April 7th: Life in Lima

Hola, hola!

Things are still going very well in Lima, and I’m enjoying the long weekend for Semana Santa (Holy Week).

This last Thursday, I was invited to a party across town at Jessica’s place, one of the teachers that I work with. It was her sister’s birthday, and one of the other teachers here, Tito, was also going. So they picked me up Thursday afternoon, and we went to the party. I was expecting a smaller family gathering, but when we arrived there was quite the crowd! Probably about 25 people, and lots of good food. Though I was the only English speaker, and it was a little overwhelming at first, it was a lot of fun.

They started by giving me a heaping plate of food, and I talked to Jessica’s sister and cousins while enjoying the dish. Then her crazy aunts came over and I chatted with them for a while. They were asking me a million questions about the states, how long I was staying…. Then they started talking about their daughters and asked if I had a girlfriend, haha.

As it got a little later spirits began flowing and the dancing began. It was a good time, and there were a lot of laughs. I was happy to be a part of a Peruvian family gathering!

Then yesterday, I got to see some new parts of the city. I went with Javier, the director of the school, to “La Punta” (The Point), which is a peninsula at the extreme north side of Lima. The district was very cool, filled with renovated buildings from the ‘30’s that at times gave the feeling of an old western town. The district was scattered with Arabian and traditional Spanish architecture as well. The view of the city was fantastic and the smell of the ocean refreshing :)

Anyway, things are going well, and now I’m getting prepped for the weeks ahead!

------------------------------- *¡Flashback!* -----------------------------

Machu Picchu

February 25

Doug and I got up early, around 6am, for breakfast. Unfortunately Doug had been up most of the night and wasn’t feeling so well… After breakfast and chatting with an amiable French couple, he was feeling better though, and we were determined to see Machu Picchu and the fabled Huayna Picchu (a much higher peak with additional ruins that gives a picturesque view of the entire Machu Picchu site!).

We departed from Aguas Calientes, and boarded our bus at 7am on the dot. After a 20 minute ride up a serpentine path we disembarked at Machu Picchu’s entrance with a modest crowd of people. There were people of all ages and backgrounds, and we could recognize a plethora of different languages being spoken around us. We walked up a short series of switchbacks and stairs, and finally walked out onto the massive ruins. Our view was blocked by a misty cloud hovering over the site, but it gave a majestic and magical ambiance to the place that I won’t soon forget. This was Machu Picchu.

As the morning progressed we explored ruin after ruin, from the houses, to fountains, royal baths, terraces, and a variety of different temples (of the sun, condor rock..). The mist gradually lifted and by late morning our view of the place was practically unobstructed; breathtaking. We read about the history of different parts of the site as we walked and our guide books came to life in front of us. As explored the massive site we nabbed different facts and stories from the many tour guides scattered about with their groups. Our cameras drank their fill of the scenery, and soon the gates to Huayna Picchu would be opening.

We made it to the far side of the site and had a bit of time to hydrate while taking in the vistas of the surrounding valleys. When the gates opened Doug found that he had misplaced his entry ticket! But after a few minutes he found it and we were on our way up the steep rocky path to Huayna Picchu. Forty-five sweaty minutes later we emerged at the top of the peak, and the view was spectacular. We enjoyed our perch, took some more pictures and after an hour or so were on our way back down. The extra soles and the steep hike were definitely worth it!

Back down at the Machu Picchu site we spent another few hours exploring. Towards the end, while we were traversing the extensive terraces we came across some llamas peacefully grazing in the lush grass. We thought that this would be a great photo op, and after seeing a couple walk right by one of the llamas decided that they were docile enough to approach. Well, we snapped a few shots and it seemed to be going well, but then I apparently decided to get a little too close. The llama looked at me, bared its gritty teeth, made a grunting noise and started coming at me. I decided my best option was to run. So, I booked it back to the rocky stairs while the thing chased behind me (ignoring Doug and the other couple on the terrace). I was attacked by a demon llama in Machu Picchu.

The day was now into the mid-afternoon, and after soaking in the last of the spectacular views we took the bus back down the winding road to Aguas.

In town, we had a few hours before our train departed so we decided to get a bite to eat at a pizza place and to write out some post cards. We then got some more Soles from the ATM and tried our hand at negotiating in the marketplace! I think we did pretty well. After chatting for a bit at a stand we would usually get some sort of discount :)

As it began to get dark, we went back to Gringo Bill’s to grab our luggage, and boarded the train back to Ollantaytambo. It was an interesting ride with a rowdy bunch of college students behind us drinking and having a lively debate with the folks across the walkway.

