Magic words

Much as I love to live in England, however pleased I am that we have four distinct seasons (even if they don’t necessarily come in the order expected) on this miserable January afternoon, I was glad to be heading to summertime somewhere.  It didn’t even bother me that our journey this time won’t be exclusively in tropical climes: I didn’t mind packing a mac, and umbrella and a few layers of clothing.  It was good to escape!

We both get excited by the swooosh of the huge jets passing overhead as we near the airport and look forward to doing the same ourselves in a while.  Those of you who know us will understand we are planners; we like to know what’s what but for the first time this first part of the trip had given my hero cause for concern.  We had two different booking references you see.  Not only that, but when we went into our BA account, there were double bookings there too.  So phone calls have been made, conversations had and varying degrees of reassurance offered that all would be well.  The explanation was all to do with code shares.  Seems like our flight to Madrid was booked with Iberia but is actually a code share with BA and the Madrid-Lima bit was a similar arrangement with LAN.  OK.  None of that mattered to us except there was one nightmare scenario: if we failed to use one of those two outbound bookings, the return leg might be cancelled!  But we couldn’t see how to check in twice for the same flight….

Thankfully, all was well, even if the supposedly BA service to Madrid turned out to be Iberia.  did it matter?  Not at all.  But this was a long journey and we were only just at the start.  Two hours to Madrid, an hour transfer time and then another 11 and a half on a LAN 767 to Lima, departing 0035.  We can’t do that kind of thing in economy any more, I’m afraid, so at least we get a comfortable ride with a bit more space and a duvet to sleep under.

We arrived in Lima at 5.40am, almost an hour early and hot footed it to the immigration where our early arrival was causing problems.  The passenger manifest had not yet been uploaded to the passport control system yet and the baggage handlers didn’t seem to be ready either.  We watched as almost everyone collected their bags and feared the worst for ours.

Phew.

The traffic is crazy here and we were glad to be taken care of!  But best of all were those magic words we heard as we checked into our hotel at 7.30am – your room is ready now.

Not only that, there’s a spectacular view of the ocean and the day is warming up nicely already.

I know Lesley is concerned for the travelling companions, so here’s reassurance that they are doing fine!

They made a bee line for the comfy bed to begin with but soon changed their minds when they spotted the perfect place to spend the day.

Having showered and changed, we’re going off in search of an Inca site and will find a bit of fun along the way, I’m sure.  We have a recommendation for supper tonight where we can eat some of the favourite Peruvian dishes we learned to cook a couple of years ago, because once we leave Lima tomorrow, there’ll be fewer opportunities to eat local.

I must say, from the minute we arrived, we remembered how much we love Peru!  The slightly formal, rather officious immigration officer whose facial features place him and his forebears absolutely in this place, smiled and nodded when I thanked him for squeezing the entry stamp into a small space in my passport rather than slap bang in the middle of an empty page.  He grinned and nodded – “welcome”.

It’s so good to be back!

..and what wasn’t

Of course, there were plenty of other treasures we simply had to leave behind.  Not only the quipu in the antique stall on Pisac market, but also a few pieces of rather lovely textiles too.

Our hotel in Urubamba had a huge bathroom and either side of the free standing bath were long ottoman-style stools upholstered in this rather lovely (hand?) embroidered fabric.

The fabric itself is wool – or alpaca, maybe – and the embroidery worked in similar yarn.  Mostly french knots or similar, there were other pieces of this work for sale in the shop on site and also in the more expensive gift shops.  Scarves and shawls as well as cushions were worked in this style but though I admired the work, the price of such pieces was pretty hefty.  And whilst I don’t doubt the work to be authentic and traditional, for some reason, it didn’t say “Peru” to me.  I suspect, too, that it would look all too juicy to our Gloucestershire moths as well

There was a similar technique worked on the cushions in our room, but this time worked on velvet fabric.  I recognise the french knots of course, but the lines?  Raised chain band do you think?

Finally, I resisted any temptation to bring home a piece of costume, however fun and authentic it might be.  It was a good opportunity to take a closer look though!

pWhat was in the bag?

It was a fairly busy week; one of those which filled up as the days have gone by and built up momentum rather.  So, the bag of good things sitting at my feet here in the studio went unopened until now.

The bag itself was bought in Chinchero, as were most of our treasures.  It’s a sturdy woven fabric, has the zip pocket but is otherwise a simple striped bucket bag.  I’ll enjoy using it.

We couldn’t leave Peru without buying one chullo but rather than choose one with llamas and suchlike, we went for a softer, alpaca one in pretty, plant-dyed colours whilst we were at the market in Pisac.

