Peru: Spanish Intensive and Cultural Immersion

The end of a fantastic trip.  Very sad, though I look forward to my education classes that start… ah! Monday!First of all, I would like to thank the people of Peru for their hospitality, and for never robbing, or trying to rob me.  I had virtually no, none, zilch, nada problems with regard to personal safety or the safety of my belongings.  My Lonely Planet guidebook initially had me distrusting everything, but their warnings were overstated, and I learned that pretty fast.I would like to thank everyone involved at Fairplay in Cuzco, especially John, Nayut, and Carmen.  I would like to thank Lake Titikaka for being so enchanting, and thank God for waiting to dump rain on Peru until after I left Machu Picchu.  I really did get lucky.And now, in these final moments before I rush back to my hostel where my bag is being stored, grab one more quick shower and head to the airport, where are my thoughts concerning all that has just transpired(question mark)I am grateful.  It is absurd that my college is intelligent enough to award credit for such an academic adventure.  Every traveler that I told my circumstances to was in awe that I get the opportunity to go to college at such a unique place.  Thank you Prescott College.Peru differs from India and Nepal in that it feels much less exotic, and the culture seems closer to the United States than in Asia.  I could live in Peru, and judging by what Ive heard about the need for English teachers, I just might at some point.I am invigorated to go back home, and complete my teaching degree.  My Spanish has improved a lot, and I will continue my attempt to grasp the language once I return to the US.Thank you to everyone who followed along on the blog, I apologize for the lack of entries for the week or so that I was on the beach.  This is a big, beautiful world we live in, and I feel blessed for the opportunity to meander about it.Cheers.Salud.

And thus it has become my last day in Peru.  Muy trieste.I would like to write some grand opus testifying to my experience, but alas, the day is short, and this computer at my hostal is free and communal, so I cannot take up too much time.  Alas, ten short hours until I must depart for the airport.Lima isnt so bad, just another big city.  Much nicer than Delhi.I will leave you with this, on my last correspondence from abroad.  Traveling is dandy, enriching and dream fulfilling.  But what we do with these experiences when we return to our home countries, that is the true test of all that we have learned abroad.  To be courteous respectful and cautious in ones own country, and not to only behave that way while traveling, is the goal.There will be a narrative account of this entire trip available soon, something Im going to complete for class.Off to enjoy my last day in Lima!  Cheers!  Ciao!  Thanks to everyone for reading!John

 Sadly… spanish classes in Peru have come to an end, after 56 hours of instruction.  Pictured at left is Carmen, my Practica teacher, who led me around the city and helped me run errands when I needed a fluent speaker by my side.  On the right side is Nayut, my classroom teacher, who painstakingly ran me through the schools Basico I,II and Intermedio I program in three weeks.  It was difficult to say goodbye, after seeing them nearly on a daily basis for almost my entire time in Peru.

Before class I ran to the artesan market and hunted for gifts for my profesoras.  With the first money I´d given her, Nayut had bought earrings she thought were silver, only to find out that they were an incredibly cheap knock off after a few days wearing them.  I found her new earrings.  I bought Carmen a very nice white scarf, which may or may not be made from Alpaca.  While the two presents were being wrapped, I saw how uneven the sizes of the two presents were, and was sure that I would be interrogated if one present was larger than the other.  Quickly, as I was already late for my last day of class, I bought some knitted gloves for Nayut and threw them in with her earrings.  The wrapped presents were nearly identical in size.

They appreciated their presents, and we had heartfelt goodbyes throughout the morning.  As our last mission, Carmen and I went to a photo shop and printed two copies of the picture above.  One for Carmen, and one for Nayut.

I shall say goodbye to my host family over drinks tonight, and then head to the Plaza de Armas for my last look at the main square of the city.  I leave for Northern Peru tomorrow morning.  Until then, cheers!

