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The last big event of our 11-month round-the-world tour was to view the Nazca lines in western Peru. We took an overnight bus to descend the mountains surrounding Cusco to the small coastal town that flanks the mysterious formations. The bus is notorious for inducing nausea so four of the Six took dramamine as we pulled out of the Cusco station on our double decker Flores fiesta on wheels. Ironically and perhaps amusingly to some, the little pink pills knocked 200+-pound Tom out while they had little to no effect on 30-pound Asher and 45-pound Kieran. This wasn’t the result I had hoped for, but it proved viable since as usual the steward fired up the DVD player. His first choice, a 1970’s Hong Kong-Van Damme flick, fortunately didn’t work well and the kids quickly volunteered to provide him with an alternate choice. So for the next hour and a half the entire bus got to take in the glory that is John Tucker Must Die courtesy of the Andrus clan. Fearing food poisoning in our last few days, we avoided the chicken and rice in Tupperware meal and dozed off to sleep.

We woke 8 hours later to yet another unearthly landscape. With only an hour left to go, we managed to keep the contents of our stomachs down…no small feat since the ride was one long series of switchbacks. Our bus was greeted by a select few touts who offered to whisk us away to the airfield nearby for a quick pass over the lines. Seizing this rare opportunity for efficiency in Peruvian travel, we accepted a ride from one and within minutes were signed up for our final big adventure. We watched a video about the Nazca lines and learned that while some think they’re the product of aliens, most believe they had something to do with an ancient agricultural calendar. Whatever their origin, we were excited to see them from above.

Our plane was a small Cessna that seated 6. Tom sat in the co-pilot’s seat. As usual, his tall frame rendered him exempt from kid duty in the back. (There are a select few drawbacks to being 5′2″–low ranking in the seating hierarchy is one of them.) Asher sat on my lap, while the boys each got their own seat. Kieran and Mac occupied the back row, which was about 3 feet wide, but this proved a mistake. As soon as we took off, Kieran began screaming that he couldn’t see. The pilot spoke to us through a microphone wired to our headphones and his speech was difficult to decipher over the din of the engine. By the time Kieran figured out he should be looking for the whale, the whale was long gone. He burst into tears and we promised him we would make sure he didn’t miss anything else.

For the next 30 minutes we banked and circled in a series dizzying of maneuvers that gave us a first rate view of all of the famous figures–the astronaut, the hummingbird, the dog, and my personal favorite, the monkey. Other travelers had warned us that the lines were underwhelming, but we felt quite the opposite. While the figures are smaller than many people expect, they are nonetheless a feat of artistry and engineering that defy logic and baffle the mind. Staring up from the arid, rocky plain, they challenge viewers to come up with their own theories of why they exist and what they mean. More amazing to me than their intended message is their continued existence. The lines remain just as their creators left them over 1400 years ago owing to the unique climate and topography of the Nazca Desert. The plain receives less than 1 inch of rain per year and the surface is protected from potentially damaging winds by a rocky covering. The ancient artisans left their mark by simply pushing the iron-coated rocks to the side and exposing the lighter colored ground beneath. With nothing to erase them, the lines have endured, though global warming, grave robbers, and overzealous developers all pose modern risks to these ancient treasures.

After our little plane landed, we all agreed we were glad we had spent the money to see what is certainly one of the world’s most intriguing manmade wonders. We parted with our tout, who had engaged in a little trickery when it came to the matter of the airport tax, and rode back to town in a 1970’s-era Dodge Charger with a lovely old Peruvian gentleman. (Can you say “sweet ride”?) We watched the tired old SUTEP protestors march from the second floor of a restaurant on the main square and were thankful that their chanting might well be the last we would hear before leaving the country.