When we disembarked in Ollantaytambo it was dark and raining. We donned our rain coats and walked a mile or so to our hostel with a happy-go-lucky canine friend from the street. At the hostel we were welcomed by a young boy who seemed to be running the place that night. He checked us in and got us squared away. We chatted for a bit about the day and after eating a little something from our packs went to sleep in preparation for the early rise the next day…

Living in Lima

April 1^st

Oooooh boy, it certainly has been a while… sorry for the stagnate blog! I’ll have to kick things up a notch if I ever want to get my travel writing career off the ground, haha.

Anywho, I’m back, and I’ll try to make posting a more common occurrence. ( I think twice per week would be a nice goal J )

Life in Lima has been great. I have been enjoying my time at the school, and my classes have been going well. I was leading larger and larger portions of the 9^thgrade biology classes and I thought that by April I would be teaching all of the 9^thgrade biology classes solo. However, two of the teachers just went on maternity leave so I will also be taking on four 6^th grade science classes and two 7^th grade science classes! I’ll definitely be busy, but it will be a lot of good (and varied) experience.

In addition to teaching at the high school and middle school levels I also gave tours of the zoo last week to four different 2^nd grade classes. It was a much different experience from the older students (obviously), but I had a good time with it! The kids were really excited to have someone from the United States in their class. They asked me all sorts of questions, for example, if I was from Hollywood, haha. During the tours they were so excited to see the animals and to be out of the classroom that it was hard to keep their attention at times, but overall the tours were fun and I was glad to have met the ‘youngsters’ at the school.

Outside of the classroom, life has been pretty tranquil at the school. However, that’s not to say it hasn’t been busy! I’ve been happy to get caught up on a lot of university work, and I’ve also had some chances to explore the city a bit and to ride some waves on a surf board! The bus system is more chaotic than a bee hive and it’s a monster to become familiar with. However, I can now find my way to a few different locations in the city and it’s no problem for me to travel 3 miles to the beach :). A bit of a bus ride and catching some morning waves is a nice Saturday morning option!

To give you an idea of how the buses work…. You might imagine that a bus stop is an organized and ordered area where the buses come to a smooth halt and give prospective passengers a leisurely moment to decide which bus they need to board. That’s not quite the case here. It’s more like a lone blue sign surrounded by a bustling sidewalk where the buses swing in at full speed with a man hanging out of the side yelling into the masses. The “announcer” will then usually jump off of the bus before it stops and yell the final destination as fast as he can, 5-10 times before the bus starts moving again. The announcer will then run to catch up to the bus, jump on and shut the door as it accelerates down the crowded street and out of sight.

Other than the beach, I’ve also been out to see the night life a few times with Alejandro and his friends. One of the places that we visited was a retro Beatles-themed club called “Sargento Pimiento”. You guessed it, “Sergeant Pepper’s”, haha. I prefer the sound of the name in Spanish! I’ve also visited downtown to see the “Plaza de Armas” which has the main governmental buildings and the largest cathedral in the city. From the plaza I ducked down into the catacombs at St. Francisco’s cathedral and went to a delicious Chifa (Chinese Peruvian cuisine) in China town. I even went to see a group of my students perform a rock show in town. It was cool to be able to support their band and to see them outside of the classroom environment.

Hope all is well in the States, and I shall be posting more faithfully from here on out!

Saludos a todos.

Pictures:

Parque de la Muralla - Peru's original defense wall

Me buying ceremonial incense! (For what ceremony I'm not quite sure...)

Plaza de Armas

Student Band

Catacombs

Beach in Mira Flores

On The Road Again: Off To Aguas Calientes

Feb 24

Hey everyone, sorry it’s taken me so long to get another update up here. Things have been busy at the school!

Anyway, I’ve been at El Colegio de la Inmaculada for about a week now. I am getting integrated into the classes, getting to know the students, working with the teachers, creating an English informational booklet about the animals at the school and meeting all sorts of great people. Everything is going well, and it is definitely interesting living with Spanish-speaking Jesuit priests! They are very good people though; light hearted, sincere, eager to share and each with interesting past experiences.

So, with that said, I am going to continue from where I left off on the Cusco adventures. (I took notes, but just didn’t write everything out. This blog is kind of serving as my personal journal as well!)

After the adventure with the horses, archeological sites and museums we got up early the next morning to catch a cab to a near-by bus station. We thought it’d be better to catch a cab than to walk through the dark streets with our luggage. We arrived at the bus station just in time (and I’ll let you know how we found that out later) to catch a combi (small bus) to Ollantaytambo, the departure point for our train to Aguas Calientes (the closest town to Machu Picchu).

