I wanted to make Snorth something unique for her 40th birthday. For years she’s been talking about seeing Les Miz but she’s been reticent because she is not a big fan of musicals (“Why are they singing? Why can’t they just talk?”). I thought I would spend the better part of a day (40 minutes to film, 8 hours to edit) making her a video to answer all her questions without her having to actually sit through the Les Miz itself. I’ve never made a video like this before. I think it turned out great. I feel pretty proud of myself.
Archive for the ‘Random Art Bloggery’ Category
Snorth’s 40th Birthday Present.
Tuesday, February 16th, 2016Would Sir care for some charts this evening?
Monday, February 15th, 2016
The Room.
Sunday, January 31st, 2016I finally saw the movie The Room. You may think I’m talking about the movie Room that recently came out and might win some Oscars but I am not. No, I am referring to the movie that came out in 2003. It cost six million dollars. It takes place in 2.3 locations. The acting hurts your eyes and ears. The sex scenes might make you sterile. It is notorious for being one of the worst movies ever created and now that I’ve seen it I think that’s a pretty accurate description. If you’d like I’d be happy to give you a synopsis of the “plot” as I remember it so you can be spared from seeing this unfortunate garbage dump of a inflated student film. It’s fine if I don’t remember things correctly, it doesn’t affect the movie in any way.
Before we get into this a bit of additional information. Does everyone remember Mystery Science Theater 3000? If not, their theme song will explain their show to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcUkKltAidM
The MST3K gentlemen still watch movies and add their commentary and that’s what I went to see. I was so extremely grateful for their continuous input because I don’t think I could have made it through without them. Also you should know about the writer/director/producer/actor of this thing, Tommy Wiseau. He is an age, but no one knows what it is. He is also from a country, not an English-speaking country, but no one knows which one. He’s short and creepily muscular with shoulder-length dyed-black hair in desperate need of a deep conditioning treatment. The MST3K fellows described him (extremely accurately) as a life-form completely made out of Madonna’s arms.
Okay. Here we go. The Room opens with lots and lots of shots of San Francisco. We are then introduced to an apartment that looks like it was decorated with things found at your local high-end Salvation Army including a framed portrait of a spoon. A female who will be called Dumpy Debbie Gibson (or DDG from this point on) and Tommy Wiseau (playing her fiancé Johnny) are doing or saying… something. It doesn’t matter. Johnny gives DDG a red dress that not flattering to anyone with limbs or a torso. He then says she looks beautiful and then start to head upstairs to make the love but the teenage neighbor boy Donnie comes over and the three of them engage in an awkward conversation where Donnie mentions he wouldn’t mind watching them get it on. (?) Johnny and DDG go on upstairs and proceed to have sexual relations in a bed surrounded by mosquito netting because we all are aware of San Francisco’s malaria epidemic. They have sex as if someone explained to them how humans mate but they’ve never seen it. Johnny kind of pushes his hip corner at her with each epically slow thrust which is not where male genitals are located. When I was in theater in high school we were taught to “open up” to the audience, meaning when you have a conversation with another actor you both turn slightly outward so the audience can see your face and hear you better. DDG and Johnny were doing that but in bed. I think Johnny then heads out to do something (I believe his character works at a bank doing banky things so maybe that) and DDG opens the door to find hot neighbor guy and Johnny’s best friend Mark there. She confesses she no longer loves Johnny, she doesn’t want to be his wife and she says Johnny hits her. Mark says it’s not a good idea for them to get it on but he cannot resist her because she is so beautiful. Then DDG and Mark have some sad version of intercourse on a spiral stairway. I cannot imagine for the life of me a more uncomfortable place to get naked and squish components with another person than a cold and oddly shaped metal staircase with jutting angles. That sadness ends. Mark leaves. Following that DDG’s mother comes over and they have a weird conversation where the mother confesses that she has breast cancer, DDG tells her not to worry and it is never mentioned again. (???) Somewhere in there there’s yet another sex scene with two completely irrelevant characters where the male makes the weirdest faces while receiving pleasure.
