Life

Well, it's happening.

I am being absorbed back into life in the U.S.

However... I'm still writing about my trip. Right now, I'm writing up my last entry for Lima as well as working on documenting my amazing adventures trekking in the Andes and my experience of Machu Picchu.

And...

I'm also writing about my experiences returning to the U.S. -- the reverse culture shock, observations of the people and culture in the U.S. from a travelers perspective, and on and on.

So keep checking back. More posts coming soon!

Lima, Peru: Day 2

I spent the day shopping for presents for my friends and family back home. It’s incredible the amount of cheesy, cheap items there are for tourists to consume here: Peru shot glasses, t-shirts with illustrations of farting guinea pigs on them and the words “Peru Cuy” printed beneath them, Peru plastic snow globes, and “alpaca” hats and gloves that felt suspiciously like 100% acrylic. Other kiosks were filled with sterling silver statues, cutlery, earrings, pendants and other jewelry. Still others were crammed with textiles, sweaters, weavings, and leather goods. But each kiosk, whether it was with cheesy trinkets, textiles, silver, or whatever… they all fundamentally had exactly the same thing.

It took hours and hours of exploring kiosk after kiosk to suss out the good stuff – the unique items – but I persevered and at the end of the day, walked away with just about everything I needed.

After a hard day of shopping, I felt like I deserved something special. Off to restaurant Haiti again. That double pisco sour from the night before was stuck in my head and the thought of enjoying one again amongst the interesting and mixed crowd that the place seemed to attract sounded exactly right. There was something comforting and bittersweet in sitting at the small outdoor table, experiencing the world go by. This was a microcosmic representation of the spirit and life of Lima and like the night before, I let myself be absorbed by the energy of the place, the pace, the sounds, sights, smells, textures, and tastes.

One perfect pisco sour and a plate of soothing food later, I headed back to the hostel, my home for one more night, and to bed. Tomorrow, my last full day of sightseeing on this South America tour. I was going to make it count.

Lima, Peru: Day 1

No sleep on my last night in Huacachina. The only thing for most 20 year olds to do in a small town like Huacachina is stay up late and drink liver-pounding amounts of alcohol while listening to very loud electronic music… just outside my dorm room window. I don’t think anyone in my 10 person dorm slept, actually.

My 7:30am bus to Lima rolled into the Ica station 30 minutes late, per SSAT (Standard South America Time).

Lima bus, Lima bus station, taxi, then my hostel, which ends up being not at all like the glowing Hostelworld.com reviews. I think the owner must have had his friends pad the reviews. The place ended up being really cramped and the top bunks in the dorm were about ten feet in the air. If you fell from this bunk, you would seriously hurt something. The breakfast consisted of tang, instant coffee, hot water and tea bags for tea, and a loaf of third world brand wonder bread with terrible faux butter. Not even any milk to help cut the nastiness of the instant coffee. Yugh. So as not to sound too critical, I’ll say that the shower was clean. Good thing I only booked this hostel for two nights. My last two nights, I’m staying in a hotel, dammit. I’m going to finish this trip with class, baby.

My cold hangs on. Getting sick of being sick. The hacking cough makes me sound like a TB victim. The myriad of prescriptions the doc wrote and that I’ve now finished? I think pretty useless.

So I settle into my cramped hostel dorm room, get out the city map and forge out to experience the ‘hood I’m staying in in Lima… Miraflores. This is reputed as being the artsy bohemian/touristy area of Lima. How “artsy bohemian” and “touristy” can exist in the same place at the same time is beyond me.

I head to a café highly recommended by the Lonely Planet guide (aka: the Bible) and eat an uninspired fried egg sandwich. The sandwich leaves me with a fierce sweet tooth, so I start exploring the neighborhood to see how I might satisfy it.

Manolo. Manolo, with its pies and pastries and cakes and mile high sandwiches tantalizingly displayed under glass. Piles of churros, plain or stuffed with vanilla or chocolate custard. I settle on a slice of this insane pecan pie -- four fingers high and encrusted with giant, juicy looking pecans. The piece of pie sweetly calls my name. No one can hear it but me, but you know, when a piece of pecan pie has your name on it, it’s a sin against all that’s right and good in the world to pass it by. I sat down and the piece of pie sat down in front of me and we proceeded to have a brief but very meaningful relationship. Sadly, like many relationships that are just based on looks, I grew satiated and bored soon after engaging with the pecan pie, so left it, unfinished on the counter.

But Manolo… I knew I’d be back.

At Central Park in Miraflores, I watched 16 street artists, each creating murals on one side of four separate cubes built for this project. Baggy pants, a baseball cap, and earbuds blasting music was de rigueur. It was interesting to watch each piece taking shape right before my eyes. The creative process can be somewhat of a mystery, and it was interesting, and a little intimate, to watch these mysteries unfold before my eyes.

I took my time checking it all out, then continued my explorations. There was a warehouse-sized storefront. People were digging in piles and mounds of clothes. This I had to see. I stepped into the melee, which actually was a Peruvian manufactured clothing seconds store. Several US clothing brands filled the bins. Little did I know that premium brands that cost us all a bunch of money, like Ralph Lauren Polo, Guess, Banana Republic, Aeropostale, and more were sewn by dirt cheap labor in sweat shops in Peru.

After this strange experience, I headed back to the hostel and wrote, and wrote and wrote, trying to get caught up on my travels for this blog. My trek to Machu Picchu and subsequent ill health has put me behind.

At 9pm, out again into Miraflores and to a restaurant called “Haiti," a throwback to the heyday of 1970s Lima, complete with elderly waiters in starched shirts, green vinyl chairs, and white tablecloths. Patrons not only included tourists, but also neighborhood locals, many of which looked like they'd been coming to Haiti since the restaurant opened its doors in 1962. Peruvian gentlemen (or those thinking of themselves as gentlemen) gathered at tables, laughing and shaking hands and ribbing each other like it was their own private men's club. This was their turf, no doubt. Young guys, street musicians, artists, walked by and were greeted by the gentlemen who wanted to feel young again themselves through the energy of these artists. Then the restaurant management shooing the young artists away, like they were street urchins looking for a handout when in fact, it was the old gentlemen who were looking for a handout. Elder expat intellectuals, with stained shirts and wild grey hair sat with their used, dog eared books by Camus and Vargas Llosa, idling over small cups of espresso, cold by now but displayed, like a torn ticket to show that they'd paid their entrance fee and had every right to be here for as long as it took to finish their drink.

I ordered flounder ceviche and a double pisco sour. The ceviche arrived, fresh and fragrant, accompanied by two thick slices of yam, fresh, fat butter yellow corn kernels the size of dimes, and a hot sauce that would make your eyes tear up and your forehead break into a sweat. The pisco sour was cold, frothy, strong, and tart -- and perfect in every way. I savored every bite and drank in the experience of Lima on this pleasant night.

Then back to Manolo to sample one of their famous chocolate-filled churros. Biting into it -- the crunch of fried dough and sugar granules, then the soft yield of the dough into the creamy goodness of the chocolate filling. Perfection in a fried pastry.

As I get closer to the end of this trip, things have seemed to take on a new tone. Time has slowed down as I drop into each moment and do all I can to experience all I can. An impending sense of loss, of ending and closure, has heightened my senses and made each experience richer and more full of meaning.

Huacachina, Peru

What an odd little place! Huacachina sits five kilometers outside Ica, Ica being one of the more substantial cities in Peru. Huacachina, on the other hand and despite being only 5km five kilometers outside Ica, seems like it’s in the middle of nowhere. It sits in small pocket, huddled in between masses of giant sand dunes. Huacahinca is like every image we have of a small oasis set in the idle of some Arabian desert, except this oasis is filled with young Western travelers looking for a good time.

