The Inca Trail

it seems insane to start writing about this experience, when nothing could ever describe accurately how incredible it was. the inca trail is an ancient road leading to the "lost city" of machu picchu. in fact there are several "inca trails" leading to the same place, and we chose the "classic" trail, a four-day three-night excursion covering roughly 33 km through the andes and reaching heights of 4,200 meters. the $320 we paid included all meals for the trek, tents, sleeping pads, porters to carry said items, entrance to the trail and machu picchu as well as guides and the experience of a lifetime. the day before we left, we were briefed by a man who worked at the company, who informed us that altitude sickness medication and water would be provided every day except the first, and that our sleeping pads would be carried for us. we would be picked up from the hostel the next morning between 6:15 and 6:45. we woke up wednesday morning at 5:30 only to be informed at 6 that the bus was there for us. cool. they said they would go and come back so we hurried to get ourselves together and made it out by 6:15, at which point we were told by a guy from the company that we had to walk around the corner to meet the bus. two minutes later i had to run back to get my passport which i purposely hadnt brought because we werent told we needed them and i wasnt about to bring it unnecessarily after the fun i had in quito. then i had to run back again to get my police report and photocopy of my other passport because i had made the reservation with it....coool. we were FINALLY on our way by like 7, stopped in a little town along the way where we bought walking sticks (ie broomsticks with handles attached) and coca leaves, the natural remedy for altitude illness. by the time the bus stopped for us to start the trek it had started to rain. about three seconds after everyone in our group (there were 16 of us) had put on all our rain gear--waterproof pants, jackets, ponchos, the rain stopped. ooooobbbbbbviously.
let me briefly describe the colorful characters in our group. lynon, whose mother made up her name was a really cool outdoorsy girl from montana who works at glacier national park in the summer and travels in the fall; just got her degree in photography from montana state. then christian, an awkward german guy...the best way i can describe him is to say that he was very...german. alex was an extremely strange man who lives in the seattle area and looked like a beefy willem dafoe (read: creepy). he had a german father and a mexican mother so spoke german and spanish and could not talk loud enough in those languages to show off this fact. ugh. nerea and josu were an extremely sweet couple from the basque region of spain--they spoke basque with each other and were the nicest people ever. diego was a nice guy from brazil and george, polly, nate, ian and tom were a family from portland, maine living in lima for half a year. the boys were in 11th, 7th and 4th grades respectively--very sweet and fun boys who never complained and livened things up. polly is a sign language interpreter--very interesting. when we found out that water was NOT provided for us on the trip, and the guide couldnt be bothered to ask the cooks to boil us some water even though we had been lied to, george and polly saved us from a fate of dehydration by giving us water purification tablets. finally, there was kingsley (yes, that was his name although i accidentally called him kingston once) and sam, two of the most obnoxious, annoying people everrrrr (both had quasi-mullets, ps) and sams girlfriend ruth, who was actually a really cool person from mexico...dont know what she was doing with a buck-toothed englishman with no tact or charm.

the first day we only walked for maybe four hours...i felt pretty sick from the altitude but mostly it was just so exciting to finally be getting started. it was overcast and rained a little...not too bad although the trail was a bit slippery. let me describe the scene a little. because the inca trail winds through the andes, much of the trek is alternating between walking up and walking down. we had asked the man who briefed us in cusco if porters would be available to carry our stuff, and were falsely informed that they would not be, since the porters were already carrying all the group stuff. as lucy and i are huffing and puffing through the andes in our waterproofs and expensive hiking boots, peruvian men ranging in height from 5'0"- 5'8" are zooming past us with literally about 40 kilos of food, cooking equipment, tents, chairs and lights tied securely to their backs in plastic sacks with nylon rope. these guys didnt change their clothes the entire four days ie wore plastic sandals, shorts and t shirts in pouring rain for days ith a plastic poncho covering the stuff they were carrying. all of us can barely find the breath to ask how long till break time, while every two seconds someone behind you shouts "porter!" and you move to the side to let 5 small men wearing your uncooked dinner pass. keep in mind that there were many groups on the inca trail at the same time, and each group had its own porters, so it was quite the entourage. after i was sick from the altitude the first day, we discovered that for 80 soles a day (about $27) we could get one of said men to carry our stuff too! although at the end of the first day we debated the expenditure, by the end of the second day we couldnt imagine carrying all our stuff, as you will understand in a moment.

when we got to the base camp at about three in the afternoon we hung our wet stuff between the tent and the rain fly, had coca tea at five, dinner at 7 and were asleep by 8.

day 2, as we were told countless times on day 1, was the "day of sacrifice." we woke up at 5:30 an were on the trail by 7. it started raining fairly early in the day, maybe at around 9, which did not exactly make the 5 hour climb up a 4200 meter mountain any easier. the truth is that most of the hike up was lovely. in peru they call rainforests cloud forests, which made no sense to me until i went. the scenery is absolutely beautiful--wild orchids, a path made of ancient stones and ferns so bright green that if i hadnt seen it i wouldnt have believed that the color existed naturally. what makes it a cloud forest is the altitude. you are literally walking in a cloud. if you have ever noticed the ring of clouds at the top of a mountain, you will have a sense of how high you would have to be to walk in them. the rain obviously obscured the air even more than normal with mist, but every once in a while the clouds would move to reveal the mountains whose spectacular majesty quite literally take your breath away. lucy and i remarked later that it was almost worth having rain, not just because it made the colors pop as though highlighted in a book, but also because it made the moments with views that much more special. as i said, though, almost worth it.

