Colca Valley dancers

The evening we stayed in Chivay we had dinner which included local music and dancers. They did three different dances and I wish I knew the names of the dances and their meanings. I'm sure they had some connection to the history and legend of the area.

This is the band. I enjoyed their music. I thought the bass player on the back had more of the Amerindian look than the others.

These are pictures of Grant participating in the final dance. In the dance, the girl tempts the guy with the orange (seemed like Adam & Eve except with an orange) and then when he gets the orange, he dies.

Here she hits him with a whip. It does not revive him.

Then she dances over his head and poof, he is revived.

Chivay-Colca Valley

Chivay was our home base in the Colca Valley. It is the largest town of the valley, about 5,000 people. From basic appearances, life here has not changed much over the years.

When our bus arrived in Chivay, it was time for lunch. We all went to a nice little restaurant and could order either from the menu or have the buffet. It was a pretty good deal and included many dishes that were typical of the region. We had the opportunity to taste alpaca, guinea pig, cebiche, etc., if we wanted. There were many wonderful dishes, not all so exotic. This picture shows the inside of the restaurant. I didn't notice that the roof was thatched until we heard the wind pick up outside and then all of a sudden, "whoosh---" the roof picked up and slammed down and dust fell everywhere. The workers in the restaurant were running around trying to quickly cover the food and the tables.

This little boy was outside the courtyard of the restaurant with his llama.

This is a scene just off the square in Chivay. See the tables set up along the wall of the building. People were cooking right there on the street and you could get a bowl of food and sit at one of the tables and eat. I never did, but Grant ate breakfast at one of these portable restaurants the morning we were in Nasca. He said he had no idea what he ate. Luckily he didn't get sick!

A typical scene at the market. This is in Chivay. The large bags contain all sorts of grains and nuts.

This woman is cooking anticucho(barbecued beef heart) and papas(potatoes). It, too, is a popular Peruvian dish that you can find people preparing on the street everywhere. I was leary of trying the "street" version, because Grant had had a bad experience with it in Lima, but I had it in a restaurant and it was good.

This picture was taken around 6 pm on a Monday evening and the downtown area was hopping. People were everywhere --eating, laughing, talking, visiting, hanging out. I thought how different that would be from back home. On a week night. most of us go home from work and have supper in our own home with our family and then spend the evening watching t.v. It would be my guess that many of the inhabitants of Chivay did not have televisions and perhaps not even electricity.

Colca Valley

Here's a picture of Grant at the pass, the place where we made our offerings to the mountain gods. You can see that it is quite windy. Grant doesn't have a jacket on, but it was chilly and most of us didn't want to spend much time stacking our rocks.






This woman's hat is representative of the other indigenous tribe, the Collagua. The Andes mountains loom in the background.




This is the other plant that was in the coca tea--- the one the guide called "chacha culpa". In Cusco, later in the trip, we were at a ruin, high above the town, and I was not feeling well---a little nauseous and light headed. Our guide walked over and picked a couple of plants and told me to rub them together in my hands and then breathe them deeply. That helped more than the coca leaves. They had a minty smell and seemed to clear my head.

Colca Valley

This is the pass over the mountain to Colca Valley---elevation, 16,100 feet. This was considered to be the spot closest to mountain apus (gods) and the locals stacked stones and made offerings to the apus. Our guide let us off so we could make our stacks and wishes. Our guide encouraged us to chew coca leaves to alleviate altitude sickness. I didn't like chewing the coca leaves. They made my mouth numb and I didn't like the feeling they gave me.




Along the way we stopped at vistas, or miradors. There were always children dressed in traditional costumes of the valley. This little girl's costume is "Cabana", one of the ethnic tribes of the valley. Her embroidered hat is the distinguishing feature. The two groups still speak the native languages and in many aspects still live much the same as they have for years. The town of Chivay, the largest in the valley only got electricity in the 1980s.

This view shows the Colca Valley in the background and the town of Chivay. I don't know the elevation here, but the town of Chivay is at an elevation of 12,000 feet.

