Unsurprisingly, there is a Peruvian soccer league, and Cusco has a team. Today, they played a team called the "Sports Boys," which is their first problem right there. I went with a couple of Quebecois folks, just in from Bolivia. They seemed skeptical at the invite, but, in the spirit of traveling, were really up for anything.
The stadium is basically a huge slab of concrete, the middle of which has been hollowed out, with a less-than-impressive futbol pitch placed smack in the middle. Seats were basically just concrete stairs, which weren't terribly comfortable, but which made entering and exiting much easier than at your typical American sports arena. Unusually, the sun was shining today, which was delightful but which also made the three layers of clothing I had on more than a little uncomfortable. I managed to strip off the alpaca sweater, which lowered my core body temperature by a few degrees.
There was no clock - time was kept on the field, though they started promptly at 3pm, which made guessing the time remaining relatively easy. Nor was there a jumbotron, which on balance was probably a good thing. The crowd disagreed with just about every single call against the Cusqueñans, and replaying some of them over and over would probably have prompted some direct spectator involvement. As it was, there were about 20 or 30 uniformed riot police, complete with shields, stationed at points around the field, in case anyone got any ideas. No one did, and their main function turned out to be forming a human tunnel with their shields to protect the visiting team from the water balloons that several people had apparently carried in with the sole purpose of throwing them at the Sports Boys at halftime. A good use for riot gear, in my estimation.
The most vocal section of fans was behind one of the goals, and it stretched from the bottom of the stands to the top. They waved, inexplicably, a flag with a picture of Che on it, and sang and jumped the entire game. Every now and then someone in their midst would set off a cherry bomb, for which the section would obligingly give room. After the explosion, the people in the group would flow back together as if by collective magnetism, and resume jumping and singing.
The game itself was enjoyable, though the second half was a little punchless. The Cusqueñans really overmatched the Sports Boys, and they scored their first goal, a not strongly but accurately struck ball from about 25 yards out that swerved into the goal to the keeper's right. Not long after that, the Sports Boys had a man sent off for violent conduct. Then, early in the second half, another Sports Boy was sent off for his second cardable offense, and that was pretty much the game. Cusco scored again not long after that, a chip shot from about 18 yards out that caught the keeper off his line. Until about the 89th minute, Cusco squandered the few chances they managed to create, and the crowd began to give them a little grief. For most of the second half, the crowd's main amusement was in watching the somewhat hapless and poorly supported striker for the Sports Boys, who, by about the 70th minute, was itching to call a taxi. But in the 89th minute Cusco scored again, a well-struck ball from the left of the arc that squibbed into the goal, just inside the far post. So that made everyone happy.
This Wednesday I start the hike to Macchu Picchu. Most equipment still requires purchasing/renting, which I will probably do tomorrow. If I'm efficient, I might be able to sneak in a city tour in the afternoon, to see more ruins. I have to admit that I'm getting a bit stir-crazy/homesick, and really can't wait to get on with the second half of my trip.
Also, interesting developments in Madison. Looks like, for now at least, protesters are holding the Capitol building, with the approval of the police. I hope, for the sake of the state and its workers, that Walker and the Republicans lose this.
Be well, everyone.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Dear Wisconsin...
The next time you decide to erupt in massive and sustained civil action and protest, please provide one to two months' of advance notice, so I can plan to be there. Thank you.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The importance of music
Okay, so the radio in the home of my host family is tuned to 98.7 FM, otherwise known as "Ritmo Romantico," which they are fond of advertising every three or four minutes and which probably needs no translation from me. Mainstream romantic music in Peru, I have found, makes me want to buy an extra large bag of cotton balls and to spend the rest of the day stuffing its contents into my ears. It's somehow refreshing to me that this also true of mainstream romantic music in the States. I'm not referring to all romantic music, don't get me wrong, just the stuff that sounds like someone invented a device capable of taking cotton candy and rendering it into sound.
The radio tends to be on a lot, because the housekeeper enjoys listening to it during the day. It's also the soundtrack to lunch and dinner, and occasionally to breakfast. It doesn't help that a surprising number of the songs are probably or definitely remakes of romantic songs in America, circa 1990. The other day I heard "It Must Have Been Love," by Roxette, which, okay, strictly speaking is not an American group, but which fits nicely with the Ritmo Romantico theme. I guess Roxette recorded a Spanish version in the mid-90s, for which I will never forgive them.
Last night I went to see some live music. This was by sheer happenstance. Initially I went to a local pub at about 10:30pm to wait for Jesus, the director of the language school. Since yesterday was my last day, we were meant to head out for some drinks. However, he was a bit late, and after a little while I ended up chatting with a couple of folks from the UK. Nice conversation, mostly about the differences between meeting people while traveling and meeting people at home, and how the former seems to somehow be easier than the latter. After about half an hour, Jesus arrived and informed me that he and his friends would be at Mushrooms, which is a nearby club. He bustled off, and I stayed to chat and to finish my beer for another 20 minutes or so. And off I went to Mushrooms.
I learned last night that finding someone in a club is literally impossible. The FBI should know this; it would cut the costs of their witness protection programs by many percentage points. Just take your high-level mob informant, walk him into the nearest discotheque, and plant him in a booth or on the dance floor. The moment you turn your back he will instantly melt into the crowd, disappearing into anonymity more certainly than if the best plastic surgeon in the world had all the time and resources to work on him. For this reason, he needs a tracking collar or beacon of some kind, because you, FBI, are not exempt from the truly wonderous anonymity-producing effects of the discotheque.
So I couldn't find Jesus. I tried calling a couple of times, but calling someone in a discotheque is equally as fruitless as looking for them, unless his or her ringtone is set to jet-engine levels of loudness. Which some of them are.
Just down the street from Mushrooms was another establishment, the Lek, in which there was actual live music. From the street, it sounded like astonishingly good live music. Having nothing better to do, and disinterested in scouring other discotheques for evidence of Jesus, I went in, ordered a drink, and listened. The band - called Phuno, if I understood the bouncer correctly - was composed of a diminutive lead singer with an amazing baritone (I think) voice, a lead guitarist who must have been playing since he was in the womb, a bass guitarist who looked like a Peruvian version of U2's The Edge, an amazingly versatile and creative saxophonist, and a slightly portly drummer with a nearly flawless sense of rhythm. Boy, were they good. Of course, it was made all the more enjoyable and stunning by the fact that the only Peruvian music I had heard up until that point involved the profligate, one might say excessive, use of pan flutes and synthesized drums. This was, frankly, a vast improvement. I freely admit that this is a matter of taste. But, for my money, you really can't beat the experience of suddenly realizing that the vaguely familiar song the Peruvian rock/blues band in front of you is playing is a brilliant cover of the Doors' "Light My Fire." They also played "No Yo Se Mañana," which I think is originally by Julio Iglesias; most of their songs I didn't recognize, of course, but they were all masterful.
Naturally, the experience made me miss my guitar. I made a cursory effort to find them on the web, but video and audio streaming is a bit sluggish here. Perhaps after returning to the states...
Today I move on to a hostal. Back to dorm-style living for a little while, probably for the last time in my life. Next week, March 2nd, I leave for Macchu Picchu. The weeks after that will be given over to a rainforest excursion of undetermined length, and some traveling around southern Peru, before I make my way back to Lima a day or two before my flight on March 25th.
Hope all is well at home. I am missing friends and family greatly. Keep up the fight, Wisconsin!
The radio tends to be on a lot, because the housekeeper enjoys listening to it during the day. It's also the soundtrack to lunch and dinner, and occasionally to breakfast. It doesn't help that a surprising number of the songs are probably or definitely remakes of romantic songs in America, circa 1990. The other day I heard "It Must Have Been Love," by Roxette, which, okay, strictly speaking is not an American group, but which fits nicely with the Ritmo Romantico theme. I guess Roxette recorded a Spanish version in the mid-90s, for which I will never forgive them.
Last night I went to see some live music. This was by sheer happenstance. Initially I went to a local pub at about 10:30pm to wait for Jesus, the director of the language school. Since yesterday was my last day, we were meant to head out for some drinks. However, he was a bit late, and after a little while I ended up chatting with a couple of folks from the UK. Nice conversation, mostly about the differences between meeting people while traveling and meeting people at home, and how the former seems to somehow be easier than the latter. After about half an hour, Jesus arrived and informed me that he and his friends would be at Mushrooms, which is a nearby club. He bustled off, and I stayed to chat and to finish my beer for another 20 minutes or so. And off I went to Mushrooms.
I learned last night that finding someone in a club is literally impossible. The FBI should know this; it would cut the costs of their witness protection programs by many percentage points. Just take your high-level mob informant, walk him into the nearest discotheque, and plant him in a booth or on the dance floor. The moment you turn your back he will instantly melt into the crowd, disappearing into anonymity more certainly than if the best plastic surgeon in the world had all the time and resources to work on him. For this reason, he needs a tracking collar or beacon of some kind, because you, FBI, are not exempt from the truly wonderous anonymity-producing effects of the discotheque.
So I couldn't find Jesus. I tried calling a couple of times, but calling someone in a discotheque is equally as fruitless as looking for them, unless his or her ringtone is set to jet-engine levels of loudness. Which some of them are.
Just down the street from Mushrooms was another establishment, the Lek, in which there was actual live music. From the street, it sounded like astonishingly good live music. Having nothing better to do, and disinterested in scouring other discotheques for evidence of Jesus, I went in, ordered a drink, and listened. The band - called Phuno, if I understood the bouncer correctly - was composed of a diminutive lead singer with an amazing baritone (I think) voice, a lead guitarist who must have been playing since he was in the womb, a bass guitarist who looked like a Peruvian version of U2's The Edge, an amazingly versatile and creative saxophonist, and a slightly portly drummer with a nearly flawless sense of rhythm. Boy, were they good. Of course, it was made all the more enjoyable and stunning by the fact that the only Peruvian music I had heard up until that point involved the profligate, one might say excessive, use of pan flutes and synthesized drums. This was, frankly, a vast improvement. I freely admit that this is a matter of taste. But, for my money, you really can't beat the experience of suddenly realizing that the vaguely familiar song the Peruvian rock/blues band in front of you is playing is a brilliant cover of the Doors' "Light My Fire." They also played "No Yo Se Mañana," which I think is originally by Julio Iglesias; most of their songs I didn't recognize, of course, but they were all masterful.
Naturally, the experience made me miss my guitar. I made a cursory effort to find them on the web, but video and audio streaming is a bit sluggish here. Perhaps after returning to the states...
Today I move on to a hostal. Back to dorm-style living for a little while, probably for the last time in my life. Next week, March 2nd, I leave for Macchu Picchu. The weeks after that will be given over to a rainforest excursion of undetermined length, and some traveling around southern Peru, before I make my way back to Lima a day or two before my flight on March 25th.