i cant even tell you how many times i thought i would actually die during the last two hours of the ascent. look, i said to lucy, its not my fault my ancestors wandered through a DESERT for 40 years and not a sub-tropical MOUNTAIN RANGE. because i had felt ill the day before, lucy refused to let me carry the day pack even for 5 minutes, a debt which i can never repay. my pants and rain jacket had soaked completely (and i mean completely) through, and as my mom always says, its one thing to be cold and one thing to be wet, but nothing is worse than being cold and wet. by the time we summitted at about 11, all we could do was sprawl on the rocks and eat oreos. unfortunately, however, it was still pouring ("pissing it down" as lucy put it) and we still had to climb DOWN the mountain! and while ascending was a killer for the lungs, the two hour descent down uneven, ancient stairs made my legs want to break off. it hurts just thinking about it. ow.

by the time we reached camp at 1, we were pretty much sore blobs, and were asleep by 7:30.

day 3 also began at 5:30. whew, we thought when we woke up. day of sacrifice, check, now its 200 meters uphill and its all downhill from there. all i can say about that is: famous last words. the first half of the day wasnt too bad, actually. we stopped two or three times to look at ruins along the path, which were amazing. ive seen ruins before, mostly in israel, but never have i felt the way i did this time. you can physically feel the spirit of these people in the walls. you can picture them going from room to room, going through doorways, looking through windows. all i could think was what ruins people will be visiting 1,000 or 2,000 years from now. will people walk in a grass-covered empire state building after a 4-day trek through queens and say "this used to be hundreds of feet tall. it was built in the 1920s they had these crazy pulley systems to bring people between floors and sat at tables all day making decisions that seemed really important at the time." something really powerful about the presentation of the whole park is that of a sense of heritage as a human race. the signs against littering say "protect machu picchu. its yours." the constant message was that this place is important not just for peruvians or latinos, but rather for every person, connecting us all in a common history. down in this part of the continent, they regularly refer to American History, as well as the Americas, implying north and south as being one continent. i cant help but feel like the US' claim to the name is pretentious and serves to separate it from the rest of the Americas, and i cant imagine the US presenting the grand canyon as property of the earth, belonging to everyone, and not the people of th US of A.
in any case, even though nearly the whole day was downhill, it turned out to be just as hard if not harder than the "day of sacrifice" because of the fact that we trekked for 9 hours with only an hour break for lunch! bahhh my legs have never hurt so much in my life. the last half hour was the worst, as it had been pouring all day and felt so close yet so far. the nice thing was that at the final base camp you could take a shower for 5 soles (like 1.75)! lucy and i showered first thing...best.shower.everrrrr. once we were clean and (mostly) dry, we sat in the main room (first time in a building in 3 days!) to play cards with the other group members. about 5 minutes into th game, kingsley, obnoxious mulleted brit no. 1, turns to the guide and was like "didnt you say you were taking us to ruins 10 minutes from here?" and he was like oh yeah lets go and lucy and i were like wha? because we were already clean and dry. we decided not to go, as we had been on a few too many two-hour "10 minute" walks...so we played cards and when everyon came back half an hour later raving about it and said it actually was like 5 minutes away we were like ok we are only doing the inca trail once and we got on our sore legs and went.
boy were we surprised.
we walked for two minutes to turn this corner and it was so misty you could hardly see two feet ahead of you. we glanced behin us for a second and by the time our heads turned back around we saw a mountainside covered in stone terraces, with the ruins of a building towards the bottom. it was awesome, better than anything we'd ever seen. each wall of the terraces were about 7 feet high, and there must have been 50 levels. it was dusk; the sun was just setting and the whole scene had a blue glow and tint to it. because everyone had already been, lucy and i were literally the only people there. we walked down to the building, to its exposed corner where you could stand and look at nothing but the dense, green forest below and lucy and i screamed at the top of our lungs to the open air and valley. i cant describe the magnitude of that place, with its ancient walls and the sun setting to expose the darkness in this abandoned structure.
that night the cooks made a feast with many traditional peruvian dishes, using lots of vegetables native to the jungle, such as the yucca, a deeeelicious potato-like vegetable. we went to bed as soon as we could, maybe at like 8 and i was so nervous for some reason. its strange when you have been dreaming of going somewhere for so long and then you finally are going...it didnt feel real. i kept thinking something would go wrong and we wouldnt be able to go. the only thing i can compare it to is a wedding or bar mitzvah or something youve been planning and preparing for so long and picturing it the same way and then the night before you cant believe its actually coming to pass.
we woke up before dawn the next morning at 4:30; the "watching sunrise over machu picchu" promised in the itinerary and brochure turned out to be "watching sunrise while waiting in line to have our tickets checked to begin the 2 hour hike to machu picchu." oh well. after our 2 or 3 hour hike that included QUITE a few more stairs going up, we reached the "sun gate," a place to have a panoramic view of all of machu picchu. unforunately, the sky was so heavy with mist that we couldnt see much, so we only stayed there for a bit in hopes that the clouds would move and then continued on our way to the place where all the famous pictures are taken of machu picchu with wayna picchu, the smallish mountain, in th background. still pretty misty so we went to the entrance, bought something to eat, put down our packs and entered the park refreshed and ready for some 'picchu. our guide started the tour, and lucy and i got separated within about 5 minutes so did some exploring on our own before we finally found them like half an hour later...("you cant just stop and take pictures whenever you want," the guide said to us when we told him we got lost. cool.) but what can i say about machu picchu?? it was amazing. but the truth was that so had been the whole journey and by the time we got to machu picchu it seemed like the icing on the cake...if the inca trail had just been about getting to machu picchu we would have just taken the train. but its the understatement of the century to say that it was a very special place. at one point i became so overwhelmed with emotion and awe an being in this place that i turned to lucy and just started crying. like, really crying. i sobbed for about two minutes and then calmed down and we continued. man, though, there is something about that place that you can feel in your bones and you can never forget, something that touches your insides, and it had to do with the whole journey, and the connection you make with those mountains as you walk through them for four days through the mist and rain. i dont know if you can feel it if you take the train there. ive never felt such a strong connection with the generations of humans before me. you can truly understand only by going there how it is such a vital place of human heritage.

