Condors and Farewell to Peru

My last week in Peru was spent getting up to mischief with Akanksha in Arequipa, and meeting friends in Lima. Towards the end of my week in Arequipa, Akanksha and I took a tour to the Colca Canyon, to see the legendary Condors. We were lucky enough to see many soaring overhead, some even came quite close, quite a frightening experience given their massive size. 

On the way to the Colca Canyon, we saw lots of spectacular scenery, including local fauna such as Vicunas (from the camelid family with hugely valuable fur), Alpacas, and Llamas. As well as local people, who I suspect were dressed in their traditional garments for the sake of the tourists, who were probably expected to pay for photos of them.

Vicunas grazing.

Llamas (or alpacas?). With two odd ones out, sticking together.

The rocks were stacked in this way in much of the rocky desert leading to the Colca Canyon. I'm not sure who exactly do it, but these rock piles are said to be offerings to the volcanoes, that ring the area.

In Lima I met with friends on both of my two nights. One of them, Danny who is in photos from my first visit to Lima, took me to the Park of the Fountains, a park in Lima with fountains that dance to music, and in fact occaisionally show projections of dancers that appear to be moving in the water. 

The second 'family friend' was a contact met through strange strange connections and coincidences. Lovely Laura took me to a cute restuarant and impressively conversed, with her friend who also joined us, in English for the whole night. Hope to see you again soon Laura!

The flight home was a nightmare that I won't go into, suffice to say it involved one leg of a solid 21 hours in the same plane and a reroute via Tahiti. Stupid volcanic ash! I arrived in Sydney (not even in the right city after all this), to find that my luggage was not with me. And still is not... let's hope that my 6 weeks worth of browsing and shopping in quaint markets in remote places will be restored to me swiftly!

But, it is still great to be home, with a warm house, HOT shower, safe drinking water, cooking facilities... what luxury. The thing I'm disappointed to have to get used to again is... prices! Why is Australia so expensive? Anyway, it is good to be back, but I'm already planning my return to Peru......

GOODBYE PERU!


ALSO TO MY LUGGAGE: PLEASE COME HOME, MUMMY LOVES YOU!!

A boy with his llama, and my version, done last night when I found myself awake at 3am... which funnily enough also happened tonight!

Placenta Life and Serendipity

Today, after seeking advice from my spanish teacher, I headed to a Peluqueria, or hairdresser, in one of the trendier CBD-type parts of Arequipa. I explained my desire for blond highlights throughout my hair and was quoted 70 soles, about $25 AUD, and led to a free chair. I was cloaked in a black hairdresser's coat that, mysteriously (this was not the name of the salon), read 'Placenta Life', a slogan (or statement?) accompanied by a diagram of a DNA helix. Curious. Then, the hairdresser proceeded to wrap my head in gladwrap. She then hairdried my wrapped up head, and procured a long, rather pointy needle (like a knitting needle). The next step involved her pricking the plastic wrapping and pulling out small sections of hair with her needle. This was quite painful! The needle kept pricking my head! And yet when I pointed this out she merely smiled and said 'aha'. The rest of the process was familiar and speedy. When she took me to the basin to wash the colour, she explained suddenly in rapid spanish that for some complex reason, the price would now be 80 soles. Ofcourse. Despite the price hike, and the curious process, I'm extremely happy with the outcome (photos yet to come). Thankyou Placenta Life, for giving me life, and protecting my clothes....

These be strange lands... and yet here we are!

A second curious and astounding and marvellous experience. Proof that it is a small world. Wandering the streets with my new hair, I met... none other than..... AKANKSHA FROM MELBOURNE UNI! Yes, a beautiful friend with whom I had compared travel plans, finally accepting that we would not overlap in our travels... and yet..... sitting demurely at a cafe.... there she was!!! The next few hours were spent in English speaking bliss, with the promise of further adventures together in Arequipa! Yippeee!

