Semanas

T-2 Semanas ("say-mah-nahs" n. weeks) Until Landing. 

Where has the time gone? Alrighty...so what have I been doing since my one huge Peruvian adventure ended and now only have two weeks left? I've been getting to know my city and my country a little bit better and finishing off my schoolwork one paper and project at a time...all while trying my best resist the urge to run outside in the sun I've been waiting for all along and scream "YAYYY SUMMER!!"

¡CHILE!

CHI-CHI-CHI-LE-LE-LE

One of the experiences I think essential to any study abroad experience is attending a national league fútbol ("fu-oot-bowl") game. Don't you dare say soccer. When I studied abroad for a short time in Spain, participating in the futbol culture was one of my favorite parts, especially considering they won the Eurocup for the first time in over sixty years while I was there back in 2008. Now, in 2011, countries are already playing World Cup 2014 qualification games, and I had the chance to attend Chile vs. Paraguay in the National Stadium in the capital city, Santiago.

World Cup Brasil 2014 Qualifiers!

A bunch of gringos and a few Chileans all piled into a chartered bus together and make the hour and a half trek over to Santiago, essentially tailgating along the way and painting faces/bodies/clothing/flags. Ironically, once we got to the stadium there was no Jumbo-Tron screen to project video of everyone all painted like they would do in the USA, and all the guys with painted chests ended up sitting in different sections anyway. In the hours before leaving, I bought a giant Chilean flag and paraded around with it like a cape and painted my face with Chilean flags as well because it was impossible to find a jersey. It was such fun to see Alexis Sanchez, hero of Chile and star of the Barcelona team (some say the best player in the world), play on his home stage. Luckily, I learned a whole new plethora of cheers in Spanish and Chile destroyed Paraguay 2-0!

Once back from all the mayhem of fútbol in South America, it was back to school and back to business. Last Saturday I helped to paint a mural at the girl's home next door that I volunteer at each week. We painted an ocean scene and the hope is that each study abroad group that comes to volunteer will paint another little mural alongside it until the whole back wall of the outdoor play area is covered. The girls got filthy and we got a bit painted ourselves as well but in the end it was a great result (however questionable some of the "fish" may be).

Hogar Teresa Cortes Brown Mural

Last week one of my friends and I had to make a video about something in the city of Valparaíso and we chose to document the national student movement that has been happening during our time here in Chile. Despite inhaling a fair amount of tear gas and running from water cannons over our months here in Chile, we were able to capture some exciting footage. We also recorded a poem about the city that you may not understand but just consider it an "artistic soundtrack." Juuust in case you were wondering, we received a perfect score! :)  'Click for Poetry/Video Project I did about student protests since I've been here!

Back at Hotel Piero where our journey began

Some of you have been asking me if it was weird to be abroad for Thanksgiving, aka "Día de Acción de Gracias," and yes, it was very strange. Thanksgiving is a sacred holiday in my household, in fact the only one we host ourselves. I spent my Thanksgiving this year outside tanning, then to a Goodbye Dinner at Hotel Piero ( in Reñaca, where we had our orientation over 4 months ago) for my program that yes, served us Turkey but seemed to forget mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberries, and most any other side dish we Americans are used to. The desserts made by my friends in the program, however, made up for whatever the main meal lacked. I think 75% of our total food intake was scrumptious sweets piled high on little plates we sheepishly took back to our seats, attempting to hide the portions behind our hands before stuffing face. Some of the delicacies included chocolate truffles, a million cookies, key lime pie, pecan pie, apple pie, scotcheroos, ice cream, mint brownies, and a million other mouthwatering temptations. After the meal each CIEE class presented something representative of the semester and then the photo contest winners were announced. There were 2 categories and a $100USD prize for each of the winners. Many thanks to Anne Napoli and Katlyn Leach for helping me decide what to enter into the contest- I came in the top 3 for each category but didn't win! I will set up a link to my 8 entries (you could enter 2 into each category) soon. Finally, nearly 30 of us walked to the beach to read out some hilarious and sentimental superlatives made by a few of our friends. The night was still young, so we took a bus to Valparaíso to go dancing until the wee hours of the morning. While it may not have involved my Dad's famous soup creations (which I understand my brother took over this year?), lamenting the snow and cold weather, fighting for a drumstick, or drinking sparkling cider with my favorite cousin...it was quite the Thanksgiving to remember.

