I guess I can just sit back and be amazed it didn’t happen sooner… I’m writing this post on day 5 of an epic cold. Only from a place of recovering burnout does one get sick when it’s been 20+ degrees C here for weeks. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Brazilians suck at keeping their germs to themselves, but this shouldn’t have happened!

I am intensely peeved at the fact that this has now curttailed my socialising in the dying days of Brazil, to say nothing of the fact that I’ve been sitting out on the gym now, too. And I’ve just learned that my gracious hostess is going to New York on Saturday this week. My fate, days 90, 91 and 92 of my trip—aka, THE END—are uncertain. I wish I could change my ticket… but I can’t. Hm.

So now, let’s accentuate the positive for awhile… and for that, I want to tell you something I know to be true, under my second heading for this post:

Rio de Janeiro, Part I: no river, no January

When people die and say they want to go to Heaven, what they really mean is, “I want to go to Rio”.

Rio de Janeiro is what you imagine Brazil is all about. The beaches, the mountains, the bikinis… it’s all there! Marcella calls Rio “her happy place”. Now that I’ve been there, I know why.

When we travel, Marcella and I play two games. The first one is, “create the backstory”. We like to meet people (or observe them), and decide what they’re all about, how they fit together, who they are… that’s a fun one. We *also* play, “where will our inn go?” because we’ve decided we’re going to have a series of inns one day in places we love. The first one will be in Freiburg, where we met, and then one in Cusco, and now: one in Rio…

Because you can’t NOT love Rio.

Even if you arrive and Marcella says “I’ve never been to Rio when it was this cold.”

Now: first rule of Brazilians is that there are two temperatures: hot and cold. They don’t know about “chilly” or “warmish”. So if the mercury drops below 20°C, it’s “cold”.

So my first view of Ipanema,  by Brailian logic, should have made me miserable and chilled to the bone… but I actually *loved* it. The beach was empty because there was no sun, but that just kicked the surf up into a lot more awesome. See? (Plus: please note the sidewalk pattern—that’s how you know this girl was in Ipanema).

See?!?!?

I like the look of the buildings along the boardwalk—narrow fronts, some pretty tall, each one going for thousands to tens of thousands per square footage.

I could have, would have, stayed sitting there all day, watching the waves… but we were hungry. Marcella bought beach food from a vendor, but that doesn’t really count. Have I told you about biscoitos de polvilho?:

More specifically, they’re like a puffed air snack. Actually, made with corn starch, tapioca flour and eggs, but still—the taste is pure, crunchy air. Shaped like a doughnut.

We adjourned to a bar on the beach and it began to rain… so my pictures for Friday end here… Rio was a trip of relaxation… but also not really a tourist trip. I took a fraction of the photos I had in Peru because there, we were experiencing new things as visitors. In Rio, we ended up doing a bunch of non-touristy things, and being in non-touristy places, many of which made it feel weird to take out my camera. Huh.

So now, we take up Saturday, when we went for a walk down the beach from Arpoador to Leblon; unbeknownst to me, we were going to meet up with Marcella’s cousin whom she calls her brother because he lived with her for a few years when they were young… and when Gabriel and his girlfriend showed up—both Carioca—it became even more absurd for me to take out my camera. But it was still a lovely day!

If you go to Rio, eat at Chico e Alaíde in Leblon. Little, local, very popular, and very, very good.

(source)

After lunch, Gabriel, who plays in a band, had a gig up at the ruins in Santa Teresa… so we took a bus to his house, picked up his gear, and took a cab up to the ruins. I spotted this on the bus:

Being obese gets you special seating on the bus. Huh. I thought that was interesting also because just *getting* on the bus involves going through a turnstyle that’s SO tight that I couldn’t go through it with my bag on my shoulder. So I guess if you can somehow get *on* the bus, you deserve a little preferential treatment…

My sunhat of joy and happiness and I, riding the bus (man, I need a haircut):

and then as we reached Casas das Ruinas in Santa Teresa… (pretty! No clue what it’s about!)…

… and we realised we were there, but the band was not. What the what? Here, Gabriel is phoning to find out where everyone is, and Marcella is sleeping. But the story could also so easily be, “Marcella passed out, and Gabriel phoned for help”, eh?

