The D&D nerd and the cartography nerd within me are both squeeing with glee.

It’s been another full day. it started at 08:00 as we rose for breakfast. M. had slept well, but I don’t think I got any real sleep at all again. I laid in bed all night thinking “fall asleep” and being unable to do so. I had some sort of half-awake dreams about Ale leading us to all sorts of weird places. It was probably my brain trying to sort out the events of the last few days and doing it despite me not yet being asleep.

Breakfast was as yesterday, except they replaced the watermelon with kiwifruit. After this, at 09:30, we assembled with the group for the day’s activities.

These began with a bus ride uphill from Cusco and over a pass into the next valley, where we stopped at the town of Pisaq. The scenery along the way was spectacular, and Ale stopped the bus a couple of times to let us stretch our legs and take photos of the Andean scenery. In Pisaq we stopped at a bakery, apparently run out the back of some guy’s home. He made traditional empanadas in a small wood-fired oven. There were four choices: traditional (spicy cheese, tomato, onion, and herbs), ham and cheese, cheese and basil, and sweet (banana, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg). I had a traditional and M. had a cheese and basil, which turned out to also have tomato in it. They were 2 soles each, and smallish and flat, not like empanadas I’ve seen elsewhere that are more stuffed and rounded. The flour was quinoa. They were okay, but nothing special.

While eating empanadas and using the loos at this place, Zeeshan took a turn for the worse, having difficulty breathing in the thin air at this altitude. Ale arranged a taxi to take her and Zaina back to Cusco to see the doctor there. This took some time to organise, so a few of us returned to the shade of the bakery and I bought a sweet empanada to try as well. It was again decent, but nothing amazing.

With Zeeshan on her way back to Cusco with Zaina to look after her, the rest of us boarded the bus again for a trip further uphill to the small native weaving community of Chawaytiri. The road began as paved, but we soon turned off it on to a marrow, dusty dirt road. This wound its way up the valley, cut into the mountainside so that for the most part on our left was a wall of dirt, while on our right was a sheer drop, up to 200 or 300 metres to a stream far below. There was plenty of evidence of rockfalls and mudslides, and the road reminded us of the Bolivian Death Road we’d seen on Top Gear. Well, it was Peru, but it was still an Andean death road. The view from the road was, however, amazing, with tall mountains and deep valleys everywhere.

We arrived at the weaving community around 12:00. Ale drilled us in our Quechua greetings since most of the natives spoke no Spanish, let alone English. We piled out of the bus to enter the working yard where about 30 people, men and women, all dressed in their traditional colourful working costumes, greeted us warmly, one by one, shaking our hands. Ale had said the costumes are not put on for tourists. Intrepid is the only tour company that visits this community, and only brings groups three or four times a month. The costumes are what they wear every day. The weavers were dark skinned, with the mean having prominent hawk-like noses, and the women round, flattish faces. Their hands were smooth and soft, but also tough and leathery.

The first thing was that we assembled in a circle with us sitting on benches and the weavers sitting either on the grass or on short working stools. Ale interpreted as they introduced themselves by name, also stating their marital status and how many children they had. Some of them, both men and women, were unmarried, but had children anyway. Ale explained that they had a “trial period” system where a man and woman would live together for a while to see if they got along. If so, they got married, if not, they went their separate ways. It was okay to have children during this trial period. We also learnt their ages ranged from about 25 to 30s, with only one noticeably older woman among the weavers. She was wearing a black hat fringed with green material, unlike all the other women, whose hats were the same but with an orange fringe. Ale explained the green fringe indicated she was a widow.

Next we introduced ourselves, saying our names, whether we were married, and where we came from. The weavers interrupted frequently with questions. Ale had warned us that their questions might be considered “indiscreet” by western standards – of a personal nature. But they weren’t too bad, and everyone had laughs when amusing things came out, or they made comments that Ale interpreted and turned out to be funny.

One lady had hair extensions to make her plaits long and attractive. One man was sitting away from the group because, as Ale explained, he had an “embarrassing secret”, which she didn’t probe into. The men were all on stools and the women on the grass. They sat segregated, women on our left, men on our right. Except for one young man who Ale described as “going with modern times”, who sat amidst the women.

Andrew introduced himself as “the best soccer player in Australia”, which caused genuine looking looks and comments of concern from them, as Ale had explained to us earlier that after lunch we would play a game of soccer with them. Gary caused a stir when he said he and Lyn had fourteen children. This caused the men in the group to look at him in awe and comment that he must be a great man then, which caused us all to crack up laughing. Ale translated and explained that they were sceptical about the fourteen children, and they kept asking probing questions about it, asking Lyn and Gary’s ages, and how old all their kids were. It was a great session of interaction with lots of laughs on both sides.

After this, the community served us lunch, beginning with a quinoa soup with bits of potato and carrot in it. Next came a deep fried cuy, one to share between all of us, and already dismembered into several pieces, plus plates of rice, a mix of beans and some other vegetables, an a yellow shredded vegetable that Ale said was “a type of potato, mixed with potato”. The soup was okay, but the cuy and the vegetables were very good, especially the type of potato mixed with potato. The cuy had darker and tastier meat than the one we’d had yesterday. The others said it had a more herby taste, but I couldn’t really tell that. We also got cups of Andean mint tea, which was very good.

After the meal, most of the weavers laid out bundles of their wares on the grass for us to peruse and buy if we felt so inclined. They were keen to show off and sell their products, and it was hard to walk past each one without being able to say anything in their language. Everyone bought something, M. getting a scarf for 200 soles, bargained down from 250, and me buying a woollen belt from 15 soles (down from 20).