Not being a particularly adept French-Knotter myself, I quite liked the surface decoration.

Now, you already know about this length of braid from that same market, intended for my hat.  Since we’ve been home, I’ve got hold of the book and have read a little more about the methods of weaving these narrow pieces.  The concern appears to be that younger women are working more on these narrow, quicker projects rather than the larger, more time consuming pieces because they are more saleable of course.

So, I am particularly happy that we chose a bigger piece when we were in Chinchero.  Clearly, a more complex combination of pattern, this weaving is about 45cm wide and a metre or so in length and was worked on a backstrap loom by one of the women in the cooperative.  The patterns are traditional and include the hoe “hook”, the cows eye (circle with a dot in the middle) and puma claws, similar to the narrow braid design.  The yarns are dyed with natural dyes and though the bulk of the weaving is worked in wool, the white puma claws are alpaca.

The whole piece is edged with the traditional “eye border”, worked with the forked stick and by picking up the threads in exactly the same way as we watched the woman doing that morning.

 

We plan to hang our weaving somewhere at home, though right now, are undecided where and how!

We love it!

We brought home a few more small pieces, though considering the price, it’s hard to believe they are of quite the same heritage.  Still, they are colourful and useful examples of Peruvian textile traditions, for sure.

Oh, and one last piece.  My hero spotted the lady with these bags sitting quietly on the grass outside the cathedral.  I paid hardly anything for it, which is possibly just as well, because it’s not exactly heirloom quality!  But it’s made from a piece of old fabric, is colourful and fun and for me, it represents a morning spent chatting with those old ladies who were happy to tell us about their costume, their life and their failing eyesight.  We loved them.

How high?

It’s a week since we were wandering about Cuzco with Francis and a few days since we’ve been back and getting ourselves back into our “normal” lives.  We were away four weeks and during that time, the long-awaited OFSTED inspection has happened at work, our boiler has broken and been repaired (thank goodness for housesitters!) and whilst our assorted volunteer commitments have been put one one side, life here, of course, has carried on as usual.

Oh, and it has rained.  A lot.

Thankfully, we live on the top of a hill, so unless that valley filled with water first, we’re safe from rising water.  However, there is still the threat of running water – streams and rivers begin somewhere, after all, and the constantly flowing water across several local hillside roads are a reminder that all of this wet weather can affect us all.

Thankfully, we are warm and dry here at home.  I have to say, however, that it feels so good to be back at “ordinary” altitude again; about 600 feet above sea level around here.

I really did worry about altitude sickness when we were planning our trip, though.  We’d heard that it’s unpredictable, that it doesn't depend on age, level of fitness or previous experience of travelling to high places.  I read articles like this and scared myself enough to take the whole subject seriously when we were planning our trip.  After all, who wants to go on holiday to a dream destination only to find themselves feeling poorly?

So, we took advice from our travel agent, who suggested that, having flown into Cuzco (11,000ft) from our hotel in a coastal suburb of Lima (where the altitude is stated as 16ft!), we go immediately to Urubamba (9,420ft) to acclimatise for a few days.  She also advised that we should do very little whilst we were there, that we should not drink alcohol but drink plenty of water.  Adriana reinforced this by adding that we should eat lightly and breathe deeply too, particularly if we were feeling breathless.

When I looked at our programme, I felt sorry that we weren’t going to do our usual thing of hitting the ground running, packing in as much activity as we could during our time there, especially when I read about the markets, the crafts, the colour!  Just half day activities, then, with a fairly relaxed start and an early finish.  How would we pass the rest of the time?

Thankfully, that had been considered already and, of course, we were not the first people to be taking this advice.  The Sol y Luna offered more than a mere room for the night and was a pleasant place to mooch around, to spend time relaxing and offered us space to spend a few hours reading, blogging, breathing deeply and drinking water.  Having decided to take the “drug free route” to Machu Picchu, then we needed to take time.

We found ourselves feeling breathless and slightly “spaced out”, though after a couple of days, that feeling wore off a little.  I wasn’t hungry in the slightest, so the advice to eat lightly was no problem to follow, but I was always thirsty and could have kept on drinking bottle after bottle of water.  The worst aspect of the altitude was the dryness of the air and the effects on breathing, especially at night.  I would wake with a blocked nose and dry mouth, my sinuses hurt and as a result, I had a headache for much of the time.  I felt better after a glass of water, but waking every couple of hours feeling thirsty soon takes its toll.  An early morning shower was bliss – standing under running water in a steamy bathroom was a great way to clear the passages and Casita 38 soon acquired the heady camphor and eucalyptus scented aroma of Tiger Balm!

