Only 25 more days to go!
On the way home from Peru, we had a 2 day stay in Mexico City. There were a few sites I wanted to see, but for some reason I was a little nervous about being there. The Metropolis that is Mexico is home to over 21 million people. It is the largest city in North America, so you can see why it would be a little intimidating! That said, we managed the metro, and navigating the bus system to everything we wanted to see.
Obviously the city is very old which brings along a lot of interesting, dingy, smelly places. The um, how to explain…aroma? of the City was olfactory assault in its highest art form. On certain streets, just walking around brought on an onslaught of odour. Seriously, I can’t even explain it. Surprisingly, the metro system was actually fairly clean. (At least we didn’t see the same amount of human feces on train cars in Mexico as we did in Paris!) There were sanitation people sweeping platforms and stairways 24/7.
The touts were inescapable, but at least humourous on the metro. People would hop on trying to sell literally everything and anything. We were offered crossword puzzle books, ancient computer repair manuals, rulers, CD’s, and my personal favourite–back scratchers.
The Virgin appeared to Juan Diego again, and told him to pick flowers and gather them in his apron. Though it was winter, the flowers grew at his feet, he gathered them and went to the Bishop. An image of the Virgin Mary was imprinted on the apron. Thus, providing the miracle the Bishop wanted and the rest is history.
Now for science: The cloth has been examined with infrared photography, ultraviolet imaging, and stereo-microscopy. The earliest analysis shows that no under-drawing to rough out the image and no over-varnish on the image. The latter 2 show several layers beneath the current painting with all sorts of different pigments consistent with artist’s materials used in the 1500’s. There are also cracks, flaking of paint and sketch lines that would make it seem that the image was sketched before being painted.
Even with all the scientific analysis to create doubts of the miracle, the tilma still has some pretty impressive attributes. Thanks Wikipedia for the info.
The tilma has maintained its structural integrity over nearly 500 years, while replicas normally last only about 15 years before suffering degradation; it repaired itself with no external help after a 1791 ammonia spill that did considerable damage, and in 1926 an anarchist bomb destroyed the altar, but left the icon unharmed.
In 1929 and 1951 photographers found a figure reflected in the Virgin’s eyes; upon inspection they said that the reflection was tripled in what is called the Purkinje effect, commonly found in human eyes. An ophthalmologist, Dr. Jose Aste Tonsmann, later enlarged an image of the Virgin’s eyes by 2500x and found not only the aforementioned single figure, but images of all the witnesses present when the tilma was first revealed before Zumaragga in 1531, plus a small family group of mother, father, and a group of children, in the center of the Virgin’s eyes, fourteen persons in all.
Numerous Catholic websites repeat an unsourced claim that in 1936 biochemist Richard Kuhn analyzed a sample of the fabric and announced that the pigments used were from no known source, whether animal, mineral or vegetable. Dr. Philip Serna Callahan, who photographed the icon under infrared light, discovered from his photographs that portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no visible brush strokes.
I have no doubt that there is paint on the image–whether the miraculous image itself has been painted upon over the years, or painted completely is debatable, but you have to admit that the eyeball thing is a little bizarre.
ps: Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico. Juan Diego was also made a saint in 2002. He’s the first Mexican to achieve sainthood.
We ended up having a couple more days in Lima then we had originally planned. The airline we were flying with to Trujillo rescheduled the flight times and made it 100% impossible to visit Chan Chan. Boo.
Almost 8 million people live in the capital of Peru. Lima is a typical metropolitan area with lots of great things to see and do, but not where we really want to spend a lot of time.
We stayed near the ocean in Miraflores which is the touristy, newer, upscale, aka “safer” part of Lima. There were several parks and a shopping mall within walking distance from the place we were staying. Larcomar overlooks the Pacific Ocean, and is partially outdoors which would never work in Canada. Being able to watch paragliders from the mall was pretty cool though. We wandered from the mall to El Parque del Amor where the famous sculpture ‘El Beso’ is located. The park was a lot smaller than I expected, and not nearly as interesting.