Hope all is well at home. I am missing friends and family greatly. Keep up the fight, Wisconsin!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The wrong way to do laundry
Words of the day
lavandería: laundromat
ropa limpia: clean clothes
esperar: to wait
Last Friday, I went in search of a lavandería. As you might expect, in Peru they're not exactly akin to laundromats in the USA. Here, they're more like dry cleaners. You drop off your clothes, come back a little later, pick them up and pay by the kilogram. In most lavanderias, they have washers and dryers on site, so clothes-washing-and-drying is, by and large, a predictable process. I did not choose such an establishment.
No, the one I chose is also a peluquería, more commonly known as a hair salon. What possessed me to do so remains a mystery to me. Mostly, I think I just wanted my clothes washed, and anyone willing to do so on short notice was fine by me. However, the young woman who took my bag of clothes informed me that it would be two days before my clothes were ready, and this after her partner had made off with to find change for my 50 sole note. I did a quick calculation in my head: yes, I did have clothes enough to last me for two more days, but really no more, absent some significant recycling. Sadly, the obvious didn't occur to me until the launderer/hairdresser had handed off my bag of clothes to someone I assume was her daughter, who didn't seem at all thrilled to be a designated courier of someone else's dirty clothes. The obvious is that two days was the estimated drying time, because she, like most people in Peru, does not own a dryer.
It rained all weekend, with rare moments of respite, and even fewer moments of sunshine. So, when I showed up on Sunday, both of the proprietors of the lavandería, occupied with fairly extensive hairdressing projects, looked at me like I was asking them to conjure up magical laundry-drying fairies out of the hairspray-scented air. Which I effectively was. Come back Monday, they said.
I did as I was told, stewing a little in my own juices, and wearing clothing rapidly approaching it's expiration date. Fortunately, Monday morning was warm and sunny for about 5 hours. That afternoon I again showed my face at the lavandería, and was greeted with similar bemusement. Come back at 7pm. After all, both of them had been there working all day, and my clothes were likely at the younger one's home, still hanging on the line. So I came back at 7, and of course my clothes were not there. However, neither was the one charged with doing my laundry, who had just left to retrieve it. About an hour and one or two hairstylings later, she rounded the corner carrying my bag of clothing. During that hour I had been nurturing a growing anger - this wasn't exactly what I had paid for, and the last thing I wanted to be doing in Peru is stand around staring into space wearing musty clothes. But when I saw this woman rounding the corner with my bag, I realized that she had left work to walk home to retrieve my clothes, then walked back carrying a 7 kilogram weight over her shoulder. This after probably being on her feet all day. So I walked home, still feeling slightly angry, carrying my bag of still-damp clothing and a healthy dose of perspective as well. Still, that's the last time I walk into a hair salon and ask them to do my laundry. That's solid advice for everyone, by the way.
Less sightseeing the past few days. Lots of rain, some studying, some preparation for the coming weeks. My last week of language school! My proficiency has improved, but I find that with every day comes new rules, new verb forms, new words, and it's all congealed together in my brain into a nearly formless mass. Hopefully given a little time and practice it'll become a little more defined.
Be well, everyone!
lavandería: laundromat
ropa limpia: clean clothes
esperar: to wait
Last Friday, I went in search of a lavandería. As you might expect, in Peru they're not exactly akin to laundromats in the USA. Here, they're more like dry cleaners. You drop off your clothes, come back a little later, pick them up and pay by the kilogram. In most lavanderias, they have washers and dryers on site, so clothes-washing-and-drying is, by and large, a predictable process. I did not choose such an establishment.
No, the one I chose is also a peluquería, more commonly known as a hair salon. What possessed me to do so remains a mystery to me. Mostly, I think I just wanted my clothes washed, and anyone willing to do so on short notice was fine by me. However, the young woman who took my bag of clothes informed me that it would be two days before my clothes were ready, and this after her partner had made off with to find change for my 50 sole note. I did a quick calculation in my head: yes, I did have clothes enough to last me for two more days, but really no more, absent some significant recycling. Sadly, the obvious didn't occur to me until the launderer/hairdresser had handed off my bag of clothes to someone I assume was her daughter, who didn't seem at all thrilled to be a designated courier of someone else's dirty clothes. The obvious is that two days was the estimated drying time, because she, like most people in Peru, does not own a dryer.
It rained all weekend, with rare moments of respite, and even fewer moments of sunshine. So, when I showed up on Sunday, both of the proprietors of the lavandería, occupied with fairly extensive hairdressing projects, looked at me like I was asking them to conjure up magical laundry-drying fairies out of the hairspray-scented air. Which I effectively was. Come back Monday, they said.
I did as I was told, stewing a little in my own juices, and wearing clothing rapidly approaching it's expiration date. Fortunately, Monday morning was warm and sunny for about 5 hours. That afternoon I again showed my face at the lavandería, and was greeted with similar bemusement. Come back at 7pm. After all, both of them had been there working all day, and my clothes were likely at the younger one's home, still hanging on the line. So I came back at 7, and of course my clothes were not there. However, neither was the one charged with doing my laundry, who had just left to retrieve it. About an hour and one or two hairstylings later, she rounded the corner carrying my bag of clothing. During that hour I had been nurturing a growing anger - this wasn't exactly what I had paid for, and the last thing I wanted to be doing in Peru is stand around staring into space wearing musty clothes. But when I saw this woman rounding the corner with my bag, I realized that she had left work to walk home to retrieve my clothes, then walked back carrying a 7 kilogram weight over her shoulder. This after probably being on her feet all day. So I walked home, still feeling slightly angry, carrying my bag of still-damp clothing and a healthy dose of perspective as well. Still, that's the last time I walk into a hair salon and ask them to do my laundry. That's solid advice for everyone, by the way.
Less sightseeing the past few days. Lots of rain, some studying, some preparation for the coming weeks. My last week of language school! My proficiency has improved, but I find that with every day comes new rules, new verb forms, new words, and it's all congealed together in my brain into a nearly formless mass. Hopefully given a little time and practice it'll become a little more defined.
Be well, everyone!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Ruins were built to last
The Incans, a people and culture that extended from about the 13th century to the early-to-mid 1500s, built things that have survived earthquakes, mudslides, and the yearly three month period from January to March in which the chance of precipitation on any given day is 100%. They did so with extensive slave labor, of course, but also with a sort of ingenuity and precision that is really awe-inspiring. What they built was designed to last, and no doubt much of what they constructed would still be standing today had the Spanish not disassembled much of it to build their churches.
Yesterday, I went to a set of ruins called Qorikancha, which is Quechua (the most predominant native language in Peru) for "Golden Courtyard." It was a temple devoted to worship of, primarily, the sun, though within the temple are rooms dedicated to the moon and the stars. Apparently much of it was actually plated in gold and silver, which was mostly melted down by the Spanish. It was supposedly the wealthiest temple in all of the Incan empire, and every June 24th it's one of the sites in Cusco where a massive solstice festival takes place. True to form, the Spanish built a church on top of it, but fortunately they left many of the structures within alone. I guess even they knew good work when they saw it.
As predictably happens at every Incan site, as soon as you walk through the front door you're set upon by tour guides hawking their tour-guiding skills, informing you that if you walk through the site uninformed by them, you're missing about 90% of what is important and that you will alwaysalwaysalways regret it. Which is probably true. This time I shelled out the 20 soles asked by one of the guides, and it was probably worth it. Within the site are several small structures, most of them with three doors of entrance. The stones used to build these structures are huge, but are fitted together with astonishing precision. In one room you can stand on a small stone pedistal and look through a window, beyond which are windows into other structures that are shaped identically and are in fact perfectly symmetrical within the frame of the first window. At some point soon I'll put up a picture on flickr.
At one point during the tour the guide showed me some stone blocks with small protuberances set in a wall. They seemed to be clustered together in one spot. He said that the shadows cast by the protuberances during each solstice cover perfectly protuberances in stones lower down in the wall, and that the wall is essentially a huge sundial. It's not known for sure if this is the purpose of the protuberances, but it seems a good theory.
This puts me in mind of a trip I took with the Sierra Club several years ago to the American southwest. There I was involved as a volunteer with the excavation of an archeological site once occupied by Native Americans. The site was bordered on one side by the face of a small cliff, and on this cliff were inscriptions, drawings, hieroglyphics, and engravings. Interestingly, an outcropping of stone high up in the wall cast a shadow against the wall that covered certain markings perfectly during each solstice. Awareness of nature's intrinsic rhythms is a common feature of preindustrial and aboriginal peoples. This is, of course, not new, and not unknown.
I spend a little time dwelling on this because it resonates a little with what I've been reading lately. The author I've been reading, a Jungian psychologist named Robert A Johnson, writes extensively about the unconscious as a source of creativity and energy. In fact, he suggests, the unconscious is THE source of creativity and energy, and finding ways of healthily accessing, encountering, living with, drawing energy and wholeness from the unconscious is essential to living as a healthy and intrinsically whole human being. If you don't, if you neglect the hidden forces within you that nevertheless shape who you are, you are almost certain to live unhappy and disconnected, or at least with the pervasive sense that something is missing. He broadly terms the work of discovering and healthily integrating your unconscious self, "inner work." Inner work takes a multiplicity of forms, including ritual, dream interpretation, spiritual journeys, and the like.
His mentor, Carl Jung, apparently spent a great deal of time with aboriginal peoples. He makes the observation that many such peoples spend much of their waking life - and their dreaming life, for that matter - engaged in inner work of one form or another. The days, the seasons, the years all had intrinsic rhythms to which they were attuned, and rituals of one form or another were common. Dreams were felt to be important and were openly discussed, and the unseen world of the spirit was felt to be close at hand, and was sought out and directly interacted with.
It's easy to reflexively believe that because aboriginal people were "closer" to nature that they were intrinsically better or happier people than us modernites. I don't want to make that claim. Like I said, the Incans built their amazing temples on the backs of countless slaves. But I do think that there are reasons that prehistoric people, those who lived lives not unlike the very first humans, invested so much time and energy in things like ritual and other sorts of access to the unseen world. One gets the sense that such things were not done apart from everyday life, but rather were directly integrated into everyday life. How many of the ills of Western modernity, both individual and collective - the depression, the anxiety, the alienation - have arisen because we have devalued and ignored as unimportant or without scientific validation things we cannot see but know intuitively are there?
Enough for now. Hope all is well at home. Scott Walker is, it turns out, a bigger tool than anyone anticipated, and with any luck he'll be recalled next January. Wish I was there to join the fight. This is actually not a bad website for on-the-ground updates.
By the way, here's my flickr photostream.
Be well, everyone.
Yesterday, I went to a set of ruins called Qorikancha, which is Quechua (the most predominant native language in Peru) for "Golden Courtyard." It was a temple devoted to worship of, primarily, the sun, though within the temple are rooms dedicated to the moon and the stars. Apparently much of it was actually plated in gold and silver, which was mostly melted down by the Spanish. It was supposedly the wealthiest temple in all of the Incan empire, and every June 24th it's one of the sites in Cusco where a massive solstice festival takes place. True to form, the Spanish built a church on top of it, but fortunately they left many of the structures within alone. I guess even they knew good work when they saw it.