Its reputation precedes it in numerous ways. If you ever want the unrated version containing all the details about this place, corner me at a party after I’ve had a couple of drinks and I’ll tell you all about it. In my own defense, I had about as much interest in indulging in most of these activities as I do in eating beets. And in case you don’t know this about me, I do not like beets.

Huacahina is a tiny town and thus offers only a few key pleasures.

1) Party all night, every night;

2) Hook up with some stranger or strangers;

3) Walk around the tree-lined lagoon or sit at your hostel pool while eating ice cream and enjoying the hot dry sun;

4) Take a wine or pisco tasting tour (the Ica region is the only wine region in Peru); and

5) Ride massive diesel-powered dune buggies that take you to enormous dunes you can sandboard down.

I had zero interest in numbers 1 and 2 so I took advantage of numbers 3, 4, and 5. Of the three days I was in Huacahina, I spent the first two of them resting and trying my best to get over the terrible cold and ear infection that left me without hearing in my left ear. So I chilled by the pool, read my book, walked around the lagoon, and went to bed early. To be honest, I would’ve simply left Huacachina on my second day if it weren’t for a cotton farmers’ strike, which left all roads into and out of Lima blocked. I guess that’s a pretty ingenious way to conduct a strike – simply block all roads to the most important city in the country. That really makes everybody sweat. The funny thing is, though, that the strikers take the weekends off, not just the cotton farmers as in this case, but any strikers in Peru during any strike. That part of the strikers’ strategy? Maybe not so ingenious. So in this particular case, and at worst case, the roads would be open starting Saturday for a couple of days.

Since I couldn’t leave Lima until Saturday, I stayed on a third day (a Friday) and spent it doing what there was left to be done in Huacachina. Wine tasting and sandboarding.

Sometime just after breakfast, my left ear popped. I could hear out of it again! Progress is good.

The wine tasting was one of the weirdest and most unpleasant wine tasting experiences I’ve ever had. My “tour” consisted of this…

I was picked up by a rotund and jolly guy in a busted up vehicle that looked and sounded like it was being held together with one very crucial bolt and that bolt was just about rust through and snap like a brittle little twig. The shocks were shot, the body of the car rusted, the seats springs jammed me in the back. The driver, who I was promised spoke English, had an English vocabulary that consisted of about 25 words, most of which related to drinking or alcoholic beverages of various sorts – and here I’m not talking about describing the characteristics of wine, I’m talking about how much he enjoys partying. Once I climbed into the death trap car and we started off, he introduced me to his girlfriend, a similarly rotund young woman with unwashed hair and a shy smile. Explanation here: the driver’s girlfriend was his mistress – not his partner, not his wife. How I knew this doesn’t matter. Let’s just say that it didn’t take any kind of powerful logic to deduce it.

We rattled toward Ica, the car shaking and shuddering and the driver weaving through traffic, stop signs, and lights. More explanation: this is how people drive in Peru. Lights, people, other cars, lines on the road, stop signs – it’s all just a whisper of a suggestion that everyone completely ignores. It’s a absolute and total, let’s-play-chicken, white-knuckle free-for-all.

So we’re shuddering through traffic, stopping every few minutes so that the driver can run his errands: getting the daily paper, stopping to put one liter of gas in his tank, etc. Once we finally get rolling, the landscape that unfolds in front of me is ghastly. Once off the highway, the roads are dusty, throat-choking affairs lined with four foot tall mountains of garbage on either side, like some kind of smelly, decaying, makeshift fence. Rotting diapers, empty blue plastic bleach bottles, and other sundry unmentionables painted a gruesomely colorful patina that surrounds fields where I wondered if wine grapes were grown. I would be disgusted – and frankly I was – but what struck me the most is that people lived here and this is how they deposited their garbage, hazmat and all. I felt very sad that these were conditions that people had to live in.

After a brain jarring ride through this unhappy countryside, we arrived at Tecama, one of the most well-known wineries of Peru. It was like a faded, ramshackle shell. The once bright pink paint of the tasting area and visitors’ center was washed out and lifeless looking. The grounds are filled with plants that seemed to barely hang on to life, drooping or just simply dead and brown. Dry dust devils whipped through the grounds, parching your throat.

The tour of the “facilities” was strange. I saw one thing that looked new and clean and properly functioning and those were two large stills where pisco is brewed. Two gigantic bright copper tanks with various copper tubing spiraling out of them sit pristinely in one corner of the production warehouse. In the next area, opposite these stills was a concrete wine aging tank. Its small doors were open, revealing themselves to be filthy and rusted on the inside. The harsh sound of a workman jackhammering and intermittent clouds of concrete dust filled the place. This was about as far away from a Napa or Sonoma tasting experience as I’ve ever had, hands down.

The tour culminated back in the tasting area. I was handed a tiny plastic cup that looked like it had been used and washed, used and washed at least twenty or thirty times. In my tiny plastic cup I was poured some of the most absolutely awful swill I’ve ever had the displeasure of tasting. It was truly and completely terrible.

Back in the car… the shuddering, creaking, barely holding together car. Back through the fences of garbage. Back onto the highway. Another head jarring 25 minutes to what was reputed to be an “artisanal” pisco producer. On the way, we rolled through a favela, a slum area. Mountains of garbage everywhere. Half built, abandoned brick structures, as if someone started building, then just ran out of money and stopped – which, in all likelihood, is exactly what happened. No stores. No plumbing that I could see. I don’t know how else to describe the details of this place, but I know how I felt as we traveled through it. Immensely depressed. It was like the gravity of sadness here was so strong that no light or joy could exist in it. I took picture after picture of it, thinking that each scene I was capturing was bad, and then the next scene would seem worse and more without happiness or hope. Piles of desolation everywhere.

Eventually, we made it back to a paved road and to this “artisanal” pisco producer. This particular place reminded me of those bars that you see in old Clint Eastwood Westerns. When I think of “artisanal” I do not think of this place. I tried three or four tastes of their pisco, each leaving a burning trail of fire down my gullet. The driver/guide had some tastes, too, which frighteningly made his ability to laugh uproariously and liberally much more pronounced on the drive back to Huacachina. He regaled me of stories in rough Spanglish of fun times drinking in the past and famous drinking holidays in Peru.

Umm… good fun.

As it was, because he ran his errands at the beginning of the “tour” we had no time to visit the third winery that was supposed to be part of the tour. I was kind of pissed for just one second, then realized that I was going to be spared more brain addling chauffer-ing and more gut wrenching wine.

Back at Huacachina, the guide good-humoredly reminded me to tip him. You have to be kidding, right? Enh. I tipped him anyway. Whatever. He obviously needs that five soles more than I did. I mean, he has a wife, three children, a dog, a cat and a mistress to support.

I got back from the “wine tour” at 3:30pm, rested for a half hour, and then hauled myself into one of the two monster diesel dune buggies that was going to take me and another 15 tourists into the sand dunes for some sandboarding. I jumped into the seat right next to the driver so I could get the full frontal experience of tearing through the dunes at full speed. I strapped myself in with the four-point, over-the-shoulder seatbelt. As the driver took us around the block to the entrance to the dunes, the engine noise and noxious fumes were tremendous. And then, too late, I realized that this was probably not so good for the environment around here. With no time to consider my carbon footprint, we were off!

