last day in Cuzco

Hey all, So again facebook isn´t loading - maybe later. This week´s been fun but the last day of working was pretty cold :(. Last night we all went out and the restaurant we´ve been eating at let us all sign our names on the wall. Today´s just some last minute shopping, packing, and hanging out with all the people here. Anyway, doing just fine. Will update more later. I get in to Fullerton Sunday night around 2 - call me anybody if you wanna catch some Norm´s lol - I´m gonna try to convince Chris haha. Alright well, I´ll see most of you next week so talk to you later!

best 4 days ever

ok so this will be a long one... I´ll try to do it in sections, but basically this week has been fantastic because:

monday through wednesday I did the full hike every day without feeling too terrible. We have started excavating a new unit and we haven´t gotten very far down but we are learning a lot and we´ve already found some ceramics, lithics, and charcoal. This week hopefully we will get down farther and continue to find cool stuff and the continuation of the wall.

Thursday was fantastic. Most of the group went to Puno to go see lake Titicaca, and it sounds like they had a great time. Me and a few of the other girls stayed behind to check out the sacred valley and do some horseback riding. Things didn´t go exactly as planned but that worked out just fine.

So Thursday Me and friends Kelly and Georgina were invited to go with our professor to meet one of his friends - the director of the South American portion of the Smithsonian Museum of Native American history. His name is Ramiro and he was so nice and wonderful! He took us to a village outside of Pisac where we got to see a sacred site - 5,000 year old rock art, an old Inka road, and a possible Inka stopping point (Small fort like structure) along the road. We met the family in charge of maintaining the site and asked him questions about the history of the site and what the village needs in order to preserve it.

Then we went to another city in the Sacred Valley and had a very nice lunch - it was a buffet so we tried several different dishes (the trout here is phenomenal!), and the three of us got brave and tried cow tongue... surprisingly not bad.

In the same place there are a series of huge terraces and the coolest irrigation system ever. We got to walk around and learned about how the water system worked. The terraces and water system were built in that location because it was originally the agricultural grounds of the Inka elite - and the palace of one of the Inka kings still (mostly) stands in this location. Awesome day to say the least.

Friday morning was mostly spent arranging horse riding adventures - which I´ll get to later. In the afternoon we went to a food festival in Cuzco. We tried tons of different peruvian dishes, all of them were fantastic. We tried Ceviche, which is raw local trout, soaked in lime juice to kill the bacteria, a local dish called (forgive the spelling) anticuche which is a skewer of various cuts of grilled cow heart and a potato (soooo good), several other seafood and potato dishes, adobo (like a pork stew), and... yes I did it... cuy, AKA guinea pig. cuy isn´t bad... but there´s not much to it and i think trying it once will definitely be enough for me. We also had some of the best deserts ever. I don´t know how they do it, but they´ve got milkshakes down like nobody´s business, and the deserts here are fantastic. sweet and light.

Saturday we woke up at 8 AM and left around 9 AM to go horseback riding for about 8 hours. The saddles were extremely uncomfortable, but the ride was awesome and the views through the mountains were indescribably beautiful. The first 4 hours of the ride took us up the mountains past Sacsayhuaman, and past our archaeological site. We went into a village high up in the mountains, and then continued on to a Waka about an hour past it. We stopped there for about 20 minutes and then continued on for another hour or so, where we experienced the weirdest lunch ever. Basically it involved a windy field, about 6 bananas and a 2.5 liter bottle of Inka cola, and a lot of confusion.

After lunch we continued on and got to visit the temple of the moon. More really cool sacred Inka rocks... and a fantastic view. We ended the ride cantering up a hill and then getting back to the ranch. But our trip wouldn´t have been complete without the truck ride back down to Cuzco with a ton of very nice Peruvians, and a pit stop for corn and cheese.

