It's funny nowadays to start your travel by taking off your shoes. The recent phenomenon of being in an airport, one of the most public places one can imagine, with people of all backgrounds, cultures, nationalities and professions, taking off their shoes together to make the five foot journey to the other side of the metal detector. Like some kind of reverent religious ritual, no one needs to be asked, everyone standing in their bare feet or socks as they await being labeled safe and secure to fly with others. Like a small, instant, transient community, you stand with your fellow travelers awaiting the mechanical scrutiny of a machine, vulnerable in a way we rarely are in public, knowing your ability to leave the area is determined by the time it takes for the plastic bin with your shoes, your more literal ticket, comes out the mouth of the x-ray examination.
Hello!
As you may or may not know, I have chosen to accept the position of long-term volunteer at the Corrymeela Community, a peace and reconciliation center located about an hour and a half northwest of Belfast, Northern Ireland. I first visited Corrymeela as a junior in college during my semester abroad in Ireland, enrolled in the School for International Training's Peace and Conflict Studies program. While my first visit was bracketed by bouts of pinkeye and bed bugs (ew! disgusting yet hilarious story), it was still one of the highlights of a wonderful semester. After graduating in May 2009 and being rejected from several fellowships to go abroad, I spent a year living at home and working as an assistant teacher at the Clear View School, where my mom works as a therapist. The school provides day treatment for severely emotionally disturbed/mentally ill kids residing throughout the southern half of New York State. Working at Clear View was a great experience--I was fortunate to work with extraordinarily compassionate, capable and insightful people and learned a tremendous amount not only about mental illness, therapeutic support and compassionate care, but also about myself, working as part of a cohesive team and effective listening. In any case, the urge to go abroad again was too tempting and I decided to apply to volunteer at Corrymeela only a week or two before the deadline for long term volunteer applications. I spent the summer back as a counselor at Buck's Rock Camp, working in the office and as a guidance counselor with the CITs, notified Clear View of my resignation in July, bought a one-way ticket to Belfast for $350 and hit the road!
My last week at home was fairly hectic as we prepare to sell our house. For at least the third time in a few years, I sorted, organized and donated much of the contents of my room. While parting from my family and the few friends I have in the New York area was hard, leaving the house was maybe the most emotional aspect of leaving, as I know it will be the last time I would spend in the house we have lived in for thirteen years. It's pretty impressive the way that we can form such strong attachments to what is essentially comprised of some walls, floors and paint. The truth is that I do really love that house, not least because my family has been in it for longer than any other place of residence. I was tearful as I walked through it for the last time, incredulous that it would not be here for me upon my return. By the same token, however, moving out is definitely the right decision and it will be good to let go of the obligations involved in caring for a house that size.
It is partly for this reason that packing what I was taking to Ireland became such a painstaking process, as well as the difficulty I had in narrowing down what I was taking, resulting in a gross over packing. Note to self: Three suitcases and an overstuffed backpack is NOT an acceptable amount of stuff for one person to take across the Atlantic. Just saying. The flight was uneventful and I even hung out in the airport in Newark with a friend from camp who lives at camp year round but was on her way home to Edinburgh for a visit and was flying out from the same terminal only an hour after me! Best $8 glass of wine I've ever had--thanks for the good times, Bev! I slept for about an hour or two on the plane, watched some TV and was the first one off the plane thanks to my exit row seat (assigned to me mere minutes before I boarded).
In any case, once I arrived in Belfast I phoned the host family I was staying with for the weekend, took a bus into the city center and was met by Judith, a warm and lovely woman living just outside East Belfast with her husband, Johnston. The Morrows have three daughters, the middle daughter having been a long term volunteer three years ago and the youngest of which is my age but was on vacation in Spain. They live on and operate a dairy farm, large for Northern Ireland with about 250 heads of cattle. They also have many other farm animals and run an open farm for people, especially families with kids, to visit a farm, see how it’s run, see cows being milked, pet a goat, hold a chick, etc., etc. The other lovely surprise of the weekend was a group of ADORABLE puppies—a yellow lab and two black labs—only 8 weeks old and for sale. One of the dogs was particularly teeny and we became fast friends...I ended up carrying him in my sweatshirt half the weekend! So cute! I managed to get through the day with only a two hour nap, went to sleep at 11ish and slept for FIFTEEN (15) HOURS, awakening the next day at 2PM! Oy! That night there was a barbeque at the house for local members of the Corrymeela Community at which I met two of the other volunteers: Kat from England and Roland from the Philippines. The community members were absolutely lovely, so welcoming, trying so hard to pronounce my name correctly! Unfortunately, my body compensated for the 15 hours of sleep by refusing to fall asleep AT ALL for the entire night! Needless to say, I got out of bed fairly groggy but surprisingly energetic, all things considered. Because I was up early, I went around with Judith while she fed all the animals—very fun. They have a whole bunch of chickens and guinea hens, rabbits, chicks, a “wee mouse house” as they say, three pigs, including one nursing twelve piglets, sheep, goats (that make sounds like people impersonating goats), calves, guinea pigs, geese...very picturesque, especially with the beautiful rolling hills in the background! I got my stuff together and around 2:00 was picked up by host family for the rest of the year which consists of a 29-year-old gay man who loves theater and cooking and is awesome! Full of energy, had just come back from a vacation in Santorini, Greece and was just full of life. He took me to the center via a scenic route that added about an hour to the journey but was absolutely breathtaking, right along the northern coast and over the most stereotypically Irish green rolling hills you can imagine.