MACHU PICCHU

It took me ages to learn that the double C goes with Picchu, not Machu, but I finally have it down. It's almost like learning how to spell license. 
But I digress, it's finally time to give you all the conclusion to my Peruvian Peregrination which happened weeks ago, but my memories remain equally clear today as they did on the epic climax of my trip. 


11/1/11: Machu Picchu City, Wayna Pichu Mountain

5:00am Wake up call...after a day of vomiting and sleeplessness, I was surprisingly (and finally!) rested and tentatively over the altitude sickness from Cusco (Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu are actually at a far lower altitude).

5:30am A few hesitant nibbles of breakfast and off the buses to take us to Machu Picchu city by 6:00. It is an hour and a half walk uphill that many ambitious tourists complete without realizing how strenuous it will be. A few of the people we met on our tour said it was more challenging than climbing the mountain. I was perfectly content to be transported lazily uphill, curving around 90 degree switchbacks that threaten unsuspected collisions with other buses and plunging to your death below (*cough*Parental unit, I mean everything is 100% safe and all the buses have football field sized lanes and all of the turns are blocked with steel guardrails ten feet high). The drive reminded me of my infamous 12 hour trek through the Andes on the way back from Mendoza, but this time it was hot outside already and there was far more green.

Machu Picchu city...that mountain in the background? Yep, scaled that sucker!

7:30am We arrive at the gates of the city, embarrassed by the number of layers we wore/packed when people were already stripping to tank tops and shorts. Whoever told us its freezing at high altitude especially in the morning...shame on you for making me carry all my extra layers in my backpack up Wayna Picchu Mountain! After wandering around the city for an hour trying to find the base of the mountain, we were already sweating and stressed about making it in time (you have to buy a ticket in advance for the time you wish to go up) and I hadn't fully had a chance to take in my surroundings.

8:45am  The hike up the mountain is 100% ancient stairs. The park has put in place a few ropes or steel wires here and there to prevent more deaths (the number is a bit shady...our first Google search produced details of 3, but other sites claim up to 7), but the stairs are steep. For someone who has never hiked at high altitude (no Ohio and Michigan, your hills don't count...and New Orleans, you DEFINITELY don't count) and who was unbelievably paranoid about coming down with more symptoms of altitude sickness, it was one of the most challenging hikes I've ever done. You can feel your thigh muscles resisting nearly every push upward and your calves squirming in discomfort. Your brain becomes almost more determined to convince you to stop than it does to motivate you to keep going. When someone passed me I would feel ashamed and out of shape, but I had to keep reminding myself that I was 2700m above the ground (which is already way up in the mountains) and my heart was working overtime with a miniscule amount of oxygen to fuel my brain.

10:30ish am: We reach the top!! The view is 360 degrees of unbelievable. The clouds are hovering right there with you, and all around you is GREEN. This kind of green is not something a golf course can buy, it is green green green. I've never been to Ireland (to those of you who know me: ironic isn't it?) but you've got competition lassy. Machu Picchu city is a tiny series of specks off to your right, and the zig-zagged road for the buses looks like a native piece of art itself. There were French, Russian, American British, South American people at the top and it was unbelievable to appreciate and experience such a triumph and natural wonder all together, regardless of who we are.

3/4 the way up Wayna Picchu...look how tiny Machu Picchu is down there!

Once we ate our bread and cheese sandwiches (my first real food in 48 hours!) we took enough pictures to last a lifetime (including one of my friend D and I planking at the highest point!...also very safe of course).

11:30ish am: We descend the millions of stairs. As D said to me, "For what you lack in going up the stairs you sure as hell make up for it going down!" Apparently I am a beast. I credit the years of quick footed Irish Dance skills, but they claim it was because I'm tall and they had to jump half the time to reach a stair. I also got creative, going backwards down steep stretches or grape-vining across uneven areas. It's quite an art. Being so far ahead of everyone gave me even more time to take photos of what barely seemed real, tucked away in the middle of the mountains, high above the sacred river, once long forgotten and pristinely intact. The city was discovered exactly 100 years ago and it was incredibly special to be there during its centennial anniversary. An eleven year old boy from the Pampas stumbled upon it and just one family was living there. Originally, all of the Incans were wiped out by a skin disease brought in by messengers who infected the population.

made it!