As predictably happens at every Incan site, as soon as you walk through the front door you're set upon by tour guides hawking their tour-guiding skills, informing you that if you walk through the site uninformed by them, you're missing about 90% of what is important and that you will alwaysalwaysalways regret it. Which is probably true. This time I shelled out the 20 soles asked by one of the guides, and it was probably worth it. Within the site are several small structures, most of them with three doors of entrance. The stones used to build these structures are huge, but are fitted together with astonishing precision. In one room you can stand on a small stone pedistal and look through a window, beyond which are windows into other structures that are shaped identically and are in fact perfectly symmetrical within the frame of the first window. At some point soon I'll put up a picture on flickr.
At one point during the tour the guide showed me some stone blocks with small protuberances set in a wall. They seemed to be clustered together in one spot. He said that the shadows cast by the protuberances during each solstice cover perfectly protuberances in stones lower down in the wall, and that the wall is essentially a huge sundial. It's not known for sure if this is the purpose of the protuberances, but it seems a good theory.
This puts me in mind of a trip I took with the Sierra Club several years ago to the American southwest. There I was involved as a volunteer with the excavation of an archeological site once occupied by Native Americans. The site was bordered on one side by the face of a small cliff, and on this cliff were inscriptions, drawings, hieroglyphics, and engravings. Interestingly, an outcropping of stone high up in the wall cast a shadow against the wall that covered certain markings perfectly during each solstice. Awareness of nature's intrinsic rhythms is a common feature of preindustrial and aboriginal peoples. This is, of course, not new, and not unknown.
I spend a little time dwelling on this because it resonates a little with what I've been reading lately. The author I've been reading, a Jungian psychologist named Robert A Johnson, writes extensively about the unconscious as a source of creativity and energy. In fact, he suggests, the unconscious is THE source of creativity and energy, and finding ways of healthily accessing, encountering, living with, drawing energy and wholeness from the unconscious is essential to living as a healthy and intrinsically whole human being. If you don't, if you neglect the hidden forces within you that nevertheless shape who you are, you are almost certain to live unhappy and disconnected, or at least with the pervasive sense that something is missing. He broadly terms the work of discovering and healthily integrating your unconscious self, "inner work." Inner work takes a multiplicity of forms, including ritual, dream interpretation, spiritual journeys, and the like.
His mentor, Carl Jung, apparently spent a great deal of time with aboriginal peoples. He makes the observation that many such peoples spend much of their waking life - and their dreaming life, for that matter - engaged in inner work of one form or another. The days, the seasons, the years all had intrinsic rhythms to which they were attuned, and rituals of one form or another were common. Dreams were felt to be important and were openly discussed, and the unseen world of the spirit was felt to be close at hand, and was sought out and directly interacted with.
It's easy to reflexively believe that because aboriginal people were "closer" to nature that they were intrinsically better or happier people than us modernites. I don't want to make that claim. Like I said, the Incans built their amazing temples on the backs of countless slaves. But I do think that there are reasons that prehistoric people, those who lived lives not unlike the very first humans, invested so much time and energy in things like ritual and other sorts of access to the unseen world. One gets the sense that such things were not done apart from everyday life, but rather were directly integrated into everyday life. How many of the ills of Western modernity, both individual and collective - the depression, the anxiety, the alienation - have arisen because we have devalued and ignored as unimportant or without scientific validation things we cannot see but know intuitively are there?
Enough for now. Hope all is well at home. Scott Walker is, it turns out, a bigger tool than anyone anticipated, and with any luck he'll be recalled next January. Wish I was there to join the fight. This is actually not a bad website for on-the-ground updates.
By the way, here's my flickr photostream.
Be well, everyone.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Cooking and dancing
I'm sitting in a ridiculously loud internet café at the moment, courtesy of three Playstation-ready televisions and the Peruvian youth occupying them, so I anticipate this will be a relatively short post.
Yesterday I attended a cooking class, where the chef, speaking only Spanish, made a very good dish called lomo saltado. Potatoes (which practically everything in Peru contains), onions, tomatoes, beef, garlic, and a truly impressive amount of soy sauce, all stir-fried together in oceanic quantities of vegetable oil, and served with rice. Very good, and about as salty as seafood. Most of the other people in the small class spoke at least some English, and I got to chat briefly with a woman from New Jersey, mainly about the shady mechanic she was trying to prevent her father from taking her car to back home.
After the class last night, I wandered around the Plaza and the surrounding streets, waiting for my instructor, Sandra, with whom I later went out to have a drink. There's a small street off the plaza well-known as a tourist hot-spot. It's sort of like Waikiki on a small scale, with some other subtle differences. Anyway, it's also known as a place where drugs are frequently sold and where people in the employ of the police frequently set up sting operations to catch careless tourists and locals. I decided to walk down it and see how long it took before someone offered me drugs. Two seconds in, I got my first offer. Four seconds in, my second. Six seconds in, my third. There's so much marijuana in this particular street that you could probably just walk up and down it for a while and get high.
A little later I met Sandra, my instructor. She speaks more English than I speak Spanish, but there was still an impressive language barrier, which we manage to haltingly overcome. We first went to Paddy's, self-described as the highest Irish owned pub in the world. Afterwards we headed to one of the local clubs, where people were salsa-ing as effortlessly as most people walk. And I don't think this particular club was exceptional in that respect. Among my favorite moments of the evening was when the entire dance floor broke into what can only be described as a Salsa line dance. I could be wrong, but I think the line dance is an American export, which can be added to rock and roll and the national park system as good American inventions. A distant third, granted, but still, a good American invention.
And Playstations? On the whole, a bad Japanese invention. The number one cause of headache in me right now. Hope all is well, everyone. Glad to be in Peru, but I miss people back home.
Yesterday I attended a cooking class, where the chef, speaking only Spanish, made a very good dish called lomo saltado. Potatoes (which practically everything in Peru contains), onions, tomatoes, beef, garlic, and a truly impressive amount of soy sauce, all stir-fried together in oceanic quantities of vegetable oil, and served with rice. Very good, and about as salty as seafood. Most of the other people in the small class spoke at least some English, and I got to chat briefly with a woman from New Jersey, mainly about the shady mechanic she was trying to prevent her father from taking her car to back home.
After the class last night, I wandered around the Plaza and the surrounding streets, waiting for my instructor, Sandra, with whom I later went out to have a drink. There's a small street off the plaza well-known as a tourist hot-spot. It's sort of like Waikiki on a small scale, with some other subtle differences. Anyway, it's also known as a place where drugs are frequently sold and where people in the employ of the police frequently set up sting operations to catch careless tourists and locals. I decided to walk down it and see how long it took before someone offered me drugs. Two seconds in, I got my first offer. Four seconds in, my second. Six seconds in, my third. There's so much marijuana in this particular street that you could probably just walk up and down it for a while and get high.
A little later I met Sandra, my instructor. She speaks more English than I speak Spanish, but there was still an impressive language barrier, which we manage to haltingly overcome. We first went to Paddy's, self-described as the highest Irish owned pub in the world. Afterwards we headed to one of the local clubs, where people were salsa-ing as effortlessly as most people walk. And I don't think this particular club was exceptional in that respect. Among my favorite moments of the evening was when the entire dance floor broke into what can only be described as a Salsa line dance. I could be wrong, but I think the line dance is an American export, which can be added to rock and roll and the national park system as good American inventions. A distant third, granted, but still, a good American invention.
And Playstations? On the whole, a bad Japanese invention. The number one cause of headache in me right now. Hope all is well, everyone. Glad to be in Peru, but I miss people back home.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Continued...
Words of the day are on holiday, and will return shortly
Shortly after eating lunch at Pisac last Sunday, with my nausea under somewhat better control after swallowing some magic anti-nausea tablet generously donated by Catherine, we caught a taxi for the ruins of Pisac. The ruins lie far above the town of Pisac. It is theoretically possible to walk up a long, long, long path of inclined earth and stairs to get there, but if the arduousness of the descent was any indication, climbing would probably take ultramarathon levels of fitness. In my youth!
The taxi cost 25 soles, which is fairly pricy for a taxi in Peru. An error in translation lead us to believe that the trip would be 15 soles. "Veintecinco," or 25, was the driver's initial offer. Game, we replied "cincuenta," which we transiently believed to be 15, but which in actuality means 50. Naturally, finding himself to be among seasoned and hard-nosed hagglers, the driver grudgingly accepted our offer. Funnily enough, expert traveler Daniel wanted to move on initially, believing we could get a better price than 15. I think one of the markers of the professional nomad is an instinctive objection to paying more for something than one otherwise needs to. Fortunately, when we reached the top of the long, long, long and winding road that leads to the ruins of Pisac, the driver held us to 25 soles rather than our offered 50.
Like the ruins of Sacsaywaman, the ruins of Pisac rely bely description. They're built almost into the face of the mountain; also like the ruins of Sacsaywaman, one can't help but be amazed by the sheer manpower that must have been necessary to build such structures in pre-crane and pre-bulldozer times. There were many things of note at the site, and I have some pictures up on my flickr page. Two things to remark upon: first, the Incan inhabitants of the site buried at least some of their dead in the face of the mountain wall. After the Spanish arrived, a large number of these graves were plundered, leaving the mountain wall with an almost honeycomb appearance. Second, the Incans are well known for their ingenuity at terracing, in order to facilitate different sorts of agriculture in what is otherwise a less-than-forgiving climate. Pisac had amazing terracing, extending up and down the slanted earth on either side and beneath the ruins. A book I brought along suggests that, taken together, the shape of the ruins and the terracing, when seen from afar, is reminiscent of a condor. I'm unsure if I buy it, but the Incans are also known for building settlements and other sorts of structures in the shapes of significant animals, so I wouldn't put it past them. The terracing looks like massive sets of stairs, and they have held up extraordinarily well over the last 500 years, especially given the amount of rain this part of Peru gets in certain parts of the year.
We spent three or four hours wandering the ruins, at least an hour of which was spent slowly making our way down. It's amazing to me, the various lifeways people have adopted over the centuries. I could never live on the side of a mountain, I think, especially one as steep as the one the Pisac ruins lay upon. But people did it, for hundreds of years.
At the end of the day we sat on a second story balcony overlooking the market at Pisac. After that, we made our way back to Cusco; the return ride was much more forgiving than the ride there, for some reason.
Regarding Daniel's philosophy in the previous post, I definitely agree that many careers exist that are generally in line with the personalities and values of those who pursue them, and which require minimal to no compromise by those personalities and in those values. I guess what I found most compelling and, for me, relevant, is the fact that, particularly in the developed world, there aren't really any viable ideas or paths children and adolescents are encouraged to pursue other than that of a career. It's just sort of assumed and expected that you will pursue a career of some sort as a means to success or happiness. It's not so much that the idea is wrong for everyone, or even wrong for most people; rather, it's presented as this sort of self-evident path to follow. You aren't really encouraged to examine it, or even to ask for whom or for what you're pursuing a particular career.
