Archive for September 2011

24 September 2011

up


Our first full day in Ollanta, accompanied by another volunteer who arrived the same day as us, we hiked up to the ruins of Pinkullyuna, which loom over the central square in town (you can see them midway up the mountain). 


To get there, you walk down this narrow alleyway, until you get to the small wooden sign:


And from there you just go up, scrambling up a steep staircase of rock that made me desperately wish I owned hiking boots and not just an old pair of sneakers with the tread almost entirely worn away. It's not a huge hike, taking less than 45 minutes, but - even after a few days to get used to the Andean altitudes - it kicked my butt more than I'd like to admit. Eventually it takes you here:


These long, thin buildings used to be Inca storehouses for grain. 



Once at the top, you're free to climb around the ruins themselves as much as you want.



(plants growing from the top of the ruins) 



There were more ruins even higher up, but I wasn't feeling nearly adventurous enough to venture that far away from solid ground. Back down in the Plaza de Armas in the center of town, the climb looked far less treacherous than it seemed while we were actually doing it, but it still feels pretty cool to see the ruins everyday and know that we've been there. 

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22 September 2011

Ollantaytambo


Hello from our home for the next three months! We arrived here two days ago, and are staying with a very friendly family in a pretty house in a quiet neighborhood on the edge of town. Having never stayed in a homestay before, I feel a bit awkward living in another family's house, but our host family - the mother, Yoni, father Alcides and seven-year-old son Pierro - have been incredibly kind, despite our total inability to have more than the most basic Spanish conversation. It's definitely incentive to study while we're here.


The town itself is small and incredibly pretty; though we haven't really started much of our volunteer work in earnest, we have had the chance to meet some of the other volunteers, who all seem really nice, and even go to a knitting night at the local English pub (very exciting for me, possibly less exciting for Iain). Things still feel a bit vague, though after talking with some of the staff yesterday, I'm really excited about whatever the next few months hold for us - so more later, hopefully! 

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18 September 2011

cuzco


Hello from 11,200 feet! 




We left our hotel in Lima at 3:30 in the morning, in time to catch an early morning flight to Cuzco, where - we learned upon arriving - we couldn't actually check into our hostel room for several hours, which meant we never managed to take a proper nap until we fell asleep around ten that night. With about two and a half hours of sleep keeping us going, we didn't get up to much, though fortunately, it's nice just wandering aimlessly around Cuzco. It is unbelievably pretty here, so please excuse the high volume of photos...



At first, we intended to do a lot more sightseeing today and tomorrow, before we head off to Ollantaytambo; but it turns out, unless we're reading our guidebook totally wrong (possible), that most of the major sights in the area can only be accessed by one expensive ticket that expires after ten days.  We only have two days here, and then start our volunteer work, so we decided to wait for now and see the big sights on our way back - it just seemed too rushed otherwise. So instead, today we just randomly climbed a hill to take in the views.


Midway through our climb, people in costumes started descending the hill in droves - I think we definitely missed something, but am not too sure what, exactly.


After that, we wandered through an alley with massive stones that had been built by the Incas:






Walking around a lot - particularly up hills - makes you pretty aware of the thinner air, though we're not feeling the effects of the altitude too badly. We still used this as an excuse to try this, however:


Coco tea, made from coco leaves (duh), which tastes nice, a bit like artichoke tea, and purportedly cures altitude sickness. 


So anyway, hello from touristy, pretty Cuzco! I posted a million photos here hoping that you'd be able to get a sense of how beautiful the town is, but I don't think they begin to do it justice. 



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16 September 2011

pigeons and skulls in central lima


Our second day in Lima, we hopped in a taxi to the Plaza Mayor in central Lima, which is surrounded by bright yellow buildings and looks much more like the archetypal image of Lima I had in my head, compared to Miraflores' chilled out streets and modern architecture. We were lazy getting out of the hostel this morning, and so didn't have a huge amount of time, but it was nice to wander around anyway.





