TravelStream™ news feed for member kmgroen on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/kmgroen en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:00:39 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1220634480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1220634480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1220634480/tpod.html Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:00:39 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Mancora, Peru

As anticipated, I had a successful beach visit to close out my trip.  I spent 7 days in Mancora, Peru, which is very close to the border with Ecuador and a world-known (which I did not really know before) for surfing & kite surfing.  The morning waves tend to be good for surfing & then when the afternoon winds pick up, the kite surfers all come out. I took very few pictures, because my days sort of looked like this ---- go to yoga at beautiful resort on the beach with all glass facing the beach during the class (you can get a feel for that part of my day at http://www.samanachakra.com/ -- please note, my hotel was nowhere near this nice), go eat some yummy breakfast, lay on the beach, watch surfers, watch kite surfers, meet a local woman I met who helped me keep working on my Spanish (which has gone downhill during the last few weeks of traveling when I just talk English all the time with other travelers), then go grab dinner &/or drinks with people I met around the hotel or town ---- and as lovely as my days were, they do not make for the best photo opportunities.I did take a surfing lesson.  I could not find anyone to take any pics of me when I was out in the water, so you will just have to imagine how I looked.  It was probably something like this ----  http://www.jettygirl.com/features/south_bay.html ---- or at least really close.  I will say that I did get to my feet for fractions of seconds and according to the surfers I chatted with, even fractions count when you are starting out.  Ummm, that sport is really hard.After my surf lesson, I strategically planned for a day of indulgence at an area spa. I took lots of photos of this, perhaps because it was so absolutely indulgent.  First 1.5 hour massage, then hot tub, then lunch by the pool, then lay by the pool, read & doze, then 1.5 hour facial, then watch sunset by the pool.  (Personal note to Shelynda who knows spas really well - ummm, it was really awesome.)  So yeah, that is about it.  Can not complain.  Do any of you have independent wealth that you would like to share with me so that I can keep doing ´research´ about Peru?  I am now very qualified in this area & do in fact need a job -- ha!See you all soon!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1219770840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1219770840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1219770840/tpod.html Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:33:28 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Huaraz, Peru

So after a week in the jungle, I decided to head back to the mountains.  After a flight from Iquitos to Lima, I took an overnight bus to Huaraz.  Huaraz is north of Lima and is in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, which is home to the highest peaks in Peru. Huaraz and the surrounding smaller towns are a hub for hikers and climbers, but is less touristed than the southern mountain areas in and around Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. I feel like I have said this before in other entries (perhaps I should go back and look), but I definitely think Huaraz & the surrounding area had the most beautiful landscapes of anywhere that I have seen in Peru!  Really!  As always, just check out the photos which show it all!! My goal was to get out for a bit more hiking before the end of my trip, and I was definitely not disappointed.  I did a couple of day trips, one hiking to pre-Inca ruins and another via a bus trip to pre-Inca ruins.  As you head north in Peru, there is notable more history of pre-Inca times as the Inca empire was centered in the southern part of the country and made varying impacts into the northern areas.  Fascinating of course, but I must admit I am getting a bit ´ruined-out.´ I did however have a really good time with my 13-year-old guide at Wilcawain.  Always good to practice my Spanish & he was just very professional and cute.  He apparently has been a guide for 4 years (not sure if it is official per the National Cultural Institue) after he gets home from school because he lives next door and really likes it.  An aspiring little archeologist or academic I think.   The highlight of my time in Huaraz though was definitely the 4 day/3 night Santa Cruz trek.  The scenary included everything --- lush green valleys full of my regular friends these days (cows, sheep, mules, etc. -- no llamas, apparently not as common as in southern Peru), stunning crystal blue lakes, jagged rocky mountain peaks both with and without snow-caps, glaciers and glacier lakes.  Really breathtaking! As in my other treks, I was fortunate to get a really fun group of folks that had all just signed up with the agency to go off for a few days.  