Since I arrived at the center last Sunday (I can’t believe it’s been less than a week here!) the routine has been a lot of training sessions...I will elaborate more in the next post about my job, the other volunteers and people I work with, how I celebrated Rosh Hashanah and what is in store for this new year. In the meantime, I hope you all are well, know that I miss you and plan on sharing as often as I can to keep you all abreast of my whereabouts and goings on.
xox, Yael (your favorite daughter/sister/miscellaneous relative/friend)
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Her Name Was Lola...
So there we were, Copacabana, Bolivia, where we promptly realized that the town had no ATM and we had about $40 left from Ecuador and maybe 30 sols left from Peru. fortunately, the fact that copacabana is on the border meant that most businesses accepted dollars and sols, or at least had booths at which you could change your money. fortuately $40 takes you a looooong way in Bolivia, although it meant that we had to break into the reserve stash...oh well. we checked into a hostel, had dinner and went to bed fairly early.
The next day we got up at like 7 maybe and headed down to the docks, where we took the slowest-moving ferry i have ever witnessed in my life. our destination was the Isla del Sol, an island in the middle of the lake that was a holy place for the Tiahuanacos, the predecessors to the Incas. the boat took about an hour and a half and we then took a tour of the north side of the island. We saw all these rock tables on which they used to sacrifice goats, and this other giant rock from which they believed the first two gods arose in order to create the world. It was cool--they have a big celebration on the island every year on the summer solstice, and they all sit around this table next to the creation rock upon which the first rays of sunlight hit on the day of the solstice. As in Peru as a result of the incan and pre-incan culture, the condor and the puma hold very special significance, along with the sun and light. as the tour guide took us around the island he made sure to point out all the "pumas" and "condors" you could see in the rocks, which lets be honest were a bit of a stretch but hey, its all in the eye of the beholder i guess. It was funny because the guide didnt speak any english and asked in the beginning if someone could translate for him. at first this french woman was like i can translate but she would translate to french and her friends would help her with the english...to make a long story short i ended up translating the whole time. it was especially funny because there were a whole bunch of israelis on the boat and had been talking to them in hebrew and then when i started speaking spanish they were all like "who are you and how many languages do you speak exactly?" anywho, after the tour everyone either took the boat to the south side or hiked across the island, which is what lucy and i did. what a beautiful place...you could really get a sense of the shape of the whole island by walking across it like that. the water was this brilliant blue that was completely transparent for the first maybe 12 feet from the shore and you could look out on the lake, which really looked like the ocean with no land in sight. there was a forest of eucalyptus which smelled absolutely amazing...we took our time and ended up booking it the last leg to avoid being stuck there, but the walk was really lovely.
we took it easy that night (and ended up discovering a new ATM!) and headed for La Paz the next day.
The next day we got up at like 7 maybe and headed down to the docks, where we took the slowest-moving ferry i have ever witnessed in my life. our destination was the Isla del Sol, an island in the middle of the lake that was a holy place for the Tiahuanacos, the predecessors to the Incas. the boat took about an hour and a half and we then took a tour of the north side of the island. We saw all these rock tables on which they used to sacrifice goats, and this other giant rock from which they believed the first two gods arose in order to create the world. It was cool--they have a big celebration on the island every year on the summer solstice, and they all sit around this table next to the creation rock upon which the first rays of sunlight hit on the day of the solstice. As in Peru as a result of the incan and pre-incan culture, the condor and the puma hold very special significance, along with the sun and light. as the tour guide took us around the island he made sure to point out all the "pumas" and "condors" you could see in the rocks, which lets be honest were a bit of a stretch but hey, its all in the eye of the beholder i guess. It was funny because the guide didnt speak any english and asked in the beginning if someone could translate for him. at first this french woman was like i can translate but she would translate to french and her friends would help her with the english...to make a long story short i ended up translating the whole time. it was especially funny because there were a whole bunch of israelis on the boat and had been talking to them in hebrew and then when i started speaking spanish they were all like "who are you and how many languages do you speak exactly?" anywho, after the tour everyone either took the boat to the south side or hiked across the island, which is what lucy and i did. what a beautiful place...you could really get a sense of the shape of the whole island by walking across it like that. the water was this brilliant blue that was completely transparent for the first maybe 12 feet from the shore and you could look out on the lake, which really looked like the ocean with no land in sight. there was a forest of eucalyptus which smelled absolutely amazing...we took our time and ended up booking it the last leg to avoid being stuck there, but the walk was really lovely.