Following the buying, we had the anticipated soccer game against a team made up of six male weavers. Our team was Andrew, me, Gary, Jian, Laura, and another of the weavers to make up the numbers. The field was a patch of rough, sloping grass between two rows of adobe brick buildings. It sloped up slightly towards one goal, and we demanded to run downhill because of our altitude disadvantage. The village was the highest place we will go on our entire trip, at 3900 metres elevation. Before starting, Andrew ran to the bus to change into a soccer shirt to maintain the illusion of his abilities. The game was a hectic, scrambling affair, with local rules allowing the ball to bounce off the buildings. Goals had to pass through the stone block markers along the ground to count. Andrew managed to score an early goal to put at 1-0 up. The weavers came back, however, scoring one themselves, followed by another, which was controversial as it passed over a stone goal marker. The game was extremely exhausting in the thin air, and Ale enforced a strict 15-minute time limit to prevent any of us getting too out of breath. Nevertheless, I found myself frequently reduced to standing and panting to regain my breath, helpless to do anything else. Laura managed a brilliant header which made the onlooking weavers ooh and ah in appreciation. In the end we claimed a respectable 1-1 draw, but the weavers claimed they had won 2-1. Ale said in all the time she’d been bringing tour groups here, the weavers had lost only once, so we were pretty happy with the draw. The deal was that if we won we would be given woven bracelets, while if the weavers won we would buy them bottles of soft drink. Given the disagreement over the final result, we bought them one large bottle to share, which seemed to do the trick.

The soccer game done, two of the weavers led us a short walk up a hill to a cuy farm. This turned out to be a small building of mud brick, inside which were a dozen or so pens about a metre square. In each pen were about a dozen guinea pigs of various sizes, including some babies only ten days old (as we were told). They nibbled on grass, unaware of their eventual fates. The farmer showed off the stud male cuy, used to breed high quality babies.

This done, we piled back on the bus for the trip back down the death road to Pisaq. There, we stopped at the bakery again for a toilet stop. Ale called the doctor in Cusco and got news that Zaina and Zeeshan would be rejoining us tonight at Ollantaytambo, which everyone was happy to hear. She arranged transport for them and said we’d meet up at our hotel for the night.

The bus drove us down the Sacred Valley of the Incas, alongside the Urabamba River, through a series of small towns. In the town of Urabamba we stopped at a place where a woman made chicha, the traditional corn beer of the region. The woman invited us into her workshop, where Ale explained the process. Starting with germinated white or yellow corn kernels, these are boiled for a couple of hours, them strained in a straw basket to extract the juice. This was then placed in a large earthenware pot to ferment overnight, and it was done! The woman made two versions: the traditional version with no other ingredients, which was a pale yellow colour, and one with strawberry and some sugar added, which was pink. She poured samples of each into large glasses – very large glasses which must have held a bit over a litre each. Ale said these were the regular serving size! At 4% alcohol, the locals needed to drink five or more of these glasses to get drunk.

The woman handed out small plastic cups which she partly filled with samples for us to taste. The yellow one smelled faintly beer-like and tasted rather bitter, with a slight tingle of fermentation bubbles. The strawberry one tasted much nicer, slightly sweet and fruity. We took more samples to sip as Ale explained the various traditions around chicha, such as the pouring of the first drops on to the ground for Mother Earth. While sitting in the workroom, some local customers appeared in the serving area outside. They got the big glasses, including a young girl, maybe only ten years old. We expressed amazement when she drank from a large glass of her own. Ale explained that it was normal for children that age to drink chicha, but they wouldn’t drink the five glasses necessary to get drunk.

Following the chicha, we moved out to the serving area to try our hand at sapo, a game involving tossing bronze discs on to a small table with various holes and spinning devices on it to try to score points. In the centre of the table was a brass frog with an open mouth. Opening a drawer in the table revealed compartments where the discs fell into, with point values marked. These ranged from 500 to the maximum of 5000 for getting a disc into the frog’s mouth. Ale explained “sapo” is the Quechua word for frog. We all had goes, throwing twelve discs at the table. The highest score achieved was Andrew with 4500. Then we coaxed the ten-year-old girl to play, after she’d finished her enormous glass of chicha. She scored 7500 on her first go! We all had a few more goes, but nobody could beat her score, until I managed a 10,500. Our pride restored, we headed back to the bus for the remainder of the trip to Ollantaytambo.

We arrived in the town shortly after dark, just after 18:00. We dumped stuff in our room, then met at 19:00 for dinner. Ale took us to Blue Puppy, a place just off a corner of the main square. They had a varied menu, with sandwiches, burgers, pizza, pasta, and mains of beef or chicken. M. got a “double falafel vege burger” and I got the chicken breast in huancaina sauce – a Peruvian specialty – with three types mashed potatoes. The burger had about a dozen mini falafels on it and came with hot chips. The huancaina sauce was very nice, nutty and spicy – it reminded me a bit of satay sauce. The mashed potatoes were variously flavoured with chili, basil, and onion and garlic, and were all really good. I had a glass of Peruvian cabernet sauvignon wine, from a bottle that four of us agreed to split: Jian, Laura, Andrew, and me. It was decent.

Zaina had expressed a desire for some guacamole before we ordered, and ordered some nachos, figuring they could be shared around. Then once the orders were taken, the waiter brought out complimentary plates of corn ships and guacamole! Zaina ate a lot of it, and then decided to cancel the nachos. Unfortunately the waiter only spoke Spanish and got the request confused, later delivering a plate of nachos with no cheese. Zaina explained the mix-up with Ale, who cleared it up with the waiter. During the dinner, Zaina started to feel a bit nauseous – from all the guacamole I joked, which made her laugh. She and Zeeshan left early, as Lyn had done before the food had arrived, also feeling a bit off-colour. M. and I left before everyone else too, feeling a bit tired and wanting to get an early night in.

