Welcome to the Jungle...

We have successfully crossed in Ecuador. A much smaller country than any of the previous, we still had to choose our route to go through from Peru into Colombia. One route is coastal, through Guayaquil and interesting coastal communities with beautiful beaches and smoltering hot temperatures, through the Andes straight into Quito through Cuenca, or through the jungle. Having seen a beach recently and having seen much of the Andes in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru, we decided it would be a crime not to go through the Amazon basin while in South America. So we popped a couple of malaria pills and headed into what the locals call "el oriente." (By the way, malaria medicine is really rough on the body, ugh)

We have taken the most scenic bus rides to get here, busses that chug slowly along dirt/mud roads through fairly lush jungle. We have not seen any signs of travellers and the food has been pretty fun. We have seen frog on the menu, though it was expensive (relatively speaking) so we held out for the moment. We did have one lunch in which the two choices were chicken (pollo) or something we had never heard of. I (Adam) went with the something I had never heard of. Tracy went with the chicken. It was flavorful, as it was cooked in a peanut sauce. We got back to the hostel and looked it up, to learn it was tripe. Yum, something widely available in the US, but that I had never eaten before (and have little intention of eating again).

We headed out for a trip further into the jungle with a local who is Shuar. Shuar is the local indigenous group who have lived in the Amazon basin for thousands of years. We stayed in a small thatched roof hut, navegated on of the rivers (a tributary to the Amazon) in a hollowed out canoe, attempted fishing (with no luck), hiked through sometimes knee deep mud, got soaked by pouring rains, saw amazing flora and fauna, and got to listen to the jungle really start to make it jungle noises as the sun went down and after dark (it seems many of the species are nocturnal). Our new Shuar friend was extremely knnowledgable and was a regular Bear Grylls when it came to telling us the properties of each and every plant, be it medicinal, poisonous, edible, etc. He was also able to recognize bird calls and other sounds, identifying animals to us, which was actually nearly as impressive as being able to actually see them. He is also a traditional musician and told us countless stories about local shamans and traditional parties, some of which revolve around harvests and marriages and the like, and some of which are more unpredicatable, like when someone completes the healing process from a venemous snake bite.

Tomorrow we climb back to the mountains headed toward Quito. Some pictures from the past week-ish.

Bienvenidos A Ecuador!


Tracy and Rafael, navigating the river.


Flora


Adam with the jungle below:


Rafael pointed out the beginnings of being able to see this trees roots about 5 minutes worth of walking before we actually came within view of it. You will have to travel to Macas, Ecuador to see the whole thing, camera can do it no justice.


Flowers flowers flowers...




Typical Shuar home, also where we slept.


Adam unsuccessfully fishing:



Well I think we have spoiled you with photos for today. Post comments, send us emails, let us know if we are leaving anything out you would like to know about. We miss seeing everyone.

Arequipa, Lima, Chiclayo

We have covered a lot of ground over the past week or so, so we will try to give a quick update of where we have been.

We went to Arequipa from Cuzco. The second biggest city in Peru, Arequipa surprised us by being a pleasant city, beautiful architecture, friendly people, not too much to do, which was pleasant after being in busy Cuzco. The city is near a volcanoe and much of the colonial architecture is built with volcanic rock, making for a nice effect as it sparkles a bit in the sunlight.

From Arequipa we visited Lima. The capital city on the coast in the middle of Peru, it is a giant sprawling capital with your typical capital things, traffic, polution, high prices. We created our own walking tour seeing some of the sites, strolled down the beach where the locals were busy sunbathing and surfing and went out for a nice dinner of anticuchos (I will spare my vegetarian friends of the translation for this food).

We are now, and have been for about 3 days, in Chiclayo. A coastal town in the north it is a pleasant place, small city where very few gringos seem to visit. These places are our favorite because locals want to interact and are as interested in us as we are in them and makes for more opportunities for convewrsation. The city has some fantastic markets, one of which had our favorite department, the witchdoctor and herbalist department. We perused the skunk skins, animal horns, aromatic herbs and strange elixers for a bit. The coast is a short bus ride away and has a nice beach with surprisingly cold water. Currents are a strange thing as you would expect a nice warm beach in a town so close to the equator. This region is also home to multiple people groups who predate the Incas and so we have visited some of the most fantastic museums and ruins from ancient pyramids.

