Living in Peru's Amazon Rainforest

It's always been my dream to visit the Amazon rainforest - so I loved (almost) every minute of our visit!  It was like God was having fun showing off his creation just for us!  If this is a taste of what we'll see in the New Earth someday, I can only imagine.....





We stayed at one of those wonderful lodges where you room is open on one side to the jungle.  The plus of this was that you heard all those wonderful jungle noises, and got to see cute littel animals scurrying all around.  The downside is you had to sleep under a net.  When you open your eyes, this is NOT what you want to see!

And when you go to the bathroom, this is NOT what you want to find!  This little friend was caught in our neighbor's bathroom, as he was trying to climb the wall into our room...


But aside from that, it was WONDERFUL!  Here are a few pictures of things we enjoyed seeing:

A whole flock of Macaw's - we watched them come into the trees a couple at a time, then after something started them, ~25 took off together.  Beautiful!

We also saw toucans and parakeets in the wild (but couldn't work fast enough to get pics).

This is a HUGE tree that is totally hollow inside - you can walk into it.   What happens is this tree (Tree A) grows next to another tree (Tree B) - it starts engulfing Tree B and eventually totally covers it up. tree B then dies, leaving a big hollow inside tree A.  Pics are outside and inside Tree A.  Apologies for the duplicate pics - Blogger and my iPhone are not cooperating - so now you get to see us twice :-)

 

Monkeys - lots to see, but hard to get pics!  

The things hanging from the palm tree are the nests of the Weaver bird....

Lots of Brazil nuts everywhere!!!  We had Brazil nuts for snacks, Brazil nut crusted chicken Brazil nut crusted everything!  They grow in these coconut looking things.  The one on the left was opened by an animal.  The one on the right was opened by machete....

Well......I had never seen one of these things growing up from the forest floor before.  They are air holes for cicadas buried under the ground.  So when it rains in the rainforest, even if it pours, the cicadas are able to get air.  Hooray for the cicadas......

So they can live to get into your room at night and clatter around the light fixtures and everything else.  In the rainforest there are no seasons oryears when you get a lot of cicadas.  There are just a lot of cicadas.....all. the. time.  LOTS.

I could have gone the rest of my life withiut seeing a tarantula nest, but since we found one, I thought I'd share it with you.  Our fearless guide thought it would be a fun idea to poke it with a stick to see if he could coax the tarantula into coming out.  YIKES.  Fortunately, the tarantula must have been sleeping off a big meal - she was not interested in coming out.  Whew!  FYI - the tarantula is above the stick at the top of the area covered by white.  Just look for the dark shadowing.....

For those who have seen fabrics made from Kapok, this is a Kapok tree.  It is HUGE.

And this is the opened pod of the Kapok tree, where they get the Kapok from....

 

Termites in a tree - yum...  If you look at the dark area going up the tree to the big termite nest....that area is a big tunnel the termites have built onto the tree and leading into the nest.

 

Well, I bet you typhought bats slept in the dark.  Not these bats!  The bumps on the tree below are cute little bats - they are sleeping on a tree at the edge of the lake, where they are positioned to snag the bugs that fly around the lake.

Oh, and did I mention the paranas?  Yep, the lake was FULL of them.  You could throw a little piece of bread in the lake, and all of a sudden the water erupted in paranas tearing into the bread.  Great incentive to stay in the boat!

This little guy is a Carybara, the largest rodent in the world.  He looked to be a couple feet long - and generally always has a bird perched on him to eat the bugs on him.

Well, so much for the brief overview of the Amazon.  You could stay there for a long time and still just scratch the surface of all there is to see and hear.  There's plenty more of God's creation waiting to be explored!

Exploring Machu Picchu

It's been too many days since my last blog - a few pesky things such as work and a sickly computer have kept me from blogging.  But now that the computer is at least temporarily fixed, and the work backlog is partially dealt with, blogging resumes.....

On to Machu Picchu!

