I forgot to write two things last time. The night of the beautiful sunset and awkward party on Amantani was the 4th of July, so even though it wasn´t a traditional American 4th, it was still a memorable day. Also, there was an earthquake in Arequipa the second night I was there. It was big enough to wake me up, but it didn´t do any damage. I´m pretty sure it was my first, so that was exciting.
I just spent two really good weeks on the flower farm. I stayed in the home of the farm manager, Gonzalo, and his family, which was great for my Spanish. He and his wife Jasmin have four kids- Kevin is 10, Mireya is 13, Ceci is 15 and Katty is 17 (and away at school in Quito, so she wasn´t really around). The third day that I was there a really nice couple from Colorado came to volunteer as well. Every morning at 6:15 we had breakfast, then all rode over to the farm in the back of the truck. They only grow calla lilies to sell, but they also grow a lot of food for themselves, so most mornings we volunteers spent the first hour or two helping Jasmin and Ceci get the food ready for lunch. We peeled a lot of potatoes and shelled a lot of beans. We spent most of the rest of the time planting a new field of flowers, which meant putting almost 2000 seedlings in holes with some organic fertilizer. We also helped weed and fertilize the older plants. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday they package the flowers that have been ordered. Pretty much all of the orders go to flower stores in the US or Europe, or come in online from individuals. They are extremely picky about which flowers are good enough to send, and throw out a lot with flaws that I would never have noticed. Our only role in the packaging process was to put the plastic sleeves on the acceptable flowers, but it was fascinating to watch them selecting which ones were sellable and which ones should go together in bunches. Besides Gonzalo, Jasmin and the kids, there are seven other employees. Three of them were older men who mostly seemed to just weed and who I didn´t have much contact with. There were also three teenage guys, including two brothers from Colombia who had moved to Ecuador specifically to work on this farm. My impression was that they had worked on flower farms in Colombia, but that there aren´t organic farms there. The non-organic farms don´t have very good reputations for protecting their employees from all of the chemicals they have to use. The other employee was Anita, a thirteen year-old girl who can´t afford to go to school everyday, so she works on the farm Monday-Friday and goes to school only on Saturday. Ecuador doesn´t have free, mandatory public education, so there are a lot of people in her situation. We all ate lunch together at noon, and left at about 3:30. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing the occasional game of uno with the kids, but mostly reading and relaxing. We ate dinner at about 7, then went pretty much straight to bed. One day we helped Jasmin´s father pick strawberries on his relatively large strawberry farm that he works by himself. They were probably the best strawberries I´ve ever had and he encouraged us to eat as many as we could. We ate a lot of fruit there and a lot of potato based soups. I hope that my other wwoofing experiences can live up to this one. The work itself wasn´t always that interesting, but living with the family was great.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
I was in Peru!
When I got to the airport in Lima, I heard more English than I had since leaving home. Tour group after tour group after tour came parading by with huge piles of luggage. The whole thing was pretty comical and set the tone for the rest of my Peru trip; tourists. There are definitely tourists in Ecuador, but they are more of the independent backpacker type than huge tour groups, and so the country hasn´t turned itself inside out to accomodate them. Anyway, I met Carolyn in Cuzco airport and was so happy to see her! We spent the morning drinking coca tea in our amazing hostel, and then saw a few of Cuzco´s sights in the afternoon. We went to Qorikancha, where a catholic church had been built over an Incan temple, and the Iglesia de Compañia de Jesus. The next day we did a lot of wandering and checked out the cathedral.
And then we began our trek! There were eighteen of us (five Irish, four Northern Irish, four Americans, three French, one German and one Scot), two guides, four horsemen and four cooks. Our main guide, Miguel, was really excellent. He knew a lot and was clearly very personally interested in the history and ecology of the area. The first day started with a bus ride to the hot springs in Lares, where we soaked a bit and had lunch. From there, we hiked to our first camp site. The group was good. Everyone was friendly and no one walked too fast or too slow. Their was a group of four Irish guys, and they were hilarious, both intentionally and not. Their taste in music ranged from Kenny Rodgers (a walked behind them for a while while they sang The Gambler) to 80s classics like Total Eclipse of the Heart. They loved the Backstreet Boys and Will Smith. For the Hyltons reading this, one of the other Americans turned out to be from Hillsville. He graduated with Lauren Chitwood. He said I was the first person he´d ever met who had even heard of Hillsville, let alone been there!