At 2:40 pm we boarded the last bus of our 320-day trip, a Cruz del Sur luxury liner to Lima. As if the ancient Nazcan water gods knew our time on the road was coming to an end, the first movie of the ride was She’s the Man, a family favorite, and I won the on-board Bingo tournament. Woo hoo! My reward was a souvenir bottle of Pisco Sour, which, since we don’t drink, was destined to become a tip for the maid at the Lima Sheraton. Even with all the good bus karma, the ride was bittersweet. With every kilometer that passed, Tom and I realized we were that much closer to Atlanta and what we thought would be the end of our adventure and the beginning of life as usual. Little did we know things would turn upside down once we got home…

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Peru, Nazca Lines, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

We made it to Machu Picchu! We pulled out of Cusco at 7:00 am and an hour and a half later were deep in the Sacred Valley at the town of Ollantaytambo, boarding point for our train to Machu Picchu. The roads were oddly quiet, populated only by the occasional cow or goat. Nowhere were the chanting, marching protestors of previous days. After a tough week of rabblerousing, they had granted themselves a weekend reprieve and were apparently sleeping off some of their rage. Lucky us.

All we could think as we boarded our Valley Vistadome train was, “I sure hope this is worth all the effort…and the money.” You see, as far as world wonders go, Machu Picchu is by far the most expensive to visit. We thought the Taj Mahal was bad at $15 each and that Angkor was steep at $40 for a three-day pass but neither of these gems required us to take an $80 train ride followed by a $12 bus ride only to fork over $40 for a 1-day admission ticket. Would the site live up to its hype?

To ensure that we could maximize our time at the ruins and give it the best chance at impressing us, I booked two nights at Gringo Bill’s Hostal in the town of Aguas Calientes, the remote yet vibrant village from which the bus departs. Staying at the base of the mountain would allow us to take one of the first busses up the mountain in the morning and one of the last down in the afternoon. This way we would have a few hours free of the thundering hordes of tour groups who typically arrive on the morning train around 9:00 or 10:00 and leave by 2:00 or 3:00. This proved one of the best strategies of the entire trip because simply stated, Machu Picchu blew us away!

The kids weren’t thrilled that we woke them at 6:00 am. They slept on the 30-minute ride up the mountain and emerged groggy but ready to explore. We took a few minutes to get our bearings and then hightailed it toward Huayna Picchu (the young mountain). We weren’t all that sure what Huayna Picchu was, but we knew that only 400 people per day got to climb it, and I’ll be darned if we wern’t going to be 6 of those 400. We waited in line for 20 minutes and signed in as numbers 181-184. Kieran and Asher didn’t receive numbers because technically they were too young to count. The guard warned us in Spanish that only people over 12 were allowed on the trail but was fine with our group as long as we promised to hold the little ones by the hand. Kieran and Asher are experienced hikers from their summers in Utah and we were confident in their ability to make the trek.

Though I worried the sun might never break through, the misty cloud cover kept us cool as our heart rates climbed. The serpentine path descended down a narrow strip of land across to the base of the mountain and then began the steep ascent to the summit. There were a few flat spots, but for the most part the hike was one long, winding staircase. Asher began counting the steps and after each 100, we would stop and take a break. Kieran didn’t really buy into the counting and wanted to stop every 10 steps, but eventually Tom coaxed him into counting by 10’s to 600. The tight Inca pathways proved tougher on the big people than they did on the little ones as the stairs were designed for feet much smaller than size 11. An hour and a half later we reached the peak and were greeted by a mindnumbing view. Lushly vegetated mountain peaks loomed on all sides, dense, moisture-laden clouds hung heavy in the sky above, and spread out like a model on a drawing table below sat the speckled, labyrthine ruins of Machu Picchu. We took a deep breath, trying not to inhale the smoke of a nearby traveler’s joint, and marveled at our collective accomplishment.

