Maras Moray

It was a interesting trip.  It started fine, I went to the tour agency and was met by a guide for the two block walk to the roundezvous spot.
After joining the 10 or so milling tourists, most of whom appeared fluent in Spanish, I was placed beside two Latino women who were going on the same tour.
Another guide came along and lead is off to a small bus.  On board and off we went.  Five minutes into the ride I found out I was on the wrong bus.  The guide on the bus made a quick call and informed me I would be let off at a turn out, and a taxi would be along soon to take me to my real shuttle.
Ten minutes or so later a taxi with one of the tour people with less English than I have Spanish picked me up, and off we went following the bus I just got off of.
I had wondered while waiting if the two Latin ladies were also on the wrong bus, and yes they were.  We were at least another ten minutes driving to get to the spot they were dropped off at, then we turned around to catch up with the shuttle we were supposed to be on.
There were five of us in a taxi designed for five.  Crowded but not bad.
Then we got joined by another guide who ended up sitting in a lap.
Fifteen minutes riding in a taxi, listening to three people talking rapid fire Spanish into cell phones, we pulled over to a stop, one of the tour agents got out and paid the taxi driver, and we were off to catch the shuttle with only five in the taxi.
We got to the town where the shuttle was supposed to be waiting for us, and there was no shuttle.
Two more phone calls and we got accurate directions to the shuttle.
Try to load everyone on the shuttle, and lo and behold there are now three too many people to fit on the shuttle.
One who had been picked up on route got let off twenty miles early, and a late joiner ended up in the aisle along with the actual tour guide.
So, with an hour delay, we were off to the town of Maras and the nearby Incan site called Moray.

I could not find a reference for when the site for started.  It is Incan, without doubt in style of stone work and irrigation.  There is a lot of speculation on the actual use of the site, but the majority of people think it is the world's oldest agricultural research station.

Between the location, microclimate and stone work, there is a fifteen degree difference in temperature between the topmost, coldest terrace and the bottom one.

The stones in the lower terraces act as heat sinks and although the temperatures are fairly even from top to bottom during the day, at night, the difference appears.  The narrower the terrace, the more the stone influences the temperature.

There has been much speculation on how the Incas managed to create the vast diversity  of crops, with over 3,000 varieties of potato alone, but it must be rooted in research such as would be possible at Moray.

There was an extremely wet year, and extensive damage was done to the east terracing, with wooden shoring being put in place until funds are available for reconstruction.

The site goes a long way towards showing the strength of the Incas.  They were masters at using natural features for building and agriculture, including irrigation.  One of their greatest influences on modern times though was their dedication to agriculture and the diversity of crops this has brought us.  They experimented to find the best fertilizers, and used a variety depending on both crop and climate.

All in all, a fascinating look into how, in part, they achieved greatness.

Machu Picchu

This is going to be a little more whimsical than usual.

There are many things about the ancient site which are amazing, and the most amazing is the fact that it was built at all.  It is a four day trek from the nearest settlement and is perched on a mountaintop.

Humans are a curious bunch, and I can easily see a hunter or explorer finding the place.  But then whatever possessed them to actually build a city there.  Was it something along the of 'Cousin Bob is always asking to borrow my mattock.  If I move here, the lazy bastard will not come this far to borrow it.'. Or was it more for the view?

Anyway I see the place slowly grow into a hamlet or small town.  Then one day the king says 'I need to get away for a little bit.'

And Cousin Bob then says 'Hey, my cousin Tom has a place Nobody else goes near'

And the next thing Tom knows his hideaway is now a Royal Getaway.

Damn Royals.

Cousin Bob

And wouldn't you love to be the guy putting in the lowest level of terracing while Cousin Bob held the rope?

Lipon Peru

Just down the valley from Cusco, Lipon is a small town with an agricultural base.  The archeologists have dated the settelments in the area as far back as 750AD, with continous habitation from 1100AD, making the Cusco Vally the longest continually inhabited place in the Americas.

The area of Lipon has an elevation of 3,200m, and for the most part is fairly dry.  All of the settlements in the area have some sort of irrigation, the creeks draining the mountains surrounding the valley and the Cusco river running down the middle supply a fair amopunt of water, but going by the efforts of early people, irrigation was the only way to get a decent crop from off of the land.  No pumps were used of course, so it was all done by rock lined channels carefully using the contours and natural features of the land to give terraced fields trickles of water for feeding the crops.




The amount of rock used in this terracing is immense, the channels for the water mostly run on the right side of the image.





The volume of water is not immense, but it is used multiple times, flowing from one terrace down to the next.



There are two areas bracketing the mouth of the valley with remains of habitation.



The fact that the irrigation system still functions quite well after over 1,000 years is amazing.  To my eyes there are traces of how water was diverted at the top of the slope to cover yet another field, one above and to the right of the top image.  The broken area with no terracing could have been left to allow the water to drain into the lower terracing.

