Arrival in Ollantaytambo

My journey here was a bit harrowing, although not so bad when you consider some of my other experiences. I have come to the conclusion that I am not a huge fan of JetBlue, JFK, or Taca airlines... although the TACA line at JFK was the easiest thing I have navigated so far. My Spanish immersion began the moment I stepped into line 4 at Terminal 4 in JFK. Not only was I the only white person, I was the only one who approached the desk without expecting to speak spanish.

San salvador was nothing to worry about. I think I´v eheard too much about drug trafficking and human trafficking and how awful and corrupt the coutnry is. It was fine--very tiny but very nice. It´s kind of, from the outside, like a long row of shacks with tin roofs.

I had a great night in Lima. The taxi driver was so excited I spoke Spanish that he chattered away the whole ride into town. He gave me relationship advice (that I didn´t ask for) and pointed out every casino along the way, saying, ´como las vegas, no?´ He picked me up again the morning at 4:15 (I had two 6am flights in a row)and because the streets were so empty he gave me a complimentary tour of the city. We explored the Plaza de San Martin, the Plaza Mayor, the Presidential Palace (puts teh white house to shame) and had a nice talk about politics and wars over oil. I´m not sure whether I really made myself clear, but I know he at least understood that I didn´t like BUsh. He´s not a tremendous fan of their president Garcia either.

I arrived this afternoon after a turbulent flight and NASCAR style drive over a couple mountain passes in Ollantaytambo. THis town is amazing. It really is built on the old Inca architecture. The streets are all cobblestone and the walls all stone. It´s small but filled with people and dogs. Dogs everywhere. Kids everywhere too. It´s funny to see kids wandering aroudn on their own, you never see that back home. They´re not street kids, either, but healthy home kids who just like to play outside. That seems like kind of a novel concept.

The family I´m staying with are really nice. THey ahve one daughter but have taken in a little boy from a two day´s walk away. There is no road for cars, etc, you have to walk there. Crazy, no? He wanted to go to school but couldn´t go from where he lived so he´s staying with the family too. He keeps staring at me. He was telling the little girl in the house that "La chica tiene libros" because he saw me reading a book and he couldn´t get over it. ´He seems to have a permanent big smile on his face too. The little girl is shy but very polite. She´s nine.

The hosue is Inca style and still has most of its ornçiginal stonework. The floors are a few boards nailed together--I can see downstairs to the kitchen from my room) and there´s a large patio with no roof and a huge garden in the middle. I guess it´s a pretty conventional thing, the outside kitchen, the rooms all on the outside of a courtyard. It seems chilly here for that sort of construction, but everyone seems to be permanently wearing hats and sweaters.

I found an intriguing alternative to the Inca trail--I´ve had some poople say that it´s amazing but I´ve had other people tell me not to do it because it´s basically a highway of tourists who hike about as well as most of the tourists who set out up mansfield. There´s another trail about a fivé hour´s drive from here that´s virtually unknown--the Choquequirao trail. It sounds a lot like what the Inca trail would have been like thirty or forty years ago. You can even camp right in the middle of the ruins. It´s two days out and two days back. I have to find someone to go with me and help me hire a porter. It seems completely wrong to do that, but then you have to remember that for most of these guys, that´s the best they can do for employment. Plus, I guess it´s nice not to have to carry your heavy backpack and le tthe guy with the donkey do it instead. I don´t know. We´ll see how that goes.