We know not only Kieran and Asher were the youngest people to ascend Huayna Picchu that day but also that Tom and I were the oldest to play hide and seek in the ruins below. After our experience at Pisac, we promised the little two that we would make the most of the elaborate stone walls by turning them into a playground. We chose an elevated area of three-windowed houses that offered row upon row of prime hiding spots. Asher counted first, assisted by McKane, and we all scattered to different parts of the complex. I chose a remote room which I thought would take her at least 5 minutes to reach. My strategy proved sound though for different reasons than I first thought. Within seconds of settling into the corner of the structure, the family of llamas that had been grazing through the buildings wandered into my room and began chomping on the few weeds that protruded from the earthen floor. Two groups of tourists, one Peruvian and one American, followed them in and began snapping pictures. I motioned for them to pretend I wasn’t there, and sure enough, with the room full and bustling with activity Asher and McKane passed right by.

For the next round during which Kieran was counting, I figured I needed a far less conspicuous hiding place. I chose a small crawl space situated between three knee-high stone walls. I laid on my belly, whipped out my guidebook, and began reading about the ruins surrounding me. Within minutes, the llamas had found me once again and were poking their heads over the wall to nibble the grass on either side of me. I tried to contain my laughter but passersby heard me giggling and raised their eyebrows in wonder at the strange American woman lounging on the ground with the resident mammals. It took the kids much longer to find me this time, but from then on they realized that finding me was as simple as locating the llamas. Just call me the pied piper.
Our day at the ruins was magical and we made the most of every minute, staying almost until closing time, when only a few devoted travelers remained. The only hiccup in our otherwise perfect experience came at lunchtime. We brought a backpack full of snacks but planned on eating at the lodge restaurant, which an American at our hotel in Cusco had told us was only 29 sols (about $10) per person. This was expensive, but we figured it would be worth it to fill up on decent eats in this most memorable of settings. We made our way to the lodge (where rooms are over $ 700 a night) only to find that that our confused, tour-guide led friend had gotten the price wrong. It was not 29 sols but 29 DOLLARS per person. Oops. We may have been hungry, but there was no way we were going to spend $180 for lunch. Instead we bought a few $6 burgers and $3 sodas at the snack bar and reminded ourselves some things are too good to be true.

At the end of the day we decided that no matter what the price, wonder is just that…wonder. Nickel and diming tourists to appreciate it seems poor international relations, but in the case of Machu Picchu, the reward is still well worth the price. As long as the trains and busses keep running, people will keep dodging the rocks and tear gas to reach this most enchanting and mystical of places.

Technorati Tags: Cusco, Family travel, Machu Picchu, New Seven Wonders, Ollantaytambo, Peru, Huayna Picchu, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Wonders of the World

Our bus ride to Cusco from Puno was yet another lesson in Latin American politics for our family. While at the time we viewed the hassles as a travel novelty, we later realized how lucky we were to make the journey unscathed. The strikers did not turn violent against us personally but we learned that they had killed two policemen in Puno the day before. (That would account for the heavy presence of shotguns on the brigade who led our caravan.) Likewise the mild-mannered little schoolteachers we passed in Juliaca went on a rampage after we left them, setting cars on fire and seizing an entire airport. Though unassuming in appearance, these angry, test-fearing educators can get downright nasty.

Many of our companions on our Floating Islands excursion in Puno boarded night busses to Cusco immediately following the tour. This was before the strikes erupted and none of us suspected any problems. In a wave of parental caution, however, Tom and I opted for the day bus, since crashes on Peru’s mountain roads are commonplace. We figured navigating the winding route during daylight was a safer bet than doing so under cloak of darkness, and as it turns out, we were right. We didn’t write about this at the time…we figured all the info about the strikes was frightening enough for the grandparents…but two Cusco-bound busses crashed in the early morning hours before we left Puno. We noticed one a few hours outside Cusco, a double decker with its windshield blown out and front right quadrant smashed. It didn’t look too serious, but there were no passengers around to tell their tale.

