Machu Picchu

After the warm up at Ollantaytumbo, it was time for the big show.  Machu Picchu.  This is the big leagues, folks.  True blue tourist stuff.

Machu Picchu is actually the name of the big mountain in this region.  According to our guide, Freddy, it roughly translates as "Old Mountain."  There is another mountain there called Huayna Picchu (you guessed it: "Young Mountain").  Freddy was sad to inform us that they didn't really know the name of the city that had existed there, so the ruins are just referred to as "Machu Picchu."

Back in the old days, you really had to work to get to Machu Picchu.  In fact, since the Inca left the city sometime during the Spanish conquest of Peru until 1911, the place was pretty much left to the jungle.  It was basically overgrown, although a few people may have still lived there.  In fact, when a Yale archaeologist "discovered" the ruins at Machu Picchu in 1911, there were 4 people living there.  Mark was confused as to why someone gets credit for "discovering" a place where people were living, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.  

KP "discovers" that mountain.

Back in the old days, the way to get to Machu Picchu was by foot.  It is a four day hike from Ollantaytumbo and lots of people still do this hike, calling it the "Incan Trail."  These people are morons.  First of all, it's a hike.  Did you know the Spanish don't have a work for hike?  They use the word for walk, or possibly "trek."  If the locals don't have a word to describe something, you probably shouldn't do it there.  Just saying.  Second, this is in the midst of a rainforest.  And, it's at altitude.  Mix it all together and you can count Mark out.

Hikers

But even with the advent of modern technology, it is still a bit of work to get to Machu Picchu.  First, you have to get to Cusco, a city of about 100,000 people which sits at roughly the same altitude as a Mt. Everest base camp and was the capital of the Incan Empire until sacked by the Spanish.  Then, you take a cab to Ollantaytumbo.  This is a 90 km (56 mile) drive that takes about 2 hours because it is through mountains chock full of switchbacks.  Then you take the train from Ollantaytumbo to Machu Picchu Pueblo (formerly "Aguas Calientes").  Then you take a bus or hike to the entrance to Machu Picchu.  Inviting, it is not....

...but the views are worth it.

There are a few hikes around the park.  One of them is to the "Inca Bridge."  It's a short, easy hike, so Mark immediately gravitated directly to it.

Although the hike was the easiest one they had, the Inca Bridge itself is like something straight out of Indiana Jones.  It is carved in to the side of a mountain and stretches for quite a long way.  If an unfortunate worker carrying 50 pounds of sand or food from the valley below to the city above had gotten a bad footing on the bridge, there was no guard rail to catch him.

Watch your step.

These days you can approach the bridge, but not enter it.  Sorry thrill seekers.

Obviously, the ruins are a popular tourist attraction.  To control the amount of damage to the ruins, the government of Peru has a two prong approach.  The first prong is to control the number of entrants to the ruins.  The number is 2500 visitors per day.  If you want to climb Huayna or Machu Picchu mountains, you will need to get a ticket in advance for those as well.  Those are limited to 400 hikers per day.  The second prong is a stepped up maintenance program.  We saw many workers pulling weeds, putting up signs, doing other maintenance tasks (mostly pulling weeds, though).

No weeds as far as the eye can see.

HBomb was not overly impressed with the ruins, but he did enjoy riding around in the backpack.  After a little time in the saddle, he started practicing his jockey skills, driving his spurs into the ribs of the parent who happened to be lugging him around.

Return of KP and JoJo

Devotees of this blog may remember fellow travelers KP and JoJo from adventures in Praha, Wittenburg, Dresden,  Berlin, and their wedding.  Anne, Mark and HBomb have been doing their best to avoid KP and JoJo since then, but eventually they tracked us down in Ollantaytumbo (which is an Incan word that roughly translates as "town where KP and JoJo are going to track you down."  Roughly.).

Ollantaytumbo is a an old town in the Sacred Valley of Peru.  It is located at a little over 9,000 feet of altitude, which is actually a few thousand feet lower than the city of Cusco, which is where this group of travelers landed when they flew into Peru.  Ollantaytumbo and Cusco are both fascinating places, and both are home to ruins of the Incan empire.  Ollantaytumbo is probably best known as the starting place for those brave souls who plan to hike the entire Inca trail.  Although Mark is well known for his love of hiking as well as his hiking skills, due to time constraints, he passed on the 4 day Inca Trail hike (maybe next time).

Mark did, however, hike the ruins at Ollantaytumbo, but did not bother to hire a tour guide.  So, everything from this point on is "accidentally accurate" at best and .... well, let's not even think about what is the worst case scenario.