Perrin & AnnSophie from France, Nigel from England, Suzanne from Switzerland, Eric our guide, Sergio our cook/mule driver and me.   Our first day involved about 3.5 hours of walking, days two and three were about 7 hours of walking each day --- including the awesome summit on day 2 that took us up even with the snow-line at about 15,600 feet and the amazing glacial lake on day 3 near the base camp for climbers taking on one of the peaks just under 20,000 feet --- and then the last day was about 3.5 hours of walking. It was a nice challenge, but really manageable (or perhaps I am just a regular little hiker these days) and just really, really enjoyable.  In the evenings we laid around the camp (well actually sat in the cook tent because it was a bit chilly of course) and chatted, played cards, and were entertained by our guide Eric who played the flute & loved to sing!  A great way to end my hiking days in Peru, so I can head off to the beach for my last few days & close-out the trip with some more chocolate cake indulgences to offset all that excessive hiking! :)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1219082460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1219082460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1219082460/tpod.html Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:16:20 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Iquitos, Peru

So around August 12 (I can´t remember the exact date right now as travelling like this, the dates are sort of fluid :), I headed north to Iquitos & the Amazon river.  Iquitos is a water-locked city (I think the biggest water-locked city in the world) that is only accessible by air or by boat via the Amazon & its many tributaries.  So in the afternoon I left the crisp mountains of Cusco (where I had briefly returned after Puno) and at about 9 pm I landed in the 90 degree heat of Iquitos.I spent a quick night in the city & headed off the next morning to a Amazon Lodge for 4 days and 3 nights.  The lodge was not directly on the Amazon, but on a tributary river (of which there are many) called the Momo River.  From Iquitos we drove about 20 minutes to the river port & then took a boat about 1 hour to get to the lodge. I must admit that the lodge would appropriately be characterized as a river lodge -- not really a jungle lodge or a nature lodge.  What I mean by that distinction is that, I was sort of at a lodge/resort versus my other jungle experience near Puerto Maldonado.  For example, near PM, the lodge had no electricity and very modest accommodations and lots of animals around.  Well at this lodge, we had a pool, electricity, fans & TVs in our rooms (with um, direct TV - that is embarressingly not jungle-like), and really delicious buffet food.  Exactly as one would imagine the Amazon huh?!  Hee hee!  I had not expected it to be quite that nice, but there were no complaints when I arrived. So, our days were still filled with jungle-like adventures.  There were lots of nature walks in the jungle, which didn´t really produce that many animal sightings ---- my understanding is that since Iquitos is a larger, more developed city & surrounding area, you do need to get deeper into the jungle to see many animals ---- but obviously there was the amazing, lush vegetation of the jungle.  We did some canoeing, river boat rides & several visits to neighboring villages.  This was something I really enjoyed - the visits to the villages.  I have realized that I am much more intrigued by how people live in a place than by how the plants grow or how the animals roam.  All along the river there are small villages that are largely self-sustaining through farming, fishing and tourism.  Unfortunately the latter makes some of the visits very touristy -- you will see me doing the ´traditional´ village dance in some pictures & practicing my blow arrow gun elsewhere, but it was still interesting. My guide, and the villagers, definitely indicated that some of these things are done just for tourism, but it is all based on their traditions.  The local alcohol refinery where the family made sugarcane alcohol appeared to be based on the old & the new -- alcohol seems to be a constant in all cultures over time.   After my time at the jungle lodge, I went back to Iquitos for a couple days.  I really liked the city.  There was something really fun about the energy of all the motos -- there are not really cars, just lots of mopeds & mototaxis -- and something really lively about the culture.  Maybe the hot weather makes it that the people need to be out on the streets a lot, but there certainly seemed to be lots of activity around the city in the markets and in the square.  The river has a whole culture as well.  Obviously since it is the main transport route, there are collectivos (basically like buses but boats) running up and down the Amazon & its tributaries full of people, animals, whatever or whomever is in need of transport.  The river is used for bathing & playing, washing clothes & food.  It is really pretty fascinating. One afternoon, I took a mototaxi to the port to take a collectivo to a local butterfly farm.  My moto driver offerred to be my ´guide´ (which is really common that people just offer to be your guide).  After some negotiation on price & plans, I decided this was a good idea to not get lost on the river.  