The hiking itself wasn´t that strenuous, but we were at such high altitudes, that breathing was sometimes a bit of a problem. The second day we did our highest pass at about 4300 meters. We also weren´t getting a whole lot of sleep becuase the nights were soooooo cold (the first night it was -10 C). None of this mattered too much though because the scenery was amazing. We did the Lares Valley trail, not the Inca, which was nice because we ran into very few other hikers. We were hiking through small towns and all of the children would chase after us. Miguel had told us to bring candies and pencils and things to give them, but they were vicious sometimes. When I first pulled out my boxes of colored pencils, I was attacked by about ten kids clawing at my hands. Every place I went in Peru there were children dressed in traditional clothes holding lambs asking for a sole or a candy to take their picture. I can´t really blame them because they are a tourist attraction, and it is only fair that they see some of the money that the tourists bring into the country. At the same time, it is a little awkward.
The third day we got to Ollantaytambo. Carolyn and I visited the ruins, and they were having a festival celebrating a pre-Incan king who had stood up to the Incas. They were reinacting the story on the ruins themselves, which was really interesting to watch. After lunch, we took the train to Aguas Calientes. The drawback to the Lares trail is that it doesn´t actually end at Machu Picchu, but it was definitely nice to take a shower and get a good night´s sleep before going to Machu Picchu. That night in Aguas Calientes, we all went dancing and the Irish guys had a danceoff to a few of their favorite songs (Getting Jiggy With It was definitely played).
In the morning, we took a 5:45 bus to Machu Picchu and sat on the terraces watching the fog lift and the sun rise over the ruins while Miguel explained the history. It was pretty incredible. He then led us around to the major sites. By the time the big tour groups started to arrive, our tour was over and a bunch of us decided to climb Wayna Picchu, the peak on the righthand side of all the famous Machu Picchu pictures. The climb up was extremely steep, but the views from the top were amazing. The climb down was even steeper, and a bit scary at times. After that, a few of us went to the Sun Gate, another long hot hike with amazing views. The Sun Gate is the end of the Inca Trail, and even though it was after 2pm, we saw some very tired groups just getting in. It was a little strange to have planned an entire trip to Peru and spend a few days hiking to get to Machu Picchu, then leave at 2:30. It wasn´t exactly anti-climactic because it was a really amazing place, but it just seemed like we should have stayed longer after going through so much to get there. At 2:30 though, I was hot and hungry and tired, so I left.
Carolyn and I spent one more night in Aguas Calientes, then went to Moray, another Inca site the next day. Moray is three huge terraced bowls built into the ground. Each level has a different microclimate and the Incas used them to experiment with what crops grew best in what conditions. Pretty cool. To get there, you have to either be on a bus tour, or hire a taxi, so we hired a taxi. Our driver was pretty much a tour guide, telling us about the site and the towns we drove through, then stopping at views on the way back to Cuzco so that we could take pictures. I was very glad then that I had taken those Spanish classes.
We spent one more night in Cuzco, then Carolyn headed home and I went to Lake Titicaca. The guy from Hillsville and his friends were supposed to come too, but a few were sick, so they postponed their trip for a day and I went to Puno on my own. For some reason, I had expected Puno to be a nice lakeside town, but it wasn´t. I saw what there was to see the first morning (a church, a plaza, an archeological museum), then went to Silustani in the afternoon. Silustani is a pre-Incan site with large funeral towers. It was interesting, especially since I had seen some of the artifacts and bodies that had been found there in the museum, but I had to take a bus tour to get there, and on the way back we stopped in a ´typical antiplano home´, which was a little wierd. I like seeing the way other people live, but it felt a bit forced and artificial. They gave us some cheese and potatoes and grain to eat, and a sauce they make out of clay.
