Peru - Chapter 4

We awoke early Sunday morning and in a sort of daze, managed to find our way to our designated bus stop in the Plaze de Armes for the Sacred Valley Tour. We were all a bit groggy and had to try and find our focus on the bus trip out across the Peruvian mountain landscape. We crossed through valleys and rode over high passes of the mountains as we saw the natural beauty of the country's landscape unfold before us with each passing mile. Though before the glorious natural wonders was the half hour of crawling through the city of Cusco on the last of the busy season weekend days for the tourist types. The street was saturated with an odor of exhaust and panhandling, and there was some sort of band or military march taking place as well. It was almost exactly the type of chaos one might expect going to a place like Cusco; it was a great experience.

The four of us took our seats on the last row of the bus; an adjacent five-seat row. We thought we were in business, as the bus departed the Plaza exactly one passenger shy of full capacity; the empty seat being the one between Derrell and me. But moments later, around the corner from the pick-up location, we picked up one last passenger. He sat between our pair of twos, awkwardly dividing the group at first. But as the ride went on, we became conversational. His name was Gaston and he was a Doctoral student at San Diego State University. He was in Peru studying the architecture of the ancient South American civilizations, most notably the Incans. He had a soft and approachable demeanor, and he was genuinely interested in what each and person who talked to him had to say. He noted that the 4 of us were good representatives for U.S. travelers and he had run across more than a few obnoxious, book-shelf climbing, course Americans along his way.


Our first stop was a small collection of ruins sitting a top a tiered section of the mountains high above a village in the valley. The ruins sat right on the cliffs' edge and when we got up there, the wind was blowing fiercely and ice cold rain was coming in nearly sideways. None of us had raincoats or slickers (of all things not to bring) and unabashedly ran back to the bus for cover, leaving the rest of the tour group to battle the elements. Eventually it calmed down and being the soft Americans we are, we rejoined the tour once the harsher elements had subsided.

After we got back on the bus our tour guide, Ronnie, talked about the agricultural aspects of Peru, and he loved to talk about potatoes. I would guess that out of the 5-6 hours that Ronnie talked that day, he spent roughly 33% of that time talking about potatoes. He even passed several potatoes around the bus for us to look at. Apparently, Peru has over 4,000 types of indigenous potatoes. How do you even begin to categorize that? None the less, this would not be the last time we were told about the plethora of potatoes the Peruvian agricultural system had to offer. Bizarre, considering none of us had ever heard specifically of a Peruvian potato.

We stopped at more small village marketplaces with the locals pedaling their wares; a common theme in the country, and had an excellent buffet lunch at a local establishment tucked away in a mountain town.



Derrell developed an affinity for Inca Cola, a yellow soda flavored much like bubble-gum, and when we got home, Adrienne had finally received her suitcase. Best wardrobe change of all time.