We are in Uruguay! Since it is so close to Buenos Aires, Eben and I decided that we needed to take the ferry over for a few days. Right now we are in Colonia, an amazing town that I could easily live in. It's pretty small and quiet, so while Eben and I were walking around town this afternoon, the only noise we heard besides our shoes on the cobblestone was the birds chirping. Amazing. Of course some areas have actual cars and noise, but for the most part it's just very serene. There are also lots of beautiful roses and other flowers, so everytime a breeze blows past you, you catch the wonderful scent of roses. With the cobblestone streets, seaside, crumbling old buildings, and rose gardens, this place is almost too good to be true.
I keep forgetting that it is the end of October because it is the middle of spring here, and it's been about 80 degrees every day. Today felt like the perfect summer day, not a cloud in the sky. We'll be in for quite a shock when we come back in January and are faced with the brutal New York cold! Until then, I'm enjoying every moment in the sun and eagerly await our next trip to the beach!
Tourists have the option of renting motorbikes, bicycles, or golf carts (yes, golf carts) to explore the town, but we've been enjoying walking. Maybe tomorrow will be a motorbike day. We originally were only going to stay for a day and then head over to Montevideo for a few days, but this place is too beautiful to leave. Sadly we have to be back in Buenos Aires by Friday, as I am taking the dreaded Psych GRE on Saturday morning in the city. Getting out of the city has made me realize that Buenos Aires, while beautiful and fun, is just not for me. I loved it at first, but once that wore off, I kind of decided that there are so many other places in South America that I would prefer to be in. I think our dislike for the family we were staying with may have had something to do with this desire to flee Buenos Aires, but honestly, I'm just happy to be in a new place. In a new country!
That's it for now, just wanted to profess my love for Colonia. :)
Monday, October 29, 2007
Shakespeare in the Park
This should have been posted yesterday (Sunday), but the website was acting up and it didn't quite work.
A quick update about yesterday just because it was too cool. After a long day of walking around, buying fake adidas, finding the local skateboarding place outside of the post office, we decided to check out the botanical gardens. First of all, there are hundreds of cats here that, as we found out, respond to the sound of plastic bags. We think it is because they think we were carrying food. I had my purchases in a plastic bag and felt like the Pied Piper with cats following us and coming to me everywhere we went in the park. Really, as soon as they realized that we had no food, they scampered away. But it was cool to shake the bag and have 6 or 7 cats come out of nowhere, trotting toward us across the gardens. But what was really cool is that we stumbled upon some outdoor theater. It was A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Spanish, in the park. Even with the language barrier (for me at least), it was clearly recognizable since there were sleeping couples in the grass, a man with a donkey's head and there was no question who Puck was (he was a grunge, punk-rocker). It was interesting and fun, they solicited audience participation (or just grabbed people, dragged them over and gave them props/costumes) for the play within the play and it was quite funny. Who would have thought that we would get to see Shakespeare in the park, for free, in Spanish, in Buenos Aires. Certainly not me.
A quick update about yesterday just because it was too cool. After a long day of walking around, buying fake adidas, finding the local skateboarding place outside of the post office, we decided to check out the botanical gardens. First of all, there are hundreds of cats here that, as we found out, respond to the sound of plastic bags. We think it is because they think we were carrying food. I had my purchases in a plastic bag and felt like the Pied Piper with cats following us and coming to me everywhere we went in the park. Really, as soon as they realized that we had no food, they scampered away. But it was cool to shake the bag and have 6 or 7 cats come out of nowhere, trotting toward us across the gardens. But what was really cool is that we stumbled upon some outdoor theater. It was A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Spanish, in the park. Even with the language barrier (for me at least), it was clearly recognizable since there were sleeping couples in the grass, a man with a donkey's head and there was no question who Puck was (he was a grunge, punk-rocker). It was interesting and fun, they solicited audience participation (or just grabbed people, dragged them over and gave them props/costumes) for the play within the play and it was quite funny. Who would have thought that we would get to see Shakespeare in the park, for free, in Spanish, in Buenos Aires. Certainly not me.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Welcome to Argentina
In the last week, our, or at least my, opinion on our organization has changed drastically. I no longer like it and I believe that the problems it has may be and probably are problems shared by many internationally staffed NGOs. First of all, there is no consistency. For instance, out in El Jaguel, where we go to "teach English," LIFE runs their program two days a week. Only one person has been going there for an extended period of time and she only goes one day a week. Since she is the only one the kids actually know, she is the only one that they will really listen to. Kids are much smarter and craftier than we give them credit for. For them, we are like the substitute teacher that no one pays attention to. English teaching is a joke, I think I spend more time protecting myself because a kid named Gabi keeps trying to punch me in the balls. So while it is great to have so many volunteers being so enthusiastic about this, some consistency would really help so that the kids don't always see a rotatation of gringos who don't really have any authority. Second, the program is only two days a week. LIFE talks about trying to be positive role models for these kids. Again, it is a problem of consistency. How can you be a positive role model when you are with these kids for two hours, maybe two days a week, for two weeks and they see you as the substitute teacher? Third, they run four centers. When they can only devote two days a week to one of the centers, that tells me that resources are being spread too thin. I completely understand the desire to reach and "serve" more kids, but by spreading themselves out, they are partially creating the first two problems I spoke of. Finally and most importantly, it is all too obvious where their money is being spent. In Cuzco, Inti only had one center that contained the offices, the kitchen, the homework room, the workshops and all of the materials that the kids had access to. Here in Buenos Aires, LIFE rents a very nice office in one of the more expensive parts of town. Then, we go from there to the run-down, dilapidated soup kitchens that LIFE calls a community center for the afternoon with little or no supplies for the kids. We bring some worksheets, coloring sheets and some crayons. If we are lucky, we bring a ball to play with for the last 10 minutes of the afternoon. The birthday parties get more things, but it is only cake, balloons and small presents for the birthday kids (yes, it is much better than nothing). But what is frustrating is that Inti in Cuzco was an organization with far less funding and volunteers, yet they managed to provide far more in terms of supplies and art projects for their students. Inti was not without its problems, but at least it was right to supply things to keep kids busy rather than the same worksheets week after week, encouraging boredom and then acting up. I believe that the office here at LIFE is solely for the purpose of the volunteers, all of whom are international, and doesn't benefit at all the kids that they profess to help.
Other than that, Buenos Aires is a pretty awesome city. We have tried to do some siteseeing most mornings before work in the afternoon and have been fairly successful. We started on Monday morning at Recoleta Cemetary. It is a little strange to be doing cemetary tourism, but this place is pretty cool. It is all mausoleums built in every imaginable style.
Some are in very good condition while others obviously have no one who comes to check up on them. Buried there is Eva Peron, and she has the best kept family mausoleum, always adorned with roses left by visitors. There is also a large feline population that takes advantage of the quiet and the genorosity of the caretakers (bowls of food are out everywhere). On Tuesday, we took it easy but then went out that night for Cindy's birthday party. Cindy sang in Women's Chorus with Sarah and is here on a fellowship studying Spanish. We went out with her and all of her classmates and had an excellent dinner and drank some great wine. On Wednesday we went to one of the best museums we have seen so far. It is the MALBA, and it is all Latin American artists of the 20th century. It has a Frida Khalo, a Diego Rivera, lots of political art and just very good in general. It also has a very well stocked bookstore although quite expensive since most of the books in English were imported. On Thursday we went to the zoo. We had been warned that we might not like it because the animals were caged there. However, it was not as bad as we thought it might be. The spaces were a little smaller than the zoos at home like the Detroit or Bronx zoos. and some of them were covered in fencing, but they still had some really cool animals like the white Bengal tiger that was less than a foot away from us on the other side of a glass barrier. You could also feed all of the monkeys, llamas, camels, deer, goats, etc... While we were there, we caught in a torrential downpour that soaked us to the bone. Sarah was wearing flip-flops, so she couldn't run without losing her shoes. We gradually made it to the exit of the park through the rain, seeing the rhinos and the giraffes along the way. It took a while to get a cab home and the driver was not too happy that we got his backseat all wet. Yesterday (Friday) we went to the Holocaust Museum. It was a good display on Jewish life before, during and after the Holocaust and also examined (although not in too much depth) Argentina's role in both accepting refugees and harboring war criminals.
On Friday afternoon, we were already on the train, waiting to go out to El Jaguel when another train pulled into the station and there was a flash of light and a small explosion. Nobody has any idea what was going on, but they stopped all trains going in and out of the station. So we were waiting around for a while, asking people what happened trying to figure out if we would make it out to the kids that day. One guy who one of our volunteers had been talking to in Spanish suddenly breaks into English and very succinctly says with a shrug of the shoulders, "Welcome to Argentina!" The train station is one of the few places in this city that we feel like we are in South America and that phrase I guess summed up experiences traveling through here. We have had a few situations like this in various countries (long airport delay in Quito because some plane blew a tire landing, bus strikes in Potosi, etc...). I think that the lesson is to be flexible and realize that things like this happen and thus, plans must change.
We will be leaving this city for Uruguay on Monday. We will do some more siteseeing today and tomorrow to catch some things that we missed. Also, there is the presidential elections tomorrow, so no alcohol is sold today or tomorrow in the whole country. They have mandatory voting and they don't want any drunk votes after a night of partying. Anyway, off to the market and then to the modern art museum. And we will update in Uruguay.
Other than that, Buenos Aires is a pretty awesome city. We have tried to do some siteseeing most mornings before work in the afternoon and have been fairly successful. We started on Monday morning at Recoleta Cemetary. It is a little strange to be doing cemetary tourism, but this place is pretty cool. It is all mausoleums built in every imaginable style.