Johnny goes to buy his beloved DDG some roses in what is one of the worst scenes in ever. He walks into the flower shop… you know what, I can’t even describe it. I will find a video for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S9Ew3TIeVQ
That’s it. That’s the entire scene. I did not move the dialogue around, that’s the order it’s presented and at that speed. The only good actor in that scene was the ancient bloated fart pug on the counter. Or possibly the door. Awful, just awful. Johnny comes home with roses and he and DDG have sex again but instead of filming a totally new sex scene which may have proven fatal for everyone involved Tommy simply reused the EXACT SAME SHOTS from their previous sex scene, but faster. Here’s where things start to get fuzzy because the same conversation happens with different configurations of people. DDG no longer loves Johnny, she loves Mark. DDG’s mom (you know, the one with the breast cancer that’s never addressed again?) says DDG needs to stay with Johnny because he has money and can give her a good life. We also learn that Johnny kind of adopted Donnie and got him an apartment in the same building and that’s why he’s around all the time. Donnie fawns over DDG and tells her how beautiful she is and how he wants to get with her. This I don’t understand. DDG is not hideous but she is definitely not a smokin’ hot babe. “That nice girl who works at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels at the mall” would be a good description of DDG but every guy acts like their loins are magnetically drawn to her. I think in the reality of this movie all the other women in San Francisco are dead, perhaps killed off by that malaria epidemic and DDG is all that’s left. Another important thing is some of these conversations happen in the apartment and some of them happen on the roof. The roof is a whole other can of worms. The roof scenes are filmed surrounded by green screen and then San Francisco was added in afterwards but it doesn’t quite line up perfectly so it feels a bit trippy. The finest piece of acting in The Room is done as Johnny enters the roof and sees his friend Mark there. I have found it for you. You need only watch the first ten seconds or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4KzClb1C4
Then some indeterminate amount of time passes and there’s a party for Johnny and DDG’s wedding where DDG lies about being pregnant and starts making out with Mark in front of Johnny and Johnny is like oh hell no and kicks DDG out. He then goes on a rampage through the apartment like Frankenstein’s monster, rips DDG’s dress and humps it (badly, but that goes without saying since Tommy has no concept of how mammals express sexual love). Then Johnny puts a gun in his mouth and dies. DDG, Mark and Donnie find him and they fake-cry and blah blah blah the end. That’s it. There are other things that happen in The Room. Often a football is tossed around by the menfolk during conversations in the most awkward way imaginable. In one scene they toss the football around wearing tuxedos. It’s all a mess. Her’s a helpful video that summarizes everything I attempted to convey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvuwldnG7c0
Now I have seen this iconic cinematic treat and I feel fully comfortable never seeing it again.
Two artists that might make me not scared of dolls finally.
Saturday, January 23rd, 2016Dolls are inherently creepy. The unblinking eyes. The unmovable expressions. Hell, a new horror film is coming up built on that premise. Remember my trip to Germany last year and the doll restaurant? Yep. Not a big fan of dolls. However, there is always room for change. And that change happened when I saw these handmade dolls from Russia. Two different artists. Russia is known for exceptional detail in their artwork. Their icons from many centuries ago are ornate.
And little has changed. One dollmaker is named Marina Bychkova and she is amazing. I know that word gets thrown around frequently, but hear me out. Marina makes articulated porcelain dolls with poseable limbs. She paints their faces. Then she embroiders and hand-beads their clothes. AND those metal headdresses, she makes them too. See? Amazing.
Then there are the Popovy Sisters. Their work is more modern but I love it as well. It reminds me of Alexander McQueen’s work but wee.
I could get on board with these dolls. NOBODY START SENDING ME DOLLS, THOUGH. FOR REALSIES. WORST NIGHTMARE. Unless they are by these artists. Then, mildly okay. OTHERWISE NO DOLLS.
You want some charts? I got your charts RIGHTEERE.
Saturday, December 26th, 2015
Internet Dribs and Drabs.
Wednesday, December 16th, 2015Instead of getting anything done ever I am now watching these Vines and giggling at my desk. Did I mention I work in an open floor plan? My co-workers are very lucky to be in my presence.
These.
Also these.
I think Buzzfeed has run out of ideas. Stop, Buzzfeed. Just stop.
Seriously, call it a day.
Look at this mesmerizing gif of someone pouring mercury into a martini glass.
And this amazing mural in an old church.