Arriving yesterday, I did not realize the impact the heavy rains over the weekend had on the entire country.  Thousands of people have seen their homes washed away, Cuzco was without piped-in water for a few days, and thousands were stranded in the area around Machu Picchu with an ever dwindling supply of food and water.All day, and yesterday, helicopters have been flying overhead in Cuzco, rescuing stranded tourists from the area around Machu Picchu.  Apparently, the cash machines ran out of money as they could not be refilled from other cities, and people were running out of money to buy food and water.  I believe most of the tourists have been airlifted out, though I suspect a few remainl.  However, stranded tourists are the least of the problems created by the flooding.Thousands of people have lost their homes, and there was a large donation drive set up in the Plaza de Armas all day today.  From what I´ve gathered, these people have lost everything, and the things most desired are tents and sleeping bags to shelter the now homeless families.  ¨We are the world¨by Michael Jackson and company echoed through the square all day, and when I arrived to donate a large case of bottled water, I received applause from all those volunteering.  It was encouraging to see many tourists bring armfuls of donations to help the masses affected by the flooding.This is the situation.  Moving on…My intention is to move on from Cuzco in the next few days, however every time I peruse flights to Lima I get terrified and shift my attention to something else.  I have been in and out of Cuzco for nearly a month, and I am charmed extremely by this city.  Walking past ancient churches and through cobblestone streets on a daily basis is an experience I have not had before, and it is invigorating and inspiring.  I am curious to explore the north of Peru, for it has pre-Inca ruins that are nearly as inspring as Machu Picchu.  The Incas ruled Peru for about 100 years, the pre-Incan Wari Indians ruled the area for over 1000 years.  Their ruins are intriguing.My last day of classes are tomorrow, where my teachers have warned me in advance of a crying spell that will most likely come over them.  I do not know when I shall leave Cuzco, as it is terribly difficult, but the time will most likely come sometime next week.Stay tuned.

And so it began.  On Monday morning I made my way to the dock in Puno, scouting for any boat that would take me to the islands in the world´s highest navigable lake.  I jumped on board with a mix of tourists and locals, and we started our journey towards the horizon.   Lake Titikaka has recently been named to the ¨New 7 Natural Wonders of the World, a fact that was promenaded throughout posters on our boat.  The first island on our tour was Isla Flotante, literally meaning: The Floating Island.  Which is exactly what it is.The houses are made of the same thing the island is: incredibly buoyant reeds called turturo, which have been laid down in the lake to make the island float.  The reeds on the bottom continuously rot, so new reeds are applied often.  My fascination with alternative architecture (remember the yurt) was peaked at the innovation from these island dwellers.  From boats to houses to kindling to toys, the turturo reeds are utilized  for everything.We continued on for the three hour journey to Isla Amantani, where we would all be spending the night.  As we neared the harbor, The Captain of our humble ship came and sat down next to me, inquiring if I had a family to stay with for the night.  I replied I did not, and The Captain invited me to stay with his family, all meals included, for around $8.  Honored, I obliged.Three other travelers were staying with The Captain as well, all of us almost exactly the same age.  A  couple (Chilean and French), a German girl, and me.  Once off the boat we all loaded our packs and followed The Captain´s wife through the cobblestone paths to her house.  Isla Amantani is a giant garden dotted with homes.  There are no cars, only well constructed cobblestone paths throughout the entire island.  Most, if not all, the food is grown on the island, and it makes for quite the landscape.When we settled into the house, we were served a delicous lunch of soup, fresh fish, potatoes, and rice.  Shortly after we began our hike to the ruins.The cobblestone was easily followed as it meandered up the hill out of the center of town.  Esteban (from Chile) continuously asked locals for directions in any case just to make conversation.  An incredibly nice guy, he even helped a woman carry a large bag full of clothes that she was walking to sell at the ruins.  (Picture below)We marveled at the view at the top of the hill for about an hour, and then the afternoon air began to get very cold.  A series of vendors had lined up along the path by then, and in my frenzied state of cold, I bought a ridiculous Alpaca sweater.  A bit flashy, it kept me incredibly warm, and afforded me multiple compliments from passing tourists.  Sadly, I do not have a picture.  The view from the top of the ruins: (one view, at least)

After the hike was another delicious dinner, and shortly after dinner was a party in town.  All the other tourists´came dressed up in local attire, and the four of us had the only family who didn´t insist we come to the party dressed up.  I was a bit relieved, most of them were out of costume by the end of the night.  The clothes did seem a bit difficult to dance in.