When we got to Cusco and did a little research, we learned that the bus we saw had crashed around midnight. The passengers, mostly tourists, had been forced to wait by its side guarding their baggage until another bus arrived five hours later to retrieve them. Far worse was another accident, which we fortunately did not see, in which 14 people were killed. SUTEP protestors had begun placing rocks in the road before sunrise and an unsuspecting driver lost control of his bus when he encountered them. The protestors we passed in Juliaca had chanted that the president had the blood of those who died in the streets on his hands, a curious transferance of blame for their dangerous misdeeds.

Our first task in Cusco was to reschedule our Machu Picchu trip. There are two ways in to the revered site: the first is via the Inca Trail, a hike we knew our little people couldn’t make and which books up months in advance. The second is the train, for which a limited number of high-priced seats are available. When PeruRail cancelled one day’s trains due to the strike, everyone with tickets for that day got priority for rescheduling for future days. By the time the dust settled, we had tickets for 3 days later than we had expected, no great tragedy but a stress nonetheless. Fortunately Gringo Bill’s, our hotel in Aguas Calientes, the village at the base of the mountain, could shift our reservation and our new home in Cusco, the Royal Inka I, made room to accommodate us for a few extra nights.

McKane and I wandered the city streets the first day trying to fulfill a number of important tasks. In the end, all we succeeded in doing was dodging a steady stream of chanting, tire-burning, 2×4-wielding protestors and meeting up with fellow travelers from Bolivia. Everyone had stories to tell and was praying the rails would reopen so they could get to Machu Picchu before their flights home. Though I was frustrated we were having to waste a day bypassing chanters and handling logistics, McKane was in his element. The two things he loves most about travel–shopping and meeting people–were in rich supply on the streets of Cusco.

The next day the cars returned to the city streets (they had been blockaded the day before), the trains started running (though one was derailed, two were turned back, and others had rocks thrown at them), and we got to know Cusco. We bought the pricey tourist tickets that granted us entry to 16 different sites and were disappointed to discover our $23 each didn’t include any of the town’s churches. In the past few years some “museums” that are more like grade school art exhibitions have replaced the churches on the tourist ticket, so a new “churches only” ticket can be sold at a price of $11. We visited the museums of folk art, contemporary art, and local history and the Convent of Santa Catalina (which the kids found creepy) before calling it a day. We were underwhelmed by the museum offerings but eager to venture outside the city to the ancient Inca ruins.

Of the many options available, we chose to travel to the ruins of Pisac, an Inca citadel about an hour outside Cusco. We hopped a cab in the early afternoon and had the ruins virtually to ourselves. Protestors had been blocking other routes in to the Sacred Valley and generally messing up the standard tour bus routes, so arriving independently proved a wise choice on our part. We hiked the trails that snaked through the hillside fortress, soaked up the sacred vibe at the captivating Temple of the Sun, and played hide and seek amongst the crumbling stone walls overlooking Pisac’s massive agricultural terraces.

As we wandered, we talked about the Incas, the Spanish, and the surprising versatility of ancient ruins. How could the Incas have guessed that 700 years after they constructed them, their stone masterpieces would become a playground for gringos? Probably no more than our Cambodian guide, Ponheary Ly’s, Khmer ancestors anticipated that she and her friends would play hide and seek in the tree-covered halls of Angkor in the fateful days before Pol Pot’s seizure of power. The Incas certainly did not anticipate their demise at the hands of the Spanish, but their striking craftsmanship stands as a legacy that reminds all those who visit they were an advanced and formidable civilization.

We drifted off to sleep our final night in Cusco, our minds filled with the rich yet conflicting images of Baroque art, Inca stonework, and chanting teachers. We hoped that when the morning arrived, the modern day Peruvians would clear the roads and rails long enough to grant us access to the pinnacle of all Peruvian sites–the ancient mountain itself. If not, perhaps we would have to join other anguished tourists and blaze an Inca trail of our own.