If you're fortunate and mindful, and you spend time working out what you want to do and achieve and see and experience, and, for that matter, who you want to meet and know and learn from, you're likely to find yourself on a path that suits and satisfies and invigorates you. However, I suspect there are a significant number of people out there who never had the chance to really look deeply at those sorts of questions, or who were never encouraged to do so by those who had influence over them. And I think in a lot of ways the system as a whole does not encourage that sort of questioning.
In any case, thanks for reading. I have a flickr account for those who are interested, and I'll post the website as soon as I can log in to it, which flickr is not letting me do at the moment.
Be well, everyone!
Shortly after eating lunch at Pisac last Sunday, with my nausea under somewhat better control after swallowing some magic anti-nausea tablet generously donated by Catherine, we caught a taxi for the ruins of Pisac. The ruins lie far above the town of Pisac. It is theoretically possible to walk up a long, long, long path of inclined earth and stairs to get there, but if the arduousness of the descent was any indication, climbing would probably take ultramarathon levels of fitness. In my youth!
The taxi cost 25 soles, which is fairly pricy for a taxi in Peru. An error in translation lead us to believe that the trip would be 15 soles. "Veintecinco," or 25, was the driver's initial offer. Game, we replied "cincuenta," which we transiently believed to be 15, but which in actuality means 50. Naturally, finding himself to be among seasoned and hard-nosed hagglers, the driver grudgingly accepted our offer. Funnily enough, expert traveler Daniel wanted to move on initially, believing we could get a better price than 15. I think one of the markers of the professional nomad is an instinctive objection to paying more for something than one otherwise needs to. Fortunately, when we reached the top of the long, long, long and winding road that leads to the ruins of Pisac, the driver held us to 25 soles rather than our offered 50.
Like the ruins of Sacsaywaman, the ruins of Pisac rely bely description. They're built almost into the face of the mountain; also like the ruins of Sacsaywaman, one can't help but be amazed by the sheer manpower that must have been necessary to build such structures in pre-crane and pre-bulldozer times. There were many things of note at the site, and I have some pictures up on my flickr page. Two things to remark upon: first, the Incan inhabitants of the site buried at least some of their dead in the face of the mountain wall. After the Spanish arrived, a large number of these graves were plundered, leaving the mountain wall with an almost honeycomb appearance. Second, the Incans are well known for their ingenuity at terracing, in order to facilitate different sorts of agriculture in what is otherwise a less-than-forgiving climate. Pisac had amazing terracing, extending up and down the slanted earth on either side and beneath the ruins. A book I brought along suggests that, taken together, the shape of the ruins and the terracing, when seen from afar, is reminiscent of a condor. I'm unsure if I buy it, but the Incans are also known for building settlements and other sorts of structures in the shapes of significant animals, so I wouldn't put it past them. The terracing looks like massive sets of stairs, and they have held up extraordinarily well over the last 500 years, especially given the amount of rain this part of Peru gets in certain parts of the year.
We spent three or four hours wandering the ruins, at least an hour of which was spent slowly making our way down. It's amazing to me, the various lifeways people have adopted over the centuries. I could never live on the side of a mountain, I think, especially one as steep as the one the Pisac ruins lay upon. But people did it, for hundreds of years.
At the end of the day we sat on a second story balcony overlooking the market at Pisac. After that, we made our way back to Cusco; the return ride was much more forgiving than the ride there, for some reason.
Regarding Daniel's philosophy in the previous post, I definitely agree that many careers exist that are generally in line with the personalities and values of those who pursue them, and which require minimal to no compromise by those personalities and in those values. I guess what I found most compelling and, for me, relevant, is the fact that, particularly in the developed world, there aren't really any viable ideas or paths children and adolescents are encouraged to pursue other than that of a career. It's just sort of assumed and expected that you will pursue a career of some sort as a means to success or happiness. It's not so much that the idea is wrong for everyone, or even wrong for most people; rather, it's presented as this sort of self-evident path to follow. You aren't really encouraged to examine it, or even to ask for whom or for what you're pursuing a particular career.
If you're fortunate and mindful, and you spend time working out what you want to do and achieve and see and experience, and, for that matter, who you want to meet and know and learn from, you're likely to find yourself on a path that suits and satisfies and invigorates you. However, I suspect there are a significant number of people out there who never had the chance to really look deeply at those sorts of questions, or who were never encouraged to do so by those who had influence over them. And I think in a lot of ways the system as a whole does not encourage that sort of questioning.
In any case, thanks for reading. I have a flickr account for those who are interested, and I'll post the website as soon as I can log in to it, which flickr is not letting me do at the moment.
Be well, everyone!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Over the weekend
Words of the day:
serpenteante: winding
regatear: to haggle
quemadura del sol: sunburn
Over the weekend, I visited two sets of Incan ruins. On Saturday, I walked up to Sacsaywamán, a set of ruins overlooking Cusco. The word sounds a lot like "sexy woman," but it's false advertising. The ruins were used by the Incans to lay siege to Cusco after the Spanish came and took it over. In 1536 the Spanish, who I guess were strugging mightily to hold Cusco while being under constant attack from the forces of Manco Inca, managed to capture Sacsawamán with a cavalry of 50 men. Apparently thousands of Incan dead littered the site after the defeat, and the Cusco coat of arms includes eight condors in a kind of grotesque commemoration of all the carrion-eating birds who came for the dead.
The walk was a bit rough, mostly uphill, made somehow worse by the fact that Saturday was the first consistently sunny day in Cusco since I´ve been here. Black rain jackets absorb and conserve heat amazingly well, I found. Beyond the entrance to the ruins, there is a long and somewhat steeply climbing road, down which flew three teenagers on bicycles when I was about halfway up. I also was intercepted on my way up by a young man from Cusco who seemed very friendly and of course tried to sell his services as a guide once we got to the top, for 40 soles, which in Cusco is ridiculously expensive.
The ruins were, of course, astonishing, and no description or even pictures can really do it justice. A lot of the stones that comprised the old fortress were pilfered after Incan times and used to build churches and other structures in Cusco. But a not insignificant portion of the ruins remains, and many of the stones are astonishingly huge and correspondingly heavy, and were presumably carried somehow to the site by the Incans. And after that, they had to be shaped so they could fit together and not fall down whenever some Incan, exhausted from hauling several multi-ton stones up the hill, leaned against one for a rest. What used to be the fortress looks out over Cusco, and on the day I was there you could see for miles. Behind the fortress is a wide green pasture, upon which grazed a few alpacas. Behind that were the foundations of what are thought to be large towers and other structures, used in Incan times for shelter, and storage of food and water. I walked around for an hour and a half or so, then trekked back down. At the bottom of the aforementioned road I bought some orange juice squeezed right in front of me from one of several vendors selling the exact same thing. I got back to my host family´s home in time for lunch, with newly tired legs and, sadly and foolishly, a healthy sunburn.
Sunday was probably my most interesting day here so far. I spent the day at Pisac, the name of a town and of the ruins that overlook it from a mountain far, far overhead. I went with Catherine, who I think I've mentioned before as one of the other students in the Amigos language school, and one of her friends from the hostel in which she is staying, an extremely well-traveled New Zealander by the name of Daniel.
To get to Pisac from Cusco by road, you typically take un collectivo, which is basically a van driven with reckless abandon by a Cusqueño. After searching for about 45 minutes for the departure point, we sat in the back of the van and took off for Pisac, with, of all things, "Love Shack" playing on the radio. By and large, automobiles in Cusco have comparatively few frills, and one of the things typically done without is a healthy set of shocks. So it is literally possible to feel every single imperfection in the road, of which there are many. Between that, and the fact that in this extremely mountainous area of Peru most roads outside of town are switchbacks writ large, I rather quickly developed rather persistent nausea. Fortunately, I sat next to an open window; the fresh air was a good soporific. The driver rather fearlessly passed more than a few vehicles while heading straight into blind turns. In one case he passed a bus despite the presence of a large and uncomfortably close oncoming truck. In addition to healthy shocks, Cusqueñian vehicles lack what in America would be called "pick-up," and the oncoming truck flashed its lights at us for what seemed like several minutes before we pulled back into our lane. In general, whenever I ride in a taxi or a collectivo, I try to take comfort in the fact that every driver in Cusco seems to have a shared understanding that there are few, if any, rules of the road, and is able to switch from offensive to defensive driving seemingly without thinking.
Pisac is known for its massive outdoor market, and Sundays are typically the busiest days. After we arrived we wandered the market, and I purchased a rather nice handmade bag in which I placed several subsequently purchased souvenirs. Being from America it's a major switch to encounter merchandise without a price tag on it. It's expected that you will haggle, just like in The Life of Brian. For example, one merchant tried to sell me a very nice alpaca shawl. His initial price was 300 soles, which is around $125 dollars, give or take. Just by my trying to walk away from the guy he dropped the price to 100 soles. I probably could have gotten it for less, but my new bag was already a little heavy, and hiking the Pisac ruins lay ahead.
We ate lunch at a little restaurant owned and operated by a woman from Colorado. She sold healthy, vegetarian fare, and on a lark I ordered some kambucha, which is fermented tea, and in no way uniquely Peruvian. It actually tasted quite good, a little like cider, and it supposedly has any number of excellent health properties. So I'm not sure whether to blame it and the live bacterial cultures it contained for the return of my nausea, or just poor luck. Ultimately I ate very little lunch, and wasn´t able to participate that much in the very interesting conversation about career and personality types and success and the nature of happiness that Daniel and Catherine were having.
Let me say a little about this chap Daniel. He's a few years younger than me, intelligent, loquatious beyond belief, and a born traveler. He's from New Zealand, but has spent time in, among other places, the UK, Albania, and Thailand, and along the way has developed a coherent and detailed philosophy about his way of life (as your more committed and inquisitive wanderers tend to do, I imagine.) In part, he has a healthy and almost absolutist skepticism about the whole idea of "career," or a job to which you commit yourself over time, partly in hopes of advancement or the achievement of status. For him, the desirability of a career is an idea that is, in ways both explicit and implicit, taught to us from a very young age. It is taught even though having a career isn't necessarily appropriate for all people, or a sure or even likely way to fulfillment or happiness, and even though the idea may serve the system more than the people within the system. For him, the primary purpose of a career is the achievement of status, and status, for him, is empty, an accumulation of power and prestige and outward signs of success and wealth that ultimately doesn´t contribute to your happiness or to your development as a person. Better to avoid arrangements that limit your freedom of movement and choice, or that ask you to conform to particular expectations that may be inconsistent with who you are as a person. I actually think this last idea is probably what he was mostly driving at in the various conversations that the three of us had during the day. The idea of "playing the game" in order to secure some sort of advancement, even if doing so is somehow in contradiction with your own nature and your own desires, was, I think, the most offensive to him. I think I'm doing him justice, though he would probably quibble with a number of details, and would offer any number of qualifications and discursions.
