Latin America On a Steel Horse

Friday, February 20, 2015

From Lake Titicaca to Cusco - Ruins, Churches and Scenery

The Door of Amaru - near Juli, Peru

From Juli, Peru (near the border with Bolivia) to Cusco, Peru are a mix of ruins with accompanying lore, sacrificial rites, historic churches and beautiful scenery. I visited the church of in Juli, the Door of Amaru near Juli and Sillustani while still in Puno.

The Door of Amaru (pictured above)

I took a collectivo from Puno to the town of Juli close to the Bolivian Border for the purpose of visiting the Door of Amaru. While enroute, I saw some very interesting rock formations. It turned out this is where the door was. The area where the door is carved looks like bedrock that has been broken up and turned perpendicular. There are a number of legends surrounding the door. One legend says that it is the Gateway to the Gods; that heroes could pass through this door to live eternally with the gods. One story is of an Incan priest that passed through this door with a sacred golden disk to protect it from the Spaniards. Other legends include star gate for interstellar travel and devil's gate as a location where demons can enter the earth. I tried to open it, but could not.

Possibly it was a kind of natural amphitheater where the door was the stage

Interesting rock formations near the door

More interesting rock formations near the door

Sillustani

Sillustani is an archeological area about 35km from Puno towards Cusco. It is a hill that at one time may have been an island as it has water bodies on each side. Essentially, Sillustani was a cemetery for important people. The tombs, called chullpas, were built above ground with stone in a circular fashion with a domed roof. Many of the tombs were in disrepair due to either lightening strikes, earthquakes or tomb raiders. In each tomb, the important person would be buried with their wife, family and servants many of which were sacrificed. It is obvious the different tombs were constructed at different periods as they used different methods and different quality of stones.

Sillustani with the sun beaming down

A chullpa constructed more with mortar and stone (more mortar)

One of the few chullpas in good condition

This chullpa was in the process of being constructed. The ramp was used to raise the large stones

This chullpa came down most likely due to earthquake or lightening strike

Notice the very fine cutting on these stones. These are very flat surfaces.
Much higher quality work than most of the other chullpas.

Plateau island next to Sillustani

Kalassaya Archeological Site and the Lítico Meseum in Pucara

Kalassaya

Kalassaya is a pyramid like complex that has a number of interesting features. It has tunnels that have never been fully explored. One guy in our tour group crawled through one of the tunnels. Found on this site, was a monolith of a priest holding a head in one hand and a knife in the other. Additionally, on the archeological site is the incomplete foundation for a church and in that church were found human skulls with no bodies.

Monolith of priest with head and knife

Abandoned church foundation

This guy just crawled through about 20 meters of underground tunnel

A sunken ceremonial site

Racchi Arqueological Site

Racchi Main Temple building

Racchi was an administrative point for the Incas. It is comprised of a main temple building (92 meters long and 20 meters in height), a number of residences for important inca leaders and a large number of storage vessels for storing taxed goods (primarily corn, potatoes, quinoa, and dried meats).

Residential

Storage units (colcas)

Iglesia de San Pedro de Andahuaylillas

Iglesia de San Pedro is known as being the 16th church in the Americas. It was probably constructed towards the end of the 16th century, while some of the interior paintings show dates of early 1600's.

The road to heaven and hell

The following painting depicts the martyrdom of Saint Peter with the decapitation of his head. According to wikipedia, Saint Peter was cruicified upside down. My guess is that the decapitation is to help the indigenous people relate given that decapitation was practiced by their priests. This is Saint Paul and there is a painting of Saint Peter on the cross. I did not see this correctly

The martyrdom of Saint ~~Peter~~Paul

Another thing I noticed is that saintly individuals had a halo that looked like sun rays. I believe this was also to help the indigenous relate to the church.

Pikillacta

Pikillacta was like a gate between two mountains. It most likely served as check point much like today's border control stations.

Pikillacta

Nice Scenery on the Road

Llamas at El Paso La Raya

At El Paso La Raya

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Lake Titicaca - a beautiful place

On Uros, this little girl targeted me for the sale of her drawings.
She knew just the right sales pitch to use on me:
3 soles to help her with school.

Before coming to Lake Titicaca, I heard mixed reviews. Some people seemed to love it and some people seemed to not think too much of it. After coming here, I think it would be very easy to come here and miss some of the best parts if you did not make the right choices. I think I had some luck in making the right choices due to another fortunate word of mouth event.