We breathed a collective sigh of relief as we crossed the border into Peru, hoping that our final country would offer relief from the problems that had plagued us in Senor Morales’ socialist mountain dominion. For the first few days we lived in idyllic ignorance and soaked up the flavors of Puno, the gritty city perched on the northwestern shore of the world’s highest navigable lake, Lake Titicaca. We had hoped to view the lake from the more picturesque location of Copacabana, Bolivia, but there was no way we were going to risk getting trapped behind strike lines again. So we resigned ourselves to our less charming yet politically more stable location and settled into a wonderful little hotel complete with a fireplace in the lobby to stave off the bitter nighttime chill and a windowed 6th floor dining room that offered sweeping views of the formidable waters.

Almost everybody who tours Peru passes through Puno, but I’m not sure anybody really likes it. We found the people reserved, the food bland, and the weather dreary, something unusual for this time of year. In the midst of the sleet and gloom, we booked the city’s one obligatory tour–a boat trip to the floating islands of Uros. In the waning light of the afternoon, we boarded a motorboat along with about 15 other tourists for the 30 minute ride to the islands. Our guide, Herman, pointed listlessly to a map and explained in a nasal monotone that Titicaca means “puma stone” in Quechua. “But be sure to pronounce the ‘c’ as a hard ‘k,’” he explained. “If you say the softer ‘c’ “or you’ll be saying ‘puma poop.’”

The Uros Islands were first constructed over 500 years ago by pre-Incan people seeking refuge from invaders. They constructed the islands out of the lake’s ubiquitous, buoyant totora reeds by anchoring them to clods of root-enmeshed dirt. In times of calm, they anchored them to the lake floor using ropes and sticks, while in times of danger, they simply cut them loose and floated away. A few hundred descendents of the Uros remain on the 43 islands today, but most of their relatives have chosen to take up life on the mainland. Those who have stayed do so mainly to cater to tourists who find their squishy, bobbing existence baffling.

We found the islands interesting but recognized that the steady stream of visitors over the years has permanently altered the lives of the inhabitants. They did not so much feel like a people untouched by time as a group cloying for the money of tourists. The women hawked wares shipped in from Puno, the men offered rides on boats woven from totora weed, and the children madly colored on tiny pieces of paper which they then begged us to buy. It would be naive to assume that any people could preserve an ancient lifestyle in a modern, commercialized world, but it’s still disheartening to encounter a people so clearly defined by their catering to passersby.

Titicaca has many permanent islands which we did not visit and we hear the people there live lives more consistent with those of their ancestors. The Isla del Sol off the coast of Copacabana is one of the most spiritually significant sites in South America both for Catholics who revere it as a pilgrimage site and indigenous people who view it as the birthplace of Inca culture and mythology. The most intriguing thing for us about Titicaca, however, was the fact that Bolivian Navy (yes those two words are indeed an oxymoron) uses the lake for training exercises since their country is landlocked, i.e., they have no ocean shores nor access to naval waters. The Bolivians have never really gotten over losing their coastline to the Chileans in the late 1800s and many still harbor dreams of winning it back. When zany Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez visited a few months ago, he stoked Bolivian delusions by claiming he would one day lounge on a Bolivian beach. We’re not putting any money on Bolivia staging a comeback anytime soon, especially since its people can’t seem to move beyond hurling sticks of dynamite, demanding free gas, and throwing rocks, but I suppose stranger things have happened. In this part of the world, nothing should come as a surprise.

Back on land in Puno, we noticed the town square was filled with noisy, banner-toting folks, who we thought might be part of a religious procession (they were gathering outside a church) or institutional celebration. Little did we know, a storm was brewing that would make our Bolivian troubles seem trifling and wash away our Peruvian peace in a flood of political discontent.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Floating Islands, Lake Titicaca, Peru, Puno, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Uros Islands

It seems it has become my job to write posts about busses. I have written about busses in China, Thailand, Turkey, and now South America. As you probably know if you have read our previous posts, the Devil’s bus company, Todo Turismo, chucked us in the middle of Bolivia at 3:00 in the morning with no immediate way out. After our fight with them, which got us absolutely nowhere, we decided that we would skip La Paz entirely and hop a couple busses through Chile to Peru, a task much easier said than done. Joining us on our excursion were Simon and Bluesy, a couple of Oxford guys doing a South American tour and a Frenchman who we think is named Stephan but aren’t quite sure because he rarely if ever talked. Our plan consisted of hopping a bus from Oruro to Iquique, Chile then getting another to Arica, Chile, another to Tacna, Peru, another to Arequipa, Peru, and finally a last to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca.