Tomorrow we are going to attempt to head into Ecuador. We are not sure about our timing as we may have to change busses in a couple or more places, so we may or may not be spending our final night in Peru.

We continue to have no luck in setting up our sustainable agriculture volunteer opportunities and are getting a bit frustrated, but are trying to sit back and enjoy the unique experiences we are having and be patient in waiting for someone to respond to our emails or to learn about some other experience.

A note of excitement, having descended back to sea level into a nice tropical equatorial environment we have entered the land of fruits we have never heard of. So we are making a habit of ordering juices without knowing even what color to expect. So far they have all been delicious and we expect there will be hundreds of others left to try. With one of our goals upon return being to eat as locally as possible, we are trying to soak up the unique fruits and the bananas and pineapples as well. (We have decided that those curved yellow things we eat do not actually qualify as bananas after eating a few of the real things that ripen on the tree here)

Machu Picchu and photo updates

We finally and reluctantly decided to go to Machu Picchu. We nearly decided not to go because the prices are absolutely ridiculous and so many people go there, we felt like it may not be worth it. One of the issues is that the only way (or so we thought)to get to Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Machu Picchu, is by train. And the train charges between 50 and 80 dollars, one way from Cuzco. One the way, we cut costs by taking public transport busses and vans to Ollantaytambo, where we took a train that was only slightly cheaper the rest of the way to Aguas Calientes. The train was very nice and part of the ceiling is glass in order to take in the magnificient views from the valley.

The following morning we hiked (it is possible to take a bus, for $14USD, but we refused to pay this rate for 6km) to Macchu Picchu. The hike was extremely steep and we were told to expect the hike to take 1.5 to 2 hours. We left our hostel at 4am and arrived 55 minutes later, after missing the path once and taking a longcut (we think the high altitude previously helped us out on this sprint to the top). We were then able to be one of a fraction of the visitors to hike Huayna Picchu, an even taller mountain along side Macchu Picchu. This was another hour and the path was as close to straight up as you can get without climbing up a surface. The views were spectacular and the ruins were truely impressive. We wandered about and hiked another trail or two before eventually running out of steam and hiking the 6km back to Aguas Calientes. We needed to get our train ticket back, and when we got to train station, we learned that giant rocks had fallen on the tracks. There was other speculation about strikes and such, but we finally learned that the real story is the rocks were put on the tracks as part of a larger protest regarding privatization of water. This meant that the next train would leave at a time unknown to anyone, and it would be very unlikely that it left soon (within the next day or two).

We decided to hike to a campsite to set up our tent and think about what to do. Along the way we ran into two Chileans, a Costa Rican and a Belgian who told us that it was possible to hike about 2.5 hours down another set of train tracks into a village where public transport could eventually bring one back to Cuzco. They were heading that direction and invited us along. An exhausting few hours later we arrived, and were able to find transport back to Cuzco without having to do the normal changes in multiple towns. The mountain roads were narrow and muddy with thousand foot cliffs dropping off the side, but it made for an interesting and beautiful ride.

As we stopped to take a break in one town, a police officer came to our van and explained that a law had been passed saying that no one could drive on this particular road between 8pm and 6am (by this time it was 9 or 10). We translated this as- I am going to need a bribe because there are a lot of people here right now who look rich. Not wanting to pay this bribe, the driver and another went to the police station to check the story. There was supposedly a paper stating something to this effect that looked official like. The driver came back and reported the news, which was translated as- get ready to jump in the van when the police officer is not looking so we can drive out of town with the lights off. We did just that and as far as we know, the police officer did not give chase. This made for an interesting journey home. We finally arrived back in Cuzco at 4am, 24 hours after we set off on our adventure for the day.

Quote of the day from a local. We walked into a restaraunt serving lunch today, and as the tables were full, we sat down, as is customary, with a stranger. A nice guy andlocal mechanic, we began talking about the differences between US and Peruvian culture. He commented abut how punctual US folks are and how in Peru time is much more fluid. He says

Here we still live like humans, there you live like you´re machines.

I thought this was an accurate observation and worth sharing the wisdom.

On to Photos--

This is Adam on top of Cerro Calvario in Copacabana, Bolivia. The town is to the left and Lake Titicaca is behind.


Plaza at Amantani Island in the middle of Lake Titicaca.


Tracy with our homestay family in Amantani. notice the beautiful dress. The hat the child is wearing is a hat that most men in the village wear.