When I got back to Puno, I had an email from my Machu Picchu friends saying that they were going straight to Bolivia. That was too bad because I had been hoping to visit the Lake Titicaca islands with them, thereby avoiding having to do an organized tour. Oh well. The next morning I left with the tour group. Our first stop was one of the floating Uros islands. These are pretty incredible. They are built out of the reeds that grow in the lake. They are about 3-4 meters thick and the islanders constantly add more reeds to them as the ones on the bottom decay. They use the reeds for everything, their houses, boats, food, etc. There are about 40 islands and about 30% accept tourists. The ones that do are very well prepared, with maps of the lake and model islands, homes and boats for the tour guides to use when explaining the way the islands work. Then they offer to take you over to another island on one of their boats. I accepted the ride, why not?
Our next island was Amantani. There, we were assigned to families who we ate dinner and spent the night with. Again, this felt awkward and forced. Our family didn´t talk to us very much, except for the three year old boy who I played with most of the time we were there in an attempt to minimize the awkwardness, and boredom. The whole group hiked up to the Pachatata temple for the sunset, which was very beautiful. After dinner, the families hosted an awkward dance for us, where we dressed in traditional clothing and danced with them to traditional music. They played maybe five songs before everyone was ready to leave. Our final island was Taquile. I think it is probably very beautiful, and they have a very interesting culture full of intricate clothing codes and knitting men, but we mostly just ate lunch there before returning to Puno.
I had already decided that I couldn´t stay in Puno another day, but it was Saturday and I didn´t fly back to Ecuador until Wednesday, so Sunday morning I took the bus to Arequipa. The city was very beautiful and it was a pleasant place to just kill some time in. I went to the Santa Catalina monastery, which is a huge old convent that used to accept only extremely wealthy women. At some point the bishop had to decree that each nun could only have one servant each. The whole place was an amazing maze of doorways and little rooms and kitchens.
The next morning I left for Cuzco, but the roads were closed down by a strike and we got stuck in a little town two hours away. I met two girls, UCLA art history grad students, who were also stranded and was able to spend the day with them, so that was nice. We weren´t able to leave until the following night, so I had to sleep in the bus station and missed my flights to Lima and Guayaquil. When I finally got back to Cuzco it was almost midnight the day after I had left Arequipa at 7:30am. I had to stay there an extra night, then try to get my flights fixed. The TACA people at first told me that there was a flight from Lima to Guayaquil the next morning, but that they couldn´t get me to Lima, which is the only place to fly to Ecuador from, until the 21st, or I could pay $74 extra to fly with a different airline the next afternoon, but then have to stay in Lima for a few days until there was an available flight to Ecuador. Just when I was about to feel desparate and cry and take a bus, some other guy said that there was space on a flight leaving in less than an hour, so I jumped in a taxi to my hostel, threw my things into my bags and asked the driver to get me to the airport muy rapido. Of course, when I got there the flight had been delayed an hour and there was no rush. The woman in Cuzco had said that she had reserved a spot for me on the flight to Guayaquil and that I wouldn´t have to pay extra (I didn´t for the flight to Lima), but she didn´t print anything out and I left in such a hurry that I forgot to ask. When I got to Lima I checked about the flight to Guayaquil and they said I was on it. I spent the night in the airport and when I went to check in in the morning, they couldn´t find my name. Luckily, there was space, but I had to pay $100.
Overall, Peru was very beautiful, but very touristy and less pleasant, less tranquilo, than I have found Ecuador to be. I am glad to be back. This afternoon, if I can find my ride, I will be heading up to an organic biodynamic flower farm 35km north of Quito.
There are new pictures, but not all of them yet.
