Peru, after the fact

In 1532, at the time when Henry VIII was still looking at Anne Boleyn’s neck with affection, a group of 168 illiterate, greedy and ruthless Spaniards from Extremadura riding on horseback [the XVI’s century equivalent of a redneck motorcycle gang] arrived in Peru, met the Inca Atahualpa [ruler of an empire of ten million people that expanded the length of the Andes, from Ecuador to Chile] and his army of 80,000 soldiers, defeated him, took him hostage, and started the most brutal of all the conquests. In less than fifty years, the country would be firmly under the Spanish crown. Before getting there, Francisco Pizarro [leader of the horseback gang,] together with his brothers and partners, lied, manipulated, fought, killed and terrorized his way to power. The story, as written by Kim MacQuarrie in The Last Days of the Incas, is so plotted, full of twists and turns, populated by strange animals and weird fruits, with intriguing ceremonies and traditions, it almost reads like Harry Potter, except that almost no one is good.

Take Atahualpa, the fearless twenty-some ruler of an empire with more than twice the population of Spain at the time, for whose ransom the city of Cusco [the capital] produced fantastical amounts of gold that nevertheless failed to prevent his dying via “garrote” [a rope around the neck twisted with a stick to strangle the victim]. While in captivity, this same Atahualpa ordered the death of his brother Huascar, together with all his wives and children, after torturing him in ways that make Abu Dhavi sound like child’s play.

Take Manco Inca, puppet teenage ruler put in place by the Spaniards, who wised up in a few years, fled Cusco and started a rebellion that lasted decades and ended two Inca rulers later, with the beheading of Tupa Amaru in Cusco. Take his coya [main wife and direct sister] whom Gonzalo Pizarro forcedly took before Manco rebelled, and whom he tortured and gruesomely killed after Manco’s defeat, probably one of the few truly sympathetic and heroic characters from beginning to tragic end.

Take the Pizarros: Gonzalo [the youngest, womanizer, abusive, killed by a rival Spanish faction], Juan [handsomest, killed in battle with the inca], Hernan [ugliest, smartest, only one to return to Spain with fabulous riches for the king which didn’t save him from supporters of Diego de Almagro, whom he’d had killed in Cusco, and who put him in jail for most of his life], or Francisco [the oldest, experienced conqueror already settled in Panama before he set out for Peru in his 50’s, whose greed caused the rift with associate Diego de Almagro, whose followers ambushed and killed him in his house in Lima].

And let's not talk about the blood and fire hungry priests...

Imagine traveling to a galaxy far away [the only possible equivalent I can come up with] and finding that most people you meet are dressed with exquisite fabrics and weaves, and ornamented with precious metals and stones, that their cities and temples are sheathed in walls of pure gold, located in breathtaking valleys, where they’ve domesticated strange sheep (llamas, alpaca, vicuña) and eat strange fruits (corn, potatoes). Imagine the natives looking at you, riding high on a fierce animal taller than their own, able to trample them to death. Wondering at the strange contraption in your hands that can kill several people at once (the harquebus). Marveling at the golden and red hair, that also grows on man’s faces (the inca had no facial hair)…

Why am I telling you all this? If you go to Peru, any guide you hire will tell you some of this at different points, particularly what pertains to life, customs or architecture. They don’t go in detail in regards to history or who did what to whom. But you’ll get a good sense of what Peru was before the conquest because the inca ruins are everywhere. However, if you walk in the country with a greater sense of this history, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to feel it come alive in Cusco, in the Sacred Valley, in Lake Titicaca [the mythical origin of the incas], in Machu Picchu, with the images of all of its stories, big and small, that your feet are stepping on. As we were in Cusco for its biggest festivity, Inti Raymi [sun festival, with a massive reenactment of an inca ritual,] and the actor impersonating the Inca was carried on a litter for all to see, locals in the crowd suspended disbelief and shouted words of support to their ruler, to gods and traditions that Catholicism has not yet defeated in the Altiplano. If you've read all this before getting there, you almost want to scream with them.