It was like a punk-rock-xtreme-sports-Mr.-Toad’s-Wild-Ride, like a Disneyland roller coaster gone wrong, like a serious back injury waiting to happen! I know that as a responsible citizen of planet earth and a “just recently former” Green Party member, I shouldn’t like this. But I did! The dunes were enormous and the heavy, powerful diesel engine shot us up them and plummet us down them, took us on steep banks and slip-sliding turns. It was a total blast and crazy thrilling! This was not some American roller coaster ride that was inspected and given a safety stamp of approval. This was not some experience where there were warnings posted on all sides sp no one slapped a lawsuit on them. This was petrifying and fun and real! We were all screaming in terror and exhilaration as we took the corners and peaked the top of a massive dune only to see an almost sheer drop off on the other side that we’d rocket down at full speed!

We finally stopped at the pinnacle of a large dune, unbuckled, and tumbled out of the sand monsters. Wild-eyed and wind-blown, our driver handed each of us our sandboards, which he then waxed so we could go top speed down the dunes.

The first brave soul lay down on her sandbaord at the crest of the dune and the driver gave her a hard push… Waaaahhhheeeeeee!!! She sped like a bullet, yelling like a banshee all the way, and drifted to a stop at the curved bottom. It looked like a complete and total blast!

I climbed on my board and he gave me a shove. The wind whipped by my face, the sand was like glass, and it seemed like I was going way, way too fast. I screamed from the total rush of it and all of a sudden, it was over. Again! Again! Again! I humped it up the dune to have another go, which was a challenge. It was like walking up quicksand. Each step up sent a mini avalanche of sand that took me back downward. One step up, three-quarter steps down, one step up, one step down, etc. I humped it all the way back up, though, and down I went again!

After about 15 minutes, we all bundled back up into the sand monsters and were off on another punk rock wild ride – swinging in and out of dunes, going impossible high impossibly fast, kickin up dust like a 500 pound hillbilly at a hoedown. Woooohoooooo!

We stopped again at the top of another monumental dune, this one steeper and longer than that last. On our boards, we each plummeted down the thing like bats out of hell. Wicked, just wicked.

Then, onward, back into the sand monster… the sun was making its way to the horizon line and out here, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, we hit a dune crest and stopped again. The landscape was incredible. From the town of Huacachina, you see several very high dunes that surround the town. But once you surmount these and get out here, they go on and on and on, out of site. The rolling dunes show graceful curves, shades of light and shadow, smooth, speckled, and waved texture.

I sat quietly on the warm dune in the sand like fine sugar, watching the fire of the sun be swallowed by the night and dunes far away. The moon had risen over us, white and lucid. I just drank it all in, this serene beauty… just let my spirit drift in the sands, as time, like a thief, stole gently, silently, and ceaselessly forward.

Too soon, we had to bundle back up in the sand monster and head to our final run. Fast, long, and thrilling, and then back on again and the final drive back to Huacachina.

Back in town, I heard that the cotton farmers’ strike was over and all roads to Lima were open.

Tomorrow, I catch the bus to Lima for my final four days in this three-month journey in South America.

Nazca, Peru

Overnight bus from Arequipa to Nazca. I take another night time cold med to help me sleep since I’m still very sick and sorely need rest. I awake on the bus in the early morning just before we arrive in Nazca to find that I’ve lost hearing in my left ear. And I feel like death. I taxi it to the hostel and sadly, my room isn’t yet available. I sit in the grubby common area feeling like someone has stuffed rusty steel wool into my sinuses and throat and the rest of me has been used as a punching bag . Not good. In fact, not only not good, but significantly worse than yesterday. I finally decide it’s time to put Peruvian medical practitioners to the test and ask the front desk if they can refer me to an English-speaking doctor.

The front desk calls in to someone, hangs up, and then tells me that I should show up at the following address. The doctor can see me right now. Right. Onward.

I start walking through Nazca for the first time. The morning light seems garish, brash, and insidious and it’s compounded by a town that is dry desert. Not pretty desert, but the kind of desert that seems incapable of sustaining life, that’s devoid of anything beautiful or useful. As I shuffle along the dirt street, I feel like I’m trapped in some kind of sinister Salvadore Dali landscape. I finally find the clinic and achingly pull myself up the stairs.

I’m met by 20 babies and toddlers with their parents – lots of rowdiness and lots of screaming and crying. OK, I’m in a pediatrician’s office. I check in at the front desk. We sort out the inevitable language barrier confusion with makeshift sign language and get the successful point where we all understand that I’m here to see this particular doctor who speaks some English. Unfortunately, he apparently isn’t in the office yet. I sit and wait while the wee ones clamber around me, heightening the surrealist state in which I’m already helplessly swirling.

The doctor arrives. He shakes my hand and then immediately disappears with a great grandmother and her entire family into the examination room. How they all fit in there while the doctor is carrying on an examination, I have no idea.

The next hour is more of the same… wee monkeys screaming as they get shots or crying as they fall and go boom on their bums or have a toy stolen from them. Some sit quietly. One looks at me and smiles and we play a bit of peek-a-boo. The examination room containing the entire family is busy, great grandsons sneak in and out, sons and daughters leave and come re-enter. It’s like Grand Central Station in there.

The heat begins to become oppressive and all the activity begins to grate on my already fragile state. I wait for almost an hour.

Finally, the family files out, one after the other, like too many clowns out of a tiny car. The doctor beckons me in to an office that was even tinier than I thought it would be. Wait, how did all those people fit in there?

I sit at his wee desk and he asks me questions about how I feel in very broken Spanglish. After weighing me, taking my temperature, and looking in my ears, he promptly tells me I have an ear infection and writes me scrips for five separate medications. I ask him if I can go up in the plane that will take me up above the Nazca lines so I can see them in their full glory. “No,” and a grave shake of the head was the simple response. Dammit. The only reason to come to Nazca is to see the Nazca lines and the only good way to see the Nazca lines is from an airplane, dammit. Dammit.

To fill you in, I’ll let Wikipedia do the talking:

“The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than 80 kilometres (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima. Although some local geoglyphs resemble Paracas motifs, scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 400 and 650 AD. The hundreds of individual figures range in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks,orcas, llamas, and lizards.”

I have to say, I was pretty excited to see these. Travel plans don’t always work out, as I’m painfully aware of at this point.

Back to my story…

So I ask about the doctor about the meds and apparently, at least two of them have nothing to do with my symptoms. Ummm, ok. Off I go to the pharmacists in the sweltering heat in the business hub of this dirty dusty diesel-fumed town to get my various pills. I feel like hell.

South America is funny in that retail businesses are set up similar to what I experienced in socialist Eastern Europe when I lived there. Meaning, you don’t just ask the person at the counter for something, and then they get it, and then you pay them. It goes something like this…

I visit one counter and ask the attendant for help. He points me to another person behind a window. I go to the window and give the woman my scrips. She looks at them and tallies up the total and I pay her. She prints a receipt and stamps it before giving it to me and also hands me back my scrips. She points me to another counter and another person. This person looks at the scrips and my stamped receipt and retrieves my scrips from the shelves. She then bags them and staples them up and hands me back my scrips, my bag of pills, and my stamped receipt. She then points me to another person at another counter. I go there and he looks at my bag (to make sure it’s stapled?), looks at my scrips from the doctor, looks at my receipt with the stamp, and indicates that I’m now free to go. Not efficient but I guess it employs a lot of people.

I finally make it back to the hostel. I feel exhausted and it’s only 11:30am. I make it to my room, which is a barren unfriendly place, like a monastic cell… or prison cell. At least I’m alone and can try and rest without people filing in and out, like in a dorm. For the rest of the day, I lay in bed, watching videos on YouTube and TED talk after TED talk. I read Dracula. I stared out the single window at the top corner of the stuffy room. I did this until dark, and when I got hungry enough, I ventured out again into Nazca.

The central square, where all the action is, was bustling with tourists, families out for a stroll, and upstart teenagers clustered in groups snickering and gigging. I found a quiet little place and actually had the first veggie stir fry with rice that I’ve had since I left home. It felt the sweet, sweet nutrition being absorbed into my body. It’s amazing how good veggies are after you’ve pretty much eaten mostly white bread and sugar for nearly three months.