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/12/skate-church-okuda-san-miguel/
And this jaunty festive caterpillar who turns into a slightly less festive but lovely nonetheless moth.
South America 2015, Part 8.
Monday, October 26th, 2015Sorry about the extreme time between posts. I am attempting to get my kitchen done by Thanksgiving (probably not going to happen but a girl can dream) and it’s the busiest season of the year in advertising so I’ve done about three weeks of work in two weeks. I’m so exhausted I did the creepiest thing ever this past Saturday night. I asked Cricket if when I came over to his house we could have a fire in his fireplace. He obliged, put some logs in there and got a fire going. I proceeded to get two grocery bags filled to the brim with his recyclable mail, sit directly in front of the fireplace on the floor and burn each piece of mail individually over the next THREE HOURS while saying nothing. I was simply decompressing but I imagine it looked like I was hiding the evidence of the murder I had recently committed. Cricket fell asleep on the couch watching me do this stellar performance art and when he woke up he said, “Okay, well, I’m going hiking tomorrow so I’m going to bed. When you’re done doing whatever it is you’re doing let yourself out through the back door. Night night.” About twenty minutes later (that would be 1:30 in the morning) after I had reduced all Cricket’s recyclables to ash I quietly left. My point is that I’m very busy and very stressed and with the first opportunity I got in the last few weeks to relax I decided not to go to a movie or catch up with a friend but to become a character in a Korean horror film. So please cut me some slack. Okay. Back to South America.
Quito! It’s pronounced Kee-toe, not Kwee-toe. It’s a big city, I think about 34 miles long, nestled in a long valley between a whole bunch of mountains.
And it’s got a massive basilica. More on that in a bit. But as you can see it makes an excellent landmark.
Another great landmark is the angel made of aluminum perched on one of the mountains. It was a gift from the French. One thing you can say about the French – they love to give massive metal statues to other nations.
Quito has a few major town squares which are wonderful. Often bands are playing and there are all kinds of food vendors. One food I saw being peddled by quite a few women looked like a pile of frosting in a Tupperware. I found out later that it was called espumilla (which means “foam”) and it’s a meringue of sorts made with guava and egg whites. I did not feel comfortable buying a bunch of uncooked egg from a street vendor who had been carrying it around all day in the bright sunlight but I won’t say I wasn’t tempted.
And there’s a ton of other snacks one could enjoy. And toilet paper (in case you ate the raw egg whites).
Back to the town squares.
Almost all of them have a church in them and we visited two. The first one, the Church of San Francisco, had a pretty nice exterior and even though we weren’t supposed to take pictures inside I surreptitiously snapped a few pics because the ceiling had just been redone due to a fire and the amount of gold was crazy. These are not great pics. It was so shiny and reflective my poor lil camera didn’t have a clue how to calibrate itself but at least you get a vague idea.
I thought that was as fancy as it got, church-wise. I was incorrect. This is the Church of the Jesuits. It’s down the street.
Look at the level of detail. And the awesome fish that flank the doorway.
I didn’t take any pictures inside because I had to scrape my mouth off the floor, but I found some other people’s pictures. And none of them do it justice. It was overwhelmingly amazing. Like being inside a jewel box.
Interestingly, we were there on a Saturday and every Saturday the President of Ecuador comes out on his balcony and makes a speech and we ended up outside his house about a half-an-hour before speech time. Our guide for the day asked us if we’d like to watch the speech and we were like, sure, we’re here, let’s see this all go down. The speech itself was whatevs but the fancy military men on equally fancy horses were delightful. One horse had a checkerboard shaved into its rump. I liked that a lot.
We ended up going to a very posh hotel for lunch were we drank a local drink, basically a tisane of sorts made up of a variety of flavorful herbs and reb quinoa. The red quinoa both imparts a pretty color and makes the drink have protein. Protein water!
Now the Basilica. The Basilica, compared to the gold churches, was pretty low-key. It’s a big ole cathedral-type building and the inside is very high and lofty and gray stone except for the small chapel off to the side which is polychrome, meaning the stone was painted.
The part of the Basilica that makes it awesome is that all the gargoyles are indigenous animals from Ecuador! How many pictures did I take of them? All the pictures. There were iguanas and turtles:
And monkeys and pumas and what I thought were giant crab claws from a distance but when I got closer I realized were anteaters:
Armadillos and crocodiles.