12:30sh pm: Blazing hot, sweaty, and crisping in the sun, we found a tour guide (in Spanish!) who gave us a two-hour tour with just a few other people from Spain and Santiago. Elizabeth was her name, and she was from Aguas Calientes and has lived there here whole life and loves it, she never wants to leave. It's hard to imagine but I can understand her happiness surrounded by such beauty, it's hard to top it. Elizabeth explained to us that Yale University (of course) has 85% of all the original artifacts from Machu Picchu (including its mummies...who are mummified in the fetal position so as to die as you are born), even now 100 years later. 80% of the city itself is also in its original state, with only 20% restored, but it is maintained daily to prevent erosion from the many tourists (though limited) who pass through every day.
In several places there were secret things you could never know for yourself, like a site on the back side of the city where you can clap and it echoes through every crevice of the mountains. The Incans used it to avoid shouting. There are also blocked windows that vibrate when hummed into as a religious practice. Interestingly, you cannot touch the sacred rock at the highest point of the city (which is known to emit its own kind of special energy you can sense) anymore because a camera man filming a commercial there broke part of it with a beer bottle. However, most importantly, there are unmonitored herds of random llamas walking around. If it weren't for the overeager Australians sneak attacking them I would have gotten my kissy face llama picture! I will forever be bitter.
It was a perfect day.
 I couldn't believe how much we had accomplished by 2:30pm. We all just sat on the terraced landscape for another hour soaking it all in, not ready to leave one of the 7 Wonders of the World, one of the most unique and precious places I will ever know.
Sadly, everyone is kicked out of the park by 5:00pm anyway, so back to Aguas Calientes we went. Our Japanese roommate in our hostel had cleared out and was replaced by the most interesting middle-aged British man named Mark who was traveling on his own for a few years after quitting his software programming job. He lives entirely off of renting his house in England and has been all over the world, from the far East to Brazil to Chile. He even took an intensive month long Thai massage course in Thailand, just for the heck of it...he recommends it to no one, describing it as one of the most painful and least relaxing experiences you can ever have.

Cusco and Lima Round Two...the End of an Adventure
 11/2/11
We repeated the train/bus back to Cusco, with everyone absolutely exhausted. It was freezing again, even hailing as we sat in the little bus. The one thing that kept us entertained was the adorable dark-haired Peruvian baby aboard. If anyone wants to adopt a child, adopt one from Peru because they are the most beautiful babies I've ever seen.
Once back, we found an organic food restaurant and I had the best food I've had since I've been abroad. I had organic sweet potato fries with a lush Caprese Salad. We attempted to get into the museum at the site of the Incan Palace but ended up just mosying about. All of the boutique fit shops were ridiculously overpriced so we just hit some panaderías for tasty chocolate truffles and shopped at the local artensanía until closing.

11/3/11
Back to Lima. I really enjoyed Lima the first time, I thought it was beautiful and clean and exciting. This time, as we were in our cab from the airport to a new hostel in Centro Lima, a kid walking through traffic at a red light reached into the car from a cracked window and attempted to steal my friends backpack from the floor. It took three people from inside to wrestle it back from him and  NO ONE got out of their cars to help in the struggle that lasted several minutes. Typical. Not even the crossing guard moved to help. At least our hostel "1900 Backpackers" was insanely gorgeous with marble floors and high ceilings and intricate woodwork. We also were able to find lunch at a hole-in-the-wall joint for 7 soles for 3 courses. We visited the MALI art museum and the Bryce exhibit was particularly interesting (more or less a collage of re-drawn articles and magazine covers from the WWII era...hundreds of them). By the end of the day, I had even bought Harry Potter in Spanish..and everyone was sick again but I won't go into that.

1/100th of Bryce's work

While the trip had far more drama than I care to share here that may have ruined it a bit for me, the day at Machu Picchu was enough to make me have no regrets. So go. Drop whatever you're doing and book tickets (and please for the sake of everything that is good in the world, book them all in advance...plane, train, hostel, bus, do it all.) I'm dirt broke now and came back to Chile a bit downtrodden and eager to go home to the States, but if you're with people you love, you're guaranteed the trip of a lifetime.