It was a great chance to practice my spanish & ended up being quite fun.  When we returned to the port we grabbed a soda and a beer on the waterfront.  I couldn´t help envision Georgetown waterfront - ha!  No comparison really to the chaos of Amazon waterfront with people swimming & bathing, lots and lots of street food -- random grilled meat & homemade ice creams being sold everywhere, and lots of loud (really loud) cumbia music.  No comparison, but I do love my Georgetown waterfront! 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1218478620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1218478620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1218478620/tpod.html Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:14:24 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Puno, Peru

So after all the Arequipa area fun, I headed to Puno & Lake Titicaca for a very quick stop.  Puno & the Lake were areas that I had heard mixed reviews on, so I was not feeling strongly drawn to the area, but it did feel like something that I should check off the list since I was here.  Unfortunately with my mixed to neutral attitude, I probably shortchanged the area a bit, but did have one full day in and around the lake.I took a 5 hour bus on a Thursday from Arequipa to Puno, which is at very high altitude (12,000 feet), sits on the lake front and is basically right on the Bolivian border.  I spent that afternoon just sort of bumming around the town, having leisurely coffee, etc.  The town was actually much more interesting than I expected (low expectations can be good sometimes) & it felt very local (i.e. not touristy) - similar to Arequipa in that regard, but Puno was definitely not as affluent.   The main traveler attraction to Puno is to visit Lake Titicaca, which is a very large lake similar in scale to one of the American great lakes.  There are a series of islands that many people visit.  First are the floating islands, which are islands made out of reeds.  According to history, the local people that inhabit these islands were trying to flee from the Spanish & decided to move out into the lake & just build islands to live on.  We (myself & a few folks from my hostel) visited the islands for a couple hours with a guide.  Per our guide -- who showed us with a demonstration of model reed houses -- , the islands have a ´base´of a couple feet a soil mixed with reeds (not sure how it doesn´t disintegrate) and then a few feet of reeds on top.  The reeds need to be replaced/added to every 15 days because the bottom layer does start to disintegrate & become all mushy. It is crazy to walk on, you sort of wonder if you are going to fall through to the lake (no, obviously).   It is extremely interesting to just realize how adaptable people are and how some traditional ways of life just continue, even if they arguably could be replaced with other ways of life.  Unfortunately, the actual visit to the islands is extremely touristy (perhaps the most touristy thing I have done - & that is saying something) & so I found it hard to enjoy the interesting parts & not just think the whole ´tour´ was a little crazy. The other main attraction on the lake are the homestays and visits to a couple islands a couple hours out into the lake.  Although a homestay would have been interesting, I didn´t feel much pressure to do this since I had previously had such a fulfilling homestay experience.  I would have like to visit the other islands at least for the day, but with my very short visit -- just 1.5 days -- and a little bit of disorganization (I didn´t make any plans in advance), we ended up just hitting the floating reed islands & then going for a nice afternoon walk to a mirador above the city.  Not bad for a quick stop!
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Arequipa, Peru

So, for those that I have already emailed with, you know that I had an absolutely fantastic weekend hiking Colca Canyon Aug 1 - 3.  Colca is the deepest canyon in the world (not the largest) and is known particularly for the ability to easily view condor, which are the largest flying bird in the Western Hemisphere (aren´t I just full of fun facts?).  Colca is about 5 hours driving from Arequipa, which I visited for recently for about 2 weeks at the end of July & early August.   Heading out to Colca is one of the main áctive´ to-dos near Arequipa, and since people know I am always craving some good active to-dos to offset my chocolate cake and general postres intake here in Peru, it was definitely on my list.Entry note:  forgive me as the photos are out of order starting with the last night´s party first & the first day of hiking last.  They got uploaded backwards & it is really too tiring on slow computers to try to make any changes. Per my Arequipa entry, I decided to do 1 more week of Spanish lessons in Arequipa and was able to meet some fabulous ladies there.  They had already planned to head off to Colca for 3 days and 2 nights of hiking and merriment, so I joined in with them.  The crew was Jody and Francesca from London, Sangeetha and Melanie from Sydney and then Karin and Veronica from Canada, who we had not met previously, but rounded us out to a great group of seven ladies.  