Anyway, the ruins have a huge set of terraces carved into the mountain.  These were used by the ancient Inca for agricultural purposes (easier to grow crops on a small, flat area than a large, steep hillside.  They also set up some terraces to prevent erosion of the mountainside.  Apparently, the Incan gods had a thing against guard rails, so they didn't bother with those.

View of town from the path along the ruins.

The ruins have held up over time fairly well.  These particular ruins have been protected for awhile due to their proximity to the town, as opposed to the ruins at Machu Picchu, where were lost to western archaeologists until 1911.

Bad news: It's a long way down.  Good news: If you need to, you can fall there quickly.

HBomb and Mark scaled the ruins at Ollantaytumbo and then wandered around on the ground level.

Then, the guests started arriving.  First, the llamas and alpacas started showing up.  Apparently, they are free range in the ruins, because they pretty much just went where they wanted.  For the most part they were cool, calm and collected.  For the most part.  There was an episode of sprinting, however, when someone brought a small dog to the ruins.  (Why would anyone bring a dog to ancient ruins? In case the terrain got too "ruff".  :-)

But as I mentioned, for the most part, the non-wild wildlife was pretty calm.  Some of the tourists even went so far as to pose for pix with the locals.  In fact, JoJo did this soon after meeting up with HBomb and Mark in Ollantaytumbo.

It should be noted that there is no photo of KP with the local wildlife.  This is due to the fact that KP is wildly afraid of wool-producing animals of all species.


After meeting up and spending some time with the local wildlife, KP and JoJo decided to climb the ruins.  If you look closely at the photo below, you can see them ascending.

The group stopped in Ollantaytumbo primarily for two reasons.  First, to acclimate to the altitude.  As mentioned, Peru is at altitude.  If you're not used to it (or just a fat guy), it can be a little difficult to breathe.  Second, the train from Cusco to Machu Picchu pueblo (the closest town to Machu Picchu, formerly known as "Aguas Clients") was not running all the way to Cusco.  Ollantaytumbo was the closest city in which we could catch the train.  All in all, it was a pretty good warm up for the hike to come.

As Seen in Argentina

Some of you may have recently seen a story about a glacier in Argentina which broke and collapsed today.  Mark knew this was coming as he has a local news channel on at work, and judging by the THREE DAYS OF COVERAGE leading up to this event, it must be of international importance.  And before someone puts in the comments, "Hey, Mark, isn't that the same glacier you were walking on a few months ago?" let me just say - yes it is.  Did I cause it to collapse?  Probably not, but who knows.  I am kind of a big deal.

But it jogged my memory about a few things that we've seen around Argentina that probably have not hit the news yet, but I wanted to get out in front of in so I don't get blamed for anything that were to happen going forward.  For example, actually right at the national park that has the glacier, I saw this:

Mark is nothing if not a consummate rule follower.  So after reading this sign at the snack bar, Mark purchased food, set it down and then refused to eat it, instead grabbing food off of the trays of the people at the adjacent tables.  Not eating your own food - interesting concept.  The other diners did not appear to be too happy about it, but rules are rules....  

Maybe eating other people's food may have led to the need for this sign saying that the elevator is for use by people in wheelchairs, guys with sticks and fatties ("los gordos" en espanol):

Yes, Mark used the elevator - because he had a stick.

I am glad to see they are helping out the handicapped though.  People in wheelchairs have it pretty rough in Argentina.

... and it's tough for diners, too.  Sometimes the cafes can be kind of gross.

But there are definite advantages to Argentina, too.  For example, sometimes their protests turn into kicking tailgate parties:

What do want?  Bouncey House!  When do we want it?  Now!

And if you don't look too closely, the central bank kind of looks like the House of Black and White from The Game of Thrones....

New season premiere April 24 - is Jon Snow dead?  We know nothing!!!!!

Plus, when you get to Argentina, you can see that what happened with Dorothy's house in the Wizard of Oz is not entirely hard to believe.  I mean, look, this house just got dropped on top of a building.

Seriously, why is that house up there?

So, moral of the story is that just like any place, it's kind of a mixed bag.  (Also: Mark did not cause a glacier to collapse.)

Ok, well, like it implies on this port-a-potty - gotta go!

