Tales of Another World

Last week was out of control with classes. I did not enjoy myself, I must say. Seven hours a day is much too much, and add homework on top of that ! I went to the office on Thursday and told them I was bequeathing two hours each day to a friend of mine. The office insisted that this was not possible, though no such policy existed in writing. I told them that seven hours a day is not manageable, and they have worked out that rather than four hours of group and three of individual I will have four hours of individual and one additional hour of individual in the city. Much better I think! By the end of the week I was exhausted, and thought I would sleep like a baby on the bus ride to Puno near lake Titicaca.
Before heading to the terminal terestre (the local bus station) a group of us went for Japanese food here in Cusco. It was delicious and after we paid we were ready…except me. I had left my ticket in the restaurant, and luckily the server chased us down the road to give my ticket back! We made it to the bus station and checked in, boarding our luxury bus at 9:30pm. The bus had fold-down foot rests and leaned back almost all the way…super-posh. Unfortunately, I can´t sleep on buses. The ride to Puno felt short in comparison to the 15 hour bus ride from Manu. We arrived at the Puno station at 4 am. We had been told our guide wouldn´t be there for a couple hours after we arrived, but we found him as soon as we got off the bus. We sat for a quick breakfast before heading to his office. At the office we had an hour and a half before we needed to leave for the peir to get a boat. We were all so tired that we slept and rested for the full hour and a half…most of us sleeping no more than 30 minutes.
When we arrived at the peir there were several boats. We boarded one that was very posh and we were excited to ride it. We got comfortable, and in true Peru style a piper came to play us some tunes and collect some tips while we waited. We were then told to get off the boat and get onto another one. One not half as nice as the first and completely overcrowded. A girl from our group, Chantal, told the director we wouldn´t get on that boat because it was too full and there wasn´t space. They argued back and forth for a few minutes before we all got off and they put us back on the first boat…with everone from the overcrowded boat. We met our guide, Neo, and took off to the Uros islands. It took about 25 minutes to get there by boat, and once we got there it was like another world. There were several small islands all made from reeds. Many people live on these islands and survive off of the reeds and fish they can collect. We were given a presentation by the local chief of the island we were on about how the islands are constructed. We went for a boat ride in a reed boat and were permitted to sample some of the reeds that the locals use for everything. It didn´t taste like much to be honest, but our guide told us that it is used for everything and even is a source of iodine! We spent over an hour on the island and were able to view some of the handicrafts made by the locals before getting back on the boat.
The next part of our journey consisted of three hours on a boat across Lake Titicaca, the world´s highest navigable lake. We rested, took in the beautiful views, and tried to stay warm. I saw a site I have never seen before that took my breath away while riding on the boat. There was a double rainbow in the sky, but no rain clouds were nearby, and the rainbows did not arch down to the ground, but rather created a circle around the sun. It was amazing! We reached Amantani around 4pm where we were greeted by the families who would host us for the evening. I stayed with Chantal and our host contact was Jenny. We went to her home and had a late lunch of quinoa soup, several varieties of potatoes and fried local cheese. The food was very good, and gave us lots of energy for our high altitude hike up the highest points of the small island (supposedly the highest point in the lake). It was a stiff walk up the hill to the top of Pacha Mama (a local diety that everyone knows and reveres in Peru). We were given loads of information by our wonderful guide about the local traditions and people, including the fact that there was evidence of human habitation on this island from 400bc, and that at that time people were very afraid to come to the island because it was supposedly filled with shamans and wizards. After our steep hike we rested for about 30 minutes at our host homes before eating a light dinner and getting ready for a ¨special surprise.¨ Our host families dressed us up in local attire and we all went to the local meeting center for a dance. We danced with our host families and with each other, doing all types of traditional dances. Chantal and I bought a Cusceña for our host contact and enjoyed the festivities. We were so exhausted, though, that we only danced until 9pm before needing to go back to our home to go to sleep. Our accommodations were super-fancy for the island, and it felt so glamorous to be where we were with a million stars overhead.
Our sleep was great that night, and we felt snug and secure under our heavy llama blankets. We rose early to breakfast and leave the island by 8am. We headed to the small island of Tequile about an hour away. We hiked up the near the top of the island and had a lunch while listening to our guide recount interesting facts about the local culture. For example we were told that the society here is so male-oriented that the women even walk behind the men about 10 paces, but an interesting fact that would appear contradictory was that the women did not knit on this island, only the men did. This island, though interesting, was probably the least enticing of the three areas we visited. We climbed down the hill and boarded our bus to return to Puno. After about 2 of the 3 hours we had left on the boat the water started getting a bit choppy. The boat heaved and clunked through the waves, all the passengers having to come into the small and cramped interior cabin. We were told that we didn´t have to put our life jackets on yet, but we were a bit nervous as the boat bumped into the troughs of the waves, occasionally causing the motor to cut out. We made it safely back to Puno where we had 4 hours to kill until our second overnight bus took off.
A few of us found a super-cool bar in Puno where we spent the entire rest of our evening. It was a rock pub where they had games, pillows to sit on, and great music. The rest of our group joined us for dinner, then we all went off to the bus station together. We boarded our bus at 9:10 pm and were on our way back to Cusco. When we arrived back at the Cusco station we had a bit of a hard time getting a cab as they were all charging way too much. We finally got back to school around 4am, and I couldn´t possibly go to bed being as dirty as I was. I took a quick shower and made it to bed by 4:30 am…in time for just a few z´s before my morning classes. That´s all for now, and I can´t wait to show you all the rest of the wonderful pictures I am taking of the area.

