Sea Level

I have thought more about sea level in the past week than I have ever thought about it in my life.  I always knew Dallas was a bit flat and dull.  Shoot, I count on that when I travel so I have great contrast- but apparently, Dallas averages 500 feet above sea level at any given point.  Good to know.  I am currently a little higher up.  My iPhone compass says I am 11,210 feet above sea level.  So higher, then.  Got it.  

This is as tall as we get, too.  Tomorrow, we leave Cusco and head to Quito, Ecuador, where we’ll be low-riding at only 9,350 feet above sea level.  The Galápagos Islands should be a shock to the system after that, as we will literally be swimming in the sea.  I can hardly wait.  I feel so very, very out of shape when there are stairs here in Peru.  I get halfway up a flight and pause to catch my breath.  I get to the top and have a sip of water.  Altitude is s no joke.  

I have been working out in my flat, flat city, too.  I was pretty vigilant during the school year, shooting for one 45-minute workout every day.  There were a few days when that wasn’t in the cards, but I was mostly good about it.  I even kept after it when school ended before we left.  But show me a flight of stairs in Cusco, and forget about it.  I feel like a 300 pound pack-a-day smoker when I reach the top..  

As predicted, today we went to the sun temple, the cathedral and the museum.  They were all pretty great, but none of those was the headline  The headline was the lunch when we finally saw a pair of cooked-up Guinea Pigs.  They were practically begging for people to be outraged.  You could see their little mouths opened up as they were cooking.  It was kind of creepy.  

We have a strange cognitive dissonance with our meats in the US.  We don’t befriend cows or chickens or pigs very frequently, so we can eat them.  But Guinea Pigs are class pets.  They are treasured companions.  They are assigned names.  They are clearly not food.  Name a cow, and you’ll reconsider a ribeye.  

I can safely assume that Peruvian Guinea Pigs are not often (if ever) assigned names.  They are bred, fattened and cooked.  We all tired a bite, but I had fish for lunch.  I did not name the fish, either.  

Funny story- the cathedral we went to featured a Peruvian take on lots of biblical things.  The Spaniards who came wanted to convert the Incan people to Catholicism, and shrewdly allowed some local color into the church to make the faith more accessible.  That’s why a carved statue of Jesus in the church is darker than the typical Catholic art.  And that’s also why there was a last supper painting with a cooked Guinea Pig in the middle of the table while Judas looks furtively to the side.  It’s so very, very Peruvian.  

When the day came to a close, Cas and I made a stop in the hotel bar.  It’s a very good hotel, and the hotel bar is also kind o amazing.  We had a pair of fancy cocktails and an appetizer for dinner.  The appetizer was Guinea Pig free.  We also decided that our last night in Peru should be punctuated by a final Pisco Sour.  We just need to drink about a gallon of water before bed.  This high above sea level, your body craves more water and tells you so by giving you a whammy of a headache.  

Tomorrow, we should be dropping all the way down to 9,350  feet above sea level.  I don’t know what kind of adorable class pets folks there will eat, but we intend to head that way and see what we see on the way to the Galapagos.  See you in another country, just a little closer to sea level!

In the meantime, of course, check out Our Photo Album.