Our Day with Dr. Canessa

Mark and Anne have had a series of memorable experiences in Argentina, from attending television premieres to walking with penguins, it's been fun.  But maybe one of the most memorable things has been meeting Dr. and Mrs. Canessa.  This blog mentioned once before that Anne, Mark and the HBomb had the opportunity to meet up with the survivors of the Andes plane crash accident during their annual reunion in Uruguay.  This opportunity came to us because our friend, the Texas spitfire, is friends with Dr. Roberto Canessa, pediatric cardiologist, former Uruguayan rugby national team member, and crash survivor.

Mark and Anne had the opportunity to spend most of the day with Dr. Canessa when he and his wife Laura came to town last month, including lunch, an afternoon reception at the Ambassador's residence and then the better part of the evening at a tango show at La Esquina Carlos Gardel (nice place, good show, a bit touristy).

Dr. Canessa was convinced by the Texas Spitfire to give a talk about his experiences and views on life.  In addition to practicing medicine, Dr. Canessa is also an occasional public speaker.  So, with the aide of a brief film and a narrative from his wife, Laura, Dr. Canessa regaled a standing room only crowd with the story of his harrowing experiences during and following the accident.

Dr. Canessa's speech started with his memories of the accident itself, as he tried to convey what it was like when he realized that the plane was going down.  Then, after the crash, when he looked around and saw so many of his friends and teammates who did not survive the crash.  He described trying to hold the group together initially as they waited for rescue and the despair they all felt when they heard over the radio that the search for them had been called off.  This was followed a day or so later by an avalanche that killed several more of the survivors.  He detailed how the group argued about what strategy to pursue to survive, and how they arrived at the decision they made.

Realizing that help was not on the way and that they were in a barren, frozen no man's land in late winter, the group resolved to send the healthiest remaining members on a mission to find help.  They had the maps that the pilot was using and would try to use them to get to civilization.  Dr. Canessa admitted that he did not actually want to be one of the two people who walked down the mountain in search of help.  He thought that anyone who went on that walk would die.  He fought the others who pushed the idea of leaving right away, as he believed they needed to wait for warmer weather.  This whole time, the people around him continued to languish and die of disease, injuries sustained in the crash, exposure and starvation.  Eventually, Dr. Canessa decided, in his words, that "I would rather die walking."

So he and Fernando Parrado started the trek.  They walked for 10 days in freezing temperatures.  He said that the cold ceased to bother him on his skin, but he started to feel it in his bones.  After 10 days, they found  a creek on the edge of the snowline and followed it.  The creek widened to a  river.  Eventually, they found a farmer, but he was on the other side of the now rushing river.  They yelled for help from the farmer, but he couldn't hear what they were saying.  Somehow, though, the farmer decided to return the next day to make sure they were ok.  This was 72 days after the plane crashed in the mountains.

Dr. Canessa recently published his account of what happened in a book called "I Had to Survive."  We asked him why he decided to write it.  He didn't need the money, other people had written books, made movies, etc, why go through the effort now?  He said that there some things that he thought should be told from a different point of view (some individuals are portrayed in other tellings in ways that Dr. Canessa felt were not accurate).  He also wanted to use his story to help his patients and their families.  The narrative of overcoming long odds can be helpful for families with babies undergoing heart surgery in the nursery or in utero.  And thirdly, he said with a wry smile, that he was tired of signing books written about him by other authors.

Down the Shore

One of the things people may not realize about Argentina is that it is a pretty big country, north to south.  In fact, Argentina is about as long as the continental United States is wide.  So it's a big country, which is great... and not so great.  While that means that Argentina has many interesting places to visit, it also means that it takes a flight to get to many of them from Buenos Aires.

However, one of the things that you can do with just a drive from Buenos Aires is hit the beach.  And in January and February, pretty much everyone in the city does.  Mostly at the same time.  The whole country pretty much goes on vacation for the first month of the year, in fact.  And while Mark, Anne and HBomb didn't take the whole month off, they did take a long weekend trip to the beach.

The cool spots to go around here are Punta Del Este (in Uruguay) and Mar Del Plata (in Argentina).  These are the hots spots for the cool kids around here.  Our trio operates at a little bit of a slower pace, so they chose a spot that they anticipated being a bit more relaxed called Mar de Cobo.

The beach is starting to fill in.

Mar de Cobo is a sleepy little town a little north of Mar Del Plata.  It is much less developed than the beaches in its larger neighbor, but it had a nice beach and a cool, relaxed vibe. It is kind of a like one of the Florida Keys that you haven't heard of - some retirees living there, a few restaurants, but not a huge tourist business going on.

Sand art adds to the relaxed vibe.