I shambled back to the depressing hostel again after dinner and watched more TED talks before dropping off to sleep.

I awoke the next morning still feeling like my head was filled with rusted out steel wool and my body was run over by a truck. Like many times on this trip, there was no way I was going to let intense personal discomfort or a high likelihood of certain death stop me from moving forward with at least some revised edition of my travel plans. So I can’t go up in an airplane? Then I’m going to take the bus to the mirador (tower) out in the middle of nowhere and climb that thing and see whatever it is I can see of the Nazca lines. Here’s what I got to see:

Yup, that’s it. It took me a five sole cab ride, a 15-minute wait at the bus terminal, a 30-minute ride to the mirador, and a three-minute climb up the mirador. I looked at it and took a few pictures. Five minutes later, I descended the mirador and sat for another 25 minutes waiting for the bus back to Nazca where I got my pack out of storage and immediately boarded another bus headed for Ica and then a taxi to my final next destination, Huacachina.

So far, none of the meds I got were making me feel any better.

A few hours later, I rolled into Ica and promptly caught a taxi to Huacachina, a tiny oasis town outside of the bustling metro area of Ica.

Arequipa, Peru

Well, what can I say about Arequipa except I wish I knew her better.

Sadly, I was sick as a dog when I arrived on the overnight bus, which I had slept soundly on due to healthy doses over night time cold medicine. However, it left me feeling completely groggy and wasted as my cab pulled into my hostel at 7:00am. Fortunately, they gave me a room straight off. I asked for an extra blanket and promptly went back to sleep, putting my total sleep hours for that night up to 14.

Fortunately, my entire dorm was pretty much deserted save for one Aussie guy who spent most of his time away from the hostel.

So for the next two days, instead of trekking Mt. Misti, the beautiful active volcano outside of town, or visiting Colca Canyon to see the condors in flight, I laid in bed reading Stoker’s “Dracula” for the umpteenth time and watching videos on YouTube. Several times, I had to get out to get something to eat and got to enjoy one small piece of Arequipa, the city’s central square which is an UNESCO world heritage site made up of beautiful, grand colonial architecture made from white stone native to the region. Because of this, Arequipa is known as “The White City.”

I ate a lovely little cafes and had soft serve ice cream to soothe my burning throat. I sat in the square and watched the young couples on dates get their pictures taken in front of the impressive central fountain. I watched toddlers toss seeds to the hundreds of hungry pigeons, then giggle and look to their parents for assurance. I saw old people, sitting on park benches, hand in hand, and tourists, sitting lazily in the expensive cafes and restaurants lining the square. Because I didn’t have much energy for anything, I simply watched the world go by.

When I come back to Peru, I’d love to come back to Arequipa to really experience all she has to offer.

With this, I'll leave you with some lovely images of Arequipa.

The Cathedral in the main square by twilight...

A view of the main square by day...

El Misti...

Where Things Are Now… Hard

Since things went South on my last two days in Buenos Aires, I’ve had some ups -- some really major ups -- but I’ve had so many downs that it will take me a while to recover from them once I return home. We had the theft in which some crafty Brazilian hacked into my checking and savings accounts and cleaned them out. Then the news from home that almost prompted me to take the next plane back to the Bay Area. Then the broken?/sprained? toe along with the sketchy outfit with whom I booked my trip to Machu Picchu. Then getting sick, a pretty awful birthday far away from home and loved ones, and now I’ve been diagnosed with an inner ear infection. Being quite sick and now the painful inner ear infection (I can’t hear at all out of my left ear) has prevented me from exploring Arequipa, where the sacred condor flies, and boarding a plane to fly over the famous and mysterious Nazca lines. I’ve been holed up in hostels for the last three days, laying in bed reading and watching videos on YouTube.

I’m in the home stretch of this journey, with only seven full days of travel and exploration before I board a plane bound for San Francisco. And I’m looking over my shoulder every minute trying to stay prepped and alert for the next potential disaster.

Believe me, I realize that, at home, each of these things might seem small, but being in a foreign country, alone and with little knowledge of the language, these things get amplified to a fever pitch, and when compounded one upon another, can get pretty overwhelming.

I have to admit that I’m sad that this trip seems to have taken a bad turn. There have been so many beautiful moments. But hopefully, things will turn around so I can finish this trip on a up note.

I think back to something I wrote in this blog in my first month, and that is that travel can be a pretty intense spiritual practice. Chop wood, carry water, but do it it a foreign country where you just don’t know much about anything at all. I feel that more so than ever right now as my body, mind, and spirit are being tested in ways that have blindsided me and left me feeling exhausted and wracked. The lesson… spiritual practice is hard and messy and ugly and heartbreaking, as well as beautiful, peaceful, expanding, and connecting.

Laras Trail Trek and Machu Picchu: Coming Soon

As I get chances, I’m working on the blog entry or entries for this incredible four-day journey. There is so much detail and so many experiences that I want to share, it’s taking me a while to get it all out and organized. AND, I especially want to do the story justice so I’m putting a bit of extra elbow grease into the writing. This story deserves it. So stay tuned, but in the mean time, I’ll be posting other entries that happened after my trek and visit to Machu Picchu.

In the mean time, enjoy some photos…

The Sacred Valley, Peru

Another tour today. Not my preference, but it seems like the only way to see a lot in the small amount of time that I have without the huge expense of renting a car, let a one driving a car in Peru, which seems pretty dangerous noticing how people drive.

I sat next to a former Brazilian model who regaled me of tales of the modeling world, which sound horrific, throughout the tour. A lot of eating disorders, suicide, and depression. No surprises there, I suppose. After several years, she quit – she seemed much too sweet for such a cut throat world.

After climbing and climbing the mountains, I saw the valley floor drop below me the jagged peaks meet my gaze. Once again, the Andean countryside was beautiful. Deep verdant valleys nestling rambling rivers, towering mountains in shades of purple and blue violet and lush green. The dimension and grandeur of it all so vast that whole scenes seemed to simply flatten out like something in a postcard.

We arrived at the town of Pisac and were lead into a massive street market, maze like and seemingly endless. Hundreds and hundreds of stalls, each generally offering the same crafts – weavings, shawls, tow llamas, silver jewelry and similar items. I kept wondering how all of these people survived, even in high season. Obviously, competition was fierce. I guess most of these crafts don’t have a shelf life so they can just sit for years and years until someone buys them. Still, with so many vendors, it seems like you would be lucky to sell one item in a day – and how does that really impact how you provide for your family? Being already burned out from being sold to, I made my out of the market area as soon as I could and walked around the town of Pisac, which is fundamentally one main street and some smaller alleys or side streets. Locals, many in traditional clothing, sat on the side of the street, waiting for small vans that served as public transportation between towns and villages in the area. Pisac is nestled in a small enclosure of valley with mountains shooting up at steep angles around it, creating the borders of the town.

The next stop was the Pisac ruins. In the cliffs surrounding the pre-Incan structures were holes, hundreds of them, as if drilled in the side of the cliffs. These holes were actually grave sites that, at one time, contained mummies of the middle class of the city. The dead were preserved by removing the organs from the body and stuffing them with herbs, llama wool, and cotton. They were put in a fetal position in the cliffs so that they were in the correct position to be reborn into the next world.

About 5000 residents lived in old Pisac and each resident or family of residents lived on different levels of the city denoting their class. The labor class at the bottom, the tradesmen in the middle, and the privileged class and holy people at the top.

The remains of stone buildings were like skeletons, dried grey still bones of a dead city once alive with industry, trade, science, spiritual practice, and of the beauty and suffering of the human experience.