There was only 1 brief moment where I didn’t feel 100% safe in Lima. We were on a very busy touristy street, and there was a 2 person team trying to pick pocket us or something. One was trying to distract Jon with maps etc on the left, and the other was just way too close for comfort on my right. We quickly shut that situation down. I don’t keep stuff in my pockets anyway, so they wouldn’t have gotten anything but lint. Otherwise, Lima seemed fine. Police were everywhere–police on Segways, police with dogs, and police with full riot gear. That dog’s name is Rocco. True story. He can do loads of tricks. His policeman handler was making him pose for photos. Safety first right?
Everyone we’d talked to about Lima along the trip said we had to visit the water park. Approximately 13 million US was used to renovate the park and create the water fountain circuit. (Which is ridiculous given some of the social situations in the country. I suppose the park is a revenue source?) The park is huge, it has the worlds highest water fountain at 80m. It was beautiful, but not as spectacular as I’d hoped. (Seriously, I was more impressed with the water show at the Bellagio.)
Not to be a total downer about Lima, it was just a complete change of pace from everything we’d been doing in Peru. On a positive note, I did enjoy the architecture. Some of the buildings were gorgeous. (ps: the historic district of Lima is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.) Along with beautiful churches, the Plaza Mayor also has the Presidential Palace (the Peruvian White House if you will.) Every day there is a changing of the guard–complete with marching band. Most of the police force with riot gear was out during the marching ceremony.
We visited several of the cathedrals including the San Francisco Monastery and Catacombs. The catacombs were eerie. Thousands of bones were arranged in mass graves. When someone died, their family was not permitted inside the catacombs; only monks were allowed entry. Eventually, the monastery ran out of space, and instead of being honest, they just kept piling people on top of more and more people. The bones are in a pit several meters deep. Pretty creepy really.
Here are a few photos from the city.
Machu Picchu was easily the best place we visited on the entire trip. We spent 10 hours just walking around the site and taking photos and chatting with other people there. Photos just don’t do it justice. I could fill your brain with history of the site, but you could google it yourself. We poached some info from the guided tours, and learned quite a bit of stuff. Here’s your few facts:
Hiram Bingham III discovered the site in 1911. The switchback highway that you have to take to get to the site (if you don’t do the Inca Trail) is called the Hiram Bingham highway. You can only wonder what state Machu Picchu was like when he arrived almost 100 years ago.
I bet Llamas weren’t at the entrance to greet his expedition team!
There is a carved rock sundial in Machu Picchu–the Intihuatana. The Quechua name translates as “hitching post of the sun.” If you measure the angles of the Intihuatana they are 13 degrees. FYI: Machu Picchu is 13 degrees from the equator.
The sundial measures solstices and equinoxes accurately. Not that atypical of a sundial, but it proves that the Incans had intricate knowledge of the solar system. The dial is also aligned perfectly north, and a magnetic compass when held to the stone will go all wacky as the rock is magnetized. Intihuatana is one of the only sun dials still existing from Incan times. Spanish conquistadors destroyed all symbols of Incan religion. Luckily they didn’t find Machu Picchu.
The site is extremely organized; it would have been an efficient little city. The people would have been completely self-contained with agricultural terraces growing enough food to feed the population of Machu Picchu. Buildings are believed to be homes, storage sites, prison cells, baths, and communal areas. All of them are built without mortar, and the stones are made to fit together perfectly. ps: Jon tells me that people were imprisoned for laziness.
The Temple of the Condor (left photo) is supposed to look like a condor in flight. The natural rock in the background looks like wings, and the rock in the foreground is carved to look like the head of a condor. Word is that the Incans used this site for sacrifices. Another interesting rock formation (right photo) was pointed out by some dude we ran into a few times. The rock was carved to look like the mountain range behind it.
Obviously we saw plenty of Llamas as we wandered, but that wasn’t all. There were little song birds flying everywhere, and so so so many little lizards! (Really, Spiny Whorltail Iguanas if you’d like to get technical and nerdy. Gotta love google!) One of the people we were talking to showed us a photo of a tarantula she’d just taken. We didn’t see any. She was super relieved that it was a tarantula she’d seen and not a lizard. Bizarre!
Everyone at the site seemed to really appreciate the experience. Usually there is at least one jackass story from every site we visit, but here, everyone was just well, normal if you will. People were really nice too, even suggesting to take photos for each other. Seriously, we must have taken 50 photos of other people and been offered just as many times.