During these days, we spent time at higher altitudes, visiting villages further up the valley and testing ourselves by going that bit further each time but returning to our safe haven after a couple of hours.  Having managed that, did that mean we’d be ok?  Who knew?  The morning at Chinchero (12,000ft) was the test. 

Well, you might recall that Chinchero was the home of the weaving cooperative, the textile town and as a result, you probably won’t be surprised to read that I was so distracted by all the wonderful things around me, I forgot to think about how I was feeling!

As a result, by the time we reached Agua Calientes  (6,690ft), we were not only feeling more comfortable but also feeling less anxious about altitude generally and thankfully, that last push up the hill to Machu PIcchu (8,000ft) was fine.  It’s interesting, though, how a change of just a thousand feet can make such a difference – the whole time we were in the area, we were acutely aware of the altitude by simply assessing of how we felt.  I spent the whole week with a sinus-related headache but the joy of being in such an exciting place meant that I frequently forgot about it!

 

Cuzco (11,000ft) was the last stop on our itinerary, then, and with the exception of Chinchero, was also the highest spot.  The dry sinuses and slight breathlessness had become the norm by then and we’d got used to doing what we could to manage it all.  We were still taking it slowly, still found climbing stairs more of an effort than usual and were still drinking bottle after bottle of water.  The relief of having escaped the altitude sickness was enormous but the prospect of descending to a more comfortable level was the best of all.  Our hotel offered an increased oxygen supply to our room via the air conditioning, but having got this far, we didn’t take them up on it. 

I referred to my toothpaste in an earlier blog post.  Of course, the expansion of all bottles and tubes in our bags continued throughout the week and opening anything for the first time had to be done with caution.  On returning home, the reverse happened and we discovered every tube and bottle had squeezed in on itself.  Nothing could beat the feeling of waking up with a clear nose and no headache, though.

Lessons learned?  That we were right to take the potential of altitude sickness seriously but that it’s possible to lessen the risk by taking time to acclimatise.  Who knows if we’d have been ok regardless?  But having invested so much in terms of time, effort and money to get to Peru, it just had to be worth taking a few more days to minimise the chances of being too ill to see what we’d come all that way for.

The effects vanished almost as soon as we touched down in Lima.  The photo of the yarn hanging above was taken in the lobby of the airport hotel where we spent the afternoon sitting in comfortable armchairs and noticing that for the first time in a week, we weren’t thirsty.

We celebrated with a Cusquena beer each!

Hotel Art

It’s ages since I did an “hotel art” post, but the Palacio Nazarenes in Cuzco inspired me to post a few photographs which may inspire you, too.

 

Now, I like to see original work in hotels rather than “art by the yard”, but for this once, I’ll make an exception!

(The Palacio Nazarenes is possibly the first hotel we’ve visited with an “artist in residence”.  This gentleman was sitting at his loom in a corner of the cloistered courtyard, weaving a tapestry from a photograph of the original.)

He had no English and I had only a few words of Spanish, so details are sketchy.  I know he’s using cotton, dyed with natural plantstuffs but what I don’t know is if he created the smaller version which hung along the wall from his loom.  Anyway, it was fascinating to watch him work, even if he did seem slightly uncomfortable with me looking over his shoulder!

Most of the art around the hotel was original in every sense of the word.  I loved the spontaneity of this border, the life and energy of those curves and the slight irregularity of the pattern.

I left this photograph uncropped to illustrate how high on the wall this little cupboard was hung and the asymmetric painted detail on each side.  I wonder what was kept in there?

Because, the hotel has been created by the renovation of a 16th century Carmelite convent and although I am sure that their faith and devotion was fulfilling enough, I can’t help but think that these beautiful wall paintings must have been as much of a delight to them as they were to us.

The details continued throughout the hotel and, in this case, into the adjoining lobby.

Though I don’t think the Carmelites would have had much use for decorative sugar swirlers, do you?  Perhaps a small piece of soap or a reel of thread may have been of more practical use.

There were some corners we didn’t discover until it was almost time to leave.

But there were others which we noticed the minute we stepped inside!

I approved of the choice of reading material in the gift shop, too!

But my favourite picture hung in our room.  I was so desperate to get a good photograph of it and failed miserably – all ten pictures that I took have dreadful reflections and sad to say, this is the best.  I loved the shape of the figures in the watercolour, the postures and the spirit of the little band, making its way across the fields.  Somehow, they look so Peruvian.

It was a wrench to leave, even though we really were ready for home.  I hope we’ll be able to return there someday and that, when we do, we find the same warm and friendly people waiting for us.

Still, it was so good to climb into our own bed last night!