit to being a little skeptical of this fact . . . but who knows.
Another display showed a replica of the clay jar I mentioned earlier which had been restored from shattered fragments.
The display showed a man preparing to smash the jar with a rock. Our guide said that the people believed that as long as a body survived, the soul would also live, which of course was the reason for the mummification process. But in this case, the jar had an illustration of a shark on it, and contained pieces of a real shark. It was an offering, but the vessel represented the body of the shark, and had to be destroyed to prevent the shark from from attacking the souls of the dead in the afterlife. This explained why the jar been in fragments when it was unearthed. I only hope that by putting it back together, the archaeologists didn't awaken the soul of the shark it represented, wreaking havoc in the afterlife . . .
Next to the pyramid was a nice restaurant that opened out into the Huaca Pucllana complex. You could sit right there and eat a nice meal while looking at the pyramid. The European couple told us that they had dined there the night before, and the food was good - they especially recommended the steak. I asked if it was expensive, and without hesitating they said yes. A little later they asked if I was from New York, and I told them no, Boston. The woman said, "Well, maybe for you it wouldn't seem so expensive . . . " We did check the menu before leaving, but it offered nothing in the way of Vegetarian entrees.
For dinner that night we walked around quite a bit trying to find some place interesting to eat at. We went down one street that was full of restaurants, and as I have described many of the gift shops, the restaurant's hosts and hostesses were extremely aggressive about trying to lure us inside. They were out on the sidewalk ready to pounce on you the minute you came close. One hostess spent some time with us showing all they had to offer, and pointing out the vegetarian options when we told her we were both "vegetarianos". We decided to look on a little more, but she followed us, and even when someone from another restaurant was showing us their menu, she was still trying to call us back, saying her place was better than their's. The entire street was like running a gauntlet, and finally we left it just to get away from all the pressure. We looked around some more, but ended up going back to the restaurant with the persistent hostess. I ordered a vegetable lasagna, which was good, but more like a casserole than any lasagna I had ever had.
The Doctor ordered a ravioli dish, but the hostess, who doubled as a waitress, was kind enough to remember that we were vegetarianos, and told him the raviolis were stuffed with beef instead of cheese. From the way she said it, I got the impression that is the customary way they are make in Peru. So he ended up ordering a spaghetti dish with a pesto sauce which he said was some of the best pesto he had ever had.
After we ate The Doctor wanted to pick up a few things, so we went to a local grocery store. This was more like what I am more used to, as opposed to the "Super Marcado" we had visited in Puno. I walked up and down the aisles, and though there were some products that were foreign to me, there were many brand names that I recognized. One thing that the Doctor pointed out to me was their milk, which was sold in plastic bags as instead of cartons.
We hadn't gotten dessert at the restaurant, so we went to a cafeteria like place with a sidewalk counter that The Doctor had visited a couple times before, and there we got some churros. We each got a large one with filling (mine was chocolate), and some smaller plain ones. We took these back to a nice park called Kennedy Park, and ate them there. I was wearing my Chullo Hat and eating Churros. The only thing missing was Charo . . .
It was after dark, but Kennedy Park was well lit, with lots of people walking around or sitting on benches, and it felt perfectly safe. Everywhere we had been in Peru I had seen stray dogs, probably hundreds of them up to this point. Lima was no different, but Kennedy Park was the first place I noticed stray cats in great numbers. They seemed to be everywhere, and probably numbered several dozen. Like the dogs, they seemed tame and friendly, and didn't mind being approached and petted. The stray dogs had made me sad, but all these cats broke my heart and I wanted to take them all home with me.
That same night I saw something I hadn't seen anywhere else in Peru. On a light post was a poster for a lost dog. Those are always sad, but it must be especially difficult losing a pet in a city with so many stray animals, knowing that your pet is probably out there somewhere wandering around with them.
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