I'm not going to get into what I think about all this, because I'm actually still thinking about it and working it out. Feel free to comment, though.
At this point, I'm going to break off. This post is already too ridiculously long. More later today or tomorrow!
serpenteante: winding
regatear: to haggle
quemadura del sol: sunburn
Over the weekend, I visited two sets of Incan ruins. On Saturday, I walked up to Sacsaywamán, a set of ruins overlooking Cusco. The word sounds a lot like "sexy woman," but it's false advertising. The ruins were used by the Incans to lay siege to Cusco after the Spanish came and took it over. In 1536 the Spanish, who I guess were strugging mightily to hold Cusco while being under constant attack from the forces of Manco Inca, managed to capture Sacsawamán with a cavalry of 50 men. Apparently thousands of Incan dead littered the site after the defeat, and the Cusco coat of arms includes eight condors in a kind of grotesque commemoration of all the carrion-eating birds who came for the dead.
The walk was a bit rough, mostly uphill, made somehow worse by the fact that Saturday was the first consistently sunny day in Cusco since I´ve been here. Black rain jackets absorb and conserve heat amazingly well, I found. Beyond the entrance to the ruins, there is a long and somewhat steeply climbing road, down which flew three teenagers on bicycles when I was about halfway up. I also was intercepted on my way up by a young man from Cusco who seemed very friendly and of course tried to sell his services as a guide once we got to the top, for 40 soles, which in Cusco is ridiculously expensive.
The ruins were, of course, astonishing, and no description or even pictures can really do it justice. A lot of the stones that comprised the old fortress were pilfered after Incan times and used to build churches and other structures in Cusco. But a not insignificant portion of the ruins remains, and many of the stones are astonishingly huge and correspondingly heavy, and were presumably carried somehow to the site by the Incans. And after that, they had to be shaped so they could fit together and not fall down whenever some Incan, exhausted from hauling several multi-ton stones up the hill, leaned against one for a rest. What used to be the fortress looks out over Cusco, and on the day I was there you could see for miles. Behind the fortress is a wide green pasture, upon which grazed a few alpacas. Behind that were the foundations of what are thought to be large towers and other structures, used in Incan times for shelter, and storage of food and water. I walked around for an hour and a half or so, then trekked back down. At the bottom of the aforementioned road I bought some orange juice squeezed right in front of me from one of several vendors selling the exact same thing. I got back to my host family´s home in time for lunch, with newly tired legs and, sadly and foolishly, a healthy sunburn.
Sunday was probably my most interesting day here so far. I spent the day at Pisac, the name of a town and of the ruins that overlook it from a mountain far, far overhead. I went with Catherine, who I think I've mentioned before as one of the other students in the Amigos language school, and one of her friends from the hostel in which she is staying, an extremely well-traveled New Zealander by the name of Daniel.
To get to Pisac from Cusco by road, you typically take un collectivo, which is basically a van driven with reckless abandon by a Cusqueño. After searching for about 45 minutes for the departure point, we sat in the back of the van and took off for Pisac, with, of all things, "Love Shack" playing on the radio. By and large, automobiles in Cusco have comparatively few frills, and one of the things typically done without is a healthy set of shocks. So it is literally possible to feel every single imperfection in the road, of which there are many. Between that, and the fact that in this extremely mountainous area of Peru most roads outside of town are switchbacks writ large, I rather quickly developed rather persistent nausea. Fortunately, I sat next to an open window; the fresh air was a good soporific. The driver rather fearlessly passed more than a few vehicles while heading straight into blind turns. In one case he passed a bus despite the presence of a large and uncomfortably close oncoming truck. In addition to healthy shocks, Cusqueñian vehicles lack what in America would be called "pick-up," and the oncoming truck flashed its lights at us for what seemed like several minutes before we pulled back into our lane. In general, whenever I ride in a taxi or a collectivo, I try to take comfort in the fact that every driver in Cusco seems to have a shared understanding that there are few, if any, rules of the road, and is able to switch from offensive to defensive driving seemingly without thinking.
Pisac is known for its massive outdoor market, and Sundays are typically the busiest days. After we arrived we wandered the market, and I purchased a rather nice handmade bag in which I placed several subsequently purchased souvenirs. Being from America it's a major switch to encounter merchandise without a price tag on it. It's expected that you will haggle, just like in The Life of Brian. For example, one merchant tried to sell me a very nice alpaca shawl. His initial price was 300 soles, which is around $125 dollars, give or take. Just by my trying to walk away from the guy he dropped the price to 100 soles. I probably could have gotten it for less, but my new bag was already a little heavy, and hiking the Pisac ruins lay ahead.
We ate lunch at a little restaurant owned and operated by a woman from Colorado. She sold healthy, vegetarian fare, and on a lark I ordered some kambucha, which is fermented tea, and in no way uniquely Peruvian. It actually tasted quite good, a little like cider, and it supposedly has any number of excellent health properties. So I'm not sure whether to blame it and the live bacterial cultures it contained for the return of my nausea, or just poor luck. Ultimately I ate very little lunch, and wasn´t able to participate that much in the very interesting conversation about career and personality types and success and the nature of happiness that Daniel and Catherine were having.
Let me say a little about this chap Daniel. He's a few years younger than me, intelligent, loquatious beyond belief, and a born traveler. He's from New Zealand, but has spent time in, among other places, the UK, Albania, and Thailand, and along the way has developed a coherent and detailed philosophy about his way of life (as your more committed and inquisitive wanderers tend to do, I imagine.) In part, he has a healthy and almost absolutist skepticism about the whole idea of "career," or a job to which you commit yourself over time, partly in hopes of advancement or the achievement of status. For him, the desirability of a career is an idea that is, in ways both explicit and implicit, taught to us from a very young age. It is taught even though having a career isn't necessarily appropriate for all people, or a sure or even likely way to fulfillment or happiness, and even though the idea may serve the system more than the people within the system. For him, the primary purpose of a career is the achievement of status, and status, for him, is empty, an accumulation of power and prestige and outward signs of success and wealth that ultimately doesn´t contribute to your happiness or to your development as a person. Better to avoid arrangements that limit your freedom of movement and choice, or that ask you to conform to particular expectations that may be inconsistent with who you are as a person. I actually think this last idea is probably what he was mostly driving at in the various conversations that the three of us had during the day. The idea of "playing the game" in order to secure some sort of advancement, even if doing so is somehow in contradiction with your own nature and your own desires, was, I think, the most offensive to him. I think I'm doing him justice, though he would probably quibble with a number of details, and would offer any number of qualifications and discursions.
I'm not going to get into what I think about all this, because I'm actually still thinking about it and working it out. Feel free to comment, though.
At this point, I'm going to break off. This post is already too ridiculously long. More later today or tomorrow!
Friday, February 11, 2011
The successful purchase of nail clippers
Words of the day:
cortauñas: fingernail clippers
memorizar: to memorize
acento: accent
It´s cliché, but you don´t quite appreciate all the little things you use from day to day until you go without them. Today I walked, in the rain, to the local market in search of fingernail clippers. I left the house without knowing what the word for "fingernail clippers" was, but it seemed like one of those objects for which the pantomime is probably close to universal. Fortunately, the market contained a little stall in which fingernail clippers were prominently displayed behind some plexiglass, so all I ultimately had to do was point. Probably the most exciting part of this little excursion is that, apart from the fingernail clippers (which I will now be able to name with confidence), I knew the words for every object I wanted to buy. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bag. Okay, the list isn´t very impressive, but I managed to ask for them all in complete sentences, and to understand the total cost as spoken by the shopkeeper, a girl probably no older than 13. A rousing success, I think, even if it doesn´t make for a very compelling blog post.
Last night I went out for drinks with one of the other students in the language school, who was staying with my host family before and briefly with me. We met some very nice Irish people, on the road for about three months now. At several points during the evening I found myself wishing, not for the first time and probably not for the last time, that I was Irish. Among other reasons, they are almost invariably warm and welcoming people, and they have the best accent in the world. The word "film," for example, has two syllables in Irish-accented English. Fil-um. Say it fast. See? Don't you suddenly feel like having a pint of Guinness?
As a consequence of being out carousing, or at least what passes for carousing with me, last night, I utterly failed to memorize the long, long list of Spanish words my instructor gave me yesterday morning. I therefore failed to shine in the daily quiz she gives me. However, I recovered a little by displaying a solid understanding of many irregular verbs. A solid C on the day, I think.
Tonight I´m going with my family to their daughter´s home for dinner, possibly followed by more carousing. This weekend I´m planning on joining a tour group out to some nearby Incan ruins, so I´m pretty excited about that.
Hope all is well back home!
cortauñas: fingernail clippers
memorizar: to memorize
acento: accent
It´s cliché, but you don´t quite appreciate all the little things you use from day to day until you go without them. Today I walked, in the rain, to the local market in search of fingernail clippers. I left the house without knowing what the word for "fingernail clippers" was, but it seemed like one of those objects for which the pantomime is probably close to universal. Fortunately, the market contained a little stall in which fingernail clippers were prominently displayed behind some plexiglass, so all I ultimately had to do was point. Probably the most exciting part of this little excursion is that, apart from the fingernail clippers (which I will now be able to name with confidence), I knew the words for every object I wanted to buy. Toothpaste, toothbrush, bag. Okay, the list isn´t very impressive, but I managed to ask for them all in complete sentences, and to understand the total cost as spoken by the shopkeeper, a girl probably no older than 13. A rousing success, I think, even if it doesn´t make for a very compelling blog post.
Last night I went out for drinks with one of the other students in the language school, who was staying with my host family before and briefly with me. We met some very nice Irish people, on the road for about three months now. At several points during the evening I found myself wishing, not for the first time and probably not for the last time, that I was Irish. Among other reasons, they are almost invariably warm and welcoming people, and they have the best accent in the world. The word "film," for example, has two syllables in Irish-accented English. Fil-um. Say it fast. See? Don't you suddenly feel like having a pint of Guinness?
As a consequence of being out carousing, or at least what passes for carousing with me, last night, I utterly failed to memorize the long, long list of Spanish words my instructor gave me yesterday morning. I therefore failed to shine in the daily quiz she gives me. However, I recovered a little by displaying a solid understanding of many irregular verbs. A solid C on the day, I think.
Tonight I´m going with my family to their daughter´s home for dinner, possibly followed by more carousing. This weekend I´m planning on joining a tour group out to some nearby Incan ruins, so I´m pretty excited about that.
Hope all is well back home!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Things that seem true
Phrase of the day:
"La alma es un verbo. No es un sustantivo."
or
"The soul is a verb. Not a noun."
... from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell
David Mitchell is absolutely my favorite author right now, introduced to me a year or two ago by a good friend. He´s a brilliant writer, and has this extraordinary knack for coining pithy and memorable phrases that sound true, or at least point at truth. Or at the very least are provocative.