Cusco - Arequipa and the Cuteness of Spanish in Peru

I'm now in Arequipa, south of Cusco and Lima with more agreeable weather. Although I can see a snow capped mountain out of my hotel room, it seems to be very warm in the day time, and moderately chilly at night (not excessively like Cusco). But Cusco has so much charm, especially at this time of year, where all the school children and other dance and performance groups are readying for the coming festivities... as such, wandering through the city the last couple of nights I saw lots of children dancing while their teachers played flutes. Fireworks also seemed to be quite popular (not sure why they had to let them off at 6am on Sunday morning though...)

Also I've been reflecting on the language and the different slangs and forms of speech in different areas. Though my ear isn't refined enough in spanish to detect differences in accents, I think Cusquenas speak in such a sweet way. English just doesn't have equivalents for a lot of their language. For instance, an affectionate term for women in Cusco is 'mami' or 'mamita'. For instance I would ask a taxi how much to the city and he would say for instance... '7 soles mami', or buy something in a store and the lady would say 'gracias mamita'. I have a feeling that they don't say that so much in Arequipa, though I've only been here a day. The other thing that I think most south americans do is make just about any word a diminuitive. I love it! For instance, I would ask a child to draw a cow.... a vaca... and they would say... not a vaca, a vacita!! (little cow) or they would describe what they had drawn, and no they hadn't drawn a dog or a house or a tree... it would be a perrito, a casita, an arbolito! English just does not compare, I mean it's just such a cutie way to talk. Even a person would not describe something as being simply 'close' (cerca) to here, instead it's 'cercita'. I just can't describe how much I love this aspect of the language. As well as that I've been having immense fun learning the slangs of Peru and Cusco. At the moment I'm a 'mocosa' (a snotty girl) because I have a cold. Also a little boy or girl is a mocoso or mocosa, and apparently you could insult a prospective boyfriend by saying the equivalent of 'go away mocoso'.

The locals seem to be hugely amused when I throw a slang out there. I took some photos to a shop to get developed the other day, photos which were to give to the children in them. I told the man that the photos were for 'los chibolitos', a local slang for kids. He cracked up and nudged his coworkers to exclaim over what this foreigner said. Probably it was all the more amusing because the rest of my spanish was tested drastically in trying to explain a fairly simple concept - that I wanted photos printed out. And yet somehow I knew this local slang. So when I returned for the photos he handed me the photos and then said, wait a moment I have something else for you, and after a few minutes he delivered a larger photo, a photo of myself with the chibolitos, and he gave me a wink and off I went with my little present.

So here in Arequipa I've got a week of spanish lessons with Juliana, who was also amused by my use of various slangs. For instance she had told me I couldn't really say 'el agua es mala' as this meant that 'water generally is bad'. But to correct myself I said well 'en cusco es agua es mala, franco' (in cusco the water really is bad). Which is true because apparently that's why so many tourists get sick there, and probably is why I also got sick there. But she was quite impressed by my use of 'franco', another slang (jerga). Ha ha!

Machu Picchu and Goodbyes at School

After a combined 4 nights in a clinic for tourists with a drip in my arm, I managed to recover enough to join the trekkers in our group at Ollantaytambo. From here, we took the ´Machu Picchu train´ to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of the mountains that conceal the Lost City of the Incas. We rose early the next day to take a bus up to Machu Picchu, about a 15 minute trip. On the bus I spoke to a tour guide I was sitting next to, ´Guido´, whose name I found amusing on account of his profession. We arrived at Machu Picchu before sunrise. As you can see, we climbed to a great vantage point where we could appreciate the sun rising over the mountains to bathe this incredible place in light...



The mountain in this picture is ´Huanu Picchu´, or Young Mountain, in the Quechua, the language of the Incas. The mountain is the shape of a face, said to be the face of an Inca who is gazing at the sky. Machu Picchu means Old Mountain, and is the name of the mountain that was behind me when I took this photo.