Our first task would be to find a way out of the dreary mining town of Oruro, so a contingent headed over to the bus station as the sun was rising around 7:00 am. Unfortunately for us the first bus out of Oruro wasn’t until 11:30. We managed to stage a sit-in in the Todo Turismo office until this time. The employees were not happy since they had planned on forcing us all into cabs and leaving at 3:00, but Simon and Dad made it clear we weren’t going anywhere. The employees just played cards while we hatched our escape plan, ate the Oreos we were supposed to receive on the bus, did internet research on their computer, and continued to question why they had abandoned us in this unseemly town.

When the appointed hour arrived, we hopped on the bus to Iquique and bade a bitter and not so sweet farewell to the challenged country of Bolivia. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t the most pleasant of busses. (Bolivian busses are not known for their comfort.) It had little leg room, and I swear the bus driver must have been drunk or just out of Bolivian driver’s ed. He dodged and weaved on the mostly unpaved roads and we struggled to keep our Oreos down. Four hours later in the middle of the desert, we made yet another unpleasant border crossing, which took quite some time due to Chile’s super strict customs restrictions.

We finally arrived in our first stop, Iquique, at 9 pm. We immediately booked a bus to Arica and went out to find some food. The best place we found was a pizza parlor that was open late. The rest of the town was already closed for the night. We ate heartily due to the fact we had eaten nothing earlier in the day, watched some of the Copa America Cup, and waited for our 1:00 am departure.

We left the pizza place around 12:30 and started to make our way to the pickup point…not the actual bus station but a hole in the wall across from the central market. A street sweeper warned the us the way we had chosen to walk was “peligro” so we changed our route. It was eerie wandering through the silent, graffitti-ridden, Chilean streets, but we had little choice in the matter and figured if nothing else, there was safety in numbers. Our motley crew arrived early with high hopes for our first real Chilean bus. When we boarded, however, we were utterly disappointed. We had heard Chile had some of the world’s best busses, but this one was more like a Greyhound from the 50’s that had at one time or another been abandoned in the middle of the desert only to be found again and put back into service. Fortunately we managed to sleep through the majority of this bus ride and awoke around 6:00 am to another sunrise and the sight of the Arica bus station. From here we attempted to find a ticket to Tacna across the Peruvian border, a difficult task. Everyone had a different story. One misguided desk worker trying to sell us a ticket all the way through even told us that the ride from Arequipa to Puno was only one hour (it turned out to be closer to seven).

We found a nice tourist information guy who hooked us up with some cars to take us to the Chile-Peru border. These colectivos cost $6 for each of us (more expensive than a lot of bus tickets) and were mostly old 1980’s Chrysler K cars, something I never knew existed but my vintage ’80’s parents found funny. Our driver was really nice and guided us through one of the oddest border crossings we’ve encountered. It involved being dropped off by the colectivo on one side, waiting in a long line and then getting stamped out of Chile, getting back in the taxi and waiting in another line and getting stamped into Peru. Once in Tacna, yet another dreary desert town, we split up with Stephan, who had booked the expensive bus from Arica, and took a local bus with Simon and Bluesy to Arequipa.