Plaza de Armas in Cuzco, Peru. Cuzco is formally the center of the Incan Empire, but conquistadors quickly took the city, using Incan architecture and foundations to build large churches and city buildings.

This is the lawn maintanence system at Machu picchu. SOAPBOX- When Hiram Bingham so called discovered Machu Picchu, he was led there by a young child and there were two families living there, using the terraces for agriculture. Thus, Hiram Bingham did NOT discover Machu Picchu. If this claim is not arrogance and subjugation of indigenous people, I don´t know what is. Note for readers, if a child takes you somewhere, and peole live there, you did not discover it.

Adam and Tracy on top of Huayna Picchu. From our eavesdropping on other tours, Huayna Picchu was considered a holy and sacred site, thus its location at the highest point of this hill.

Us at Macchu Picchu. Huayna Picchu is the mountain jutting up in the background. Macchu Picchu was never found by conquistadors, however the devestation of other battles around the Incan settlements, made its well hidden location rather unuseful. The setting was supposedly chosen for it´s strategic location in case of wars.


This is a piece of our hike down the railroad tracks to the next village. Aguas Calientes is not accessible by road so far as we understand. Peru Rail, better known as Mafia Rail, seems to keep alternative travel options to Aguas Calientes under wraps as even finding out about walking 2.5 hours was only by luck. I guess if you are making upwards of 100 dollars off of each visitor round trip, you wouldn´t want people walking.


We are off to Arequipa tomorrow in order to head north to Lima and eventually to Ecuador. Another volunteer opportunity may be in the works with Heifer international projects in Ecuador. If you are not familiar with Heifer International, Google them as they are a wonderful organization that adresses hunger and poverty within a framework of sustainable agriculture.

Lago Titicaca, Summing up Bolivia, Peru first glance

Our most recent week was spent around Lake Titicaca. The highest navigable lake in the world (I suppose this means there are some lakes in the world that are higher, yet unnavigable) sitting at 3800 meters or 12,540 feet. A beautiful lake steeped in history of various indigienous groups predating the Incans as well as the Incans themselves. We hiked from north to south on Isla del Sol, an island where the Incans believed that the sun was born. We can vouch for the fact that the sun there was very bright and hot, although the average temèratures are still in the 70 in the day and the 40 and 50´s at night here.

On the Peru side of Lake titicaca we were able to visit the islands that we believe to have the most interesting story. These islands are man made out of reeds harvested from the lake. They float on the lake. Historically, the Uros people were being attacked by other groups and eventually got tired of being attacked. They built these islands, which are about 60x60 feet and began to live there, eating mostly fish from lake with some agriculture from the main land. The homes, kitchens and other areas on the island are made from reeds and have to be continuously renewed in order to keep the island afloat, making for a nice cushy walk. Now, the descedants of the Uros live on the islands and live from working as artisans and essentially being living museums of the way their ancestors lived. We also went to the island of Amantaní where we stayed with a local family. The island is 100% indigenous with the most common language spoken being Quechua, with some people speaking Spanish. It is very much an agricultural community. The women of the island wear the most beautifully emboirdered shirts, skirts and head scarves. Almost all of the women spend the majority of the day spinning wool. They walk about the village doing other things and spending time in the plaza with one another, all thewhile spinning wool, even while they are walking. They are also the most friendly people we have come into contact with, each person greeting us with a big smile as we huffed and puffed up and down the hills between 3800 and 4000 meters in altitude.

Other thoughts to wrap up Bolivia:
-Food in bolivia was wonderful. Lunch is the main meal of the day and we looked forward to finding a random restaurant packed with locals in order to order lunch. Lunch is not ordered from the menu, but is a set meal. The meal involves a soup, a main course, usually a meat with rice, potatoes and vegetables and often a dessert and fresh lemonade or other drink. The price of this multiple course meals was between $1.50 and $3. The food always tasted fresh and was delicious.
-On a similar note, Bolivia struggles with clean water issues. For this reason, every traveler you meet has some Bolivia food poisoning story. We were not particularly careful, and made it in and out with no stomach problems. This is not bragging, as we will most certainly get ours, but is an expression of thankfulness and perhaps reassurance that foreign food comes with some risk, but there is a huge reward.
-At last check (we dont follow the news very closely here, as it is difficult to do so) there was some sort of travel warning from the US Government regarding travelling to Bolivia. We take the opposite point of view and highly recommend it. We experienced warm welcomes, smiles, friendly people and breathtaking landscapes in Bolivia. The poverty (and the crime that often comes with such extreme need) and political issues should not be understated, but we had a wonderful experience in this country and are thankful we decided to pass through.
-The art that has been so carefully preserved over thousands of years in Bolivia continues to awe us. In our thoughts right now we think a lot about local communities and preservation of cultures. We strongly hope that the wonderfully strong communities in Bolivia, that have suffered so much exploitation, violence and racism since the arrival of the Conquistadors into present day, will be able to continue to take pride in the beauty of the cultures that have preserved with such perseverence. While we tried to soak in and learn as much about those cultures as possible, it made us try to reflect on those pieces of our own heritage that we want to hold on to and try to preserve, particularly the art of our relatives: art including the ability to grow a beautiful and delicious tomato, create abnd preserve beautiful music, and making a quilt or knitting or crocheting or any of the other beautiful things we see from our own families (blood families and others included).

