¨HOME¨ IN QUITO

Hello everyone,
I am back ¨home¨ in Quito and now I can catch you all up on a lot of stuff that I couldnt while I was in Peru. The internet access was very limited there, either by time or quality or both in most of the places I stayed.
This may turn out to be a fairly long entry and I will try to break it up in segments to make it easier to read and/or to return to later if you dont want to read the whole thing in one sitting.

MORE ABOUT COLCA CAÑON:
There was so much that I experienced on the trip to Colca Cañon that I didnt have time to share. Some has to do with the animals. Before I went on that rip I couldnt tell an Alpaca from a Vicuña from a Viscacha. I would guess many of you cant either. Vicuñas are pary of the camel family of animals, like Camels, Alpacas and Llamas. The differences are: Vicuñas are a wild, they only come in one color and they have a slightly smaller body and a longer neck that Alpacas or Llamas. Vicuñas are tan all over with white bellies. Alpacas and Llamas look a lot alike and frankly I am still not sure which is which. Vicuña fur is one of, if not the most valuable, of furs. The wild vicuñas are captured and carefully sheared leaving the animal enough fur to keep warm in the high altitudes where they live. A Viscacha, I learned, is a rodent that lives in the high altitudes and it is the size and shape of a rabbit. It even has long ears, shaped slightly different from rabbit ears, but very long nonetheless. And, they have a long tail that they flip around like a squirrels tail only it isnt furry tail like a squirrel, it just has a little tuft on the end. They are very fast and hide among the rocks and I never could get a photo of one.
The condors we saw were incredilbe. Andean Condors are about the same size as California Condors with a wing span of 9-10 feet. However, the Andea condor has a very prominent white collar around its neck. Their red, bald heads, white collars and black bodies with large white stripes that run the length of their huge wings, makes them an incredible sight.

MORE ABOUT CUSCO:
I did not quite appreciate Cusco enough when I was there. In large part because by the time we got there I had flown to Lima, taken an early flight to Arequipa, toured Arequipa, left at 6:00 AM or so to go to Colca Cañon, where we were kept awake during most of the night by the drums and flutes celebration Carnival, hiked around at 14,000 feet, then back to Arequipa and another early flight to Cusco. So, I needed a day or so to slow down in Cusco.
But, Cusco was the capital of the Inca Empire that ran from Ecuador through Peru and into Chile. Cusco was regarded by the Inca culture and religion as the belly-button of the earth. When the Spanish conquered the Inca they razed the Inca religous sights and built lavish, extravagant church and cathedrals over them to show that Christianity was superior of Inca religion. Yet when you tour some of those churchs and cathedrals and see some of the religious art you see how the decendents of the Incas sublity added native and Inca symbols into the art in the churches. For example in a painting of the last supper there in the middle of the table where the main course would be was a guinea pig (a delicacy for indigenous people here) on a plate. The main crucifix has Jesus with the facial features of an Inca, and so on. This relatonship is depicted wonderfully on a T-shirt I saw on a lady at the airport yesterday. When I saw it I laughed out loud and hope I can find one somewhere. I cannot describe it here, due to its somewhat adult content, but if you ask me personally I will be happoy to describe it for you.