we took it easy that night (and ended up discovering a new ATM!) and headed for La Paz the next day.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Unusual Islands
After the Inca Trail, Lucy and I spent about two days recovering, i.e.avoiding stairs at all cost. My legs were more sore than I could possibly describe, but it was so nice to be indoors and dry and not smelling like b.o! After a day or two in Cusco, Lucy and I took a bus to a town called Puno, on the Peruvian shore of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world at about 3,800 meters (12,600 feet). We got to the bus station on time, super paranoid about getting robbed after our charming escapade in Ecuador, and waited for the bus to come. Sitting next to me was this woman with a baby on her back wrapped in a manta (the Peruvian/Bolivian/Ecuadorian version of the Mexican serape, the large woven fabrics). She looked about 26 maybe, her baby was probably a year old, and she just sat next to me and started crying, silently, but with the tears streaming down her face. After a few minutes I felt really badly for her and asked what was wrong...it turns out she had missed her bus and didn't have money to buy another ticket, and the bus company wouldn't let her just take a later bus. After a thirty second conference with my business partner (Lucy), we decided we needed to get her a ticket, so we went to the window and hooked her up and got on the bus to Puno. It's crazy that for 25 sols (about $8) you can help someone out so much...it's not that she was thanking us profusely or anything; honestly I think she really just didn't know what to say because she was surprised and relieved, but I just can't imagine being with a baby in a bus station when you have somewhere to get to and no way of getting there. As you can see from the map above, Puno is just southeast of Cusco and right across the lake from Bolivia.The bus ride was totally gorgeous--mountains, pastures with grazing cows and sheep, and farmed squares of land that made the landscape look like a patchwork quilt. While most of the ride was sunny and beautiful, we got to Puno in the pouring rain and took a taxi to a hostel in the guidebook. It was literally a house with two or three rooms for guests, but there were only two other people staying there at the time, one of which was a guy from New Rochelle whom we had met in the hostel the first night we were in Cusco...so weird. Not only had he gone to college with a close friend of mine, he had also gone to high school with a family friend I've known my whole life. Traveling makes the world soooooosososososososo small.
The next day we took a bicycle rickshaw to the docks at the lake to take a boat to the Islas Flotantes de los Uros (Floating Islands of the Uros). All I can say about the rickshaw is: wow. So fun/scary/life threatening. yay! We go to the ticket booth to buy boat tickets for 10 sols (about $3) and we turn to get on the boat and see that it is already leaving the docks! The guy on the boat holds out a stick which the dock worker next to me grabbed onto to pull the boat back just far enough for Lucy and I to jump over the two-foot gap between the dock and the departing boat. But we made it! The boat looked older than me, smelling of the leaking gas, its weathered floorboards separated from each other so you could see the boat's motor through the slats. Before we got to the islands, I didn't really know what I was in for. When we had asked around in Cusco, people had seemed underwhelmed and had advised us to maybe choose between the floating islands and the Isla del Sol on the Bolivian side of the lake, but we had time and had decided to do both.
The Floating Islands are a group of 10-20 islands in the lake inhabited by an indigenous Aymara tribe called the Uros. Several centuries ago the Uros lived in what is now Southern Bolivia, the region of the salt flats. When the Incan Empire arose, (Incans were descended from the Tiahuanacos), they expelled the Aymaras from the salt flats. Seeking a place from which they could not be driven, the Uros came north to Lake Titicaca, where they literally constructed islands out of the reeds that grew in the lake, hence floating islands. The islands are three meters thick and are rooted to their spots by about 10-13 stakes that are driven into the bed of the lake. Each island has anywhere from 30-100 inhabitants as well as its own unique culture. Electricity was introduced to the islands in the 1990's and the primary income of the islands is fishing, still performed in traditional boats made from the reeds with traditional fishing nets. The islands are constructed from the top down, so as the lower reeds rot they are replenished with new ones. All structures on the islands are made from the reeds, from boats to houses, although now additional building materials such as plastic and tin for roofs are brought from the mainland.
These islands are just as amazing as they sound; we couldn't believe that people had told us they were just so-so. At the island we went to there were people selling beautiful crafts from the reeds, such as mobiles and hangings, as well as weavings and fabrics. On the second island we went to, at which we arrived by a traditional boat, they had created a sunken part in the middle of the island to have a pond for trout. For 6 sols, Lucy and I got a plate with fresh trout, rice and vegetables...mmmm.
After almost missing our bus, we boarded in the afternoon to cross the border into Bolivia. The process was pretty stressful, as the laws were changed a month ago making it so that US passports required a $100 visa and a whole bunch of documents that didn't end up mattering at all...what sucked the most was that I had brought my israeli passport expressly for this purpose, but it had been stolen. Cool.
But c'est la vie, and $100 later we were in Bolivia!
To see photos from both the Floating Islands and Bolivia, click on the link below:
Islands That Float, Islands of Sun
Sunday, December 16, 2007
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
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.
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.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
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.....
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.....
Monday, December 3, 2007
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!
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!
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