Andean Birthday Party

From Sierra: On Friday after school I went to Radhe's birthday party.  It started at three o'clock.  When I got to her house we had a snack of cookies, cashews, cheese rolls, and chicha morada, a juice made out of purple corn.  Then we played some games until about six.  One of the games was like musical chairs except we passed a balloon instead.  Then we gave Radhe presents and sang a birthday song that was called "happy fiesta day."  Then we lined up to receive a piece of birthday lasagne that had a big candle in it.  The lasagne was cooked in a woodstove outside.  Then I walked home in the dark with mommy, which took about 30 minutes.

View From the Mountains Above Radhe's House

Machu Picchu

From Iain: The girls had three days off from school last week so we decided to plan our trip to Machu Picchu for this time.  Rather than take a tour we arranged the trip independently (and also a little more economically because visiting Machu Picchu is pretty expensive).  Since we wanted to spend a full day at the site but we didn't really want to stay in Aguas Calientes (the small, overpriced tourist town below Macchu Picchu), we decided to stay for two nights in Ollantaytambo.  This allowed us to catch an early train from Ollantytambo to Aguas Calientes, then a bus up to Machu Picchu, and then about seven hours at the site before walking back down to Aguas Calientes to catch a late train back to Ollantaytambo.
So, on Wednesday we jumped on a local bus from Pisac to Urubamba (about an hour), then changed to a combi (jam-packed minibus) from Urubamba to Ollantaytambo (about half an hour).  I had a bag full of ten live chickens at my feet for this part of the journey.  On reaching Ollantaytambo we checked into the very pleasant hostal, Casa de Wow.  We had a handmade bunk-bed made from a cherry tree in our room.  After exploring the town a little and going to the train station to pick up our tickets, we had a great meal at Hearts Cafe and then retired to the hostal to watch The Lorax on DVD (our first movie in three months).
The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn to catch our train to Aguas Calientes.  We were in "executive class" with Inca Rail, which got us a snack (a brownie and a chocolate) to go with our hot drink.  As the train bumped down the valley, the clouds rolled in and the vegetation got lusher and more overgrown - the start of the cloud forest.  After an hour and a half we reached Aguas Calientes and went in search of the buses up to Machu Picchu.  A short (20 minute), steep, overpriced bus ride up a series of switchbacks and we were there.

View from the Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock

We spent the next seven hours wandering the site, including hiking along the end of the Inca Trail up to the Intipunku (Sun Gate).  There were hordes of tourists all over the site throughout the day (the maximum number of visitors is capped at 2500 and there were probably close to this number in total), yet the site is vast enough that it never felt particularly crowded.  We didn't hire a guide but on a few occasions as we rested or snacked we listened in to a guide talking about a particular aspect of the site to others.  Often the explanations seemed a little vague, speculative, or hard to understand, so I'm not sure we really missed anything by not having a guide.  The most impressive part of the site is the setting, of course, something that is hard to appreciate from photos.  The drop-off on all sides of the main complex is unfathomably steep, and the surrounding mountains in the near and far distance are quite spectacular.

Looking Towards the Central Plaza and Huayna Picchu

We also found it interesting to try to visualize the various animals represented in different parts of Machu Picchu, such as the puma (Huayna Picchu), the condor (just to the left of Huayna Picchu), the giant lizard (the view from above of all the buildings as a whole), and the snake (the Rio Urubamaba).  In the late afternoon, having had our fill of Machu Picchu, we climbed down countless steep steps to the river, then crossed over and walked into Aguas Calientes (just over an hour's walk in total).  We found a decent Chinese restaurant, Canton Chifa, and bought some take-out food to take to the train station to eat while we waited for the train.  We were just traveling "tourist class" this time (with a more limited selection of hot drinks and no snack), but we were all too zonked to mind - Sierra conked out five minutes into the journey.  We finally made it back to Ollantaytambo and then walked back to the hostal.
The next day, after a good breakfast of eggs, bread, and coffee at the hostal, we went for a short, steep hike up to some more Incan ruins, then went for a good lunch at the Coffee Tree in the main square (Sierra had poutine!).  Then we made our way back "home" to Pisac, taking a combi to Urubamba, then a bus (full of boisterous school-children) to Pisac.
The whole trip to Machu Picchu was a little challenging to organize since information from guidebooks and online was invariably out of date and incorrect.  So, here are some details that might be of use to anyone planning a trip with children (correct as of September 2012):

• There's no need to go with a tour from Cusco - it's fairly easy to organize yourself.
• Staying in Ollantaytambo is a viable and better-value alternative to staying in Aguas Calientes.
• I bought half-price Machu Picchu tickets for the children in Cusco in-person at at the Oficinas de la Direccion Regional de Cultura since it didn't seem possible to buy these online (same for student tickets).
• The most expensive part of visiting Machu Picchu is the train to Aguas Calientes, but the only viable alternative we read about is going via Santa Teresa and catching a once-a-day train from a hydroelectric station.  I'm not sure this would be too easy with children.
• I don't think that walking up from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu would be too much fun, but walking down was fine (and saved us about US$30).
• Approximate overall costs for the four of us were: Machu Picchu entrance $130, train to/from Ollantaytambo $300, bus from Aguas Calientes $30, two nights' accommodation in Ollantaytambo $70, total (excluding food) $530.