The phrase above (hopefully somewhat accurately translated to Spanish) is spoken by a doctor, in response to an age-old question posed by the book´s protagonist: Where is the soul? The answer is definitely a rationalist's hedge; the soul is not something that the scientific method is going to locate and quantify any time soon, and no doubt early anatomists looked long and hard for it in their autopsies. I think the pineal gland was thought to be the seat of the soul for a long time, but I don´t remember that being taught in neuroanatomy. In any case, even if you believe in the soul, I imagine that you don't conceive of it as glandular, exactly.
But I like the answer, and it seems to me to be more than a rationalist's hedge in a lot of respects. Mostly, I like it because it implies that the soul exists but is changeable. We have care of it; we have responsibility for it. What we do, what we learn, what we strive for, what we devote ourselves to, how we behave towards and with others - it seems that these are born of and in turn shape the soul. At least if it´s true that the soul is a verb, rather than a noun.
Sorry this post is in something of a speculative vein. Mostly, I just liked the phrase and wanted to share it. Discuss amongst yourselves!
Briefly, in other news, I booked my Macchu Picchu hiking excursion today, with a departure date of March 2nd. I also spent about 20 minutes in a shop here that sells classical guitars, and came close to buying one. Most of the time I spent under the somewhat skeptical eye of the shopkeeper, trying unsuccessfully to tune a classical guitar against the background hustle and bustle of the streets of Cusco. It´s hard, you should try it sometime. I decided against purchasing one, since I have no idea how to string a classical guitar, and truthfully have enough to occupy my time otherwise. However, I miss playing, more than I expected.
Be well, everyone!
"La alma es un verbo. No es un sustantivo."
or
"The soul is a verb. Not a noun."
... from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell
David Mitchell is absolutely my favorite author right now, introduced to me a year or two ago by a good friend. He´s a brilliant writer, and has this extraordinary knack for coining pithy and memorable phrases that sound true, or at least point at truth. Or at the very least are provocative.
The phrase above (hopefully somewhat accurately translated to Spanish) is spoken by a doctor, in response to an age-old question posed by the book´s protagonist: Where is the soul? The answer is definitely a rationalist's hedge; the soul is not something that the scientific method is going to locate and quantify any time soon, and no doubt early anatomists looked long and hard for it in their autopsies. I think the pineal gland was thought to be the seat of the soul for a long time, but I don´t remember that being taught in neuroanatomy. In any case, even if you believe in the soul, I imagine that you don't conceive of it as glandular, exactly.
But I like the answer, and it seems to me to be more than a rationalist's hedge in a lot of respects. Mostly, I like it because it implies that the soul exists but is changeable. We have care of it; we have responsibility for it. What we do, what we learn, what we strive for, what we devote ourselves to, how we behave towards and with others - it seems that these are born of and in turn shape the soul. At least if it´s true that the soul is a verb, rather than a noun.
Sorry this post is in something of a speculative vein. Mostly, I just liked the phrase and wanted to share it. Discuss amongst yourselves!
Briefly, in other news, I booked my Macchu Picchu hiking excursion today, with a departure date of March 2nd. I also spent about 20 minutes in a shop here that sells classical guitars, and came close to buying one. Most of the time I spent under the somewhat skeptical eye of the shopkeeper, trying unsuccessfully to tune a classical guitar against the background hustle and bustle of the streets of Cusco. It´s hard, you should try it sometime. I decided against purchasing one, since I have no idea how to string a classical guitar, and truthfully have enough to occupy my time otherwise. However, I miss playing, more than I expected.
Be well, everyone!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Hot showers all day
Words of the day:
ducha: shower
contexto: context
In Cusco there´s this huge open air market, the Mercado San Pedro, where practically every type of food that one could possibly buy in Peru is available, sometimes with the heads still attached. It´s a true festival of sights and smells, and, as I spent only about 20 minutes there, I´m definitely planning on heading back. Fruits, vegetables, textiles, shoes, jewelry, clothing, and trinkets of various kinds are to be had for only a few soles. It´s kind of like a Super Walmart without the surveillance cameras and air conditioning and blue vests and greeters and OSHA inspectors and a bunch of other things, but with much more charm and probably much less exploitation of the workers. I´ll get pictures the next time I go. Anyway, I mention it partly because it also had a public bath, proudly advertising ¨Duches calientes todo el día," or, of course, hot showers all day. Hot showers are not so easy to come by here, at least if you´re a native. The hostels all advertise the availability of hot showers to potential guests. My host family has an electric water heater, that heats the water enough to provide about one hot shower per day. I know it's electric because this evening, when I touched the metal framing of the faucet, I felt a sudden and unpleasant buzzing in my finger. Then I thought to myself, so THAT´s why they have masking tape wrapped around the faucet itself.
I also managed to find a tourist agency today that made some tantalizing promises about hiking the Inca trail to Macchu Picchu. The government issues a set number of individual permits for the Inca trail, 500 per day I think, and they tend to go fast as various travel agencies sweep them up. They issue them at least a month or two in advance. Then, of course, would-be hikers fill the available slots pretty quickly. The fellow I talked to at the travel agency compared it to black Friday in America, which I thought was pretty astute, though if one had to hike four days in order to get your hands on the newest flat screen at Best Buy, black Friday would probably be less successful. At any rate, there seems to be a lot of availability in early March, so that´s what I´m planning on signing up for. They needed my passport ID number before they could book me, and of course I didn´t have it, so back I go tomorrow, when there will hopefully be at least one slot left.
One of my favorite things about Cusco so far is the random appropriation of celebrity images and insignia and other cultural artifacts of America. For example, today I saw Barney on a street corner, entertaining some kids. I´m sure he or she was trying to sell something, but I was too distracted to identify exactly what. Also, it is profoundly disconcerting to see things like a North Face store - there is one here - established inside a building that most likely easily exceeds two hundred years of age. Of course it has to be that way - razing the Spanish architecture to the ground to build a brand-spanking new building is not feasible, for lots of reasons. But I guess I´m just so used to the ultra-modern and somewhat sterile newness of things in America that doing it any other way is ultra-striking. Travel is broadening, I guess:)
Be well, everyone.
ducha: shower
contexto: context
In Cusco there´s this huge open air market, the Mercado San Pedro, where practically every type of food that one could possibly buy in Peru is available, sometimes with the heads still attached. It´s a true festival of sights and smells, and, as I spent only about 20 minutes there, I´m definitely planning on heading back. Fruits, vegetables, textiles, shoes, jewelry, clothing, and trinkets of various kinds are to be had for only a few soles. It´s kind of like a Super Walmart without the surveillance cameras and air conditioning and blue vests and greeters and OSHA inspectors and a bunch of other things, but with much more charm and probably much less exploitation of the workers. I´ll get pictures the next time I go. Anyway, I mention it partly because it also had a public bath, proudly advertising ¨Duches calientes todo el día," or, of course, hot showers all day. Hot showers are not so easy to come by here, at least if you´re a native. The hostels all advertise the availability of hot showers to potential guests. My host family has an electric water heater, that heats the water enough to provide about one hot shower per day. I know it's electric because this evening, when I touched the metal framing of the faucet, I felt a sudden and unpleasant buzzing in my finger. Then I thought to myself, so THAT´s why they have masking tape wrapped around the faucet itself.
I also managed to find a tourist agency today that made some tantalizing promises about hiking the Inca trail to Macchu Picchu. The government issues a set number of individual permits for the Inca trail, 500 per day I think, and they tend to go fast as various travel agencies sweep them up. They issue them at least a month or two in advance. Then, of course, would-be hikers fill the available slots pretty quickly. The fellow I talked to at the travel agency compared it to black Friday in America, which I thought was pretty astute, though if one had to hike four days in order to get your hands on the newest flat screen at Best Buy, black Friday would probably be less successful. At any rate, there seems to be a lot of availability in early March, so that´s what I´m planning on signing up for. They needed my passport ID number before they could book me, and of course I didn´t have it, so back I go tomorrow, when there will hopefully be at least one slot left.
One of my favorite things about Cusco so far is the random appropriation of celebrity images and insignia and other cultural artifacts of America. For example, today I saw Barney on a street corner, entertaining some kids. I´m sure he or she was trying to sell something, but I was too distracted to identify exactly what. Also, it is profoundly disconcerting to see things like a North Face store - there is one here - established inside a building that most likely easily exceeds two hundred years of age. Of course it has to be that way - razing the Spanish architecture to the ground to build a brand-spanking new building is not feasible, for lots of reasons. But I guess I´m just so used to the ultra-modern and somewhat sterile newness of things in America that doing it any other way is ultra-striking. Travel is broadening, I guess:)
Be well, everyone.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Dreams
Word of the day:
soñar: to dream
This won´t be so much about Peru as about some overnight experiences and thoughts. I don´t know if anyone else has had this experience, but have you ever awoken from a dream and, though you don´t remember the details, found that your feelings and thoughts seem to have a sort of continuity with the dream itself? You can´t quite articulate why or how. All you know is that, immediately upon coming to consciousness, you find yourself feeling a certain way and thinking about certain things, feelings and thoughts that, for all the world, must have been there before you were even aware of them.
Last night I awoke at about 2am, and immediately I was thinking about friends. I was thinking about current friends, and past friends, many of whom I´ve let drift away. I felt sadness and longing and regret for the friends I´ve lost - too, too many - and gratitude and longing for the friends I have. Perhaps all of this came about because last night and today were the first times since I´ve been here that I´ve felt a great deal of frustration at not being able to communicate with most folks, at not being able to share jokes or stories, at not being able to sit down to watch a movie with someone or to share a passage in a book. It is, of course, a temporary condition, and part of the point of the trip, in a way. Many of you know, I´m sure, that I´m far too reserved and self-conscious for my own good, and this trip represents a sort of immersion, both in terms of language and in terms of compelling me to be more social if I´m to meet people at all. It´s an unusual strategy, I´ll admit, but on an intuitive level it makes some sense to me. I hope it doesn´t sound completely off.
This is a little personal, I suppose, but until this blog goes into wider readership it seems safe to post it. More about Peru and language lessons tomorrow, hopefully. And hopefully I´ll have some additional travel plans to share before the end of this week.
Be well, everyone.
soñar: to dream
This won´t be so much about Peru as about some overnight experiences and thoughts. I don´t know if anyone else has had this experience, but have you ever awoken from a dream and, though you don´t remember the details, found that your feelings and thoughts seem to have a sort of continuity with the dream itself? You can´t quite articulate why or how. All you know is that, immediately upon coming to consciousness, you find yourself feeling a certain way and thinking about certain things, feelings and thoughts that, for all the world, must have been there before you were even aware of them.
