Note: this is taken from emails sent in 2001. Hemi
hello dear friends,
after a short break in my reports, due to various reasons, i now resume mysotrytelling accompanied by Paola who has recently joined me after traversing the atlantic 2 times too many (but we shall touch upon that a bit later)
i left bolivia some 2 weeks ago and reached Cusco were i planned to rest abit and do some white water rafting, anticipating paola´s arrival.
the rafting
i took a 4 day rafting tour with an agency that is for some reason a magnetfor israelis (eric adventures). out of 12 participants, 11 were sabras andone british fellow that was truly an interesting bloke.
we set off on a friday morning, on a 5 hour drive through the peruvian mountainside, which was incredibly beautiful. the poor dirt road was stillmuch better than what i had been accustomed to in bolivia.
we reached the APURIMAC river at noon, and began to inflate the rafts.
i must say that the safety measures taken by the company were very impressive. aside from the lifejackets, wetsuits and helmets, there was an extra guide manning a small safety kayak to pick up any one who fell off the rafts. we also had another guide manning a cargo boat. each raft had a guide and 6 worthy adventurers. the greatest danger were the mosquitos…
but seriously, the apurimac is considered one of the top white water rivers in the world, and has some great class 4 and 5 rapids (rapids are classified 1-5, with 5 being the hardest to cross – a mix of technical difficulty and water velocity). the level of difficulty increased as the days progressed,and the last day we did rapids which have become famous and even have nicknames – “toothache”, “last laugh” and others.
we would raft for about 5 hours a day, and the rest of the time relax onriverside beaches were we camped at nights. the group was really fun and even though i thought i would get israeli-toxicated, the bunch were realltfine and not noisy.
when we return to israel, you are all invited to see the movie depicting our brave descent down the river (one of the guides filmed us..)
waiting in cusco
we got back to cusco on monday evening and proceeded to celebrate our safe return at a local pub-disco. before that i went to a local peluqueria (barbershop) and had my beard shaved off – paola hates it when i scratch her.
at teh disco, the brit and one of the guides drank more than the entire population of small cities in israel during an entire month !!! we danced and raved and drank and had us a jolly good time, totally unaware that in a few hours the world trade center would be erased from lower manhattan.
i woke up on sept 11, just about the time tower 2 was hit. on my way to the toilet i passed thru the reception were the receptionist was pointing at the tv and saying something that sounded bad but i did not understand. after emptying my bladder, i looked at the tv and immediately understood that paola´s arrival in cusco the following morning was in danger.
unfortunately for me, my hunch was right. paola happened to be somewhere over the atlantic when the “shit hit the fan”. from her account “20 minutes prior to planned touchdown in NYC, the pilot said i am afraid i have some bad news. at this point paola almost fainted, as she espected to hear of a double engine failure or something of the sort. so hearing that trouble was elsewhere, was a bit of a relief.”
but the pilot informed the passengers that the flight was redirected to canada. they landed in newfoundland in st. johns island , on the east coast.
paola spent 14 hours (!) waiting in the plane for further instructions before being let out. 27 planes had landed in the island which had no infrastructure for such an amount.
to the canadians praise, they quickly organized themselves and took great care of their unexpected guests. the passengers were takem to a local highschool or churches. paola was given a gym matress to sleep on and later on some basic hygenic supplies. when it became apparant that she would spend more than just the night, local volunteers took her and other for some sightseeing, which included a shopping spree at the local mall, and a dance-bar in the second evening.
on the 13th, paola received some good news – her plane was one of the first to leave canada, but unfortunately not to the USA but back to brussels. to make a long story short (but not too much) in brussels she got a 5 star hotel for 2 nights, and through great work of family and travel agents, managed to get a flight to lima from brussels via madrid.
meanwhile in cusco i was climbing up the walls. in the first few hours we did not know if international flights had been hijacked as well and i was quite concerned. only after paola called her parents from the satellite phone in the plane, did we know she was ok. then it was just a matter of time, but the uncertainty certainly racked our nerves, in peru in canada and
in israel.
but all is well that ends well. since i could not wait any more, i flew to lima to wait for paola there, and spent 24 hours prior to her arrival exploring the city. contrary to popular belief and stories i had heard, lima is relly great, and in some places very safe. the evening of the 14th i joined a memorial service and procession for the american tragedy (the US ambassador to Peru knows great spanish, but has a horrible accent).
rendevouz with my wife
on saturday the 15th in the afternoon, paola finally made it to peru. it took over 5 days and 40 hours in airplane seats, but the wait was worth it for us both 🙂
we finally began our honeymoon. (paola has notified me that technically it is now going to be less than a month, so we will probably have to take another month off pretty soon!)
after spending the night in lima, we flew out to cusco, which by this time i had intimate knowledge of.