Some are in very good condition while others obviously have no one who comes to check up on them. Buried there is Eva Peron, and she has the best kept family mausoleum, always adorned with roses left by visitors. There is also a large feline population that takes advantage of the quiet and the genorosity of the caretakers (bowls of food are out everywhere). On Tuesday, we took it easy but then went out that night for Cindy's birthday party. Cindy sang in Women's Chorus with Sarah and is here on a fellowship studying Spanish. We went out with her and all of her classmates and had an excellent dinner and drank some great wine. On Wednesday we went to one of the best museums we have seen so far. It is the MALBA, and it is all Latin American artists of the 20th century. It has a Frida Khalo, a Diego Rivera, lots of political art and just very good in general. It also has a very well stocked bookstore although quite expensive since most of the books in English were imported. On Thursday we went to the zoo. We had been warned that we might not like it because the animals were caged there. However, it was not as bad as we thought it might be. The spaces were a little smaller than the zoos at home like the Detroit or Bronx zoos. and some of them were covered in fencing, but they still had some really cool animals like the white Bengal tiger that was less than a foot away from us on the other side of a glass barrier. You could also feed all of the monkeys, llamas, camels, deer, goats, etc... While we were there, we caught in a torrential downpour that soaked us to the bone. Sarah was wearing flip-flops, so she couldn't run without losing her shoes. We gradually made it to the exit of the park through the rain, seeing the rhinos and the giraffes along the way. It took a while to get a cab home and the driver was not too happy that we got his backseat all wet. Yesterday (Friday) we went to the Holocaust Museum. It was a good display on Jewish life before, during and after the Holocaust and also examined (although not in too much depth) Argentina's role in both accepting refugees and harboring war criminals.
On Friday afternoon, we were already on the train, waiting to go out to El Jaguel when another train pulled into the station and there was a flash of light and a small explosion. Nobody has any idea what was going on, but they stopped all trains going in and out of the station. So we were waiting around for a while, asking people what happened trying to figure out if we would make it out to the kids that day. One guy who one of our volunteers had been talking to in Spanish suddenly breaks into English and very succinctly says with a shrug of the shoulders, "Welcome to Argentina!" The train station is one of the few places in this city that we feel like we are in South America and that phrase I guess summed up experiences traveling through here. We have had a few situations like this in various countries (long airport delay in Quito because some plane blew a tire landing, bus strikes in Potosi, etc...). I think that the lesson is to be flexible and realize that things like this happen and thus, plans must change.
We will be leaving this city for Uruguay on Monday. We will do some more siteseeing today and tomorrow to catch some things that we missed. Also, there is the presidential elections tomorrow, so no alcohol is sold today or tomorrow in the whole country. They have mandatory voting and they don't want any drunk votes after a night of partying. Anyway, off to the market and then to the modern art museum. And we will update in Uruguay.
Pictures!
We've done it! All of our pictures are uploaded! You can go to htttp://sagodoy.myphotoalbum.com to see everything from Peru and Bolivia, and what we have done so far in Argentina.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Buenos Aires
Well, Buenos Aires is definitely different from anywhere we've been so far in South America-- except it is just like home. This city has a definite Manhattan feel, with bits of Paris being very clear as well. There are lots of Upper East Side-esque buildings, beautiful gardens, and plenty of open spaces. It's a bit overwhelming at times because there is so much to see just within the city that I really think it's impossible to cram everything in when we're working during the week. The people here have a cosmopolitan (and snobbish) attitude unlike other Latin American cities. Argentines are notorious for saying they are more European than Latin American, yet they are extremely proud to be Argentine. Walking down the street, everyone is dressed in their finest, and I'll admit that I feel compelled to dress well even if we're just doing some sightseeing. It's frustrating because I didn't come here to feel competitive about fashion, yet it's just the type of city that makes you like that. At first it's a bit overwhelming, but I'm comfortable enough now to not care as much.
Eben and I will be here for about 2 weeks, mostly doing volunteer work. We are working with a wonderful organization called LIFE Argentina (www.lifeargentina.org). This group is so different from Inti. First of all, the LIFE office is very clean and nice and located in a rather wealthy neighborhood. The organization has regular staff members, usually people around our age, as well as lots of volunteers. The volunteers are free to stay for as long as they want and pick which days they want to work. Some people are students studying abroad, and others are just passing through like us. There's usually a set schedule for the week's activities, and we can pick what we want to do each day. For example, on Monday we could do Juegoteca (recreational activities) or English/computer classes, on Tuesday we could do school support/computer classes or teach English, and so on. The volunteers gather at the office beforehand and then travel together to one of four slums outside of Buenos Aires where LIFE has a community center. While the area of Cusco where we were working was definitely not very nice, the slums where we work are a bit more dangerous. When we go to work, we have to wear LIFE t-shirts (slightly cheesy, but also pretty rock star) so that the neighborhood people know who we are and don't think we are silly lost tourists that they can mug. This rests on the assumption that they value the work we do with their kids, but so far so good, right? El Jaguel, the slum where we have been teaching English on Tuesdays and Fridays, is kind of amusing because it is set up just like a Long Island suburb (designated wide streets, blocks of houses), but all of the houses are made up concrete slabs and sheets of aluminum.
There is also the occasional house that resembles more than just a shack, and they look like they could be decently nice inside. Eben said that the slums in South Africa are like this too and not too unusual, but I guess I just don't have much of a comparison to really know. It's nice to actually go into these communities and spend a few productive hours with the kids on their own turf, and it definitely is a HUGE contrast to what we see in Buenos Aires.
Besides volunteering, Eben and I have been relaxing and having a good time. The night life in Buenos Aires is INSANE. People eat dinner sometime after 9 pm and don't go out to the bars and clubs until 3 am. Then you are expected to stay out until about 7 am, sleep well into the afternoon, and do it all over again. Since I've had a cold all week, we have only done this once so far, but to be honest, this just isn't for me. I can't imagine doing it on a regular basis. I enjoy waking up before noon! Oh well. We've done other fun things like exploring the city and, most recently, meeting up with Cindy, one of the girls from Vassar Women's Chorus who is here on a language fellowship!
It'll be nice to see more of her and have a fellow Vassar person to hang out with. Today we also met up with one of the LIFE volunteers, Kellee, and headed down to La Boca to go to the futbol game. La Boca was such a cool neighborhood. I was feeling a bit stifled by Buenos Aires because practically everyone here is white, and it can really feel like this city is devoid of the sort of funkiness that I love about NYC. La Boca, while still very very shite, is a bit of a rougher neighborhood with a few tourist-friendly streets. These streets are colorfully painted, there are lots of markets, and it's just so fun to walk around. We did that all afternoon before the futbol game, and it was just perfect. The game itself (Boca Juniors v. Estudiantes-- we cheered Boca of course) was lots of fun, though Boca definitely did not play as well as we had hoped. This stadium was a lot larger than the one in Quito, and with actual seats instead of benches! In addition, they cannot sell alcohol in the stadium because, as one vendor laughed at us when we inquired, "otherwise everyone would kill each other." Passions run high at these games. The police wouldn't even allow us to walk in one area outside the stadium because the visitors' entrance was there, and since we were all wearing the Boca colors, it just wasn't safe. Definitely a bit different from the games I've been to, but that's life I suppose. Futbol without beer is very sad indeed, but at least it saves lives?
In other news, we are slowly progressing with uploading our photos online! We've got most of Peru online, so feel free to go to sagodoy.myphotoalbum.com to see them. Hopefully we'll get up to date soon!
Eben and I will be here for about 2 weeks, mostly doing volunteer work. We are working with a wonderful organization called LIFE Argentina (www.lifeargentina.org). This group is so different from Inti. First of all, the LIFE office is very clean and nice and located in a rather wealthy neighborhood. The organization has regular staff members, usually people around our age, as well as lots of volunteers. The volunteers are free to stay for as long as they want and pick which days they want to work. Some people are students studying abroad, and others are just passing through like us. There's usually a set schedule for the week's activities, and we can pick what we want to do each day. For example, on Monday we could do Juegoteca (recreational activities) or English/computer classes, on Tuesday we could do school support/computer classes or teach English, and so on. The volunteers gather at the office beforehand and then travel together to one of four slums outside of Buenos Aires where LIFE has a community center. While the area of Cusco where we were working was definitely not very nice, the slums where we work are a bit more dangerous. When we go to work, we have to wear LIFE t-shirts (slightly cheesy, but also pretty rock star) so that the neighborhood people know who we are and don't think we are silly lost tourists that they can mug. This rests on the assumption that they value the work we do with their kids, but so far so good, right? El Jaguel, the slum where we have been teaching English on Tuesdays and Fridays, is kind of amusing because it is set up just like a Long Island suburb (designated wide streets, blocks of houses), but all of the houses are made up concrete slabs and sheets of aluminum.
There is also the occasional house that resembles more than just a shack, and they look like they could be decently nice inside. Eben said that the slums in South Africa are like this too and not too unusual, but I guess I just don't have much of a comparison to really know. It's nice to actually go into these communities and spend a few productive hours with the kids on their own turf, and it definitely is a HUGE contrast to what we see in Buenos Aires. Besides volunteering, Eben and I have been relaxing and having a good time. The night life in Buenos Aires is INSANE. People eat dinner sometime after 9 pm and don't go out to the bars and clubs until 3 am. Then you are expected to stay out until about 7 am, sleep well into the afternoon, and do it all over again. Since I've had a cold all week, we have only done this once so far, but to be honest, this just isn't for me. I can't imagine doing it on a regular basis. I enjoy waking up before noon! Oh well. We've done other fun things like exploring the city and, most recently, meeting up with Cindy, one of the girls from Vassar Women's Chorus who is here on a language fellowship!
