Still playing catch up, since Patricia is alive and well and watching the Gonzaga game on her computer. But that won't be revealed until later. Read on.
Without knowing if or when my friend would make it Cuzco (she revealed to me after arriving that one more day of delays would have sent her packing back to the States, so thank goodness), I went for broke and decided to see the stuff you have to see: the ruins. To do it, I had to get there in a van. And just like the van, I needed fuel. That's where the local cafeteria comes in.
I decided to stick with a rule today: eat where it's crowded, preferably with locals. So upon finding an outcropping of taxis and buses, I checked near a ramshackle doorway: plastic buckets to sit on, surly men eating piles of food. Check.
Most Peruvians living on lower incomes eat out more than they cook at home -- since the average three course meal, called the menu, costs two to three dollars, it's often more economical to let a little old lady do the cooking. And I found one. Her name is Teresa, she's five foot nothing, and she loves to make fun of taxi drivers after they leave. I can only imagine what she said about me. In my presence, though, Teresa was everything you read about. She insisted I clear my plate, otherwise she's be insulted. She asked me how everything was the second it entered my mouth. She taught me about the different varieties of potatoes she cooked with (there are over 500 in Peru). And she kept piling on extras if I complimented anything.
Today's menu: coca tea, made with coca leaves that provide a mild narcotic boost and allegedly resistance to altitude sickness; potato soup made with yellow potatoes and potato cream, along with perfectly spiced salsa; alpaca meat served over rice, with -- you guessed it -- more potatoes. "The Peruvian breakfast is the best breakfast there is," she cooed in Spanish with a toothless smile, sliding another piece of alpaca on my plate.
After a quick totter over to the next bus terminal, I was on my way to the famous, and conveniently located, Inca ruins of Tambomachay, Pukapuchara, Q'enqo, and the world-famous Saqsayhuaman (it's literally pronounced "sexy woman"). Walter, the guide I found hanging around the entrance, tried to add me to his tour with some Argentians, who then got pissed and left him to give me a personal (and presumably less lucrative) tour of the ruins.
While Walter taught me lots of the Incas religious beliefs and building methods (interesting fact: Incas would cut these massive rocks by inserting heat-sensitive wood into minuscule fault lines, waiting for them to freeze, and force the rock apart), he was most excited to teach me pickup lines -- a phrase he adores, incidentally. While I particularly enjoyed calling women sirenas, or mermaids, or invoking the ever-popular "girl, you have so many curves, and I don't have any brakes," his favorite was the classic four-line exchange:
Woman: So, what do you do?
Man: I'm a student.
Woman: Oh, what do you study?
Man: As of right now? Your eyes.
He told me you could add "sirena" to the end, if you want to give it some maritime flair.
All that talk stopped, however, when we saw the Saqsaywaman herself. Speechless, I pulled out my camera and furiously started pushing buttons as Walter described what I was seeing.
If Qorikancha was the temple of the sun and moon, and if Tambomachay was the temple of water, Saqsaywaman was the most intimidating of all: the Temple of Thunder, Lightening, and Thunderbolts. To pay homage, Incas set up stones in their typical, polygonal fashion -- except these were all over 8 feet high. The largest stone we saw, perfectly sculpted by Incan masons out of composite iron they found in meteorites, stands over 15 feet high and weighs over 120 tons. One can only imagine hundreds of workers pulling the limestone uphill over a mile, using Egyptian-style rolling techniques, then being told by their boss that the stone wasn't smooth enough. "Set it down, get out your sandpaper, and get it right," he'd say. After that rock is done, head back to the quarry and repeat a few thousand times. No wonder the Sexy Woman took fifty years to build.
Upon my descent from the thunderbolt-dominated heavens, I checked the hotel. No sign of Patricia. Looking to drown my sorrows in juice, I told the receptionist I was headed over to the local market. He looked concerned.
"That's where the locals eat," he said, making sure this gringo wouldn't be scared off by Peruvian sanitation standards.
"Si," I said, staring him down, "lo sabe usted." You KNOW it.
After being served the juice of five oranges, squeezed right in front of my eyes, and after buying some trinkets (don't worry, family members, I gotcha covered), I got the word from an internet cafe: she's here. She made it. Patricia didn't die!
Since meeting up at five, we've been chilling in the Plaza de Armas, eating some fine trout and Peruvian pizza, and tasting some local pastry dishes. The tale continues anew tomorrow.