Cusco and the sacred valley
we spent sunday afternoon strolling in the beautiful (paola adds – but smelly) streets of this inca capital turned spanish city. many buildings are built upon old inca stones and the diversity of architectural styles is quite interesting. a famous pedestrian walkway is called “gringo alley” but the israelis have a different name for it “simtat ha-metzikim” (pestering alley) because of all the locals that try to sell you stuff, from a meal in a restraunt to cigarettes, to internet, to cnadies, and even one guy gently offering “ahi – samim?” (brother – drugs?)
the next morning we bought a tourist tour ticket to various attractions in the cusco area, including museums, cathedrals and most importantly archeological ruins. we spent the morning visiting city places and after an interesting lunch went up to the ruins, just outside cusco.
lunch was had at a local nontourist “restaurant”. it cost about one fourth of a tourist lunch (1 dollar pp) and it was really tasty to 50% of us (!) I wonder how the acclaimed restaurant critic Daniel Rogov would decribe the place – “the many flies blended in well with the rancid smells emerging from the restrooms, which were only superceded by even worse odors from the tiny kitchen, where the ample portions are cooked in huge greasy pots…. with a superb bottle of inca cola(2001, with gentle hints of bubble gum) the meal reached a fair price of $2.50, i will certainly visit this establishment again.”
so after puking (just kidding) we went to Sacsayhuman, an archeological sight just overlooking cusco. we call it sexy woman, its much easire to remember. at all the sites , a guide usually waits for gringos and then offers himself for a few bucks. we chanced upon a really good one (compared to the ones we would later encounter), who really made the visit much more interesting by showing us the meanings of many of the findings.
when we finished we still had a few more hours of daylight left so we rented 2 horses and a 13 yr old guide, niko, who took us to 3 more sites. i was really scared at first because i got the wild horse, but paola soothed me, she has many years of experience in horseback riding for the israeli olympic team!!! 🙂
the next morning we took a local bus to Pisac, another archaeology site. the ride was a first for Paola, as she encountered the meaning of “body-odor” when some cholas (local women in traditional clothes) happened to stand next to her for the 1 hour ride. The ruins at Pisac were very interesting, and the 2 hour walk down back to the village was breathtaking. Pisac also has a great artesan market, where we bought some souvenirs.
we proceeded to the next town Ollentaytambo, via a town called urubamba. by the time i managed to pronounce the name correctly, we already got there (about 1 hour by minibus). we explored the ruins here as well, and felt we were now mentally prepared for the jewel of the diamond – machu picchu.
we took a train (expensive, only for tourists) to Aguas Calientes which is at the foot of the the famous inca city mountain. arriving at 11pm we took up a hostel for a few hours, because we woke up at 4am (!) to make it up the mountain for sunrise at 6am.
Machu Picchu
we started walkin at 4:30am down a dark dirt road, with a flashlight to scare away the boogyman and see what we are stepping on. as light started infiltrating the dark we began peeling off layers of warm clothes. after 30m minutes of a straight road we reached the mountain were we proceeded to climb 100s of steps which lead to the ancient city´s entrance. it was very
humid and we were climbing into a cloud. as dawn broke in the beautiful mountain began to appear. paola claims she had a rough time climbing, but i was quite content with her progress. we reached the entrance at 6:15, after sunrise, but since everything was shrouded in clouds, it did not matter. the sun would make its first appearance only 2 hours later. this is no to say that the view was not awesome. shreds of fog and clouds appeared and disappeared covering and uncovering the magnificent city.
history – m.p. is a complete inca city. it had remained intact due to the fact that the spaniard conquistadors never discovered it an thus did not pillage and ruin it. the city was in fact discovered only in 1911 by an american archaeologist-explorer. today it is one of perus moneymaking machines, everything costs alot – entrance fee ($20), the train back to cusco ($30) and other miscellaneous expenses.
after enjoying a relatively quiet hour, more and more tourist began to arrive. at first it was groups that came from another side, having finished a grueling 4 day “inca trail”, and later busses unloading all those too lazy or too weak to walk up.
we hooked up to one of the groups that had come from the inca trail as their guide took us throught the ruins. this lasted about 2.5hrs after which we no longer want to hear about any ruins or sun-gods for the next few days.
we took the bus down back to aguas calientes. a little boy no more than 10years old escorted us by chasing the bus – this he did by running down the trail (which we earlier has ascended) and at each intersection with the road would scream something in indian. at the bottom, the driver allowed him to board the bus and collect small change from the sympathetic tourist. i also gave him our water.
the train back to cusco passed through all the places we had visited but we were too tired to really take in any more scenery.
that was yesterday evening.
today we flew in to Arequipa, and more stories will follow soon. we are going to get some dinner.
bye for now, and gmar hatima tova.
Paola and Hemi