Turns out, the band decided not to play. No one told Gabriel. A very Brazilian trait… So I contented myself with taking pics of the fabulous view—like the iconic Pão de Açucar (the Sugarloaf), which is probably the most distinctive sign of Rio besides the Christ:

tall and skinny = Sugarloaf. Short and greenish = Urca. I want our future inn to be at Urca. Marcella wants it at Copacabana, Ipanema or Leblon. We shall see…

And in the other direction from the Pão de Açucar was downtown Rio:

Santa Teresa was pretty… and as we walked the streets in search of another cab, I just took some photos of… Carioca life:

(FAVELA:)

(heh):

… and then we found our cab. And took a ride up to the top of the Corcovado mountain to see the statue of Christ the Redeemer.

We got there just as the sun was setting…

(lagoon!)

the largest Art Deco statue in the world, apparently…

and on his left:

It was impressive, and I’m not even religious. Which is maybe a good thing, because I might have been slightly offended by the touristy claptrap, but since, as of 2007, the Christ is one of the Seven New Wonders of the World… it’s also to be expected.

When we left the Christ we nearly got stranded (we should have paid the cab to wait—though no one told *us* that!), but ultimately made it to Gabriel’s girlfriend’s place for a drink. She lives with her artist grandmother and architect grandfather in a penthouse flat that has a view of the lagoon, the Christ, the Pão de Açucar… but since it was 17 degrees, the Brazilians all clustered inside to get out of the ‘cold’. I joined them so as not to be rude, but not before a little midnight Jesus:

It’s the best I could do, sans tripod, and I kind of like that it looks like there’s some kind of celestial event going on. In actual fact, it’s just LEDs.

See?

That’s Rio, Part I… le sigh!

I’m really happy about the US Open today.

Are you happy?

I, of course, don’t mean that Peru has perished since Marcella and I left it—I think my intestines were the only casualty of this particular trip. (They’re running at 93%, if you were wondering. Argh.)

When Marcella and I left Machu Picchu, we went into Aguas Calientes for lunch, checked out of our hotel, and took another PeruRail-style voyage of adventure and poor planning.

When we booked the train, I got all excited and said, “look! This return trip is way cheaper! And a fraction of the time, too!” However, this turned out NOT to be because the train was going DOWNHILL and was thus faster. Oh no. It was cheaper and shorter… because it only went about one-third of the way back to Cusco.

Oops.

Our train was going to Ollantaytambo. Say that four times fast, I dare you. And then find a taxi to drive you the next 90 minutes BACK to Cusco, because that’s where you left 75% of your luggage before you went to Machu Picchu. Heh. And that’s exactly what we ended up doing.

AND I’M SO GLAD! That taxi ride up and down the Andes was THE most incredible thing ever! Marcella slept for most of it, but I was glued to my window, blown away by the Peruvian landscape. This never got old.

And before I knew it, we were back at our first hotel, the Andean Wings, in Cusco. And we were feeling juuuuuust fine. Unlike our first visit, we were sorta peppy. It was like we were drunk, for many hours, without having a drink. We instead had dinner. And I think this photo, with the look on Marcella’s face (which she hates, so I’m glad she doesn’t read my blog!), really captures how ridonkulous we were feeling…

Ooh. Tweaky.

But seriously: wasn’t the Andean Wings gorgeous?

The fountain was riveting:

Here, as we ate dinner, Lisa (the proprietess) popped in for a chat, along with Ingrid, her (German) co-proprietess. We got to talking… and ended up spending hours and hours and hours there talking. (This is when I learned about San Pedro’s magical properties, from two people who had done it… unexpected to hear from women of a certain age, but OK!). Also that the Andean Wings is an esoteric healing centre as well as a boutique hotel. Oh, the stories… one of these stories included how we were going to have trouble finding a taxi to take us to Urubamba, where our hotel for that night was, and that we should stay. But we couldn’t, because our hotel in Urubamba was already bought and paid for, and I really, really wanted to stay there, anyway. It was an old MONASTERY!

I left Marcella the Spanish-speaker to go work out our taxi sitch for the evening, and also for Sunday morning so we could get BACK to Cusco (again) for our flight back to Lima. And then I went to go and talk to Ingrid, the German, because I love talking to Germans. She used German words mixed into her English, and some really great Denglish phrases like, “and then I became my children.” And that’s just crazy talk, unless you know that the phrase in German “meine Kinder bekommen” means “to have my children”—not “to become”. Beware false cognates, Ingrid. BEWARE. No judgment from me, though, I love this stuff… and I loved our story time, until Marcella appeared and said, “Dude. If we don’t go, the TAXI opportunity will DISAPPEAR.”

OK.