Bus trip to Colca Valley

We took a tour to the Colca Valley from Arequipa. There were about 20 people on our tour bus. The Colca Valley is about 3 hours from Arequipa by bus. We made several stops along the way. The road was quite desolate and as we went over the "pass", it was not paved, about 15 miles of it. These were the restrooms on one of our stops (the only stop with restrooms). They were quite primitive. The mens urinals were in full view as you walked up to the door of the women's restroom. Thankfully, there were doors on the women's toilets. There was a little snack place at this stop and we all had "coca" tea. Peruvians seem to believe coca tea is a cure-all for everything---altitude sickness, stomach aches, headaches, etc. The coca tea was basically coca leaves steeped in hot water. They also put another plant that I didn't know. I asked our guide and he said it was "chacha chulpa". I couldn't find it on google, so I'm sure I don't have it spelled correctly.

We drove through a wildlife preserve and saw alpacas, llamas, and vicunas. I didn't know before this that they are all cameloids, members of the camel family. But, after I learned that, it was very obvious. This is part of the reason that they can survive so well in the arid climate of these mountains.

This is the sign entering the vicuna preserve. Vicunas are the smallest members of the camel family. They are a national symbol of Peru and are protected because they were almost extinct several years ago because of poaching. Trade in their fleece was banned in 1975 and just recently begun again because the numbers are now up over 150,000, but the animals are still endangered and harvesting the fiber is under government regulation. The fiber is considered to be the finest and warmest in the world---even more than cashmere. Their fleece was worn only by the highest of Inca nobility.

You can see from this picture that these vicunas have recently been shorn. The guide told us that they are captured in the old way. A group of people join hands to make a human chain and encircle the vicunas and then they are captured and shorn. Peruvians like to participate in this activity, which only happens every 4 years, because it was the way the Incas did it. They are difficult to shear and only produce about 1 pound of wool a year.

We were high in the Andes here, on what is called an altiplano, a flat plain, where not much vegetation grows and the temperatures can be quite harsh. The altitude here was somewhere around 13,000 feet.

Here's a link for more information about vicunas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicu%C3%B1a

I know it's wikipedia and it isn't always accurate, so here's another if you're really interested:

http://www.essortment.com/all/vicunawoolwhat_rhwq.htm

More pictures from Arequipa...

Grant and I tried to eat where the natives ate as much as possible. Here we are having breakfast at a literal "hole in the wall". We were the only gringos in the place, which wasn't fancy and probably not the cleanest place we could have chosen. It was about 6:30 in the morning and the other customers appeared to be working men who sat at their table eating and watching cartoons on the television mounted on the wall (no, not a flat screen :-)). Here Grant is placing his order. In the bottles were concoctions of different colors and consistencies. I chose one that looked like some kind of orange smoothie and it was good. Grant chose one that looked like a cross between oatmeal and malt 'o meal. He also had a sandwich of bread and cheese, which is a pretty typical Peruvian breakfast food. Grant thought his was great and it must have been pretty popular because several of the guys also had it. It was served in a large glass and you drank it. Breakfast that morning for the two of us probably cost about $1, more or less.

This is one view of the Plaza in Arequipa. The red and green flags hanging from the buildings are Christmas decorations. See the taxis all lined up. It's crazy and they drive crazy. I tried hard not to think about it when we were in one. Once we were in a taxi in the middle of traffic on a one way street---I say middle, because they really don't observe the lane concept, they just make their own lane or ramrod their way through the middle if the cars in front aren't going as fast as they want to---and the driver decided we needed to turn right. So, we did; we just cut in front of the car in the right lane and made our right turn. It took my breath away.

Here's a dog guarding his rooftop. I heard him barking from the street and went to the balcony of our hostel to get a good picture.

Look closely and you can see another dog barking on this rooftop patio. His patio is connected to the patio of the dog above and they were barking like crazy at whatever--who knows...

More pictures from Arequipa...