On the exterior of the painted chapel (which I imagine was built later because it’s made out of a different type of stone) there are regular gargoyles.
After walking around the Basilica several times, I noticed that you could go beneath into the catacombs. Hooray, catacombs! Those were amazing. It seems like it was filled predominantly in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and the design elements on the fronts of the tombs reflect the aesthetic of the time.
Coming up next: The Galapagos. Get pumped because lava and beasties a-comin.’
South America 2015, Part 7.
Saturday, October 10th, 2015More Peru! But first, a few lone pics.
Llamas don’t poop all over the everything. They pick an area and go there every time. It’s kind of awesome, they toilet-train themselves. In fact, if you put them in a new enclosure and you want them to go in the far right corner, you put llama excrement and tinkle in that corner and they will think a previous llama deemed that the lavatory and make that their permanent spot.
In this photo there is pumpkin ice cream and in the background there is fava beans. Most meals had a small plate of beans as an appetizer. Lotta beans in Peru. Beans and potatoes and corn, oh my.
Okay, silver! It’s a chemical element we wear as shiny awesome decoration. And it is common in Peru. The pre-Inca and the Inca loved anything reflective because the sun god was extremely important to them, so gold and silver were big. Interestingly, when the Spaniards got there they had mirrors and the Incas traded gold and silver for the mirrors because they were far more reflective. We might think the Incas were duped but to them it was an excellent trade. Mirrors were more valuable to the Inca and the Spaniards coveted gold, so everyone won in that exchange. We went to a silver processing and jewelry making place so we could see the whole process.
The first thing I noticed when I got there was the insane-looking flower in the courtyard. I know it looks fake. It is not, I checked.
First Henry showed us what the rock that contains the silver looks like. Hint: pretty much like a rock.
What they used to do before they had fancy machinery was grind the rock into a powder in a bowl.
And then they would put it in a jar with water and shake the jar. The silver was heavier than the matrix so the silver would sink to the bottom and the other stuff would stay at the top. That’s how they would separate the silver from the unwanted dirt.
To make wire a slender bar of silver is put through a press with progressively smaller openings.
At this studio they do a great deal of inlay as well, so we were shown the different kinds of stone found in Peru. I also learned that the mother of pearl pieces you see don’t use the inside portion. They grind away the brown exterior and use that side. I don’t know why, maybe it’s more even-toned but I was fascinating to see.
We had the opportunity to meet a priest and watch him do a typical ceremony. Not a Christian priest. I imagine in Africa he would be called a witch doctor. Henry said that the old religion worked in harmony with the new religion and most people incorporated both in their lives. I had no idea what to expect but it was great to see a ceremony that had been performed for thousands of years.
First, the priest laid out a piece of fabric with a piece of wax paper like you would find at the butcher on top of it. He then sprinkled about twenty different things on this wax paper representing different aspects of life. I loved how he used modern items along with ancient ones. For example, he put in alphabet soup noodles to represent all our names and sequins to be the moon and the stars. Candy for sweetness, llama fat for energy and connection to the gods, seashells for the ocean. There were garbanzo beans and red kidney beans in there as well.
We were each given three coca leaves and told to wish on them and they were also added. The priest then wrapped up the whole package with string and each one of us stood in front of him while he briskly rubbed the package on us and chanted incantations. We then were told to puff three quick breaths on the package to lock in our identity and our wishes. When everyone had done it the priest took the package outside, removed his piece of cloth and burned the package, sending our messages up to the gods in the sky. It felt quite cathartic.
The llama hanging out nearby was underwhelmed.
Post-priest-experience we were driving and Henry told us we were going to pull over. There were groups of people hanging out in what appeared to be abandoned fields. Henry told us something most interesting – at the end of the planting season, the farmers till the soil and big clumps of natural brick are revealed. The city-dwellers come out and use this chunks to build ovens that they have cookouts in. The farmers encourage the people to do that, to hang out in their fields all day because they don’t hurt anything and often they leave ash from their bbqs which acts as a fertilizer. I couldn’t believe it, this mutual respect. I don’t see this flying in the U.S. There would be all kinds of trespassing drama. It was great to see all these families hanging out, playing soccer and talking. I know it’s hokey-sounding, but it seems like a simpler way of life in Peru.
