Peru!

I am waiting for the beans to cook. They will be spicy, slightly chewy and hopefully delicious. They are probably going to be our last cooked meal in South America, so I hope they turn out well. We are staying at a very nice hostel called the “Blue House” with one of the best possible views of Cuzco. High up in the neighborhood of San Blas, we found this place, where most people seem to be staying for over a month, at around 11pm the day we arrived from Bolivia about a week ago. Cuzco has treated us well. We have decided to budget big time again and so aren't allowing much splurging anymore—gone are the days of cabanas and fondue. However, after Machupicchu which we did the cheap way (more on that below), we did treat ourselves to pedicures and full body massages (you can't beat $15). Oddly enough we got into a religious art mood and spent the second day here looking at paintings and wondering about archangels. This was of course accented by the immense Inca stones lining the streets, and inflected by our reading allowed of the Golden Compass trilogy, which we recently finished, over coffee and hot chocolate.

So I said we went to Machupicchu the cheap way. That means that we only spent $100 each. But in order to avoid more costs, we woke up at 3:40am to leave Cuzco for Santa Theresa which took us over harrowing roads. Caitlin and I were separated on the van and so we were unable to sleep for fear of waking up in an angry woman's lap—a distinct possibility. So, exhausted, we walked the 2.5 hours to Aguas Calientes at the food of Machupicchu and stumbled half crazed half dazed, into a nice looking hostel at around 2:30pm. Food was so expensive in Aguas Calientes that we had prepared and brought enough food for all of our 6 meals while in Cuzco. We ate the second of what would be many avocado on bread with cheese sandwiches and fell promptly asleep before 7.

Waking up at 3:52 the next morning we trekked to the base of the mountain where the Inca ruins actually are located. There we found the line of 100 people just like us hoping to be the first 400 to the top and so be allowed to climb Huaynapicchu, the mountain so famously depicted in every picture of the site. We were told that the buses would start leaving at 5:30, and walkers could start at 5:00. We were nervous. We thought we might not make it. At 4:50 we were let over the bridge and allowed to start the climb. It was like a cross country race. The staircase up was narrow, slow people could keep you back for long enough that the buses might pass and leave no chance of getting there in time. We ran. Thirty-nine minutes of knee splitting, and thigh dragging latter we made it to the top—no one had passed us. And so it was that we raced up a mountain (600m up) in order to be given the priveledge of climbing another mountain! We did it happily. It was a really fun time in a beautiful place—even if the tourist tax is extravagant we couldn't help notice how much less like an amusement park Machupicchu is than the Iguazu falls. Unbelievable.

Today we leave for Lima—one more 20 hour ride ahead!

Chicken

It is always fun to walk into a place functioning so utterly under its own power that you are looked over as merely a curious and perhaps uninvited stranger. No one really notices you. The taxi people are not constantly calling over to you, the ladies on their piles of goods aren't yelling “papito, caserito, que vas a llevar!?” Caranavi is exactly that place. If however, the foreign visitor is an unnecessary addition to their society, the economy is not wholly divorced from the foreigner's world. Coffee, cacao and coca make up this town and region's most formidable and tasty products. They of course export most of these goods, in one way or another, remember of course that the USA consumes most of the world's cocaine, a sizable portion of it's coffee, and I don't think I need to even mention chocolate, thus we play a large part in making this place work. Other than these cash crops, the fertile Yungas region produces all sorts of tropical fruits and vegetables for the large La Paz market. Yet all this agricultural activity is apparently eclipsed in the town of Caranavi by the hegemony of the fried (broaster as they say here) and roasted (al spiedo) chicken joint. Each shop seems to do so inexplicable well, that none feel the need for variation well. By some unknown fascination for this, the most common of all foods, Caranavi is able to support hundreds if not thousands of chicken restaurants, and yet boasts not a single pizza parlor, or even an egg burger stand (not so uncommon in the rest of Bolivia)! The imagination does not stray far here in the beautiful semi-tropics. The discovery of the revolutionary grilled chicken, it must be stated for the sake of honesty, has resulted in the popping up of a few shops dedicated that particular chicken formula. And if you should want something other than french fries and rice under that piece of chicken, you are in luck in the Yungas, Plantains grow rampantly, and fried pieces of the platano may be an allowable substitute for fries. What more could you ask for? That night we ate fried egg on a pile of rice. Yum.