MACHU PICCHU:
Machu Picchu means ¨old mountain¨ in the Quechua language, the language of the natives in Peru. You take a train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes that last about 3.5-4 hours. It is a fantastic trip with scenery that is absolutely breath-taking. We had assigned seats on the train and when I found my seat the person sitting next to me had a huge Nikon digital camera, one of the most expensive professional models they make. I knew immediately this was going to be a fun ride. He was from Australia and was taking 6 months to travel around the world photographing. The scenery along the way was beautiful, and frustrating at the same time. We, my new Aussy friend and I, kept wanting the train to stop so we could take pictures. We did the best we could shooting through the train window though.
We arrived at Aguas Cailintes (literally Hot Waters), the town at the foot of the mountain complex where Machu Picchu is located. Our luggage was taken to our hotels while we were herded onto buses for the 20-25 minute ride up the mountain. The problem was we didnt know to expect that we would not go to our hotels first. So we had to hurridly think about what we wanted to take up to Machu--jackets? which one? rain gear? mosquito spray? which camera or cameras and lenses? etc. What resulted was I, and most of us, took too much and regretted it when we started to hike the endless stairs at Macchu.
We were broken into groups based on langauge preference and off we went. The bus snakes up a serpentine road just wide enough for 1 1/2 buses, which made for some interesting encounters with buses coming down. We all survived.
At the top we got off the buses and were about to enter. The entrance to Machu is a little like the entrance to the zoo, any zoo--boothes hocking all kinds of stuff from bottles of water, bug spray, plastic panchos and endless memorabilia. You go past that, and go through to ticket booth. At the ticket both they check your camera. I did not know until that moment that they do not allow professional cameras into Machu as they assume they are for commercial purposes. My cameras passes inspection, but I thought about my Aussy buddy and wondered what happened to him. I was later told they would let you in with a professional camera but you have to pay 800 Soles (the Peruvian dollar) which roughly equals about US $250.00, OUCH!!!
After you pass the ticket gate you walk along a walkway for about 75 yards with jungle growth along both sides, and suddenly without warning there you are, looking out over the city of Macchu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas, and you take a deep breath just stand there in wonder at what is infront of you, and your mind flashes to all of the National Geogaphics or other photos you have seen and you realize that no photo can convey what you see and feel.
Our guide started us up a long, and I do mean LONG, set of stairs that take about a half hour to climb to the upper of three levels--we had been on the mid-level as we entered. It quickly became obvious my legs could not make the trip. There are no hand rails, the stairs a just big round rocks, and even if I got up, Id never get down. Remember I am carrying way too much stuff--two cameras, three lenses and a back pack. So I stayed at the mid level while the rest of the tour went up. I walked around the mid-level and took a lot of pictures. About an hour later I met up with the group again and we toured some more of the mid-level. By that time we were ready for lunch and a break. The guide spoke to me and suggested I meet with her after lunch and we would walk back into Macchu and she would tell me what she had told ethe others while on the upper-level. She certainly did not have to do that. We did meet and she took all the time in the world to give me a very personal explanation of the history and culture of Machu Picchu. I will remember her kindness always.
I went back to my hotel a crashed.
The next day I went into Machu alone and went at my own pace and hiked all over the mid level and part way up the upper level also for about 4.5 hours. That is when I think I got the best photos.
When I finished I went back to Aguas Calientes, had a late lunch, walked around the markets there and took the 5:00 PM train to a town called Ollantaytambo where I was met by the van that took me back to Cusco. I got to Cusco about 9:00 PM and still had not had supper. I found a place to get supper and a Pisco Sour and crashed. At that point I decided to cancel the trip to Lake Titicaca and go to Lima instead. I made arrangements for a flight to Lima and went to the airport to wait. My flight was at 4:30 PM. At 6:00 PM after a number of delays they cancelled the flight and told us we all had to wait until the next day. They began the tediuous prcess of trying to get people hotel rooms and deal with the multiple problems people had with missed connections. Some people, more than just a few, were making connections in Lima with cruise ships to either go to Antarctica or the Panama Canal. For me this was an inconvenience, for some it was a disaster. The next day I got my flight to Lima, stayed at an fairly nice hotel, and started the process to try to change my flight to Quito so I wouldn´t arrive at midnight as currently scheduled. I got an earlier flight, landed in Quito in the early afternoon.
My apartment surely feels like a home away from home. The trip was marvelous in every way and i am ready to get back into the ¨routine¨ of my life here.

REFLECTIONS.
In my blog entries I have shared the things I have done and the places have been and the things I have seen. What is much harder to share is the experience of the people I meet along the way.
Traveling has many rewards and adventues, but one of the most enjoyable parts is the people you meet along the way. Fortunatley I can converse with people in either of two languages. This greatly expands my world. I am not only talking about meeting other tourists, who are mostly wonderful people, but there are others as well: cab drivers, people who work in the hotels and restaurants, the guides, the people you are standing next to in lines waiting to change airline tickets. These people are the color and texture of a place, and when they find out you care enough to learn their language, many of them warm up to you and share something of who they are, what their lives are like, and they ask about me and my life and about life in the US. These are not necesarily deep conversations, they are just the sharing of a few moments of our lives, and a few thoughts and feelings as we pass together through this mystery we call life. I will remember many things from my trip both here and in Peru, and I will forget many as well. But for a few brief moments with another person in another land, with another history and another culture shared a few precious moments of our lives and the said good bye, for ever. It reminds me that all of life, not just traveling, is mostly about the people we meet, share some time and some of ourselves and then say good bye, forever. As many of you know ¨good bye¨ comes from the old English ¨God bye you--God be with you¨. Similarly ¨Adios¨ means literally
¨A Dios¨--to God¨. We meet people, however briefly, and say good bye, giving one another to God.

Adios for now,
Glenn+