Peru: The Ruins

Okay! Before I start on the economy, I thought I'd give you what you really came for: RUINS! This is what our civilization would have looked like if our government hadn't bailed everyone out.

Inca stonework is flawless: no errors, no mortar.

The double gateway, representing the physical and spiritual world, is sacred in Inca architecture.

Sacsayhuaman. Not Sexy Woman. Sacsayhuaman.

The road to Pisac.

The waters still flow 500 years later, though the people are gone.

The long way down from Pisac. We hiked to that town in the distance.

Ollantaytambo.

Machu Picchu.

The Hitching Post of the Sun. Sable Crow meditated here as dawn came to Machu Picchu.

Morning comes to the Inca steps. These were used for farming.

A curious resident. 15 llamas graze Machu Picchu. Groundskeepers.

Machu Money-Shot

Sell Your Bags

Sable Crow has been very busy this week, presiding over his little corner of the world, marvelling at the INSANITY that is the financial markets. More this weekend. I have many opinions, all of which are right: why this problem happened (the real reason), what's coming next, and what we should REALLY be afraid of.

News from the vanguard of capitalism.

Peru: The People

For me, the value of travel comes from observing other people going about their lives in ways that are different than my own. Sometimes it's the glimpses into these "other" lives that help explain my own. Here are some of the people I saw, from guides to shopkeepers.

Peru: The Food

I thought I'd break up my trip to Peru into several sections. Over the next few entries, I'll blog about various parts of the trip. I think it'll be more of a sensible narrative for you, and then you can better pick the part that interests you most.

I tried to be pretty adventurous in Peru, and the food there--which is influenced by Chinese and Italian cuisine--was a good way for me express adventure in a relatively safe way. After learning how to brush my teeth with bottled water (mostly the learning came from breaking the habit of rinsing my brush in the sink...), it was relatively easy to feel daring enough to try guinea pig and alpaca.

Now, I had a guinea pig when I was a kid. She was my first pet, and I loved her very much. Let me be clear, however: I accept my position near the top of the food chain, and I will wear the mantle of that honor when the time is right. This same principle is at work when I swim in the ocean, where I am DEEPLY aware that I am NOT at the top of the food chain, and where I am always concerned that I will get my legs chomped off by Jaws.

Guinea pig in Peru isn't so much a "delicacy" as it is a special treat; a little like a Thanksgiving turkey for us. For those of you disinclined to try guinea pig at your next opportunity, it was a gamey, fatty meat that reminded me of quail when served on the bone (lots of work, little meat) and of duck when off the bone (a little greasy and savory).

Guinea pig (off the bone of course) on a spicy yellow rice base. The green things were green corn tamales.

I travelled with my alma mater's young alumni travel club, so I had lots of company for meals. The first place we went was Inka Grill, right off the main square in Cusco. It was fabulous, and one of the best places we ate during our trip. It was at Inka Grill that I was introduced to Lomo Saltado, a stir-fried beef dish served with rice and fries that is the PERFECT Sable Crow dish. Yum.

Lomo Saltado. Good for the soul.

The Coke in Peru isn't made with high-fructose corn syrup (fuck the American corn lobbyists). And caffeine is the last thing on the ingredient list. The result: no sugar rush and no caffeine buzz, just fizzy, delicious Coke.

This was a delicous meal at a museum restaurant in the same restaruant group as Inka Grill. It was delicous.

Steak with egg on top and a tasty sauce. Fried rice fingerling with fried plantain.

The alpaca skewers are below. They were very good.

Alpaca with fried plantains and an assortment of traditional Peruvian foods. Those strips of hard white cheese were to die for.

Though there are no photos of the food at Fallen Angel (I was too distracted by what WASN'T on the menu), please rest assured that this restaurant--in the same courtyard as Cusco's finest hotel, where we did NOT stay--was superb, and the atmosphere really first rate. The food was entirely steaks, and entirely delicious. Like Fernando and Carlos. Fallen Angel becomes a bar on some nights of the week, and is Cusco's only hint of gay culture.

The stars of the heavens.

Pigs flying in hell.

Fernando.

Carlos.

Florence warning me to behave.

