You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May, 2008.
Commuters encountered on the hike from Calca to the Huchuy Qosqo ruins near Lamay
Just like a Martin Chambi photo, no?
Which way to las ruinas?
It just wouldn´t be a religious holiday without the self-induced suffering. And the whipping. Even the kids get to take part!
Get me to the Plaza on time! (We will meet back up with these guys a little later…)
The little guy was enjoying the whip quite a bit
Often those are toy stuffed llamas on their back…these were real!
I don´t have much of a zoom lens, so I was right up on these guys. I got pushed out of the way of an oncoming saint a few times!
Chiriuchi – the traditional food of Corpus Christi. Yes, those are the guinea pigs in front!
To be continued… if I have time,
otherwise,
As always, more religiously uplifting photos on Flickr
I´ve entered myself into another photo/ writing contest, which again turns out to be a popularity-voting contest. However with this one, there is no signing in or registering…you just click! AND, you can vote once a day, every day, and keep voting and voting and voting for me!
1. just go here:
2. look for this picture of Clara´s painted face and the blue steps:
3. click and vote daily
This way I can win a new spectacular camera, and won´t have to keep battling with the stray hair I have on my sensor which is ruining my beautiful photos.
Thanks mucho!
This monitor is very bad so I can´t tell if I´m choosing the best exposure…
More photos with texture on Flickr
with a stray hair on the sensor. luckily I discovered that now and hopefully got it out of there…
Sunday was El Dia de La Madre here in Peru, which is similar to Mother´s Day in the U.S., except that here all citizens are required to go to the bakery and then carry around a cake in a box covered with hearts. There were also a couple local celebrations going on in the Sacred Valley, so when I arrived at the bus “station,” I encountered a line running out onto the sidewalk. Luckily Nienke had arrived earlier, and was closer to the front of the line. I expressed that we should take a collectivo taxi instead – just a few Soles more, quicker, and probably more comfortable. But as I was trying to convice her that there is a marginal difference of safety between the driving habits of the taxistas and the bus drivers, a bus began to depart for Chinchero, with a final call for passengers. We boarded and fought for some standing room space for the 45 minute ride.
We succeeded in holding our somewhat comfortable spaces, as well as our belongings. Upon arrival in Chincheros, I stocked up on bananas and bread, and we negotiated with some taxi drivers for a ride to the terraces at Moray. I laughed heartily at their first offer for 70 soles to let them know I wasn´t a sucker gringo, and we tried to get it down to 20. None of the drivers seemed interested and they wandered off, so we stood around for a bit. One finally re-approached, we agreed on 30, and headed off across some dirt roads, through Maras, and on to Moray.
At the site Nienke worked her magic and convinced the guard that Moray wasn´t on her Tourist Ticket, and so that is why she didn´t bring it (they just recently added it to the Tourist Ticket, and her ticket had actually expired a few weeks ago. I never even bought a ticket yet.) I played along, mostly kept quiet, and in the end, we both got in for free! We had planned to hike on to Salineras, the salt making terraces, since Lonely Planet told us it was quite easy, but the nice lady who let us in for free said we would need a guide, as the trail is difficult to find along the way. So I flaged down a car driving out, we got a ride with a couple who had hired a private taxi from Cusco for the day, and off we went to Salineras. We walked across the terraces, I took 100 pictures that probably all look the same, and we hiked on down to the small village below.
We waited for a combi but they were passing us by, already full, so once again I flagged down a ride, this time with a large emtpy tourist bus returning to Urubamba. As we wandered around Urubamba looking for a place to eat, we ran across some girls in costume, so I asked if there were dances going on in the plaza today. Yes! In a half hour! Of course, this was one of the celebrations this weekend, el Señor de Torrechayoc.
We decided it was best to leave a little early so that we could manage to get back to Cusco at a reasonable hour. We headed to the bus station and again discovered that the lines were out the door. As we stood there not knowing what to do, a guy told us he could put us on a bus for Cusco without a ticket, 3.5 soles (50 cents above the typical price). He ushered us to the bus, kicked the people out of the front seats, and put us there. It turned out to be the bus that takes the side dirt roads all the way back to Cusco, and stops at every house along the way to pick up or drop off someone, but the scenery was beautiful and we eventually made it back.
Hmmm, how to get back to Cusco?
Margalin with tarjeta de la Dia de las Madres:
“Happy Mother´s Day
Mommy, you are the prettiest
of all the parents, a flower that blooms
in my garden.
For this I love you
Mom.”
Aldea Yanapay – Mi Grupo de Amor:
Arni, Roberto
Iomira, Zakhia, Naysha, Jazmin, Lucero, Me
Claudia, Rosy, Cecilia
(not shown – Cristian)
The presentation of the continents went great! I contend that Cecilia and my group was the best, most prepared, and most creative! We had a couple missing kids and a couple new kids, so we rearranged the roles at the last minute, including the lead role, and it still went great. We concluded with a song:
Hanging around before the presentations
Clara as a half-butterfly (marisposa)
See Flickr for more photos, including more stomach-turning market photos, and a photo essay of “Nienke´s Day Out!”
Feliz Cumpleños a mi hermana, Lynn!!
Jazmin y Marita
Lots of news and developments the last few days. I just found out I will not be going to Pilcopata to volunteer in July and August. The volunteer coordinator just quit, for many many reasons, mostly based around how the organization is being run and how the money is being spent. As with so many things in Peru, it always comes down to money, and it seems the woman in charge is not behaving as a professional NGO and a legitimate non-profit. And the organization is no longer going to be sending volunteers to the jungle but will be focusing on their other project.
I also just learned that I did not win the Travelocity grant for an Amazon scientific cruise, which I had hoped to go on. But that is OK because it conflicted with the Amazon River Raft Race that I will be going on. And I plan to reapply for the grant again. In other Amazon news, it the Amazon has been declared (by the Geographic Society of Lima) to be the longest river in the world. With the discovery of its true source, it is 4,388 miles in length, and beats out the Nile by 242 miles.
At Yanapay, the one-on-one lessons with Clara are not going as well this week. One of the volunteers is doing elaborate face painting, so of course Clara wants to do this. And since a week of face painting is much more important than learning to read, that´s how it goes. I have been able, after ten minutes of chasing her down and persuasion, to bring her into the classroom and do 15 minutes of work. I made some worksheets to match the words with the pictures. She has yet to learn what the words mean so I want to keep this up, but it is difficult to continue making it entertaining and fun. But Sr. Tigre begged to do Clara´s worksheets. I couldn´t refuse a kid who WANTS to do homework, so he eagerly did a set of them as well.
I also meet with a special needs teacher, who a Dutch speech therapist friend of mine happens to know, to try to find out what resources or path might be available for Clara. This teacher, Celeste, is an American who has lived here for four years, and has set up her own school for special needs kids. She does not work with the deaf, but has a colleague who does, and of course knows more about the system. Celeste has also worked with a young Peruvian deaf girl who has been well educated but is currently not working. She is going to try to bring this girl to Yanapay to meet with Clara and with Yuri and see if she can be set up as her teacher. The problem, of course, may be that there is no money to pay the teacher a small salary. I hope this works out, as it would be an ideal long term solution, but I´ll wait and see what happens.
Geography lessons at Yanapay have been going well, and I am paired with a wonderful Swedish volunteer this week. We need to come up with our weekly presentation today, which I can only hope will incorporate the chorus to “We Are the World!”
Davis (El Señor Tigre) reading with wonder and awe about planet Earth! (this is honestly not posed!)
Davis eagerly does my worksheet
Señor Tigre!!
Cecilia teaches geography with Jasmin and Zakhia
