Anne Drops the Dead Weight

As readers of this blog may have gathered, Anne is pulling around a lot of dead weight (mostly in the form of Mark).  But every once in a while, she breaks free and goes off on her own.  One of these days occurred in Peru.  While Mark and the HBomb waited for KP and Jo Jo at the hotel in Ollantaytumbo, Anne hopped the train and went to Machu Picchu unencumbered.

How does visiting Machu Picchu without Mark and the HBomb differ from visiting it with them?  Well, first of all, there are a lot fewer clouds without Mark and HBomb around.  Anne ended up hiking Machu Picchu on a perfectly clear day.

Eagle-eyed viewers might also notice that visiting Machu Picchu without Mark and HBomb involves some slightly different views.  This is because Anne decided to do something that Mark, despite his well-known affinity for hiking, decided not to do: hike Huayna Picchu.  What is Huayna Picchu?  This is:

Huayna Picchu, or "young mountain" overlooks the ruins at Machu Picchu.  Hiking it is limited to 400 people per day.  And it is not the easiest hike in the world.  For one thing, it is pretty steep:

And it's not just that, there are also some tight quarters before you get to the summit.

Although Anne passes through it with ease, Mark realizes that he probably would still be stuck in this passage if he had tried to climb Huayna Picchu.

So far, we have established that when Anne was on her own, the day was brighter and sunnier, the hikes were longer and more impressive.  What else was different between the visit of the whole team and Anne's solo visit?

As you might expect, the majority of Anne's pix contain HBomb when he is around.  When he's not, she takes pictures of llamas and alpacas, obviously.

B.A. in a Day

Not on vacation

KP and JoJo had a mantra during their whirlwind trip to Peru and then to Argentina (and then to Uruguay and back to Argentina, actually): "We don't go on vacation, we take trips!"  And they weren't kidding.  For example, on Saturday, they did absolutely everything there is to do in Buenos Aires in one day.  More or less.

Swing batter, batter

Sounds like a tall order, and it is.  In order to get it all done, you have to start early.  First thing on the agenda - tennis lesson.  Argentina is loaded with clay courts and tennis pros, so why not have a lesson first thing in the morning.  JoJo was complemented on her softball-style swing and KP picked up a few pointers on his backhand.

After that, did they take a rest?  No way, this isn't a vacation, it's a trip!  Next stop, bike tour!

Nothing helps you blend in on the Plaza de Mayo like getting your picture taken in front of the Casa Rosada (roughly the Argentine equivalent of the White House) while wearing bike helmets!

We also took the bike tour through the Boca neighborhood.  We stopped outside the famous Bombonara soccer stadium, home of the Boca Juniors.  It's a weirdly shaped little stadium, but venerable and part of the experience of attending a Boca Juniors match.

More mate please!

As long as we were in Boca, might as well go ahead and stop for some mate.  KP is maybe the biggest fan of mate ever.  He loves it.  Couldn't get enough.  Anne and Mark are already making plans to send the first shipment to him in the states.

You can't see River and Boca stuff in the same store!

While in Boca, KP and JoJo picked up some souvenirs in one of the shops near El Caminito (a street made famous by Carlos Gardel in the hey day of tango, now the center of the tourist experience in La Boca).  KP played it safe by focusing on national team and Boca Juniors souvenirs.  Mark thought it would have been more bold to grab a River Plate jersey and wear it in that neighborhood.  In fact, why were they even selling River stuff down in La Boca?

Next it was on to the polo grounds to catch part of a polo match.  As mentioned El Paso and Navidad played for the Copa Libertador.

To finish it off, Mark took KP and Jo Jo to the tango show with the rocking guy on the accordion.  Unfortunately, Capt. Accordion was way more mellow this time around.  C'est la vie.  Anyway, the trio then bought some dulce de leche ice cream to check the final box on the B.A. in one day tour.

Crash Course in Polo

This guy was pretty good on the breakaways.

The day before Easter, KP, JoJo, Anne, HBomb and Mark happened to notice that there was some action at the Palermo Polo Grounds.  This is the famous (in Argentina) stadium for polo located about a half mile from the apartment of Anne and Mark.  Anne, Mark and HBomb have been in Argentina for over a year, and polo is a big deal here (not as big as tango, steak, soccer or the Pope, but pretty big), but they still have not seen an actual polo game match contest.  So, what the heck, let's go check out the action.  Now, keep in mind, none of our group is a polo expert, so what follows is subject to wild errors in interpretation.

Does that cup look crooked?