We rose at 08:00. I hadn’t slept at all, tossing and turning all night and simply unable to fall asleep. I felt extremely tired, but the headache had gone. A breakfast of cereal with yoghurt, bread roll with ham and cheese, a couple of small croissants, and fresh mango, watermelon, honeydew melon, and a small banana made me feel better.

The first order of business was getting some laundry done so we could have clean clothes again. There were several places in the street where our hotel was located with signs advertising laundry service. With no real means to pick from them, we decided semi-randomly to skip the one closest to our hotel and go to the next one we found. It was a small, dark hole-in-the-wall, in which sat a man at a computer, who never once looked away from the screen and at us. Instead, a boy about 8 years old assessed in a pidgin of Spanish and English what we were after, hung our laundry bag from a hook scale to determine the weight, wrote out a receipt, and gave us a time to come back and pick it up this afternoon. There were a few other bags of laundry in there, but we didn’t see any washing machines. When we walked back to the hotel we poked our nose in the other laundry place, and saw a woman in there standing in front of a row of three machines.

Then we readied ourselves for a day of exploring Inca ruins around Cusco, or “ancient Inca buildings” as Ale told us to refer to them, as the Inca descendents consider calling them “ruins” insulting. The group met at 09:30, with everyone present. Kim was looking a bit perkier, but still not 100%. Gary looked okay, and didn’t seem in any difficulty, but had been visited by a doctor and prescribed something. Phan looked a bit pale, but was cheerful and determined to have fun, despite still feeling a bit nauseous. Lyn seemed subdued and if not happy to follow Ale, at least doing so without comment.

We boarded a minibus for the ride about 15 minutes up the steep hill next to our hotel to the Inca site of Sacsayhuamán. Ale had given us our Cusco tourist tickets earlier, which provided entry into ten different sites in the area. We had to get this punched at the entry station to get into the site. But first, several people used the toilet outside; me because I’m drinking lots of water to fend off the altitude sickness.

The Sacsayhuamán site is quite large, covering an area I estimated to be about 400 by 300 metres or so, with a central flat grass area flanked by stone walls. The most intact walls are on the southern side, rising in three terraced levels up the ridge. The walls are not straight, but zig-zag at close to right angles, with the zigs about 30 metres long and the lateral zags maybe 5 metres. The most famous stone here is the heaviest one, calculated to weigh about 14 tonnes. It towered some 5 metres high, filling the entire height of the first terrace level all by itself. Ale said the zig-zag shape of the walls represented lightning, and Sacsayhuamán was a temple dedicated to the Incan thunder god.

On the northern side of the field, the walls were in more disrepair, sacked by the Spanish for building stone to use in churches. But over this ridge was an amphitheatre: circles with three or four terraced levels around it. In the field area was a group of alpacas, ten or so including some young ones. They had ear tags and were apparently there for tourists to take photos of, which many were doing. The whole site lies on a ridge overlooking the valley and town of Cusco below from the north. The views of Cusco were spectacular.

We wandered around the site at leisure after Ale’s introductory explanation. Lyn asked a lot of questions and listened attentively to Ale’s answers. We walked up the north side to see the amphitheatre. On the way back down we met Zaina and Zeeshan, who told us about the high priest’s chair, carved into a stone overlooking the field. They’d read about it in a guidebook they had. We found it and I sat in it to see the view the high priest of the Incas would have had over the site. From there we walked to the southern walls and walked up stairs between the terraced levels to get a good overview of the place.

We met together again after half an hour of free time, to get the bus to the next site of Qenqo, further up the mountains. This was much smaller than Sacsayhuamán, being essentially a big stone flanked by some smaller construction on each side. Two stones on either side were meant to represent the duality nature of the universe: sun and moon, earth and sky, light and dark, etc. Under the big central stone was a short tunnel through which the play of light with the shapes of the stones generated a profile of a llama’s head. Ale led us through and showed it to us, but we were rushed by groups of other tourists behind us, while in front of us people got in the way so we didn’t really get a good view.

That done, it was back on the bus for another short ride further up the mountain to Pukapukara. This used to be a military fortification manned by soldiers to protect the next site of Tambomachay, further up the mountain, the retreat of the royal family of the Inca city of Cusco. Pukapukara was better preserved than Qenqo, and you could still see most of the walls and how it commanded a good view of the valley below, and would have been well-fortified against invasion. We spent 15 minutes here wandering over the ruins.

Next stop was Tambomachay, walking distance form Pukapukara, although the bus drove us the 200 metres or so to get to the entry point. From here it was a 1 kilometre walk uphill – slowly in the high-altitude thin air – to the Tambomachay site. This was the royal retreat of the Inca rulers. It has a still functional two-stage fountain, with water pouring out of a spout in the side of the stone walls. Linteled doorways were visible here. A short climb up the opposite side of the valley from the main building was an observation post with a good view of Pukapukara further down the valley. The Inca used signal towers to communicate between the two sites.

Along the path from the entry to the site there were a dozen or so merchants selling souvenir stuff. On the way back down, one trailed Zaina all the way, bargaining the whole time.

The Inca sites done, we rode the bus downhill again to the Grupo Esmeralda shop and workshop. This is a local collective which makes alpaca products and silver and stone jewellery. A Signor Luigi gave us an informative talk in the workshop in English, that was half interesting technical info and half sales spiel. We saw the making methods for silver plate and silver wire, which were then hand formed into frames for stone inlay. There was raw stone of different types: serpentine local to Cusco, lapis lazuli, pink quartz, obsidian, and others, as well as mother of pearl and spondylus shell. The guy then showed us the difference between alpacita (year old alpaca), alpaca, vicuña, llama, and sheep’s wool, letting us feel samples.

