On-the-Road Tales

Went to Museo de los Ninos. An effort where a group goes into remote Incan villages, and work with the children to help them promote their culture and learn education through art. These kids have not yet been exposed to TV or the outside world and their works focus on what is important to them, ie nature. Each mountain is considered a god and contains a spirit, there are animla which also encompass this spirirt in another form, ie a condor. It is heartbreaking to see the condition under which they live and go to school. The Andeans are referred to as the forgotten ones since the government does not provide much or any assistance. SOme of the problems can be attributed to tourism since most of the men are off portering for the Inca Trail and are not home to repair the building etc. On the other hand they also make a salary that was not possible before.

It was Atties (Australia) last night so we stopped over for a Pisco sour, then headed to San Blas for amazing, less than 2$ hamburgers. Juanito had 12 different types of saues to dress up your burger, olives, garnish, berries etc. We headed to mythology for a dance session. Salsa is big here and it was fun to watch before it switched to a disco tech. The group Susan (UK), Maroes (holland), Attie (Aussie), Anabel (France), Sarah (Suisse) enjoyed the night and I bailed at 0130 as the young 18 year old dutch girls were still partying.

Life at over 11000 feet has its annoyances. For instance, since all the bottling plants are in Lima or other parts of the country at sea level – without fail – the bottles of water you open, especially with bubbles, overflow and make a right mess. This goes for anything closed ie it is fun to explain why you have toothpaste all over the place. No mentos needed here for spectaculer diet coike fountain displays! Additionaly, they do not warn you in the guide books that lotions utlising pumps are a bad thing because well the pressure differential just overcomes that little obstacle and squirts stuff everywhere. Liquids at this altitude boil at a lower temperature so the soups etc get about luke warm, nothing is piping hot.

We had some rather deep discussions in class yesterday regarding social problems in Peru, lopsided justice etc. It is better economically than in the past but there is still no employment for a majority of the country. It is necessary to pay for university but when you get out the only decent money is teaching english for instance. The pay might be 2$, considering we pay the school about 10$ per hour you wonder where the rest of it goes. Most people have several jobs just to make ends meet.

Another day of classes. Even after more than a week, it is very unnatural to get used to not ingesting any water, even to the point of wetting your toothbrush, all agua must be bought or boiled. The ... [Continue reading this entry]

I am a big fan of public transportation so instead of taking a 75 cent taxi ride, I decided to brave the bus. This morning I took a microbus to school. It is a crazy system but it ... [Continue reading this entry]

I met up with another student from the school at 0830 for a tour of the ruins just outside cusco on horseback. We went to several temples, ceromonial centers, baths and rode in the backcountry, it was impressive. Of ... [Continue reading this entry]

We took a taxi the hour back to Cusco for around $3.00 wach. That is an average wage here in Peru so with 4 people, the driver made many days worth. Petrol runs about $16 a gallon!! So ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bonfire went well, the only comon songs we could sing around the fire were John Lennon or [we are the World so we spikked the singing thing. The stars were amazing until the fork lightening started hitting the Andean ... [Continue reading this entry]

Learned the past tense today. It took us a whole year in highschool to learn this stuff, things move fast here in Peru. This afternoon we took the minibus up a road that would most certainly be condemned in ... [Continue reading this entry]

Classes today we learned the present tense. This will disrupt my pattern of saying everything in the present as I do now "yo estoy en Bolivia" No tu es en Peru "Si mas yo estoy in Bolivia despues" it ... [Continue reading this entry]

After class today, we piled into a minivan to visit some salt mines about 30 minutes away. As soon as we turned onto tarmac we were pulled over at a police checkpoint. THe driver apparently did not have ... [Continue reading this entry]