5 Things I Didn't Know About High-Altitude Living

A little over two months into Cusco, I can say with certainty that life at 11,200 feet comes with its own set of peculiarities. This isn’t the highest up we’ve ever been – Jorge and I had the pleasure of visiting Potosi, Bolivia once, the highest inhabited city in the world at 13,400 feet. But that was just for a couple days, and we were happy to get out of there and to lower climes. Here are some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned at 11,000 feet:

1.) Cooking is a different experience. Have you guys ever noticed the separate cooking instructions for high-altitude locations on every box of pasta in history? I used to, and never thought much of it. I remember inquiring about this – why would the instructions differ at a higher elevation? – and was provided with the accurate scientific response that I have long since forgotten. (Doesn’t it all just boil down to ATOMS?) I conveniently forgot about this as Jorge and I settled into Cusco. The first several occasions we cooked pasta or rice, we spent an inordinate amount of time checking and re-checking the food. Why was it still so HARD? Hasn’t it been 7-9 minutes? Really it’s been almost 15 minutes…How can it not be ready yet? Oh yeah. HIGH-ALTITUDE.

See that arrow? It means something.

2.) Hangovers reach a new level of raunchy. There must be some scientific explanation for this – dehydration occurs faster where there’s less oxygen because red blood cells need 1.5% of something and up here there’s only 0.1% and then oh yeah, MAGIC. Whatever the reason, I’m ashamed to admit that I once had a hangover once until 4PM after 3 (THREE) glasses of wine throughout the course of a very laid back—and LENGTHY--evening with friends. And it’s not because I’m almost thirty (even if it was strictly due to my age, it would still be an EMBARASSMENT). Be careful folks. Alcohol up here takes a different toll on the body. And you know why? It’s because of HIGH ALTITUDE.

3.) Moving around is more difficult. If your body is one of those randomly selected organisms that will be sensitive to high-altitude issues, surprise! Most things will suck. Unfortunately this has nothing to do with physical fitness, it’s just pure luck (or unluckiness). Visiting Potosi was by far the WORST – I got out of breath just brushing my teeth. In Cusco it’s not nearly as bad, especially since we’ve had ample time to acclimate, but a few aspects still stick out. If you’ll all remember, I used to live in Valparaiso which had comically steep streets that seemed, oftentimes, like a joke. Who would actually build a city so vertical, a city where most neighborhoods relied on ascensores just to get their groceries home? Well, Cusco has its fair share of inclines and hills, but it’s got nothing on Valpo. Which makes me feel particularly bad when I find myself out of breath here in Cusco after traversing a very minimal incline. And yes, that incline would be the equivalent of walking downhill in Valpo, but here? Steals your breath a little. Makes you feel pretty ridiculous until you remember OH YEAH…HIGH ALTITUDE.

4.) Thunderstorms aren’t just thunderstorms anymore. They are a full-body experience that gets you right into the middle of the storm cell, WITH NO FORGIVENESS. Plus, being this high up, you get the added benefit of strange snow-hail storms. In the middle of summer. Because it’s HIGH ALTITUDE!

5.) It’s pretty much always cold. I’ll go more into my geographic/weather pattern duncery in another post, but this high up, the extremes are more extreme. If the sun does come out in the middle of the day (which doesn’t always happen, not even in ‘summer’), it will be very hot, and you WILL get burnt. But then at night, you will need five blankets and a pair of alpaca booties and MAYBE THEN the only frozen item on your body will be your nose. For god’s sake, the alpacas here wear goggles and sometimes actual CLOTHING. That’s gotta tell you something…something like HIGH ALTITUDE!

Hey, Mr. Alpaca...can we borrow some of that fluff?

Maybe for some traditional hats and sweaters?

There have been some other strange things going on around here too, though I can’t be sure if they’re related to the elevation or not. Either way, it seems safe to blame it on the altitude. 