Then with the tour over, we browsed the shop looking at various jumpers, scarves, ponchos, plus the inlaid stone and silver jewellery. I considered an alpaca jumper, but didn’t find the right combination of size, design, and colours. We only had a limited amount of time before we had to leave for lunch, so I didn’t have time to do a thorough search of the stock. M. however found a silver cuff bracelet inlaid with stone, mostly turquoise. The ticket price was $US98, but we bargained down to $US85 if paying by cash. They would only go to US$90 paying by credit card. But we didn’t have enough cash, so they suggested leaving the money at our hotel reception and someone would come down with the jewellery later this evening. They converted the price to 255 soles and wrote it on an envelope for us. Then they actually gave M. the cuff anyway! I guess we didn’t understand quite what the arrangement was.

From the Grupo Esmeralda shop we drove back into Cusco and to a local restaurant called Quinta Eulalia, where we could try cuy, or guinea pig. Ale said it was a place locals went, not tourists, and the food and preparation methods were more authentic than in the tourist restaurants. This lunch was not included in the tour, so we were surprised that Lyn and Gary came along, especially since Gary didn’t try the cuy but had a chicken dish instead (and Lyn was vegetarian). Several of us ordered cuy al horno, a traditional preparation of a whole flattened guinea pig deep fried, served with a potato and a yellow chili pepper stuffed with a ground meat and spice filling. I wanted to try it, but didn’t want a whole one, a sentiment shared by Zaina who was sitting next to me, so we agreed to split one and order a second dish to share as well. We liked the sound of the lamb dish, but Ale recommended the Lechon, a pork dish served with tamales, so we ordered that instead.

The cuys arrived first, complete with head on! We had some fun taking photos before digging in. I bisected the one I was sharing with Zaina and pulled a leg off to start. It was a bit bony as you’d expect from a small animal, with not much meat on it. And honestly, it tasted just like fried chicken. The meat was white and juicy and pretty good. The stuffed pepper looked innocuous enough, but had a big kick of chili to it. The potato was unusual and exotic in appearance, but tasted pretty much like potato. The other dishes arrived a bit later. M. ordered the only vegetarian option on the menu, a starter of choclo y queso – corn and cheese. This turned out to be a bowl of the very large corn kernels with a slice of haloumi-like cheese on top. The corn was a bit crunchy still and not very tasty. This was also what Lyn had. M. had the sensible idea of also asking if they had bread, and Ale arranged for some to be brought to the table. It turned out to be a huge pie-shaped chunk of a slightly sweet bread, similar to the traditional Cusco Easter bread we’d tried in the market yesterday, but with a double domed shape that made it thicker.

Zaina’s and my second dish arrived: a huge chunk of pork meat with two tamales – corn meal, olives, and spices wrapped and served in corn husks. These were good and the pork was truly excellent, but we were both so full from the cuy dish that we didn’t eat much of the meat.

The only thing that went poorly at this lunch was my bottle of mineral water. It was sealed, but when I poured some and took a swig, I instantly noticed something was wrong. The taste was incredibly sour, like strong vinegar with some lemon juice in it. I spat the lot out, back into my glass, and had to have some water from M.’s glass to rinse my mouth out. Ale checked it and talked to the waiter, who said it must have been some sort of problem at the bottling factory. He brought a new bottle of water, which I tested carefully before drinking. It was fine, thankfully. I’m not sure I even want to think about what was really in the first bottle.

Lunch done, we had free time until an optional group dinner at 20:00. I still wanted to take it easy and rest, but M. wanted to check some shops. Ale led us from the restaurant to the Plaza de Armas, where we parted company and went for a walk around the square. M. stopped in a few shops on the way, and ended up buying a pair of silver and stone inlaid earrings for her sister Kylie. M. wanted to see more samples before choosing and the woman in the shop ran off up the street, leaving her jewellery shop completely unattended while we waited there. She came back about 5 minutes later with another woman who had a collection of earrings. Presumably she was a friend from another shop up the street. After some hard bargaining, M. got the earrings she wanted. The other lady tried to push a pendant that M. had looked at, bringing the price down from 120 soles to 80 soles before we finally managed to say no and leave. A few steps up the street, we realised we’d left M.’s jacket and hat in the shop! M. was too embarrassed to go back and get them after the extensive bargaining we’d just been through, so I did the deed.

We walked back to the hotel, dropping in at the laundry place to pick up our clothes on the way. As we walked towards it, we saw the boy who had taken our order earlier come out of another door on the street with a large, full sack slung over his shoulder and carry it into the shop where we followed him to get our pickup. The clothes were ready and we paid the 24 soles bill for them. It had been just under 5 kilos of laundry, so the rate was 5 soles per kilo. We later found out that Andrew had gone to a different place and got charged 3.50 soles per kilo. We figured the kid must be taking the laundry to a 3.50 soles place, getting them to do the washing, and skimming 1.50 soles a kilo off the top! What a little entrepreneur! Discussing it later though, we figured he was actually probably carrying the laundry back to his parents’ house or something and doing it there, since there were no machines in the shop.

Then we stopped off at a small shop across the street to buy some bottles of water. While the woman behind the counter was serving us, an older woman – probably her mother – noticed that we were carrying a bag of laundry. She started offering to wash it for us! In a flurry of Spanish and gestures she indicated she would wash it really clean, and iron and fold it for us, for only 4 soles a kilo. I tried to explain that the clothes were actually clean, having just been picked up, but I’m not sure that message got through. Eventually we just had to say “no, gracias,” and leave.