To see my photos of the Inca Trail, click the link below:
Cusco and Inca Trail Photos

City of the Sun

After all we went through in quito, we had mixed feelings about leaving but nevertheless we flew to lima, spent 10 hours overnight in the airport and arrived in cusco at 7am monday morning. we slept all day and then explored the city tuesday. Cusco is beautiful--so rich with history and stories. the streets are cobblestone and its very hilly and very touristy. in some ways it reminds me of mexico, lots of churches and cathedrals, with everything centered around plazas. cusco is at an altitude of about 3,400 meters, so walking up and down the hills here is no walk in the park. quito is not exactly sea level at 2,800 meters, but believe me when i say that you can feel the difference the second you step off the plane. the air feels thin, as well as dry, and its strange to feel out of breath allll the time. Cusco is a fascinating intersection between colonial latin america and indigenous/incan culture. i dont know if its the majority but many many people speak quechua, the language of the incas that still has no written language. the biggest festival here is in june, celebrating the sun, an extremely important symbol in incan culture. peru is known here as the land of the sun, with cusco as the inti (sun in quechua) god's center. in fact, the peruvian currency is the sol, or sun in spanish. in addition, the city flag of cusco is a rainbow (identical to the gay flag), as representing all colors of light. the gateway to machu picchu and the inca trail, cusco has a large indigenous population but also is completely dependent on tourism, and it shows. women and children walk around in traditional peruvian dress carrying lambs or leading llamas soliciting pictures. people stand outside nearly every store, business and restaurant encouraging their food, products or tours. now there are tacky christmas lights everywhere, and plenty of the signs are in english. but nothing can obscure the beauty of this city--houses painted in bright colors, intricate carving on the doors and balconies, narrow streets that offer views of the mountains, and people that are neither overly friendly nor hostile, but rather keep to themselves and are more than willing to interact if you start a conversation. the food here has been great so far, although the fact that cusco is so touristy really hikes up the prices.
as lucy and i walked around tuesday we stumbled across a small vegetable market. what was interesting was not that the vegetables and fruit were so different from what i am used to, as was the case in ecuador, but rather that the same fruits looked so different. peru has more native varieties of potato than anywhere else on earth, and believe me when i say that many of these potatoes could never be recognized as such by a non-peruvian or non-potato-expert. every size and shape you can imagine, all different colors...very cool. the pineapples were smaller and redder on the outside, the apples were longer, the carrots shorter, the corn was either black or had ginourmous kernels, and when i picked up a white vegetable with purple stripes about the size of a large tomato, i was informed that it was a cucumber! it turned out to be deeeeeeelicious--sweet, in fact, and tasting very much like melon. so great. we went to bed fairly early that night in preparation for our four-day, three-night inca trail adventure the next day.