Today was again, awesome. This morning we went to see a professional Soccer game here in Cuzco. The Cuzco team won, but I´m not quite sure how... they´re not very good. But it was a fun experience just the same. Then this afternoon we went to a town in the sacred valley called Chinchero where we got a presentation on how to naturally wash, spin and dye alpaca wool, and then how to weave it and what many of the designs mean. After browsing the collection of hand-crafted goods (all very beautiful). we were taught how to weave a simple band, which we got to keep at the end. The women teaching us were all extremely nice, and Katie and I got to practice our spanish since Kelly speaks english and italian and georgina speaks english and french. The women teaching us spoke quechua, but several knew spanish. So it was an interesting experience going from english to spanish to quechua and back (especially since my spanish is terrible), but we were able to communicate fairly well all things considered.

alright well, anyway had a very fun, very full weekend, and a full week of hiking and excavating lies ahead. Hope everyone is well, miss you all very very much.

bloglove

Hey everybody. Sorry I don´t post that often - long days and not that much computer time available. Weekends here are awesome. We´re all getting to know the city of Cuzco very well, so lots of running around the city and eating lots of food - but boy do I miss my LA version of Mexican food. There are a few clubs here - the nightlife is fun but definitely different from the US. So weekends have so far consisted of shopping, eating, doing homework in coffee shops (amazing mochas btw) and then going out to dance. Everyone seems to be having a very good time, and pretty much everyone who was sick is now almost completely recovered. Sunday afternoon the manager of our hostel, Ignacio, rented a field for us and we all went down to play soccer. Really fun! We stayed about 2 hours and then came home for movies and lots of sleep before starting excavation work again this week. The hike is getting a lot easier, and digging is fun but a bit slow going. Hopefully we will get more done next week. Tomorrow is a holiday so we will work and then we have thursday, friday, saturday, sunday off. Me and a few others are trying to arrange a horseback riding / hiking / camping tour - So I may not post until after I get back on Saturday or something. Anyway, everything´s good - just trying to make the most of my next 2 1/2 weeks.

ok that´s about it... miss you all, hope everyone is good!

facebook stopped working...

hey so... I don´t have time for a terribly long post, but just wanted everyone to know that I´m still alive. Facebook, for whatever reason, isn´t loading on the computer properly, and hasn´t been for a day or two now, so hopefully that will be up and running soon. Until then...

My week has gone (this is the short version) something like this:

Monday took my first hike up to the site. takes an hour and a half all up stairs and really steep hills. high altitude, very hard to breathe. But it´s absolutely beautiful. Anyway we get to the site (called Devil´s Balcony), split up in to groups and learn about the site and start excavating. We dig until around 3, then go back down the hill. Monday I ate something not so great, went to bed early and then....

Tuesday I had food poisoning. It sucked, stayed at the hostel with a few other sick roommates and slept and watched movies. Tres boring.

Wednesday I recovered, got to take a taxi halfway up, climbed the rest of the way, excavated from 9 until 3 again, came back down the hill. Went to dinner, took salsa lessons, fell asleep.

Today I walked the whole way again, excavated till 3, again went to dinner and salsa.

Suffice to say I am very tired, but doing well, and definitely getting in shape! Tomorrow we only have a half day of excavating, then lecture. I´m sure more salsa after that.

Our site is fantastic, complete with river and huge rock/cave formations with waterfalls. I´ll go into more detail later, but basically the site is believed to be an Inka sacrificial/ ceremonial site. We are looking to find the canal the Inkas built which would mark the perimiter of the site. So far in our unit we have unearthed the wall and will dig deeper to see if we can find any ceremonial items or anything else that would give us clues about how the Inka used the site. Very interesting stuff, I´m learning a lot about what it´s like to excavate and I´m also getting a lot stronger wielding pick axes and caring buckets of dirt back and forth up and down a hill as we dig deeper.

