November 28, 2007

A Bit Twisted

Tomorrow´s dinner eating today´s lunch
(Cuy vs. Yucca)

November 22, 2007

Trekking around Chachapoyas

Bay and I just finished an amazing four day trek in the mountains near Chachapoyas. It was wet and muddy and I can barely feel my legs, but it was a great experience.

Day one: We left Chachapoyas at 5 AM and headed to the Valle de los Muertos, one of many Chachapoyas ruins in the area. The Chachapoyas lived in the Andes for about a 1,000 years before the Incas conquered them, and they had a pretty developed culture. We saw some sarcophaguses that were just discovered a year ago and actually ran into the archeologist who is currently working on excavating the area. If you look closely in the pic you can see the clay sarcophoguses on the steep mountain wall. We had lunch in a small village, stopped at the local market for dinner goods and then headed out to the mountains. After driving on a very sketchy, muddy mountain road (amazingly, we only got stuck once), our driver dropped us off and bid us farewell. Bay, myself and our guide, Jose, headed off for the Valle Bejen. We stayed the night in a small cabin in the valley, sorrounded by beautiful mountains and wild horses. There were six local workers staying in the cabin with us and before dinner we had a three on three soccer match. We didn´t last too long though, since playing soccer at 10,000 feet really knocks the wind out of you. After dinner, we spent the evening chewing cocoa with the guys and trying to converse with broken english and spanish.













Day two: We hiked out of the valley and headed to another set of Chachapoyas ruins, about three hours away. We ate lunch surounded by 1,000 year old stone circular houses that were enveloped in plants and vines. After another four hour hike, we made it to the small village of Colgon where we had a room and a great cold shower. The house we stayed in had an amazing balcony where we could see the coffee trees that supplied the coffee we drank. We could hear the cuys (guinea pigs) squealing in the kitchen; fortunately for them, our dinner consisted of pasta and yucca. As it got dark, we watched the chickens climb up a skinny branch to roost in the avocado trees.
Day three: Day three killed me. It started off good though with fresh coffee, fried plaintains and yucca. It was raining off and on all day and we had a pretty vertical ascent for most of the day. We checked out some more Chachapoyas ruins (they were everywhere) and then had lunch at the top of the mountain in the house of a very friendly older couple. They are pretty isolated up on the mountain but seemed to enjoy it. After a hearty meal of egg soup, rice, beans and avocado and mint tea, we set back out into the rain. We finally made it to the top of the mountain at about 4 PM. We were wet and exhaused but very happy. Our trusty driver, Manuel Rubio, was waiting for us and took us down to the local village for a quasi-hot shower and a tasty meal of lomo saltado (beef, potatoes and rice). We were warned not to use the bathroom by the river (check out the pic).
Day Four: Day four was pretty relaxed as it consisted of hiking around the ruins of Kuelap, the Chachapoyan fortress high up on a cloudy mountaintop. Archeologists are still excavating the site and it was cool to watch them in action. After Kuelap, we headed back to Chachapoyas and had a tasty lunch with Jose and his family and then watched Ecuador destroy Peru 5-1.











Huanchacho

The local fishermen use these reef boats to fish out in the Pacific Ocean. They last about two months before they start to rot.

November 13, 2007

Etch-a-Sketch in the Desert

The Nazca Lines--The only reason anyone would stop in the hot, dusty town of Nazca. The only way to see the mysterious images in the desert is to fly over them, so after arriving by overnight bus at 5:so AM, I took a 7:30 AM plane ride over the desert. I was very, very thankful that I didn´t have a chance to eat breakfast before going because the pilot seemed to be doing evasive maneauvors the whole time we were in the air. The images were pretty impressive, with some stretching over 300 meters across.

Theories abound as to way the ancient Nazca culture drew the images in the dessert: UFO runways, map of underground aqueducts, celestial maps, cult worship, etc. I just think they were bored; there is nothing to do in Nazca.

The images are hard to make out, but if you squint you should be able to see an anastronaut, big hands and a hummingbird, oh and a plane.

November 10, 2007

Ciao Arequipa

I have a great stay in Arequipa but it´s time to head on. After dinner with Martha and the gang, I am taking an overnight bus to Nazca to possibly see the Nazca Lines and-or sandboard.
My Classroom at La Casa de Avila










My early morning yoga group










My tour group at the Canyon del Colca

Lo Siento, Bodhi

My new favorite perro.

I pass by Palcho every day on my morning jog. He´s 10 months old and is supposed to be a guard dog but I think he´s too sweet of a dog to actually hurt anyone.

November 6, 2007

Modern Day Human Sacrifice to the Gods

Okay, maybe it´s just a couple of tourists posing. The birds in the background are Andean Condors. The pics were taken at the Canyon del Colca, a canyon that is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. It was beautiful but packed full with tourists from all over the world.

I spent the night in a small town called Chivay that sits at the head of the Canyon.















My Dream Come True

At long last, Alpacas!



El Dia del Muerte

Day of the Dead, All Saints Day, Day of the Living...it heard it called different names by different Arequepinas. Whatever the case, November 1st is a very important day for Arequepinas. Everyone has the day off and the head to the cemetaries to celebrate and remember thier loved ones. Our profesors took us to the largest and oldest cemetary in town to check it out. The cemetary was packed and looked like a small city with streets, vendors selling ice cream y muchas personas. Families come every year to clean the graves, leave flowers and basically spend the day. You can even pay singers to come to the graves and sing your loved ones favorite song.

In a far off corner of the cemetary, persons who had committed suicide were buried. Since it is considered a mortal sin in the Catholic faith, they were not buried with eveyone else. Some of the families of the deceased had even scratched out their names out of shame. In another corner, we found the graves of Jewish and Protestant folk. While we were looking at these graves, an older Peruvian lady came and left a single yellow flower on each grave and had some younger boys spray a bit of water on each grave (symbolic of cleaning the grave). She wanted to make sure that the deceased knew that they were not forgotten. It was very sweet.

Mis Profesoras posing in front of the body of Christ












Tombs of the Babies Graves with Chachani in the backround


























November 5, 2007

Cheaters

My host family and I have worked out a pretty sweet arrangement. The six-year old, Geraldine, helps me with my spanish homework at night and I am helping my host mom download the cliffnotes to Anna Karenina in Spanish. Her book club meets this Friday and she hasn´t had tiime to actually read the book. Geraldine is pretty good with conjugating the present tense in Spanish although she tends to write her ´S´s backwards. That will be hard to explain to my profesors. When she gets bored with helping I have to bribe her with candy or pieces of my Halloween costume (I was a witch).