The site many stepped areas and archeologists believe, like at Maras Moray, that these steps were used for experimenting with growing different crops of corn, beans, grains, and potatoes. The steps also were useful in their irrigation practices. Additionally, at the topmost level, archeologists discovered a large collection of guinea pig bones perhaps indicating that there was experimentation with animals also happening.

As we left, I noticed the mountain next to the site. It was a crouching giant, sleeping an ancient sleep until it would be awakened again by some cataclysmic geological happening.

After Pisac ruins, we visited Ollontaytambo, another pre-Incan ruin. The central part of the site, archeologists believe, is constructed using steps that form the shape of a llama, which was believed to be the symbol for production and productivity. On the opposite mountain from the central site are several other structures, one being an observatory, the other a large storehouse or “refrigerator” used for storing food at cooler temperatures, and another ruin, which sadly I didn’t write down so don’t recall its use. On the side of mountain where those structures are built is a rock formation that is the profile visage of an Incan warrior. Archeologists believe that this was not carved, but was actually a natural formation. The people of Ollontaytambo discovered this and used the formation in their construction. Namely, on June 21 (also known as the Summer Solstice), between 11am and 12noon, the sun rounds the corner of the mountain and shine just level with the face of the Incan warrior and as that happens, the beam shines from the warrior into a temple window and directly at a sacred fountainhead within the temple.

All very Indiana Jones, yes?

At the pinnacle of the central area of the site is the temple of the Sun. This impressive ruin is comprised of massive smooth rock blocks fit together with impressive accuracy, order, and beauty. The rocks are so perfectly fitted, not even a knife can be placed between them. They’re smooth, like they’ve been put in a gigantic rock tumbler. Faint memories of carvings are present in the rock – carvings that represent Pachamama, or as we call her, Mother Earth. Amazingly, these massive rocks were quarried over seven kilometers away, at the pinnacle of a neighboring mountain, which can be seen from the temple site. The colossal rocks were broken from the mountain and transported downhill using a series of gullies that were created specifically for this purpose. But how did they get the giant rocks back up the steep hill to the temple site? They carved massive ramps in the mountain leading up to the temple site and placed rolling stones beneath the giant rocks too push them up the hill. Needless to say, the size of the human workforce to accomplish all this was sizeable, archeologists believe. Workers would have to have traveled from many miles around to work on these structures. The whole operation seems incredibly impressive.

On the way home, the sun began setting on the snow capped mountains, putting them to rest for another night in the antideluvian cycle of the world.

The Andean Countryside

Birthday Dreams

It’s my 44th birthday today.

Being in a foreign country on my own to celebrate it has mixed blessings, I'm finding.

There are many times on this journey that I've felt very alone, and other times when I've felt deeply connected to this chaotic and beautiful thing we can humanity and the universe.

Today, I feel both simultaneously. What a wonderful koan or riddle to feel opposites occurring at once within yourself.

I've dreamed some dreams for my next year that I want to record for posterity's sake and to refer back to as the year unfolds.

I wish to get my sommelier certification as well as begin building businesses that attract clients and customers who appreciate honesty, creativity, innovation, and integrity.

I wish to face change, both simple and dramatic, with bravery and integrity.

I wish to be close to those dear to me.

I wish to be healthy in mind, body, and spirit.

I wish to be gentle with myself and grow my tolerance and compassion for others.

I wish for space to be creative.

I wish to see the everyday beauty in the world and draw inspiration from it to become a better person.

Your support in these dreams would be the best birthday present I could possibly wish for.

Circles of Life: Maras Moray and More

On the bus, leaving Cusco on a tour van. In the hills outside the city center, going up and up. Clay brick houses with corrugated tin roofs, cheaply made. Pigs, dogs, donkeys, and cats wandering the hillsides, scavenging for food close by their owners’ houses. The further away from the town center, the more traditional Peruvian garb I see. Brightly-colored wraps, hats, the black criss-cross sandals. The hills are a beautiful shade of green with a red-brown clay color of soil beneath and peaking out.

Arrived in a women’s weaving colony where we were shown how the Peruvian brightly colored textiles are made by women who wear the traditional outfit: big full knee-length skirt in a dark color, white blouse, red woven jacket, hat with flowers or a woven band.

To create the intricate and fine textiles, first, the hair from the llama or alpaca is cut away from the hide using a piece of broken glass. Then, three red-clay ceramic bowls with Peruvian decorations are laid out, each filled with water. Next, a root plant is grated into one of the bowls of water. This root plant, when grated, creates a foamy, soapy water, and it is indeed soap. The root is also used by Peruvians to wash their hair and to prevent grey hair. The puffs of animal hair are washed in the soapy water, rinsed in the second bowl of water and rinsed again in the third bowl of water. It’s amazing the before and after difference – from grey brown to wooly white. Once the wool is hung and dried, the wool is dyed different colors using flowers, mosses, bugs, leaves, salt, lemon juice, and other natural ingredients. The dye is cooked in clay pots filled with hot, hot water being heated over open fires in an open, outdoor kitchen. The colors are beautiful and earthy. The look like they come from nature with their richness and depth: oranges, rusts, purples, violets, blues, deep reds and burgundies, willow green, yellow green and so many other colors and shades. Some of these dyes are also used as make-up for the women, who say that even with kissing and hugging, the make-up stays put.

Once the wool is dyed and dries, a woman holds a bundle of wool in one hand and in the other, she holds a spindle. She pulls at the wool to make a thin thread and spins the spindle with her other hand and the thread gathers around the spindle to make a spool of wool thread.

This spool is then wound into a ball and the balls of beautifully colored wool yarn are then used in a hand loom where women create designs that are symbols that tell the stories of their culture… of the people, the land and nature, the gods, the animals.

The friendly women and girls served us fried corn cakes and boiled potatoes with an herb sauce, and then we departed.

Back on the van toward our next destination. The Peruvian countryside is filled with farmland, open country, and the Andes. It’s spectacular, majestic, wide, and peaceful. People herd their sheep and work the land to grow potatoes, beans, corn, and grains like barley, wheat, and quinoa. Fields of yellow flowers and violet flowers stretch into the distance. I know this is a hard life, but it seems romantic to me in that it’s a life that’s lived close to, and in harmony with, the earth.

Part of the journey is on a one-lane, narrow mountain dirt road. On one side, the mountain, on the other, a sheer drop of about 100 feet. Several times, tight corners suddenly reveal another vehicle. Both vehicles hit a quick stop, sending dirt and rocks flying off the side of the cliff and into the gully far beneath. I don’t know who has the right of way, but it seems like it’s the vehicle that holds out moving the longest. The other vehicle then has to back up indefinitely until there’s just enough space for both vehicles to squeak past one another – just by inches (or an inch).

We arrive at the next destination, Maras Moray. This pre-Inca ruin is constructed of many stepped terraces that form a beautiful circular design. It’s estimated it was constructed sometime in the 1400s. First there is Uyak Muyu (deep circle) that has the lowest altitude, then Huchuy Muyu (up circle) which is at a mid-level altitude, and finally Unyar Muyu (small circle), which has the highest altitude. Scholars have two theories as to the use of these stepped circles. One is that they were used for performance and ritual, like an amphitheater. Another theory (and this seems to be the more adopted of the two) is that these were built to experiment with crops. Which crops grew best at which altitudes? These stepped circles each had microclimates that would have been ideal to experiment to determine which crops grew best at which altitudes. Very useful for a society that relied on a very mountainous landscape to feed and provide for itself.

Though Catholicism had a foothold in current Peruvian society (and still is very strong), the indigenous Andean people who rely on the land to provide for them have, in the last 50 years or so, reverted back to their earth-based spiritual practices. A guide on another trip told me that this simply made the most sense for these people now since relying on the earth is just how they lived. That makes perfect sense to me.