We rested up a bit before dinner, allowing me to catch up on diary writing, though not to get fully up to date. Dinner was at a place called Ama Lur, where Ale took a group consisting of us, Andrew, Jian, Kim, Laura. Phan was resting, as were Lyn and Gary, and Zeeshan who had come down with something. I wanted to order something meat-free, so went for arroz a la cubana – rice with a fried egg and banana, which sounded moderately healthy. It turned out to come with chips on the side and a fried frankfurt of all things! There were also two eggs, making a smiley face with the banana. Ale said this was what was known as a “lazy woman’s” dish. If the woman of the house was too lazy to cook a proper meal, she’d make this! M. had an omelette con verduras – omelette with vegetables. It also came with rice, and both our meals came with salads of cucumber and tomato slices (both peeled) on a lettuce leaf. M.’s omelette had lots of red an green capsicum in it, and she declared it excellent.

After dinner, we walked the three blocks back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

So today we gave them a lesson in how to make a short film. And to do so, we recreated Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. From the collective memory of the interns (without help from Andrew and me, and without any reference to a script or other material). And we shot the whole thing in one lunchtime.

We did a total of 16 scenes. Jar Jar died in the third scene. Palpatine became President of the Galaxy by winning a “Ben Hur” race, when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s ship crashed into R2-D2 just before the finish line. But the people weren’t happy and attacked Palpatine in a mass fight scene. And in the final scene, Jar Jar came back to life, but Qui-Gon and Mace Windu killed him again.

We filmed it on the lawn in front of our building. Several onlookers were eating lunch nearby – I hope we kept them entertained!

Sure, protest. But to do it by flouting one of Wikipedia’s own strong principles is undermining their credibility. And annoying. Organise a protest march, petition people, whatever. But to deliberately make things inconvenient for millions of people just to make a point is childish.

The movie proper opens with the Enterprise limping back to Earth after the events of the previous film. On the way, McCoy is caught breaking into Spock’s quarters and acting bizarrely. We cut to a space rendezvous between a merchant ship and a Klingon Bird-of-Prey warship. Valkris, a Klingon woman aboard the merchant ship, transmits data on Genesis to Kruge, the captain of the Bird-of-Prey, who then promptly blows the other ship out of the sky, with a bittersweet adieu to Valkris for her spy work. Kruge decides to go to Genesis to learn the secret of this planet-destroying weapon. Kruge is played by Christopher “one point twenty-one jiggawatts” Lloyd, which adds touches of both coolness and oddity to the character.

On Earth, McCoy continues acting weird, making out-of-context references to Vulcan and collapsing. Spock’s father Sarek visits Kirk and engages in a cross-purposes berating of Kirk for failing Spock. The confusion is only cleared up when Sarek mind melds with Kirk, then explains that Spock would have tried to meld with someone before he died, to transfer his consciousness, or katra, to them so it could live on in their body. Kirk points out Spock was isolated in the radiation chamber, then reviews log tapes of the incident, spotting Spock touching McCoy and whispering the word, “Remember.” Sarek tells Kirk they have to get McCoy and Spock’s body to Vulcan as fast as possible or he will die.

And here’s the plot hole in the film. Kirk appeals to Admiral Morrow to get back Enterprise, but Morrow refuses because Genesis is a “political hot potato”. It looks like Kirk never explained that McCoy’s life was in danger, and there was no diplomatic word from Sarek to assist in the request. And the USS Grissom is out there surveying Genesis anyway, what’s one more ship going to do?! On board the Grissom are Saavik and David. Saavik is very disappointingly not played by Kirstie Alley, but by wooden newcomer Robin Curtis. Kruge appears and unceremoniously blows the Grissom out of the sky, with only Saavik and David surviving, doing a survey on the planet and its incredibly fake cacti and snow. They find it’s unstable, because David cut corners in the research (remind anyone of his father and the Kobayashi Maru?). They also find Spock’s torpedo tube, distressingly empty except for some giant mutated rubber worm things, which David says must have been mutated by the Genesis effect.

Back on Earth, Kirk decides to screw the rules and do what’s right, arranging with Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty to steal the Enterprise and take McCoy to Genesis then Vulcan. This is a cool sequence in which they sneak around and outsmart an unlikeable smug captain in charge of the new, faster Excelsior by having Scotty steal the space-spark-plugs. At Genesis, David and Saavik have found Spock’s body, regenerated by the Genesis effect into a mind-blanked young boy, who ages rapidly. He goes thorough pon-farr and Saavik tries to ease this by stroking his fingers in the same way that Sarek and Amanda did to demonstrate their love back in “Journey To Babel”. Hmmm. A Klingon landing party soon find them and take them prisoner.

The Enterprise arrives and there is a brief space battle in which both ships are damaged. Kruge demands Kirk surrender and hand over the Genesis device, or he will kill prisoners. Kirk tries to delay, but Kruge has one of this flunkies kill a prisoner. David interferes and gets the knife himself, sending Kirk into a rage. He says he’s surrendering, sets the Enterprise to self-destruct, and beams down to Genesis. The Klingon boarding party are blown up as the Enterprise destructs. I always figured the Enterprise would self-destruct by breaching the antimatter containment thingy, resulting in an enormous explosion that vapourises the entire ship instantly. But no, the front half of the saucer sort of blows up, leaving the rest of the ship – including the engines and the engineering section – intact. (Supposedly canon says there are two different self-destruct modes: this one, and the full-on antimatter explosion. Kirk happened to choose the milder version, so as not to destroy the Klingon ship and their only potential means of escape.) It then forms a fireball as it falls from orbit, watched by the stunned crew. It’s an emotional moment, and I vividly recall watching this scene in horror in the cinema when the film was first released.