It was raining heavily once the party wrapped up, and the four of us walked a hurried pace back to The Captain´s house, getting lost a few times on the way (most of the houses didn´t have electricity, and the path was incredibly dark).

The next day included a trip to another island, Isla Taquile.  The Island did not look like much from the dock, but alas, it was even more beautiful than Amantani, which was hard to beat.  Unfortunately, do to this fact, I did not bring my camera, but imagine the pictures above with better weather and a more vibrant shade of blue from Lake Titikaka.  I encourage you to scout the internet for photos of this island, it is incredibly beautiful.

In any case, I am back on the mainland, in the port city of Puno.  My bus back to Cuzco leaves at 6am tomorrow, and tomorrow evening I have my third Clase de Cocinar at Fairplay, which is always a blast, something I cannot miss.  John has told me this specific class is special, where the teachers each cook a three course meal, competing against one another.

Thursday and Friday shall be my last days of spanish classes at Fairplay.  I do plan to play volleyball on Saturday as a kind of last hurrah, it is very sad and hard to leave the community at the school.

Monday I plan to fly to Lima and then explore the North of Peru, all the while compiling my portfolio for this course.

All is very well, more to come! Ciao!

For weeks my Practica teacher Carmen has been raving about ¨Sexy Woman¨, a monument high in the hills of Cuzco.  We ventured there Friday morning, and I realized my interpretation of the location had been misinterpreted.  Behold, ¨Sexy Woman¨:

Boy was I wrong.

Saqsaywaman is a park that houses a group of ruins high above Cuzco.  Frames of giant stone complexes dot the landscape in the hills.  A more modern creation is a giant statue of Jesus that dominates the hillside, and is visible from downtown Cuzco.

Carmen and I meandered around the ruins for our two hour  class, reviewing vocabulary and holes in my conversational Spanish.  I had my grammar class immediately after my visit to Saqsaywaman, after which my other profesora, Nayut, helped me purchase a ticket to Arequipa for that same night.

I do not like night buses.  I find them to be unsafe and a terrible nights sleep, but  they are economical as you combine the cost of transport and the assumed cost of a hotel room into one easy package.  Nonetheless we all arrived safely into Arequipa at 5;00 in the morning.

Arequipa is a modern city with a beautiful downtown square.  Almost identical to the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco, the Plaza de Armas in Arequipa is a bit more polished, as is the city in general.  The city boasts a variety of touristical sights;  an ancient monastery that is a city unto itself, an Ice Queen museum featuring an ancient mummy, and countless others I did not visit.  I spent a day wandering through the clean streets and seeing the sights, then continued on to Puno the next day.

Puno is on the west bank of Lake Titikaka, the worlds highest navigable lake.  When I arrived at the block of hotels in downtown, it was raining so hard that I took the first one I looked at.  When the rain let up, I ventured into the streets looking for food.

Street food is always delicious, and always cheap.  The local specialties in Peru are beef or chicken shishkabob, with a whole potato.  What kind of potato I am not sure, there are over 5000 varieties in Peru.  On the hunt for local cuisine, I decided to follow the billows of smoke that escaped into the sky above the buildings.  A sure sign of street vendors. 

What I stumbled upon was a huge party.  The single billows of smoke I saw were actually at least a dozen; noble vendors cooking for hungry (and drunk) party go-ers. 

I ate my dinner, drank a beer, and danced with the locals.  I was thrown in the middle of every dance circle I entered, and paired with very traditionally dressed women from Puno.  When the rain began to pick up to the point of discomfort, most people filed out, though the band played on. 

This video is taken just outside the gates of  the official party, though obviously the fun could not be contained.  If I were to call it anything, this is the parade portion of the night.

Tomorrow morning I shall head to the dock at Lake Titikaka, and find a boat for Isla Taquile, where I shall spend the night.  From what I understand there are no hotels on the island, only homestays.   

