Nacho Picchu

Almost everyone has been here. If you have seen the National Geographic photo angle of the ruins then you are half way there.

To get to Nacho Picchu you can bus or taxi to ?Ollanatumbes from Cuzco. Its usually from there that you can train to Aguas Calientes beneath Nacho Picchu. Due to major floods earlier this year you now have to travel further to get to the train. PeruRail reminded me of a Disneyland ride. The announcer spoke in American-English and when the train arrived it seemed like it was going to take me to Space Mountain. When you get on the train they give you a PeruRail box full of mysterious food. Unfortunately, the box wouldn´t fit into my all ready bloated bag.

In Aguas Calientes you are bombarded by restaurant workers among the streets. They all want you to go to the best restaurant. If you are tactful enough you can play them off eachother for a better price. The main lure for these restaurants is their nachos. If you are undecided they will offer free nachos to sweeten the deal. Or, if you walk away they will offer nachos. You pretty much have to do little to nothing to be offered free nachos. Nacho frenzy.

If you choose to go to Nacho Picchu with a tour guide they want to get up there as early as possible. If you want to walk up Huayna Picchu (an adjacent hill with a different view of Nacho Picchu) you have to wake up at 4am to get a ticket. I couldn´t be bothered to wake up at such an ungodly hour so I decided to wing it. I figured that, if I wanted, I would find a way up Huayna Picchu.

When we arrived at the top, Nacho Picchu was completely socked in. Nacho Picchu wasn´t going to give itself up so easily. I had talked with another traveler who told me that when he went up that it was socked in during the whole day and that he couldn´t see anything.

Eventually the clouds relaxed and dissipated revealing the essence of Nacho Picchu. From there, we walked amongst the ruins and resident llamas. Later, I somehow managed to talk my way into being able to go up Huayna Picchu without a ticket.

In all, it was a pretty neat spot. But, if you have seen your fair share of Mayan, Aztec or Incan ruins it may not be as impressive. There are also tons of tourists stumbling around. I enjoyed the llamas and the history of Nacho Picchu. Briefly, Nacho Picchu was built by the Incans close to their jungle enemies. It was partly a strategic spot where they could expand their empire into the Amazon. It was abandoned when the conquistadors arrived but was never found by them. The Incan emperor at the time requested a last stand in Vilcabamba (another ruins a few hours away) to fend off the conquistadors led by the nasty Spanish pig farmer Francisco Pizarro.

(some sort of reptile I found hiding in a rock)

Person in crowd of people ¨oh look they are playing!¨

Person again ¨what kind of playing is...¨

¨Oh¨

I Think I´m Turning Quechua I Really Think So

(Lago Titicaca + Bolivia in the distance)

I´ve got a picture of me and you. You wrote ¨rimaykullayki¨ I wrote ¨me too¨.

A man with chiclet teeth turned his teethy grin towards me. He wanted to teach me Quechua (an idigenous language of Peru). As the bus to Puno rolled along he had me pernouncing its words. A simple ´hello´ is a mouthful. He would sit back and produce hearty laughs.

In Puno, we set off onto Lake Titicaca. In Quechua, Titicaca means puma and stone. They seem to produce animals out of all geological formations.

We arrived at the island where we would stay the night. We would stay with an idigenous family.

We lined up along the dock as the families approached. Which one would be ours? I felt like some sort of animal being selected. What are the desired attributes? Pick me!

Seher pointed out a woman who kept licking her fingers. Yup, that was going to be the one. She approached and greeted us. We followed her the hill towards her house like ducklings. She didn´t speak much Spanish (or she chose not to).


We arrived at our new home and were brought to the kitchen for lunch. Mother, father, two daughters? and two sons were there. This would be our rental family.

We gifted them a bag of rice and snacks. Sitting down, I attempted to converse with them in Spanish and then Quechua. There was much silence in the room. The father rolled out a cloth full of green beans he had grown for an appetizer. We dined on strange-delicious potatoes, soup and fried cheese. Delicious!

(dinner?)

In the afternoon we met at the local soccer arena for a match. It was the internationals versus the Peruvians. It was a close and hard fought match ending in 5-4. In the end, the Peruvians prevailed with their altitude advantage.

Then it was off to the dance hall. Our rental mothers and daughters dressed us up in traditional clothing and escorted us. We danced for hours. The most popular, and only dance move, was a move where you stepped forward and back. This move would be repeated during all of the 10 minute Peruvian pan flute songs during the night. My rental sister seemed completely uninterested in dancing. Why? She would avoid eye contact and maintain a straight face. It made me think that they probably got tired of foreigners pouring in and out every week. This seemed to make sense because earlier my rental brother chose not to acknowledge my existence. I tried to speak to him in the greatest South American language, kicking a soccer ball around, but he couldn´t be bothered.

I was getting tired from dancing to all the 10 minute Peruvian flute songs but I kept being selected to dance. I would half heartedly say,
¨Estoy cansado¨ (im tired) but didn´t want to offend.

I eventually danced myself towards a good sleep that night.

When it was time to leave the next day all the rental mothers saw their children off on the dock. We turned to look but our mother wasn´t there. Rejected!


Before returning to Puno, we stopped at another island. Here we learned about the local dating ritual. Besides clothing indicating status, the dating scene involves rock throwing. If a man is interested in a girl he would toss a rock at the girls back. If she turned around and smiled it would be good news. If she wasn´t interested in him, she would turn around and try and hit him with another rock.

I don´t think this would go down well in Canada. Maybe I better stick with being Canadian.

(Cat Jacket!)