It'll be nice to see more of her and have a fellow Vassar person to hang out with. Today we also met up with one of the LIFE volunteers, Kellee, and headed down to La Boca to go to the futbol game. La Boca was such a cool neighborhood. I was feeling a bit stifled by Buenos Aires because practically everyone here is white, and it can really feel like this city is devoid of the sort of funkiness that I love about NYC. La Boca, while still very very shite, is a bit of a rougher neighborhood with a few tourist-friendly streets. These streets are colorfully painted, there are lots of markets, and it's just so fun to walk around. We did that all afternoon before the futbol game, and it was just perfect. The game itself (Boca Juniors v. Estudiantes-- we cheered Boca of course) was lots of fun, though Boca definitely did not play as well as we had hoped. This stadium was a lot larger than the one in Quito, and with actual seats instead of benches! In addition, they cannot sell alcohol in the stadium because, as one vendor laughed at us when we inquired, "otherwise everyone would kill each other." Passions run high at these games. The police wouldn't even allow us to walk in one area outside the stadium because the visitors' entrance was there, and since we were all wearing the Boca colors, it just wasn't safe. Definitely a bit different from the games I've been to, but that's life I suppose. Futbol without beer is very sad indeed, but at least it saves lives?In other news, we are slowly progressing with uploading our photos online! We've got most of Peru online, so feel free to go to sagodoy.myphotoalbum.com to see them. Hopefully we'll get up to date soon!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
A Little Bit Gay
As Sarah left off, the bus ride to Argentina did not rock. To begin with, we left at 1 PM to arrive at 4:30 PM the next day. First we went from Sucre to Potosi, not bad, only 3 hours. Then waited for 4 hours until our bus left for the border. The road was unpaved, someone had their window open and it was about -15 F in the bus and we made some unnecessary late stops in the middle of nowhere during which the lights would turn back on immediately waking me up from the sleep I had only just begun. Then we arrived at the border at about 4:30 AM and the border doesn't open until 6 and it was still freezing outside. While we were half asleep, some touts for a bus company try to convince us to by our tickets for the bus in Argentina on the Bolivian side, swearing on God, their mothers and their families graves that the prices are no different across the border. Right we were to be skeptical and walk across the border ourselves to buy the tickets because they were half the price on the other side. The border on the Argentine side didn't open right away so we were in line for quite a while in no man's land waiting for things to get moving. Finally we made it onto a bus at 9 for 7 more hours of traveling. But, we finally made it to Salta and at the bus station was a guy who worked for the hostel that we were going to check out. So we got a free cab ride and a slightly discounted price for the beds at a pretty nice place.
Argentina was so different than Bolivia, it was shocking at first. Salta is a really beautiful colonial city but it is also very commercial and it was crazy seeing shop after shop of designer clothes for the first time since being at home. We went to the archaeological museum first to see the mummies that they have retrieved from the mountain tops on the border with Peru. They were very similar to Juanita in Arequipa, Peru, but possibly better preserved. This whole museum was about the mountain top rituals of the Incas and they had all of the artifacts that were also buried with the human sacrifices. Due to the extreme cold, these mummies have been frozen since they were left for dead and are in perfect condition: teeth, hair, skin, everything. We then went to Cathedral which was one of the more beautiful churches that we have seen in South America. It was not necessarily ornate, but it was grand. At the bowls of holy water, it also advised that use of holy water for the purposes of witchcraft is strictly forbidden.
We had an excellent dinner that night to treat ourselves after a long bus ride and a dinner of crackers and Fanta the night before. Then we left the next day for our flight to Buenos Aires at 1 in the afternoon. It is a bummer that we did not get to spend more time in Salta since it seemed like a really nice city and there were some more things both inside and outside of the city that would have been cool to see. But I suppose that there is always next time.
Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, we were picked up and brought to the apartment we are staying in. It is the apartment of the director of the program and her two kids. This place is quite nice, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and an awesome living room with a balcony. It is also in one of the trendier neighborhoods in the city. We were shown around and then told that there was going to be a birthday party later (starting at 12 or 12:30) and that we would all go out around 3. This nightlife is ridiculous, I don't know why things are so late, but if you can sleep all day then by all means it is awesome.
The birthday party was pretty fun, awkward for a while and then we started talking to a couple of guys. One person that we met is the perfect example of Argentina, or more precisely, Buenos Aires. Argentina was playing South Africa the next day in the semi-finals of the rugby world cup. At least one person at the party was wearing an Argentina rugby jersey. This kid is wearing the South Africa jersey. We were talking for a while and then I ask him why and he replies with a shrug, "It matches my shoes, I'm a little bit gay." Brilliant. We ended up going to a club around 3 and staying there until sometime after 5 at which point Sarah and I left early leaving everyone else there.
Sunday was a day of recovery, with a little food shopping and watching rugby and that is about it. We found a great bar the day before that is a brewery, so we went back there for the rugby game which Argentina lost and we wandered home for a ridiculously long nap that ended around 12:30. Since Monday was a holiday, our hosts went out but we stayed in and watched tv until going to bed, super exciting.
We finally got out to do some sightseeing on Monday only to find most things closed because of the holiday. But we walked from our house all the way into the center of town to the Plaza de Mayo in about 2 hours. Along the way, more random encounters! We ran into the couple that we did our Machu Picchu tour with and had a little chat with them. It is strange that even though we take different routes, we can still run into the same people weeks after first meeting.
We checked out the Cathedral on the north side of the plaza first. To begin with, it looks like the Pantheon with the very shallow triangular roof and pillars out in front. Inside is very beautiful though and very well preserved and taken care of. Inside is the tomb of Jose de San Martin, a general that helped win Argentina's independence. His grave is guarded by soldiers like those outside Buckingham Palace, the ones that don't move but look pretty cool. Like Salta, the church was not too ornate (with the exception of the altar of solid silver) but very grand. All that walking is quite tiring and the weather wasn't great, so we went back home until dinner.
Tuesday was our first day of work here. We had to go into the office a little early for our entrance interview, just to know a little about us and what our interests our and how we can best help the organization. There are a lot of foreigners volunteering there and you can sign up for whatever activities you want to volunteer for each week. It is a pretty cool system. We opted for English tutoring our first day. We went out to El Jagual, a slum on the outskirts of the city, to a little building (it is a stretch to call it a community center) for our English classes. The kids are all between about 5 and 12, so it is not actual English lessons. We had the older kids go over animals using word searches and then quizzing them while the younger kids pretty much just sat there drawing or playing with Sarah's earrings or the tiny puppy that one kid brought in. In the end, we just ended up playing a game outside with a ball that the coordinator brought with her. It was a lot of fun and we will be going back there on Friday to work again.
I am going to leave off here because it is a pretty long post and Sarah will continue soon.
Argentina was so different than Bolivia, it was shocking at first. Salta is a really beautiful colonial city but it is also very commercial and it was crazy seeing shop after shop of designer clothes for the first time since being at home. We went to the archaeological museum first to see the mummies that they have retrieved from the mountain tops on the border with Peru. They were very similar to Juanita in Arequipa, Peru, but possibly better preserved. This whole museum was about the mountain top rituals of the Incas and they had all of the artifacts that were also buried with the human sacrifices. Due to the extreme cold, these mummies have been frozen since they were left for dead and are in perfect condition: teeth, hair, skin, everything. We then went to Cathedral which was one of the more beautiful churches that we have seen in South America. It was not necessarily ornate, but it was grand. At the bowls of holy water, it also advised that use of holy water for the purposes of witchcraft is strictly forbidden.
We had an excellent dinner that night to treat ourselves after a long bus ride and a dinner of crackers and Fanta the night before. Then we left the next day for our flight to Buenos Aires at 1 in the afternoon. It is a bummer that we did not get to spend more time in Salta since it seemed like a really nice city and there were some more things both inside and outside of the city that would have been cool to see. But I suppose that there is always next time.
Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, we were picked up and brought to the apartment we are staying in. It is the apartment of the director of the program and her two kids. This place is quite nice, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and an awesome living room with a balcony. It is also in one of the trendier neighborhoods in the city. We were shown around and then told that there was going to be a birthday party later (starting at 12 or 12:30) and that we would all go out around 3. This nightlife is ridiculous, I don't know why things are so late, but if you can sleep all day then by all means it is awesome.
The birthday party was pretty fun, awkward for a while and then we started talking to a couple of guys. One person that we met is the perfect example of Argentina, or more precisely, Buenos Aires. Argentina was playing South Africa the next day in the semi-finals of the rugby world cup. At least one person at the party was wearing an Argentina rugby jersey. This kid is wearing the South Africa jersey. We were talking for a while and then I ask him why and he replies with a shrug, "It matches my shoes, I'm a little bit gay." Brilliant. We ended up going to a club around 3 and staying there until sometime after 5 at which point Sarah and I left early leaving everyone else there.
Sunday was a day of recovery, with a little food shopping and watching rugby and that is about it. We found a great bar the day before that is a brewery, so we went back there for the rugby game which Argentina lost and we wandered home for a ridiculously long nap that ended around 12:30. Since Monday was a holiday, our hosts went out but we stayed in and watched tv until going to bed, super exciting.
We finally got out to do some sightseeing on Monday only to find most things closed because of the holiday. But we walked from our house all the way into the center of town to the Plaza de Mayo in about 2 hours. Along the way, more random encounters! We ran into the couple that we did our Machu Picchu tour with and had a little chat with them. It is strange that even though we take different routes, we can still run into the same people weeks after first meeting.