We arrived with the intention of visiting an acquaintance's farm plot not too far outside of town. He grows high quality coffee for export and consumption in his shop in La Paz. Having placed fifth I believe at the “cup of excellence” for all of Bolivia, I take it his coffee is good (Caitlin corroborates). Sadly we have such a limited time here that when transportation fell through, there was no way to guarantee the visit. We left. Wanting to stop in on Coroico, the destination of the “deadly road in America” and a tourist haven on the way back to La Paz (for the last time). You could not imagine a place more different from Caranavi. In short, no fried chicken. We are currently staying at an idyllic set of cabañas located above town called Sol y Luna. I imagine that this is close to paradise without, but with bugs. We splurged; I hope that slpurge doesn't result in malaria.

Pictures

Hello all,

It has been a very long time since a real post, and I am sorry to disappoint again.  The truth of the matter is that not much has changed.  You will find picture on the right hand bar.  Two new albums are up.  One is a catch up album from the past 2 months since our arrival here in Bolivia.  The second is of our recent trip to see the salt flats of Uyuni and the surrounding lakes.  It was phenomenal.  Beautiful.  Fabulous.  We traveled with a recent friend Sarah, who shared our love of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  We read the first book aloud on the trip.

Email if you want to, I've got some time on my hands!

And Now

Well it all went really well here in La Paz, although much faster than I thought it would.  I'll be heading back to Sucre in a couple days to figure more stuff out with Caitlin.  As of now, I need to get more proactive about Las Yungas coffee and cacoa cooperatives.  Maybe I'll get there sometime by the end of April?

A few days ago

3.29.2011

So I have entered a new phase in my trip.  As the end approaches, I have decided that I cannot wallow in indecision until it arrives.  Thus I will start a project.  The objective is to learn as much as I can about fair trade in Bolivia.  Although this is obviously my interest, I have been enabled by Dave Holman, a Carleton alumnus from 2006 who runs a chain of bookstores here.  He also sources a good deal of apparel and some coffee and chocolate exclusively from Fair Trade suppliers.  The first step then is to visit some of the co-ops he works with and take pictures, make profiles and talk to people.  Obviously this is to Dave's benefit (for marketing), but it has also given structure to my otherwise empty time ahead of me.  So far in the service of my new project I have sat next to a retired Bolivian general on a plane, and visited one chocolate factory (who doesn't love large vats of chocolate!) 

On another front, the comfort and contacts I have made in this country are starting me thinking about ridiculous prospects for the coming years.  One friend who I first met in the south of Chile is considering starting a hostel here in Sucre.  What if I invested in his project?  What if I came back to Sucre every year or so for a few months and worked/helped set up the place and laid down roots of sorts? 

Of family and coca

So if you think La Paz is high up, try 4500m (14,700 feet) and then hike at that altitude or higher for 4 days. . . well you get the point.  My mother and brother succeeded in doing all this with my and Caitilin last week.  We climed over mountain passes over 5000m up and craned our necks to peer at glacial fields on various mountains about three hours outside of La Paz.  It was really a treat to have them with for the last week as we got a chance to push our lungs to the absolute limit, expecting them to somehow breath with about 55% as much oxygen as they are used to at sea level.  Coca was completely necessary.  We chewed all the way up.  Whatever can be said of cocain trafficking in Bolivia, the leaves themselves are not to blame--they are to be praised.

To complete our relaxing vacation together my mom treated us to two days on beautiful Lake Titicaca (3600m).  Well we did try to relax in this perfect cabaña looking out on the lake.  It was made for a writer.  It was made for a novel.  And I am sure we all would have writen one if we had not been all but forced to march accross La Isla del Sol by our diabolical boat tour man (I had to argue with him to let people out to pee one hour before the destination, even though we were stopped anyway at the port.  The boat itself was already 40 minutes late and were only given 4 hours on the island, the walk took the entire time).  Luckily we had our paradise to fall back into in Copacabana. 