We wandered rather aimlessly into the Lima Cathedral, which houses the tomb of Francisco Pizarro with considerably more pomp and honor than Iain or I felt he deserves; the subterranean crypt also contains a collection of unsettlingly tiny coffins and a pile of skulls, for which we could find no labels or explanation. I didn't take a photo of the skulls themselves, though here's Iain looking at them:



We didn't even make it inside the second cathedral (San Francisco) that we visited, because we got distracted by watching people feed the pigeons outside: 



This kid had pigeon food on his head in (unfulfilled) hopes of getting a pigeon to sit there, I think. Kids in front of the cathedral were either loving the pigeons or else where profoundly terrified by them (sometimes both in rapid succession); this older lady was having an awesome time, though: 


 We also made it the (free!) Museum of the Inquisition, in which I was too creeped out to take any photos of the torture chamber wax figures or the narrow, underground dugeon-looking ruins that snake below the museum. Lima is cold and grey, and we're still a bit tired from our late night arrival (and also by being woken up by various and sundry noises through the paper-thin hotel walls at five this morning); tomorrow we wake up crazy early again to make our way to Cuzco, where we have a few more days of being tourists before the volunteering starts.

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15 September 2011

miraflores


A few snapshots of Miraflores, the suburb of Lima we're staying in; our first day in South America - and my first day ever in the Southern Hemisphere -  was grey and a bit cold, and we didn't do much except wander around getting oriented after leaving my mother's house in Oakland at 3 am, and arriving late last night at 2 am, after a remarklably hassle-free series of flights and layovers. 



After just a few hours here, I already wish that I'd been a better student in high school Spanish; so far, though, people have been pretty nice despite our total inability to speak coherently, so, here's hoping we get better. Also, were you wondering, the toilets do swirl the other way in the South Hemisphere, which is very exciting.



So anyway, that's here; more soon, when we've seen more and I'm more coherent. For now, hello from Peru :-) 


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12 September 2011

summer snapshots


... all from my cell phone, because I am lazy that way. This summer was spent in LA, the East Bay and Seattle - though mostly LA, where I worked odd jobs and hung out with my dad. Though it was a bit sad being away from Iain for so long, I was never lonely for long with all my family and friends around:


The grandparents...


...my best best friend Lauren...


...even Teiko was in town! 



There are many things to love about being in California, but the food is definitely high on the list.


above: Maggie and Dad vie for the last of the salad. 


Weekends were spent waitressing at a Vietnamese restaurant. Free pho + getting to talk about Vietnamese food all day long = awesome. 


Also I love Venice Beach :) 




In mid-August, I went up to Seattle to meet up with my mom and see most of the extended Tokuda family. 


Manhole covers like the ones in Japan! 


Cleaning out my grandmother's basement yielded some strange finds. Big League Liniment! No medicine cabinet is complete without it. 


And then Iain finally arrived! Not on a giant slide, as this photo might lead you to believe, but heroically nonetheless on an airplane. Hooray for Iain! 


After Iain got here, we spent a whirlwind few days in LA saying hello and goodbye to family before flying up to the Bay Area...
 


You have to love a city where Howard Zinn is painted on the walls.


Graffiti in the S.F. Mission district.



In San Francisco, we rang in my sister's birthday with a sophisticated and contemplative night of pizza, beer, and Deep Blue Sea. That's Samuel L. Jackson getting eaten, above, obviously. (Happy birthday, Maggie!)


All in all, it was a great summer (especially since, thanks to Hanoi's weather, it felt like it started ages ago, back in April!) I loved getting to spend so much time with my family and reconnecting with life in California while getting excited and gearing up for this: 


Which - finally - brings this very belated blog back into real time, because we leave for Peru on Wednesday. We'll be volunteering for just short of three months at an NGO in the Andes, so the next update will hopefully be from South America. 

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