At this point, Maras Moray is now used, not only as a tourist destination, but also for indigenous spiritual practices such as ayahuasca ceremonies.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and I sat in the middle of the largest of the ruins and grasped for some feeling of peace or energy. All I felt was the beauty of this place all around me, the sun, the crisp wind. That, to me, *is* spiritual practice. Just being present with everything. So I guess it worked for me.

On the van again and to the next destination: the Salt Mines. Doesn’t sound very pleasant, does it? But it was fascinating. We approached the salt mines on the road – they covered the whole hillside. Little plots, thousands of them, all of different shades of white. Tiny figures, like ants, moving around and through the plots.

A spring producing salty water was the impetus for the salt mines, which were created and worked by the Incas. Once the Spanish conquered and took over, they of course took over the salt mines and enslaved the natives, forcing them to work the mines. Once the Spanish vacated, the descendents of the Incas, the Maras people, reclaimed the mines. Now, these people are the only ones who are allowed to own these mines. There are three thousand of them over all, and each plot is owned by one person. Certain steps with several or many plots are owned by whole families, so the father owns one, the son, the grandson, the nephew, the uncle, etc. These plots are handed down from family member to family member, as well, so that when one family member dies, the plot then is willed to another family member, ensuring it all stays within the family circle.

Seeing the mines from the road was strangely beautiful, and seeing them up close was fascinating. The way that the people have created an intricate irrigation system that siphons the salt water from the springs throughout each of the roughly four by four foot plots – literally over 3000 of them. As we watched, people were finishing their work for the day, climbing the terraces with buckets, pick axes, and other hand-held tools. To think, all the labor maintaining and “farming” these plots is manual, with no automation or machinery of any kind. Incredible, really.

During our time here at the mines, there was a ceremony giving thanks to the spirits of the springs. Three village elders led the small parade, followed by a man with a bass drum, a teen playing a carved flute and a man with a snare drum. Another teen held a garland of crimson flowers mounted on a staff. They played and marched through the village and ended at the source of the main salt spring where they spoke a ritual and placed the garlands in the spring. It was quite picturesque and a bit somber.

On our way out, our guide chatted with a few of his friends who had salt plots. They poured him some home-made Peruvian beer, called chicha, which he showed me and another woman how to drink. First, you get your cup of chicha, then you pour a small amount on the ground, which is an offering to Pachamama, the mother earth, then you can drink. The beer is made out of fermented corn and is very popular with the local folks. It has a one-day shelf life so that, when someone brews a batch, they put a red flag outside their home or establishment that lets passers-by know that they have chicha to sell. Genuis.

After the salt mines, home to my hostel, a walk around beautiful Cusco, diner, my book, and bed.

La Boca Tango

Cusco, Peru Day 1

I’ve arrived in Cusco and my first day in Peru. So far, no altitude sickness. I’m grateful for that since, from the last several days, I already feel like I’m in an altered state of consciousness.

I touched down, checked into my hostel, and immediately went to the Western Union office, where cash was waiting for me. I am now ok on the cash front. No word yet from my bank on my claim.

My first impressions of Cusco are good. As the flight landed, I got a view of the countryside, which is stunning. Jagged mountains, the countryside dappled like a quilt made in earth tones, th town made up of red clay colored roofs and nestles in a pocket created by the mountains. And once in town, the feeling is relaxed, mellow, and easy. The squares and are pretty with brightly colored flowers and green stretches of grass. The people colorful dressed in either traditional garb, like you see in this picture, or in modern clothing. The buildings are quaint or impressive, made out of stone and stucco.

I still can’t eat. It’s been two and a half days and I’ve had water and two cups of juice that I was served on the airplane. The thought of food makes my stomach churn sickeningly. I hope for a full and uninterrupted night’s sleep tonight.

The hotel bar is blasting techno and the Israelis and Australians are already drunk and loud and it's only 7:30pm. I hope the sound doesn’t carry to my room.

All I want is to curl up in a ball underneath some warm covers and read my book. I guess these last several days have really left me feeling pretty raw. It’s all still resonating in my head and body. It’s like I’m looking over my shoulder every second, wondering who is going to hit me with the next big earthshaking surprise.

I’ve emailed a guide to see if/when I can catch a trek up to Machu Picchu. We’ll see what I hear back.

Buenos Aires Days 7 and 8

Day 7

My brain was full from seeing so much in the last many days, so I spent the day visiting the Jardin Bottanico Carlos and the Jardin Japones, both in the Palermo district of the city.

I walked peacefully among the trees and plants and sculptures of nymphs and cavorting cherubim, all the while listening to the throng of traffic as it ceaselessly pummeled the pavement just outside the gates. The Japanese Garden was particularly hilarious. While being Zen in design, a circular saw whined relentlessly somewhere in the background, oftentimes joined by the thunderous cacophony of low flying 747s taking off or landing at the nearby international airport.

In the evening, I received some personal news that sent me into a spiral. I began to consider cutting my trip short to come home. I slept for maybe an hour, fitfully, and had a long call home at four in the morning to my best friend, seeking grounding and counsel.

Day 8

I woke up from my hour of sleep and logged in to my bank account to check my balance. Both my checking and my savings account had been completely drained.

I wondered how things could get any worse.

Apparently some thief in Brazil skimmed my card and has been withdrawing money from my account for the past month. And when my checking account hit zero he or she then drained my savings account. In personal crisis, I find that I am now also penniless -- my accounts have been taken to the tune of $2700. I spend the day in a haze trying to use the on-again-off-again skype connection to have multiple, repetitive, frusrating conversations with my bank to resolve the issue. I filed a claim for all the stolen charges, and since I’m traveling, I can’t close my accounts or receive a new card. So, at this point, if and when I get reimbursed for the stolen funds, I have to call my bank each and every time I need to make an ATM withdrawal.

I tried, without success, to get in touch with people at home with funds who could help me. And finally, toward the latter part of the afternoon, got a response and arranged to have my Skype account refilled (I was unable to do that without any money in my back account) so I could have access to a phone as well as have cash sent to me via Western Union to be picked up tomorrow in Cusco, Peru.

This experience has reminded me yet again that we are not islands and depend on each other to make it through the difficulties of life, as well as celebrate the joys it brings us.

The level of vulnerability I feel is epic, and I am so alone and isolated. The sheer discomfort of it has stolen my appetite. No food today, I can’t eat as the thought of it makes my head spin and my stomach seize up and twist inside out.

This is travel – the good and the bad. Sadly, it seems, when it gets to this level of bad, the problems are so much, much more difficult to solve and the aloneness so much, much more deep.

So I leave B.A. with a bitter taste in my mouth.

I have many more stories to tell about Buenos Aires, and maybe, at some point I will. Now, I just want to put it behind me.

Buenos Aires Days 5 and 6

Day 5

I went to La Boca’ Caminito area, famous for its blue-collar roughness and locals-only attitude. Ironically, this attitude has created quite the tourist attraction, and the residents and shop keepers eat it up like dog food. To be honest, I didn’t like La Boca at all. It was the most flagrantly touristy area I’ve been in in Argentina. Street hawkers aggressively tugging at your shirt trying to get you to sit down at their restaurant because if you do, they get a commission. Cheap souvenir shops everywhere selling tacky junk. The only thing I liked about it (and I liked it a lot) were all the tango dancers. They performed on the street and at every cafe. I loved watching them, but of course as soon as I would stop to look, a hawker would come up and grab me by the arm and start leading me to a table. So, I took some pictures of the colorful buildings and headed out to the Sunday San Telmo street market. This has to be the largest street market in B.A. It’s massive, covering so many city blocks, I lost count. Booths filled with antique jewelry, pins, books, and silverware, handicrafts, plus t-shirts, CDs, DVDs, and other gifty items. I walked and walked, watching the street performers dancing the tango, puppeteering, or playing in street bands (the best tango couple were slick and well-heeled and about 75 years old, and a woman, likely 80, played a contraption of various drums and whistles… most excellent).