On our journey between Ollantaytambo and Pisac, we stopped for a baronial trail lunch prepared for us by our guides. It was delicious. It was also supposed to have been served to us on a remote hike, but a nationwide transportation strike during our stay prevented us from completing that adventure. So our cooks hiked BACK down the mountain will all the food, and prepared it for us in a soccer field in a village between our two destinations the following day.

Not all the food was great. This little gem of a restaurant on the central courtyard of Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu town), I suspect, is the source of my unhappy insides for the last week.




But a happy ending I will have, and our final, going-away dinner was at La Mar in Lima, one of the best hotspots in town. Imagine you're sitting in your favorite LA or NYC restaurant, laughing over a glass of wine and some killer cebiche, when a TOURIST BUS pulls up and unloads a bunch of loud, obnoxious, entitled tourists flaunting their powerful currency and generally running rough-shod (in their HIKING clothes) all over your nice dinner. That's basically what we did. "F" for the planning on this. We were too exhausted, had no time after the dinner to change before our flights, and had no time before dinner to change from our hiking clothes into something more appropriate. We could have been contenders. Instead we were boors. Too bad! The seafood was FANTASTIC and everybody ordered different things, then we all shared. It was too much food to photograph well, so here are a few shots as the night wore on, drawing our trip to a close.

Miss me?

So I´m writing this from Peru, where I crashed the VIP lounge at Lima´s international airport.

Let me tell you, no one crashes a VIP lounge like Sable Crow.  One of my new besties, Florence, was flying fancy-class back to NYC and she had a pass, so we just pretended like we BOTH had passes and now I´m eating chocolates and drinking free water like the rich kids do.

I feel a bit like an interloper, and spent the first five minutes on the computer determining just how much a membership pass would cost if I was confronted and escorted out by Peruvian armed guards.

It reminds me of the first time I went to Emporio Armani.  I was in high school, and I´d gone with a couple of my girl-friends to San Francisco for the day and I convinced them to go into this store I´d read about in GQ.  We walked into the EA on Market (a former bank, natch) and the two of them were so uncomfortable.  Our shoes were dingy, our clothes clearly of the Gap variety, and my girlfriends´accessories obviously well-worn.  We looked out of place, and though I knew I didn´t belong either, I was at home.

A small bell tolled somewhere as we came in and my friend said, in mock announcement, ¨Your attention please!  The middle class have arrived.  Please hold on to your bags.¨  To this day, nearly 14 years later, I still remember how angry she was that I´d convinced her to come into the place that so challenged our self-esteem.  We laughed so hard, for different reasons.  She laughed because she saw how delighted I was, and she reveled in the act of teasing me about my pretension.  I laughed because the clothes and music (yes, I remember the song:  The Cranberries´ You´re So Pretty) and atmosphere were intoxicating, and I knew that I wanted THAT to be my world.  I was a lanky kid from Elk Grove with acne and a bad haircut, and all I wanted was to be as handsome and as well-dressed as those men I saw in Emporio Armani.  Surely THEIRS was The Good Life.

I´ve thought a lot about dreams and destiny in the last week.  As I mentioned, I´ve been in Peru seeing some of the most amazing sights my little eyeballs have ever tried to describe to my brain.  I´ve also seen the lowliest poverty I´ve ever encountered, and have had more than one good cry (alone in my hotel room, of course) about a world that lets me prattle about Emporio Armani and forces families to live like dogs in mud huts beside railroad tracks and unpaved roads.  There but for the grace of God go we all.  I can´t describe the feelings of helplessness and frustration that I´ve had, which in themselves are discouragingly entitled emotions.  

F.

There´s so much work I have to do.

I´ve got a lot to process in the coming weeks, and some of it will be done here, Dear Reader.  So I beg your indulgence now, and ask for your forgiveness in advance for anything I say that´s a revelation to me, but that´s obvious to you.  In return for your efforts, I´ll try to make it funny, like any good tragedy, and I´ll put lots of pictures up of far away places and exotic foods.

I keep looking over my shoulder.  I´m convinced that little Peruvian woman in the uniform is watching me.  And I´m almost certain I heard a little bell toll somewhere.