The air is thin at this altitude, and it is nice to soak up.  After Taquile, I shall return to Cuzco where I will finish my last two days of spanish courses before flying to Lima and exploring the north of Peru.  The adventure continues… Ciao.

If anyone was previously curious about what roast guinea pig looks like… there you go.  It was all over the giant party in San Sebastian, the neighborhood where I lived for two weeks before moving yesterday.

Oh what a party it was!  You could hardly move through the plaza, it seemed there were four or five parades going on at once.  Dancers from all over southern Peru came to this fiesta, which started a few days ago, and shall last into the weekend.   Today, however, was the pinnacle, the holiday when either 1. Saint Sebastian was executed or 2. The date a large statue of San Sebastian was presented to the city and gave it its namesake.

My profesora and I began by pushing our way through the crowd to view a series of dancers with elaborate costumes.  After seeing at least a half dozen, we pushed our way into the church, where the masses had congregated to worship Saint Sebastian.  We bought candles and participated in the ceremonial like atmosphere inside.  Carmen informed me that I was required to take off my prized sombrero when entering the church.

 All is going very well.  I very much like living closer to the city center and being able to walk to class every day.  Cooking class tonight… in fact, right now!  Ciao!

When I returned to my homestay after Machu Picchu, Manchi, the grandmother of the house, seemed outside her usual jovial self, and preoccupied with things outside the family home, and even outside of Cuzco.  It is my understanding that her uncle became ill, and has now passed.  While she has still been lively and easy to joke with the last few days, there has been a look in her eyes that I had not seen before.  Today marked two weeks living with her family, and it seemed appropriate to move on to another location to allow for time to be devoted to other causes.

Classes continue, I have had two this week and have five more days left.  I have moved near the center of Cuzco, within walking distance of Fairplay.  This weekend I plan to travel to Lake Titikaka, and finish my time at spanish school sometime next week.  This is the update, Ciao.

I was out the door by 5 a.m.  I opted to walk; out of the canyon and into the hills to Machu Picchu.  A beautiful climb that I may have underestimated.   I walked a fast pace, my father´s pace, up steep stone steps for over an hour.  I was passed by no one, and I overtook a few breathless hikers.  The first 400 visitors per day at Machu Picchu receive free tickets to hike the tallest peak in the ruins, Huaynu Picchu.  Amongst the thousands that would visit today, I wanted desperately the opportunity to not only see Machu Picchu, but see it from its highest point.

The trail from the Canyon to Machu Picchu goes nearly straight up via hundreds of stone steps, and one must cross the bus road more than a few times in between stairwells.  As I heard each bus go by, I began to resent those on it.  I was dripping with sweat trying to make the first 400, while the masses were being shuttled the thousand feet that I was climbing.

When I arrived to the gate at 6:15 hundreds of people were already congregated outside the ticket office.  You could tell those who had hiked, and those who did not.  The hikers were drenched in sweat, the busers still had sheen from their conditioner in their hair.  I was exhausted

I didn´t make the first four hundred, and thus hiking the tall peak seemed out of reach.  When I got inside the gates, I strolled through one of the farming tiers and sat down to eat an orange.  Once I was finished, I heard a familiar voice.  ¨Hola!  Juan!  Amigo!  Que tal!¨ It was a Bolivian guy who  I had first chatted with at the hotsprings, then run into again the day previous as well. 

He told me he was the first in line, he started hiking at around 4am.  He hated the altitude, and while his wife and daughter planned to hike Huayna Picchu, it wasn´t for him.  In Spanish I told him how I had marched to try to be within the first four hundred, and without hesitation pulled out his ticket and asked me for mine.  With a counterfitters precision, he carefully peeled the staple off of his main ticket, and re applied the staple with the smaller Huayna Picchu ticket onto mine.  It was perfect. 

I was so happy, I expressed my gratitude and actually tried to give him a hug, but after the hike I was still a bit sweaty, so Ricardo tapped me on the shoulder and courteously moved away.  I thanked him again and again, and he went to rejoin his family.  My ticket read that I could climb Wayna Picchu at 10:00.