No one has done an estimate of the amount of hours of labour that went into creating this field system, but it speaks to me of an area that valued its arable land to an extreme, that such a large amount of labour for a relatively small amount of land.  I did not have time to search the surrounding land, but even the valley way below has many fields which could have been irrigated at a much lower labour cost.

The in accesability of the valley may have an indication as to why it was used, the long winding road would discourage anyone from making their way up, and the valley itself is hidden except from the peaks, making it very hard to attack and easy to defend.

An interesting place, and truly lovely spot for a picnic.

Huacachina

The coast of Peru has a strrrrong contrast between the air and the land.  The land is dry, plants are rare outside of irrigated fields, and those few are hardy trees with whispy feather like leaves, and a rare lost looking palm tree.

The hills show their bones, rocks and sand piled up against a fuzzy horizon, but the air is rich with water causing the fuzziness, blurring the distance and intensifying the heat.

After hours of riding on the bus, it all blurs, and the little towns have very few differences, and to my eyes, far too many buildings are raw and unfinished, with a great many only finished on the front, a smooth well painted front with raw ugly brick around the sides and back.

Just outside the sandy city of Ica is an oasis surrounded by high sand dunes, isolated from the encompasing desert by the walls of sand.  A very small place, the pond in the middle easily walked around in under ten minutes.

I do not know how well the new camera will show, but look for the dots of people on the dunes.  And please ignore the date stamps.  I did not notice them until the upload.

Good news - Bad news

The Good news is my luggage is lighter.

The bad news is my laptop and camera were stolen.

I was riding the bus, it came to a stop and one guy blocked my view of the overhead, and a differnt person swiped my bag with camera and laptop.

The only okay part to this was I did not have my passport in the bag, but it was on my person.

The backup for my pictures was also in the stolen bag, so I am missing a lot of them.

Too irritated at myself to post more, but going into this trip, I told myself fairly frequently that I may either be mugged or robbed., and now that it has, I am not truly distraught, just kinda pissed.

All for now.

Ecuador part 2

Growing up, I learned a little about the nations of the world, mostly from school and a bit from other sources like the news.  Sometimes it would spark me into learning more, but it has always been just surface stuff.  Population size, economic base, trading partners, language(s) spoken, type of government and things like that.  But there are limits on what you find out, limits on where your mind takes you.  I had always thought of Ecuador as a tropical country, and gave little thought as to its climate.  Now that I am here, the place is a bit of a surprise.  Most of the people here live not on the coastal areas, but inland.  The places where the elevation makes for a cooler climate and there is little seasonal variation in temperature.

The cities  have visited, Quito, Lago Agrio, Banos and now Cuenca have all been nice in terms of climate, Lago Agrio was warm for me and fairly humid, but not to the point where air conditioning was a must, merely very nice.  Quito was too high, the 9,000+ feet made walking around a bit of a struggle.

Cuenca has been very nice and I quite enjoy getting lost in the local areas.  Standing in line at an icecream shop, the pleasant lady behind me asked me 'Are you lost?  Gringos never come to this area!'  Upon reflection, I realized I had not seen another obvious tourist in over three hours.  I had just been wandering through a section of town full of old architecture and fascinated by the number of truly small shops and how the were clustered.  Computer stores, women's clothing, men's clothing and tailors.  Auto parts made up about four blocks, shop after shop that had a specialty, all small, all seeming to be ten feet wide and disappearing back to stretch beyond what I could see in the limited light.  Shops that sold small motorized equipment, generators, lawn tractors and chainsaws were all clustered into one block.  A financial district, with small banks and large ones, government offices and lawyers offices with small hole in the wall snack shops and cafes wedged in between.

Even thinking back to how the shops were in the city I grew up in in the 70's, the shops here are tiny things, each surviving in its own niche in the economy of the city.  One of the major differences between Latin America and North America is the sheer number of tiendas here, the small places that sell drinks and snacks are everywhere.  In the older parts of town where foot traffic is heaviest the shops are mostly small ones and there is at least 2 tiendas per block.  Usually more.  It is rare that there is more than one large store per block, and for the most part malls are only on the outskirts of the cities and towns.

I am sure that no one in this town knows more than 10% of who sells what and where.  Yet everyone will know at least one place to get what they are looking for, be it a new belt, shoes or radiator, or at the very least the block where to find such shops.

And for all that there is a lot of vehicle traffic, there are far more who walk of take the bus.  The density of the shops and building lends itself well to ditching your car and walking, the narrowness of the streets and lack of parking also pressure you into avoiding taking your own car, and although there are more motorbikes than in Canada/US, there are not as many as in a lot of other places I have been.  Bicycles also seem few in number, even less than in Quito where the elevation is a drag on physical exertion.

Last up are two pictures, the first taken on the bus between Ambato and Cuenca showing a bit of how densely the country is populated, even in the more rugged rural areas, and one showing the new construction happening behind an old church.