 

We spent half a day at Machu Picchu.  We quickly realized that the prior Inca ruins we had seen around Cusco were a mere warm up for Machu Picchu.  Machu Picchu is HUGE, and all the Inca concepts we learned in earlier days were exquisitely displayed in grand fashion at Machu Picchu, which includes "urban" areas as well as industrial, agricultural and temple areas.

Earlier I had mentioned that the Spaniards destroyed the Inca temples and replaced them with Catholic Churches.  That was true in Cusco, but not for Machu Picchu, which is much higher in elevation and quite a challenge to get to.  Fortunately for us, you can take a bus much of the way up the mountain, and you only have to hike the last several hundred steps in the very thin air.  For those of you diehards, you CAN still hike the entire thing....
















Because Machu Picchu is SO high up and the Spaniards couldn't get to it, Machu Picchu remains in excellent condition, and was only discovered relatively recently around 1950.  The exact date of discovery depends on whether you believe it was first discovered by a Yale professor named Bingham, or a Peruvian peasant.  Our Peruvian tour guide was adamant the peasant found it first!

A few other things we learned about Machu Picchu:

1.  The design of Machu Picchu was totally driven by the sun.

Because the Incas worshipped the sun as a primary god, Machu Picchu, like all other Inca cities was built in the side of the mountain facing east.

Additionally, the sun temple had a window placed so that on the day of the winter solstice, the sun would shine through the window and directly into the altar.  (We saw a photo taken at that time, and the effect was very dramatic.)  On the photo below, the large flat stone is the altar.  The larger window on the end of the altar is where the sun would come in at sunrise on the winter solstice.

 

 

2.  The Incas were into agricultural experimentation.

Because they lived on mountains, the Incas used terracing to grow their crops.  There was plenty of terracing at Machu Picchu for growing crops.  But farmers are always tinkering, trying to figure out how to get better crop yields - and the Incas were no different.  In this section, of Machu Picchu, they found evidence that they conducting crop experiments in each square - slightly different crops or conditions, to see what worked best.

 

 

3.  The mountains were incredibly important to the Incas, and they showed it in their architecture.

The Incas named all the mountains around Machu Picchu - Old Mountain, Young Mountain, etc.
Then they reflected those same mountains in their buildings.  Below is a stone slab that was fashioned to look like those very same mountains (each peak on the stone below is a different mountain - there are lots of layers of mountains around Machu Picchu).  Trust me, if the clouds had cooperated when we took the picture, the likeness between the stone slab and the mountains would have been very striking :-)

The Incas also ensure their living area didn't just have representations of mountains - but it also pointed to the mountains.  Below is a picture of a sun dial.  The based of the sundial is an odd shape with long points - each of which points to a major mountain.

 

 

4.  Life in the residential (urban) district....

 

Lest you think the Incas focused solely on crops, mountains and sun gods, they had some pretty neat houses too.  Here's one of them.  It's a two-story wonder - the first floor is living space, complete with the insets in the wall we became so used to seeing, for placing your decorations or Inca gods.  The second story was for storing your crops.  The roof would have been made of thatch.  Not bad for folks living on top of a mountain 500 years ago..... 

 

There were a lot of buildings packed into not a lot of space - here's an idea of the alleyways and stairs in this section:

 

 

5. If the Spaniards didn't get to Machu Picchu, what happened to all the Incas?

Remember my first Inca blog mentioned that there were a total of 14 Inca kings, but #9 was the main king.  He made a major expansion of the Inca empire, but he did it by waging war with everyone around - essentially making alot of enemies.

So when the Spaniards came to "Inca Land," they attacked the Incas.  The folks in Machu Picchu left to defend their follow Incas in the lower elevations.  Any remaining non-Incas took advantage of the opportunity to further weaken the remaining population in Machu Picchu, until ultimately, the population at Machu Picchu was no longer sustainable.  And so the area eventually became overgrown with vegetation, waiting to be found in 1950.

The moral of this story is.....

Treat your neighbors right - they may someday treat you the way you treated them!