We checked out the Cathedral on the north side of the plaza first. To begin with, it looks like the Pantheon with the very shallow triangular roof and pillars out in front. Inside is very beautiful though and very well preserved and taken care of. Inside is the tomb of Jose de San Martin, a general that helped win Argentina's independence. His grave is guarded by soldiers like those outside Buckingham Palace, the ones that don't move but look pretty cool. Like Salta, the church was not too ornate (with the exception of the altar of solid silver) but very grand. All that walking is quite tiring and the weather wasn't great, so we went back home until dinner.
Tuesday was our first day of work here. We had to go into the office a little early for our entrance interview, just to know a little about us and what our interests our and how we can best help the organization. There are a lot of foreigners volunteering there and you can sign up for whatever activities you want to volunteer for each week. It is a pretty cool system. We opted for English tutoring our first day. We went out to El Jagual, a slum on the outskirts of the city, to a little building (it is a stretch to call it a community center) for our English classes. The kids are all between about 5 and 12, so it is not actual English lessons. We had the older kids go over animals using word searches and then quizzing them while the younger kids pretty much just sat there drawing or playing with Sarah's earrings or the tiny puppy that one kid brought in. In the end, we just ended up playing a game outside with a ball that the coordinator brought with her. It was a lot of fun and we will be going back there on Friday to work again.
I am going to leave off here because it is a pretty long post and Sarah will continue soon.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Otherwise, we have dynamite
Woo, what a whirlwind of activity! New cities, new countries... let's start with Potosi, Bolivia. As Eben wrote, Potosi used to be a huge mining city and the wealthiest city in South America. Once the silver dwindled, though, the rich Spanish colonists moved out, leaving Potosi a bit economically depressed. Mining is still popular there, but most of the silver is now gone. The city itself is quiet (absolutely dead on a Sunday) but quite beautiful with its pedestrian streets and remaining colonial mansions. My dad described it best when he said that 30 years ago when he was there, he kept waiting for a Spanish knight on horseback to appear around a corner carrying a lance. It may sound a bit odd, but it really does feel like that! Although I don't know what Potosi was like decades ago, I just have a feeling that not much has changed.
Being in THE mining town of South America, Eben and I were eager to actually explore the mines and get a taste of what defines this town. We had a tour guide, Efra, who is 30 years and a current miner (since age 13 I believe). He gives mining tours during tourist seasons and works in the mines when there aren't any tourists. We donned protective clothing(rubber top, pants, and boots) and a helmet with headlight. We also had bandanas to wear across our face to guard against breathing in too much dust. The miners themeslves don't wear all of this gear, and I doubt they would be much better off even if they did. The typical miner starts his work our of tradition: all of the men in the family before him were miners, and thus he himself must be a miner. They typically drop out of school after about 6 years and head to the mines for the rest of their lives. Meeting a miner above age 50 is a rarity, as these men suffer horrible health from breathing in toxic dust. Their lungs are barely functioning.
To prepare for our trip deep into the mines, we first stopped at the miners' market, where we could buy soda, coca leaves, and dynamite (!) the give out to men we met along the way. Efra also took us to a small processing plant where the goodies are cleaned and processed. The big thing was, of course, the actual mine. Entering it felt a bit surreal, as it was quite dark and cold. It quickly become quite tight, and it was difficult to breathe with so much dust artound us. We were lucky enough to talk to quite a few men. The first, Don Luis, had the cough of death from mining since age 12.
He's not expected to live more than a couple more years. It was interesting to see these men at work, pushing carts full of rock , chiseling into the mine shafts, huge wads of coca leaves in their cheeks to keep them going (the coca curbs their appetite and gives them energy, as they work for maybe 13 hours straight with no food-- eating in the mine means eating toxic dust as well). They were happy to see us and answer our questions, a brief resipte from their hard work. We were in the mine for about 2 and a half hours, sliding through mine shafts (I lost my footing and literally just slid for about 10 feet) and crawling through tight spaces. It was all a bit surreal. The bandanas helped us breathe a little bit, but mostly my throat felt on fire from being coated with chemical dust. Woo! Several people had to leave the mine tour because it was too difficult to continue, but I'm proud we made it all the way through. I don't know how the miners survive day to day because I felt as though I would suffocate if I spent another hour down there. It's no wonder their life span is so short.
Efra said that as he became older, he questioned his father about his lifestyle choice. Why would a father tell his son to drop out of school to become a miner? His father said he regretted making that choice for Efra, but that mining can be more lucrative that many other professions in Bolivia. When you're living in poverty, waiting 12 years for your education to pay off just isn't an option. Efra himself has a 6-year-old daughter, Gabriela, who he wants to stay in school. Women don't work in the mines, but many still don't finish their education. What was very telling was Efra's uncertainty over whether he would want a son of his to become a miner. He knows quite well that becoming a miner means a difficult (and shortened) life, but it's difficult to break tradition. He said he probably would encourage school over mining, but that very well may change. I think it's important to realize that this really isn't a selfish or spiteful choice (to encourage mining over school) but rather a demonstration of the reality of life for Bolivians. You need to survive as best you can, and the benefits of an education aren't apparent or fast enough for these people. Efra said that life under Evo Morales wasn't any different, that he is just another man making empty promises. Education still isn't compulsory (or if it is, it's not enforced), and it's not valued enough. For things to change for the children of miners, Efra says, education has to improve. The Bolivians are not masters of many things, he said alomst bitterly, but they are masters of corruption. It's easy for us as foreigners to idolize Evo and call him a revolutionary, a coca farmer who became a President, but the harsh reality is that actual change must occur. So far, it seems, that has not happened. Not in Potosi.
Being down in the mines wasn't entirely depressing, though, though it was a reality check. Efra was a hilarious guide with a great sense of humor. It was cool to be adventuresome and shimmy through narrow mine shafts (even if it probably did take 6 months off of our lives). And at the end we blew up a watermelon with our extra dynamite. :)
¡Huelga!
After a couple of days in Potosi, it was time to head up to Sucre on a short bus ride. Or rather, that was the plan. The reality was that on Wednesday, the local bus drivers went on strike to protest fare changes and barricaded the entire city. The long-distance buses could not leave the city because the roads were barricaded with local buses. We did find a taxi driver who said he would drive us to Sucre (like 3 hours, more like 2 when it's a crazy man driving) and break through the barricades. Woo hoo! We drove around the city, faced barricade after barricade, and finally forced our way through. So we drove through some windy roads at about 9834 miles per hour, and arrived just outside of Sucre when...
MORE BARRICADES! That's right. The local buses in Sucre were on strike as well and had formed a barriacde around the city so that we couldn't enter. Eventually we threw on our backpacks, walked through the barricade, and found a very smug taxi driver on the other side who offered to drive us the rest of the way (when you're the only way into town, you also have the pleasure of overcharging your passengers). Alas, we begrudgingly handed over our painfully high taxi fare and entered Sucre.
For all the trouble of getting there, Sucre was worth it. It is a very white city lots of gardens and benches: the perfect lounging space. Walking around was very peaceful, and it was good to be in a city that wasn't as hectic as La Paz. Sucre has a decidedly European feel. It marked the end of indigenous South America for us, which was of course sad, but it was exciting to see this very different side of the continent. We really only had about a day to enjoy the city since we had to book it to Argentina to start work, but we did manage to walk around a lot and....
see dinosaurs!
This part of the entry is dedicated to Cassie Kirk, dinosaur enthusiast and talented Soprano.
Dinosaurs used to live in South America. They walked all over the place, ate some trees and fellow dinosaurs, and eventually died. All of this is well and good, but about a decage ago (I may have just completely made that up, maybe it was like 30 years ago) a cement company just outside of Sucre was digging around and found some giant footprints on the side of a mountain. Whose footprints? Bigfoot? Papa Noel and his reindeer? No no, my friends, they were dinosaur footprints. A billion and one years ago, that mountainside was bottom of a river. The dinosaurs pranced through the river, and the sediment eventually formed fossils of their giant footprints. Tectonic movements eventually forced the river bottom to become completely vertical (either that, or dinosaurs could walk up walls Matrix-style), so the dried up mountain side is dotted with brontosaurus prints. Cool! There is a cheesy/awesome dinosaur park across the way (you can't actually go up to the footprints because they are being protected by UNESCO, though high-power binoculars allow you to see the details-- whoa!) with life-size dinosaur replicas based on fossil and skeletal information. Dinosaur specialists helped design the models, so they are actually as realistic as they could possibly be. We learned which dinosaurs lived in the area and what they ate, but mostly it was fun to take pictures with the T-Rex and pretend we were being attacked. Dorky? Of course, who do you think I am?
(Dorky sidenote: To get to the dinosaur park, we rode in the Dino Truck. A pick-up truck with dinosaur claws coming out of the front hood. I just can't make these things up.)
So the dinosaurs rocked, Sucre rocked... the bus ride to Argentina did not rock. But right now it's time to watch some Argentina v. South Africa rugby, so that story will have to wait until next time. :)
Being in THE mining town of South America, Eben and I were eager to actually explore the mines and get a taste of what defines this town. We had a tour guide, Efra, who is 30 years and a current miner (since age 13 I believe). He gives mining tours during tourist seasons and works in the mines when there aren't any tourists. We donned protective clothing(rubber top, pants, and boots) and a helmet with headlight. We also had bandanas to wear across our face to guard against breathing in too much dust. The miners themeslves don't wear all of this gear, and I doubt they would be much better off even if they did. The typical miner starts his work our of tradition: all of the men in the family before him were miners, and thus he himself must be a miner. They typically drop out of school after about 6 years and head to the mines for the rest of their lives. Meeting a miner above age 50 is a rarity, as these men suffer horrible health from breathing in toxic dust. Their lungs are barely functioning.