Is your boyfriend shedding chest hair at an unprecedented rate? Probably the altitude.  Does your tap water come out feeling like the literal refuse of a glacier? Might be the high altitude. Are people eating oven-roasted hamsters as a delicacy? Could also be the altitude. Are you suffering from painfully glorious mountain views nearly every moment of the day? The altitude may very well be the culprit. Have you recently scaled a mountain to reach a city that ancient people thought was a great idea to stick all the way up there? Now that one is DEFINITELY the altitude!

(Editor's Note: I began writing this post when the sun was out in full force and I thought I might be able to take a trip to the market in my tank top, to get a little tanning in. It is now snow-hailing, and some of it is coming through our skylights, where it sits melting on our floor. A little message from the gods. High Altitude!)

How to Host a Thanksgiving Abroad Without an Oven

It might be almost halfway through December, but gosh dangit, here's my update about our Thanksgiving in Cusco! If you remember our "Gracias Dando" celebrations from the year before, you'll know that it was an exercise in creative cooking, limited space maneuvering and extremely imbalanced plate-to-guest ratios. 

Well, our Thanksgiving in Cusco was a whole new type of holiday creativity. Here are some of the biggest differences:

Instead of a big HOUSE this year, we have a smartly decorated SHOEBOX.

Instead of a "healthy amount of plates and utensils", we have exactly 2 of EVERYTHING.

Instead of a base-line equipped kitchen with an OVEN, we have a CAMPER STOVE.

And instead of multiple casserole dishes with which to cook those ultra-important Thanksgiving dishes.....we had NONE.

So, how does one accomplish a Thanksgiving with this foundation? Let me provide a handy guide to creating an Ex-Pat Thanksgiving with the sparsest of resources.

Step One: Meet your neighbors, who are delightful ladies working at a local non-profit. Find out they have an oven during a night sharing a bottle of wine. Also find out they have no refrigerator, a resource that we do indeed have. Propose idea for a 'little Thanksgiving celebration' and, in effect, an exchange of necessary resources.

The lovely Lucy showing off her beautiful oven.

Step Two: Purchase all the necessary ingredients for the 7 dishes you alone want to create. Make several desperate trips to various markets. No matter what, you won't be able to find mushrooms, sour cream, or heavy whipping cream each time you go. Begin googling for workarounds. 

Step Three: Find the turkey. The main and largest supermarket doesn't have it, so you have to turn to the black market. Send your boyfriend at 7AM one morning to the bad side of Cusco to pick up a frozen bird from a wholesale place. Let him take it to work with him all day. He'll name it Cloticio.

Step Four: Realize that baking must begin the night before if anything is going to be consumed the next day, since the amount of baked dishes is astronomical, and the amount of oven space and dishes is next to nothing. Bake apple pie. Don't eat it.

Pre-apple pie.

Post-apple pie.

Step Five: Thanksgiving morning. Allow boyfriend to prep the turkey however he wants, because as an ex-vegetarian you have no idea what traditions surround the readying of the turkey. Assume he'll do fine because he's Argentinian and, well, meat is his specialty. Take the turkey to a "24 Hour Oven" across the street, where a comically hard-to-understand old lady tends a wood oven where she gladly receives Cloticio to cook for three hours.

Jorge and the prepped Cloticio.

Step Six: Resume baking and cooking the remaining dishes: corn casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, chocolate chip cookies. As friends arrive, make everyone taste the ridiculously tasty mushroom soup. Don't share the recipe. Move scalding hot casserole from dish into skillet so that dish can be re-used for another baking purpose. 

My famous green bean casserole!

Lucy and Kate's glazed veggies

Step Seven: Remaining visitors arrive, and they help by moving dinner table to the outside patio. Wine is opened. All of the Thanksgiving guests are first-timers (i.e. non-Americans), so the pressure is on. This shit better be good. Neighbors have also contributed delicious foods, native to their own lands. Bring food to table, which completely consumes and overflows off of the picnic table.

Step Eight: GIVE THANKS AND EAT!

Happy Ex-Pat GraciasDando Friendsgiving 2014!

Hope everyone's Thanksgivings were a rousing success, full of family, fun and love...and that you all had slightly more casserole dishes than we did.

