The new flags along the trail tell you how far apart you should stay to maintain distance while hiking.
Today I was invited to a birthday party and learned that here people have birthday cake in the morning. You start the day with singing happy birthday, have breakfast together, eat cake, then go on about your day.
Breakfast here is also quite different from the breakfasts I was used to in the US, France, Morocco and even Istanbul. For most Peruvians, there is very little difference between breakfast and lunch. In Cusco, in touristy areas, you can get coffee and toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast, but if you are walking in neighborhoods, the breakfast available at restaurants is likely to be chicken and rice.
This morning we had adobo, which was cooked with pork. I asked for a bowl of just the adobo broth, without a chunk of pork. Adobo is a flavorful sauce that is made with chicha de jora (a fermented corn beverage). Whatever meat you are cooking is marinated in the adobo overnight, then slow cooked for several hours. Since this was breakfast, that meant that somebody got up pretty early to put the adobo on to cook.
when Im invited to somebodys house or when I am staying somewhere else on the weekend, I try to have whatever theyre having. This has given me the opportunity to eat broccoli cooked with scrambled eggs and potatoes, which does seem like breakfast food to me. I have also been served different kinds of quinoa and rice dishes, plus one morning when I was served fish head soup. I always enjoy quinoa but had to pass on the fish heads. I can only be so flexible early in the morning.
There was both good and bad news today. The bad news is that I got laid off - again. The good news is that Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail finally reopened today!
Getting laid off might not actually be bad news. Ive been pretty busy lately and it may be good for me to be able to focus more on my teaching and writing and Covid Relief Project and Super Cute Plants. Also, with the rainy season starting to set in, it would be nice to be able to go hiking and get outside as much as I can while the rains
I now know that walking along the train tracks, early in the morning, is one of the best ways to see birds.
We definitely have not had as much rain as we should have by this point. The hills are too dry and the farmers cant really plant their fields yet. Last year it was the same, the rains came late, but when they did, it was torrential. We had more landslides and mudslides in January than normal, with affected by floods. I hope this year is different, but the way climate change is going, its anybodys guess.
As for Machu Picchu reopening today, that has not been the smashing success that they were hoping for. Initially it looked like all of the free tickets were being snapped up, but it turns out that not all of those people actually went to Machu Picchu. I suppose thats one of the risks when you give something out for free. I always wondered that about free concert tickets given away by radio stations. How many people who won those tickets actually went to the concert?
For a local, from Cusco, you can now go see Machu Picchu for about $30USD. Just for transportation, the cost is very reasonable. I calculate s/10 soles for the
bus from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, another s/10 for the train to Aguas Calientes and s/9.50 for the bus up to Machu Picchu. If they buy a bus ticket, thats s/17. Roundtrip, Cusco to Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes and back is s/40. So, transportation is s/57, which is about $16. Add on the sort of meals that Cusqueos normally eat and the maximum you could possibly spend is s/87, about $24. Of course, if you take an evening train there and spend the night in Aguas Calientes so you can visit Machu Picchu in the morning, the cost of the hotel and extra meals will push you over $30. Still, it certainly sounds affordable.
And yet, most people in Cusco probably dont have an extra s/80 laying around.