On our last day in Peru we got to finally explore the cathedrals and churches of Cusco. I love me some CHARCH. And there were so many churches. Quick recap on the town square. On left: Cathedral. On right: another church. Little building on the far right: older church. Down the street: three more churches. I was thrilled.
I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in any of the places of worship and I decided to be tactful and respect their laws so no inside pics. But I can describe them. They is the main altar in the front, but along both sides there are private chapels devoted to one saint or another. They are, to be honest, garish. So much shiny gold and silver. Lots and lots of statues. Complex woven fabrics. Everything clashes. Some people might be overwhelmed but I liked it. The churches wanted all different looks so they went for it. Good for them.
Outside the cathedral were a group of boys performing a dance that represented their heritage as hunters. One kid’s dog didn’t want to leave so he stood by his little man throughout the performance.
Henry wanted us to visit a church with a cool history, the Church of St. Domingo right next to where he grew up. The Spaniards, when they arrived, asked where all the holy sites of the Incas were and promptly build Catholic buildings on top of them. It’s ruthless but an excellent way to eliminate any other religions from being practiced. You can see the ruins at the base in this exterior shot.
Until the 1950s if you went inside there was no inkling of what had been there. Everything was coated in plaster and painted with Baroque murals. But sometime in the 1950s there was an earthquake and much of the plaster cracked off. Lo and behold, a whole Inca structure was revealed. Cracked plaster can be repaired with lime plastering Cambridge.
(BTW, I wasn’t breaking any rules and being disrespectful by taking photos. This is all outside in the courtyard.)
It turns out this was a massive complex where the stars were studied. The archaeologists found stones with strange carvings, tubes and divots, and then they found one intact window. They deduced that at certain times of the year certain stars could be seen through the holes and lined up with the divots and that was how the Incas knew when the different seasons started and ended. Very cool. Here are the stones neatly lined up in a row.
Remember they didn’t have any metal tools, only other pieces of granite and hematite to rub against the stone and wear it down. It’s really impressive what they accomplished.
Here is the semi-intact window.
And here is the courtyard that surrounds all of this, clearly built by the Spanish.
At the same time as the earthquake hit, the massive backyard behind the church was revealed in full as well. There are all kinds of star-mapping paths on it as well. I got a few decent photos even though the sun was setting and it was getting dark.
Three things from Cusco before we head out to the Galapagos: I liked how the streetlights had little ornamental Inca designs on them.
And instead of pay phones, you look for women wearing green vests. They have cell phones and you can make calls on them and pay by the minute.
Here’s a great shot of Cusco from the place where I ate the pumpkin ice cream.
The next day we left for Equador to begin the next chapter of this neato journey. The part I was most excited about was coming up – the Galapagos. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about nature and beasties, so I was super-psyched.
South America 2015, Part 6.
Sunday, September 27th, 2015More Machu Picchu pics! Not taken by me whatsoever. I’ll explain. After Day 1 at the site, we were given the option of getting up the next morning at 4:30, lining up for an hour or two at the entrance to the village, and going on one of two long hikes around the area. I opted to stay in the room and meet everyone at lunch. My niece Drea, however, due to her ability to walk very quickly, managed to do both hikes and took pictures. These are her pictures. My pictures would have been of my pillow. Because I was sleeping.
Drea hiked this far away from the place we had been the day before on the first hike. After looking at this picture I feel I made the right decision.
The other hike was to go see the Incan Bridge. I don’t know what your preconceived notion of a bridge is, but this is so creepy-scary.
Then they returned to the town we were staying in for lunch and we got ready to head out.
But not before seeing another hairless dog:
And visiting the local flea market.
We headed out in the bus and got to visit a local breadmaker.
He is the fourth generation in his family to be a breadmaker and work at this bakery (which his grandfather built). There is a fifteen-foot-in-diameter domed oven fueled by eucalyptus wood and this man slides the loaves into the oven using a super-long pizza paddle, also made from eucalyptus wood. People are encouraged to use eucalyptus wood for anything and everything because it’s an invasive species from Australia and it uses up a lot of the ground water, preventing indigenous species from thriving.