And then we began our trek! There were eighteen of us (five Irish, four Northern Irish, four Americans, three French, one German and one Scot), two guides, four horsemen and four cooks. Our main guide, Miguel, was really excellent. He knew a lot and was clearly very personally interested in the history and ecology of the area. The first day started with a bus ride to the hot springs in Lares, where we soaked a bit and had lunch. From there, we hiked to our first camp site. The group was good. Everyone was friendly and no one walked too fast or too slow. Their was a group of four Irish guys, and they were hilarious, both intentionally and not. Their taste in music ranged from Kenny Rodgers (a walked behind them for a while while they sang The Gambler) to 80s classics like Total Eclipse of the Heart. They loved the Backstreet Boys and Will Smith. For the Hyltons reading this, one of the other Americans turned out to be from Hillsville. He graduated with Lauren Chitwood. He said I was the first person he´d ever met who had even heard of Hillsville, let alone been there!
The hiking itself wasn´t that strenuous, but we were at such high altitudes, that breathing was sometimes a bit of a problem. The second day we did our highest pass at about 4300 meters. We also weren´t getting a whole lot of sleep becuase the nights were soooooo cold (the first night it was -10 C). None of this mattered too much though because the scenery was amazing. We did the Lares Valley trail, not the Inca, which was nice because we ran into very few other hikers. We were hiking through small towns and all of the children would chase after us. Miguel had told us to bring candies and pencils and things to give them, but they were vicious sometimes. When I first pulled out my boxes of colored pencils, I was attacked by about ten kids clawing at my hands. Every place I went in Peru there were children dressed in traditional clothes holding lambs asking for a sole or a candy to take their picture. I can´t really blame them because they are a tourist attraction, and it is only fair that they see some of the money that the tourists bring into the country. At the same time, it is a little awkward.
The third day we got to Ollantaytambo. Carolyn and I visited the ruins, and they were having a festival celebrating a pre-Incan king who had stood up to the Incas. They were reinacting the story on the ruins themselves, which was really interesting to watch. After lunch, we took the train to Aguas Calientes. The drawback to the Lares trail is that it doesn´t actually end at Machu Picchu, but it was definitely nice to take a shower and get a good night´s sleep before going to Machu Picchu. That night in Aguas Calientes, we all went dancing and the Irish guys had a danceoff to a few of their favorite songs (Getting Jiggy With It was definitely played).
In the morning, we took a 5:45 bus to Machu Picchu and sat on the terraces watching the fog lift and the sun rise over the ruins while Miguel explained the history. It was pretty incredible. He then led us around to the major sites. By the time the big tour groups started to arrive, our tour was over and a bunch of us decided to climb Wayna Picchu, the peak on the righthand side of all the famous Machu Picchu pictures. The climb up was extremely steep, but the views from the top were amazing. The climb down was even steeper, and a bit scary at times. After that, a few of us went to the Sun Gate, another long hot hike with amazing views. The Sun Gate is the end of the Inca Trail, and even though it was after 2pm, we saw some very tired groups just getting in. It was a little strange to have planned an entire trip to Peru and spend a few days hiking to get to Machu Picchu, then leave at 2:30. It wasn´t exactly anti-climactic because it was a really amazing place, but it just seemed like we should have stayed longer after going through so much to get there. At 2:30 though, I was hot and hungry and tired, so I left.
Carolyn and I spent one more night in Aguas Calientes, then went to Moray, another Inca site the next day. Moray is three huge terraced bowls built into the ground. Each level has a different microclimate and the Incas used them to experiment with what crops grew best in what conditions. Pretty cool. To get there, you have to either be on a bus tour, or hire a taxi, so we hired a taxi. Our driver was pretty much a tour guide, telling us about the site and the towns we drove through, then stopping at views on the way back to Cuzco so that we could take pictures. I was very glad then that I had taken those Spanish classes.
We spent one more night in Cuzco, then Carolyn headed home and I went to Lake Titicaca. The guy from Hillsville and his friends were supposed to come too, but a few were sick, so they postponed their trip for a day and I went to Puno on my own. For some reason, I had expected Puno to be a nice lakeside town, but it wasn´t. I saw what there was to see the first morning (a church, a plaza, an archeological museum), then went to Silustani in the afternoon. Silustani is a pre-Incan site with large funeral towers. It was interesting, especially since I had seen some of the artifacts and bodies that had been found there in the museum, but I had to take a bus tour to get there, and on the way back we stopped in a ´typical antiplano home´, which was a little wierd. I like seeing the way other people live, but it felt a bit forced and artificial. They gave us some cheese and potatoes and grain to eat, and a sauce they make out of clay.