Day 6

I visited MALBA, the other major modern art museum in Buenos Aires. It was a good collection, though not as extensive as the Museo Nacional de Belles Artes. I paid a whopping 22 pesos (about US$7) to enter. A deal by anyone’s standards.

Afterwards, I caught a cab to spend the afternoon in Palermo to sit on the square and sip a beverage while reading and writing. The cab driver stopped and I handed him a 100 peso note that I had extracted from the bank machine the night before. I turned to get into my bag to get my map and when I looked up, the cab driver was yelling at me saying in Spanish that the note I just gave him was counterfeit! I told him I had no other money (which I didn’t) and he began to scream at me and wave his fist in my face. All I could say was that it wasn’t possible that it was fake because I had taken it from a bank. He then screamed that he would take me to the police and I replied, “OK, yes, let’s go!” to which he stepped on the gas, then screeched to a halt then just about struck me in the face. He then pushed me out of his cab into the street.

I was terribly shaken and frightened and it pretty much ruined the rest of my day in Palermo. I don’t do well with screaming confrontation and do even worse with threats of physical violence. And being a woman alone in a foreign city, my vulnerability was heightened as was my reaction to the whole situation.

So here’s the story I found out later. Taxi drivers in B.A. are apparently very crooked and this con – switching out a 100 peso note for a fake note, is commonplace. Sigh. In fact, that evening after I got back to the hostel, I found out that within the last 24 hours, myself and three other people were ripped off. Me and another woman were scammed for $100 pesos each and the two other people had their bags, including their passports, stolen. I think B.A. is not a tourist-friendly destination?

After attempting to have a nice day in Palermo, I tried to go to a bank machine to extract some cash and my card was denied. I had almost no money to get a taxi back to the hostel and no clue about the public transportation system. It was a bad day. Fortunately, I happened to bump into a girl who spoke English and was living in B.A. for a study program. She was so great and helped me find my way to the subway (she was even nice enough to walk me there) and instructed me how to get back to my hostel. Sometimes, you have to rely on the help of strangers. All I have to say about it is, I feel so lucky to have found her. She saved my skin.

Before I hopped on the subway, I stopped at Locutorio (a shop that has internet access and phone booths) and I contacted my bank, who said that my account balance was too low for me to take cash out. I thought that was odd since I thought I had significantly more than zero in there, but I thought, “Well, maybe I’m burning through my money faster than I think?” I transferred most of the rest of my savings set aside for this trip into my checking account. This experience should have been a red flag but I brushed it off.

Buenos Aires Days 3 and 4

Day 3

Good Friday. Everything is closed except… the Cemeterio de la Recoleta. This cemetery, located in a very upscale section of the city (which actually reminds me of the Upper east side of NYC), peacefully rests all the diplomats, politicians, movie stars, high-ranking military officials, heroes, and other luminaries of Argentina. For instance, this is where Evita Peron is interred. The monuments are, well, monumental. Large marble sarcophagi, side by side and wall to wall in small streets or alleys. Looking into them, many have altars and large crucifixes, and stacks of coffins with lace draping. Then there are those that are crumbling and no longer kept well. On one, the wall was falling apart, exposing a casket, which itself was falling apart. I was afraid a skeleton would be visible, but fortunately it hadn’t decayed to that extent, yet. The monuments here are incredible and run the gamut from traditional, old-world, traditional design to the ultra modern. I spent the afternoon taking pictures until my camera battery ran out.

I went to another closed-door wine tasting event in the evening. Anuva Wines was started by an American who had come to BB.A. for a tour of Argentinean wineries, but met his future wife at his first tasting and soon after, married her and became an expat. His wine business has taken off and he seems to be doing quite well.

The tasting was okay. Sadly, I fear that standard wine tastings like this might not suit me as mush as they used to. I found the tasting rushed because people kept downing their wine for their refills without really deconstructing all the characteristics of the wine and without savoring them. Which is what I just kind of do now. A friend who is a sommelier told me, “You’ve now passed into only being able to tolerate industry tastings.” I hope not. The last thing in the world I want to do is become one of those wine snobs. Egh.

Day 4

A visit to the Museo Nacional de Belles Arts, one of B.A.’s top two modern art museums. The collection was HUGE. I love art and I can spend a long time perusing museums, but this collection was so big and massive that I was actually wondering if I’d have to leave and come back another day to complete the tour. I did make it all the way through in one shot, however. And I had a perfect moment during my visit. I rounded a corner to be suprised by the beauty and quiet majesty of a Rothko (my favorite artist). I almost jumped and then stood, still and silent, for 15 minutes just drinking in the ultimate infiniteness of the piece. If you’re ever in B.A. I highly recommend this museum. And it was free?? Yes, seeing that massive collection was free. Art should be available to everyone, not just those who can pay, so the fact that it was by donation only was a great thing.

After the museum, I walked through the street market by the Cemeterio de la Recoleta then again spent the rest of the day within the cemetary, looking at the sarcophagi and taking copious amounts of pictures. I think, all told, I took about 300 pictures within the cemetery. The subject matter was so interesting.

In the park next to the cemetery, people lounged in the grass, hippies played in their drum circles, people bought steaming foods from street vendors or sat sipping espressos in upscale cafés surrounding the park, and people just generally enjoyed being alive on such a beautiful day.

Buenos Aires Days 1 and 2

Day 1

I arrived in Buenos Aires (B.A.) and checked into my hostel. I took a long walk down one of the major pedestrian shopping streets and found a place called “California Burrito Company.” How could I pass that up? Sadly, it was nothing at all like a California-style burrito.

Buenos Aires feels like a big city so it feels familiar in ways to me. Lots of people husting and busting around. Lots of well-lit stores. Lots of restaurants. Cars and traffic. Diesel exhaust and honking horns. It massive and a little overwhelming. The architecture is interesting – lots of French influence, which is interesting because the people here seem to be very much Italiophiles.

Day 2

I took myself on a walking tour of the sights in downtown B.A. I saw the Congressional Building, Casa Rosada, Cathedral Metroplitana with the grave monument of General Jose de San Martin – all of which are distinctly French and Italian baroque. The Casa Rosada is where Evita Peron made her famous speech – you know, the one with the big microphones, her hand raised high in the air and her mouth open as she passionately speaks to the crowd and inspires her people. Mostly, the Casa Rosada (so named because it’s literally pink, the tint made from the blood of cows) is a museum showcasing modern Argentinean artists and their works dedicated to portraying Argentinean life and culture. The Catedral was epic, as they all seem to be here in Argentina. Massive and filled with religious art, numerous ornate altars, statues, icons, murals, and so forth. The monument to General San Martin was grave and impressive. Two ornately uniformed guards stood at the entrance to the monument within the cathedral to guard it, from what, I’m not sure. Maybe they were simply there to create ambiance?

I also took a nice long walk down to the Museo Fortobat, a small modern art museum showcasing the collection of the family Fortobat, an old money, influential family in Argentina. Portraits of the family graced the walls along with pieces from Warhol and Argentinean modern artists. It was a small collection, but well chosen and the museum itself was a very nice piece of modern architecture.

I walked home via Florida Street, THE pedestrian-only shopping street in B.A. Despite the upcoming Easter holiday, it was crammed with shoppers, and we all shuffled along in tandem to make our way up the long avenida.

