Still haven't quite come to ground, though we're in Spokane for another 10 days, preparing for three different trips (with lots of packing and unpacking). This video, Where the Hell is Matt, reminds me once again why I love traveling and what is truly human, regardless of country, time or place.
It's funny, his blog is irreverent, and I begin to feel just a little more connected.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
We're back . . .
Ok, we've been back now just over two weeks, and I must confess to some jet lag. Rachel sent me to the supermarket to buy some flour, and I couldn't bring myself to choose. Did she want bleached flour or unbleached, organic or whole wheat, another specialty flour or simply baking flour? Or was it bread flour? Three shelves and 20 minutes later, I left -- without buying flour.
And we bought the new computer to replace the one that was stolen. But reloading my programs (and attempting to reload files from my back-ups) brought back a sense of loss and dislocation. Some picture files are truly gone. Priceless, as the ad says. But many pictures remain, some 1500 waiting to be named, organized -- and backed up.
The air everywhere is so clean. No buses belching carbon monoxide. No crowds of people darting across streets, striving to avoid becoming hood ornaments. We drove down from Spokane to the Willamette Valley. Our farms are so tidy, so well organized these early summer days. I don't see people working the fields. I don't see llamas grazing at the side of the road. I feel a sense of nostalgia for my temporary homes in South America -- Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil, even as I appreciate the sunset here in the Willamette Valley, turning the sky pink, and to the west, the coastal mountains, layered shadows of purple.
We leave again on July 15 for the wilds of the American midwest, northern Michigan, by August 2, and then to Philadelphia by August 15, a quick drive across country, and then to Scotland for 6-8 weeks (Inverness, Edinburgh, and Orkney). Then back home to Philly and on to Costa Rica for 3-4 months, a settling down time in one place. Perhaps my jet lag will dissipate by then.
And we bought the new computer to replace the one that was stolen. But reloading my programs (and attempting to reload files from my back-ups) brought back a sense of loss and dislocation. Some picture files are truly gone. Priceless, as the ad says. But many pictures remain, some 1500 waiting to be named, organized -- and backed up.
The air everywhere is so clean. No buses belching carbon monoxide. No crowds of people darting across streets, striving to avoid becoming hood ornaments. We drove down from Spokane to the Willamette Valley. Our farms are so tidy, so well organized these early summer days. I don't see people working the fields. I don't see llamas grazing at the side of the road. I feel a sense of nostalgia for my temporary homes in South America -- Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil, even as I appreciate the sunset here in the Willamette Valley, turning the sky pink, and to the west, the coastal mountains, layered shadows of purple.
We leave again on July 15 for the wilds of the American midwest, northern Michigan, by August 2, and then to Philadelphia by August 15, a quick drive across country, and then to Scotland for 6-8 weeks (Inverness, Edinburgh, and Orkney). Then back home to Philly and on to Costa Rica for 3-4 months, a settling down time in one place. Perhaps my jet lag will dissipate by then.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Goodbye Peru . . .
Just learned that Air Canada moved our flight up by 3 hours. Phew! And we haven't packed, but I'm not too worried. When you travel for six months with 5 changes of clothing, there's really not that much to pack! Except for the books. And the brochures. And maybe a few gifts. I'm taking a chance that Air Canada will feed us. We're used to stewards and stewardesses on busses, trains and planes here in Peru. On our train trip via Peru Rail to Macchu Picchu, we had a full breakfast on linen. I felt like it was the Orient Express.
Our last day in Cusco was the day before Corpus Christi, celebrating Christ's last supper, that seminal event when Christ distributed wine and bread, a service that has become the Eucharist for millions of Christians. Here in Cusco, the holiday is a major event. Hundreds of people crowded into the Plaza del Armas to see massive flowered floats carrying 17 saints parade throughout Cusco -- all day, accompanied by dancing and marching bands. Groups of people carry the heavily carved wooden floats in a rocking motion to show respect for the saints, visiting the churches in town.
Yes, I have some wonderful pictures, but no way to include them. One of the more interesting parts of this festival was the dance of indigenous rural people in colorful masks and brightly ribboned hats the color of the rainbow, each pair using whips in some sort of drive-out-the-sin ritual. As always, more research is needed. But this was a very colorful last glimpse of Cusco before we came to Lima for a short rest before hopping on Air Canada and coming home -- and perhaps to a new computer sooner than I think! Already Allen is asking me what's after Scotland. Should it be four months in the Carribean or Costa Rica?