We loved everything. From the oxygen we had to take in Puno to adapt to 12,500 ft above sea level. To the floating houses in the Uros and the islands of immense Lake Titicaca. To the spectacularly gorgeous road to Cusco. To the Sacred Valley with inca cities that defy gravity atop steep mountains in Pisac and Ollantaytambo. To the majesty of watching the sun come up over Machu Picchu. Mostly, we loved Cusco, precious city of mixed architecture and history, where we had our best ceviches and causas, pisco sours, and even a Guinness at Paddy’s Pub, the highest fully Irish owned Irish bar in the planet.

There is a whole lot more to read about Peru. Almost five hundred years have passed since the conquistadors arrival. The country has countless writers, among them a Nobel laureate (Mario Vargas Llosa), and many other areas to visit, and other cultures that contribute to what it is today. This trip, however, belonged to the incas. We got our money’s worth.

Oxygen and mate de coca 

Festival in Puno

Eating potatoes in Puno. Sullistani. Lake Titicaca view from Puno hotel.

Alana had a little lamb. Tequiles island. Lake Titicaca

The Uros, Lake Titicaca

On the road to Cusco

Textiles and protecting bulls over a local house

Ollantaytambo and Pisac

Waiting for the Inca at Sacsayhuaman

The Inca and his Coya

Cusco and Pisco

Machu Picchu and one of its permanent residents

happy travelers

Parting shots

Night Lights

Hoi An - Siem Reap - Don Kohne - Hoi An

Shanghai - Hanoi - Hanoi - Shanghai

The Heat

Hoi An hotel staff adding ice to the pool

The Feeet

Socialist Realism

Got to love this stuff

Chen and I - One for the books

Trip has come to an end. I’m not a blogger and I’m a bit out of steam. Not to mention that I couldn’t blog from China since the government blocks blogger.com. So here are some fast notes I took while in Shanghai.

Where Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam (and probably most of China) are the past, this is the future, in steroids. A million communist banners flying over town cannot conceal the gusto with which this city has embraced capitalism. The signs are everywhere (the luxury stores, the fashionable people, the high rises, the cars, the rush), but nowhere more than in the extraordinary skyline of Pudong. Loved it. Period.

very slow Manhattan while watching night fall over Pudong

Loved it more because of how much I knew about it from the fabulous mystery series by Qiu Xiaolong that centers around the poetry-quoting Inspector Chen. I can’t tell you how good it feels to land in a place for the first time and know it. From the impoverished and crowded shikumen (poor people’s dwellings) that Big Bucks (fast rich cats), with their frantic building and land speculation, have not managed to completely eradicate. To cruel foods (monkey’s brains, snake blood, and a number of other ‘delicacies’ extracted from a live animal that the diners enjoy among the animal’s screams) which (fortunately) are either not offered anymore, or perhaps you have to know somebody… To just weird foods (I couldn’t find a place that offered ginger steamed fish lips, though I could have eaten a pig’s snout.) To stalls that offer amazing and strange things for nothing (still around, I think I ate a rat one day.) To the lost prestige of Shanghai’s No. 1 Department Store (you could call it Macy’s today). To hot water shops, which surprised a young local when I asked about them (though I think I saw steaming giant vats at a shikumen that might have been it). To thinking of the refrain of one of Chen’s helpers (“there are things a man will do, and there are things a man will not do”) and realizing that in Shanghai there are no things a man will not do, or eat, or wear.

There were also groups of Chinese tourists who seemed to be coming from very far away, both in space and time. Old, with faces burned and carved as leather, they looked up and around in admiration, and laughed nervously in the presence of foreigners. The twenty first century has left them behind. A few wore Mao jackets or some version of it. Some were attired in clothes cheaper than the cheaper goods we import from their country. Because of the many historical references in Mr. Xiaolong's novels, I also could pretend I knew a little bit about them. Did you lose people in the great famine, I wondered? Were you an intellectual once, sent to the country for reeducation during the cultural revolution? Did your fortunes fall and soar and fall again according to the party’s whims? Was anyone in your family branded a ‘bad element’? Did your fish-stall-owning uncle (a capitalist according to Mao) killed your chances at a better future?