Peru has given us a warm welcome (and a much simpler border crossing) thus far. We are happy to be here and are enjoying the new foods (a bit spicier is a nice touch...and is there anything better than corn on the cob and cheese?) and a new culture, though the similarities abound.

Farm update: We are having a really hard time setting up farms right now. We have tried to get in touch with many many farms and are mostly striking out. We believe we will be able to spend 2-3 weeks working on a farm in Colombia, but nothing is set in stone yet. This is getting a bit frustrating as we really want to learn and have these experiences, and travelling is tiring and we are feeling the need for a bit more balance. We have, however, been very thankful for being able to find ourselves in agricultural communities learning to plow with mules and how to harvest quinoa (anyone know if Quinoa can be grown in North Carolina, it is a good grain?) from strangers and our hosts. We have also been thankful for people allowing us to be in their homes, and have understood that they were only prepared for this arrangements for short periods of time, leaving us hoping for another good farm to work.

Helms: could you possibly post a link to the organization you sent me or maybe even the article in the comments section? This is an amazing organization in Colombia that we are attempting to contact, but at the very least deserves some publicity here for their ability to combine the meeting of basic human needs with wise agricultural and communal practices.

Sucre, artisans, and La Paz

Since we last blogged about our whereabouts, we have been to a few more interesting places. We will tell about it first, and ty to add some photos.

From Potosi we went to Sucre. A very old colonial city with amazing architecture and an overall good vibe, we enjoyed hanging out there for a few days. Great museums, a fantastic square and thousands of locals who helped us ring in the NEw Year in fashion. Sucre is known for its parties, and the square was packed full of people celebrating with live music and general fun. Also had a good fireworks display over the beautiful whitewashed colonial government buildings.

While in Sucre we stayed at a nice little backpacker hostel where the owner had a couple of her friends over to display some of their weavings. The couple are considered to be master artisans in weaving. Weaving is a strong tradition dating back to earliest known indigenous people in the Andes. The weaving techniques as well as the wool spinning techniques have not changed in 3000 years. The woman, Santussa, was saying that she only had sons, so unfortunately did not have someone to pass on her work to. Adam jokingly said that he would gladly offer Tracy to her in order to pass the tradition on. This joke turned into an invitation to their home for a few days to see them at work. We decided we could not pass it up. We travelled by bus about 4 hours down a muddy road and literally through a couple of rivers to arrive. The family raises sheep for their wool and dyes the wool from roots, fruits and other natural products. One weaving, about 1.5x2.5 feet takes about 2 months of daily 8-10 hour work days to complete. The work is intricate and truely amazing. In the vein of our interest in agriculture, we got to help plow to fields and plant potatoes, peas and wheat. The fun part is that we got to plow the field with a mule. We were shown wonderful hospitality and ate rather well, albeit monotonously (lots of meals consisting of pasta, potatoes and ketchup...we think this might have seemed like what Americans like...Atkins diet it was not).

From there (there being Candelaria, where the artisans live) we headed to La Paz. An enourmous capital city, and the highest altitude capital city in the world (at about 3900 meters...you do the math), it was surprisingly enjoyable. We spent an entire day wandering through street markets. Some markets had clothing, some had raw materials like yarn and fabric. There were art markets with weavings, carvings, masks and the like, and the best, there was a witches market. This is where witch doctors actually offer their services and they sell anything and everything you might need to cure and ailment, make someone fall in love, or any of the other things that witch doctors purportedly do. Our favorite item, present in all of the stalls in the witch market, was llama fetuses. From our understanding, one is supposed to bury a llama fetus under the front part of a home for good luck. Dried llama fetuses come in many shapes and sizes and every varying furriness. For those in the market for a llama fetus, they cost about 6 dollars for a medium sized one.