Our last day in Cusco was the day before Corpus Christi, celebrating Christ's last supper, that seminal event when Christ distributed wine and bread, a service that has become the Eucharist for millions of Christians. Here in Cusco, the holiday is a major event. Hundreds of people crowded into the Plaza del Armas to see massive flowered floats carrying 17 saints parade throughout Cusco -- all day, accompanied by dancing and marching bands. Groups of people carry the heavily carved wooden floats in a rocking motion to show respect for the saints, visiting the churches in town.
Yes, I have some wonderful pictures, but no way to include them. One of the more interesting parts of this festival was the dance of indigenous rural people in colorful masks and brightly ribboned hats the color of the rainbow, each pair using whips in some sort of drive-out-the-sin ritual. As always, more research is needed. But this was a very colorful last glimpse of Cusco before we came to Lima for a short rest before hopping on Air Canada and coming home -- and perhaps to a new computer sooner than I think! Already Allen is asking me what's after Scotland. Should it be four months in the Carribean or Costa Rica?
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Back in Cusco . . .
We are happily back in Cusco, staying at Hotel Corihuasi with its winding stone stairways and rooms overlooking the city (and lots of hot water). Today we spent walking around the town with Al, Pam and Kayla, seeing the city anew through their eyes. We taught Kayla how to say no politely in Spanish to the many street vendors, yet it's difficult to say no to the beautiful crafts here -- weavings, silver, caps, ponchos, finger puppets, sweaters -- all in such vivid colors, and all featuring themes from the Andes.
Just now everyone is visiting the main cathedral here. I'm resting a bit here at the internet cafe, catching up with the high altitude.
Later we'll walk down Lareto Street (a narrow street along what was once the House of the Sun) to admire the Incan stones still making up the walls here: their large geometric shapes fit so tightly together that even today, no one seems able to replicate their walls. Cusco itself, like many other sacred places, takes the shape overall of a crouching feline -- the puma. While we have visited museums here, we've mostly gained an understanding of the artifacts of the Incan culture, but the religion and ideas still elude us. Popularly, Cusco is known as the center or navel of the world, but in planning this city, Incan astrologers planned temples and reshaped hills to create the puma.
Tomorrow we'll visit the Pisac ruins, built in the shape of a condor, and Monday, we go again to Macchu Picchu, which is built in the shape of a llama. Understanding the link between the shape of these places helps me understand the Nazca lines, those mysterious and controversial lines visible only from the sky -- hummingbirds, monkeys, spiders, plants and other shapes. Perhaps once they held a sacred meaning, even as the crouching puma did once for Cusco, and for many, still does.
This mix of ancient traditions and modern struggles with poverty would take more than one visit to understand. Here in Cusco, I've read that about 1 million tourists a year visit. That's a prodigious number of people. What do they take home? Cusco, Incan culture, superimposed with the history of the Spanish conquest and colonial traditions cannot be easily captured in a single photo, a diary entry, or even a memory. The average Peruvian works very hard. Taxi drivers, for example, work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Farmers work their fields and harvest by hand. We pass road crews repairing cobblestoned streets, again by hand. Every job is important. Yet unemployment averages 50%. So our tourist dollars help support artisans of all kinds. Today I bought a finger puppet of a llama, beautifully hand knitted with little tassles for roughly 33 cents. Today also, police and protestors clash over how tourist sites are managed and developed. Violence is always under the surface of such a peaceful and beautiful place. I have no answers and yet I am glad we came here.
Just now everyone is visiting the main cathedral here. I'm resting a bit here at the internet cafe, catching up with the high altitude.
Later we'll walk down Lareto Street (a narrow street along what was once the House of the Sun) to admire the Incan stones still making up the walls here: their large geometric shapes fit so tightly together that even today, no one seems able to replicate their walls. Cusco itself, like many other sacred places, takes the shape overall of a crouching feline -- the puma. While we have visited museums here, we've mostly gained an understanding of the artifacts of the Incan culture, but the religion and ideas still elude us. Popularly, Cusco is known as the center or navel of the world, but in planning this city, Incan astrologers planned temples and reshaped hills to create the puma.
Tomorrow we'll visit the Pisac ruins, built in the shape of a condor, and Monday, we go again to Macchu Picchu, which is built in the shape of a llama. Understanding the link between the shape of these places helps me understand the Nazca lines, those mysterious and controversial lines visible only from the sky -- hummingbirds, monkeys, spiders, plants and other shapes. Perhaps once they held a sacred meaning, even as the crouching puma did once for Cusco, and for many, still does.