Anyway, hope everyone´s doing well. Miss you all, talk to you later!

festivals, pottery, and lots of rocks

Hey! so it´s taken me a few days but I have plenty to tell -

So Wednesday was pretty chill, which was good because I needed it, the altitude and everything had finally caught up to me. In the morning we went to 2 museums - the museum of the Inka and the museum of pre-columbian art. both were very cool. The Inka museum had a series of dioramas for native Peruvians from 10,000 or so years ago through the different main societies and periods including the Moche, wari and Inkans and up through the onset of spanish rule. They had a few collections of projectile points and obsidian cores, pottery throughout the different time periods, and agricultural tools. The coolest room by far in it though was the mummy room. They set up a display of skeletons and mummies with artifacts to look like a real tomb. Very cool.

Then we went to the pre columbian art museum, which was set up a bit differently. each room contained similar types of art and artifacts - wooden statues, pottery, jewelry, etc. Some of the pottery was really cool. One of my favorite pieces was a jog shaped like a deer. but the deer was very cartoon - like and very expressive. The jewelry room was also very interesting - they were very good with gold. A few of the displays included huge gold ear plugs (at least 5 or 6 inches in diameter - these were worn to show wealth, the larger the plug, the wealthier the person was) and an example of a golden crown.

After lunch at twonations we got some free time. I took a really long nap which was so nice, and caught up on homework. Then we went to dinner and after a few of us went out to an Irish pub (interesting) and a British pub (even more interesting - the UK the Peruvian way!). We had a really good time though and it was nice getting to know a few of the other students better.

Thursday was amazing beyond words. we left the hostel at 8 and went on a 3 hour bus ride to a village called Racqui (Rock-chee). But before we got there we stopped to look at some ruins...

In order to get to these ruins we had to hike up a hill and then cross a (as the locals called it) bridge. What they meant by bridge was really a railroad track with open ties over a small fast moving river, of which you would not want to fall into because I´m sure there were all kinds of nasty bacteria. But don´t worry, it wasn´t a very wide river, and everyone made it across quite safely - hopefully the picture I took of everyone crossing on my disposable camera will turn out well. we then hiked up another series of hills using a narrow footpath. Quite fun (seriously). at the top of the small hill we came to some very large ruins, and could see clear across the valley below. Completely stunning, as everything here is. Our guest professor, Bill, taught us history about the site and what it had possibly been used for, including the series of niches in the walls, which apparently housed mummies. The Wari tended to bury their ancestors within walls, to keep the family close. We got a good 20 minutes or so to get a good look and then went back down the hill and across the ¨bridge¨.

Once at Racqui, we entered the main plaza of the town, most of us bought some souveniers, and then continued through the plaza to more ruins. If the walls at the previous sight had been astounding, the series of ruins here was indescribable, so I´ll just use the word ëpic¨. I can´t even explain so hopefully I´ll be able to post pictures to show you all later.

After learning and exploring about the ruins we went back into the plaza and hiked past the main village towards a small house on the end. We were invited by a local family to come into their 3-room dirt floor house, and we all sat and had the most amazing meal ever. It was very simple - potatoes and meat roasted for several hours in a pit, and home made cheese. The spices they used on the meat, however, were phenomenal, and the family was so unbelievably nice to do all the work they did for us (there were about 30 of us altogether). They also made special Christmas Chicha - a homemade type of beer - for all of us to try. usually chicha is made out of corn, but this was made out of strawberries and was really good.

After lunch we were invited to go across the road to their ceramic workshop. They showed us all of their wares and we were invited to learn how they made all of their ceramics. It was so wonderful! Their pottery was for sale, of course, and I think we cleared most of it out!

It was definitely a very special and very cool experience.

Finally today we went about an hour away to a city called Pisaq. We weren´t able to see the ruins there but they had an amazing festival. There were so many colors and the music was wonderful. We watched the parade from the plaza through the streets, and ate lunch at a local restaurant. After we got back to Cuzco we went to twonations again where matt and his wife were celebrating their wedding aniversary, and they shared some delicious roasted pig, vegetables, potatoes, and sweet tamales with us. And after, as is supposedly customary, we all had a few shots of Pisco, the local liquor. Pisco is very strong and made from grapes grown in the southern part of Peru. It tastes kind of like sweet tequila almost.