 

 

 

Adventures in the Andes Region

We spent yesterday all around the area of Cusco, seeing more Inca ruins, learning more about how Inca communities were built, their religion, etc.  Anything we could tell you about yesterday would be dwarfed by today's visit to Machu Picchu (subsequent post coming soon), so I'll hold any more Inca discussion until then.  Suffice it to say it was AMAZING!

In the meantime, yesterday we learned more about how the folks of the Andes live.  This is not the city - this is living out in the country without much modernization.  Things that really stood out today:

1.  Your Hat Identifies Where You're From

People wear amazing hats as part of their native dress (which is worn routinely, not just for special occasions). The design of your hat tells what region of the Andes you are from.  Check out some of the hats we saw - how would you like to wear these???

2.  There are Lots of Camels in Peru!  (Well, kind of....)

You may have thought there were Llamas in Peru.  There are actually Llamas, Guanacos, Alpacas and Vicuñas.  Each one of those are considered part of the camel family.  I guess that's why llamas sometimes spit and have feet like camels!

Vicuña:

Alpacas:

Llama:

Guanacos (we didn't see one of these, since they're endangered):

By the way, if you ever wondered what alpaca teeth are like, this guy gave a big alpaca smile for us:

3.  The Pluses and Minuses of Adobe

Folks in the Andes build their homes from Adobe because it's readily available and cheap.  You take clay, mix in straw and water, cut it into blocks and let them dry. Voila - you have bricks for your house!  Start stacking, and soon you have a house.

There's a slight problem though - the rainy season in the Andes lasts 6-months.  Add water to adobe and you get.....wet clay.  Which is not structurally stable.  To help protect the adobe, some folks cover it with a layer of cement. Others cover the house with plastic whenever it rains a lot.

Folks like to build their houses on cliffs and embankments - because everyone likes a house with a view.  In the rainy season, often the earth begins to shift and give way - another danger.  Here's one adobe building on a river embankment:

4.  More about religion.....

I have to say The Andean folks are the most honest people I've ever seen about their religion.  

As I mentioned before, they practice a combination of Catholicism and the old Inca traditions (complete with worship of Mother Earth, water, sun, etc). On top of every house, you will usually find a cross surrounded by other things, depicting what else the person worships.  Often it's 2 bulls, symbolizing agriculture.  Sometimes it's a ladder, symbolizing prosperity (a "step up").  Sometimes it's jugs of water. Or beer, or wine.  Or some combination of these.

It's not a great picture, but here's what it looks like on top of the thatched roof.  This family worships agriculture and beer....

I have done a lot of thinking the last couple days about what would be on my house if I lived here.  There would definitely be a cross!  But for us folks in North America, I think all too often we would also have ladders (prosperity), cars/houses, something representing power, etc.  What would be on your roof?

5.  The Guinea Pigs think they're beloved pets, but they're not!

I LOVE guinea pigs.  I had one as a pet when I was a child, so this one kind of pains me.

We saw these cut little guinea pigs in a cage.  Complete with baby guinea pigs.  They squeaked for us and got all excited when we fed them grass.  We also saw a herd of them (group, pod, flock?) living loose in someone's house.  They all came running over to visit us, squeaking as they ran, like they were delighted to meet us.  I wanted to take every one of them home with me.

Well, if you hadn't heard, guinea pigs aren't pets in Peru.  They are protein.  You get roasted guinea pigs at restaurants or at stands on the side of the road (YIKES!).  I'll spare you the picture.

By the way, if you tell a Peruvian you had a pet guinea pig, they think it's pretty funny.  Almost on a par with having a pet sheep living inside your house.  I've made a lot of Peruvians laugh this week :-)

The Incas - Things My World History Teacher Never Told Me!

Today we visited several different key Inca sites around Cusco, Peru.  FYI - the Inca empire existed in Peru prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in the early 1500's.  