They find the Klingons and Saavik and Spock. Kruge beams down to engage Kirk in a clifftop fistfight, in which Kirk kicks Kruge off the cliff and he falls into lava as the planet breaks up. Kirk tricks the last Klingon crew member into beaming him up and takes control of the Klingon ship. They fly it to Vulcan, where a ceremony restores Spock’s consciousness from McCoy into the regenerated body of Spock. Spock is naturally a bit shaken by being split in half, killed, regenerated, and recombined, but the film ends in a feel-good scene when he recognises his friends. And the adventure continues…

EDIT: Oh, I suppose I should add my opinions on this film. Well, it’s not terrible, but it’s not great either. The biggest emotional impact comes from the destruction of the Enterprise (by which time it’s pretty clear that Spock would be coming back to life). Lloyd as Kruge is good. The sets and props are not great, particularly the fake looking scenery on the Genesis planet and the rubber worms which Kruge strangles. Curtis as Saavik is disappointing and stiff. The stealing of the Enterprise sequence is very cool. Overall… eh… middling.

Tropes: Face Death With Dignity, Our Souls Are Different, Sharing A Body, Obstructive Bureaucrat, The Other Darrin, Screw the Rules, I’m Doing What’s Right, Smug Snake, Vehicular Sabotage, Stolen MacGufin Reveal, Back From The Dead, Rapid Aging, Heroic Sacrifice, Self-Destruct Mechanism, Disney Villain Death, Lethal Lava Land, And The Adventure Continues.
Body count: Valkris and all on board merchant ship (destroyed by Klingon Bird-of-Prey), All hands on board USS Grissom, Klingon gunner (shot by Kruge), David (stabbed by a Klingon), various Klingon crew (blown up on board Enterprise), Klingon crewman (shot by Kirk), Kruge (falls off cliff), USS Enterprise (self destruct).

Question: Why are adults and teenagers less imaginative than children?

Answer 1:
I’m assuming that by “imaginative”, the questioner is thinking of such things as “if you plant budgie seed, do budgies grow?” If an extra-terrestrial asked such a question, you wouldn’t think they were imaginative, you would think they had limited understanding and experience of life on Earth, or perhaps the strangeness of the English language.
If imagination is what produces inventive, speculative fiction, and then turns that fiction into a reality, then it is a quality that is not lost as people get older.

Answer 2:
The answer is that they are not. Children are happy to imagine a fat gentleman can make a single sledge pulled by reindeer fly and become capable of delivering presents to half the world’s children, that the said gentleman is capable of stuffing himself and these presents down chimneys far too restrictive to accommodate either him or the presents, and all this in the space of 24 hours. Adults can still imagine this, but are more sceptical.
Children show no inhibition in putting their imagination into words because even if their propositions are outrageous, they will be indulged by adults. Adults keep theirs to themselves because they know they will be either exploited, challenged, laughed at, or arrested.

Answer 3:
Many young children’s imaginative observations and questions are to do with not understanding how such things as behaviours, objects, and processes are categorised. As we grow we learn a staggering array of social and physical facts: trees cannot walk, fish do not arrange birthday parties, and so on.
Asking “imaginative” questions that are across categories is critical for learning about how the world works and is, fortunately, seen as charming in small children. However, in older children similar observations may be seen as “proof” that basic understanding about how objects, animals, or processes work or are categorised hasn’t been learned. As a result, the child may be teased or told off for being babyish or silly.
Our socio-cultural system values logical, rational, linear thinking higher than intuitive, divergent, imaginative thinking – unless someone has made a lot of money from being imaginative with a novel, film, or invention. People who think “sideways” or in imaginative ways are frequently dismissed or admonished by peers, parents, and teachers for trivialising, daydreaming, or messing about. They are not being s sensible, serious, or responsible grown-up. As no-one likes to be a social outcast, most people censor and inhibit their “silly” or imaginative thoughts.
Imaginative thinking like any other kind of thinking is a skill and it atrophies with lack of use. This is why so many adolescents and adults are perceived as being less imaginative than children.
Those of us who continue to work with imaginative thinking throughout our lives can comfortably give 5-year-olds a run for their money. Real creative thinking – whether in art, literatures, science, or engineering – demands we play with and deliberately mix up categories and types to come up with new ways of seeing existing situations or problems.

To this I add:
Revel in your imagination. Revel in the fact that it is more mature and knowledgeable than the imagination of a child, and thus can come up with far more interesting flights of fancy and can lead to creative output of high quality. Exercise it. Imagine something weird, strange, or amazing every day.

And, at least occasionally, do something with those imaginings. Turn them into projects, or artworks, or writing.

You don’t have the excuse that you’re not as imaginative as a child.

We got up at 06:50 for breakfast at 07:00. The only people who showed up were us, Lyn and Gary, and Phan, almost exactly the people who didn’t stay up in the bar last night. Breakfast was again fresh fruit, followed by eggs.

During the night, Kim had fallen ill with what Ale said was a stomach infection. She had her on electrolyte replacement and said she would take her to a doctor once we get to Cusco.

After breakfast, we packed for the trip again, throwing all our damp stuff into a laundry bag until we got to Cusco. A lot of our stuff has dirt on it from yesterday’s mud, including bits of my camera gear. Clean it all off later, I guess!

We were half an hour early for the boat, so M. looked at the shop in the lodge and bought a souvenir sleeveless T-shirt with monkeys on it, while I wandered the garden, taking some photos of the lodge. I managed to get some great shots of an owl butterfly – huge! Saay said one of the biggest in the jungle, with great eye spots on the wings. He said they eat nectar, fruit juice, and even lick from carcasses of animals for the salts.

