(Click on an image for the full version!)
 Tien and Nancy looking as cute as ever. |
 Nancy in front of the cathedral in Lima. |
Kay-BEEN MOOR-phy!! |
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Lucky for us, these days Machu Picchu is accessible not only to masochistic Inca Trailers but also to anyone who can take a train from Cuzco to Aguas Callientes and a bus up to the site from there. This bus also comes in handy for all the hikers who aren't about to go back the way they came. As we boarded the bus at the site, we noticed some commotion and some yelling sounds; these were quickly forgotten as we began our descent. The road seemed to wind more across than down the mountain, with our descent noticeable mostly at the hairpin curves at either side. In contrast, there are also stairs cut straight up the mountain, perhaps as a surrogate Inca Trail (on the way up) or one last opportunity for extra-masochistic hikers to shun vehicular transport; calling this staircase/path steep would be an understatement. During the ride down, we thought we heard some other commotion and yelling a few times when our road intersected the path, but by the time we looked around we were left only with a vague impression of local children, their Doppler-distorted voices receding behind us. Interesting that so many local kids would happen to be hanging around the paths, we thought, and why should they be yelling? It wasn't until we were about halfway down the mountain that we realized that the child we saw at one point was the same kid as we'd seen at the last such intersection -- and that as soon as our bus passed by amid his strange shouts (it really sounded like "Tooooooooothpaaaaaaaaaaste!!!!!"), he would take off down the mountain steps!! We were, in other words, in a race!! Suddenly what would otherwise have been a quiet ride down the mountain became an exciting and almost stressful experience -- we were all rooting for the kid to be there at every pass, relieved when we spied him there, marveling that he could be running down the mountain, worried that this was pretty dangerous. When once the bus seemed to have reached the path before him, the dismay among us tourists was audible, as were our sighs of relief when we discovered him lounging smugly a bit further up the road. Perhaps we shouldn't have expected the kid to be racing our bus just for fun. At the bottom of the hill the Toothpaste Kid boarded (see right) and made his bid for tangible proof of our admiration. We gave our enterprising youngster all the candy we had -- you can see the edge of a Crunchie in the picture. Incidentally, we decided he must have been saying "Gooooooooooooooooodbyyyyyyye!!!" |
 Bus boy? |
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| We saw the phrase Vamos Vecino ("Let's go, neighbor!") all over Peru, and we mean all over: on billboards and painted on walls, as here, but also cut into hillsides, painted on houses in the middle of the altiplano surrounding Titicaca, everywhere! When we first saw it on the outskirts of Cuzco, we thought it just be general friendly enthusiastic exhortation, in the spirit of the Somos Peru ("We are Peru") hearts we also saw around the country -- could it just be that Peruvians are very patriotic, enthusiastic people? Perhaps, but later one tour guide told us that it was a tourist promotion in the Titicaca region. Having seen this all over Peru, we weren't convinced. But on Kevin's final evening in Lima, moments after reminding Nancy to get a good Vamos Vecino shot the next day, we turned the corner to see the city's latest sign taking form! |
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