La Paz sits in a bowl shaped valley with houses climbing the hills surrounding it and it can be dizzying to try to wander this high altitude, smoggy city for too long.

Today we arrived in Copacabana. This is the original Copacabana and the Brazilian Copacabana of Barry Manilow fame was actually named after this small town. It is on Lake Titcaca, a beautiful lake, and the highest navigable lake in the world (noticing a trend?).

On to the photos:

This is beautiful colonial Sucre from a lookout on the eastern bank of the city.


This is the main cathedral in Sucre. The banner announces that this is the bicentennial of Bolivias independence from Spain:


This is Tracy learning to spin wool old school. You hold the wool or thick yarn in one hand, tie a knot of sorts on the top of the spool and then spin the wood like a top. We saw many women walking down the street doing this in their spare time.


Adam learing to plow with a mule. This mule lived well above its reputation as stubborn and was actually a great plow mule in regards to listening and following rows.


Adam and Damian modelling the traditional poncho. One can know where a man is from by looking at the seams and the color patterns on the poncho. It was really cold the whole time, so this poncho came in handy.


Damian and Santussa modelling their weaving, 2 months of hard work. Absolutely beaufitul. The weavings depict anything from local folklore to times of year, such as harvest, Christmas, Carnival, etc. There are no written patterns and the designs come from years of tradition, memory and amazing talent.


Photos can be a sensitive thing with people, especially those of indigenous groups, so photos of the witches market and the likes are unwise. But this is a nice photo of a typical street and you can see the houses built on top o one another in the background.

Sand Pedro de Atacama, Atacama Desert, Salar de Uyuni and Potosi Mines

Please dont miss our last two posts. The first (two down) describes the journey across the desert and the setting of these photos. The second is our pictures from the Salar de Uyuni.

This is the small Catholic church in San Pedro de Atacama.


Adam, alone in the desert, trying out sandboarding. (The sun was killing my eyes, so I had to pick up these stylish shades)


This is the Laguna Verde, set against a dormant volcano.


This vortex popped up near us at one of the Lagoons. It appears white because it is circling over a Borax deposit.


This is the Laguna Colorada. It appears red because of a combination of the microorganisms and minerals in it. Another Borax deposit is on the banks and all along the outside, hjighlighting the brilliant color.


This llama belongs to someone who lives in the area, as evidenced by the pretty pink earwear. The llamas are sent to graze in the desert. Laguna Colorada in the background.

Trying to stand up the the gale-force wind.


This is the Rock Tree (Arbol de Piedra) that has its origns from a volcano. There was a lot of lava formations, but this is the most well known as its base is much smaller than its top.


Adam managed to pull together enough lung capacity to climb to the top of one of the lava formations. Tracy stayed below to take the picture, and to continue to breathe in the high altitude.


We saw many lagunas on the second day. The pink flamingos feed on the microorganisms in the water, but they seem a bit out of place in the desert, where they call home.


This was at the hotel on the second night, where everything was made out of salt. All the bricks were made of salt (Tracy had to keep Adam from licking the walls all night long).


We left the hotel at 5 am, so we could experience this:


The sunrise over the salar with our ride in the foreground.


After sunrise we hiked up on the Inca Huasi island, which is in the middle of the Salar, with thousands of cacti.


Us standing next to one of the tallest cactus on the island.


Our journey ended in Uyuni, Bolivia at the ´train cemetary.´ Adam donned the conductor hat for this train.


Tracy with some of the miners in Potosi in the silver mine.

Fun with the Salar de Uyuni

The Salt Flat will blow your mind and it feels strange to be surrounded by giant stretches of white salt. It also makes it really fun to try your hand with pictures like these:

Tracy has crazy sneaker road rage:


Tracy was feeling very abusive on this particular day. Adam has dropped a few pounds, currently weighing 3lbs.4oz.


No Tracy! Dont jump off of the Yogurt Bottle!


Weeeeeeee.


Adam successfully summits Mount Cuchara:


We feel tea should come in smaller boxes.


OK, we are getting tired of the extremely slow internet. We will post the rest of our Atacama Desert pictures (the slightly more serious ones) when we get a chance.