Our two young male Peruvian guides were very pleased with this arrangement of an all female group. The canyon was beautiful, as the photos suggest.  As with much of Peru, particularly because it is the dry season, the higher altitudes of the canyon were very dry; as we hiked down into the canyon it became more lush and at the base of course, a river ran through it.  The scenary was not as awe-inspiring as the Lares trek that we did en route Machu Picchu, but the structure of the hike was more enjoyable, but still very challenging.The first day we took the 5 hour public bus (versus little private tourist bus) to Cabanaconde, which is the one of the bigger towns on the rim of the canyon.  Maybe 1.5 hours into the ride the bus got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere (which looked sort of like we would imagine a moon with some vegetation); we were very impressed by how efficiently the tire was switched & we were on our way. After a lunch in Cabanaconde, we headed out for about 3.5-4 hours all down hill into the canyon.  Often I find that heading downhill is tougher than heading uphill because it is really tough on the knees, so this was a good challenging afternoon.  Just about dusk, we landed for our first night at a family home that had an extra building/room with 7 beds - perfecto for our group.  Our evening started with a pre-dinner dance party with our host family children of ages about 6 and 1.5.  It was fantastic!  One of those really precious moments that just make you smile -- check out the little action video. Dancing & clapping with little beautiful Peruvian kids - awesome!  The evening continued and calmed from there, with our guides making us some lovely dinner & treating us to a box of not so bad Peruvian wine. The second day started with about 2 hours of hiking up and down along the river in the base of the canyon headed for a mid-day stop at the Oasis.  And the most glorious thing happened, the Oasis was actually an Oasis!  It was this great hostel development owned by 3 families that added multiple pools to the hostel about 5 years ago.  It was beautiful!  Palm trees, warm sun, cool water -- just really great.  So we swam, ate lunch per our guides/chefs, played cards and just relaxed.The really challenging part of day 2 was post Oasis, when we got to do our hike out of the canyon.  We had come down about 1100 meters (mas o menos 3300 feet), and therefore needed to head up that much to get back to Cabanaconde for that evening.  The tours give you an option of hiking out at 3 pm-ish (past the main heat of the day) on the 2nd day (like we did) or spending the night at the Oasis & getting up and hiking at 2 or 3 am in the dark to reach the rim at sunrise.  All the groups go to the condor overlook on the 3rd day, which is best in the morning, so you need to be at the rim ready to go by 6:30/7ish.  We were pretty excited about our strategy because we were looking forward to a night in a dive bar in a small Peruvian town & because the Oasis loses the fun of the sun by 4 pm since it is in a canyon. The hike up was a bit challenging you could say, but not as bad as I expected (I think I had been prepped to expect very challenging by the previous Lares trek).  I am a bit pleased to say that we did this trek without mules or porters to carry our stuff, so we each got to carry all that we needed (not food besides snacks - which the guides carried nor tents, but still somewhat impressive I thought). It was dark by the time we finished & unfortunately there was a new moon, so we were definitely hiking by the light of our headlamps --- which made the cliffs look a bit scarier of course.  We had some excitement when we reached the top, as we go lost in the dark for awhile -- maybe 15 minutes -- but it starts to feel like a long time when you start to contemplate how cold the night will be & how many snacks you have.  One of the guides and a couple of the ladies got a bit ahead of the crew & the rest of us were with the guide that had only been out on the trail 2 times before.  Fortunately we saw the flashlight of some locals crossing the fields, yelled out to them, got to their light & got back on the trail to get to town.Clearly after such accomplishment, we needed a festive night out on the town.  And so, we enjoyed a few Pisco sours, some beers & lots of dancing -- salsa, reggatone, etc!  There was some helping behind the bar, playing DJ and dancing on tables.  Good, clean, Peruvian drinking fun!  The crew got along so well, we later repeated a night out in Arequipa (those pics are in my Arequipa entry). The next morning came a bit early, but we needed to close out the circuit with a visit to the condor viewpoint.  I think we saw probably about 10 condors in an hour or so, which was really great.  I didn´t even try to capture any of them on pictures, because that never works, but imagine some really big birds in the beautiful canyon.  From the viewpoint, we hopped on the bus for a couple of hours to where we took our lunch break at some hot springs.  It was lovely again to have a mid-day break for splashing around.  And then back on the public bus, tourists, locals, lambs and all & we made our way back to Arequipa. Can you tell I loved it!?