Another parade....this one was on World AIDS Awareness Day. It even came complete with a giant condom. I wonder how many US cities had a parade for AIDS day and how many giant condoms were a part of them :-).

This picture was taken in the courtyard of the Museo Santuarios Andinos, where the mummy Juanita is housed. We were waiting for our tour to begin and I was trying to get a shot of Grant (see him in the background) and the lady walked through. It was perfect. If you haven't heard of Juanita, here's a link: http://www.frommers.com/destinations/arequipa/2881010012.html. Here's another link with a picture: http://www.fortunecity.com/millennium/lilac/3/juanita.htm

Juanita was pretty amazing and so is the story. Evidently when she was first discovered in 1995, President Clinton commented that she looked so good, if he weren't married he'd date her. He was trying to be funny, but evidently the Peruvians didn't think it was too funny, they called it tasteless.

Dogs, dogs, everywhere. This was the largest group of dogs I saw, but there were dogs everywhere---mostly alone or in pairs. They were "street" dogs, without a home. I tried to give some of them attention, but they weren't at all interested. They totally ignored me. They were in survival mode. This group of dogs looked pretty healthy, but I saw some that just looked pitiful. It was pretty hard to see for a dog lover. Grant said he talked to some of his Peruvian friends about spaying and neutering and they thought that was totally inhumane.

Pollo a la brassa---Peruvians love it and it is good. It is so popular that every little city has one and the big cities have one on every corner.

Evidently Peruvian men love to have clean shoes. Everywhere you go there are shoe shiners. Grant said he was once asked if he wanted his shoes shined and he was wearing flip flops :-).

This sign was on the inside of our room in Arequipa. I had to laugh when I read it. "Prohibido Fumar"---Spanish for "Don't Smoke"; universal sign for no smoking; and just in case you don't get it, "Don't Smock"!!! We get it :-)!

There was a parade on the square in Arequipa. School children were holding hand made signs and brooms, mops, and dust pans. I don't know the reason for the parade, but the signs said to keep the countryside clean. Someone told me there were problems with littering and destruction to monuments in the province. I thought the kids were adorable in their school uniforms. Public education in Peru is not good and most kids attend private schools---parochial. They all wear uniforms and look so cute. Grant said that there were parades all the time. He said every Saturday or Sunday there was a parade. This one happened to be on a Monday.

I was taking pictures of the kids and this boy flashed me a big smile. Most did not really pay any attention to me, but he liked the attention. After I took his picture, I showed it to him on the camera. His buddies all were looking and wanted their picture taken to, so I took the group. I wish I would have had something to give them. Later I read in the book that you can take a big bag of candy or a bunch of pencils to give to kids. I wasn't prepared.

This was the view to the east as we traveled south on the Pan American Highway. I was totally surprised that the mountains were so desolate.









This was the view to the west---the Pacific Ocean. These pictures were taken from the Cruz del Sur bus we traveled on. The bus was quite comfortable and served a full meal. Twice we traveled at night and the seats reclined and we had pillows and blankets.







This is a view of the Sunday market in Nasca. It isn't a great picture, but I was trying to be unobtrusive---Grant kept telling me to put the camera away. I was amazed at how the women carried everything in the "blankets". The woman in the center is carrying her baby. I watched one woman folding the blanket to carry a baby and was amazed that they could fold it securely enough to hold the baby and then manage to get it on their back without help. Obviously it doesn't take much to amaze me :-).

Nasca---Nasca Lines

These are pictures of the Nazca Lines. They are located near Nasca, which is south of Lima on the Pan American Highway. The lines were not discovered until the 1920s when commercial airlines began flying overhead. The lines were made by the Nazca Indians from 300 b.c. to 600 a.d. Many scholars have studied the lines and there are many ideas as to their purpose but no conclusion has been made.
This one shows the Hummingbird plus many other lines---some were thought to be landing strips.