After paying our S15 (about $6) we enjoyed a rather uneventful hour and a half ride to Ollantaytambo, though it was filled with some impressive views. Upon arriving we had some extra time, so we stopped for some breakfast at a café called “Café Perla”. We then boarded the train, Peru Rail, to Aguas Calientes without a problem, but soon realized that our seats were on opposite sides of the train for some reason. It was ok though; because I sat next to an interesting fellow from New York named Jason (Doug got the stoic Russians, lol). After talking for a while I learned that Jason was only in Peru for a week and a half or so, and that he had come from Cusco early this morning as well. As we talked he asked me how I’d gotten to Ollantaytambo, and we then realized that we had departed from the same bus station. Jason, however; said that he saw our Combi pulling away, and that the next one didn’t have anyone waiting for it except him. Since he was the only passenger he had to pay $50 to get to Ollantaytambo! … Poor guy.

Anyway, during the train ride we saw all sorts of great views and had a close up view of the raging Urubamba River. It was fun to talk to Jason about his travels, and Doug looked like he was getting a lot of great pictures, so I didn’t bother, and just enjoyed the ride (we had already said we were going to swap pics after the trip).

After arriving in Aguas Calientes we walked across the town (a walk of about 2 minutes) and checked in at Gringo Bill’s, our surprisingly nice hostel. We then picked up our Huayna Picchu (Machu Picchu PLUS a hike up to a taller peak, Huayna Picchu!) tickets and our bus tickets to ride up to the site in the morning.

After getting set, ticket-wise, for our trek up to Machu Picchu we decided to do a little exploring. There was a lesser-known trail in our travel books called Putucusi only a few hundred meters out of town, so we walked through a crowd of bustling workers (and didn’t get yelled at!) and followed the train tracks out of town. On our right the mountain side rose steeply up hill in a lush blanket of green, and on our left the Urubamba raged on with no apparent attempt to stifle itself.

After walking for a bit we came upon a narrow steep path leading up to the right and assumed this to be the Putucusi. Indeed it was, but after a half hour of hiking the trail we hit a point that was pretty tough to get past. It rose up probably 100 vertical feet and consisted of a sheer rock face and a dangling metal cable with broken ladders littering the rock face… We thought about trying to climb, but if you would have fallen from the cable it would have been pretty near certain death. So, we decided against it, and went back to the hostel for a nap instead J

When we got up a little while later we decided to go to the hot springs or “Aguas Calientes” that the town was named for. We weren’t expecting a whole lot as our travel book described them in less than enthusiastic terms as “scungy”, but we were still disappointed, haha. They were more like luke warm springs, and even in the slow season they were overcrowded and… well pretty scungy. The people at the counter were nothing short of stone faced and the older ragged gentlemen running beers to people represented the overall ambience pretty well.

So much for the wondrous hot springs!

That’s ok though, that’s not what we were there for, and afterward we went to a great restaurant called the Tree House. They blended Peruvian ingredients into really cool modern Peruvian dishes. I had a great trout dish while Doug gave the llama a go!

We then finished out the day by stopping by a bar called the Captains Bar. The bartender’s name was Alfredo, and he was a blast. We probably talked for a half hour or so, and he even got us some complementary fries and pisco (Peruvian liqueur from fermented grapes) shots as we talked about the five different varieties of pisco. After that we called it a day, and looked forward to the sites Machu Picchu was sure to have in store.

And here are a few pics!

-The school I'm working at.

-My room.

-View of Cusco

-Shot of Doug and I with Machu Picchi in the background (taken by a crazy Japanese many from Huayna Picchu!)

First Days in Cusco

Feb 21-22

Hi all!

I'm at an internet café, and it's been a great first few day in Cusco!

First of all it's been sunny and warm both days, which was VERY unexpected.

We spent a lot of time the first day just exploring the city, and what a city it is. Nestled in the mountains with it's plazas, cobble stone streets, cathedrals and great food. We started in the main plaza, Plaza de Armas, where we witnessed a traditional celebration and parade (I actually wasn't exactly sure what the occasion was, but it was very cool to see!)

We then spent a lot of time finding places to buy the tickets that we needed to get into a lot of the museums and surrounding archeological sites. We had to get the ISIC identification cards to get a discount which required some doing (getting pictures taken, print outs of academic records, etc.) We prevailed in the end though!

As far as food went, we had a traditional lunch with the locals. It was good and CHEAP. Kind of in a back allyway, but it was fun lol.

We then had dinner at a great place on Avenida de Sol, which included a great drink called Chicha Morada (tasted very interesting, like a soy milk latte/grape juice mix, very good!), appetizers, a main course and a wonderful Dulce de Leche dessert flan.