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1218478440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1218478440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1218478440/tpod.html Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:13:35 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Arequipa, Peru

So after a couple months in the Sacred Valley (Ollantaytambo & Cusco), I finished my time there & finished my volunteering & headed off to travel for my last 6 weeks or so in Peru.  On July 28, I headed off to Arequipa, a beautiful, affluent Peruvian city in the South.   The main square has the beauty and contrast of palm trees set against the main Cathedral, while there are snow-capped mountains (actually dormant volcanoes) that create a amazing background.  I hungout in and around Arequipa (language school, Colca Canyon & misc city fun), until August 8.  The city is great & if I had more time -- & probably more money --, I definitely would have stayed longer! I decided to do one more week of language school to put just a bit more formal effort into improving my Spanish.  Set in the lovely garden of the hostel, I had 4 hours of individual lessons for 5 days; the school was great & the lessons were definitely a good choice.  I was blessed again to meet some really great people & several of us ladies took off for a 3 day/2 night hiking trip to Colca Canyon.   Colca is the deepest canyon in the world & is about 5 hours away from Arequipa.  We had an amazing trip & I took so many photos that I have made Colca a separate journal entry - so definitely check that out!  Our guides were really great & we all went out one night when we got back to Arequipa.  Those photos are mixed in here.  Needless to say, we all had a really great time together! When not in school or at Colca or out having fun in Arequipa with the chicas and guides, I did a bit of touring around the city.  I did a half day city tour that took us around the main square & some of the older parts of town, as well as outside of town to several beautiful miradors (lookout points) from which to view the mountains (there are lots of mountains in Peru, really everywhere you could say except the coast & the Amazon), the river & back to the city. We had a great half a day to visit the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, which is a cloistered covenant -- still in use by about 2 dozen nuns today -- that was built in the late 1500s.  As with most of time in Peru, everything seems to look so much better set against the fabulous clear blue skys that I have experienced for about 90-95% of the time I have been here, but I think the multi-colored walls of the Monasterio were particularly striking.   The Monasterio is like a small town almost, with multiple streets & extensive buildings.  Only the daughters of the wealthiest families were accepted into the monastery, where they lived a life of seclusion & dedication to the church, but also had extreme wealth and multiple servants until the Catholic church put an end to that excessiveness in the late 1800s.Not sure what else to share about Arequipa, it really was just really lovely!  By far the highlight was the weekend trip to Colca Canyon, so definitely check out that entry!  Cheers!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1217274720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1217274720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1217274720/tpod.html Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:11:38 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Ollantaytambo, Sacred Valley, Peru

So this entry has just a hodge podge of pictures (in no good order) from my last few days in Ollanta & then a few days here and there in Cusco when I was in and out visiting friends & getting ready to head off from Cusco for other travels. In my last few days in Ollanta I tried just to spend lots of time with my family & to get out for a couple more nice day hikes.  I had brought a bunch of gifts for my family -- which I had bought before I knew who they were (kids, adults ??) -- and so it was really fun to find that most of what I brought was a good fit.  I had several t-shirts and hats from DC.  The picture of Abraghn as our future president & in the Obama hat is just too cute. As I noted on the picture, sorry to be political, but they do tend to know who Obama is here.  As for McCain, they usually say óh, & what is the name of the other guy?´ and ´what happened to the lady?´ Hmmm, if we have a president someday that was born in the Peruvian hills & could only speak Quechua until age 6, now that would be pretty awesome. My last few days in Cusco were similar to those in Ollanta.  Tried to get outside/above of the city for some hikes & had a few fun nights out with friends.  A week or so prior to leaving Ollanta, I was in Cusco & by chance ran into the doctor that had helped me in Ollanta with my sprained ankle.  He actually lives & works normally in Cusco.  As a good doctor should, he wanted to make sure that my ankle was really healed & so we had a night out salsa-ing to make sure I was fully on the mend.  Very fun!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1215813780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1215813780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1215813780/tpod.html Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:46:25 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Puerto Maldonado, Peru