Our quasi-drunkenness seems to have been the last remnants of adjustment to altitude, and it persisted on the cab ride to Urubamba. We laughed. A lot. Like at the fact that Urumamba was on the road from Ollantaytambo to Cusco… so we had driven right through it that afternoon… only to circle back. And only on our drive BACK out did we realise that we could have just gone straight to Urubamba, spent the night, and picked up our luggage in Cusco before our flight the next day… “I Am Ass, PART III”.  And, still giddy, when we were checking in, Marcella made me cry in front of the hotellier, I laughed so hard.

I mentioned having taught Marcella the phrase “lazy eye” in Aguast Calientes… well, as I stood filling in my information sheet at the desk, this couple shuffled through reception behind us, said something in Spanish, and walked out. I thought Marcella was talking about the hotellier when she said to me, “I think that guy’s got a lazy eye”. And because the hotellier was not two feet away from me, I started to laugh. And laugh. And I just couldn’t stop until I was crying… I couldn’t believe she’d say something about someone RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. Hence my laughter—but she actually meant the couple who shuffled through reception, because she thought when the guy barked “is that the matrimonial suite we’re in?” that he was asking her. “How the F would *I* know?!?” her inner monologue said (and she repeated to me). And I started laughing again. Altitude: cheaper than alcohol, folks…

That story is for my own sake—thanks for indulging me—and if I’m ever having a bad day, I know I can come back and read it and laugh again. Whenever I think of it, wherever I am, it makes me laugh… Awesome.

So! to Urubamba now, let me show you why I wanted to stay at the monastery so much:

Uh, does this roof look plum to you?

the view from our room…

And now the best part… my new best friend! At the hotels around Cusco, Quechuan people come and sell their knitted hats and clothes, and beaded bracelets. When we came out from breakfast, a woman was sitting peddling her wares in front of the restaurant… sitting with her was the CUTEST little girl ever. I bought a bracelet from the woman, her little girl bonded with me, and then we went to pack and check out.

But the little girl wasn’t done with me.

She was playing with the flowers and the fountain, as Marcella and I waited (and prayed, frankly) for our taxi to arrive, allowing us time for solid international relations.

And it was totally infectious… first Marcella got to play…

And then she felt like my glasses needed a little more daisy:

And then came a rousing couple of rounds of “He loves me, he loves me not”:

I’m trying to read this like tea leaves… what do you think? Love? No love?

I’m going with “love”, because then her dad appeared:

And it was time for us to leave Urubamba… if you ever want to stay here, I’ll say this: the hotel’s common areas are STUNNING, the rooms a bit blah. Could use a little work… and in both the San Agustin hotels we stayed in, this one and the next night in Lima, the mini-bar fridge wasn’t stocked, which involved some discussion about “no, it’s not empty because we consumed it, it’s empty because it was empty when we got there…”

One more fabulous cab ride:

And with that, and a one-hour flight, we were back in Lima… where we had dinner at Rosa Náutica. Kinda touristy, mediocre service, and the food didn’t touch Huaca Pucllana from the first night…

(Sidebar: Oh, look! Lima has a Christ statue just like Rio! And, hello again, Pacific Ocean!)

Regardless of the resto’s shortcomings, the location was sweet!

And it had maybe THE most fascinating dessert option:

Do you see it there? Lúcuma Tart with Alaskan Railing Shape. The mind BOGGLES at that one, but isn’t it appetising?!?

With that, the trip to Peru is done, I have a post or two on a cidade maravilhosa, Rio de Janeiro. And then, we resume regularly scheduled broadcasts…

What’s the best bad English you’ve seen on a menu?

When I went to NZ on my last trip, I was at a conference at the FABULOUS Te Papa museum in FABULOUS Wellington. Being part of the conference gave us the chance to go behind the scenes and explore the museum storage and to talk to the curators and exhibit designers.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: if I could live on a hope and a prayer, I’d go to work in a museum and be the happiest little thing EVER.

So those tours at Te Papa were too perfect for me—especially the one on Maori taonga (treasures), which was a highlight. We got to see a lot of cloaks, masks, weapons, icons, etc etc etc—the stuff the average person doesn’t get to see on exhibit—and all of this relates to Peru.

Really.

Fast forward to Peru: When we drove from the airport to our hotel, we drove right past a huaca—just blocks from our hotel! “Huaca” is the Quechuan (Peruvian Native American) word for “something revered”, usually used for a monument (as it was in this case). And in New Zealand, the “waka” is a canoe, and what brought the Maori people to Aotearoa from Polynesia.

Like so:

Displayed here, this waka seems like a monument, aka “a huaca”. And as it happens, the two words, “huaca” and “waka” are basically pronounced alike.

Coincidence? Maybe.