While in Arequipa, I met a couple that had just come from Puno, the main port city for Lake Titicaca in Peru. They recommended that I stay near the Plaza de Armas as it was a good area with nice options for eating. Their recommendation was a good one, because if you get very far from the Plaza de Armas, Puno is not such a pretty city.

Carnival celebration in Puno at the Plaza de Armas

I had two things that I wanted to do while in the area: visit islands and ruins. The hotel had a couple of tours available. You could visit one, two or three islands. After talking with the woman at the hotel, I opted for visiting two islands. I think it would be easy for someone to think they would see what they wanted to see by visiting one island, but that would be a mistake. The islands are quite different.

Los Uros

Los Uros are man-made islands with approximately 2,000 inhabitants. The islands are made using the roots of a floating tube like grass as the buoyancy and the grass cut and laid as the floor. They have some basic infrastructure on the island, such as, primary school, a basic health clinic, a government building and two churches. I believe everything is floating.

Home and kitchen (round) on Uros

Demonstrating how the islands and structures are built

The Mercedes-Benz of the Uros. The pontoons are built with plastic bottles wrapped in weaving.

The women of the island

Taquille Island

Taquille Island is about two hours by boat from Puno in the middle of Lake Titicaca. Taquille offers brilliant 360 degree views of Lake Titicaca. From here, you can see into both Peru and Bolivia. You can see the ocean like expanse of deep blue water. The depth in Lake Titicaca reaches as much as 280 meters. A person that does not reach the interior islands of Lake Titicaca cannot appreciate the real beauty of this place.

Looking back towards Peru mainland from Taquille Island

Looking down where the boat dropped us; clear blue water

Looking towards Bolivia

Another view towards mainland Peru

Terraced agriculture. This view reminds me of the Italian Riviera

The view from where we ate Lunch

A baby lamb where we ate lunch

A view of a stone arch and the boat dock from where we departed

A duck, I saw quite a few, especially in the grassy areas

View of mainland on our return voyage

View of mainland on our return voyage with grassy shoreline

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Arequipa – Nice mid-size city with a mix of colonial and modern

Plaza de Armas in Arequipa

Arequipa was one of the earliest cities founded by the Spanish. It was unique to most Spanish cities in that it was not established on top of an existing indigenous city. Instead, Arequipa was created in between three indigenous populations. Thus, all of the colonial architecture is Spanish alone.

Arequipa reminded me a little of Cuenca in Ecuador in its mix of colonial/modern, size and solid infrastructure. It is very comfortable city. I stayed for 5 days in Arequipa.

It is situated next to two large volcanoes: Misti and Chachani. Unfortunately, it was rainy season and it was difficult to get good views. The day I arrived, I had magnificent views of both Misti and Chachani. I could not find a good angle to get a picture and I was tired so I decided to rest instead. I did not have as good a view for the rest of the time I was there.

My best picture of Misti

Iglesia de la Compañia

The Spanish Jesuits started construction on the Iglesia de la Compañia in the late 1500's. An interesting thing about this church is that it used a mix of Catholic and indigenous religious symbols. The apparent idea was that they could influence the indigenous people if they could relate to the symbolism on the church.

The facade had ornate carvings that included common animals used in Incan culture.

Notice the sun (a symbol of indigenous religions) below Christ.

Iglesia la Compañia Plaza - note the Muslim influence in the architecture

Santa Catalina Monastery

The Santa Catalina Monastery was founded in 1579. It grew to a size of 20,000 square meters and housed as many as 300 nuns at one time. As I walked through the monastery, I kept thinking that this was 17th century version of mixed corporate / residential use. There were quarters for nuns. There were a large number of wood ovens. I believe baking may have been a source of income given the number of ovens. There were confessionals, a chaple, a large kitchen, a laundry area, a pharmacy, and a few other areas. One thing I learned: the nuns had some sort of property rights to their quarters; as there were records of nuns selling their quarters to others.

The entrance to Santa Catalina

Looking over Santa Catalina gives an idea of the size of the monastery

A nun's quarters

A street within the convent

One of the many wood ovens

Branding on the wafer. You are eating the body of Christ brought to you by the Jesuits

The laundry room

Me in front of a tree

An open area within the monastery

The Founder's House

The Casa del Fundador (founder's house) was built by the initial founder of the city of Arequipa, Don Manuel Garcí de Carbajal. The initial building occurred in the year 1540. That is an old house. Today, it serves for historical visits and community events.