Our tour guide took us around the city, explaining the process by which the Incas built this place, and some of the theories that try to explain the purpose of the city. The stones were painstakingly shaped by rubbing them against eachother or using sand, and hauled from quarries found in certain parts of the area. There are a few structures that are theorised to be temples to the sun.

 

The last few days have also involved saying goodbye to the children at the schools. One of the projects yet to be completed is a mural the wall of the smaller school. I helped the artist by starting off the tiger and the giraffe. As you can see they require a bit of work still, but generously the boss lady said I hadn´t done too bad a job. 

Sacred Valley

The last 3 days were probably the best in all the time I've been here. Friday was a particularly successful day at the school. My first and only class for the day was with two other volunteers, and seemed to go very well. The class was quite small, only about 8 kids were there. First, we sang Heads and Shoulders Knees and Toes with the children (in Spanish!) and then, with the help of the teacher, we asked the children to draw people, because what do people have? That's right! Heads and shoulders knees and toes! As well as other things, which we later asked them about (is your person missing eyes? How many eyes should your person have?) At the end of the class we all sang the song again, before leaving to do some construction.

My job was cleaning the tiles in a new classroom. We had just put in the grout a few days ago, which now needed cleaning off. It was a bit difficult due to a lack of proper equipment. But not too long, the room looked quite presentable. A further feeling of satisfaction came when those working on the bathrooms declared it complete! This meant that in that week alone they had finished painting it, inside and out, lovely bright colours, they had finished tiling it, and the doors were on the cubicles, whereas at the start of the week there was only a bit of tarpaulin covering each toilet. There is even a shower! After our work the teachers ordered us to wait, wait, because they were baking bread in the school oven, which we had to try. We did this and then left with a great feeling of accomplishment! That night we celebrated one of the group's birthday by going out on the town, an intriguing experience as we somehow ended up in venues that seemed to have only tourists as their patrons. Not a very authentic experience, but for sure the ride there was, as at every frightening swing of the taxi, a number of cement blocks that were in the boot would topple around!

The weekend was also very enjoyable, involving a bus trip where we stopped at a number of Inca sites. We spent the night in a hotel in the Sacred Valley, which had... bliss... hot water, a bath, and a heater! Today, the end of the weekend, we drove to the top of a mountain where the Incas had constructed a number of sacred temples and walls and steps... yes, lots of steps... in fact, we walked all the way down this mountain (approximately 2 hours of work), down many many steps.

Incan Ruins (Saqusaywaman) and School

Natural 'slides'

An Inca tribute to water

Children at the school

Anali is very impressed that I now know her name.

The kids took my camera and took their own photos...

Some of the dogs look terrible... skinny, matted fur, missing teeth....

Let's learn about how to play with dogs, shall we? To start with, don't lift them by their heads!

Cusco

Lima and Cusco

I arrived in Lima on the 17th of May, where I met with some of the other volunteers who were already at the hotel. The next day we had a tour of the city, and we also where taken out for dinner by a pair of Peruvian brothers, who I had met the previous day. It was a very amusing night on account of the fact that neither of the brothers spoke english, while out of the 6 girls, only a few of us felt able to communicate. One of them called the night ´una aventura´- an adventure. We also met an english fellow who was dining alone, who later joined us at our table, making us 9 in total.

The next morning we flew to Cusco, where I met a friendly Puerto Rican/US couple who were celebrating there 29th wedding anniversary by travelling to Argentina and then Peru to see the Incan ruins, Machu Picchu. Once off the plane, I felt the altitude quite strongly, in that the air felt thinner, it seemed harder to breathe, and there was a kind of pressure in my head. But it settled down. The real challenge came today, when we went higher into the mountains to visit the schools where we will work. The children were incredibly friendly, rushing up and hugging us and grabbing our hands to lead us around. ´Hola amigas! Hola!´. We were treated to a few performances. In one class they sang us a song about a playful cat (in spanish) with the teacher accompanying them on the guitar. In another class, one little girl whispered to her classmates and they then also sang to us ´Hola amigos, como estan? Muy bien, muy bien!´ We then walked 20 minutes up and down hills, and across a stream which my foot fell in, to get to the next community where Peru's Challenge works. It was amazing to see the Andes all around, and the fields that were irrigated, and the women with their colourful native clothing walking through the fields, often with babies strapped to their backs with colourful cloths. It was definitely a struggle walking these paths though, especially at altitude. The return trip was harder, as it was mostly uphill.. but it's good practice for the Inca trek yet to come.

