We went down the Amazon river to get to the Tahuayo Lodge.  The ride was 3 hours. One of our favorite hang out spots at the lodge ended up being the entry deck where we liked to watch for birds. 

We also went on boat rides and looked for birds there too. The birds were amazing; my favorite was the slate colored hawk.

     Some of the other things we did were: hiking, zip-lining, insect and animal spotting, and feeding monkeys. One of the monkeys named Chepa, the second biggest, hopped down on the ground and stole all the bananas.  Dorila, the biggest monkey, was in the black market being sold for a pet, but someone bought him and gave him to the sanctuary. Kobe and Chepa were pets in a family with two kids and two parents; they decided not to keep them and put them in the sanctuary too. Now people from the lodge come and feed them.

     I had the pleasure last month of taking some time to myself for a couple of days in Cusco and then on to Cachoro  for a "trek" (backpacking without the backpack) to Choquequirao, an Inca site.  It was my first chance to get into a Quechua speaking community to see what life is like in an agricultural area in the Andes.
At first glance Cachoro looks pretty bleak.

     But after spending some time there, it actually looks like a pretty good place to live.  It's a beautiful setting with the Nevado Padreyoc in the background.  The main occupation is subsistence agriculture, the plots are small and worked mostly by hand and animal (I saw only one tractor at work in the area, probably shared/rented out) and the land seems productive. 

      The people who did all of the work so we could walk with our daypacks and shoot photos consisted of a family of 4 brothers.  They were born at mile 17 in a Quechua speaking hamlet (40 people in its heyday, all related) still owned by the family and run as a campground by the mother of the clan.  Only one brother still lives full time on the land, everyone else has found it necessary to find employment in Cachoro, Cusco or elsewhere.  The boys grew up making the trek to town and back once a week to attend school, boarding in town during the week.  The guide, Juan Carlos, now speaks Quechua, Spanish, English and some Portuguese. 
     There is a very productive garden at 9700 feet with fruit trees that provides quite a diversity of foodstuff plus chickens, pigs, and guinea pigs to provide protein.  We spent the second night there after the big ascent before heading to the ruins the following morning.

     CHOQUEQUIRAO:  Peru is blessed and cursed by a plethora of archaeological sites.  Caral dates from 2600 BC and is the oldest civilization in the western hemisphere.  From Caral through the Inca, one civilization after another built on and enlarged the advances made by the previous.  As a result, Peru has sites from one end to the other without the funds to explore and develop them.  Choquequirao is one of those sites.  It is a few hard and beautiful days walk from Machu Picchu. (If any of you are interested in making the trek next summer, let me know.) Some of the area has been cleared and quite a bit of study done but things are now at a standstill. 
     In the first photo in the following slideshow, you will see some terraces down the side of the mountain.  These terraces at one point ascended to the summit interspersed with housing and workshops which still exist under the brush.  The terraces then descended down the other side of the mountain--the site is incredibly extensive but no longer being cleared.  Like Machu Picchu, there is a lot left to know about Choquequirao.  The stonework is not nearly as good as other Inca structures leading some to surmise that it was built in a hurry.  It was also not found by the Spanish and no one knows why it was deserted.  A unique feature among all of the Inca sites uncovered so far are llama images embedded in the terrace walls.

     The Andes are a huge chain of mountains which change quickly in many ways.  Much of the chain is drab and dry, other parts lush and many parts are incredibly beautiful.  The following slideshow and subsequent blogs will expand on this idea.

I met one of Cristian’s llamas at the ruins; it’s name was Asua.  It liked to lick faces and spit.

     We took a couple of hikes.  The first one was when we went to a hot spring swimming pool (which ended up being closed when we arrived).  Along the way we saw people working in the fields and women washing clothes in the canal that ran near their homes. We were close to a mountain range called Nevado Huascaran.  It is the second highest mountain range in South America. The second hike was when we visited a lake called Llaca where we got to eat fresh ice from a glacier.  On the way back to the taxi we saw wildlife like viscacha, a long-tailed rabbit like animal.

On our last day, my mom dressed up like a local and so did I.  The sack around my neck is normally placed on a llama’s back.  After the fashion show, we went to a field. We ended up filling the llama bag with seeds to plant while one person plowed with two bulls.  Everybody except Sam got to try plowing with the bulls. My mom got dragged across and out of the field by the bulls and I was afraid she was going to hit a tree.  I was more successful.  All you had to do was hold on and lift the metal plow out of the ground when you wanted to turn. 

     When I was done with my turn at plowing, we built a pachamanca, which is an earthen and stone oven.  The first step was building a dome of rocks with space inside for twigs and leaves to burn so that the rocks would heat.  Once the rocks were very hot, we collapsed the dome and put potatoes, fava beans, corn, and tamales over the rocks.  Then, we piled on leafy branches, a tarp, and finally dirt and let it roast for 30 minutes.  Unfortunately, I don’t like potatoes, beans, or corn so I ate granola bars instead.
     Our last activity was adobe brick making.  First, Cristian’s dad added water to a pile of loose dirt.  Then, Sam and I stomped around in it with bare feet.  The mud felt cold and rocky on my feet.  Then we added straw and stomped some more.  We did this process about three times.  Then, we used an open wooden box as a mold and poured the mud in.  You stepped in the mold and then you slapped it like you were playing the drums.  The last step was to lift the mold up.  Sometimes the mud stuck to the sides making it hard to pull up.  I learned that the advantage of adobe is that: the material is cheap and easy to get, its preparation doesn’t require machines, it effectively insulates from temperatures and sound, it doesn’t burn easily or get attacked by insects, and finally it's a breathable material.  We only made 10 bricks, but it takes 300 for a small house.  One person working hard could make 100 bricks in a day.

When it came to leave, I wanted to stay. 

     On Sam’s 8th birthday we went to Iquitos and because we arrived  early, we visited a fish market.  It smelled horrible.  And then, we took a long boat ride, half way through we stopped at a village and we saw some kids riding on makeshift go carts. I wanted to try, but there wasn’t time to ask. 

We went on the bus to Willkawain.  We got stuck in the bus room because we couldn't find our guide.  We were sitting next to his brother and didn't know it.  When we got there it was filled with guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, pigs, dogs, cats and a llama.  I really like being around all the animals.

The llama would spit and be mean and we could walk with it.  You had to be careful because if you touched its neck it spit.

It was funny because the dog ate the slop with the pigs.  The rabbits and guinea pigs were squirmy. 
One guinea pig wasn't lucky.  Mamita broke his neck, sliced it open and cleaned it out.  Then we could see all the inside of the guinea pig.  Then Mamita took the hair off by putting it in hot water and cut it in pieces and cooked it for lunch.

Our guide Christian took us all over the place.  I got a ride on his shoulders.  We saw viscachas (Andean rabbits).

In our spare time we learned to weave and make adobe bricks.  The adobe mud was cold but we turned it into bricks.

We went on a picnic.  We saw a guy plowing a field with oxen.  Then we threw wheat seeds all over the field. 
Then we made a rock oven called a pachamanca.  We filled it with wood, lit it on fire, threw potatoes in.  When they were done we dug the potatoes for lunch.

I really liked it there.