* how high people in chavin used to get?

we have a mniamy breakfast and set off to chavin to see the 2900 years old ruins. the bus ride to get there is fun and slightly crazy itself. first a guy gets on, makes some figures from a newspaper and than expects to be tipped for it. later a sales representative selling some dental care product makes his show. he seems more like a standup comedian. among the lines he uses are: ´i have heard on the tv recently that a high percentage of the peruvians brush their teeth only once a day´, ´how much do you spend for drinks and cigaretts when you go out?´people say : ´30, 40, 100 soles´ then he goes: ´so you spend so much money to hurt yourself and you wont spend a few soles to improve your body?´ and then he goes: ´do you know that kids with bad teehth are laughted at? do you want your kids to be the one who is laughted at?¨ and half of the bus rides passes...
the ruins are amazing! we walk around the underground maze-like corridors and galeries, that were constructed either to drain the water or maybe for the water acoustic effects. warick says that with the amount of drugs and hallucynogenic substances they took they rather needed a place to hide. and they really seem to have been taking a lot of stuff. there are figurs with the stuff coming from their noses - a sing of blood running noses- an effect of the sniff. loads of figures with human and animal features mixed together - probably an effect of some visions and highs stimulated by san pedro cactus and plants brought from amazonia. in one of the underground coridors there is a sculpture of lanzon, most probably their main deity, but the way it is lighted up now among the huge blocks of rock, it well spooked me out. one of its hands is lifted which is supposed to simbolise the balance and order that lanzon brought. there is loads of the opposites simbolism too - like the earth and the sky, the earth and the sea etc. we walk around and get spooked out and this is without any hallucynogenic substances!
beautiful site, if only it was not raining! im wearing my flip flops and no raincoat coz in the morning when faced with a decision what to take i stupidly decided that sun glasses and sun screen would be more useful than a raincoat! should have known better after a month in peru...
i make it just in time in the evening to catch a night bus to lima. on the station a senora asks me what is the name of my village and once i tell her im from poland she asks me if we speak english in my village, she cant belive im by myself and tells me if im ever back to huaraz i need to ask for alexanra and visit her. then her husband appears and wants my email address. i get the last seat on a bus and wake up in lima