So after four awesome, busy days hiking and enjoying Machu Picchu, Meghan, Yvonne & I headed off early the morning of July 6 to go to the jungle.  While I have spent my first two months all in the Andean highlands around Cusco and the Sacred Valley, Peru has extremely diverse (and difficult) terrain.  There is jungle basically all along the eastern portion of the country.  The entire area is considered part of the Amazon Basin, while actual Amazon is in the nothern part of the country. We went to jungle near Puerto Maldonado, the best city to get quick access to the jungle.  Quick access is a 50 minute flight from Cusco, 1.5 hour bus ride from the airport & 1+ hour boat ride on the river.  We stayed at a jungle lodge, Explorer´s Inn, located in the Tambopata National Reserve just off the Rio Tambopata.  As you would expect, the jungle was completely different from the moutains.  La selva (the jungle) is hot and humid, lush and green, whereas in the mountains there is little vegetation & pretty darn cold at night (as you may have heard me mention). However, it is the dry season in Peru, and you could tell as such -- some of the vegetation was less vibrant & there were not many flowers, however we did have a bit of rain each of the days we were there & it was very green. Jungle life is pretty laid back (as is much of my life in Peru, but the jungle really was so).  Our schedule at the lodge was something like this -- get up at 4:30, breakfast at 5, go walk and look for animals & plants, etc., starting at 5:30 (sunrise is 6ish) until maybe 9, 10, 11.  Come back to the lodge & shower because you are all sweaty.  Have lunch.  Sit on porch and read or play cards.  Take a nap.  Maybe take another shower because you are hot & sweaty.  Go for a night walk or ride on the river to look for animals.  Have dinner & a beer.  Go to bed.  It was very relaxing, but also sort of just funny.  Definitely need to slow yourself down to just sort of roll with the rhythms of the jungle. We actually saw lots of animals -- monkeys, otters, lots of colorful birds (parrots, macaws, every other bird I can´t remember the names of), caimans, tarantulas , but no snakes (yay!).  It was very hard to capture pictures of the animals & the jungle overall.  Sometimes we got to sit and watch the animals for awhile ---- for example, one day about a dozen monkeys all of a sudden were just running & swinging through the trees of the lodge area; they were on their way to raid the banana hut.  (The staff said they let the monkeys eat the bananas during the dry season because there is less food in the jungle.) But other times the animals skirted away pretty quickly.  So I didn´t really get many photos of the animals.  Plus the light in the jungle was really hard, so you will see that I have the same photos in multiple settings on my camera to try to catch the most accurate light that was happening.  I don´t know that I was particularly successful (& you obviously don´t either, since you weren´t there - sorry!), but know that it was beautiful.Quick Parental Notice:  Please note - on one of our jungle walks we were exposed to a tree named the ´erotic tree´.  You will know it when you see it in my photos & it is a little embarrassing, but obviously the photo needed to be taken.  We actually didn´t take the photo the first hike we went on, perhaps we were feeling out what was appropriate.  But Yvonne & I subsequently did go out for a hike looking for the tree and the photo opp.  Apologies to anyone who gets embarrassed by the pictures.   The lodge was nice, maybe even quite nice as jungle lodges go.  We had a little cabin/bungalow with our own bathroom & a little deck out front.  Of course there was no electricity, so we had candlelight at night & our headlamps and flashlights for reading.  With no electricity comes no hot water, which was not that big of deal.  One day the water did come out all brown for a solid 10-15 minutes & that was a little concerning, but just fine besides that.  Each bed had a mosquito net, which seemed to be relatively effective with the bugs & also just pretty cool. We celebrated Yvonne´s birthday in the jungle with some jungle activities -- some hiking, some reading, some napping & some playing of really old trivial pursuit.  Actually Meghan left one day earlier than Yvonne & I so that Yvonne was not traveling or sitting in airport on her birthday.  The exit travel was somewhat exiting for all of us.  It turns out there was a national strike on the days we were in the jungle & the days we were in transit to leave.  The strike made travel a little uncertain, particularly the road travel, because it was possible that the protestors (which I guess was most everyone; as I understand it businesses closed throughout the country to protest the rising cost of living and what the Peruvian government was or was not doing about it; I guess it was particularly active in Puerto Maldonado) would have started fires or put trees in the streets to block traffic & just tie up commerce.  Given this, we got to get up at 3:30 the days we were leaving respectively to get up river & to the bus before dawn so that we could hopefully get through the roads easily before the protesting got ramped up.  All went smoothly; we did have a support team of a guy with a chainsaw in our bus so that he could cut up any problem trees, but it wasn´t needed.  It did just mean that we got to the airport at 7 am for a 1 pm flight -- & the only coffee shop in the 2 gate airport was closed for the protest -- but it was all good.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1214689080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1214689080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1214689080/tpod.html Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:46:05 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Ollantaytambo, Sacred Valley, Peru