To prepare for our trip deep into the mines, we first stopped at the miners' market, where we could buy soda, coca leaves, and dynamite (!) the give out to men we met along the way. Efra also took us to a small processing plant where the goodies are cleaned and processed. The big thing was, of course, the actual mine. Entering it felt a bit surreal, as it was quite dark and cold. It quickly become quite tight, and it was difficult to breathe with so much dust artound us. We were lucky enough to talk to quite a few men. The first, Don Luis, had the cough of death from mining since age 12.
He's not expected to live more than a couple more years. It was interesting to see these men at work, pushing carts full of rock , chiseling into the mine shafts, huge wads of coca leaves in their cheeks to keep them going (the coca curbs their appetite and gives them energy, as they work for maybe 13 hours straight with no food-- eating in the mine means eating toxic dust as well). They were happy to see us and answer our questions, a brief resipte from their hard work. We were in the mine for about 2 and a half hours, sliding through mine shafts (I lost my footing and literally just slid for about 10 feet) and crawling through tight spaces. It was all a bit surreal. The bandanas helped us breathe a little bit, but mostly my throat felt on fire from being coated with chemical dust. Woo! Several people had to leave the mine tour because it was too difficult to continue, but I'm proud we made it all the way through. I don't know how the miners survive day to day because I felt as though I would suffocate if I spent another hour down there. It's no wonder their life span is so short.Efra said that as he became older, he questioned his father about his lifestyle choice. Why would a father tell his son to drop out of school to become a miner? His father said he regretted making that choice for Efra, but that mining can be more lucrative that many other professions in Bolivia. When you're living in poverty, waiting 12 years for your education to pay off just isn't an option. Efra himself has a 6-year-old daughter, Gabriela, who he wants to stay in school. Women don't work in the mines, but many still don't finish their education. What was very telling was Efra's uncertainty over whether he would want a son of his to become a miner. He knows quite well that becoming a miner means a difficult (and shortened) life, but it's difficult to break tradition. He said he probably would encourage school over mining, but that very well may change. I think it's important to realize that this really isn't a selfish or spiteful choice (to encourage mining over school) but rather a demonstration of the reality of life for Bolivians. You need to survive as best you can, and the benefits of an education aren't apparent or fast enough for these people. Efra said that life under Evo Morales wasn't any different, that he is just another man making empty promises. Education still isn't compulsory (or if it is, it's not enforced), and it's not valued enough. For things to change for the children of miners, Efra says, education has to improve. The Bolivians are not masters of many things, he said alomst bitterly, but they are masters of corruption. It's easy for us as foreigners to idolize Evo and call him a revolutionary, a coca farmer who became a President, but the harsh reality is that actual change must occur. So far, it seems, that has not happened. Not in Potosi.
Being down in the mines wasn't entirely depressing, though, though it was a reality check. Efra was a hilarious guide with a great sense of humor. It was cool to be adventuresome and shimmy through narrow mine shafts (even if it probably did take 6 months off of our lives). And at the end we blew up a watermelon with our extra dynamite. :)
¡Huelga!
After a couple of days in Potosi, it was time to head up to Sucre on a short bus ride. Or rather, that was the plan. The reality was that on Wednesday, the local bus drivers went on strike to protest fare changes and barricaded the entire city. The long-distance buses could not leave the city because the roads were barricaded with local buses. We did find a taxi driver who said he would drive us to Sucre (like 3 hours, more like 2 when it's a crazy man driving) and break through the barricades. Woo hoo! We drove around the city, faced barricade after barricade, and finally forced our way through. So we drove through some windy roads at about 9834 miles per hour, and arrived just outside of Sucre when...
MORE BARRICADES! That's right. The local buses in Sucre were on strike as well and had formed a barriacde around the city so that we couldn't enter. Eventually we threw on our backpacks, walked through the barricade, and found a very smug taxi driver on the other side who offered to drive us the rest of the way (when you're the only way into town, you also have the pleasure of overcharging your passengers). Alas, we begrudgingly handed over our painfully high taxi fare and entered Sucre.
For all the trouble of getting there, Sucre was worth it. It is a very white city lots of gardens and benches: the perfect lounging space. Walking around was very peaceful, and it was good to be in a city that wasn't as hectic as La Paz. Sucre has a decidedly European feel. It marked the end of indigenous South America for us, which was of course sad, but it was exciting to see this very different side of the continent. We really only had about a day to enjoy the city since we had to book it to Argentina to start work, but we did manage to walk around a lot and....
see dinosaurs!
This part of the entry is dedicated to Cassie Kirk, dinosaur enthusiast and talented Soprano.
Dinosaurs used to live in South America. They walked all over the place, ate some trees and fellow dinosaurs, and eventually died. All of this is well and good, but about a decage ago (I may have just completely made that up, maybe it was like 30 years ago) a cement company just outside of Sucre was digging around and found some giant footprints on the side of a mountain. Whose footprints? Bigfoot? Papa Noel and his reindeer? No no, my friends, they were dinosaur footprints. A billion and one years ago, that mountainside was bottom of a river. The dinosaurs pranced through the river, and the sediment eventually formed fossils of their giant footprints. Tectonic movements eventually forced the river bottom to become completely vertical (either that, or dinosaurs could walk up walls Matrix-style), so the dried up mountain side is dotted with brontosaurus prints. Cool! There is a cheesy/awesome dinosaur park across the way (you can't actually go up to the footprints because they are being protected by UNESCO, though high-power binoculars allow you to see the details-- whoa!) with life-size dinosaur replicas based on fossil and skeletal information. Dinosaur specialists helped design the models, so they are actually as realistic as they could possibly be. We learned which dinosaurs lived in the area and what they ate, but mostly it was fun to take pictures with the T-Rex and pretend we were being attacked. Dorky? Of course, who do you think I am?
(Dorky sidenote: To get to the dinosaur park, we rode in the Dino Truck. A pick-up truck with dinosaur claws coming out of the front hood. I just can't make these things up.)
So the dinosaurs rocked, Sucre rocked... the bus ride to Argentina did not rock. But right now it's time to watch some Argentina v. South Africa rugby, so that story will have to wait until next time. :)
Sunday, October 7, 2007
La Paz
The day after trekking Isla Del Sol, we caught the local bus (cheaper than the gringo bus) with Ellie to La Paz. The scenery is amazing even if the road is extremely bumpy and winding. Also, on the local bus, we stop in the middle of nowhere to let people on and off even when there is no indication of any sort of bus stop. It is pretty cool how this works that you can flag down the bus in the middle of the countryside with no problems. I would not like to find out what would happen if the bus was full. We had plenty of space, so there was no problem, but I can also imagine the bumpy, windy road to La Paz with people packed into the aisles, making it uncomfortable for everyone involved (like the buses in Quito). Anyway, we got to La Paz without a problem and found a hostel called Adventure Brew. It has its own microbrewery, kitchen access, places to hang out, tv room with dvd player, pretty much everything you could ask for. We decided to dorm it for the first time on this trip and it was fine. We were with good people in our room, including a kid who will be attending Bard in the fall and on our last day, a Vassar grad (02) showed up in the room next door to ours.
Since we arrived pretty early, we decided to do some exploring and wouldn´t you know, we ran into Jackson again. He and his group were about to go to the World Bank for a presentation and we decided to tag along after his program director gave it the ok. First of all, it was all in Spanish, so it was a little difficult for me, but I got the general gist of the standard propaganda that the World Bank spews to make itself seem positive, helpful and indispensible to developing countries. There was a lot of talk about the Millenium poverty goals yet the economist refused to give even a working definition of poverty here ("Poverty is like love. You can't really define love, but everyone knows what you mean when you say you're in love"). He did talk about increased urbanization but mostly in terms of how this affects government expenditure and thus loans taken. To say that loans need to be taken in order to pay back loans is one of the more ridiculous things he said. This was quite interesting since it is not an everyday experience and it is a look into one of the shackles of neo-colonialism. They were also bragging about how their money was used by the government (World Bank conditional loans) to build so many meters of bridges and kilometers of roads and whatnot. And what also was kind of frustrating was their position on bilingual education. They said that they want to increase educational access for all, but in Bolivia, which has large indigenous groups that don't necessarily speak Spanish, there should be education in the native language in addition to Spanish. His response to this question was that it really depends on the situation and that it is fine when the indigenous students make up 100% of the class, but that when they aren't the full class, then it shouldn't necessarily happen because it is an unfair advantage (gift, privilege, not quite sure what the right word is) over the other students. The program director also invited us to other events with the study group, but we didn´t make it to any others. Regardless, the experience at the World Bank was a good one just to see what they are doing here and what they have to say. It is also slightly difficult to believe that they really know what is happening on the ground level when they are based in an incredibly nice office in the business center of La Paz, so clearly removed from the poverty that is evident less than a mile away.
Jackson and his group had annother presentation to attend, so we left for dinner (BBQ) at the hostel and a sampling of the beers made there. They had a kolsch style, a bitter and a dark bock, all of which were very good and a welcome change from the somewhat unexciting pilseners that are all over Latin America. We then met up with Jackson and some of his friends for hummus, pita, spinach pies, hookah and chilean wine at a Lebanese place relatively nearby.