  Our trio spent most of a Sunday and Monday on the beach.  Initially, HBomb took a little coaxing to get out into the ocean.  This was a little unusual because HBomb had seen the ocean before (a couple of times) and is absolutely fearless in the swimming pool at home.

HBomb hiding out in our beach tent

So we waded out into the shallows.

HBomb started to get the vibe.  He liked the rhythm of the waves and tried to stand up against their push, sometimes successfully, other times, not so much.

 And then, as is often the case, HBomb really started to get into it.  And then he started to get impatient waiting for the tides to come in.  So he started charging deeper and deeper into the water to find the waves. Apparently, fear of the water is a stage of development he is quickly moving beyond.

That's far enough, young man.

Las Fiestas!

The period between December 24 and January 2 is jam packed full of holidays including Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Mark's Birthday ("Marksmas"), New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and Mark and Anne's Anniversary.  There are probably also some other Argentine holidays thrown in there, too - I mean just playing the numbers, there has to be at least 1 Argentine holiday every week or ten days to get them all in during the calendar year....

Anyway, this year, Christmas was a little different than any Mark, Anne and the HBomb had experienced in the past.  For example, the trees.  The prep is pretty much the same: you untangle the lights and trim the tree.

We ran into some technical difficulties, however, when HBomb wondered how the lights would look in his room after we had already wrapped them around Christmas tree #2 (affectionately dubbed "Charlie Brown Tree" due to its diminutive nature).

But after further review, maybe "Charlie Brown Tree" isn't as bad off as we thought.  For example, check out this tree from Tigre.  It actually has big squares cut out of it and Santa Claus is climbing it like an obstacle from American Ninja Warrior.

But eventually, the trees were up.  Even so, Christmas Eve was very different this year in relation to years past.  For one, we spent it in Argentina.  In Argentina there is no fear of a white Christmas being as how it has snowed here twice since 1900, and both times were in July or August.  However, there was legitimate fear of heat stroke as the mercury skyrocketed.  HBomb found a way to beat the heat with his first annual Christmas Eve swim.

So although HBomb probably won't remember last Christmas with the cold temperatures spent in the Upper Midwest, he seemed to get the "gist" of the Christmas morning gift reveal.

Henry woke up Christmas morning at the crack of 10:30 and hustled out to check out what Santa had brought him.  Although he pretty much just takes what he wants everyday, receiving gifts first thing in the morning was still pretty awesome for the little guy.


The next major holiday was Markmas.  This year we celebrated with the donning of Star Wars gear.  HBomb led the way with this stellar R2-D2 bike helmet (to go with the new trainer Schwinn he scored from Santa).

As mentioned earlier, Mark assumed that Argentina had a holiday or two between Christmas and New Year's.  Turns out, they had a couple.  One was "dia de los inocentes" - which falls on Mark's birthday.  This unofficial holiday (los inocentes, not Mark's birthday) is treated kind of like April Fools' Day in the U.S. with people playing pranks on one another.  Mark did not know this was a tradition, but vows to participate in it with vigor next year.

The next big holiday, New Year's Eve, was a bust.  Anne was asleep by 9, Mark made it to nearly 10:30.  Luckily, the "war zone" style of fireworks display (so named because of the tremendous amount of noise generated as well the fact that no one really wins with this type of display) woke up Mark so he could listen to it for a little while, although not actually see any of it.

New Year's Day was even worse.... what can we say, we never promised you a bed of roses....

Before HBomb saw what Christian McCaffrey was going to do in Pasadena.

So finally, after a long week of celebrating, we finally reached the last day of Marksmas, el aniversario!

Anne and Mark decided to celebrate by taking a trip to Tigre, a little touristy area on the outskirts  of Buenos Aires.  From there, they decided to take a boat cruise around the delta... but which boat to choose?  There were a whole ton of options.

Option #1 is a rusted out pile of junk.  On the upside, it kind of looks like one of the boat that Forrest Gump was using for shrimping before Lt. Dan's storm crushed it.  On the downside.... everything else.

Option #2 was a kayak because..... you know, why not?  Apparently things were not working out well for this gentleman in the kajak next to us, so we passed on that as well....

Option #3 was the catamaran that gives you the guided tour and serves drinks.  This boat gives a guided tour of part of the Delta.  We saw dudes swimming (apparently brown water does not equal a health hazard in Tigre, go figure).  Spoiler alert, we went with Option #3.

And after a hard day's work (not that hard and we were home a bit before schedule, so it wasn't even that long of a day) why not relax with a fruit smoothy?  Or as the locals might say, disfruta la fruta!