Note: all the bird stamps are from bird-stamps.org, and are used with permission. Thanks for this amazing resource!

Day 2 Cuzco and Huacarpay Lakes

We arrive in the hotel dining room at the appointed ungodly hour and scrambled eggs are put in front of us, some rolls and a bowl of jam. Julia has decided that "when in Peru, do as the Peruvians" so we're going to go with what is served to us. The tour folks know of our vegetarian requests. Some coca tea is ordered.

In our homework ahead of time, we have learned that this tea is supposed to really cure what ails ya, especially used for altitude sickness (we are about to fly from sea level to 11,000 ft), digestive troubles, you name it. It is the same leaf that cocaine is made from only there is no buzz of any kind. Okay, whatever, let's get started on the coca thinks Julia. We drink this tea every day, even in the lowlands and enjoy it thoroughly. This tea is illegal in the United States, so guess we'll have to get our fill while we're here.

We are introduced to our "tour family". There is Joy from Toronto. Ann and Dick from San Diego, Joseph and Sylvia from Sacramento and Bill from Denver. Andy and Julia. And Huw, our guide hails from Wales. We'll have to go through these names later. No one is very awake, especially us.

Off to the airport we go, Huw is taking care of all the details about tickets and passports and points us in the direction he wants us to go. Our flight is at 6am, one hour to Cuzco. We are served another breakfast on the plane, some fruit. Coca tea.

We arrive in Cuzco, the navel of the world according to the ancient Incas. "Oh, good!" thinks Julia, a restroom. No toilet paper, not even on the wall by the sink. She goes back out and asks Andy for some from the men's room. The plumbing isn't working either so there is no way to flush and no way to wash. Hmmm. To baggage claim we all go. All bags are accounted for. Everyone except Joy is accounted for. We look everywhere for her only to find her sitting on the Manu Expeditions bus outside the terminal, our home base for the next few days. Joy makes her own rules. The Lads are there as well, our driver, Guillermo and Juan his assistant. As soon as we step foot outside of the airport headed over to our bus, we are swarmed with vendors. Brightly clad men and women selling all manner of knitted hats and gloves and scarves and socks and sweaters and postcards and shoeshines and coca leaves and and and. We meet up with many more folks in this occupation during our stay in the mountains, and all that can be done is to say "No Gracias". Pretty stuff. Nice work. Shoved right up in our faces. Peru = Pushy.

Off we go. We are headed out of town to the Huacarpay (pronounced Walk-Are-PIE) Lakes. It's a 45-minute drive through the very poor section of Cuzco. The women wear full, pleated or dirndl skirts, just below the knee. Most are carrying brightly colored woven fabric, bulging Santa Claus bags on their backs. Some of these have babies in them. These women have bare legs even though it is a freezing winter morning in late-July (we're in the Southern Hemisphere and very high up in the mountains). The children are silent. Most are unsmiling and unbathed. We pass a few smaller villages, one of which is famous for its huge slabs of fried pork rind which several vendors have hanging out for sale. Um, no thanks. The lakes have some easy-to-see-from-the-road birds. Bill, Huw and Andy & Julia have brought their spotting scopes along. (Packing light means we bring the scope and tripod and rubber boots. Of course.) We get some good looks at a few familiar birds--Cinnamon Teal are some of the first old friends from home we spot-- and add some new ones to our list too. There are Plumbeous Rails with bright, lime-green bills, Andean Lapwing (gorgeous in flight), some wonderful extra-large hummers called Sparkling Violet-ear and Bearded Mountaineer, a bright little bird in the reeds called a Many-colored Rush-Tyrant. Some of Julia's favorites are the brightly colored tanagers and this day we see about twenty Blue-and-Yellow Tanagers. (For a complete bird list, see the end of the story.) At one end of the lake are some men paddling in boats made out of reeds.

We walk a ways, we hop on the bus and drive a ways--this is something called "bus support" which we become accustomed to for several days to come. Our jackets and warm hats and anything that we don't want to carry any more can go on the bus. The Lads even show up sometimes and we just load them up with all these shedded layers and they know on which seat in the bus to put them! There is a ready supply of fresh drinking water and our wonderful Lads fill our water bottles for us. "Agua, por favor. Gracias, Juan" We are well taken care of.

Sometime mid-morning a snack bag is passed out to each of us which consists of: a granola bar with a grain called quinoa which is really good, a banana, a passion fruit and a package of four cookies. We are to find out over the course of the next couple of weeks that these cookies come in two brands, Charada and Casino, and several flavors, the coveted Menta (chocolate-mint) being the tastiest by far, and plain chocolate a second runner-up. There is a tie for last place between peanut butter and coconut, which Ann declares tastes a bit like sunscreen. These cookies are the mainstay of snack time and we all grow quite fond of them. (Andy and Julia brought a package of Casino Menta cookies home with them awaiting some special occasion. We're eating them as we write this web page! We'll be sure to wash them down with that contraband coca tea that we also smuggled in). Also in the snack bag is a little chocolate bar and a few hard candies, which are usually handed to the Peruvian children as payment after Bill photographs them with his new digital camera.

Now let's talk about passion fruit. Julia will try most anything once, but she has an aversion to weird looking fruit (you can ask her about eyeball fruit sometime) and as tasty as this sensuously named fruit seems with eyes closed, she can't get past how it looks--all seeds in olive-green slime. The outside looks pretty much like an orange, only it has a hard shell which has to be cracked like an egg, usually over someone's head (not hers, mind you, she's still healing). Inside is some thick, white rind that you have to pull out of the way. Inside that is the prize, the aforementioned seeds-in-green-slime concoction. Andy is passionate about this fruit and he feels very lucky that he gets Julia's share as well as his own every time they are in the snack bag. This is working out very well.

About mid-way through our very sleepy day, the Lads set out a table and 9 chairs and fix us a wonderful lunch. We are hungry and grateful diners, there on the side of the not-so-traveled road with sheep nearby that the Lads have to shoo away. They have for us a stir-fry of sorts with French fries mixed in. Cooked vegetables. Teas (including coca of course) and coffee and sodas, something called Milo, sort of an instant cocoa, which Julia's sweet tooth is happy about. There is Swiss cheese, bread, cream cheese, tomatoes and sliced cukes. And, there is always a roll of toilet paper on the table. It is a mystery how this stuff crops up in the strangest places and is usually absent from where it ought to be!

We finish up our birding day in the afternoon and ride the bus back into Cuzco and our hotel, Los Andes de América; many of us do a head-bobbing doze for at least part of the journey. Our group gathers in the lobby as we all drink coca tea and wait for our luggage to come in with the Lads from the bus, then we settle into our rooms. There is just enough time for a short nap (ahh) and a short shower (ahh) and then Andy suggests that we explore the town before we meet back with the group to go over the bird list and eat dinner. Our hotel is located very close to the center of town. It's dark now and the streets are wet from some rain that came during our nap. The Main Square in Cuzco has some very old churches, ancient Inca walls, shops and restaurants. And of course the "wandering" vendors that chase after us trying to sell whatever it is they have. We venture inside one of the churches for a look around and walk around the square saying "No, gracias" at every turn. We're much too tired to do any real shopping, but Julia has her eye on those colorful Santa Claus bags, which could also be used as tablecloths or wall hangings, also the alpaca scarves. We'll be back here in a couple of weeks and get a chance to buckle down and do some bargaining. Oh goody!