Then it was on to the boat for the 50-minute ride upriver to Puerto Maldonado. Kim appeared, looking a bit pale, and nursing a large bottle of water, which she keeps sipping from. Hope she’ll be okay.

Next stop is the markets in Puerto Maldonado, and then on to the airport for the flight to Cusco.

(Written next day.)

I didn’t write any more diary on the 25th because it was a combination of hectic and resting up not doing anything at all.

The hectic began when we got off the boat at Puerto Maldonado. A bus met us to take us to the Corto Maltes office, where some of the group stayed to repack their luggage or just rest, while Andrew, Phan, Jian, Zaina, Zeeshan, M., and I went with Saay on the bus to the local market in town. Saay gave us a tour of the market, showing us various nuts and fruits grown locally. The first stop was a juice seller, who had a pile of scaly red fruit from the tall palm trees we’d seen yesterday on our expedition near Lago Sandoval. I learnt later the tree is the moriche palm and the locals call the fruit aguaje. The scales separated when peeled off, so peeling the fruit was labour-intensive. Under the scales is a dark yellow flesh, which Saay had us try as he scraped the scales off. It was sour. Saay said the juice had female hormones in it and was good for women. It was also jokingly aid that men who drank it could change sex! He bought a plastic bag of juice and let us all try it. As juice it was sweet and nice, a little like mango.

Next we went to a nut vendor, who had brazil nuts in all shapes and forms: plain, candied, crushed and mixed with honey, baked into biscuits, and so on. Andrew bought a bag that must have been a kilo of plain nuts, while M. bought a plastic tub containing an assortment of bite-sized pieces prepared in various ways. Further along, we saw more fruit, with Saay cutting open two different types of passionfruit (known locally as maracuyá): a larger, darker yellow one, which had the more usual tangy passionfruit flavour; and a small, paler yellow one, which had sweeter pulp.

We quickly passed a meat and fish seller, but didn’t have time to stop and look as Saay hurried us back to the bus. Somehow, Phan had managed to find time to stop and buy a bunch of necklaces made of various nuts and seeds, including the famous vegetable ivory. Although it was only twenty minutes or so, it was great to visit the market and see all the stalls. Besides produce, there were people selling all sorts of things: batteries, toys, clothes, electrical appliances, mattresses, etc. Along one outside edge of the market were small workshops, each with a workman and tools for doing various jobs like fixing shoes, locksmithing, and so on.

Back at the Corto Maltes office, we picked up our luggage and the rest of our tour group to head to Puerto Maldonado Airport. There we checked in and got boarding passes. M. and I had seats in rows 6 and 21, Lyn and Gary apparently had a problem with their seats and were making a fuss about it. We later found out they had also been given separated seats and decided to try to get adjacent ones, which they managed to get. It didn’t bother us for the 30 minute flight to Cusco though. Once checked in, I walked outside to take photos of an old propeller plane, decaying on the grass near the parking area. Ale said it was the first plane to ever land in Puerto Maldonado. Apparently it landed, but never took off again! Later I learnt it was a Russian Antonov An-2.

Heading to Cusco, which is at an altitude of 3,400 metres, we were all discussing the possibility of altitude sickness. Ale had given us an information sheet about it, listing symptoms and precautions, and a space to fill out to record any symptoms we have so that there is a record of progression just in case it starts to get serious and medical attention is needed. Some people were more worried than others, Olivia and Phan mostly. Olivia bought some coca candies in the airport and shared them around. I tried one and it just tasted sweet, with a bit of a herbal taste. Kim was still struggling with her illness, but put on a brave face.

The flight was routine. It’s interesting to notice that Cusco is obviously in a valley and the airport seems to be almost at the lowest point of the valley, so as the plane is flying in to land you can actually see mountains towering above the plane on both sides, maybe only a kilometre or so away. It must be a bit like doing the trench run on the Death Star. We landed, claimed our bags, and walked out to the car park, where a bus was waiting to take us to our hotel. The drive was pretty much uphill all the way, passing out of the suburbs to a higher part of the valley, where the centre of town is located. We drove through the Plaza de Armas and saw the main cathedral before heading up another hill to the Mama Sara Hotel.

Ale had told us to lie down and rest for half an hour after checking in, so we did so. I was actually developing a headache and was a bit short of breath, so lay down as instructed, with no pillow so my head was low. After the rest, we went with Ale for a walking tour of Cusco. She asked if we’d like lunch first, and since it was now about 15:00 and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 07:00, we voted for that.

Ale led us to a nice looking place called The Muse, where we perused the menu. She recommended something light to avoid heavy digestion taking blood from the brain. They had a good selection of vege dishes, but Lyn for some reason raised an objection about Ale taking us somewhere for one of our meals that was not included in the prepaid tour package. She shouted, “Where’s the choice?” and stormed out, followed by Gary, and then Ale racing after them. Presumably they talked outside, because Ale only reappeared after some time and said that Lyn and Gary wouldn’t be eating with us or doing the walking tour. We’re not sure what set Lyn off, but she had been making negative comments about how little jungle wildlife we’d seen (I’d thought it was really good, on the other hand – Monkey Island didn’t live up to its name, but otherwise we saw some really cool animals), then there was the seating trouble at the airport, and just before going to lunch they’d had to switch hotel rooms because of a problem with the safe, so perhaps it had been building up over time. Anyway, I ordered a chunky vegetable soup and M. had a toasted cheese sandwich. These were hot and good, and really hit the spot.

After paying, Ale led the remainder of us, also minus Kim sick and Laura staying at the hotel with her, on a tour of the local market. This was similar to the one in Puerto Maldonado, but with an emphasis on produce and no consumer goods. Outside was a gathering of people watching a man doing a traditional Inca dance in a costume with bare chest. Ale said it was a special ritual for Easter.