In the morning, we tried to have an ambitious start and promptly failed to get out as early as we had planned. We followed the walking tour given by our Lonely Planet guidebook and it took us through a lot of the places that we had explored the day before. It was mostly markets, but they were pretty awesome. There is a witches market that sells everything from llama fetuses to love potions, all sorts of charms and home remedies to stuffed cats and owls. This place was awesome to walk around just because of the strange variety of things, however disgusting some of them might seem. We also went through markets selling more traditional knicknacks and knockoffs. Sarah got a small backpack since hers is starting to fall apart and I got a hat because this altitude makes the sun so much stonger. We made it down to Plaza San Francisco and this place is nuts. It is chaos to a degree that I have never experienced. But it also has all of the street food one can possible ask for. Fresh orange and grapefruit juice is about $0.20 a glass, Salteñas (mini meat or chicken pies) and Tucumanos (fried pies with potatos, onions and either chicken or hard-boiled egg and all sorts of different sauces)are about $0.15 each, stuffed potatos with meat are around $0.30 and there is all sorts of different fresh breads, fresh popcorn (sweet or salty), roasted peanuts for very very cheap. We ate just about every single lunch on the street while we were in La Paz. Then at night, just like the street meat in NYC, there are stands with kebabs, burgers, sausages, hot dogs, fried eggs and french fries.
Enough about the street food, I tend to get carried away because it really is incredible. We also went into the museum adjacent to San Francisco that allowed us access to the crypts, the choral rafters, the roof of the church and a very impressive collection of religious art. The religious art of South America is similar to that of Europe, but also contains elements of indigenous beliefs and is quite cool. There are still some Franciscan monks living there, but they have ceded most of the area to the museum. After the museum, we also checked out the presidential palace and the cathedral in Plaza Murillo. From various revolutionary attempts and coups, the presidential palace is still pockmarked from bullets. The cathedral there is gigantic and very nice, but overwhelmingly gigantic. After dinner that night at an Israeli restaurant, with grand plans to go out to meet up with Jhinuk (co-worker from Cusco volunteering here too), we decided to take a short nap that didn´t end until 2 am, thus negating the evening plans.
Our third day was spent at museums. We checked out the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales, owned and operated by Ernesto Cavour, the famous Bolivian folk artist. It was a magnificent collection of ancient, new and novel musical instruments (the five guitars in one shaped like a star or the combination charango/guitar). Quite a few of the instruments were also open for use so we got to try some different things that were pretty cool. We then went to the National Art museum with a standard religious and colonial art collection and a very cool Bolivian modern art collection. However, the coolest part was a temporary exhibit of photographs, mostly by Latin American artists, of painted bodies. Some of them were painted so that half of the body was a skeleton, or muscles while others were really imaginative. There was one of two women, one of which was painted like a pillar, so well that it took a little while to figure out it was a person and the other woman was leaning on the pillar. Unfortunately, we were kicked out of lunchtime. We saw most of it, but never made it back to spend more time there. We also went to the Coca Museum, documenting the uses of the Coca plant over the centuries. It is amazing that the cultures here have used it for thousands of years as a medical plant and for work while the Western nations have used it for recreational drugs and thus are putting pressure on Bolivia to abandon Coca use even though it is completely different here. Yet another example of culturally insensitive foreign policy when the root of the drug production problem lies in the demand of the industrialized nations. We called it a day after that and went back to the hostel for a comfort day of movies and pizza delivery. It was awesome to have a day like that since we haven't had one since we left home.
Our fourth day was rather frustrating. It was a day of errands. We had to go up to the bus station, only to find everything closed for lunch and then we went to the post office for the 2 hour process of sending two packages back home. There were all of 5 people there, including us, trying to send packages, and I cannot figure out why something that should be so easy should take so long. But they had to be packaged properly and have the right forms filled out and on and on and on. Then they refused to ship Sarah's package because it didn't weigh enough. So even though mine was a full 1.5 kgs heavier than hers, mine also cost about $10 less. Where is the logic in that? After that debacle, it was street lunch and back to the bus station. One window of the company we bought our tickets through said I was not allowed to buy tickets for tomorrow's bus but then right next door I was able to do it without a problem. Things are so frustrating sometimes. So once again, it was another relaxing afternoon. We finally met up with Jhinuk for dinner at our hostel and it was great to see her and hang out. She is starting on a giant mural this weekend so it is really cool that she gets to put up some public art.
The next and final morning of La Paz, we packed our stuff, checked out and got into a van for a day trip. There were a few frustrating things. First of all, we are staying in the annex of the hostel, only a block away, but even though we told the travel agent, he did not relay that information and the guide was kind of angry that we weren't at the main location until we showed her the receipt with the annex written on it. Also, we were supposed to have been provided a snack, but the agency never gave it to the guide and the guide also decided not to mention this until we were really hungry in the afternoon and asked where the snack was. AHHHHHHHH. Otherwise it was really cool and beautiful. We went to the top of a mountain called Chacaltaya (5,600 meters) that had snow(!) on it but amazing views of the other mountains and the countryside and even La Paz. On a clear day, they say that you can see Lake Titikaka. It was not much walking, but still really hard because of the altitude. We then drove to the south of La Paz to the Valley of the Moon. It is called that because the landscape really looks lunar, it is amazing. Apparently it is all river sediment, extremely hardpacked, that was formed when the river was much higher. Pictures will really have to do the explaining for me, because I don't know quite how to describe it. Let it be left at the fact that it was really amazing to see something so strangely naturally formed like this.
We then went back to La Paz, ate some lunch (finally, since there had been no food and the tour ended at 4 pm), and relaxed until our bus. With the help of sleeping pills and a relatively smooth road, the overnight bus was not that bad. We arrived in Potosi around 6:30 this morning and will be here for two days before going to Sucre. This town is known for its former glory as a silver mining town and used to be one of the richest in South America. So we will check out the mines and write more later.
Since we arrived pretty early, we decided to do some exploring and wouldn´t you know, we ran into Jackson again. He and his group were about to go to the World Bank for a presentation and we decided to tag along after his program director gave it the ok. First of all, it was all in Spanish, so it was a little difficult for me, but I got the general gist of the standard propaganda that the World Bank spews to make itself seem positive, helpful and indispensible to developing countries. There was a lot of talk about the Millenium poverty goals yet the economist refused to give even a working definition of poverty here ("Poverty is like love. You can't really define love, but everyone knows what you mean when you say you're in love"). He did talk about increased urbanization but mostly in terms of how this affects government expenditure and thus loans taken. To say that loans need to be taken in order to pay back loans is one of the more ridiculous things he said. This was quite interesting since it is not an everyday experience and it is a look into one of the shackles of neo-colonialism. They were also bragging about how their money was used by the government (World Bank conditional loans) to build so many meters of bridges and kilometers of roads and whatnot. And what also was kind of frustrating was their position on bilingual education. They said that they want to increase educational access for all, but in Bolivia, which has large indigenous groups that don't necessarily speak Spanish, there should be education in the native language in addition to Spanish. His response to this question was that it really depends on the situation and that it is fine when the indigenous students make up 100% of the class, but that when they aren't the full class, then it shouldn't necessarily happen because it is an unfair advantage (gift, privilege, not quite sure what the right word is) over the other students. The program director also invited us to other events with the study group, but we didn´t make it to any others. Regardless, the experience at the World Bank was a good one just to see what they are doing here and what they have to say. It is also slightly difficult to believe that they really know what is happening on the ground level when they are based in an incredibly nice office in the business center of La Paz, so clearly removed from the poverty that is evident less than a mile away.
Jackson and his group had annother presentation to attend, so we left for dinner (BBQ) at the hostel and a sampling of the beers made there. They had a kolsch style, a bitter and a dark bock, all of which were very good and a welcome change from the somewhat unexciting pilseners that are all over Latin America. We then met up with Jackson and some of his friends for hummus, pita, spinach pies, hookah and chilean wine at a Lebanese place relatively nearby.
In the morning, we tried to have an ambitious start and promptly failed to get out as early as we had planned. We followed the walking tour given by our Lonely Planet guidebook and it took us through a lot of the places that we had explored the day before. It was mostly markets, but they were pretty awesome. There is a witches market that sells everything from llama fetuses to love potions, all sorts of charms and home remedies to stuffed cats and owls. This place was awesome to walk around just because of the strange variety of things, however disgusting some of them might seem. We also went through markets selling more traditional knicknacks and knockoffs. Sarah got a small backpack since hers is starting to fall apart and I got a hat because this altitude makes the sun so much stonger. We made it down to Plaza San Francisco and this place is nuts. It is chaos to a degree that I have never experienced. But it also has all of the street food one can possible ask for. Fresh orange and grapefruit juice is about $0.20 a glass, Salteñas (mini meat or chicken pies) and Tucumanos (fried pies with potatos, onions and either chicken or hard-boiled egg and all sorts of different sauces)are about $0.15 each, stuffed potatos with meat are around $0.30 and there is all sorts of different fresh breads, fresh popcorn (sweet or salty), roasted peanuts for very very cheap. We ate just about every single lunch on the street while we were in La Paz. Then at night, just like the street meat in NYC, there are stands with kebabs, burgers, sausages, hot dogs, fried eggs and french fries.
Enough about the street food, I tend to get carried away because it really is incredible. We also went into the museum adjacent to San Francisco that allowed us access to the crypts, the choral rafters, the roof of the church and a very impressive collection of religious art. The religious art of South America is similar to that of Europe, but also contains elements of indigenous beliefs and is quite cool. There are still some Franciscan monks living there, but they have ceded most of the area to the museum. After the museum, we also checked out the presidential palace and the cathedral in Plaza Murillo. From various revolutionary attempts and coups, the presidential palace is still pockmarked from bullets. The cathedral there is gigantic and very nice, but overwhelmingly gigantic. After dinner that night at an Israeli restaurant, with grand plans to go out to meet up with Jhinuk (co-worker from Cusco volunteering here too), we decided to take a short nap that didn´t end until 2 am, thus negating the evening plans.