Viña del Mar and Valparaiso

Today I went on a tour to see two coastal towns in Chile. Valparaiso was the first one, a strange town with houses built quite higgeldy piggeldy, seemingly piled on top of each other up steep hills. There were a number of 'funiculators', like elevators that went diagonally up hills. The houses were brightly coloured but I couldn´t detect a particular colour scheme. The next town was called Viña del Mar, apparently THE holiday destination for Chileans and others during summer. Unfortunately my camera is out of battery and I didn´t bring an adaptor for Chile, so this will be my last post with photos probably until after the 17th of May, when I will be in Peru.

One of the curious elevator type creations in Valparaiso

This is why they need the elevator type creations...

Some sand artwork in Viña del Mar with the question 'do you want to go out with me?'

 

Dogs chillin' by the seaside at Viña del Mar...

An amusing thing...

Let me share one curious incident as I am waiting for a tour bus to pick me up....


I thought that my phone would be completely uncontactable, seeing as I brought it but didn´t do anything special to turn on 'roaming' etc.


But here I have received one extremely amusing and yet bizarre text, this is what it says:


'Hello Major: Hope you and family are having a good time. I do not miss you at all.
Anyway, enjoyself. Come back to have holidays at desk. Rgds. Boatperson'


And I did NOT make that up!!!

Santiago, Chile, 13 May 2011

I´m happily settled in my hotel in Santiago after arriving here yesterday. The flight to Auckland was quite pleasant, I was sitting next to a couple from New Zealand who helped me work out the video system. They made me feel better by saying that it had taken them about 30 hours to work out. Then I had a few hours in Auckland before the longer flight to Santiago (11 hours). This flight passed pretty quickly through a comfortable combination of sleeping, eating, and watching movies. I was sitting next to (well actually there was a free seat between us), a lovely lady from Chile. She talked to me for quite a while (in Spanish) about various things including what I should see in Chile and about her recent experiences in China. I was quite proud about the percentage that I understood (about 50%). All in all everything feels quite difficult without an extensive knowledge of Spanish, but I´m doing ok and I hope to understand at least 75% of what I hear by the time I leave.

Yesterday I did a bit of exploring and then slept for about 15 hours, waking up this morning to check out the hotel breakfast. It wasn´t too impressed... until I saw the bananas! Later on I went to a supermarket and saw that they´re about the equivalent of $2 a kilo.

I also did a tour of the city today, on my own initially, and then a guided tour in a tour bus. The traffic here is a very curious thing, firstly as a pedestrian it´s quite interesting that you don´t have to press any buttons for the man to go green, he does this automatically, clever guy. And in the bus I noticed that entire streets are dedicated to one direction. In order to go the other direction you basically have to keep going left or keep going right, to go round the block onto another street that will let you go in that direction. There´s a lot of beeping that goes on, and there are often people as well as stray dogs crossing the road. One dog tried to cross a very busy highway today, I felt quite afraid for him, but he decided against it when the cars started beeping at him. He seemed quite annoyed that he couldn´t cross and started barking quite heartily. There are a lot of dogs that wander the streets, sometimes in packs of 5 or 6. They don´t seem too unhappy, they look moderately well fed, and people leave them alone. I saw a few sleeping today (at first I thought they were dead but they did a bit of twitching), they choose funny places to sleep, like in the middle of the sidewalk

Here are some photos from my tours of the city. Mostly it is the architecture that fascinates me, as well as some of the vehicles ie. the coca cola van.

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