The loaves he is holding? They have ducks on them because that’s his family’s crest. They were soooooo yummers. He pulled them fresh out of the oven and they were warm and fluffy and had a thin crust on top of crystallized suger and anise. Normally I’m not on Team Black Licorice but for some reason I could not stop stuffing what amounted to probably half a loaf of this bread into my mouth. So. Good.
The most interesting thing I saw at the bakery was how he gauged the heat of the oven. On top of the oven is a water tank. Off to the side is a rudimentary faucet that the water tank flows into. This breadmaker turns the faucet on and the quantity of steam that comes out tells him how hot the oven is. Amazing.
He also let us try another bread that had a large air pocket at the top. I think that bread is more about how cool that looks versus how good it tastes. I mean, it was fine but after the magic of Duck Anise Bread all others pale in comparison.
After snorfing ourselves into a bread coma we visited Tipon. Tipon is another terraced ruin but this one is different because this is where they did experiments on their crops, grafting and the like. There are 3,800 types of potatoes in Peru, as well as quinoa and corn and tons of other foods, and this is where they made them less bitter or hardier. The part of Tipon that is most impressive is the canals built to channel the water all around the three-sided amphitheater space.
Look at how convoluted that is. These are people who did not have a written language, but they figured out the complex engineering needed to pull this off. That is so impressive. The Inca even figured out that if they made the vertical canals thinner on the outer edge it would reduce splashing at the bottom which would reduce waste. That’s pretty ingenious.
We also visited another site called Sacsayhuaman (pronounced “Sexy Woman,” really). We walked through a grove of a typical Peruvian tree. I avoids growing lichen by have bark that resembles filo dough pastry.
The reason we were visiting this particular site was the size of the stones the Inca had dragged to this place. They’re the biggest at any site. No one knows how they got them here. This is Drea modelling to show scale.
It’s laid out in a zigzag formation to resemble lightning, something the Incas considered sacred.
And the wind at the top of this hill never stops blowing ever. Therefore there’s some serious erosion on some of these stones.
There were two things I really liked seeing at Sacsayhuaman: one was the rock that looked like it had been pushed through a Play-Doh press (because it was once lava that was squoozed out onto this hilltop):
And the other was the llama waiting outside the gates. Peruvian people will dress up in local costume and pose for pictures outside various sites and I never felt compelled to take pictures with them. Until this llama came into my life. It was the most glamorous llama I had ever seen. Look at those lashes. It is the Marilyn Monroe of llamas.
If I could have bought that llama and brought it home, I would have. My goodness. Apparently The Moomins is holding a lamb in some of these pictures but I can’t see them because my vision is consumed by the majestic llama. I heart this llama. I heart it bad.
We ended the day walking through a natural labyrinth where sacrifices were made.
We know that the Incas did not carve out the altar area because the rivulets of dried sediment on the walls (they would be stalactites if they were drippier) are over 10,000 years old which is older than the Incas.
They did carve out the altar (in the shape of the Inca cross) and that big square space you see in the back, that was lined with silver or gold to reflect the light onto the altar itself because it was kind of dark down there.
Coming up: A last day in Cusco and then off to Ecuador.
South America 2015, Part 5.
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015Get ready y’all cuz we goin’ to MACHU PICCHU today!
But first, other stuff! Sorry about that.
We went to a family home for lunch one day. To get there we got to ride in a modified motorcycle. I thought it would be bumpy or scary but it was quite pleasant. I want one now to tool around in.
The homeowners cook local cuisine using things grown in their garden. Like herbs (look at all that dill):
And tree tomatoes which I did not know existed. They are very sweet so they are treated like a typical fruit – juices, jams, dessert, etc.
You know what else is grown in the garden? Guinea pigs. Edible guinea pigs. Yep.
I ate some guinea pig.
Good news – it does not taste like chicken as apparently everything else in the world does. Bad news – it does not taste delicious in any way. It is very bony so one has to dig all around or end up with displeasing crunchiness. And the flavor is most like a boiled turkey leg. I don’t regret eating it but it was bleh. Meat isn’t consumed as much as it is here. You know the lupin flower? It’s a really pretty decorative plant, go look it up. Well, they have little beans that the Peruvians gather and then boil. But these are no ordinary beans, no no. They are chock-full of protein so, along with the protein-packed grass seed quinoa, one could have a meat-free existence and get all the protein required.