One day, many good meals and a few alpaca sweaters later, the family departed.  It was far too short, but who could complain.  Noah even brought me a copy of an LSAT exam to help me pass the time for the rest of the couple months we have left!  We were sad to see them go, but then we saw the enormous pile of new books shiped to the Spitting Llama.  From its stacks we found a copy of Timeline by Michael Crichton and The Golden Compass.  We promised to read both aloud before going home. 

The bus to Cochabamba cost us 25 bolivianos or about 3.5 dollars.  It was the most comfortable I´ve taken here, and I wasn't even cold (of course I am just speaking for myself there. . .) which is saying a whole lot.  But sadly we arrived at 5:30am.  Caitlin was in her haze and somehow we had to find our way to a hostel in the first city since Valparaiso that we have been warned against.  Supposedly there are many muggings here before daylight.  The day only became stranger as the sun rose.  First we waited until 6:30 under our newly purchased bus blanket.  Then after a couple hours sleep at the hostel we struck out into the sunny world.  Finding a cafe place run by a loquatious frenchman (who insisted on only speaking french), we settled into coffee, chocolate, and reading Crichton.  Interupting our reading however came the frenchman's friend, dressed well in his leather shoes and sunglasses.  We were told (in french) that he was in the drug trade here.  Quickly the conversation went from our nationality to my judaisim (which he spotted apparently), to the holocaust.  The drug lord had some good friends who had been survivors... One bottle of wine and 50 pages later we left the cafe.  In search of a veggetarian restaurant (the french owner insisted he didn´t know how to make food without meat, "je suis un bon Français!" he told me) we passed a couple poping each others zits and a woman walking around with a child-sized chair on her head.  Reading out loud was about all we could do to keep sane. 

So today we went to visit Dave Holeman who runs The Spitting Llama bookstore, and I'm hoping he can give me a little direction for this coming month.  Otherwise I go with Caitlin back to Sucre and read a whole lot. 

For those of you who may still be paying attention to my life, it might please you to know that I am alive and well. I apologize for the time it has been since last I posted, but so it goes. I also apologize for the paltry amount of information, emotion and experience I can convey on this blog, especially in trying to cover such an extended amount of time. Now that that's out of the way here is my attempt:

I went to Valle de la Concepcion to be around wine, and get to know a family that made it. In both of those I had moderate to complete success. As in, I successfully surrounded myself with wine, and tried to get to know the family that I was living with. The Quiroga family makes a thoroughly inorganic “vino patero” or artisanal wine. They grow thoroughly inorganic grapes of a few varieties which they sell to Kohlberg which is the larges wine producer in the region. The person who makes sure that the wine and grapes are thoroughly inorganic is Simbar, the perhaps lover of the divorced head of family Doña Chela. I did not get to know him, but did learn to avoid contact with him. He is the kind of person who is so diametrically opposed to change, any alternative idea, and must be involved at every minute level, that being around him made everyone including myself on edge. In contrast, the rest of the family was warm and inviting. Still it is hard to say I got to know anybody in particular.

As my last post indicated I picked a lot of peaches. This continued. After the first week Kendra my friend from Patagonia showed up and helped me pick peaches. We spent many days relaxing, watching movies, chatting idly, and others doing hard labor for half the day and then relaxing and watching movies. It is hard to express how sleepy this town was. Even Tarija, the main city of the region, only 30 minutes away, closed all shops (including eateries) between noon and 3:00. You can imagine what happened in the rural town of Concepcion. But when work needed doing all hands joined in. This was finally evident on the last two days of our stay (Mar. 1^st). This was the wine making day. The store closed, everyone convened in the Bodega and work began. Grapes stained our hands and made all my peach and membrillo* cutting scars look like x-men scars. We stomped on so many grapes. Sadly they insisted we wear boots.

There is of course much much more. Including our almost adventure with an amateur archeologist (El Profe) who digs up bones in the countryside. But that is for another time in a personal email probably.

We made it to Sucre a week ago and met back up with Caitlin who has been working at a not-for-profit trekking company Condor Trekkers. They donate all their profits to local communities and organizations. So yesterday we got back from a three day trek through the gorgeous and bizarre geology of the Altiplano. Being back with Caitlin meant a return to thinking about Camus, the connection between ideas and language, and just a general confusion about the world and its order. All is well.

My mom and brother show up in three days! Wish them luck with the altitude.