That evening we went to a theatre to see some tradtional Peruvian dances, tried some Pisco Sours (Pisco is a traditional liquor here made from fermented grapes) at a bar that overlooked the Plaza de Armas, and then called it a night.

On day two we started off with the free breakfast at our wonderful hostel and then took off to try and see the Cathedral as we had heard we could see it in the morning free of charge. There was a mass taking place though, and I guess we looked too "touristy" with our backpacks and such, so that was a no-go. We did go across the street to see the Jesuit temple "Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus". It was a beautiful structure, and we were able to hike up a rickety staircase to a balcony to get a great view of the plaza.

After that the real adventure began. We hiked about 25 minutes up to the archeological site of Sacsaywaman. On the way, however; we ran into a boy named Dario who offered us a tour on horseback. At first we were reluctant, but it included 3 additional sites, and it was less than $20 a piece. We decided to go for it.

Long story short, we had a great time, but it was a bit of a fiasco, lol. They put us on the horses, and "shhhed"us up the rocky path. We thought our "guide", Felix, was right behind us, but when we eventually decided to stop and wait, he never came. Instead, we ended up being led by a 13 year old boy riding bare-back on his little white horse!

We rode for a mile or so along the hillsides, rocky paths and fields. At one point, my horse got a little angry at Doug's and decided to go crazy and run into some bushes. I kind of fell off... ok, there's no "kinda"about it. I fell off and broke my camera, but we laughed about it (there is just a bent piece on the camera, I'm going to try and fix it tonight) and eventually made it to the first stopping point. We got off the horses expecting to go and see the first site, but instead, our "guide" told us that we had to flag down a combi (little bus) to go to the first two sites. He said it was only 1 sol each person, and after we were done seeing the sites we would have to flag down another combi to come back.

It actually worked out better than I had anticipated, and the two sites were very cool. The first was called Tambomachay, and ancient Incan bath site with springs, channeled water and fountains protruding from the rocks. The second site, was Pucapucara, supposedly an old hunting fort, and traveler stopping point.

After seeing the sites, we flagged down another combi with the locals and found our way back to the horses by some miracle. After getting back on our trusty steads we rode along a trail that led through some beautiful countryside surrounded by amazing mountain views. We saw Quenqo, a site used for sacrifices that was carved straight into a giant piece of limestone, and then continued back to Sacsaywaman, where we met Jorge.

Jorge was a very cool guy who convinced us to go on a tour with him. We didn't regret it though, the tour was very reasonable and Jorge had us laughing for the entire hour. We learned a lot about the history of the site (ask me sometime!), and then decended back down to Cusco with rainclouds at our backs and "choclo con queso" in our hands (a Peruvian snack - kind of like corn on the cob with cheese).

To finish off the day we went to three museums (Museo Historico Regional, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo and Museo de Arte Popular) and checked on our bus for Ollantaytambo, that's set to leave at 5am tomorrow morning!

Hope all is well with everyone, and I'll try and post pics, but it might not be until I return to Lima.

Arrival in Lima

February 19 – 20

Hey everyone! So, I’m going to keep this pretty short, because I have to fly out of Lima at 5am, and it’s already 10:30pm, but things have been going great so far. The flight(s) down here were relaxed and smooth. I met two guys on the flight from Newark to Lima that were really fun to talk to about the different foods and places in Peru. They gave me a lot of suggestions for new things to try! One of them lived in Arequipa, and said that I should stop by to visit on my way though (I’m flying through Arequipa to get to Cusco). I had to decline for lack of time, but it would have been fun!

Anyway, since I’ve been here I’ve been staying with a woman named Patricia and her son Alejandro. They have a very nice old house in a part of town called “La Molina” and it’s been great to stay with them so far. Patricia has been nice enough to show me around the city. The beaches are georgeous!

As for the school where I’ll be working, it’s called “Colegio de la Inmaculada” and it’s a really neat place. It is built into the side of a large hill and has four different levels. Each level has buildings with different grade levels that attend them. The lower grades are at the bottom, and as you move up in level you move up in the age of the students!

From the school the view of the city is great, and the place where I’ll be staying is on the 3^rd floor of a building located on the highest level. It’s a nice room/office, and I’ve got a nice view, and even a balcony! It’s a lot more than I had expected, and the facilities are excellent as well. There are also some really neat projects going on. For example, they treat and recycle their own water (Lima is literally a desert). They also have some pretty exotic animals that they take care of in a sort of “mini zoo) on the third level down.

Over all, things have been going well, and I’ll have a lot to post about Cusco and Machi Picchu when I return in a week!