Slacks, maps and fanny packs

Mexico City was the touristy peak of these travels.  In no particular order, aka the exact itinerary for week 1, we saw:
Teotihuacan, the National Palace and la Basilica de Guadalupe.  
National Museum of Anthropology, The Museo Dolores Olmedo, Xochimilco, The Ballet Folklorico 
2-3 schools in Mexico City
The Secretary of Education, Murals of Diego Rivera 

Mexico City was in the middle of a heat wave.  Mid-day temperatures reached records highs, as did the volume of photographs taken by our group.  Here is digital proof: of Jess taking a picture.  The giant "Pyramid of the Sun" also happens to be in front of her.  Which is more interesting?  That's for you to decide.

Mexico City marked an intense moral dilemma on my part.  There is a phenomenon, common among humans, characterized by an innate yearning to stand in front of monuments, churches, fountains, walls and animals to pose for a picture.  For this, modern science proposes no explanation.  

A simple google search of "tourist pose" yields countless people holding up peace signs and holding up the leaning tower of pisa.  My best guess is that people want these pictures because they have an inherent desire to show their friends how strong they are.  I debated whether to jump in front of the camera, so to speak, but I just couldn't get myself to do it.  I did not want to contribute to the many stops we took during our tours and walks, so I resisted the urge to document myself lifting up things like this peacock:

Please note, I am no better off than all my picture taking tourist friends.  I consider it a character flaw that I don't stop and ask people to take pictures of me at key landmarks.  I do however, contribute to delaying our groups movement in my own ways, by stopping and chatting with armed guards, by buying any food I see off of the street, by stopping to negotiate prices on earrings or ocarinas that I have no use for, and by playing with peacocks and dogs.  This little guy (above) wanders around the Dolores Olmedo Museum that houses tons of Diego Rivera's work.  This little guy (below) is a Mexican hairless dog.  Note the contrast between him and the beautiful Peruvian dog (below below).

It's not racist, I just think Peruvian dogs are better looking.

Anyway, highlights of the above mentioned 5 days in Mexico City were definitely Xochimilco and any and all Diego Rivera murals.  Xochimilco is like an Italian gondola ride on a school bus.  There are over 2500 boats and over 200 kilometers of canals, all built by the Aztecs.  Dani Cohen, my buddy that put me up for a night in the State of Mexico before the program began told me that you (and all of Mexico) go to Xochimilco to get drunk, plain and simple.  We didn't, but the corn on the cob, tacos, micheladas (essentially a bloody-mary mixed with a beer) and mariachis were flowing. 

Here's some select Rivera murals that were particularly striking.  Diego was hired to paint the entire Secretary of Education building, which ended up being 120+ murals over the course of 2+ years.  He'd always traveled the world, painting, but had barely been through Mexico.  The government financed a year long trip for him all around Mexico, so he could come back with some inspiration and material for the building that he was about to completely decorate.

Finally a tourist shot. Atop the pyramids:

Welcome to Mexico, starring The Beatles

One thing that both Mexicand and Peruvians have in common is their love of cover bands.  In Cusco, there were a plethora of fliers advertising a Pearl Jam cover band coming to the local theater.  Not satisfied?  If you like Sound Garden, Stone Temple Pilots or Foo Fighters, you can request to be blessed with some of their music too.  At the same concert.  Cover bands are like a one size fits all, multipurpose remote, 18 in 1 shampoo/conditioner/soap/toothpaste.

 At Te Macho in Cusco, we saw a band cover the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Beatles.  This is 16 seconds worth of their rendition of I Saw Her Standing There:

Fast forward to day 4 in Mexico City.  We're wandering around the city, wanting to make the most out of our last night in the D.F.  We're being recruited to pay a 5 dollar cover here, or a 1 drink minimum here;  There's 6 people in this bar, 10 people in this club, etc etc.  Finally we stumble on a noisy bar: The doorman invites us in "No cover?" we ask, "No".  "Can we dance?", "Yes."  We go downstairs and there's tons of people singing Hey Jude as Sergeant Pepper lookalikes jam out on stage.  It's an entire Beatles themed bar.  We meet some nice Argentinian girls, some nice New Zealanders, a dude from Texas, all singing every word to Let it Be, Twist and Shout and, as is apparently customary in Latin America, "I Saw Her Standing There".

Not only did my inability to salsa dance not get in the way (for the first time in Mexico...gimme one more week and I'll salsa that ass off) but everyone was so damn carefree.  Everybody got their dance on, the band got paid, and at long last the night was a success.  Thank you John, George, Paul and Ringo.  You are truly homies.  As Peruvians would say "Estan mi bateria" - "You're my crew" (bateria means drumset). 