The Best and Worst of Quito

Well I have been in quito for almost a week and i can safely say the honeymoon phase is over. quito is an amazing city--i had no idea how beautiful it was before i came. the old city is amazing...gorgeous colonial buildings in all different colors, green mountains all around, lots of parks. lucy and i haven't done SOOO many very touristy things apart from walking around a lot and taking a gondola to the top of a mountain. quito is at high altitude--about 2100 feet i think-- and i can really feel it, which makes me nervous to climb macchu picchu next week!
This whole week is called the feria de quito, which celebrates independence day and the founding of the city. every day this week there have been bullfights--a big deal here; the matadors are big celebrities. on monday, lucy and i took the trolly down to the plaza del toro where we haggled down to the price stated on the tickets ($15) and watched some bulls be ceremoniously slaughtered...First of all, we got there half an hour late so the stadium was already packed. it was a huge circular stadium adn everyone was wearing these white straw hats so it was just a sea of hats. the whole experience was incredible--watching these men stick spears in the bull in their sparkly costumes of magenta, turquoise, teal, yellow and pink, embellished with gold trim and hilarious hats, not to mention the pink socks. the whole thing is very theatrical, complete with audience participation...the matadors really look like theyre dancing; their connection with the bull as they dance around each other is what makes it exciting. you can note the stages of death and pain as the bull´s life comes to a close, although one bull wouldnt die so they let it go! it seems very barbaric, and i must admit that i wanted to cry when the first bull was killed but its just so outside my culture that i feel out of place criticizing it. these bulls are so celebrated...is it really different to kill them like this than for a steak? i asked the guy sitting next to me lots of questions, which was also interesting.

We decided, since we were in ecuador for a week, to go to the coast for a few days to lie on the beach and see what everyone was talking about--its supposed to be amazing. lucy and i woke up at the crack of dawn (9 am) to catch the bus at noon to baños, a small town next to a big active volcano. we get to the bus station, and immediately lucy and i kind of had the heebie jeebies. lucy kept saying what an awful place it was, and i am not just talking about it being dirty or run-down. all the people working for the bus companies shout in your face the destinations (in hopes that you will change your mind and take that bus?) and there are just people everywhere that appear to be doing nothing. i thought buenos aires was polluted--quito has quite the los angeles smog haze, and the bus terminal literally hurts your lungs. the worst part was that there were kids everywhere--street kids, or kids in mini-gas station uniforms shining shoes and selling crayons or just begging. by kids i mean boys, approximately between the ages of 6 and 13...the saddest part about it is they just look like mini-adults. their faces literally look aged but theyre just kids. we got on the bus to baños, a three and a half hour ride...about three hours and 20 minutes into it, i realized that my bag had been cut open from the back and both my passports and my camera had been stolen. im pretty sure what happened was that a kid or two crawled under the bench and cut it between the slats, because i never took my bag off even for a second. bah. it was such a violating feeling...on the one hand i felt sad that the kids were stealing, especially after i had bought fruit for a bunch of them...but mostly i was just so angry and frustrated. lucy and i got off the bus in baños for 10 minutes and then went straight back to quito--it was thursday and i had to get a new passport before the weekend so i could fly to cusco on sunday. it was awful...the one positive was that we stayed the whole week in a fantastic hostel. the other guests were just the best, most fun people, everyone got along--it really felt like a little family and i was so sad to leave.
in any case, the next day (friday), lucy and i got a fairly early start, printed out the applications for a new passport, took pictures and headed to the police station to file an incident report. we stopped a few policemen on the street to ask where we should go, and after insisting that we just needed to go to immigration, told us where the central station was. into a cab we went, only to have them tell us that no, we couldnt file a report there we had to go to the crime department two blocks away. we went to the crime department just for them to redirect us to another building a block away, at which they informed us that the tourist security building was where we needed to be. and i am just getting started. we walk to the gate of building number 4, where the guard informs us that you cant file a report for a passport, only for objects like bags or cameras. i kid you not. i was like "well, my camera was stolen too, does that qualify me??" we go upstairs where a nice man named walter was extremely efficient and helpful (FINALLY) and worked it out for me. from there we walked to the us embassy, at which i discovered that speaking english wasnt really a job requirement. fortunately my spanish was more than good enough, but i couldnt help but wonder what someone with limited spanish could have done? anyway, two and a half hours later we walked out with my temporary passport in hand, headed back to the tourist police station, where the embassy said i could get an entry stamp in my new passport. nonono, they told me, youve got to go to immigration for that. fine. on the bus we go, arriving at immigration. and what do they tell us? nonono we dont do THAT kind of stamp, you need to go to this place for it, and he reaches into a basket full of slips of paper with the other address on it. BAHHHHH. honestly, youd think i was THE first person to EVER have their passport lost or stolen in the history of the city. at this point i was more than a bit peeved. i told them i couldnt believe they couldnt stamp my passport and for the love of god would they please call the damn police station and/or embassy and tell them where to send people! they were so unhelpful and unresponsive...its really the most frustrating feeling. i was like look, i dont want to make a big deal, but honestly the police sent me to the completely wrong place and i need you either to stamp my passport with the stamp you certainly have or pay for me to take a cab to the other place. ok ok i know it was maybe a reach, but for the love, i was scared being without a passport and i couldnt understand why it was so unfathomable for someone to go slightly out of their way to give me one piece of correct information. seriously, at any point in this process someone could have said look, im not sure where you need to go but im going to take two minutes of my time and ask someone who does know. as i am standing there, another officer came up to ask what i needed and when i told him he started laughing. i have never in my life wanted to punch someone more. i turned to him and i was like its not funny. i need my passport. im going to peru on sunday. i was robbed. i cant believe that you are standing here laughing when all i am asking for are simple instructions. bahhh it sucked. i asked to speak to a supervisor and they told me he was coming in an hour. lies!! so i left and went to the other place. after taking a number and waiting (there was ONE woman working) i get to her desk, where she tells me nonono you need to come back at 3 (it was 2:15) because i dont do that kind of stamp so come back at 3 and go to desk 4 and they will do it because they are on lunch break. i turned to her and said cant you just go to desk 4 and give me the stamp (she was three desks down at 1) but nonono she only does exits not entries. huaklrfweuilyauhuhufhreuiu i thought i was going to explode. but what can you do. so lucy and i go and eat some tamales and come back at 3, at which point the agent tells us that we have to go make photocopies of the passport and police report. yup, and thats when i started crying. couldnt that woman have told me i needed to make copies BEFORE i waited 45 minutes????!!!!!!! nonono she does exits not entries, he tells me. finally AT 3:30 we were liberated from passport jail into the brave new world of regained citizenship. thank god. i honestly just could not believe, not only that people who do this every day honestly had no idea what the procedure was, but also how completely unfriendly--even rude--people were, and how far outside their sphere it was to go out of their way even such a tiny bit so i wouldnt be screwed over. of all the people i interacted with, only walter, the policeman who filed the report, and a little old man who told us we had been given wrong directions to the stamp place from the person we'd asked, showed any recognition of the fact that losing your passport is scary and serious. let me be clear: in no way am i suggesting that ecuadorians are mean, unfriendly or incompetent; i met some fantastic people that are fabulous at what they do. but man, it was definitely a departure from argentina, where they think you look pale and 18 people offer you water. when i discovered my passports had been stolen i went to the front of the bus to tell the guy working for the company and all he did was reprimand me for not watching my stuff. just an awful, awful feeling. but what can you do.
the last few days were great, though. saturday we got some trekking gear for macchu picchu and climbed to the top of the big basilica, and when i say top i mean the tippy tippy top, where you can walk out on the ledge and look out over the whole city as if its an architects miniature version. the last two nights we cooked in the hostel with some australians--lucy and this one guy had a bolognese-off--she made it friday and he made it saturday and the competition was fierce, let me tell you. this morning we went to a soccer game--so exciting and fun, even though the teams tied--and now i sit for 782396427628 hours in the lima airport waiting for our 5:50 am flight to cusco, which promises to be spectacular.
overall, ecuador was great. i would have loved to stay in baños or somewhere on the coast, but c'est la vie and we had more time to enjoy and relax in quito. macchu picchu wednesday!! four fabulous days trekking and then some cool old rocks. should be great. stay tuned.....