Last night I awoke at about 2am, and immediately I was thinking about friends. I was thinking about current friends, and past friends, many of whom I´ve let drift away. I felt sadness and longing and regret for the friends I´ve lost - too, too many - and gratitude and longing for the friends I have. Perhaps all of this came about because last night and today were the first times since I´ve been here that I´ve felt a great deal of frustration at not being able to communicate with most folks, at not being able to share jokes or stories, at not being able to sit down to watch a movie with someone or to share a passage in a book. It is, of course, a temporary condition, and part of the point of the trip, in a way. Many of you know, I´m sure, that I´m far too reserved and self-conscious for my own good, and this trip represents a sort of immersion, both in terms of language and in terms of compelling me to be more social if I´m to meet people at all. It´s an unusual strategy, I´ll admit, but on an intuitive level it makes some sense to me. I hope it doesn´t sound completely off.
This is a little personal, I suppose, but until this blog goes into wider readership it seems safe to post it. More about Peru and language lessons tomorrow, hopefully. And hopefully I´ll have some additional travel plans to share before the end of this week.
Be well, everyone.
Monday, February 7, 2011
This is why they call it ¨the rainy season¨
Words of the day:
lluvia: rain
estar empapado: to be drenched
paraguas: umbrella
Two things happen in Cusco when it starts raining. First, the wide variety of taxis from which you can usually choose suddenly become the hottest items in the city. They´re like cabbage patch dolls circa 1985. You have to be ruthless to get your hands on one. Second, young women hawking cheap umbrellas and raincoats materialize out of thin air. It was almost magic to witness.
It started pouring at about 5pm this evening, around the time I was planning on catching a taxi back to my host family´s home for dinner. I was in the Plaza de Armas, and the ominous looking clouds that had been gathering for about the last half hour made lived up to their appearance. I actually had the initial good fortune to get a taxi, but the driver didn´t know the address and I didn´t quite trust my own sense of direction, so out I went again. That was the last taxi I would even come close to getting into for the rest of the evening. (Note to self: ¨Puedo indicar usted¨ seems a close approximation to "I can show you", and should be used in such situations from now on.) For a while I sought shelter under various eaves and awnings, but it became apparent very rapidly that the rain wasn´t going to stop anytime soon and that walking seemed to be in my future. So I purchased a cheap umbrella - cost S10, or about $3 - and off I went down the badly-named-for-today Avenue del Sol. The streets were almost rivers. I again found my way home after a little trial and error.
In other news, today was my first language lesson. The instructor is named Sandra, and seems as though she´ll be a good teacher. She told me a brief story about how, in Lima, where she is from, all the high school students visit Macchu Picchu during their last year in school. It´s like a Peruvian field trip. I thought to myself, well, we had the Lincoln home and Lincoln´s tomb. That´s kind of the same thing. At any rate, I think it was Socrates who said something about the only true knowledge being that you know nothing, and that sums it up nicely. I might have learned that from Bill and Ted, though.
Be well, everyone!
lluvia: rain
estar empapado: to be drenched
paraguas: umbrella
Two things happen in Cusco when it starts raining. First, the wide variety of taxis from which you can usually choose suddenly become the hottest items in the city. They´re like cabbage patch dolls circa 1985. You have to be ruthless to get your hands on one. Second, young women hawking cheap umbrellas and raincoats materialize out of thin air. It was almost magic to witness.
It started pouring at about 5pm this evening, around the time I was planning on catching a taxi back to my host family´s home for dinner. I was in the Plaza de Armas, and the ominous looking clouds that had been gathering for about the last half hour made lived up to their appearance. I actually had the initial good fortune to get a taxi, but the driver didn´t know the address and I didn´t quite trust my own sense of direction, so out I went again. That was the last taxi I would even come close to getting into for the rest of the evening. (Note to self: ¨Puedo indicar usted¨ seems a close approximation to "I can show you", and should be used in such situations from now on.) For a while I sought shelter under various eaves and awnings, but it became apparent very rapidly that the rain wasn´t going to stop anytime soon and that walking seemed to be in my future. So I purchased a cheap umbrella - cost S10, or about $3 - and off I went down the badly-named-for-today Avenue del Sol. The streets were almost rivers. I again found my way home after a little trial and error.
In other news, today was my first language lesson. The instructor is named Sandra, and seems as though she´ll be a good teacher. She told me a brief story about how, in Lima, where she is from, all the high school students visit Macchu Picchu during their last year in school. It´s like a Peruvian field trip. I thought to myself, well, we had the Lincoln home and Lincoln´s tomb. That´s kind of the same thing. At any rate, I think it was Socrates who said something about the only true knowledge being that you know nothing, and that sums it up nicely. I might have learned that from Bill and Ted, though.
Be well, everyone!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Super bowl Sunday in Peru
Words of the day:
cebolla: onion
palta: avocado (in Peru)
tocar el claxon: to honk the horn
por ejemplo: for example
First, a manilla folder update. It somehow managed to find its way into my checked baggage, meaning that I must have put it there after I picked my baggage up from the carousel. I´m a bit relieved that I wasn´t so despistado as to leave it on the plane. However, it´s unsettling to find that I was able to completely forget that I had put it there within the space of twenty minutes.
Anyway, today is much better from a fatigue/altitude sickness standpoint. Going up the stairs is still a bit exhausting, but my head no longer feels like someone is tapping on it gently but repeatedly with a ball-peen hammer.
Today I ventured out to la Plaza de Armas, which is the city center. In theory it´s a roughly half an hour walk from my host family´s home to la Plaza, but after a few blocks it seemed a better idea to get a taxi, as I was getting a bit short of breath. It´s uphill, you know. To get a taxi in Cusco, all you really have to do is look like you might want to go somewhere other than where you´re standing or walking. Sometimes you don´t even need to do that. Taxis are literally everywhere; they seem to be a main form of transportation for natives and tourists alike. To assess your desire for a taxi, the taxi driver will typically slow down a little bit, and honk his horn. If you make eye contact and give a nod after that, the taxi´s yours. Get in, say ¨Por favor, lleveme a la Plaza de Armas,¨and you´re off.
I spent only an hour or so wandering around la Plaza and the surrounding streets, so I think I should dedicate another post to it, after I´ve spent a little more time there, and seen the sights in a little more dedicated fashion.
This afternoon my host family´s daughter, son-in-law, three grandchildren, and son-in-law´s father came over for lunch. This made me quite happy, as it gave me a chance to give away the children´s toys I brought with me. These included two canisters of modular plastic pieces that you could snap together and apart to make different shapes and such, as well as what seemed like a baseball with a long vinyl tail sewn into it. It looks a little like a comet, except with a rainbow tail. Anyway, the toys seemed to be a hit with the grandchildren, the youngest of whom were ages two and four. The ball was in clamshell packaging, and as I watched the children´s father try to wrestle the thing open I thought for sure I was going to be directly responsible for the first clamshell packaging injury in Cusco. But it worked out okay.
I helped slice some avocadoes, and tried to learn the words for the different foods being prepared, with mixed success. The lunch itself was very good, with potatoes and beef slices and avocado salad and excellent soup that was at least partly made out of a squash. Following the conversation was essentially impossible for me, which is terribly unfortunate, because from about the 5% I was able to understand it seemed the topic of conversation was the global economy and how it affects Peru. There was also a hint of a discussion about water rights, which I believe is an issue in Peru in general and in Cusco in particular. The son-in-law seemed very knowledgeable and opinionated on matters; his frequent use of the phrase ¨por ejemplo¨ enhanced his credibility with me, anyway, even though I was generally pretty lost after that. I´ll get better!
As an aside, I´ve discovered that one of the most frustrating things about barely speaking the language of the country you´re in is the fact that you just can´t ask questions of any real depth or complexity. Similarly, you can´t answer questions with any depth or complexity. You´re limited to saying, por ejemplo, that it snows in Wisconsin. One experiences the culture just by being there, of course, but so much of culture is language and what is expressed in language that one invariably misses a lot. It makes me think that I´ll have to come back when my language skills have improved.
So at least one hostel in Cusco is showing the Super Bowl, so I guess I´m going to watch it with a bunch of drunk Americans after all. And me without my cheesehead.
Be well, everyone!
cebolla: onion
palta: avocado (in Peru)
tocar el claxon: to honk the horn
por ejemplo: for example
First, a manilla folder update. It somehow managed to find its way into my checked baggage, meaning that I must have put it there after I picked my baggage up from the carousel. I´m a bit relieved that I wasn´t so despistado as to leave it on the plane. However, it´s unsettling to find that I was able to completely forget that I had put it there within the space of twenty minutes.
Anyway, today is much better from a fatigue/altitude sickness standpoint. Going up the stairs is still a bit exhausting, but my head no longer feels like someone is tapping on it gently but repeatedly with a ball-peen hammer.
Today I ventured out to la Plaza de Armas, which is the city center. In theory it´s a roughly half an hour walk from my host family´s home to la Plaza, but after a few blocks it seemed a better idea to get a taxi, as I was getting a bit short of breath. It´s uphill, you know. To get a taxi in Cusco, all you really have to do is look like you might want to go somewhere other than where you´re standing or walking. Sometimes you don´t even need to do that. Taxis are literally everywhere; they seem to be a main form of transportation for natives and tourists alike. To assess your desire for a taxi, the taxi driver will typically slow down a little bit, and honk his horn. If you make eye contact and give a nod after that, the taxi´s yours. Get in, say ¨Por favor, lleveme a la Plaza de Armas,¨and you´re off.
I spent only an hour or so wandering around la Plaza and the surrounding streets, so I think I should dedicate another post to it, after I´ve spent a little more time there, and seen the sights in a little more dedicated fashion.
This afternoon my host family´s daughter, son-in-law, three grandchildren, and son-in-law´s father came over for lunch. This made me quite happy, as it gave me a chance to give away the children´s toys I brought with me. These included two canisters of modular plastic pieces that you could snap together and apart to make different shapes and such, as well as what seemed like a baseball with a long vinyl tail sewn into it. It looks a little like a comet, except with a rainbow tail. Anyway, the toys seemed to be a hit with the grandchildren, the youngest of whom were ages two and four. The ball was in clamshell packaging, and as I watched the children´s father try to wrestle the thing open I thought for sure I was going to be directly responsible for the first clamshell packaging injury in Cusco. But it worked out okay.
I helped slice some avocadoes, and tried to learn the words for the different foods being prepared, with mixed success. The lunch itself was very good, with potatoes and beef slices and avocado salad and excellent soup that was at least partly made out of a squash. Following the conversation was essentially impossible for me, which is terribly unfortunate, because from about the 5% I was able to understand it seemed the topic of conversation was the global economy and how it affects Peru. There was also a hint of a discussion about water rights, which I believe is an issue in Peru in general and in Cusco in particular. The son-in-law seemed very knowledgeable and opinionated on matters; his frequent use of the phrase ¨por ejemplo¨ enhanced his credibility with me, anyway, even though I was generally pretty lost after that. I´ll get better!