Night Out At The Circus

From Iain: We went to the circus last night and the only performing animal was a small dog dressed up as a clockwork elephant.  For some reason they didn't bring the lions out, which was actually something of a relief as I wasn't too keen on seeing such magnificent wild animals performing tawdry circus tricks (small dogs dressed as elephants are a whole different matter).  They really didn't need lions as the star attraction anyway - the circus was plenty entertaining without them.  There were three aerial acts doing impossible things extremely high up with no safety net, a couple of genuinely amusing clowns, a juggler and a unicyclist (but no juggling unicyclist), a knife-thrower who also balanced unbalanceable things on this chin (see Sierra's report below), an alarmingly young contortionist, some dancers, and lots of very loud music (everything from the themes from Star Wars and Dallas to recent dance hits and classic circus pieces).

From Sierra: Outside the Pisac Inca Hostal where we are staying there is a circus set up and every night the circus goes on and on. On Saturday we took Lili, the hostal owner, and Urpi, her sister. The circus was at eight o'clock so it was cold and we brought four blankets to share with Urpi and Lili and some popcorn. The circus was fun: they had clowns, knife throwing, acrobats, a man with a stick balanced on his chin with a child on the stick, and a girl about Bethany's age doing gymnastics.

From Bethany: We went to the circus yesterday! It was really fun to see all the people do their different things. There were people who did juggling and people who did knife throwing and a whole lot of other things, but I think my favorite act was when the person on the trapeze hung by his feet 30 feet above the ground.

Sierra, Bethany, Urpi, and Lili at the Circus

Woken by Roars

From Iain: This morning we weren't woken by the usual plethora of noises - the church bells, the yapping dogs, the firecrackers set off by the farmers to scare away the birds.  No what woke us this morning was a series of loud, deep, rumbling roars coming from four lions - a male, a female, and two cubs - camped out in the field next to our hostal.  In case this seems a little far-fetched, here's a photo of the male:

Circus Lion

The circus has come to town and is setting up within view of our room.  The lions are the star attraction and when school was over today a swarm of children congregated by the fence surrounding the circus field mesmerized by them.  Of course it goes without saying that wild animals in circuses are deplorable.  But it would be a lie to say it's not a little thrilling to be living in such close proximity to four lions.  And how can we possibly deny Bethany and Sierra the chance to go to see an old-fashioned circus.  We'll be going tomorrow or Saturday.

Pisac Ruins

From Iain: Yesterday we hiked up into the mountains above Pisac and up onto the Incan ruins.  Above the terraces that you can see from the valley floor are the remains of a number of buildings perched precariously at the top of a mountain.  The main group of buildings has incredibly fine, mortarless stonework: blocks with perfectly straight edges, adjoining one another with not a sliver of a gap.  Probably built for a ceremonial purpose, some of the buildings contain alcoves for offerings of some sort:

Incan Offerings at Pisac Ruins

Only one building in the main group has curved walls and it contains a large, dark-coloured, carved stone in the centre: the intihuatana ("hitching post of the sun").

Pisac Ruins

Other clusters of buildings have rougher stone work and were perhaps living quarters, store rooms, and fortifications.  As we climbed down, we passed some buildings on the very edge of a cliff with a sheer drop-off outside the windows.  We then had to descend hundreds of unfeasibly steep, narrow steps going down through sets of huge terraces.  After then walking along numerous switchbacks to get back down to the valley floor, we were about ready to drop when we finally made it back to our hostal.

Sierra's Field Trip to Chahuaytire

From Sierra: Today Daddy and I went with my class to see some rock paintings.  First we went in a very crowded combi for about twenty minutes on a very windy road.  Then we went on a short trail to a stream and from there we walked up another trail and through some trees.  Then we saw a large rock and on the rock there were some small paintings.  The paintings were of llamas and people and other animals.

Renee Explaining About The Chahuaytire Rock Painting (5,000 BC)

Then we went back to the stream to have lunch.  At the stream a boy in my class found a dead cat fish about the size of your finger.  Then we hiked back to the car.  Then we drove back to Pisac and went to a museum (while Daddy went back to the hostal).  At the museum there were pictures of Pisac and other artifacts.  And also there were three mummies and three human skulls.  Then my class said our goodbye verse and walked home.  But I didn't quite know the way home.  So, one of the children from my class led me half of the way.  Then I went back to the hostal but Mama and Dada were not there.  So, Lily, the hostal manager opened our room for me and I put my backpack inside and then she asked if I wanted to stay here or go back to the school.  I wanted to go back to the school, so Lily walked me up to the school.  And then she waited there with me until school was over.  And then Mama and Dada came back and we went to have lunch.