I haven’t read anything more substantial about Shanghai or China than Qiu Xiaolong’s books. Yet I had a higher enjoyment of Shanghai for having read them. If I have to close, for now, with some parting words, I’d say that nothing gives you a truer flavor of a place than its fiction. So here’s to the books, from a satisfied costumer.

Watching Iron Man in China

For a much needed foot break in Shanghai, I headed to a theatre, ready to watch Iron Man 3 in a language I do not understand. But, one, I’d seen it already. And, two, you can watch most of these movies with the sound off. Mostly, I wanted to see the Hollywood special for China cut.

In the American version, there is a Mr. Chinese Character who appears for 2 seconds at the beginning, says as much as “Mmm,” and RDJ (Robert Downey, Jr.) replies with the indifferent/pretend to be funny “well, whatever” (or something like that) of the important man who cannot be bothered. We don’t see Mr. Chinese Character’s reaction to this and he does not appear again.

Before I go to the details of the Chinese version meant to woo Chinese audiences, let me explain that the first shock was that the movie, played to an almost empty theatre with an audience of five locals and legs-up yours truly, played entirely in English, with Chinese subtitles.

In the scenes with Mr. Chinese Character, Mr. CC spoke Chinese, no dubbing. So I have no idea what he said. But I can give you an approximation.

Scene 1 – (longer version of the “Mmm” scene above) – about 10 seconds. Mr. CC: “I am talking here, by myself, making no sense to anyone, so that my Chinese audience can see a Chinese while RDJ is not even in the shot.” Cut to RDJ: “well, whatever.”

Scene 2 – (maybe half way down the movie, many things have happened that this guy has not been a part of, nor has anyone referred to this character in China as part of the story) – about another 10 seconds, talking on the phone by a glass wall (a skyscraper in Beijing?) “I am taking here, by myself, making no sense and adding nothing to the plot, so that my Chinese audience can see a Chinese person speaking Chinese.” Cut back to action.

Scene 3 – (close to the end of the movie, a bit longer, perhaps 35 seconds, for obvious reasons.) He is scrubbing (apparently he is a doctor) next to a nurse. “I am talking here to this super hot nurse, making no sense and adding nothing to the plot, other than seeing me talking to a super hot nurse, did I already say that?” To which nurse replies “really, you think I’m hot,” which he follows with a “Oh, boy, yes, I do.” To which she replies “thanks so much doctor.” “Don’t mention it. I think they are cutting us off.” Cut back to action.

Scene 4 – I am not even sure that this scene happened. If it did, it was close to the scrubbing, very near the end. Even shorter. 7 seconds? He is by the glass wall at the skyscraper, on the phone. “What am I doing here again?” Cut back to action.

Scene 5 – this is just a supposition – he may (or may not) have been the doctor who operates on RDJ at the movie’s end, in a word-less scene. He’s wearing a mask and says nothing. It could have actually been me.

And this was it. Not sure what Hollywood’s intentions were with this. All I can really say is, “well, whatever.” And that my feet were rested.

On the road

The ten Commandments of driving in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (and probably many other places, but I’m only pontificating about the ones I’ve spent a minute in):

1.     Do as you please (phone, text, phone and text, slow down, stop to have a pee or a smoke, change a tire…)

2.     Wherever you please (middle of the road is great)

3.     Never look before a move (changing lanes, entering a highway, leaving a parking spot)

4.     Honk a lot

5.     Disobey all traffic rules (red lights are for whimps)

6.     Never wear a seatbelt

7.     If you do wear a seatbelt, make sure your passengers don’t

8.     When in doubt, check your instincts, then do the opposite

9.     Special for motorcycles: carry a big load (i.e. your full family and friends or [and] a family-sized refrigerator)

10. Special for pedestrians: good luck

I have a somewhat illustrative movie, from the back of a motorcycle, in Hoi An, but I haven't been able to make it work. Sorry.