The fruit and vegetable sections of the market were cool and interesting, but then Ale led us through the meat section which was, frankly, disgusting. Firstly, the smell hits your nostrils and you just want to run away. Ale said it would probably be a bit unpleasant for us, but to avoid covering our mouths as this would be seen as a serious insult by the women selling the meat. There was no refrigeration or ice – just slabs of raw meat piled on tables with flies buzzing around. The meat wasn’t fully butchered either. There were whole heads of various animals and some more or less intact carcasses simply lying on the concrete floor. As we walked through it, the smell became almost unbearable. I had a moderate headache as well because of the altitude, and that didn’t help. And then besides meat, there was offal as well. There were enormous bowls filled with intestines, kidneys, or whatever else. A lot of it I didn’t recognise and really didn’t want to. And there was a dog there in the middle of it all, walking up and down the aisle! I really couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and thankfully we left the area reasonably quickly. Andrew later told us he used to work in food safety inspection, and he lost count of the number of violations he’d just witnessed.

Further along, we came to much nicer areas, where there was bread and other baked goods. Ale bought a loaf of the traditional Cusco style Easter bread, a round dome about 40 centimetres across and ten centimetres thick in the middle, with a pale yellow colour and a light and slightly sweet interior. We each tried a piece and Andrew finished the rest off.

Next was an area with women selling cocoa and coffee. They had bags of coffee beans and ground coffee that must have been over a kilo each. A woman was selling chocolate in loose pieces or wrapped bars that had been made in a factory. We bought a bar of “bitter” eating chocolate. Olivia wanted to buy the cooking chocolate, saying she liked dark chocolate, but Ale said it was bitter and only for cooking. I had to step in and tell Olivia that it was going to have no sugar and be like 99% cocoa, which she said she’d tried once. With this knowledge she switched to a more suitable choice for eating.

The market done, it was starting to get dark. Ale led us through some streets back to the main square, which was gorgeous in the fading light with its Spanish colonial architecture. Ale left us there, saying to meet at hotel reception at 20:00 for dinner. M. and I walked up the slope the few hundred metres to the hotel, slowly, with me getting more short of breath as we went. We finally made it, and I collapsed on to the bed with a splitting headache and panting heavily. I rested motionless for about half an hour, until the symptoms slowly faded, the headache reducing to a dull one and my breathing returning to normal. While I rested, M. had a shower and declared herself to feel much better after washing off the grime of the day of travel.

At 20:00 we assembled in the lobby. I told Ale about my headache and she confirmed I had altitude sickness. She said to have a light dinner and drink lots of water and let her know if it got any worse.

The dinner group consisted of me and M., Andrew, Zaina and Zeeshan, Phan and Jian, plus Ale. She asked us which of three options we’d like: a nice, expensive restaurant, a moderately priced restaurant with food not as fancy, or a “rustic” place with simple food. Everyone opted for the last one, so Ale led us to Nuna Raymi, where they had some traditional Peruvian dishes, plus other things with different influences. I had the Trucha dos Imperios – trout in a sauce of lemon and chili, with some broccoli, carrots, and potatoes. It was very good. M. wasn’t very hungry after the late lunch, so just ordered an appetiser of chips, which was a bowl of thinly sliced and crisp-fried chips made from four different types of potatoes. What a dinner!

Before the food arrived, Phan felt nauseous and had to run to the toilet to throw up. While this was happening, Ale’s phone rang. It was Lyn calling because Gary had become very sick. Ale paid for her meal in case she didn’t come back, but told us she’d try to be back in half an hour. When Phan emerged from the toilet, Jian suggested she go back to the hotel with Ale, but Phan stubbornly said she’d stay, she didn’t want to inconvenience Ale. Then we explained that Ale was just leaving anyway to attend to Gary, and Phan agreed to go with her. When Phan’s chicken soup arrived, Jian told the waiter “take away”, and the waiter nodded and… took it away. I asked i maybe the waiter thought he meant “take this away from the table” rather than “pack this to be taken away”. Jian leaped up and raced after the waiter to confirm the meaning. That left just five of us at the table – all of the Australians in the group. We commented on how tough we were, being the survivors. Jian returned to our conversation and we pointed out that logically he would be the next one knocked out. I said it was like an Agatha Christie novel as members of our tour group were being eliminated one by one. Ale didn’t return, so we had her meal packed to go too, and M. took it back to the hotel for her.

We caught taxis back, not wanting to exert ourselves by walking up the hill. The glass hotel doors were covered with an old heavy wooden night door, which we had to get a hotel employee to open a cubby door in for us. Still feeling not 100%, I didn’t write any diary or have a shower, electing to fall into bed. Cusco is a very nice town, with quite a few tourists around, and the facilities to cater for them, with plenty of hotels and restaurants, but also a lot of local charm and colour.

Danny: And back home everyone talks about my hobbit feet.
Harsha: Hobbit feet? That’s a curious expression. What do you mean?
Danny: You know, hobbit feet. Big and hairy.
Harsha: The only hobbit I know is this book I studied back when I was in school… Bilbo Baggins, was that him?
Danny: Yeah, that’s the one.
Harsha: And there were dwarves… Ori, Dori, Nori… Oin, Gloin… and some others I can’t remember.
Danny: Yeah yeah, that’s it!
Harsha: So… hobbit feet??
Danny: Feet like a hobbit. All big and hairy.
Harsha: I remember that book because we had to study it for months.
Danny: They’re making the film of it. In Wellington.
Harsha: Really?! I must keep an eye out for that.