Our third day was spent at museums. We checked out the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales, owned and operated by Ernesto Cavour, the famous Bolivian folk artist. It was a magnificent collection of ancient, new and novel musical instruments (the five guitars in one shaped like a star or the combination charango/guitar). Quite a few of the instruments were also open for use so we got to try some different things that were pretty cool. We then went to the National Art museum with a standard religious and colonial art collection and a very cool Bolivian modern art collection. However, the coolest part was a temporary exhibit of photographs, mostly by Latin American artists, of painted bodies. Some of them were painted so that half of the body was a skeleton, or muscles while others were really imaginative. There was one of two women, one of which was painted like a pillar, so well that it took a little while to figure out it was a person and the other woman was leaning on the pillar. Unfortunately, we were kicked out of lunchtime. We saw most of it, but never made it back to spend more time there. We also went to the Coca Museum, documenting the uses of the Coca plant over the centuries. It is amazing that the cultures here have used it for thousands of years as a medical plant and for work while the Western nations have used it for recreational drugs and thus are putting pressure on Bolivia to abandon Coca use even though it is completely different here. Yet another example of culturally insensitive foreign policy when the root of the drug production problem lies in the demand of the industrialized nations. We called it a day after that and went back to the hostel for a comfort day of movies and pizza delivery. It was awesome to have a day like that since we haven't had one since we left home.
Our fourth day was rather frustrating. It was a day of errands. We had to go up to the bus station, only to find everything closed for lunch and then we went to the post office for the 2 hour process of sending two packages back home. There were all of 5 people there, including us, trying to send packages, and I cannot figure out why something that should be so easy should take so long. But they had to be packaged properly and have the right forms filled out and on and on and on. Then they refused to ship Sarah's package because it didn't weigh enough. So even though mine was a full 1.5 kgs heavier than hers, mine also cost about $10 less. Where is the logic in that? After that debacle, it was street lunch and back to the bus station. One window of the company we bought our tickets through said I was not allowed to buy tickets for tomorrow's bus but then right next door I was able to do it without a problem. Things are so frustrating sometimes. So once again, it was another relaxing afternoon. We finally met up with Jhinuk for dinner at our hostel and it was great to see her and hang out. She is starting on a giant mural this weekend so it is really cool that she gets to put up some public art.
The next and final morning of La Paz, we packed our stuff, checked out and got into a van for a day trip. There were a few frustrating things. First of all, we are staying in the annex of the hostel, only a block away, but even though we told the travel agent, he did not relay that information and the guide was kind of angry that we weren't at the main location until we showed her the receipt with the annex written on it. Also, we were supposed to have been provided a snack, but the agency never gave it to the guide and the guide also decided not to mention this until we were really hungry in the afternoon and asked where the snack was. AHHHHHHHH. Otherwise it was really cool and beautiful. We went to the top of a mountain called Chacaltaya (5,600 meters) that had snow(!) on it but amazing views of the other mountains and the countryside and even La Paz. On a clear day, they say that you can see Lake Titikaka. It was not much walking, but still really hard because of the altitude. We then drove to the south of La Paz to the Valley of the Moon. It is called that because the landscape really looks lunar, it is amazing. Apparently it is all river sediment, extremely hardpacked, that was formed when the river was much higher. Pictures will really have to do the explaining for me, because I don't know quite how to describe it. Let it be left at the fact that it was really amazing to see something so strangely naturally formed like this.
We then went back to La Paz, ate some lunch (finally, since there had been no food and the tour ended at 4 pm), and relaxed until our bus. With the help of sleeping pills and a relatively smooth road, the overnight bus was not that bad. We arrived in Potosi around 6:30 this morning and will be here for two days before going to Sucre. This town is known for its former glory as a silver mining town and used to be one of the richest in South America. So we will check out the mines and write more later.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Update like whoa
Sorry for the huge gap in blogging. Our last few days in Peru were quite hectic, and the internet in Bolivia was crazy expensive (they charged you by 15 second intervals!!), so we have had to wait until La Paz to have our internet fix.
Arequipa/Colca Canyon
So Arequipa was a cute town, and Juanita the child ice mummy is an absolute must if you're in the area. Seriously. Amazing. Eben and I had opted to go on the 1-day trip to the Colca Canyon, which, looking back, was not the best idea. Leaving at 1 in the morning is a bad way to start the day, and overall it was very rushed. For people thinking about visiting the Canyon, a 2-day trip (at least) is really the way to go. We spent a lot of time on a bus going over the bumpiest roads in the world. It was quite an adventure, never quite knowing whether you would fly out of your seat into the aisle. Paved roads? Ha! Not so much. When we finally arrived at the condor lookout point, however, all bad feelings were forgotten. These condors nest deep in the canyon and catch the winds from below to fly. They don't flap their wings but rather glide through the air. We arrived just in time to see about 5 condors rise up from the canyon and swoop through the sky. These creatures are enormous (the size of a 4-year old maybe?) and such an important part of the culture here. Watching them glide through the air, it's no wonder that they are revered so deeply. I dig it. It was the highlight of our day, though seeing the mountain where the ice mummies were discovered was another high point. Overall the day was decent enough, though a better guide and more sleep would have made it fabulous.
Puno
After a few days in Arequipa we departed for Puno, our first city along the famous Lake Titicaca. Having heard from various sources how beautiful the lake is, I personally was pretty pumped for Puno. After hopping off the bus, however, I was slightly disappointed. Puno is a gray, unimpressive city with not much to offer. Even worse, the Puno side of the lake was pretty icky. Sad! The thing to do in Puno is to explore the islands of Lake Titicaca, so on the morning of our second day, we took the ferry to the floating islands of Uros. Once we got out on the water, the clouds finally parted, and the water appeared much more lovely than the murky green water along the shore. Good way to start our tour of Uros. :) We had a funny bilingual guide who told us a lot about the islands, so I feel like we got a lot out of our trip. Having seen floating islands in Cambodia, I thought these islands would be similar: floating rafts anchored to the lake bottom. Uros was completely different. The island people wait until the end of the rainy season for chunks of reed roots to float to the top of the water, and they anchor these roots together and lay reeds across them to make a sort of floor. Walking on the reed ground is quite squishy, and at first I was convinced that I would fall through and be trapped in the lake. It's actually pretty sturdy, though, and nobody fell through. :) It's amazing to realize that an entire community lives this way, making their houses entirely out of reeds, navigating around in reed boats-- there is even a floating school for the younger children. We took a giant reed boat (very reminiscent of a Viking ship, except with the head of a puma/snake/llama and tail of a fish) to another island in the area after the island people sang us a farewell song in Aymara (the main indigenous language here), Spanish, and English. It was a cute day and so much fun!
After Uros, however, we were desperate to get out of Puno, so we took an afternoon bus into Bolivia...
Copacabana
Crossing the border into Bolivia was kind of fun. Our bus took us to the Peruvian side, where we had to get out and walk to the immigration office up the road. After getting our passports stamped, we then had to walk up the road even more to cross into Bolivia. Once there, we went to their immigration office, where the official basically gives you a stamp for however long you say you want (30 days or 90 days). Everyone was quite pleasant, and it was surprisingly hassle-free. We had heard rumors that guards sometimes try to charge you a phony "entrance tax" or demand to search your bags (and then steal valuables), but there was absolutely none of that. Afterwards we hopped back on the bus to Copacabana, a small town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca.
Traveling by bus: beautiful. Honestly, I think it's the only way to go unless you need to get somewhere far away very quickly. The drive into Bolivia was absolutely beautiful. The deep turquoise waters of Lake Titicaca looked breathtaking in the sunlight and looks like it could stretch on forever. My dad told us (and our Uros guide said this as well)that the Bolivians like to say that the "Titi" part of the lake is in Bolivia, and the "caca" side of the lake is in Peru! For those who don't speak Spanish, "caca" means "shit." Quite blunt, no? I don't know if I will go so far as to entirely agree with that statement, but the Copacabana part of Lake Titicaca puts the Puno side to absolute shame.
Copacabana has all the makings of a sleepy beach town (except for the lack of beach). Everyone is friendly and relaxed, and the fact that the lake is so amazing just makes you feel happy to be there. Copacabana has some very beautiful parts, most notably the Cathedral. The Moorish architecture is so different from anything we have seen so far. Every day (especially on Sundays), motorists park their vehicles in front of the Cathedral to have it blessed. Vendors in front of the Cathedral sells bottles of wine, beer and champage-- not so much to be used for personal consumption, but for the motorists to splash all over the vehicles and the ground (to Pacha Mama, or Mother Earth). There are also priests with buckets of holy water and old women with burning cauldrons of incense. The sight is amazing to watch, as it is taken so seriously. You can even buy a miniature car or house from the vendors and have that blessed. Afterwards, people can climb up a mountain (Cerro Calvario) overlooking the harbor and find a shaman who will bless them even more. Though we didn't get blessed by the shaman, Eben and I did walk up the mountain to take in the views. Despite a disturbing amount of trash (apparently littering is a huge problem here) along the way, it's incredible. There are stone cabinet-like things on the top for people to place white burning candles, and a series of stone crosses casts an almost eerie shadow on the ground.