New Adventures

Alright I know I havent updated this in about 10 years and so much has happened in that time--parents came, saw whales and glaciers, said adios to precious argentina--but i will update that later and start now with where i am--QUITO, ECUADOR!!!!!!!!!!
I left ba yesterday morning to embark on more crazy adventures--quito, ecuador then cusco, peru, macchu picchu, bolivia, then flying home from lima on the 28th of december!!! i am traveling with my friend lucy, a girl from wales whom i met when i went to mendoza. shes great--very fun, open to great things, well-traveled...so my last night my friends decided i needed to go big before i left...we went out and then went straight from the club at 4 am to my house, where i hopped in a a cab for the airport. our flight left at 8 am to bogotá, where we had a layover...after a few hours in the fabulous airport (NOT) we flew to quito.
allow me to describe the scene coing into quito--we are flying low before we land and all you can see is the most brilliant green--with mountains and gorges and houses teetering on the edges of cliffs, just patches of habitation. we get off the plane and go through customs, get our bags and walk out into a mob of literally thousands of people...id never seen anything like it. hundreds of families waiting for their loved ones to step out the door--balloons, flowers....i really dont think i have ever seen so many people in such a small space. it was so clear from the first second how different it was from argentina. we stuck out like sore thumbs and i finally felt i was in the heart of latin america. i will write more asap but i only have 15 minutes on this computer. love you alllllll!