Tomorrow we are all going Pisco tasting, and will learn how to make a pisco sour (tastes a bit like a margarita). Then on monday we will start excavating.

Ok, there isn´t much more to tell for now. Miss everyone, hope you´re all safe, and yes - definitely missing some greasy pizza and a reliably hot shower, but so far I´m having an amazing time.

Love you all,

Meghan

long day

hey no time to post just yet... friends want the computer. but today was completely amazing. lots of ruins, hikes, an amazing local meal made by the nicest Peruvians ever, and a ceramics workshop. also, tasted chicha and pisco. hope everyone´s well!

ciao!

on safety in cuzco, and following Peruvians

what a crazy couple of days! first off let me give you all a few lessons I learned from matt, the co-owner of twonations, an amazing australian/peruvian restaurant here:

WASH YOUR HANDS!!!

BOIL YOUR WATER!!! A LOT!!!!

and Peruvian muggers are the nicest thieves you´ll ever meet...

apparently Matt, who is Australian, was exceedingly scared while traveling through the US, and he knows that muggers never just take your money and run in Australia.... but apparently here in Peru, muggers might take your money, but they won´t be mean about it. According to a few accounts from travelers in his restaurant, one man was kidnapped, taken to his kidnappers house and the wife and kids fed him a delicious home cooked meal of Peruvian soup while the kidnapper raided his ATM.

Don´t worry mom, the moral of this and a few other stories was that Cuzco does have thieves, so watch your money, but generally it´s a country of exceptionally nice people, and we should all stay in groups and be careful (as always, and we do).

And after today I can attest to that. But I´ll get to that later....

Yesterday we all got up around 8 AM... it´s really cold in the morning, and split up into two groups. My group went with Alexei, our professor, who is awesome. We went on a walk around Cuzco and he taught us how to tell real Inka masonry from Colonial, modern, and reconstruction. After a few examples of real Inka walls still standing in the city, we walked around drawing out the walls that were left, attempting to reconstruct what the city would have looked like 500 years prior, before the Spanish arrived. We visited the Cusicancha, which is a ¨museum¨of an original Inkan Cancha... I´ll upload pictures as soon as i figure out how. But basically the Inkas built a series of courtyards, with rooms on each of the four sides. You could kind of equate this to small apartment complexes today. Anyway, the ruins were absolutely beautiful, and yes, I did get to pet a llama there.

After lunch (which was, as usual, strange looking but delicious) we went to Qorikancha. Which is supposed to be one of the most sacred places for the Inkas. Also beautiful, again, pictures when I figure out how to upload. After we all ate dinner at twonations, where we got our fine lecture from matt and some others from the TAs and Alexei.

After a great night´s rest we woke up again around 8 and left the hostel about 9. morning activities included a tour of a museum filled with beautiful religious art, followed by ordering a custom pair of bright teal blue handmade peruvian boots. So. Awesome.

the real adventure of the day however was our afternoon activity. We were told to get in groups of 4 and were handed a packet of old pictures of Cuzco. The mission was to find the things in the pictures and take pictures of what it looked like now.

In our search for locations we asked three seperate locals if they new where some of the locations were. All gave the same answer; a plaza a few blocks from the main one. We asked directions every few blocks and finally found a woman who told us to follow her, she was going near there. Her trek landed us several blocks away from where we were supposed to be, but right on top of a hill with the most gorgeous view of Cuzco and the outlying city ever. While we didn´t quite accomplish the goal originally set out for us, we had a wonderful time chatting with a few of the locals and taking breathtaking pictures (again, hopefully to come soon). All of them were extremely nice and very welcoming. We did have a mad dash down several stairs and across the plaza in order to find a cab and be back at the hostel in time for dinner though. Still worth it.

Anyway, hope everybody´s doing great. miss you all very much! I still have some reading to do so I´ll post again in another couple days.