A Day of my Life in Cusco, Peru
September 8, 2006
I awaken at first light to someone shouting out a mantra in Spanish welcoming back the sun. He is undoubtedly coming home from the ceremony for the full moon from the night before up the hill at the Temple de Luna.
The streets below our room (10/s per night) come alive early this Saturday morning and soon I am up to pray and practice my morning routine. I spend an hour writing my account of our group experience over the last two weeks and work on a plant inventory of the retreat center we stayed at in the sacred valley. I eat bananas and raisins from my previous day at the market.
By mid-morning I head out to the Centro Mercado for fresh juice from one of the 12o ladies there who makes juice for a living. I have two glasses of carrot, beet, fresh alfalfa, and maca (2/s) and then move about the market buying fruit and bread. I feel right at home though still amazed after countless visits at the vibrancy and life of this market that meets most of the needs and wants of the people.
I walk down the Rio del Sol to the Centro Artisan Mercado and find a friendly clothes maker and design with him a bag to hold my flute. He is happy to apply his skills to my wishes and comes up the next day with a fine result. (15/s) Heading back to the hostel I check on my flight in a few days. At the room I take a quick power nap as I am still acclimating to this 10,000 ft high, polluted city. Then I work on my projects some more, filter some water and bid farewell to two from our circle flying off to Lake Titicaca. I check in with my assistant Christina who is just getting over a digestive ailment.
In the afternoon I head out for a journey to some pre-Incan ruins. On the way I stop at a vegetarian restaurant, Nuevo Mundo, for their set lunch: veggie sopa, pan integral, papas fritas con verdas, fava frios, and ensalada followed by arroz and veggie fritas con jugos y mate. All this for 3/s—clearly labors of love. Then off to my bus which climbs up the ridge away from Cusco some kilometers past Chinchero (3/s).
I catch a group taxi to a small town called Maras (1/s). There everyone gets out and the cab driver explains to me through informal international hand signs, head gestures and everything else my situation. There are apparently no public transports to the ruins or to the other place of my desire—a natural salt extraction center named Salinas Maras. For 50/s he is happy to take me to both places and back to the bus to Cusco. Yowch. We negotiate down to 30/s and agree that we will part at the salt pools and I will make my way to the road 4 km down the mountain.
So off we went cruising through the back roads 10 km out into the country to a huge amphitheater-like place nestled in the Andean mountains. I spend an hour there walking down into its center down rock steps. From there I felt called to prayer and oration. It was apparently used to grow crops and acclimate them up and down the mountains and in this way increase the distribution of both high mountain cultivars as well as jungle crops. It is windy and dry but I enjoy the visit and slow down with some of the native plants around the rim.
Then off we drive to Salinas Maras in search of its salts. This takes us to the edge of the mountains above the Sacred Valley. From above I can see the white vein of mineral deposits and we slowly wind our way down to them. I am amazed by the creative way they catch the mineralized warm water and directed into hundreds of pools which cooled and crystallized and then were drained to make available the reddish-white Andean salt.
I pay my driver and the 5/s entrance fee, receive a detailed set of instructions on how to get to the road I can see way in the distance down the hill and across a river. My main concern other than never having done it before is making the distance before dark. Already I could feel the sun getting low and evening not so far away. Without further ado I take off following a small white trail that winds its way along the pools. I stay down in the salt zone as I was instructed to do and make my way along. I can’t help taking a few pictures of this natural wonder and sustainer of life. I also capture a few shots of the workers whose job it is to gather up these crystals and bag them up to send off to the cities.
Eventually I make it to the last set of pools that then drop away to a small gorge and at its bottom a white stream bed flowing. Here I cut over to a small dirt road and follow a small group of native people with their pack animals down, down to the valley below. Every few minutes I am amazed by some plant I am passing—a native tobacco, a cucurb in fruit, a different species of Opuntia cactus. These I try to capture on film.
At the river I find a bridge with a small road that takes me up to the paved road. I arrive just a bit before dark and hail a collective taxi which takes me to the closest town where I catch a bus back to Cusco.
I arrive a couple hours later than I had planned but that is one of the risks of adventure. No loss. I eat some dinner and soon after head off to bed after a day of adventure.
FCC
(1/nueva sol is worth about 30 cents.)