This is not The Beatles.  This is a bachata band that was playing at the Museo Dolores Olmedo outside of Mexico City.  It's a museum entirely dedicated to the works of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.  Bachata, wikipedia tells me, is a hybrid of bolero, son, merengue and cha-cha-cha music.  Thanks wik.  Pictures were not allowed, but this museum was one of the highlight of the time in Mexico City. 

More highlights to come.  For now, babies sitting atop the pyramids at Teotihuacan, the ancient Aztec city.

Let's Talk About Nice People

It was a tough decision to bring my skateboard on this little trip.  Out in the dog-eat-dog world of Latin America, an extra 10 pounds could be the difference between a leisurely stroll through the airport and a 100 dollar excess baggage fee, forcing you to wear 10 pounds of sweaters onto the airplane.  You might end up looking like a grown-up version of this:

Dog-eat-dog world:

That baby picture is going to be making many appearances on this blog.  Dogs and babies are probably my most oft-photographed objects (no babies are not objects).  Dogs,  yes.
So at long last I decided to bring the skateboard.  For the first week of Peru, it didn't leave my bag.  But when my traveling companions vacated the country, I had a couple days on my own.  I had seen a tiny little skateshop by the camera repair shop where I had jedi mind tricked the repair-guys into giving me a card reader for 10 soles.  Or maybe they tricked me into paying 10 soles. 
At the shop I met Johnathan:

He owns the shop and his friends call him "Join".  As I was trying to determine what our friend status was, he was closing down the shop to take a lunch break and show me around Cusco.  Turns out there were 3 skateparks in the area, mindblowing considering the inhospitable (for a skateboard), rocky streets that seemed to stretch in every direction. 

One park was near his house, and he dropped me off there with a handdrawn map, his phone number and plans to meet up the next day.  He spoke english whilst I spoke spanish.  Turns out he's the only sponsored skateboarder in Cusco (Lost skateboards).
When I returned to the shop the next day, Join told me that he told the guys at the Peru skate association that my trucks were really old.  "They said I should...how do you say...regalar?"  Regalar is to give a gift.  He told me to pick out any trucks in the shop for free-ninety-nine. 

I was flabbergasted.  I said "no no no".  He said "si si si".   I picked out some Ventures that said they were 185 soles (65 american smackaroos).  Sometimes it's cool to be at a loss for words when someone displays extreme kindness.  In my case, on top of my dismay, I literally could find zero spanish words to articulate my thanks.  Finally I remembered "amable", and told Join that his regalo was "muy muy muy amable".  The rest of the day, we met up with his friends, John and Guillermo, skated, and met back up at night for drinks and wandering. 
This is us at the beginning of the day:

Note the body language.  I haven't yet been accepted into the crew.  I haven't killed someone to gain Crip gang membership.  I haven't paid my frat fees.  Etc etc.
By the end of the night, and after much Te Macho (hot tea with pisco, a tequila type alcohol) we were all the best of friends.  If there were 4 Blues Brothers that would be us.  If Jermaine weren't in the Jackson 5, that would be us.

A reggae club, a bottle of inkaria, a 15 year old kid that ran a grilled sandwich stand with his mom all night and was obliged to give the local skate celebrities discounted food and finally a walk back to my hostel marked the end of the night.  We said our goodbyes, knew we'd correspond on the facebook, and i went to sleep for 3 hours before i got up at 6 for my flight.

A couple of notes from the days:
1.  These guys, as I have seen over and over again, made it their business to show me around and make sure I took as much from Cusco as I could.  The same thing happened yesterday, here in Mexico City.  I ran into a skateboarder, Jordano, asked where to skate, and he took me all around, for a good 3 hours.  As we headed back home, I asked how old he was.  "22.  Actually today's my birthday!"  Again, dumbfounded.  To think he would take the time to give a tour to this random American, on a day that belongs to him and him only, is amazing.  On my birthday I'm too concerned with eating Chipotle at every meal to pay mind to anybody else.  Truly a relaxed lifestyle out here.

2.  The way all these guys chill, skate, drink, look, etc, I would have thought they were 18, and I say that with the utmost respect, as I have always looked like a kid.  I was surprised to hear that all my Peruvian friends were 24 or 25, still skate rats at heart.

3.  When asked what your drink order is in the bar, when in doubt, just say the name of the bar.  Te Macho is a bar.  Inkaria (a blend of 20 fermented plants) is also a bar.  I don't know what the reggae club was called, but I'll assume it's name was "Ganja".  Or "House Whiskey".

Game 6

Took a bus to Pisac, 2nd biggest market in Peru. 