The Incas understood there was a supreme being (called Pachacamc) that created everything, and they worshipped him as such.  However, because they couldn't understand what this being looked like, they didn't know how to draw him.  As a result, they began worshipping the created things they could see - sun, stars, rain, lightening, etc.  Inca king #9 (of 14 total) reinforced worshipping the sun god as the primary god.  Additionally, the Incas worshipped Pachacamac's "wife," named Pachamama - or Mother Earth.  Here's a picture of all their gods - Pachacamac is the big shapeless blob at the top.  Other gods are shown in the rest of the pic. 

We found it interesting that the Incas realized that there is a supreme being that created all.  Unfortunately, like so many of us today, they substituted other gods whom they felt were more tangible and understandable.

Several things our tour guide shared with us caught our attention.  Many of her comments would cause us to want to learn more about the Incas, but here are some of the most memorable to us:

1.  The Incas were great engineers.  

This area in the Andes is prone to earthquakes, and much of their temples/palaces are still intact.  The Incas built earthquake-proof buildings by a) pitching in all walls by 7-13 degrees (the building stones leaned in on each other - more stable than vertical walls).  

b) building indented areas into the walls that acted as expansion joints, allowing the walls to flex during an earthquake).  These indented areas also served as shelves to place idols or mummies (more on that below!). 

c) building the walls on top of gravel, which served as a floating foundation and reduced the shaking forceps transmitted to the walls from the shaking ground.

2.  The Incas performed lots of sacrifices to Mother Earth.

Did you have a dream about a naked woman?  This meant that Mother Earth was letting you know she needed something from you - like a sacrifice.  

Black llamas were frequently sacrificed to Mother Earth (black was the color of purity), as well as other animals.  And of course, a virgin sacrifice was really special.  Young girls were taken from families and raised in special colonies to prepare them to be sacrificed.  The girls were trained that this was a privilege, so they looked forward to it (as much as one can).   The girls were sacrificed by burying them alive in the snow in the mountains.  It wasn't QUITE so horrible as it sounded - apparently the girls were essentially OD'd on coca leaves until they were unconscious, then they were covered with snow and froze.  Still pretty horrible.....

3. The Incas worship of Mother Earth continues strongly in Peru today.

When the Spaniards arrived, they destroyed all the Inca temples they could and used the stone to build Catholic Churches.  They forced the Incas to become Catholic, however the people secretly continued their original religion.  They even carved lots of Mother Earth figures into the Cusco Catholic Church choir benches as a form of rebellion (I guess the Spaniards didn't notice anything strange about all the pregnant women carved into the choir benches).  No pic on this one - no fotos allowed in the church.

Today, about 8 million people in Peru continue worshipping Mother Earth, in addition to being Catholic.  We were told they are viewed as symbiotic religions - everyone knows the people participate in both, and nobody says not to.

In case you were wondering, we were TOLD the animal sacrifices have essentially ceased, except in Bolivia.  (No more human sacrifices though, as they are illegal!)

4. The Incas mummified their kings and carried them all over so they could "participate" in religious ceremonies.  

The Incas strongly believed in life after death. People were mummified in the fetal position (sacrificial virgins were also buried in this position) - symbolizing that they would be reborn into their next life.  They were then wrapped in decorative fabrics, until they looked a bit like a giant Easter egg.  Somehow this translated into a belief that the mummified people were still alive, and so they carried them around for ceremonies, and put them on shelves in the temples (see #1 above) during the ceremonies.

In cas you were wondering what happened to all the mummies, the Spaniards burned them.  Don't waste any time looking for an Inca mummy exhibit.

And last but not least......

5.  The Incas used black guinea pigs as X-rays.

Feeling sick?  They would take a black (pure) guinea pig and wave it all over around you.  Then they would cut open the guinea pig and see what was wrong with it.  Whatever they found wrong inside the pig was determined to also be wrong with you. 

We have more Inca stuff to learn in the next couple days, so stay tuned!

For those of you wondering what ever happened to our Amazon travels - they did happen (it was wonderful!).  The fotos however are on the wrong camera for blogging, so we will post about that as soon as we get home.