Another view of the Hummingbird.
Here's a link for more information:
http://www.crystalinks.com/nasca.html










The "Dog".
We viewed the lines from a flight overhead. There is a tower, but you can only see two designs. I tried really hard not to get sick, but was not successful. The pilot did a great job, the weather was perfect, but I think the banking to see the designs just did me in. Grant had to take the pictures because I was holding a bag.











The "Monkey".












The "Astronaut".
It was not discovered until the 1980s.
This one makes you go "hmmmm?"











This is a typical street picture in Nasca, which is south of Lima on the Pan American Highway. The guys driving carts were interesting to me. Notice that there isn't any car traffic on this street. The average Peruvian does not own a car, but taxis abound. Everyone takes a taxi or some form of public transportation wherever they go---or they walk. And, everyone walks. But, these carts are also everywhere. People use them as portable businesses of sorts. Guys will drive down the street announcing their arrival either selling stuff or collecting recyclable trash. Some will drive their cart to a corner and sell fruit or juice, or some sort of food. Many will sell textiles or souvenirs. I thought it was interesting.

Trip to Peru

Here's a picture of Grant at the juice stand. I don't know how it happened, but this glass of juice-- just orange--- was probably the best glass of orange juice I've ever had. Grant says its the oranges---just sweeter. No styrofoam cups--- a real glass full of sweet, delicious orange juice. I loved how he used the peels as decoration. It was fun and demonstrative of the slower pace of life. People stop and enjoy their drinks or food---not grab and run like we are used to here in the States.





This was the view leaving Lima on the Pan American Highway. This was taken from the window of the bus. Poverty is everywhere and I couldn't really tell if these homes were inhabited or not. It seemed that they weren't. My guess is that the recent earthquakes probably left them uninhabitable. But, regardless, living conditions in Peru are nothing like what we are accustomed to here in the US. Basically the Pan American Highway runs along the coast, with ocean on one side and desert mountains along the other. The only green you see is due to irrigation. I did not realize that Peru is one of the most arid places on Earth.

Sharing experiences from Peru...

Here is a picture of the street outside Leo's house in Lima. I took the picture from the window of the bedroom I stayed in. Notice that the houses are right on the street with little or no front yard.

This bust of JFK is in a park in Miraflores, a subdivision of Lima. I thought it showed how worldwide his popularity was and I thought it was interesting how the facial features seemed to look Peruvian.

My trip to Peru was a trip of dreams! My first impressions were that here in the United States we take for granted so many things. We do not appreciate how fortunate we are and we are arrogant about the fact that we are "Americans". First of all, I better not ever run for public office because I will be accused of being "unpatriotic", but when you visit a country that has so little, but yet they are happy and proud of their heritage, you (at least I) come away with a renewed awareness that we are just one little aspect in the whole scheme of things. I believe that travel abroad does wonders to broaden your horizons and help you to realize the importance of diplomacy and how "pushing our weight around" in world affairs does little to make us "loved" in the world. Everywhere we went Peruvians asked us about Obama. They were excited about his election - one woman even told me "the world rejoiced the day Obama was elected." They liked to be asked about their president, too. Since I listen to NPR, I knew about Fujimora, but couldn't have named the current president. However, on a bus trip traveling south out of Lima, "Fujimora" and "Alan" were painted on fences and sides of buildings. Alan Garcia is the current president and Peruvians are pretty passionate about their opinions of his presidency. The lady who made the comment about Obama said that people in Lima like Garcia, but people in the provinces like Fujimora, who is now in prison. Grant said his friends from Lima liked Garcia. I asked a taxi driver who had asked us about Obama what he thought of his presdient and he really went off (all in Spanish, so I only caught bits and pieces) saying that he was a liar (Grant told me that) and that he had a son by another woman (I caught that). Anyway, I have to say that I was proud to say that Obama would be our president and excited to see that people around the world are feeling better about the United States.

My first blog....

Today I decided to start a blog. I've been considering it for quite awhile, but getting started was a big barrier. I don't really know exactly how it works, so this will be a learning experience. I hope you'll share with me too as we go on this journey!