When I got back to Puno, I had an email from my Machu Picchu friends saying that they were going straight to Bolivia. That was too bad because I had been hoping to visit the Lake Titicaca islands with them, thereby avoiding having to do an organized tour. Oh well. The next morning I left with the tour group. Our first stop was one of the floating Uros islands. These are pretty incredible. They are built out of the reeds that grow in the lake. They are about 3-4 meters thick and the islanders constantly add more reeds to them as the ones on the bottom decay. They use the reeds for everything, their houses, boats, food, etc. There are about 40 islands and about 30% accept tourists. The ones that do are very well prepared, with maps of the lake and model islands, homes and boats for the tour guides to use when explaining the way the islands work. Then they offer to take you over to another island on one of their boats. I accepted the ride, why not?
Our next island was Amantani. There, we were assigned to families who we ate dinner and spent the night with. Again, this felt awkward and forced. Our family didn´t talk to us very much, except for the three year old boy who I played with most of the time we were there in an attempt to minimize the awkwardness, and boredom. The whole group hiked up to the Pachatata temple for the sunset, which was very beautiful. After dinner, the families hosted an awkward dance for us, where we dressed in traditional clothing and danced with them to traditional music. They played maybe five songs before everyone was ready to leave. Our final island was Taquile. I think it is probably very beautiful, and they have a very interesting culture full of intricate clothing codes and knitting men, but we mostly just ate lunch there before returning to Puno.
I had already decided that I couldn´t stay in Puno another day, but it was Saturday and I didn´t fly back to Ecuador until Wednesday, so Sunday morning I took the bus to Arequipa. The city was very beautiful and it was a pleasant place to just kill some time in. I went to the Santa Catalina monastery, which is a huge old convent that used to accept only extremely wealthy women. At some point the bishop had to decree that each nun could only have one servant each. The whole place was an amazing maze of doorways and little rooms and kitchens.
The next morning I left for Cuzco, but the roads were closed down by a strike and we got stuck in a little town two hours away. I met two girls, UCLA art history grad students, who were also stranded and was able to spend the day with them, so that was nice. We weren´t able to leave until the following night, so I had to sleep in the bus station and missed my flights to Lima and Guayaquil. When I finally got back to Cuzco it was almost midnight the day after I had left Arequipa at 7:30am. I had to stay there an extra night, then try to get my flights fixed. The TACA people at first told me that there was a flight from Lima to Guayaquil the next morning, but that they couldn´t get me to Lima, which is the only place to fly to Ecuador from, until the 21st, or I could pay $74 extra to fly with a different airline the next afternoon, but then have to stay in Lima for a few days until there was an available flight to Ecuador. Just when I was about to feel desparate and cry and take a bus, some other guy said that there was space on a flight leaving in less than an hour, so I jumped in a taxi to my hostel, threw my things into my bags and asked the driver to get me to the airport muy rapido. Of course, when I got there the flight had been delayed an hour and there was no rush. The woman in Cuzco had said that she had reserved a spot for me on the flight to Guayaquil and that I wouldn´t have to pay extra (I didn´t for the flight to Lima), but she didn´t print anything out and I left in such a hurry that I forgot to ask. When I got to Lima I checked about the flight to Guayaquil and they said I was on it. I spent the night in the airport and when I went to check in in the morning, they couldn´t find my name. Luckily, there was space, but I had to pay $100.
Overall, Peru was very beautiful, but very touristy and less pleasant, less tranquilo, than I have found Ecuador to be. I am glad to be back. This afternoon, if I can find my ride, I will be heading up to an organic biodynamic flower farm 35km north of Quito.
There are new pictures, but not all of them yet.
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