Buenos Aires is definitely a walking-friendly city. There is so much to see along every street. I’m certain I walked at least five or six miles a day. My dogs were barking at the end of pretty much every day.

I went to a “closed door” restaurant tonight, which basically means it has no “storefront” but may be in a hidden restaurant or in someone’s home. In this case, Casa Coupage was simply a nondescript door on a nondescript street in Palermo Soho, a very hip part of B.A. It’s run by two Argentinean Sommeliers who offered me a seven course meal and an accompanying seven course wine pairing. Unfortunately, I was counting on small samples of wine with the courses, since of course, how could you think of drinking seven glasses of wine by yourself? Apparently not so, even though I didn’t finish several glasses of wine, I think the ones I did drink were being refilled when I turned my back. The evening ended up in a haze and with me pouring into the taxi and later realizing that I had grossly undertipped my servers and left my sweater at the restaurant. Despite my intention and understanding that I would have a sophisticated dining and wine tasting experience, I ended up feeling like I might have made an ass of myself. I went back several days later to retrieve my sweater and drop off the remainder of the tip. Fortunately, my server was there and she seemed neither angry nor embarrassed on my behalf in the least. That tells me I likely held it together despite my less than completely sober state and didn’t do anything too ridiculous. I know that the wine and the meal were excellent, at least what I remember of them.

Update

I know I need to update my blog with my travels in Buenos Aires.  But suffice it to say, I’m glad to leave it.

I had a taxi driver steal $100 pesos from me and hand me back a counterfeit $100 peso note, then accused me of passing him a counterfeit note.  He almost struck me and then pushed me out of his cab onto the street.  I found out later that, apparently, this is a common con by taxi drivers in Buenos Aires.

Also, someone broke into my checking and savings accounts and drained them both dry.  At the end of the day, the thief has stolen $2700 from my accounts.  As you can imagine, this has been a complete and total nightmare – trying to handle the claim with the bank from a foreign country on a phone line that is unstable, wondering how I can get money so I can make it to my next destination, being unable to close my account or get a new debit card, the process I’ll have to go through to get money to continue my travels. 

And this has all come on the heels of some larger personal issues that have knocked me sideways that may necessitate me abandoning my travels early to go home.

I sit now in the Lima airport, awaiting my flight to Cusco.  I’ll know soon from my travel agency what my options are to fly home early and I pick up money from Western Union as soon as I arrive in Cusco.

Please send prayers and thoughts my way as I deal with this very difficult situation.

Mendoza: the Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

Because of my experience the previous night – with no dinner and a lot of wine at The Vines – I missed my 9:30am tasting appointment.

But, once I had breakfast and some aspirin and had a chance to shower and regroup, I jumped in my rental car and headed into Lujan de Cuyo, which is the primary wine-producing region within Mendoza. Mendoza is reputed to have more than 1000 wineries, with many of them in Lujan including the most well-regarded, premium wineries.

Once again, the maps and directions to get out of Mendoza city into Lujan were loose, at best. Google maps directions simply said things like, “Take the exit. Turn Left. Turn right.” What exit? A left on which street? Vague.

I pulled off the highway several times to ask directions, which was entertaining since I speak no Spanish. However, through the kindness of these strangers, I pieced together their hand gestures and caught a few of their words and figured out where I needed to go to get to my first tasting appointment. So after all that, I show up at the winery and they’ve lost my reservation.

This point in the story prompts an interesting observation about Argentineans. For the most part, they don’t give a rat’s butt about customer service. They could care less if they lost your luggage or your reservation. In fact, I’ve been in a couple of situations where, despite my patience and attempts at being culturally sensitive, the person has seemed to actually kind of enjoy being rude. Once, I even calmly asked to talk to a woman’s supervisor because she said she had no power to resolve the situation, and she simply replied, “No!” and then hung up on me. This was a representative from one of Argentina’s major airlines. Can you imagine that in the USA? Yeah, no.

In this case, the security guard at the front gate of the winery put me on the line with an impassive woman who basically, in no uncertain terms told me they had no reservation for me and could do nothing for me. No apologies, no offer of a free tasting, nothing.

So after hitting a brick wall in getting anywhere with this winery, I headed down the road to another winery – one that I had an appointment at the next day – to see if they could fit me in today instead to their next tour and tasting. As if to make up for the lack of care with the first winery, the woman was quite nice and fit me in to the 12:30 Spanish speaking tour and tasting. This should be interesting.

The winery was Terrazas, and it was absolutely gorgeous. The grounds were meticulously landscaped and maintained, but somehow it still looked so casual and effortless. The buildings were all beautiful, even the manufacturing and truck loading building. Deep green lawns rolled over the property, displaying draped day beds, white andirondak chairs, and tables for holding your glass of wine. Tall slender trees with white bark and bright emerald leaves swayed in the gentle mountain wind. Beyond the brick wall were the vineyards. Beyond those were the horizon and blue mountains. And beyond those, snow-capped peaks stretching into the vibrant blue sky. The sunlight seemed silver, reflective. It was a beautiful moment that will stop time and prompt me, unconsciously, to let out a soft exhale each time I remember it.

After having a bit of time to appreciate all this, I joined the small group of people who came for the tour of the facilities and have the tasting. As I mentioned, the tour was in Spanish, so I wasn’t expecting to follow anything but simply have the opportunity to see the winery in action and have my tasting. But what happened was that I realized I could actually understand the tour guide. Not literally every word, but a strong grok of what she was saying. It was a strange sensation, like when you look at those pictures that seem like just a jumble of colors, then you relax your mind, your eyes, and soon an image begins to appear, and then the image pops out at you, showing you it was there all along. That’s what it was like. The meaning of what she was saying seemed to emerge from the jumble of strange sounds. It was a very good moment.

The tasting occurred in a cool underground room and was well balanced and delicious. In certain wines, you can taste the sun, the soil, and the water the grapes were grown in; you can taste the care that someone put into making it; you can taste time and thought and effort; you can taste the life of the wine. These wines were that. Wine is science, magic, and art and it can also be an emotional experience, like what I experienced at Terrazas. This is the beauty of wine.

The next winery I visited was Luigi Bosca. The winery tour wasn’t anything special nor were the facilities. The tasting consisted of a couple of their standard wines – the Finca La Linda brand – which were nice but not notable, and one of their reservas, which ended up being one of the better Malbec’s I’ve tasted in Mendoza. It had some nice cedar and smoke and fruit and a beautiful, long and leisurely finish.

In Mendoza, my main focus was on tasting wine, and I feel like I succeeded. So much so that I actually had to take the next day off of tasting because my palate felt pretty blown out, preventing me from being able to taste the subtleties of the wine. I lounged around the hostel in the sun, reading, napping, cooking a lovely lunch and dinner and heading to bed relatively early. It was a good day.

The next day, Sunday, was similar since everything in Argentina closes down for the day. However, I took a walk around town because it was actually World Malbec day, so I thought that there had to be some wine shops or tasting rooms open to commemorate. But nothing! I think it’s hilarious that likely Mendoza/Argentina created World Malbec day to stimulate their wine business, but all the businesses were actually closed on that day. That’s so perfectly Argentina.

And that brings m to Monday, when I packed up, said goodbye to the friends I made at my hostel (special thanks to Anna, Shane, and Tinto!) and headed to the airport to catch my flight back to Cordoba.

I’m taking a circuitous route to my next destination, Buenos Aires, via Cordoba and Tucuman, but I’ll arrive in B.A. Wednesday, 19 April to start the last leg of my Argentina trip before flying to Peru, the last leg of my entire South America trip. I’ve heard countless stories about how great B.A. I so I’m excited to get thee and begin exploring one of the most sophisticated metropolises of South America. Onward!