This mix of ancient traditions and modern struggles with poverty would take more than one visit to understand. Here in Cusco, I've read that about 1 million tourists a year visit. That's a prodigious number of people. What do they take home? Cusco, Incan culture, superimposed with the history of the Spanish conquest and colonial traditions cannot be easily captured in a single photo, a diary entry, or even a memory. The average Peruvian works very hard. Taxi drivers, for example, work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Farmers work their fields and harvest by hand. We pass road crews repairing cobblestoned streets, again by hand. Every job is important. Yet unemployment averages 50%. So our tourist dollars help support artisans of all kinds. Today I bought a finger puppet of a llama, beautifully hand knitted with little tassles for roughly 33 cents. Today also, police and protestors clash over how tourist sites are managed and developed. Violence is always under the surface of such a peaceful and beautiful place. I have no answers and yet I am glad we came here.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Lords of Sipan
Today was a double header. Two museums. Four and a half hours. Tired feet. But these two museums were the reason we came to northern Peru, the land of the Lords of Sipan.
We visited the older museum first: Museo Arqueologico Nacional Bruning. Lots of pictures later . . .
Then we stopped for lunch. Were served a hot drink called "Tiger's milk" at El Pacifico, a heady concoction of salty seafood broth, spiced with lemon and chiles. It nearly burned the cold right out of my throat! Resting feet. Enjoying yogurt and fruit (a grape as large as two thumbs).
Then we walked over to the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan, which showcased Walter Alva's sumptuous find, an untouched tomb discovered in 1987, featuring the first clear picture of what life (or death) was like in the Moche Kingdom for one of its major rulers in a tomb that was unlooted. The treasure trove is truly amazing.
The museum is set up like a Moche temple. We entered at the top, and just as the archaeologists did, we worked our way down through the layers of burials, so carefully unearthed by Alva's team. For breathtaking images (not in public domain), go to this site of the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan
I coiuld say my favorite was the Decapitator God, but I'm also partial to the Crab God of the Sea and the ear plugs of turquoise, or the sun pectoral of tiny beads of coral and seashell.
We spent a long time in this museum and regretted nothing at all (except maybe tired feet). Then, back to our hotel, dodging these very fast three-wheeled "Moto-Taxis" which are quite picturesque when three of them are bearing down on you!
We visited the older museum first: Museo Arqueologico Nacional Bruning. Lots of pictures later . . .
Then we stopped for lunch. Were served a hot drink called "Tiger's milk" at El Pacifico, a heady concoction of salty seafood broth, spiced with lemon and chiles. It nearly burned the cold right out of my throat! Resting feet. Enjoying yogurt and fruit (a grape as large as two thumbs).
Then we walked over to the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan, which showcased Walter Alva's sumptuous find, an untouched tomb discovered in 1987, featuring the first clear picture of what life (or death) was like in the Moche Kingdom for one of its major rulers in a tomb that was unlooted. The treasure trove is truly amazing.
The museum is set up like a Moche temple. We entered at the top, and just as the archaeologists did, we worked our way down through the layers of burials, so carefully unearthed by Alva's team. For breathtaking images (not in public domain), go to this site of the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan
I coiuld say my favorite was the Decapitator God, but I'm also partial to the Crab God of the Sea and the ear plugs of turquoise, or the sun pectoral of tiny beads of coral and seashell. We spent a long time in this museum and regretted nothing at all (except maybe tired feet). Then, back to our hotel, dodging these very fast three-wheeled "Moto-Taxis" which are quite picturesque when three of them are bearing down on you!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Chan Chan
We just got back from our first tour of Chimu ruins (thin 850-1470) near Trujillo. First we stopped at Huaca Arco Iris, a Chumu temple of the rainbow, so named for their love of the sea. Our visit started auspiciously with a sighting of two tiny yellow birds (almost canaries?) and two hairless dogs of Peru (later adopted by Frida Khalo). We walked into this high walled temple (adobe brick walls about 15-20 feet high and some 700 years older than Chan Chan) to find murals, not at all protected from rain, and partly restored.
Above the rainbow we could see stylized waves, reminding me of the early Greek and Minoan Mediterranean cultures. The arc of the seven-colored rainbow ended with twin snake heads over two sea otters, linked by their transformative tongues. At the base of the mural, two warriors stand guard with dome caps on either side, and a mythical feathered serpent holds the timu, a ceremonial knife shaped like an upside down half moon. Misnamed the Temple of the Dragon when it was discovered in 1960, today archaologists prefer the name Temple of the Rainbow as closer to Chimu beliefs. We climbed to the top of this pyramid via a steep ramp and were rewarded with a view of the valley, massive sand dunes, the nearby mountains, and, close to the ocean, the complex of Chan Chan itself, which once included about 60,000 people and 9 different sub-cities.
Mural at Huaca Arco Iris (photo courtesy of Webshots) See more photos here (including the dogs).