Mendoza

I figure while wasting time instead of reading the book i have to read, entitled "Operación Masacre" (guess what that's about), i might as well write about the trip i took this weekend to mendoza, the wine country or argentina. as you can see, mendoza borders chile and is at the foothills of the andes. being that it was a three-day weekend here in honor of Día de la Raza (Columbus Day), i went with my friend, Brooks, with whom i also went to iguazú. After a mostly sleepless 13 hour bus ride on a semi-cama (NOT as amazing as the super cama), we arrived in mendoza on friday morning to discover that the hostel i had booked for us was actually four hours outside of the city. so we hopped in a cab and asked him to take us to the main drag where there were likely to be hostels...he laughed and told us that we were never ging to find a place on the friday of a long weekend. then i punched him in the face. just kidding.
we found beds at the second hostel we tried and we happily took showers (13 hour bus rides do not exactly complement the aromas of the skin) and went to lunch as an arabic restaurant with our new roommate, a guy from northern ireland named stephen. then brooks and i walked around, took a nap, walked around some more--mendoza is an absolutely beautiful city. the weather was absolutely perfect, which made it even better. the city is centered around a main plaza, with four smaller plazas several blocks down on each side of the big one. because of the weather and the weekend, there were lots of people hanging out, mulleted boys playing soccer...picturesque indeed...minus the mullets. i will post pictures soon but the plazas were so lovely--full of painted tiles and fountains and huge trees and rainbows and unicorns and sunshiny smiles....ok maybe not rainbows or unicorns but definitely all the other stuff. in any case, in the evening we went with stephen and three other people we met at the hostel--Carina, a german girl, Lee from Manchester and Marcelo, a creepy 39-year-old argentine chef who came to get wines...and stay in a hostel...weird. anyways, they had these things called "flights" which is where you pay 45 pesos (like $15) to try 5 wines. we all decided to share two flights. it was really fun--the woman serving us explained so much about wine, it was very interesting. then at the end one of the people we were with signed up for the club thing where they send you all these wines throughout the year so one of the flights was comped so we each ended up paying 8 pesos (less than $3) to try ten wines. yay exchange rates! after that we went to dinner...then to a bar...then to a boliche (club)...at 5:45 AM we all stumbled back to the hostel. the thing was, brooks, carina and i had planned to take the 7AM bus to arco de las cuevas, the place were we had originally booked the hostel, four hours away and way up in the mountains. soooo we figured it was pointless to go to sleep for only an hour because we would never wake up, so we stayed up, left at sunrise and took the 7 am bus to las cuevas. please note that i had gotten less than three hours of frequently interrupted sleep the night before on the bus.
i slept for maybe an hour on the bus to las cuevas. the ride itself was absolutely stunning--similar terrain to that of jujuy or utah, lots of big red rock and low vegetation. four hours later, we got off the bus to find ourselves on a mountain the temperature of the arctic tundra. we had intended to spend the night at the hostel we had originally booked, but soon realized that the only way to get anywhere from it was to take one of the two buses a day that go to it. it was literally one building in the middle of nowhere intended for serious, experienced trekkers, or at least people who had foresight enough to bring coats. 15 minutes later, we got back on the bus which was turning around and got off at the first stop, a mineral formation called puente del inca (incan bridge), which is literally a bridge made out of bright yellow mineral sediment. it was amazing. there was a little feria and two hostels right next to the puente del inca, where we booked a night and put our stuff down. the hostel we chose was a "converted" train station, but believe me when i say that there was little about it that had been converted. it was a large shack with no insulation and a wood-burning stove in a place with snow on the ground. in any case, we had lunch, bought some postcards and set out to hike. we had to walk quite a ways up the road to the trailhead, but wow was it worth it. you could see the largest mountain outside of the himalayas, mount aconcagua, and there were all these lagoons that had been formed but glacier movement during the ice age. amazing. it was a good thing we had bought gloves, though, because man was it cold. the hike was short, only like half a kilometer, so we went back to the hostel after that, where we realized how much we didnt want to spend the night there (read: freezing our asses off) ten minutes before the bus left. whew. not having slept in two days and having spent the whole day schlepping, we retired fairly early that night.

we spent the morning walking around the plazas and ferias with carina and a couple from los angeles that we met at the hostel as well. the weather was a little cloudy and cold, though, so we part ways with the couple and the three of us had lunch at the best pasta place ive been to in argentina with two girls from amsterdam. after that we headed to an irish pub to watch argentina get beaten by south africa in the last final before the final final in the rugby world cup with our other new friends, lee and stephen. the game ended and we just stayed at the pub... for SEVEN hours. new people just kept coming in, inluding about 67826784264867856 irish people and by that i mean like 10 which was so fun because they were all drinking and started singing all these irish songs...oh man it was great.
then the next day brooks and i went with carina and the two dutch girls to maipú, a town 40 minutes outside of the city full of wineries. for 20 pesos (like $7) we rented bikes for the day and rode from vineyard to vineyard, tasting and touring. the weather could not have been better--not a cloud in the sky, beautiful colors...it was so amazing. we met these two israeli guys who were hilarious...all good.
that evening we took the bus back to buenos aires. it was SUCH a great weekend, made better by the fact that brooks and i have become really close and we met so many awesome people from all over the world.
i am finally caught up with the blogging, and will sign off here before i get carpel tunnel syndrome. operación masacre, here i come!