For dessert we had tree tomatoes cooked in syrup.
Then… the next day… Machu Picchu.
We got to ride on a fancy oldy-timey train with skylights (instantly awesome b/c skylights). It took us to the base of the apu (mountain) that Machu Picchu is perched on. You could get hot tea with spices in them or eclectic fruit juices.
We passed some Inca ruins on the way up but I was becoming immune to them by then. Seriously, they are all over the countryside.
After we pulled into the train station, the bus trip began. Whatever they are paying those bus drivers, it is not enough. They are amazing. The road is EXACTLY two buses wide, it’s windy and there’s no barrier on the edge. When we arrived outside the gate of Machu Picchu you could see how high we had come in the bus. That aqua-colored roof way down there is the train station.
We were greeted by a series of signs. Machu Picchu, bein’ out of the way and all that, was “Columbused” in 1911 by American explorer and Indiana Jones inspiration Hiram Bingham. To Columbus something is to come across a place that local people have known about for forever, but because you’re white you’ve discovered it and now it matters. Anyway, one of those plaques honors Hiram for finding this place all by himself except for all the help he got from local farmers. And then Hiram unearthed and exported somewhere between 4,000 and 40,000 artifacts but by all means let’s honor him and give him all this credit. Good stuff. Great guy.
And then, the stairs. STAIRS. Staaaaaaiiiiiirrrrrrrs.
But it was totally worth it. Absolutely breathtaking. Oh my goodness.
Here’s a fun fact: Machu Picchu (meaning “Old Peak”) isn’t the name of the town we’re looking at there. It’s the name of one of the two mountains the village is nestled betwixt. In all the famous pictures, the mountain on the right side is the other mountain, Wayna Picchu (“young peak”). There’s some storehouses on the tippy-top of Wayna Picchu. When Cricket went to Peru a few years back he climbed Wayna Picchu. I do not know how. I get tired looking at it.
Pictures of the actual Machu Picchu. The Cusco flag is on top.
If you look out from the village, you are surrounded by many beautiful steep green mountains. It fills your eye.
The archaeologists decided to put thatch on the roof of one of the houses to show what it might have looked like but left the rest bare.
Something I may not have mentioned is that the Inca and pre-Inca cultures did not have a written language so archaeologists have to do a lot of guessing. “We think they may have used this for…” But the Incan people tended to follow the same kind of structure, so at least the people studying this site know which are the important and unimportant buildings based on the quality of stone, same as Ollantaytambo.
Another interesting fact: The Inca didn’t use slaves to build pretty much anything. Instead of collecting taxes, people would go to one of these sites for three months and work on them, being that these storehouses, temples and terraces were considered part of the greater good. The remaining nine months the citizens were left to their own devices.
There is one rounded building. No one knows why. It is considered to be a temple devoted to the sun. But once again, that’s just a guess.
There’s a kite-shaped stone in another religious site. This one is easier to figure out. It mimics the exact shape of the Southern Cross, a common constellation. And it points in the exact same direction that the Southern Cross does. In the photo Henry is using the compass in Drea’s phone to show us how spot-on the placement of the stone is.
There are religious sites all over the village. This one was for stargazing. The building had no roof and those two circular pools are for looking at the stars reflected off the water so one would not get a crick in one’s neck.
This is an altar with the Incan cross theme.
And the people saw a rock split in the middle and decided it looked like a condor’s wings so they made an altar directly below it mimicking the shape of a condor’s head. One could perform sacrifices and the blood would flow down and pool next to the condor’s beak in that bowl area so it was as if you were feeding the gods.
This altar has a amusing story. In the 1970s a film crew came to make a documentary and someone dropped a heavy camera on the altar and that’s why that corner is chipped. So no more film crews are allowed on the mountaintop.
And it is true Machu Picchu is falling down. Part of that is because of all the visitors but a portion of it is the mountain shifting. So the stones are coming apart. The archaeologists intend to prop the buildings up with scaffolding but not rebuild them.
It was so amazing, both the village and the surrounding landscape. We wandered around for over two hours and I loved it.
Next entry: more Incan ruins. And bread. Really delicious bread.