But then there’s this:

At Huaca Huallamarca (the huaca we had driven past heading into San Isidro), Marcella and I visited the on-site museum and found a relic taken out of the huaca when it was excavated:

the pattern on this woven mat reminds me of stuff like this:

(source)

Maori art. Of which I saw lots in the behind-the-scenes tour at Te Papa in New Zealand.

Do you see it, too, or am I over-thinking?

It made me think about Pacific exploration and connections—I see them, or I think I see them, but Marcella and the half-Kiwi, half-British tourist who joined our conversation in the museum both said “no, it’s a basic design and that’s why you see it here and in New Zealand. It’s just a repetition of a simple pattern.”

Kill-joys.

But let’s begin at the beginning… there was this huaca first: Huaca Huallamarca, which I didn’t photograph in its entirety. Oops:

(source)

But I did get bits and pieces! Here’s the view from the top, down into what’s been excavated:

We wondered what this was all about—how does what looks like a bunch of mud endure for centuries?

I just don’t get it. Do you?

And as we peered down at the mud construction, I said, “that looks like a bone. I think it’s a bone.” Marcella said, “no, probably just some garbage.” Max said, “no, that looks like a bone to me, too.” And you?

And as we stood at the top of an historic monument, in the lovely San Isidro district of Lima, I looked up and said, “one day, I will live there.”

penthouse = awesome.

Then I could look out and see the huaca every day, and its hanging flowers and San Pedro cacti…

(San Pedro is the tall guy in back. I didn’t know it when I took this picture, but there are cults devoted to the ingestion of San Pedro in a boiled, tea form. It makes you puke, think you’re going to die, and then challenge all spheres of consciousness. That’s a story for another day, though…)

And also from my penthouse, we could see star trees!

And then Max, Marcella and I set off walking for Huaca Pucllana, the BIG huaca (and, coincidentally where M and I had our dinner reservations that night—seems that there’s a nice resto attached to the ruins. Cool!)

We got there at 4.51, after a series of wrong directions, and found ourselves at a gate with a man who wasn’t going to let us in, because the huaca *closes* at 5pm.

So Max decided to scam them, sort of. Here, he’s explaining his cunning plan to Marcella…

It went like this: He explained to the guards that I’m the “most important” researcher of Incan History in the United States (!!). We gave the guard my card. He kept it, but he didn’t let us in. He sent us to another gate. I think it would have worked better if I didn’t look like I was 20-something, you know?

Long story short: they never let us in, in spite of Max’s best efforts. The best we ever got was a view from the outside:

Well, in daylight, anyway… because M and I were going to be back that night. Huzzah! Defeated, we left, and walked back to the “roundabout of joy and American chains”, where Max left us and Marcella and I had Pinkberry, before walking to the hotel for a little relax, refresh, and return to the Huaca for dinner.

WOW. If you go to Lima, EAT AT HUACA PUCLLANA.

And so was the view from our bench… to the right in that lower picture are doors leading to a veranda that overlooks the ruins, all lit up at night, and ALL rented out by Coca Cola, so we were inside. Now, I don’t know how normal this is, but most hotels we went in Peru offered us a free drink. Because we made our reservation at Huaca Pucllana from our hotel, *that* got us a free drink… our first Pisco Sours!

Pretty, but the best one, we agreed, was the one at Indio Feliz in Aguas Calientes…

And then… dinnertime! We ordered an appetiser—a sort of salsa with an “empanada verde” or something of the sort… I don’t know what it was, but it was vegetarian and a fabulous GREEN!

Unfortunately, the lovely green colour was obtained with liberal use of cilantro, which gives me (at best) an instant headache, and (at worst) occasional respiratory issues. So I have to go easy on it… BUT! Thanks to this appie, the allergic kid now knows what ceviche is all about—Marcella tells me that the “salsa” to the left in that above photo tastes “just like ceviche”. And Ceviche tastes a lot of cilantro. And after this, I no longer felt like I was missing anything in Peruvian cuisine, given my fishy inabilities…

Don’t get me wrong—I thoroughly enjoyed the few bites of this I had, in spite of the cilantro. This was one mighty fine restaurant…

For the mains, Marcella got the ceviche, and I got a braised beef with mushrooms (REAL MUSHROOMS!!! I’ve missed you!!) on cheesy polenta. Delicious, but I barely ate half of it:

(please note, again, the GIANT CORN in Marcella’s ceviche)

And then we went out to hit the ruins at night… now, for comparison, this is by day:

and by night:

Way cooler, I know!

