Cusco and Andahuaylillias, Peru – 2014
I mentioned after the Lima gallery that things would get better. I don’t want those ancient Inca gods after my ass, so here are two of my favorite spots from my trip through Peru.
Cusco is a timeless portal full of travelers and women who want you to take a picture with them and their alpaca so they can tell you you owe them money. I didn’t fall for that one. Cusco is a medium-sized Peruvian city but it feels much smaller than it is. Tons of hostels, bars, old streets made of stone…a really cool feel. Since I don’t sleep or drink I mostly utilized the roads and also went to some little coffee shops. Cusco is also where I found out that altitude sickness is real.
Our next destination, Andahuaylillias is a small mountain village, maybe an hour and a half or two out of Cusco by car. The Airbnb host drove us there in a raggedy jeep while we gazed out the window and bounced around over the bumpy dirt roads. After Andrew and I hiked down the mountain and into the village we were greeted with empty shops containing goods we wanted to purchase but no owners. It was like a ghost town except for chickens and stray dogs. Eventually we found someone to buy water from and then stumbled over to a bus stop, getting on a bus and falling asleep on the way home as I watched a man urinate in plain daylight on a wall in open view of everyone on the bus…near a sign that said “no urinating.” Never gets old.
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- Half-triangle freaks built a house but then they realized that even a half triangle was a full triangle–there’s just nothing you can do about some things.
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- Cruisin’ through the cool streets of Cusco. This is a perpetual fall city, straight out of a Hermann Hesse book.
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- My tour guides showing me around some secret alleys in the city.
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- A children’s slide fashioned entirely out of smooth rock. This was part of a larger ancient ruin that is thought to by some scholars to be the first Six Flags in existence.
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- First catch in South America…I can’t tell you how relieved and appreciative I felt.
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- The most famous landmark in Cusco is located up this rock-based road and it is the garden where Jhonny Rzeznik picked an iris and the wrote the song “Iris” which is actually Siri backwards. The no longer famous rock-and-roller had a thing for robots programmed with female voices…way back in the late 90s…that guy was ahead of his time. Talk about an early adopter.
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- Hope you like eggs…
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- “Despite owning a meat stand and cutting meat for 35 years I always get nervous at this part…” -Butcher as he prepares to touch the meat with his bare hands. He later admitted that it was “really gross” and that he was a vegetarian.
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- A vibrant vegetable market in Cusco. I think this is actually where the entire cast of Veggie Tales got their careers started.
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- Another anxious butcher. This one expressed his constant concern that the animal was actually still alive and said he was so reluctant to commit to swinging that he often made incorrect cuts, horrendously resulting in more of the same anxiety-inducing work.
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- Those hats were everywhere. Even the upside-down chickens were wearing them before they fell over, died and mysteriously shed all their feathers. Huh…maybe it’s just part of their culture.
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- Put on your time traveling hats and sweaters…we’re going to the mountains of Peru!
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- Old lady looks like she’s begging but really she just feels bad and is apologizing that we visited her shitty hometown. (This caption is not true–I actually liked Cusco.)
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- Hiking around with our Airbnb hosts who took us to a badass mountain village called Andahuaylillas. This place was one of the highlights of my South American trip.
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- Polite cow with cute horns chews grass with its mouth closed. He teaches a manners class part-time on the weekends to 90% of the world’s population but he gets frustrated because no one ever pays attention.
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- Looking for dragonflies on a mountainside. Maybe I did actually believe in god after all…because it felt like I was in heaven. ;) This place was really magical.
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- A cemetery entrance but it wasn’t our time yet on this trip. Still, it was a comforting reassurance that one day this pinball journey will end forever.
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- I just realized I have pictures of people’s laundry hanging all over the world.
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- Felt like I was in Zelda: A Link to the Past. To be honest though, I don’t really want to save a princess, I just want to hike around all day and chop shit down looking for rupees.
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- How could you not write poetry if you lived here?! Jk…I don’t do that stuff anymore–I want people to take me seriously.
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- Little Peruvian girl jumping up and down while her pet stray dog drags its ear against an adobe wall in an attempt to make itself deaf so it doesn’t have to hear that dumb bitch sing anymore traditional songs.
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- Next time I see you it’ll be at the Olive Garden…bye Andes!!