Full Gallery of Peruvian Photos

Peruvian Peregrination Part 2: Cusco & Aguas Calientes

CUSCO, PERU
n. "coos-co" with an S, not a Z, people.
10/30/11- 10/31/11
Not many photos from this particular episode...you'll see why.

We arrived via Star Peru Airlines (never expect a South American airline to be on time otherwise you're sure to be disappointed. Make sure you come with snacks) in Cusco and shacked up at the youth hostel Eco Packers which had an awesome open air courtyard in the center equipped with couches, a hammock, computers, and ping pong table scattered about the stone floors and semi-covered outskirts. We shared another eight person bunk room with girls from Norway and Ireland who were on trekking trips. While the beds were not nearly as comfy as those in Lima, they did the job. We were already up at 3400m altitude, so what's a few more meters up in the air on a rickety bunk, right? I was deathly afraid of getting altitude sickness the whole time, and my friends reminded me that it was all psychological and I would probably make myself dizzy before the altitude did.

Of course it began to rain as soon as we ventured out into the quaint cooblestone squares of Cusco, but we explored nontheless. There was a large outdoor public mass happening for some Catholic holiday or other (there are so many in South America that it's very easy to lose track) so we hopped into a touristy restaurant for a bite to eat and an Inca Cola (Peru's pride and joy, a yellow bubble-gum flavored cola). Finally, we explored the covered artisan markets for llama sweaters, scarves, silver jewelry, local art, and leather goods. We never buy much because we know we'll have to tote it around for the rest of the trip.
Finally, we returned to Eco Packers only to realize that our plans for Machu Picchu were all half-baked. We had bought our tickets to enter the park for $150 soles (multiply that by .4 relatively for USD) and thought we were set. No no no. You have to buy your train tickets (and find a bus to the train as well) to the city of Aguas Calientes months in advance if you want to avoid spending several nights there, and if you can't find any, you have to book a hostel to stay in as well.  After much frustration and failure of using our US credit cards (including global ones) to purchase train tickets, we finally gave up and decided to wake up early to find the train station in order to buy tickets. I was so frustrated and miserable and paranoid about altitude sickness that my friend graciously agreed to buy my ticket for me and let me sleep another hour. Our tickets, unfortunately, weren't the best and meant we'd have to stay in Aguas Calientes for two nights.
So around 1 o'clock in the afternoon we boarded a big van for the two hour journey up through the hills and poverty of Peru to the train. I should have known it was a bad omen the moment the driver decided there were enough chairs by seating me on a backless lawn chair alongside the seats. Strike one. The train took another hour and a half or two and I was feeling absolutely miserable. I was so nauseous I could barely take in the beauty of the journey, with windows on the train up past the edges of the ceiling to show the mountains and the sacred river alongside us that reaches all the way to Amazonia. When we all descended onto the platform, the altitude sickness took over and I spent the next 20 hours vomiting, crying, wallowing in self-pity, and lying in my bed at our hostel (named Super Tramp?...Strike Two.) while my friends went out exploring the tiny town of Aguas Calientes and handing out candy to little Peruvian kids on Halloween. I finally fell asleep at ten PM praying to Incan gods I'd be okay to climb Wayna Picchu mountain at five AM the following morning.

Stay tuned to find out if I made it.

Peruvian Peregrination: Part 1

Alas, it is finally, finally time to divulge the details of my Peruvian peregrination. It was a very long eight-day journey, llena (yay-nah: adj. full) with activity, illness, frustration, and natural wonders. I’ll try to break it down simply but keep it as entertainingly verbose as possible:

LIMA PERU: 10/27- 10/30

("lee-mah"...not to be confused with Lima, Ohio)

Central Lima

My favorite church

Two of my friends and I (both nicknamed D, which makes for a very entertaining yet challenging way to get their attention) took a bus from the bus station in Viña del Mar to Santiago where you change buses and eventually get to the airport (dreading this process when I eventually fly home with copious amounts of luggage!). Unfortunately, all three of us were sick: both D’s with stomach illnesses of some sort, and I with God-awful congestion and two overwhelming earaches. The flight from Santiago to Lima is about 3.5 hours long and barely feels like an international fligh,t aside from the fun options on the TV screens on the seat in front of you that show you where in the world your plane is currently located or a few movies that are still in limbo between the theater and DVD.  We finally arrived at our hostel, La Casona Roja, late at night, in the safer, young, bar-hopping neighborhood of Barranco.