Quirks of Cusco

I haven't been in Cusco long, but already some interesting quirks are making themselves known. Life in a new place always comes with associated learning curves and surprises (like in this post from November 2012 about settling into Puerto Varas, Chile; and this one about the inverted seasons; and this one and this one about acclimating to Valparaiso), so it should come as no surprise that Cusco has it's own learning curve.

The first thing that stood out about Cusco really jolted me. No really, it did. Because I electrocuted myself. IN THE SHOWER.

How is this possible, one might ask? I certainly didn't get into the bathtub with a lightning bolt, nor do I consider myself a risk taker with electrical currents. It happened during my celebratory first shower on our first day (first HOUR) in Cusco. After that 22 hour bus ride, I was more than ready for a hopefully hot shower.

Once inside the thankfully warm shower stream, I looked up at the shower head and noticed there was a sort of lever that looked like it could control the water stream. It was coming out pretty weak, so I thought, hey, we need industrial grade water stream if possible, folks.

I tried moving the lever but it was sort of loose. So I grabbed the shower head, to steady it against my water-stream-adjustment.

ZAP. Electrocuted.

Turns out, Cusco (at least the shower heads I've seen so far -- certainly every apartment we visited during the house hunt had them) uses electric shower heads. Instead of an external water heater system (in Lima and Valparaiso, it was gas), the shower head itself heats the water as it comes out.

This is our actual shower head! Does anybody know

what the dangling hose is for? I sure don't!

Awesome. Does anybody else feel like this is an extremely bad idea? I mean, I know the gas system has its own risks and dangers. Probably water heaters too. But for F's sake -- this seems like we're tempting fate just a little too much here.

But hey. If all of Cusco does it, it must be fine, right? Probably nobody has died. Probably.

There's just one simple rule in bathing in Cusco, from here on out.

DON'T FREAKING TOUCH THE SHOWER HEAD WHEN ITS ON. FOR GOD'S SAKE.

The next quirk became readily apparent the very first night we moved into our apartment. Late that night, we noticed that a very unsavory smell wafting from the bathroom. We figured it was perhaps a problem with the toilet, and resolved to inform our landlord about it.

Then we noticed that when you turned the faucets on, nothing happened.

And then we noticed this again the next morning. And then the next afternoon. And again during the next night.

In fact, all of Saturday, we had water for about 4 hours of our waking day. (We did hear the water pipes shudder to life soon after we went to bed, around 2 AM. "WATER'S BACK. Just in time to not use it!")

This was disconcerting. We asked the landlady why this was -- she said it was normal, that the water was cut most every day, but only for a few hours at a time and then it came back. It was for water saving practices, since there's either a shortage or global warming or all the tourists. We didn't get a clear answer.

Every visitor to Cusco has their own water story, I imagine.

Note: This is actually a BAND named Cusco, and the image is from their 

album of instrumental music. But it was too perfect not to use.

Indeed, the water does disappear everyday. It tends to be available in the morning, goes away around noon, and then comes back again (maybe) in the late afternoon, and then sometimes at night. We're still gathering data to form a chart about WHEN we can expect the water to be there. This can become a problem when one has to, you know, bathe for work. Or wash the dishes in order to eat something.

Upon move-in, we noticed lots of containers of water laying around. Not the drinkable water you buy at the stores, but just plastic jugs full of tap water. It confounded us, to say the least, but now we get it -- helpful tactics for when the water disappears and you need to flush a  toilet or wash a dish.

And this explains the unsavory smell as well. We've noticed it again, and it happens when the water's been turned off for several hours. Without the running water, shit starts to get funky.

Acclimating to the rhythm of Cusco is an ongoing adventure. More time will tell what further surprises await us! And don't worry, I'll blog all about it.

Editor's Note: I found an excellent blog recently written by a woman living a lifestyle similar to mine. She just moved away from Cusco after being here 5 months, and she blogged about surprises in Cusco  as well, which had me nodding in agreement after less than a week here.