We ran into Becky and Ryan, a couple we’d me at the hostel. We also ran into everyone we’d met on the train. Craig, Michael and Michael were still going–that’s them in the photo walking on the stairs. We ran into Andy and Angela for lunch. The three, Andy, Angela and Chad, had hiked to the site in the morning to watch the sunrise. All in all, one of the best days of the trip–an absolutely gorgeous setting, great weather, awesome people.
What more could you ask for?
~j
From the floating islands, we boated another couple hours to the island of Taquile. Once the boat docked, we had to climb this rock pathway to the top of the island. The tourists were way slow, and the locals were practically running up the hill. Gotta love the altitude! I’m sure the people from Florida that were with us were hurting coming from sea level. Climbing down the 550+ stairs back to the dock on the other side of the island was much easier.
We were able to wander the island for a while before we had a traditional lunch of trout, lima beans, and rice. The small bottled water on Taquile was the most expensive in all of Peru–about $3. But, considering that it had to be shipped from the mainland, and then a porter had to carry it from the boat port to the top of the island, it only makes sense!
For some reason, I’m obsessed with UNESCO sites. I want to see them, I want to know about them, I want to visit them. It is an odd little phase I’m going through. FYI: There are 890 UNESCO World Heritage Sites as of 2010. Jon thinks that our apartment might as well be a UNESCO site, everything else is, so why not is his view point. Really, the dust balls and smudgy windows are hardly an attraction.It almost doesn’t seem real yet because Jon’s been the one doing all the research and planning for this trip. I can’t even picture the complete itinerary, but he could tell you times and numbers for all the flights and busses we’ve got to take.
We’re pretty organized this time around as we’ve already got the bulk of our travel supplies. We’ve gone to get the appropriate vaccines and pills, and now just have to wait. (ps: my arm hurt like a mofo for more than 2 weeks after the travel shots!)So here’s the major attractions that I can remember from the plans we’ve got:
We fly from Vancouver to Lima and then to Arequipa. Then there is a tour of Colca Canyon, which thanks to Wikipedia I now know Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, but not as vertical. This is where we hope to ease into the altitude while we see the Andean Condor. Nothing like jumping to 3300m right away. (FYI: We live at 377m, and people start feeling altitude sickness above 2400m)After Colca Canyon, we’re off to Puno and Lake Titicaca. At 3800m,
Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. It looks bloody cold, yet all warnings say wear loads of sun screen to prevent sun burn. Apparently high altitude = no sun protection from the atmosphere. I suppose I should add sunscreen to the list of stuff we still need.From Puno we’re flying to Cusco. Cusco looks amazing. I’m looking forward to just wandering around and taking tons of pictures and checking out all the beautiful buildings. Cusco is at 3310m altitude. Let’s just hope we’re acclimatized by now and not feeling like death.
The next obvious place to visit from Cusco is Machu Picchu. You can’t really go to Peru and not visit Machu Picchu. That’d be like going to Paris and skipping the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. After all the turmoil Peru has been going through from horrific mudslides this winter, I’m relieved that we’re able to get to Machu Picchu at all. We’re not doing the 4-day Inca Trail trek as we only have 16 days for the entire trip. Once we’ve finished our tour of Machu Picchu and Cusco, we fly back to Lima for 2 more crazy days packed full of plans. They’re going to be insane, but we’re going to try to visit Islas Ballestas and the next day Chan Chan. (Bonus: Cusco, Machu Picchu and Chan Chan are 3 more UNESCO World Heritage Site to cross off my list!)
The tour of Islas Ballestas will take us along the coast on a boat. Hopefully we’ll see all sorts of birds (penguins, pelicans, flamingos) and dolphins, sea lions etc. Most of the travel books warn that it is stinky and that we’ll probably get pooped on.
From Islas Ballestas it is back to Lima for a flight to Trujillo which is adjacent to Chan Chan. I’ve read a bit about Chan Chan, and it seems like it’ll be worth the visit.We had a choice of flying the Nazca Lines or visiting Chan Chan. It was a tough decision, but ultimately, I didn’t really want to fly over Nazca and feel like vomiting for the entire flight. (Almost every review, blog, article about the flying the Nazca lines includes vomiting.)