So the last couple weeks of June were filled with lots of fun around Ollantaytambo.  My days were pretty occupied with miscellaneous half day hikes, Spanish lessons, volunteer work, hanging out with my family & doing whatever else fun came up in Ollanta.  I went on a half day hike with a couple of the other volunteers to the salt mines nearby in Maras.  As I understand it (there was no official ´guide´ or anyone actually around when we went), the salt mines have been in use since Inca times and are currently in operation under a community cooperative-type structure. There are thousands of pools on the terraced mountain-side that are set up to harvest the salt from the salty mountain water source.  The pools are flooded and as the water evaporates, the salt is harvested.  It was a really striking visual; fascinating and creepy at the same time, particularly because it was completely isolated the afternoon that we went, with no one either working the mines nor any other spectators such as ourselves. Spending time with my family continued to be enjoyable - & certainly more so as my Spanish improved a little bit.  I asked Ana Maria to teach me how to cook something one day, so we spent a morning making stuffed peppers. Hanging out in the kitchen all morning allowed me to snap some pictures of the cuy living large in the kitchen without feeling rude (please note, these are not the pictures of the cuy waiting too be cooked that are also a part of this entry, that was a different day).  Like a lot of good family dishes, it was a lot of work -- but delicious!   Living with a family, I obviously have been blessed to experience cultural rituals that I would not otherwise get exposed to.  One cherished cooking/fiesta food ritual in the highlands that you can´t get in a restaurant is Pachamanca -- or cooking in an earth oven.  I have experienced the fruits of the oven -- which include seasoned cuy, chicken, pork, lamb, potatoes, lima beans & more seasoning --  twice now at two different fiestas.  It is quite an involved process.  To start, they dig a big hole & start a fire in it.  Once the fire gets going nice & strong, they start adding stones to the fire so they can get nice and hot.  After the fire burns for maybe 30-45 minutes, they put the fire out, pull some of the hot rocks off to the side & get the cooking going.  Layers of potatoes, meat, beans are placed in the óven´with hot rocks mixed in all around presumably to get everything nice & hot & cooked (undercooked meat in Peru = not bueno).  They cover it with various layers of freshly cut grass/greens, paper and plastic bags & then lots of dirt.  You would never know that it is an óven´unless you had seen it be assembled (of course, someone is always near it so some unsuspecting person does not step in your food).  After about 45 minutes, the meal is ready!  And it is really flavorful!  The cuy, while not yet on my top foods list, I have had from Pachamanca was much better than that I had in the Cusco restaurant. One of the days that my family prepared a Pachamanca was for Ollanta Rami.  Ollanta Rami is Ollanta´s fiesta day that falls very close to the June 21 solstice, which is obviously the winter solstice here.  The solstice and celebrations dedicated to the following and appreciation of the sun appear to have a strong tie to Incan traditions and continue to be a big focus.  Intyi Rami, which happens in Cusco (the historic capital of the Incan Empire), is a huge fiesta and cultural celebration each year on June 24.  A big focus is the reenactment and dramatization presented in Cusco at the ruins of Sacsaywaman just above the city.  Peruvian side note: I did go to Cusco for Intyi Rami.  Because you never can quite tell what time things happen in Peru since we are on South American pace of life (some say the show starts at 11, some say 1, some say 2...who knows), we got up early to get to the ruins for the show.  After waiting for about 5 hours, the show was getting started.  Unfortunately, some form of food poisoning from something I had the night before (una hamburgesa) was also in full swing.   I decided to head home when the internal dialogue I was having was to figure out how I would be able to vomit in this crowded hillside of Peruvians & tourists (think 4th of July on National Mall) without getting the vomit on anyone; yep, that is when it is time to go.  (Please note, I did have a strategy to use my hat to protect my neighbors.)  So while I made the effort, I did not get to see any of Intyi Rami, but I did get to participate in the Peruvian pastime of unhappy stomach.  On a more positive note, before the food poisoning, the night of the 23rd there was a huge parade & my language school got to participate.  So after seeing all of those parades all of the time in Cusco, we actually got to participate in one!Back to Ollanta Rami, Ollanta´s celebration was similarly a huge fiesta (or at least huge for a town of about 8,000 people) and similarly included a dramatization of the forbidden love story of the daughter of the Incan chief Ollanta.  It was really fantastic to hundreds of youth filling all the terraces of the ruins dancing & acting out the story. Despite being presented in Quechua, I was able to follow along -- forbidden love is a pretty universal theme after all.  Besides the great theatre at the ruins, Ollanta Rami included what all great town fiestas do --- that is street food, beer gardens with TVs to watch sports & a street dance.  Sort of like the love story --- town fiesta is similarly a pretty universal theme!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1215811680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1215811680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kmgroen/1/1215811680/tpod.html Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:45:07 -0400 Peru & South American Adventures TBD!

