Fun with a llama
Last days in Cusco
Sunday,
June 7 & Monday, June 9
The performance in Cusco went really well. There
were about 150 in the audience which was better
than we expected. I hung out in the tech booth
most of the day with the theater lighting and
sound guys who were all fun as well as
professional.
Again on the way to the theater there was all
sorts of stuff going on. There have been protests
due to the unrest in the amazon area so there was
a strong police presence and then there was some
sort of typical Sunday morning parade.
I had a very good trout ceviche for lunch.
After the performance
we had Pisco sours and food at a children's
themed restaurant. We had fun with hats. After
that we went to a bar and danced the night away.
On Monday several of us went to the church of
Santa Domingo, a Spanish church built on top of
an Incan temple. There was a interesting museum
of large religious oil painting which were used
to teach the Incas the ways of Christianity. The
gardens were also lovely and the inside of the
church - where photography was not involved - was
filled with wonderful paintings and statues. On
the way to the church we paid to take pictures
with two women with farm animals.
After leaving the
church we walked down another typical Incan stone
wall street and came across a small. This is
where I made my first purchase of beads. The
saleswoman's little girl was cute but a bit shy.
Lunch was a ham and
cheese sandwich with fries and a beer with coco
leaf flavoring. I would never have it again but I
am glad I tried it. Note the funny color of the
ketchup.
We spent our last night in Cusco at a big
handicraft market. We saw a lot of the same stuff
we had seen at other markets but I did buy some
gifts. Dana helped me get the best price. After
the market we ate some pretty decent Mexican food
Cusco
Good news: my altitude sickness is gone and we are all in the same hotel - the good one.
We went to the theater Saturday morning to continue the technical setup for the show (which is Sunday). The technical crew at the theater Josse, Fidel, Luco, William - are all lots of fun even with the language barrier. Two of the MIT group speak spanish fairly well so we are managing. After the tech setup we all went out for pizza and beer.
In the afternoon we all went to a travel agency and paid for our tickets to Machu Picchu, did a little shopping, went to the market that is very near the theater to buy baskets (we could not transport the props for one of the dance pieces so bought substitutes here).
Later in the hotel lobby we worked on the music for the new piece with the various audio/video software we had. We needed to incorporate some poem readings by one of the dancers Shu-Chen into the music, timing it with video and adjusting the levels of the music so she could be heard. While working we ate our dinner - beef and chicken jerky, nuts and fruit, Twix bars, starbursts, beer and coco tea..
On Sesame Street
there was a cool little cartoon and song about
finding your way back home by noting the
landmarks. I have thought about that a lot as I
go back and forth from hotel to theater. The
above pictures are sight on the way to the
theater up the hill, through the Santa Clara
arch, past the sewing shop to the Kusikay
Theater. On the way there are many people who
approach me with flyers for restaurants,
entertainment, etc. We have started collecting
ones for massages.
In the last picture in front of the theater you
see Dana, dancers Kelly, Miyako, Florian,
Ricardo, then Sara and Richard from MIT, Enrique
the lighting designer from Lima, Susan from MIT,
Luco the sound guy from Cusco
Dana buying baskets at the market and the group
working on sound and eating junk food
Tomorrow, Machu Picchu!
Cusco - first day
The Washington contingent left around 8:15pm June 3 (almost 2 hours late due to storms) and now four planes later we're finally here. We almost did not make the last flight due to some customs issues involving a $10,000 projector (bought at a discount for $5000) but we did make it with Dana being the last person on just before the doors were shut. There are 16 of us total - 5 technical people (that includes me, a lighting designer from Lima and 3 video and sound experts from MIT, Boston), 10 dancers and one girlfriend. When we arrived in Cusco there was a band of Andean musicians playing for us and lots of people trying to sell us something.
Cusco, (11,000ft above sea level) is a beautiful town nestled in the Andes mountains. There are narrow steep stone streets, big plazas, and again lots of locals trying to sell us something. We are split into two hotels and the techies and one of the dancers, Ricardo, are the lucky ones. We are in Casa Andina, a modern hotel with hot water, internet access, free breakfast and a good location. The other hotel has only occasional hot water.
I am suffering from altitude sickness - head ache and a little nausea. It probably did not help that we ate some absolutely delicious but rich food and drank local beer at a place called the Inca Grill and then walked up to the theatre 10 blocks away and then made the round to trip again to get DVDs and other equipment for a tech run through. I went to sleep at 9:00pm and missed a nice meal at a tea shop. I have been drinking coco leaf tea which is supposed to help but although it is differently delicious I am not sure it is having any effect.
The Cusco airport and the tech crew - Richard,
me, Sara, Susan, Enrique (AKA Batman)
Our hotel room/internet cafe (Sara and Susan)
The views from our hotel room. The main plaza is
to the right where the churches are.
The stone foundations you see here and which are
all over the city are from the Incan era.
The Spaniards built on top of them.
The main plaza and my Andean trout/potato dinner
- our hotel is off to the right of this church