Views from Another World

Views from Manu

My apologies for any formatting oddities...don´t have much time to mess around with those kinds of things in the internet cafes. Enjoy this little taste:)

Returned from the Jungle

I decided rather against my will to go into the jungle. We had a meeting about going to Manu very shortly before we were to be going, and the woman who came to give a speech about our trip said that the one complaint they get is that it is too busy and people don´t usually want to have their Spanish lessons. I thought that it wouldn´t be so good to try to have my private lessons if there already wasn´t enough time to do the group lessons, so I talked to the office about it. I mostly wanted them to be able to apply the money from my private lessons to the cost of going to Manu, which was pretty steep. They insisted they couldn´t do that and that there would be time to do the private lessons in the jungle. They told me that I could have 3 hours a day of private lessons (in addition to the 4 hours of group classes) for the last two weeks I am in Cusco, and they told me that I needed to make a decision for sure within 5 minutes. I was leaning towards not going when they said that I was the 6th person signed up to go, and if I didn´t go then no one would be able to. Everyone in the group was so excited to go, so I decided that I would pay the steep fee, have 7 hours of Spanish a day for 2 weeks, and go off to the jungle.
There were warnings about vampire bats, mosquitos, mold and humidity before we left, but none of them stopped us from taking off early on Sunday morning to make to trip to Manu National Park. We had a big bus all for ourselves, and the scenery on the drive was amazing. We wound through mountain passes for hours on bumpy dirt roads until we arrived in the Manu cloud forest. We hopped out of the bus and viewed some birds and some capuchin monkeys. We even got to see the special dance of the Cock of the Rock (Peru´s national bird) before making our way to the lodge where we would spend the night. The sounds of the jungle were astounding, and we slept like babies in preparation for the river trip down the Alto Madre De Dios River the next day.
The six of us plus our teacher and our guide walked up the road a bit, observing the butterflies and birds of the cloud forest the following morning. The bus picked us up a short way down the road and we rode for a couple hours before arriving in Atolaya where we would catch our boat. I had heard all kinds of rumors bout the boats being unsteady, but I found it very smooth riding. We road for 2 hours or so before arriving at Pantiacolla Lodge, otherwise known as paradise. We each shared a room, and my cabin was called Tumuy Tumuy, no doubt the sound a local bird makes. I shared my room with Nadine from Austria. The lodge had no electricity, but candles and oil lanterns cast a romantic glow over the camp. We had mosquito nets around each of our beds, but we were told this was more to fend off the vampire bats than the mosquitoes! We spent our days hiking in the forest, learning Spanish, and generally going to bed early since we rose very early each day. One night we went for a night hike in the jungle where we saw a lot of insects and frogs. Nadine spotted the biggest frog any of us had ever seen, perhaps 7 inches in diameter! On Thursday we visited the local hot springs, lounging for over an hour and a half and occasionally having to move away because the water was so hot. We visited a local village in the park on Friday, introducing ourselves and talking a bit with the children in Spanish. The park is set up in several different zones, and we were in the cultural zone. Many people still live in the park, and live the same way their tribes have always lived, hunting with bows and arrows and poison darts, and gathering various vegetables and herbs.
Our guide, Jose, was amazing. He was educated as a biologist, and his background was particularly beneficial to us as he could explain why things grew as they did in the forest and how the growing things all worked together. Because he was local he was also able to give us a lot of insight into the local people, providing information about the different types of tribes and even the tribes that want no communication with the outside world. Under Jose´s careful guidance we saw many different types of birds (Manu is known as a birder´s paradise), five types of monkeys, an otter, and insects of all shades. The excursion ended with a 15 hour ride back to Cusco. For the duration of the trip our bus was on the verge of breakdown, and this time we were not alone in the bus, but with two other tour groups. We each shared seats, and all our bags were piled in as well. We had to stop every 20 minutes or so to allow the bus driver to add water to the radiator. Our teacher Libia was very sick for the last 5 hours of the bus ride…not a nice place to be sick! Thankfully, however, we made it back to Cusco in more or less the same condition we left, and are back at it again with our busy lives in Cusco.

A brief update from the navel of the world

Cusco is beautiful. The incas called it the navel of the world, and its name means thus. I have been here for only 4 days now, and feel quite at home I must say. After a good night´s rest things started looking brighter. The classes I am taking are going quite well, and it is truly shocking indeed how quickly my spanish is improving. The private lessons are certainly helping, particularly as far as conversation goes. I think next week I will travel with the Amauta school to the jungle, and attend classes there for a week. I have had a chance to explore Cusco´s markets, and have already successfully shopped for dinner ingredients there in the markets. The people who are going to classes here are truly interesting, and the variety of cultures represented is astounding and enriching. I am unsure as yet where I will go after my 4 weeks here, but I have some time still to decide how to travel the rest of Peru. Hasta luego.

Without a Hitch

Well, I made it to the grand adventure. I think the biggest lesson I must learn about all these travel plans is not to always go with the cheapest, but to look at all aspects of the flight plan. For example, the Miami airport is neither a fun nor a comfortable place to spend over 8 hours. In the future I will take this into consideration! All legs of the trip did go smoothly, though. Boston has never been easier to get into and out of, and the first plane I went on had very few people on board, so I had a row all to myself. Once I was finally on my way from Lima to Cusco it was exciting. The view was amazing from the airplane. The mountain tops seemed like they would hit the bottom of the plane! Cusco is alive today, and though I am unsure as yet of the occasion bands are heard throughout the city, and the army was having a gathering by the plaza. My room at the Amauta School is quite fine, and I am the only one on the third floor. The views from the school are stunning, and the one meal I´ve had there so far was delicious. I have a meeting to attend this afternoon at four, and plan to go directly to sleep after that, since I have only about 2 hours under my belt for the past 2 days. Peace and Joy. I will update again soon.