Well, it was until we overheard a man telling some people how these weren’t “real ruins”, but had in fact been “recreated to capture the essence of the huaca”. Great. The guy was an academic—I felt inclined to believe him, but the academic in me doubts until I can see the sources, myself.

So: from huaca to waka to huaca, and GREAT FOOD to boot. I love you, Lima… one more Peru post, then RIO, then my LAST WEEK IN BRAZIL!!! (where does time go?!?)

Oh! So behind! It’s Labour Day (in North America) today, and that means it’s my FIRST NON-BACK-TO-SCHOOL Labour Day ever!! I’m actually feeling just fine, no non-school anxiety (though check out last year’s shout-out to my “real New Year’s”!) but I am a little antsy to have a project—like I’m supposed to have a project in September, you know?

I’m also being VOLDEMORTED within an inch of my life: 2,107 new comments since I was actually *in* Lima on 24 September. My clicking finger is exhausted! Delete, delete, DELETE!

So: a happy thought now… and it’s called Lima. Lima was such a pleasant surprise! You might have read Moby Dick once upon a time, in which case you read Ishmael describing it as “the strangest, saddest city thou can’st see”, and that has a lot to do with the fact that it makes Vancouver / Seattle look sunny and bright. Lima has a dense cloud cover for about 10 months of the year, including when we were there. Marcella hated that about it, but I thought it was peaceful. Lima looked like what I expected South America to look like, but also VERY American. They accept US dollars as much as Peruvian Nuevos Soles, and as we drove to our hotel, we went down a street that was literally chain resto after chain resto: Chili’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Outback, etc etc etc. Also Pinkberry, which we went to (for my first Pinkberry visit ever!) after an epic walk in search of Huacas (if that makes no sense, see my next post). It was good.

Our hotel was in San Isidro (WAY better than Miraflores, if you ever go…), and we arrived just between lunch and dinner, hungry. The 5-hour flight from SP was without food (except peanuts)—on an international flight! Also: no in-flight entertainment, and we were in front of the emergency exit… so we couldn’t recline our seats. At all. Slightly hellish, I have to say…

Anyway: we needed nuevos soles (i.e., cash) and food, in that order, so the hotel referred us to the mall one block over, and made us reservations for that evening at a place Marcella had heard was “quite nice”. But first: lunch! My debit card worked, Marcella’s didn’t (ever—weird), and with cash in hand, we then found local food. Home-cooked food. Fresh food. And… because I’m kinda losing my mind about lacking protein options, I’ve started eating chicken again, occasionally.

I don’t want to talk about it.

So I’ve prepared the ground: mall, local, hole-in-the-wall, Peru. And now, the food pictures!

South America seems to be a hotbed of different regional soft drinks. In Brazil, it’s Guaraná. I’m not too psyched about it. Hence my silence on the issue… but also because it looks like ginger ale. If it was like INCA KOLA, I DEFINITELY WOULD HAVE MENTIONED IT!

Behold!

This is not a test! Don’t adjust your monitor! This fabulousness tasted like yellow freezies from my youth (though a Canadian woman I talked to at Machu Picchu called it “banana-flavoured”, which is maybe more meaningful)… and Marcella was brave enough to drink it.

And the results:

Drunk as a skunk.

Not really, but the misty rain-ish had given her a touch of unkemptedness that I’d rather attribute to the insanity of Inca Kola. The stuff is EVERYWHERE in Peru. Awesome.

But because it was a local resto, along with my water and Marcella’s Inca Kola, we were also brought a nice glass of… who knows what? We thought the waitress maybe said “chichi moreno”… it was purple. It was luke warm. It was sweet. It tastes like… a cinnamon-y, fruit-y… mulled something.

Turns out it’s Chicha Morada, a purple corn drink made from boiling purple corn with quince, pineapple, cloves and cinnamon.

And now that I’ve tried it once, I guess that’s me, done with the Chicha Morada. Anyone else tried it? Better still, anyone else LIKED it?

Our meals were made fresh—Marcella got the “Milanese”, and I got… the “Light” lunch.

Hers:

and mine:

If you can, check out the size of the MONSTER CORN KERNELS on my plate! And if you’re wondering the difference between Milanese and Light, M got rice and fries, and I got a big-ass salad.

My salad was JUST what the doctor ordered (literally!) and Marcella was impressed by the rice—which, coming from a Brazilian is high praise.

The aftermath:

so, obviously it was good.

All the food, and all those drinks… for about CAN$16.

With that, if the bright yellow soft drink hadn’t been sign enough, it was clear we weren’t in Brazil anymore.

Stay tuned for how accidental tourism led to possibly the best dinner of the whole trip!