As soon as we got on the bus, we noticed something strange. There was a woman spreading clothes all over the bus and spraying them with some liquid from a bottle. An old man sitting in the back started placing bags on the overhead shelves in the front and middle of the bus, creating a perimeter around us. We started moving his bags back towards the back of the bus where he was sitting. As soon as we were finished doing this he moved them right back. Suspecting a thieving scheme in the works, we confronted him and asked “Why are you putting your bags here?” He responded, “My wife!” We then moved the bags once again, and this time he didn’t try and move them back.

This bus, although brand new and equipped with TVs, was full of locals doing weird things. We decided we would be better off to keep our eyes open and stay awake the entire ride just to be sure none of our bags walked away. This turned out to be a good strategy because every 10 minutes or so the bus would stop and a long line of salespeople would board. They would walk up and down the aisle displaying their goods, usually bizarre food items and warm drinks. The steward showed three movies–Benchwarmers, Firewall, and Assault on Precinct 13–which helped us stay awake during the 6 hour ride. We arrived in Arequipa with all our possessions in tact but were tired and sick of busses (we had been on them for almost 2 whole days). Here we split up with Simon and Bluesy; they continued on to Puno while we decided to take a rest and stop over in Arequipa for the night (don’t worry…we would run into them again in Cusco). We were finished with busses for the moment, but our plagued relationship with these giant pieces of steel would all too soon resume.

Technorati Tags: Bolivia, bus, Bus travel, Chile, Family travel, Peru, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

Fortunately we booked our Machu Picchu tickets for the weekend, during which the strikers took a brief reprieve from their mayhem-making. (Our visit was amazing and we’ll document it in full within the next week.) We exited our train in Ollantaytambo this morning only to be greeted by a small legion of riot police. Apparently things are flaring back up now that the work week has returned. The demonstrators marching on the Plaza De Armas in Cusco around noon were chanting something about Machu Picchu, but our rudimentary Spanish didn’t allow us to decipher what it was. The country loses $500K each day Machu Picchu is closed, so they must have their sights set on hitting where it hurts.

We are boarding a bus for the 12-hour ride to Nazca where we hope to fly over the lines tomorrow morning before heading on to Lima in the afternoon. The ride took one American couple 22 hours last week when they got caught in the middle of the blockades. Their group of travelers actually took a few hostages from amongst the protestors before things resolved. Madness.

This is just a quick realtime update. We are minutes away from Machu Picchu. We passed piles of rocks and broken glass on the road but arrived problem free. We still might get stuck here, but I can think of worse places to be stuck.

Peru is exploding in civil unrest and we’re smack dab in the middle of it. The protestors we passed in Juliaca laid siege to the airport and set cars and trucks on fire. Arequipa, the perfect little town I wanted to get back to, is completely blockaded. People have been stranded in the bus station for 2 days and the airport is surrounded by tanks. Lima has been turned upside down by protestors who, one traveler wrote today, have tagged all the historic buildings. The teachers who don’t want to get fired if they fail a basic skills test THREE times have been joined by construction workers, farmers, and anyone else with a bone to pick with the President.

Despite the fact that Peru Rail took $400 from us for train tickets yesterday and the tourist board took $120 from me today for Machu Picchu tickets, it looks highly unlikely we’ll make it there. The latest info we can find on the internet says that Peru Rail has suspended operations to Machu Picchu after strikers tried to take the station today and have blocked the tracks with rocks (there is a seemingly infinite supply of stone here). The most frustrating thing is that we can’t get a straight story from anyone. Everyone in the hotel and tourist information center acts as if things will magically resolve, but President Garcia called out the army today and the local news reports matters are only getting worse (as best we can figure given our limited Spanish). And we thought Bolivia was crazy!

Cusco isn’t a bad place to be stranded but we have no idea how we’re going to make it to Lima for our flight home next week. We can’t get a bus to anywhere else in the country and we don’t have any flights booked. Lima isn’t looking like that attractive of a destination at the moment anyway. I’ve emailed the consular representative here to get some advice, but for the time being all we can say is “This is madness.” 11 months on the road without incident and we get this in our final 10 days!