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Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley, Peru

So yay!  I made it to Machu Picchu!  A place so few of us actually get to see & so beautiful, awe-inspiring, magnificent, etc. etc.!  Check out all the photos & maybe read what I wrote as well.  I seem to have actually been avoiding writing this entry about my hiking trip and visit to Machu Picchu. I think perhaps because it is hard to know what to say about hiking through the Andes at 12,000 - 14,000 feet and visiting one of the wonders of the world, but I guess I will just write something, but my guess is the pictures will speak for themselves more than anything I could write! So details first..........July 2- 5 myself & 4 friends did the Lares Trek.  The trek is not the official Inca Trail, which is restricted to a certain number of hikers per day & sells out months in advance (of course my brilliant self did not actually get an Inca Trail reservation in advance, but it is all good; we figured the Incas lived everywhere in the Andes so presumably they used the trails we trekked, so it counts).  The trek consisted of 3 days of hiking, with 2 nights of camping; the 3rd day we actually ended the hike in Ollantaytambo (where I was living) and took the train to Aguas Calientes (the town near Machu Picchu).  We spent that night in Aguas Calientes and got up very early to spend the next day at Machu Picchu.  The ´we´ included Lena & Genevieve, friends I met here, and Meghan and Yvonne, who were visiting from DC. We had a great support team of Daniel, our guide, his girlfriend, whose name we didn´t learn for some reason, a great cook, 4 porters (they do the hard work & carry our stuff, tents, food, etc.) and a bunch of horses & mules (also doing the hard work of carrying our stuff). The hike started in Lares, a town in the Sacred Valley a couple hours from Cusco.  Lares is particularly known for its natural hot springs; so in good backwards logic, we started our trek by soaking ourselves in the hot springs.  If I remember correctly, we probably trekked about 16 hours and 14 miles total over the next 3 days, which really was more like 1 full day and 2 half days --- 4 hours in the afternoon the first day, 8 hours the second day and 4 hours the last day to make it to town to catch our noon train to Aguas Calientes.  The two nights of camping were great.  In some ways it was the easiest camping -- the porters set up & took down the whole campsite for us each day & night and the cook prepared all of the meals.  In other ways it was the hardest camping -- it definitely was not relax car camping where you bring everything you could ever want in your car, stay at a campground with some facilities & hang out by the fire & drink beers.  The bathroom was a hole in the ground, dug by the porter team (& presumably cleaned out or filled in by the porters, rough job), with a tent around it.   We had a fire the first night, but fell into bed with no interest in a fire the second night beat from the day´s hike and we woke both mornings to a tent covered with ice & frost from the elevation.  No beers and no smores.[Oh & one other note I almost forgot.  I sprained my ankle less than a week before the trek playing outside in the dark with the little boy in my house.  Brilliant.  So I went to the doctor the next morning with a purple swollen ankle.  He said I needed a shot.  I thought, obviously, of course I should get a shot in Peru for a sprained ankle.  So I got a shot in my bum, which apparently was anti-inflammatory, pain-killer, etc.  That night my house mom also wrapped my foot in a cold mixture of eggs & herbs and between the 2 strategies, something worked, because I hiked.  Now of course there were multiple moments of pain & swearing quietly inside my head (and fear that I may not get my cute heels on ever again), but all in all, a fine recovery] So enough with logistics -- just look at the pictures & imagine it a million times better than it actually looks!!  Sadly the picture can only capture a bit & it doesn´t do it justice.   It was amazing - really!  Yeah, I really just don´t know what to say except -- que magnifico!!I did make a movie on the trek & at Machu Picchu.  I think you should be able to watch them here.  Clearly they are award-winning (sarcasm), but I hope it helps with getting a sense of it.  I am pretty sure I close the Machu Picchu film talking about cookies -- not something important like Inca history or the spirituality of the place.  Of course those that know me well, however do know that cookies are serious business regardless of location at any given time.Well, I can give this suggestion --- for one thing, try to imagine the scenery everywhere you look -- obviously the mountains were not just the direction of the picture, but all around us, just wide open vistas.  To add to this, we really saw very few people.  We did see children (who made it into our pics quite a bit, almost as striking as the scenery at times), who are used to hikers along the way with gifts (we had brought bread and some toys to give them), but to my surprise, we only saw one other hiking group. Although, many people hike these various treks when visiting Peru, I guess it just speaks to the vastness of the landscape that we did not really encounter any other groups.  Basically just us, the mountains, some kiddies & a few adults, and various animal herds (sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas) that seemed to have the whole world for their grazing. Of course I am not sure what I can say about Machu Picchu.  It was a amazing.  As most visitors do, unless they decide to walk, we took a 30 minute bus ride to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes at about 5:30 am so we could be there to watch the sunrise.  Which was of course.......amazing.  (I am not sure what other words to actually use, to be honest.)  Machu Picchu is on the top of a mountain, but the peaks surrounding it are actually higher, and it is beautiful, peaceful, exciting, to just wait for the sun to come up over the eastern peaks. We spent the morning hours with our guide from the trek, Daniel, who took us through Machu Picchu, sharing the knowledge, theories, myths about the purpose and history of this Inca village.  He also treated us to a sacred ceremony, after which he said our lives would be full of luck and peace (given the ceremony was at Machu Picchu and all, I think I am all set now!).  After he left us, we walked through the ruins and up to the sun gate, which is the entrance that you come in from the official Inca Trail, and ultimately just found a nice perch from which to relax and just try to take it all in.  It was awesome.  Just awesome.
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