3 of these for a sol (about 35 cents):

 The rest of our time in Cusco was spent exploring.  We all got hour long massages for 5 bucks, courtesy of some enthusiastic Peruvian girls that are always posted up on the same street.  Massage avenue I think it's called.

Game 5

 So we wake up at our hostel in Aguas Calientes at 3:00, so as to be the first people in line to get on the bus that goes up to MP.  The 4 of us need to split up.  Lucy and Toby go to wait in the MP ticket line (the ticket office opens at 515), and Kelly and I go wait in the MP bus ticket line (buses start leaving at 530).  With a million people visiting every year, you gotta get there very early.  This is because the first 400 people on the mountain get a stamp, which allows them to hike up to the top of the nearby mountain, Waynapicchu, which has the very best view of all that is Machu Picchu:

 

 Show owner asleep amidst a maze of coca-cola, bug spray and tampons. 

 

Cliche Ray-ban, mountaintop, sunny shot #1.  Thanks Luce.

So we walk up to Wayna, chill for a while, come down and hop in on some canadians guided tour of the ancient city.  It's hard to get fully into it, as most everything about the site is speculative.  "It's not about coming to Machu Picchu" attested our guide, "it is about leaving.  Go out and change the world".  "The Incas believed in 3 things: patience, love, and personality."

We hiked back down, all the way back to the hostel, and it was only about 2.  We stopped by a market and bought rice, peppers, tomatoes, avocado, plantain, carrots, a 2.5 liter of coke, etc for a guacamole stir-fry.  We took full advantage of our hostel's kitchen, in part because the one we would return to in Cusco did not have one.  The food was dank, the meal was delicious, and we all passed out around 3 with the intention of going swimming in Aguas Calientes later.  

We woke at 9, too late to swim.  Wandered around Aguas Calientes a bit, came back and went to sleep.  In the morning Toby had gotten a bunch of fruit and potatoes, we made breakfast, checked out, and began our trip back to Cusco.  Stopping at Pisac, Cusco's second biggest market, on the way.

Game 4

Friday.

We opted to do the whole Machu Picchu excursion on our own.  Organized trips through the hostel or a travel agency would have been a good 50 dollars more, minus a night. 

 We took a car to Ollentaytambo, but not before doing some grocery shopping.  The mercado had "pan de maiz", bread of corn.  Strictly corn.  In Ollentaytambo, we got an avocado and made some sandwiches whilst we waited for our train to leave for Aguas Calientes (at the base of Machu) 4 hours later.  4 hours went quickly, I bought a soccer ball, we all played 4 square in the main plaza, soccer, volleyball with some little chicas, we took a lot of pictures, and met a frenchman named Sala.  There was a baby in a orange jumpsuit that liked playing soccer with us, and we all took probably 100 pictures of her.  Or maybe just me.  There's something about South American babies in monochromatic outfits that the camera just loves.  Sala took a year off of work to travel, which is apparently quite easy in France.  If you ask your employer for a year off, they can say no.  If you ask again 6 months later, your bosses are mandated to let you go run around the world.  You get your job back at the end of your year travelling.  I'm sure I misinterpreted some of what Sala was saying, but until someone tells me otherwise, I will continue thinking that France lets people leave their jobs whenever they want.

Finally the time came for our train.  Tons of people were waiting to board, and someone taps me on the shoulder.  Or maybe yells.  "Abe?"  Mi amiga Aislinn from Tucson is there with her family, waiting for the same train to go to the same Machu Picchu. 

Game 3

Ok so I was just going to start a new blog because this whole Bulls thing has gone to hell, but let's just move on entirely.

So it's been a week since we went to Machu Picchu, but hopefully all of the memories come flooding back.  The 3 musketeers came on Thursday, and we set out for the day.  Toby's camera had been lost/stolen, so we made our way to the bus station, via a 1 dollar cam ride to try and find it.  To no avail.  On the way back to the hostel, we made a couple of stops.  We tried some Chicha de quinoa and some Chicha de manzanas (apples).  Chicha is a staple of Peruvian drinking cuisine: a fermented corn drink that comes in many flavors: most commonly Chicha Morada.  It's purple.  On the way back to the hostel we stopped at what would be our first of many mercados (markets).  I bought a beanie that I immediately regret buying, but now that I'm out of Peru I feel much less gaudy wearing it.  It's orange.  It says Cusco on it.  Bought some stuff, stopped by a travel agent to talk about Machu Picchu, bought some train tickets, and ultimately ended up back at the hostel.

Lunch was a stuffed avocado (papa relleno), dinner was happy hour mojitos, steak and rice, and instant coffee that was actually barley.  A coffee substitute.  On to something more exciting....