What's Going On

Well, a couple more weeks have gone by and my life here has not slowed down a bit. a lot is going on right now in the country. Last week there was an extremely historic court ruling. to give you a little bit of background, the argentine president through most of the 90's, Carlos Menem, an extremely corrupt and self-serving man, had a law passed granting amnesty to all those involved in the military dictatorship, ie the disappearance and torture of 30,000 people, among other atrocities. The law came after several people had already been implicated, including several of the main head honchos, such as the dictator Jorge Videla, but all had recieved minimal sentences (5, 10, 15 years) under house arrest--never prison--and because they had robbed the country blind they had estates in the country with acres of land. cool. 2ish years ago, the current president, Kirschner, repealed the law, a very popular move, for the most part. anyways, last week was the first time an arbitrator of the Dirty War was sentenced with the possibility of hard prison time. In general, there were many sketchy connections between the dictatorship and the Catholic church at the time in argentina, ie the church was on the whole frighteningly complicit in what was going on and moreover benefitted tremendously from its cooperation, both economically and politically. the guy on trial, whose name is von Wernich, was a priest during the Dirty War and was found guilty on all charges, which included 7 third-degree homicides, 3 kidnappings, and 31 instances of clandestine detention and torture. he recieved a life sentence mainly in solitary confinement. what was so historic about this case was not only the fact that this is pretty much the first time someone is being held 100% accountable for their actions during the dictatorship, although that in itself was a huge triumph for organizations like the one at which i work and indeed for the entire country in achieving justice. It was not only the fact that von Wernich was the first Catholic clergyman to recieve a life sentence for "crimes against humanity." It was the fact that his actions were indeed referred to on public record not only as crimes against humanity but also as part of a genocide that occurred from 1976-1983. the use of that terminology in the court was certainly one of the biggest victories in the whole affair. needless to say, it was amazing to be a part of familiares at this time--several members went down to where the trial was held in La Plata to see the sentencing.
in other news from down here, there is a vegetable crisis! ahhh!!! ok well not as much of a crisis as a problem. but still ahhhh! As it stands now, a kilo of tomatoes costs more than a kilo of beef. and the price of beef has not gone down. there is a tomato boycott not because the price is so out of control. in fact, food in general has begun to cost more, and to combat inflation, the government is considering a 5% decrease on all supermarket products in the whole country. i had no idea they could do such a thing, and neither did my friend brooks, who is an international business and finance major at georgetown, but apparently her host mom said they used to do it all the time when she was growing up. in the words of my friend sophia, pretty much all of latin america's economic history can be summed up by saying "you just dont think this stuff through." oh well. at least the price of strawberries has stayed the same...
also my mom is coming on saturday and i am so excitedddddddd! i cant wait to show off my mad skills in this town, ie fancy things like hoe to use the subway and where the best empanadas are...you know, important things. among the list of things she is bringing are knitting needles, because the only ones they sell and use here are literally more than two feet long (apparently women like to knit with the needles under their armpits...im not kidding, the guy at the yarn place told me that) and olive oil, because i have come to understand the difference between regular and extra virgin olive oil which i had never though about until i came here where they have nothing but the olive oil of the plebes ie nasty non-virgin olive oil, or slutty olive oil, as i have come to refer to it. they dont believe in salad dressing here, unless you consider corn oil and vinegar or mayonnaise and ketchup a salad dressing. really, once i ordered a caesar salad and they brought out oil and vinegar. i hate to be a snob, but really guys? its olive oil.
also there are elections next week. we asked my teacher yesterday about the platform of Cristina Kirschner, the wife of current president Kirschner, the current candidate poised to sweep the elections. he responded by saying that he couldnt really say for sure because nobody really reads or pays attention to the campaign platforms because everyone knows that what they say before the election says absolutely nothing about the reality of their administration post-election. i mean, cristina definitely has the prettiest face of all the candidates, and considering the fact that its everywhere you look now, its no wonder she will win. ah, latin america....at least people here know that politicians are all corrupt and self-serving, whereas in the us people maintain the pretense of altruistic leaders. different strokes for different folks i guess.