My favorite part about Copacabana, though, is a small candle chapel off the side of the main Cathedral. At first it feels as though you have mistakenly wandered into a sewer or underground squatter's zone, as the walls are completely black, there is little light, and a few beggars are gathered around the entryway. Once you make it through, however, you see dozens of flickering white candles that have been placed on stone slabs in the middle of the room and along the walls. It is such a simple sight, but overwhelmingly beautiful at the same time. The walls are black, save for some candle wax graffiti (interesting). The air feels so warm from the lit candles, and I personally felt like I could stand there for hours holding a candle in silent meditation. There's something so basic about candles, like candlelight vigils, that is very touching and powerful. The chapel was like a big vigil for humanity. That's the best way I can think of to describe it.
Aside from my newfound love for candles (yay!), Eben and I strapped on our adventure boots once more for some trekking on La Isla Del Sol, the origin of the Inca creation myth. We took a painfully slow ferry across Lake Titicaca for 2 hours until we reached the northern end of the island. Happy to finally be on land, we quickly hiked up to the northern tip, past the Sacred Rock where the first Inca supposedly rose from the water, up to a nice lookout point. The ground was covered in rock towers (shrines to Apu, the god of the mountains), so we unpacked our amazing picnic lunch, made our own Apu monument, and soaked up the sunshine.
(Warning: SPF 30 is not strong enough for South America.)
Desipte numerous applications of sunblock, my poor little shoulders suffered a bit throughout the day. We trekked for 3 hours to the southern end of the island, the trail at times a bit rough. The altitude is killer. We were very exposed (on a dry island with practically no trees, the sun will find you and abuse you), but at least it gave us a great unblocked view of the water! :) Along the way we befriended a British girl our age, Ellie, who I swear seemed totally unaffected by the (a) altutide, (b) heat, (c) terrain. All of the above? I'm jealous. Anyway, Isla Del Sol was gorgeous.
Random: Our first night in Copa, we ran into a Vassar guy (Jackson) who played soccer with Eben and is now JYA in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Weird! This proves my theory that (a) the world is actually the size of my flip-flop, and (b) Vassar people are everywhere. We had a good laugh over running into each other and hung out later that night with him and another guy from his JYA program. It was good company, and we learned how to play a Bolivian dice game. I have no idea what it is called, or really what the rules were, but Eben and I won, so that's all that matters. :)
Arequipa/Colca Canyon
So Arequipa was a cute town, and Juanita the child ice mummy is an absolute must if you're in the area. Seriously. Amazing. Eben and I had opted to go on the 1-day trip to the Colca Canyon, which, looking back, was not the best idea. Leaving at 1 in the morning is a bad way to start the day, and overall it was very rushed. For people thinking about visiting the Canyon, a 2-day trip (at least) is really the way to go. We spent a lot of time on a bus going over the bumpiest roads in the world. It was quite an adventure, never quite knowing whether you would fly out of your seat into the aisle. Paved roads? Ha! Not so much. When we finally arrived at the condor lookout point, however, all bad feelings were forgotten. These condors nest deep in the canyon and catch the winds from below to fly. They don't flap their wings but rather glide through the air. We arrived just in time to see about 5 condors rise up from the canyon and swoop through the sky. These creatures are enormous (the size of a 4-year old maybe?) and such an important part of the culture here. Watching them glide through the air, it's no wonder that they are revered so deeply. I dig it. It was the highlight of our day, though seeing the mountain where the ice mummies were discovered was another high point. Overall the day was decent enough, though a better guide and more sleep would have made it fabulous.
Puno
After a few days in Arequipa we departed for Puno, our first city along the famous Lake Titicaca. Having heard from various sources how beautiful the lake is, I personally was pretty pumped for Puno. After hopping off the bus, however, I was slightly disappointed. Puno is a gray, unimpressive city with not much to offer. Even worse, the Puno side of the lake was pretty icky. Sad! The thing to do in Puno is to explore the islands of Lake Titicaca, so on the morning of our second day, we took the ferry to the floating islands of Uros. Once we got out on the water, the clouds finally parted, and the water appeared much more lovely than the murky green water along the shore. Good way to start our tour of Uros. :) We had a funny bilingual guide who told us a lot about the islands, so I feel like we got a lot out of our trip. Having seen floating islands in Cambodia, I thought these islands would be similar: floating rafts anchored to the lake bottom. Uros was completely different. The island people wait until the end of the rainy season for chunks of reed roots to float to the top of the water, and they anchor these roots together and lay reeds across them to make a sort of floor. Walking on the reed ground is quite squishy, and at first I was convinced that I would fall through and be trapped in the lake. It's actually pretty sturdy, though, and nobody fell through. :) It's amazing to realize that an entire community lives this way, making their houses entirely out of reeds, navigating around in reed boats-- there is even a floating school for the younger children. We took a giant reed boat (very reminiscent of a Viking ship, except with the head of a puma/snake/llama and tail of a fish) to another island in the area after the island people sang us a farewell song in Aymara (the main indigenous language here), Spanish, and English. It was a cute day and so much fun!
After Uros, however, we were desperate to get out of Puno, so we took an afternoon bus into Bolivia...
Copacabana
Crossing the border into Bolivia was kind of fun. Our bus took us to the Peruvian side, where we had to get out and walk to the immigration office up the road. After getting our passports stamped, we then had to walk up the road even more to cross into Bolivia. Once there, we went to their immigration office, where the official basically gives you a stamp for however long you say you want (30 days or 90 days). Everyone was quite pleasant, and it was surprisingly hassle-free. We had heard rumors that guards sometimes try to charge you a phony "entrance tax" or demand to search your bags (and then steal valuables), but there was absolutely none of that. Afterwards we hopped back on the bus to Copacabana, a small town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca.
Traveling by bus: beautiful. Honestly, I think it's the only way to go unless you need to get somewhere far away very quickly. The drive into Bolivia was absolutely beautiful. The deep turquoise waters of Lake Titicaca looked breathtaking in the sunlight and looks like it could stretch on forever. My dad told us (and our Uros guide said this as well)that the Bolivians like to say that the "Titi" part of the lake is in Bolivia, and the "caca" side of the lake is in Peru! For those who don't speak Spanish, "caca" means "shit." Quite blunt, no? I don't know if I will go so far as to entirely agree with that statement, but the Copacabana part of Lake Titicaca puts the Puno side to absolute shame.
Copacabana has all the makings of a sleepy beach town (except for the lack of beach). Everyone is friendly and relaxed, and the fact that the lake is so amazing just makes you feel happy to be there. Copacabana has some very beautiful parts, most notably the Cathedral. The Moorish architecture is so different from anything we have seen so far. Every day (especially on Sundays), motorists park their vehicles in front of the Cathedral to have it blessed. Vendors in front of the Cathedral sells bottles of wine, beer and champage-- not so much to be used for personal consumption, but for the motorists to splash all over the vehicles and the ground (to Pacha Mama, or Mother Earth). There are also priests with buckets of holy water and old women with burning cauldrons of incense. The sight is amazing to watch, as it is taken so seriously. You can even buy a miniature car or house from the vendors and have that blessed. Afterwards, people can climb up a mountain (Cerro Calvario) overlooking the harbor and find a shaman who will bless them even more. Though we didn't get blessed by the shaman, Eben and I did walk up the mountain to take in the views. Despite a disturbing amount of trash (apparently littering is a huge problem here) along the way, it's incredible. There are stone cabinet-like things on the top for people to place white burning candles, and a series of stone crosses casts an almost eerie shadow on the ground.
My favorite part about Copacabana, though, is a small candle chapel off the side of the main Cathedral. At first it feels as though you have mistakenly wandered into a sewer or underground squatter's zone, as the walls are completely black, there is little light, and a few beggars are gathered around the entryway. Once you make it through, however, you see dozens of flickering white candles that have been placed on stone slabs in the middle of the room and along the walls. It is such a simple sight, but overwhelmingly beautiful at the same time. The walls are black, save for some candle wax graffiti (interesting). The air feels so warm from the lit candles, and I personally felt like I could stand there for hours holding a candle in silent meditation. There's something so basic about candles, like candlelight vigils, that is very touching and powerful. The chapel was like a big vigil for humanity. That's the best way I can think of to describe it.
Aside from my newfound love for candles (yay!), Eben and I strapped on our adventure boots once more for some trekking on La Isla Del Sol, the origin of the Inca creation myth. We took a painfully slow ferry across Lake Titicaca for 2 hours until we reached the northern end of the island. Happy to finally be on land, we quickly hiked up to the northern tip, past the Sacred Rock where the first Inca supposedly rose from the water, up to a nice lookout point. The ground was covered in rock towers (shrines to Apu, the god of the mountains), so we unpacked our amazing picnic lunch, made our own Apu monument, and soaked up the sunshine.
(Warning: SPF 30 is not strong enough for South America.)
Desipte numerous applications of sunblock, my poor little shoulders suffered a bit throughout the day. We trekked for 3 hours to the southern end of the island, the trail at times a bit rough. The altitude is killer. We were very exposed (on a dry island with practically no trees, the sun will find you and abuse you), but at least it gave us a great unblocked view of the water! :) Along the way we befriended a British girl our age, Ellie, who I swear seemed totally unaffected by the (a) altutide, (b) heat, (c) terrain. All of the above? I'm jealous. Anyway, Isla Del Sol was gorgeous.
Random: Our first night in Copa, we ran into a Vassar guy (Jackson) who played soccer with Eben and is now JYA in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Weird! This proves my theory that (a) the world is actually the size of my flip-flop, and (b) Vassar people are everywhere. We had a good laugh over running into each other and hung out later that night with him and another guy from his JYA program. It was good company, and we learned how to play a Bolivian dice game. I have no idea what it is called, or really what the rules were, but Eben and I won, so that's all that matters. :)
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