QueenPuya

Hola todos,

I can with confidence confirm that every single one of you reading this has the ability to successfully visit Machu Picchu. Bryan and I just got back from the most touristy of all things one can do in South America and thoroughly enjoyed it, despite being nickled and dimed at every possible instance. We took a nice bus past some incredible peaks to Ollantaytambo, where we had some hours to kill before getting on the train. The ruins were a rip off and I knew I´d be seeing better terracing later, so we didn´t pay to go in, but sat around eating pancakes and avocados by a river. Very, very nice. The trainride was quite stunning and there literally is no other way to get to the ruins. You can really see why they were essentially forgotten until about one hundred years ago. We followed the windy river as the vegetation got lusher and lusher and less full of Puya. Across the river we´d catch glimpses of burdened backpackers hauling up the Inka trail. I was a tad jealous, but don´t think I coul dpossibly have done that on this trip too. They will hike for four days to get to what our train can do in twenty minutes. We arrived in Aguas Calientes, the town below the ruines, which was not as gross as Lonely Planet made it sound...we are pretty convinced a cynic wrote Lonely Planet Peru. Found an OK hostel, though ridiculously overpriced...twenty bucks!! Then we headed out along some railroad tracks in search of Bryan´s plant. We surely didn´t find it, but found lots of tropical plants and birds, much to our delight. I saw some giant red thing fly in front of us and a giant iridescent blue bird sitting in an avocado tree. I really need to learn some things before I go birding in Costa Rica! We then began our descent up the ridiculous mountain to Machu Picchu. Most will take the tourist bus ...including myself the next morning...but we started the ascent and got some majorly sore calf muscles. No Puya to speak of and no Lepechinia. After an early night to bed, we got up and I decided to pony up some more cash to treat myself to the bus, and Bryan decided to hike it. It is a RIDICULOUSLY expensive place for Peru...it cost Bryan the equivelent of 50 dollars to get into the park ...half for me with my smart ISIC card....and me twelve dollars to take the twenty minute bus. Add in an eight dollar Gatorade and extra money to visit the museum and you have some smug Peruvians and poorer tourists. At least we didn´t spend one thousand dollars to stay in the hotel at the ruins! Lots of others did, though...
Was it worth it? Of course... Machu Picchu is all about the location and the insanely steep, green mountains imbricate in all directions make up for the lack of beautiful carvings or interesting story about the ruins. We don´t know much about the ruins...or at least the guides can´t seem to come to a consensus!...and they really aren´t that old or that impressive compared to Mexico. It actually reminded me of touring an old castle site in England, besides the location of course. But a very lovely place to think about life and time and purpose. I sat in both the rain and the sun for hours, once I was tired of stealing information by pretending to be part of various tour groups. The breeze, the bird songs...once you could filter out the harsh sounds of yappy US tourists...so peaceful. I did find the tourists sort of amusing, though. I would try to guess where they were from before they opened their mouths and was pleasantly surprised to find out I was quite bad at this game. Every possible age, level of fitness and dress was present, often in ridiculous numbers. I would hate to see this place in the high season. Luckily, at least until UNESCO revolks funding, you can pretty much walk wherever you want and get away from it all. There are nice llamas to sit by, too.
Back in Cusco now and things are heating up. I keep meeting more professors who get excited about me and want to plan trips, though I´m losing enthusiasm and increasing my desire to go to the bars and go shopping. Get excited...I am officially going to describe 2 new subspecies of Puya....Puya ferruginea subsp. actinomorphae and zygomorphae(Jabaily&Herrerae). How cool is that! It is actually a lot of work, in Latin, but I am so proud that I have come far enough in my knowledge to do this. God knows every new place will yield more Puyas for me to deal with and tomorrow I leave for an unplanned two day trip to Apurimac to collect new plants...including the second collection of Puya iltisiana, named for a dear old professor at Wisconsin! Fun, fun... Tonight we are going out with some charitable Brits working on their holiday at an orphanage. Bryan headed to Lima today and we meet him there Sunday. Back to the herbarium now and off for some shopping! Get in your orders now for cheap knit goods with llama themes.... Someone should write me an email, really. Love, R