            The next morning, I still could not completely hear out of both of my ears. Waiting for your ears to pop is worse than the combined anticipation of Christmas morning as a six year old and praying for a crippling headache to subside. Aside from my woes, we ate the typical free hostel breakfast of hearty carbohydrates (2 pieces of bread) and juice. We figured out the clean, organized Lima metro/bus system (not sure exactly what it was) and made our way to Central Lima. We ate ¼ pollo ("poy-yo" n. chicken) lunch/dinner that was unbelievably cheap in Peruvian soles ("soul-As") and experienced a 7.0 magnitude “earthquake” while eating that felt more like a tremor to our well-trained Chilean selves (we all immediately received emails telling us to notify our families that we were alive…hardly anyone on the street or in the restaurant even noticed the quake at all).

Goofing around with wax figures! 

            On full bellies we explored our way into the “Museo de la Inquisición” which was more or less a building of wax-figure torture demonstrations and dim lighting. There was one mysterious, damp, dungeon-like passageway we walked through, but aside from that brief moment of interest, the tour guide spoke incredibly softly and seemed rather irritated with the gringas that didn’t want to read every plaque in every room like the middle school children begrudgingly following her around at the direction of their equally bored teachers.

Wax tortures!

Francisco de Solano: photos strictly forbidden inside

            The high point of the day was the San Francisco de Solano Monastery. The large monastery featured an ancient library with 25,000 old books on dusty shelves raising two stories, reachable only by two spiral staircases in the center. Two large tomes displayed at the front of the room were said to weigh over 30 kilos (double that and then some for pounds). We were good kids and chose the Spanish-speaking tour guide and actually asked her a lot of questions. She took us to the basement level where the catacombs eerily rest…and those of you not familiar with catacombs should know that they are more or less giant community funeral pits. No individual markings, some sorted into bone categories later on by archaeologists in smaller pits. One pit contained 25,000 bodies in a pit that was over 10m deep. These catacombs lie directly beneath the cathedral, with a grate that directly looks onto the pulpit…and undoubtedly released an awful stench upon the unsuspecting church-goers. It all sounds incredibly revolting, but it was fascinating. Monks receive no special treatment in the eyes of God and were tossed right into these pits along with the general Catholic public. Above ground, furthermore, everything is quite peaceful, with incredibly Spanish influenced central gardens surrounded by huge murals (one recently discovered with missing, whited-out faces!?).

MANGO TIME

Who knows

            Finally, when we were all sufficiently entranced and creeped out, we continued exploring and ran into a jugo ("who-go": n. juice) natural stand where we were served PINTS of freshly squeezed mango juice. We later stuffed some Chinese food down at the hostel (there are a lot of Chinese immigrants in Peru as they were once slaves there).  Everyone retired early from continuing illness and exhaustion.

Can you see PERU carved into the hillside?

            On our final day in Lima we went shopping in the trendy Miraflores neighborhood. We hit the artisan markets where I bought many of you your Christmas presents. We of course hit the typical tourist argument over where to eat lunch before finally settling on the recommendation of a random gringo we met on the street who works as a tour guide in Peru. Our lasagna was more like a baked cheese blob with one thin piece of pasta at the bottom. No matter, we eventually ended up back at our hostel where they were throwing a Halloween party at their little bar, but it was a bit “fome” (foam-ay: adj. boring) because no one knew each other and few spoke the same language. One of the Ds and I had a heart-to-heart of sorts (about life, about one of my friends on the trip who inexplicably seemed to dislike me and frequently snapped at me for no reason) before our third friend, another L (so much name confusion!) arrived at 1am. We all hit the sack (aka bunkbeds) in our room with Ecuadorian Nelson and his girlfriend (who we all hated because Nelson was a movie-star quality man who spent 12 years in the USA and understood all of our jokes) before CUSCO in the morning.

Keep checking back for updates on CUSCO, AGUAS CALIENTES, and MACHU PICCHU to come ASAP!

Sorry to keep you all on your toes, but there’s just too much to make you read all at once and I’ll know you’re all a busy folk.

Buenas Noches, besitos.