It was still quite early in the morning, and the city in the clouds was indeed just that.  I was told the fog would clear around ten or eleven, so I hiked away from the crowds for an hour to Intipunka, The Gate of the Sun.  The stone structure is set up so that a magnificent effect occurs once the sun peeks up from the mountains, though fog was still thick and it seemed unlikely.  Fortunately, Ricardo, one of the nicest people I have ever met, sat down next to me to chat for an hour. 

When I told him I was from near San Francisco, he cracked a little joke.  ¨Well… you are from the Golden Gate and here you are now at The Gate of the Sun.¨ In the course of our hour dialogue he made many statements of grandeur and truth, all with a humble, gentile sense of humor that made the morning worthwhile.  When the sun failed to shine through the gate, I bid him farewell, and started towards Huayna Picchu. 

Immediately almost-vertical steps rose up the side of the cliff face as if a stairwell into the clouds.  Everyone was immediately exhausted, and even in the first few minutes we were a sore-looking lot.  Huffing and panting, gasping for the guardrail.  It was an incredibly difficult climb.  After one hour of walking ancient, vertical steps, I made it to the top to see an Argentine with his shirt off waving his flag back and forth, screaming enthusiastically in Spanish.  The view from the top:

This was by far the best spot at the ruins.  Up so high, it afforded a bird´s eye view of the ruins, and panoramic views of the surrounding valley.  After spending at least a few minutes catching my breath, I headed back down, which was almost as difficult as the climb up.  I toured the main part of the city for awhile, and climbed back down the stone staircase into the valley. 

I was beyond exhausted when I finally reached town.  I collapsed at a table at the first cheap restaurant I saw, and had a four-course lunch for $5.  After the meal I received my backpack that I had stowed at my hotel, and caught the train out of Aguas Calientes for Ollaytaytambo. 

I wish I could reflect on some aspect of Machu Picchu that hasn´t already been beaten to death.  But I probably can´t.  The location is mystical and spectacular, the stonework of the city seems to have no modern equivalent, the city-planning seems genius, and the element that not much is known about the origins, or the abandonment of the city makes the site mysterious and intriguing.  It is a hiker´s paradise, and well-deserved wonder of the world. 

I leave you tonight with video of Peru´s rural countryside, the taxi ride from Ollaytaytambo to Cuzco.

Last night my traveling party and I went to Santa Teresa´s famous hotsprings.  It was like something out of a James Bond movie, with a cabana atmospher and olympic-sized hotspring pools.  Pool chairs and grass-covered huts permeated the ¨spring¨side, and it was a mesh-pot of South American and International atendees.  I wonder if we all paid the same entrance fee…

My friends camped in a field just outside the hotsprings.  I opted to stay in a hotel close-by.  The next morning we met up for breakfast, and then began our hike.  One member of our party, the only Peruvian among us, went to arrange for the heavy camping gear to be put on a train to Aguas Calientes, and was planning on meeting us at the hydro-electric plant, the halfway point of the hike.  When we arrived, halfway, she was nowhere to be seen, and my friends grudgingly waited for her, while I decided to carry on.

Santa Teresa, Peru

The second half of the hike was beautiful, the route was along the railroad tracks, with a rushing river parrallel the entire time.  When it began to rain violently, I ducked under the shelter of a tin-roof ¨shop¨, basically a lady selling soda, gatorade, and chocolate to hungry tourists.  I talked to her for a half hour, complementing her on the paradisical location of her house, the United States, and how much further  I had until Aguas Calientes.

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When the rain stopped I continued on, and after a long day am finally in Aguas Calientes.  It´s a scam of a town, ripping tourists off at every corner, flanked by the masses because of its proximity to Machu Picchu.  I spent $13 on a very nice room, which seems lucky for Aguas Calientes, and I plan to wake up at 4:00 am to start hiking into Machu Picchu.

School resumes Monday, I head back to Cuzco tomorrow afternoon.  It has been a whirlwind of a weekend, with the catalyst being Machu Picchu tomorrow.