So that’s a little recap of the Peruvian leg of the journey. We’ll have 2 days in Mexico City visiting Teotihuacan. And then home.
First, let me start by saying Napoli Centrale was sketchville! That train station was the creepiest place we visited anywhere during the entire Europe trip!
From Rome, we travelled by train to Naples to visit Pompeii (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and climb Mount Vesuvius. Thanks to Wikipedia I know that Vesuvius is the only volcano in Europe that has erupted in the past 100 years. It had a lot of steam vents at the crater, so it is still doing something down below the Earth’s crust (or cruth if you’re so inclined. Ah, I kill me.)
Wikipedia also says that Vesuvius “is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3,000,000 people living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions.” (Love that I’m quoting from Wikipedia. We all know it is such a reliable source. User generated content=100% accurate.)
It is unbelievable how well Pompeii is preserved given the site was completely wiped out by volcanic eruption. The casts of the people and pets found at the site were kinda creepy and sad. The eruption lasted 2 days and buried Pompeii under 5 or 6 meters of ash. That said, I certainly wasn’t expecting a fully organized town to have been excavated. The site was re-discovered by accident in the 18th century. All of the work that is has taken to get the site to the condition it is in now is just craziness.
Jon tells me that the archaeologists are still looking for one main site or town square that hasn’t been found yet. It is kind of unbelieveable that there is a full amphitheatre that has been excavated, let alone something more significant that they are still searching for.
All in all, a good day away from Rome, and one of the funniest days of the trip due to our bizarre travel companions on the train ride home. The 2 dudes that spoke Neapolitan more than Italian, and the poor Journalista who had to translate for them when they were asking me how much I like Italian men. We’ll just leave it at that…
~j
ps: Pompei vs Pompeii is all very confusing. Pompei refers to the modern city whereas Pompeii refers to the ruins. Thanks Google.
The Holy See is the smallest country in the world with a population of just under 800 people (none of whom are permanent residents) and a total area of 0.2 square miles, but is a mighty site to see! The atmosphere of such a spiritual/religious/historic site as St. Peter’s Basilica is indescribable. It is absolutely gorgeous, and so opulent, and so humbling at the same time. We toured the Basilica for quite a while, just wandering around and staring at everything. Even the Holy Water font at the entrance was beautiful. (ps: had to google that. I knew it wasn’t a Holy Water bowl, but didn’t know what it was called!)
“Praise be Jesus Christ! The elevator will take you into St. Peter’s Basilica, the heart of the Catholic Church. Make sure your clothing and your behaviour are respectful of this sacred place, built around the tomb and the memorial martyrdom of Peter the Apostle. St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. John Bosco, St. Theresa of Lisieux, S. Maximillian Kolbe, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta all prayed here. May the spirit of the holy pilgrims inspire your prayer and reflection. Peace be with you!”
After gawking our way through the Basilica, we went through the museum. The double helix spiral staircase in the Vatican Museum is also crazy. One side for ascending and one for descending, and it is LARGE! The Vatican Museum is the richest in the world–not surprising given that it does house the Sistine Chapel. Photos are forbidden inside the Chapel, and there are security guards all over the room to make sure all visitors are compliant.
There were people sneaking photos, but they were promptly scolded, and threatened with eviction–kind of embarrassing in an almost silent room. Tourist ignorance abounds–we saw a woman climbing on a statue in the gardens, and she was viciously yelled at by a guard. Seriously, what kind of ass climbs on a centuries old irreplaceable work of art?!?
Only after we returned home did I find that I have a familial connection to the Vatican City since the 1600’s. Who knew?!? I’m not Catholic, but I am related to ancient Commanders of the Pontifical Swiss Guard (*scroll down, find my old last name and you’ll see what I mean. Just bizarre!) I find the Swiss Guard costume comical. Is there a sane reason why they have to wear clown suits?
Everything about the Vatican was impressive. The art work, the architecture, the obscene opulence, and sense of spirituality from the worshippers–there is so much more that I could write about, but I wouldn’t do it justice.
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