We then drove over to the portion of Chan Chan that is open to the public -- the Tschudi complex, which once contained about 60,000 people and is a veritable maze of buildings and plazas used for ritual, religion and burials. Here you can see the fishnet walls (note the bird friezes at the base of the walls). Archaeologists are busy excavating and reconstructing the many friezes throughout the complex -- pelicans, cormorants, the Incan cross, even the lowly squash are key decorative elements.
What's fascinating is the role of weather in the history and continued existence of these ruins at Chan Chan. Every 2 to 7 years, El Nino comes roaring ashore with massive rains and flooding. While protective roofs cover some of Chan Chan, many of these delicate applied mud adobe high relief murals are at risk. Tomorrow we'll trek to the Huaca de la Luna (Temple of the Moon), a Moche temple.
Above the rainbow we could see stylized waves, reminding me of the early Greek and Minoan Mediterranean cultures. The arc of the seven-colored rainbow ended with twin snake heads over two sea otters, linked by their transformative tongues. At the base of the mural, two warriors stand guard with dome caps on either side, and a mythical feathered serpent holds the timu, a ceremonial knife shaped like an upside down half moon. Misnamed the Temple of the Dragon when it was discovered in 1960, today archaologists prefer the name Temple of the Rainbow as closer to Chimu beliefs. We climbed to the top of this pyramid via a steep ramp and were rewarded with a view of the valley, massive sand dunes, the nearby mountains, and, close to the ocean, the complex of Chan Chan itself, which once included about 60,000 people and 9 different sub-cities.
Mural at Huaca Arco Iris (photo courtesy of Webshots) See more photos here (including the dogs).
We then drove over to the portion of Chan Chan that is open to the public -- the Tschudi complex, which once contained about 60,000 people and is a veritable maze of buildings and plazas used for ritual, religion and burials. Here you can see the fishnet walls (note the bird friezes at the base of the walls). Archaeologists are busy excavating and reconstructing the many friezes throughout the complex -- pelicans, cormorants, the Incan cross, even the lowly squash are key decorative elements.
What's fascinating is the role of weather in the history and continued existence of these ruins at Chan Chan. Every 2 to 7 years, El Nino comes roaring ashore with massive rains and flooding. While protective roofs cover some of Chan Chan, many of these delicate applied mud adobe high relief murals are at risk. Tomorrow we'll trek to the Huaca de la Luna (Temple of the Moon), a Moche temple.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Goodbye to Lima . . . for now . . .
We're just a few blocks away from Vista del Mar, here in Miraflores, Lima, Peru. This is the view from our favorite restaurant, a bird's eye view of the graveled beach below, which prompted this week's poem. Last night we watched surfers riding the waves to shore, one after the other, seemingly unending, the breakers rising out of the fog. We then popped into our first movie in a long time, a very noisy "Angels and Demons", just right for Spanish subtitles, all action, noise to cover Allen's cough, and a peaceful afternoon.
Al came in safely from San Francisco last night, despite the fog, and today, in a little while, we climb aboard Cruz del Sur for a 10-hour ride to northern Peru, Trujillo and then Chiclayo, the land of the Lords of Sipan, near Lambayeque.
In fact, this whole South American trip started with an audio-book from the Corvallis Public Library called the Lords of Sipan: A True Story of Pre-Inca Tombs, Archaeology, and Crime. Sidney Kirkpatrick introduced us to Walter Alva's fabulous finds in Northern Peru (and his somewhat successful attempts to foil the grave robbers). Then, we said, will we ever go there? Now, we're more than ready to climb around this temple complex and admire the murals, still vivid with their original coloring.
Pop over to this "unique travel" site to see more pics of the Lord of Sipan (dubbed Tutankhamen of the Americas, along with a YouTube video. Photos here courtesy of Webshots (until I can get my pics safely home and processed).
Al came in safely from San Francisco last night, despite the fog, and today, in a little while, we climb aboard Cruz del Sur for a 10-hour ride to northern Peru, Trujillo and then Chiclayo, the land of the Lords of Sipan, near Lambayeque.
In fact, this whole South American trip started with an audio-book from the Corvallis Public Library called the Lords of Sipan: A True Story of Pre-Inca Tombs, Archaeology, and Crime. Sidney Kirkpatrick introduced us to Walter Alva's fabulous finds in Northern Peru (and his somewhat successful attempts to foil the grave robbers). Then, we said, will we ever go there? Now, we're more than ready to climb around this temple complex and admire the murals, still vivid with their original coloring.
Pop over to this "unique travel" site to see more pics of the Lord of Sipan (dubbed Tutankhamen of the Americas, along with a YouTube video. Photos here courtesy of Webshots (until I can get my pics safely home and processed).
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