Cordoba and Human Rights

Two weeks ago I went on the second program trip to the province of Cordoba, kind of smack dab in the middle of the country. We went to a town called Mina Clavero, where we spent the time doing a lot of hiking and chilling out. It kind of felt like a vacation from a vacation...the place where we were had lots of rivers, but with an arid climate. we hiked to three different parts of the water where we swam in the FREEZING cold water and sunned ourselves on the rocks. then the last day we also went horseback riding, which felt so strange considering that the last time i have been on a horse was utah! so fun though. we also went to this amazing museum that is pretty much a warehouse for some crazy french guy's collections--everything from silverware to bones to bugs to dresses to car parts to cameras. the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. and, being from the family i am, one of the best parts was eating the alfajors, which are famous in that region-little cake-snacks with dulce de leche in the middle...aMAzing.
This week has been extremely eventful for Argentina...and for me. Because I have mostly been writing here about my trips I haven´t been telling you as much about my daily life here in Buenos Aires. This week I finished my intensive spanish course (in which i got a 9 out of 10--see mom and dad? i do study!) which means that i have no class monday wednesday friday and my earliest class is at 4. yup, life's hard when youre yael.
Probably my favorite thing that i do in buenos aires--well, other than spending all day in the park--is volunteering as part of my class entitled aprendizaje y servicio ("service-learning"). The actual class is nothing special but the organization at which i work is absolutely incredible. It is called Familiares de Desaparecidos y Detenidos por Razones Políticas ("Relatives of the Disappeared and Political Prisoners"). the organization's mission statement has three parts: honoring and remembering those that were disappeared or detained during the Dirty War of 1976-1983, finding out the truth about what happened to them, and bringing the arbitrators to justice. when i was visiting it for the first time just to check it out, and they were explaining their mission and what they do, i asked whether everyone that worked there was a relative of a desaparecido. "primeramente," the guy said to me, "nadie trabaja acá¡. nosotros nos pertenecemos" ("first of all, nobody works here. we belong here"). and yes they are all relatives of someone who was either disappeared or taken as a political prisoner--mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles...the youngest person that "belongs" there is 55. this means that there is an organization doing cutting-edge, often risky activist work and organizing that is composed almost entirely of people older than my parents and grandparents. you walk in and the place is just covered in posters from the past 30 years, books about both argentina and the dirty war and human rights in general, papers, ashtrays, yerba mates...they have a large archive of original archives that are catalogued solely by date. my project for the next few months is to organize, label and categorize their video "library" which consists of 100 or so mostly unmarked tapes that range from documentaries, to news programs to first-person testimonies, to photomontages...they need me to watch the tapes, label them, categorize them and alphabetize them. it goes without saying that this is a fantastic exercise for my language skills. but to watch all those videos? i can hardly think of something more fascinating and worthwhile to be doing here. though the work is interesting, it can get very tedious, and the real reason i love it is that i am able to interact and form connections with the people who work there. i cant even convey to you how amazing these people are--theyre only doing this so they can sleep at night. on my first visit, it came up somehow that i was jewish and my mother was israeli...big surprise there. this one little old lady who is in her mid to late eighties starts telling me about all the german families that lived on her street growing up and how during the war they had big maps of europe in their dining rooms and would mark off every country that germany invaded. the jewish kids and the german kids got along swell in school even though their parents were either jews of european descent or nazis. another woman informed me that jewish desaparecidos were given "tratamiento especial" and when i asked what especial meant she said they were tortured more harshly. after a long pause she turns to me and says "mi marido era judío" ("my husband was Jewish"). really, at that moment i wanted to cry. what these people are haunted by every moment...they sit around this table laughing and joking and poking fun at each other, asking me about what im studying and where i live, and then every once in a while the conversation turns serious for two minutes and there is a recognition of why they are there. i just cant imagine. I was also sitting the other day watching a documentary called the Aeropuerto Trelew the quality of which was extremely poor so i asked one of the guys that works there to give me some background info about what happened at Trelew airport to cause a documentary to be made about it. It turns out that in there is a large federal prison in the town of Trelew, a 13ish hour bus ride from Buenos Aires. In the 70's there were many political prisoners there and about 60 or 70 of them planned an escape. unfortunately, it went somewhat awry and only 20 or 30 of them got out of th prison and were taken by their collaborators to the airport at Trelew to get the hell out of argentina. after several hours of the prisoners being trapped in the airport, the army went in and gunned down all but 2 or 3 of them...keep in mind that these were almost all students in their early 20s who had been arrested for "crimes" such as distributing pamphlets, posting signs, leading discussions, and speaking out against the government repression. when the guy from familiares, whose name is Ramón but everyone calls him Mono (monkey) finished telling me the story, he added that one of the victims was a childhood friend with whom he had attended school from kindergarten through high school. and oh yeah, he knew other people that were killed too but wasnt as close with them. later on, monica, the woman who coordinates my visits, was telling me that she wouldnt be in on wednesday because she had a doctors appointment and Mono starts getting on her case about how she goes to the doctor for every little thing...monica starts bickering with him about how he never goes to the doctor and at his age he needs to and mono just goes "you know, its funny, the only time in my life i saw a doctor regularly was in prison." it turns out he was in prison for 10 years from 1974-1984, during which time he never saw his son and his wife was disappeared. monica pulled a book off the shelf goes "oh you should read this its his autobiography." of course. let me just say that there is a big difference between knowing that i work in an environment with activists who were likely to have been imprisoned, and having someone tell you they were in prison for 10 years. Had i not known this fact, i would NEVER have guessed that this had happened. he is one of the most warm, welcoming, kind, calm people i have ever met, always giving me big hugs and willing to explain anything i dont understand.
yesterday i saw four men who could not have been younger than 75 putting up posters near the congreso nacional about poverty in argentina and upcoming protests. people are so empowered here and its such a privilege to witness. there is such a sense of interconnectedness that i think comes from such deep trauma...its so unique and special.
Needless to say, all this has caused me to do a lot of thinking about my own life, and what im doing and studying...im thinking about shifting my humanties focus a little. i took a very long walk the other day through the city and i think what humanities is all about for me is human rights. the reason i am interested in peace and conflict studies really because i want to study how people are affected by the peace and conflict. i am studying humanities because i want to study humans. and i am starting to think more and more that what i need to be doing is studying and working to attain human rights. obviously i am not expecting to leave school, don my cape and fly off into the sunset to save the world, but im telling you, when the words human rights came up in my head i felt like it had been under my nose the whole time and it seemed so obvious that thats what i want to do. what "studying human rights" means, i really dont know. i know its one of those phrases that is so big and overbearing that everyone thinks they know what it means but nobody can define it. i just feel like im in the right place at the right time, and when i walk into familiares i know that thats exactly what i am supposed to be doing right now. i was trying, on my walk, to pinpoint why that place is so touching to me, and i really think its because these people believe with all their hearts that everyone deserves justice and a life worth living. I can only hope that i remain as concerned about the world around me in 50 years as these people are.

To see my photos of Jujuy and Córdoba, click the link below:
Jujuy and Córdoba