First things first.  HBomb and Mark headed over to the awards table to see what they're playing for.  Apparently, this was the championship of the Copa Libertador.  You can actually see the copa (cup) on the table there.  Surprisingly, there was no security around the cup like there would be around the Stanley Cup or Lombardi Trophy.  Mark and HBomb could have walked right up and touched it.... heck, they probably could have picked it up and walked out.  But they didn't.

The red poles are the outside of the goal.  The guy in the middle is an official, as is the guy in the official outfit on a horse.

The other thing to notice about the awards table is that there are 4 huge bottles of champagne.  That works out to one for each player on the winning team.  Yep, we counted.  Polo teams have 4 human players.  They appear to have about 7-8 horses for each player.  The players change horses between every period and sometimes during the course of play.  We think. But frankly, we were not sure.  Because....

Plenty of good seats still available.

The rules of polo are not clear.  Despite the similar title, it is not the same as water polo.  In water polo, there are a whole bunch of players trying to drown one another and/or chuck a ball in a small goal guarded by a goalie.  In polo, there are 4 dudes on each team kind of swinging what appear to be long croquet mallets, directing a ball to a large goal which is generally not guarded by anyone.  There were definitely periods (apparently called "chukkas").  We saw the end of the third and then the fourth.  Naturally, we assumed the match was over after the fourth.  We assumed wrong.  They changed ponies and kept rolling.  We actually left before counting exactly how many chukkas they were going to play.  We also were not sure why whistles were blowing or why one team kept getting awarded what looked like penalty shots, but we are pretty sure they switched ends after every goal.

HBomb demands more action.

For the record, Navidad was running it up on El Paso, so we didn't feel the need to stay any longer.  Besides, we had other things to do....

Groovin and Peru'vin

So obviously, Machu Picchu is the most famous place we visited in Peru, but that is not to say it is the only place.  In addition to Ollantaytumbo, our group also spent a little time in Cusco, the former capital of the Inca Empire.  It is an UNESCO protected site and has lots of ruins of its own, from the time of the Incas, as well as from the times of the Spanish conquests.

No tips for the guy in the blue shirt blocking out our shot.

Our group also managed to make a couple of stops on the way to Cusco.  The top photo is a scenic overlook on the side of the road.  The second photo is the same place, but you'll notice that one of the locals wandered into the pic.  He was there posing in pictures (whether you asked him to or not) and then demanding tips.  But he was cute, it works for him.

HBomb loves alpacas.

We also stopped at what our cab driver told us would be a "shampoo factory with alpacas."  The Spanish skills of the group were not terribly strong, but that translation was literally correct.  For some reason, the group decided to go ahead and make the stop.  As it turned out, it was not a factory in the "Proctor & Gamble" sense, but rather some locals who were making blankets and scarves from the "wool" of alpaca.  They had alpacas on site and even showed us how they washed the wool and made their different dyes.

Once we actually got to Cusco, we once again noted the altitude.  It was about 11000 feet in the city.  Our hotel had oxygen masks for use by the guests.

The oxygen tank actually ran out of oxygen.

We also noticed that they had portable one-shot oxygen cans for same in the shops in Cusco.

This is a real product and for some reason, they call it "OxiShot."  Obviously, the marketing opportunity would have been to call it "Perri-Air," as demonstrated below by President Skroob.

As President of Planet Spaceball, I can assure both you and your viewers that there's absolutely no air shortage whatsoever.

But if you can handle the altitude and find enough oxygen to get you through, Cusco is well worth the time.  There is a big statue of Pachacuti, who was a big time Inca emperor - he was probably the guy who ordered the building of the city at Machu Picchu.

Cusco also has a bunch of colonial era churches.  The photo above shows the statue of Pachacuti in the foreground with the Church of Jesus' Companion in the background.  The Iglesia del Triunfo is just out of the photo on the right.  (A KFC is just out of the photo on the left.)  The "Church of the Triumph" was named in honor of a Spanish victory over the Inca in the 16th century in which not one, but two separate saints intervened on behalf of the Spanish to lead them to the victory.  More importantly, this is the church where KP, JoJo and Mark tried to enter and were told that no tourists were allowed.  At about the same time a couple of trekkers with huge backpacks walked.  No tourists indeed. Not much of a triunfo for our group.

Pachacuti's feet in the background.  Watch out for biters...

Cusco also has a big white Jesus (literally called "Cristo Blanco") on a hill outside of town, reminiscent of the one in Rio, but considerably smaller.

But aside from the lying usher at the church, the people in Cusco were very nice, and the baby alpacas were even nicer.  Later in the afternoon, Anne and HBomb got to hang out with this baby alpaca outside of the museum that KP, JoJo and Mark were touring.