Lima Beens
We got back from our South American trek. Quite illuminating. It’s the furthest south I’ve been on the earth and it was cool to see the moon “upside down”, with the dark “seas” flipped over. Well spooky. And the stars were so wrong that looking up one time it felt like I could be looking up at the stars of another planet. I’ve never had quite that sensation before.
We went first to Lima, which was where the bloodthirsty gold-crazed Pizarro first planted his flag and set up the capital of the Spanish Empire in the New World. From the 16th until near the end of the 18th century it was the largest, richest city in the Americas but it’s all been pretty much downhill since then.
The setting is gorgeous: dramatic seaside cliffs tower above the coast and the bay is to die for. And there are good surfing waves and a reasonable beach culture, even despite the poor sand. However one thing that immediately struck me was the acrid pollution. I knew, of course, about developing nation cities and their air quality problems but it’s one thing to know and something else entirely to step off a plane and immediately feel like you’re standing behind a skanky old diesel Dublin Bus from the 1970s… all day every day. The pollution visibly hangs in the streets like a shroud.
Lima itself is full of dodgy cars, dodgier buses packed full of people, and desperate, entrepreneurs selling all kinds of shit on every corner. Most of it is like some of the slummier inner city areas of Dublin in the early 1980s, before prosperity came, but they were just pockets and Lima’s skankiness goes on for *ever*.
We stayed in the tourist/yuppie enclave called “Miraflores” which has some cute apartments and houses but the heavy security is noticeable. Our hotel, the “Exclusive”, was marred by insane construction and a surly staff. We only stayed in Lima a couple of days before heading off to Cuzco but we did pack in a bit of sightseeing.
While we were there we saw some nice museums with lots of cool anthropomorphic and fetishistic art. We also went to the old HQ of the Spanish Inquisition, where I got to use some Monty Python lines over and over until Lisa hit me. We snuck off from our tour group and went down into the dungeons to get some good photos and generally make merry in rooms where, undoubtedly, terrible things had been done to good people in the name of gods. We also visited the old HQ of the Franciscans, which was definitely a cuddlier place than the Inquisition, but they did have a basement ossuary full of skulls and stuff and plaques concerning the resurrection and the life and stuff like that. Still waiting then guys I guess?
I spent a lot of time reading about the Spanish administration of Lima which basically boils down endless squabbling, occasional territorial disputes between war leaders, and lots and lots of public executions, tortures, and burnings. Charming stuff. But Lima was just the warm up for Cuzco.
Cuzco was the capital of the Inca Empire from the 12th to the 16th century (when the Euro plagues and then the Spanish arrived). It’s deep in the Andes at an elevation of 3400m, which is pretty damn high. Flying there from seal-evel Lima it’s obvious that the plane spends most of its time angling upwards and only tilts down during the final couple of minutes of its flight.
For the first couple of days the thing air and lack of oxygen was quite debilitating. Dizzy spells, slight nausea during exertion, and a kind of persistent unsteadiness. The coca tea helps a lot with this sort of thing, but it’s probably good for a lot of things.
Ah yes, the coca tea. It tastes a bit nasty, like old tea mingled with odour-of-sock, but it produces a mildly pleasant buzz. Doesn’t feel as strong as a huge caffeine-laced Red Bull, but it also doesn’t give you the jitters. The Andeans seem to have coca with *everything* (tea, candies, chewing gum, etc), and apparently it was the key to the Inca domination of the Andes, making it possible to extract maximum exertion from people in the thin atmosphere. The Spanish also used it to dose their slaves while they worked them to death in the gold and silver mines.
Despite the dizziness we explored Cuzco quite a lot, which is pretty easy given that it is quite small. Apparently it’s grown from 100K to 300K people 20 years or so, and most of them seem to be trying to squeeze into the tiny, medieval downtown streets. Like in Lima, pretty much everyone with a car can be a “taxi” and they are quite aggressive, pulling alongside you and beeping to alert you that they are available for hire. When this happens like 20 times in one city block then it gets old really fast. But relentless competition does mean that the fares are dirt cheap, and you rarely have to wait more than around 15 seconds for a ride.
As if the streets were not dangerous enough because of the taxis, there are the crazy minibuses tearing along with people hanging out of them shouting their destinations. These are even cheaper than the taxis, but compete with each other to grab fares. So they keep playing tag along streets, weaving and dodging, and then racing ahead to get to the next corner. Apparently a few dozen die every week during minibus collisions.
The Spanish basically took Inca Cuzco and fucked it completely, tearing down all of its main building. But becaused the Incas were such good engineers, after a decade or so the Spanish evidently got fed up or tired of trying to tear down the huge piles the Incas had made and instead just built their cathedrals on top of them. So the city is like a layer cake – bit-arse well-cut Inca stones around 500 years old, and cheaper looking mock-gothic religious bricks piled on top.
After spending so long slaughtering Inca priests and rulers in Cuzco and converting people at the sword, the Andeans now seem to be heavily religious. Ultra-Catholic, in a gory, bloody, literal way that my granny would have loved. The cathedrals in Cuzco are like horrible visions from Mel Gibson’s brain, with lots of alcoves full of bloodied christs and mangled saints and a general gorefest. The Incas used to have little alcoves into which they would put mummies and votive offerings, and these were readily adapted into Catholicism. Looking at the huge walls of some of the cathedrals is like looking at a Doll House of Horrors.
After a couple of days getting used to the atmosphere and letting our blood thicken, we were ready to set off for Machu Picchu.