As an aside, I´ve discovered that one of the most frustrating things about barely speaking the language of the country you´re in is the fact that you just can´t ask questions of any real depth or complexity. Similarly, you can´t answer questions with any depth or complexity. You´re limited to saying, por ejemplo, that it snows in Wisconsin. One experiences the culture just by being there, of course, but so much of culture is language and what is expressed in language that one invariably misses a lot. It makes me think that I´ll have to come back when my language skills have improved.
So at least one hostel in Cusco is showing the Super Bowl, so I guess I´m going to watch it with a bunch of drunk Americans after all. And me without my cheesehead.
Be well, everyone!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Day of arrival
Words of the day:
suerte: luck
amabilidad: kindness
orinar: to urinate
despistado: absent-minded
Somehow I managed to arrive in Cusco without misplacing or forgetting every single thing that would enable me to arrive in Cusco.
So, there are several recommended vaccinations one must get before traveling to Peru. Being both responsible and highly interested in not catching yellow fever, I got them a few weeks ago. The travel clinic provides you with internationally recognized documentation - aka the yellow book - that you got your vaccines. Of course, I forget this in Madison. Fortunately, the state of Wisconsin maintains a public registry of vaccinations, so you can actually go to this kind of nifty website (www.dhfswir.org) and enter your name and social security number and see all your recent vaccinations in the state. So I printed my record out at my mom´s place, where I was staying prior to journeying to the St Louis International Airport on Friday. It´s not as official as the yellow book, but I figured it was better than nothing. And then I forgot to put it in the manilla folder containing all my travel documents.
So I fly to Miami, not knowing that I´ve forgotten this potentially important document, and get off the plane to discover a helpful text message from my mom letting me know that I´ve forgotten this potentially important document. Drat! Miami International Airport wasn´t exactly overflowing with internet cafes, so I descended upon the exclusive Admiral´s club, which was right above the gate where the plane to Lima was leaving. Did you know that a single-day membership at the Admiral´s club costs $50?
I asked the very nice lady who was guarding the door if there were any places in the airport where you could access the internet and print something out. It turns out the only place you can do this at Miami International Airport is at the very exclusive Admiral´s club (one day membership, $50.) She asked me what I needed it for. Then she informed me of the one day membership fee. Then she asked if I had an American Express card of one sort or another, which apparently would reduce the one day membership fee considerably. After it became obvious that I did not, she took pity on me and lead me back to the place where all the Admiral´s club members hang out - lots of pampering going on back there, if you´re wondering - and pointed me to the computers and the printer. So I somehow managed to reobtain this potentially important document. If you´re traveling through Miami, and you happen to stop by the Admiral´s club, please be exceptionally nice to the middle-aged blond woman with the eastern European accent sitting behind the desk.
In Lima I got through immigration and customs without being asked about my vaccination status. The Lima airport has a food court with a Dunkin Donuts in it. The long arm of Dunkin Donuts reaches even into the southern hemisphere. I just bought water, and sat in the food court for a little while trying to understand what was being said around me. It put me in mind of an old Steve Martin routine, in which he gripes that it´s like the French have a different word for everything.
The flight to Cusco was uneventful. However, I did something that I´m still stumped by. As the plane was landing (amidst very lush green mountains), I pulled out my manilla folder with all my travel information in it. I just wanted to check the name of my host family, as they were meeting me at the airport. I got off, collected my checked bag, and had a porter practically snatch my bags away from me to put them on a cart so that he could wheel them outside for a tip. (Note to self - be more emphatic in your ¨No, gracias¨s.) Unfortunately, my host family is nowhere in sight. I wait for a little while, during which time I am asked if I want a taxi about eighty times. I give up, and go back into the airport, where I open my carry-on bag to pull out my manilla folder, which contains the phone number for my host family and which as a result causes no small amount of distress when it seems to have gone missing. For a few minutes I just sort of stand there looking like a completely lost gringo from Wisconsin, then regroup and manage somehow to remember the address of my host family.
A taxi ride later, I´m in front of my host family´s abode. The maid lets me in, and the family themselves are not home. The Señora arrives home about ten minutes after me, thankfully, and tells me that they weren´t expecting me until tomorrow. But it´s all right; she´s exceptionally kind, as is her husband. He speaks a little English, and she speaks practically none, so she and I are like mirror images, essentially. Their home is very cozy, and my bedroom has a balcony so I can sit outside and read. They´ve already plied me with some mate de coca, which is supposedly good for altitude sickness.
Speaking of altitude sickness, so far all I have to show for it is some lightheadedness, as well as some tingling in my toes. The latter may actually be due to the acetazolamide, which is also causing me to urinate copiously. Hopefully this will be the last time I mention bodily functions at all.
As for the manilla folder, I have no idea what happened there. I either somehow left it on the plane, or put it down in the bathroom after I left the plane. Nothing in there can´t be printed out again at an internet cafe. But I think the next time I travel I´m just going to safety pin everything to my shirt sleeves, like kids´ winter gloves.
Don´t worry - the posts won´t all be quite this long. Be well, everyone.
suerte: luck
amabilidad: kindness
orinar: to urinate
despistado: absent-minded
Somehow I managed to arrive in Cusco without misplacing or forgetting every single thing that would enable me to arrive in Cusco.
So, there are several recommended vaccinations one must get before traveling to Peru. Being both responsible and highly interested in not catching yellow fever, I got them a few weeks ago. The travel clinic provides you with internationally recognized documentation - aka the yellow book - that you got your vaccines. Of course, I forget this in Madison. Fortunately, the state of Wisconsin maintains a public registry of vaccinations, so you can actually go to this kind of nifty website (www.dhfswir.org) and enter your name and social security number and see all your recent vaccinations in the state. So I printed my record out at my mom´s place, where I was staying prior to journeying to the St Louis International Airport on Friday. It´s not as official as the yellow book, but I figured it was better than nothing. And then I forgot to put it in the manilla folder containing all my travel documents.
So I fly to Miami, not knowing that I´ve forgotten this potentially important document, and get off the plane to discover a helpful text message from my mom letting me know that I´ve forgotten this potentially important document. Drat! Miami International Airport wasn´t exactly overflowing with internet cafes, so I descended upon the exclusive Admiral´s club, which was right above the gate where the plane to Lima was leaving. Did you know that a single-day membership at the Admiral´s club costs $50?
I asked the very nice lady who was guarding the door if there were any places in the airport where you could access the internet and print something out. It turns out the only place you can do this at Miami International Airport is at the very exclusive Admiral´s club (one day membership, $50.) She asked me what I needed it for. Then she informed me of the one day membership fee. Then she asked if I had an American Express card of one sort or another, which apparently would reduce the one day membership fee considerably. After it became obvious that I did not, she took pity on me and lead me back to the place where all the Admiral´s club members hang out - lots of pampering going on back there, if you´re wondering - and pointed me to the computers and the printer. So I somehow managed to reobtain this potentially important document. If you´re traveling through Miami, and you happen to stop by the Admiral´s club, please be exceptionally nice to the middle-aged blond woman with the eastern European accent sitting behind the desk.
In Lima I got through immigration and customs without being asked about my vaccination status. The Lima airport has a food court with a Dunkin Donuts in it. The long arm of Dunkin Donuts reaches even into the southern hemisphere. I just bought water, and sat in the food court for a little while trying to understand what was being said around me. It put me in mind of an old Steve Martin routine, in which he gripes that it´s like the French have a different word for everything.
The flight to Cusco was uneventful. However, I did something that I´m still stumped by. As the plane was landing (amidst very lush green mountains), I pulled out my manilla folder with all my travel information in it. I just wanted to check the name of my host family, as they were meeting me at the airport. I got off, collected my checked bag, and had a porter practically snatch my bags away from me to put them on a cart so that he could wheel them outside for a tip. (Note to self - be more emphatic in your ¨No, gracias¨s.) Unfortunately, my host family is nowhere in sight. I wait for a little while, during which time I am asked if I want a taxi about eighty times. I give up, and go back into the airport, where I open my carry-on bag to pull out my manilla folder, which contains the phone number for my host family and which as a result causes no small amount of distress when it seems to have gone missing. For a few minutes I just sort of stand there looking like a completely lost gringo from Wisconsin, then regroup and manage somehow to remember the address of my host family.
A taxi ride later, I´m in front of my host family´s abode. The maid lets me in, and the family themselves are not home. The Señora arrives home about ten minutes after me, thankfully, and tells me that they weren´t expecting me until tomorrow. But it´s all right; she´s exceptionally kind, as is her husband. He speaks a little English, and she speaks practically none, so she and I are like mirror images, essentially. Their home is very cozy, and my bedroom has a balcony so I can sit outside and read. They´ve already plied me with some mate de coca, which is supposedly good for altitude sickness.
Speaking of altitude sickness, so far all I have to show for it is some lightheadedness, as well as some tingling in my toes. The latter may actually be due to the acetazolamide, which is also causing me to urinate copiously. Hopefully this will be the last time I mention bodily functions at all.
As for the manilla folder, I have no idea what happened there. I either somehow left it on the plane, or put it down in the bathroom after I left the plane. Nothing in there can´t be printed out again at an internet cafe. But I think the next time I travel I´m just going to safety pin everything to my shirt sleeves, like kids´ winter gloves.
Don´t worry - the posts won´t all be quite this long. Be well, everyone.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Day of departure
Words of the day:
aeropuerto: airport
avion: airplane
estar mareado en un avion: to be airsick
I actually don't usually get airsick, though maybe this changes depending upon what hemisphere you're in. Anyway, today is the day of departure. At this time tomorrow I'll be in Peru, and about two miles higher than I am now. Somehow the elevation makes it seem like even more of a foreign country.
I'm hoping to update this blog on a daily basis while I'm in Cusco at the language school, during the next three weeks. After that it'll depend on further plans. I hope to hike out to Macchu Picchu, and if I can get a week-long hiking trek I'll probably do that. Also on the itinerary: the rainforest, for another week. It seems likely to me that the rainforest is one of the few places remaining on the planet untouched by the internet, so blog updates will probably be lighter during that time.
I'll still be checking email while I'm in Peru, so I'll be keeping in touch in other ways. Send souvenir requests! I'm looking forward to the adventure, but I'll be missing friends and family while there.
aeropuerto: airport
avion: airplane
estar mareado en un avion: to be airsick
I actually don't usually get airsick, though maybe this changes depending upon what hemisphere you're in. Anyway, today is the day of departure. At this time tomorrow I'll be in Peru, and about two miles higher than I am now. Somehow the elevation makes it seem like even more of a foreign country.
I'm hoping to update this blog on a daily basis while I'm in Cusco at the language school, during the next three weeks. After that it'll depend on further plans. I hope to hike out to Macchu Picchu, and if I can get a week-long hiking trek I'll probably do that. Also on the itinerary: the rainforest, for another week. It seems likely to me that the rainforest is one of the few places remaining on the planet untouched by the internet, so blog updates will probably be lighter during that time.
I'll still be checking email while I'm in Peru, so I'll be keeping in touch in other ways. Send souvenir requests! I'm looking forward to the adventure, but I'll be missing friends and family while there.
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