Picture Post

[Gary here, at noon EST Wed. I have added description in bold below each picture.]

So Kate's not feeling so hot. Sat the day out when Lisa, Gary, and Ariel went off to an Island, I believe. In the meantime, I am finally getting around to posting more of their pics, and it sounds like you really enjoyed the first one. So here you go... Just a smattering (you'd think Google would make it easy to post pics on Blogger! Sheesh!):

-Not sure... I think the fast group climbed an outcropping left of the trail that I skipped, if this was shot from there it´s looking forward toward the highest point of the trail.-

-At the pass, looking slightly left of the continuing trail.
Note the similarity to Crawford Notch in NH seen from the top of Mt. Willard. But the "hills" defining the valley here are just about twice as high. -

-Ariel and Johan seated just below the high point of the pass. It was very windy right at the top.-

-As mentioned elsewhere, our campsite on the trek´s last night was in a canyon for protection from the high wind. This is the view of the campsite as we approached from the trail. Yes, it was a rather steep climb down. :) -

The promised picture

I believe this is the image Kate was trying to post.  Wow.  I saved it as my desktop image for the remainder of their trip :)  They've been having some trouble posting it so they emailed it to me and asked if I could take care of it.  Wish I could tell you something about the photo, though!  Kate seems to have gone offline without telling me that info!

I'm happy.  I just had a chance to chat with Kate online for a while.  Most of what I now know about their trip I know from reading this blog, though.  Be sure to read Gary and Lisa's comments on my previous entry (titled "Word From Abroad") - they put in some incredible details!  In the meantime, hopefully we'll get to find out more about this photo!

--J

p.s.  I got more pics from Kate - I'll try to post them later tonight.

Multiple Entries at Once

As I sit down to type this Gary has been typing away for nearly a half an hour at another computer across the room. Hopefully I won't repeat what he is already typing. Before descriptions of Machu Picchu, I'll do a few more random updates:
1st: Thank you to all who sent me kind birthday wishes on Thursday. I had an exhilarating birthday and was suprised to receive a yummy cake, topped with chocolate icing, made right in our food tent along the trek! I also received Fluxx, in Spanish, from Jeremy and a wonderful llama, who will become my new classroom mascot from Ariel, Lisa, and Gary.
2nd: For those of you following the 80's song update, here are a few more we've heard along the way. Total Eclipse of the Heart, en Español. My favorite thus far has been "Tarzan Boy," which some people might remember as the Listerine commercial a few years ago. The pan pipes muzak this morning included selections from Les Mis, "Daniel," "Feelings," and "Stop in the Name of Love."

Lares trek: Not knowing what Gary and Lisa are currently posting, I'll try and add a few comments of my own and post a full update after Gary is done.
Our fearless jefe, Cynthia, told us that she had only seen snow once in her life when we met Wednesday night before the trek. Snow sighting two happened on our van trip to the beginning of the trek! Needless to say, I had never before experienced snow on my birthday.
We also met some Londoners as we set out, some of whom are moving to Boston to attend MIT this fall. I gave them my card in case they ever wanted to find some decent pizza in Suffolk county.
Oops... Gary just called to see if we can import some pictures. We've had innumerable obstacles hit us when we tried to do this in the past. Hopefully this time we will have success!
Adios for now!

Word from abroad

Just got off the phone with Kate.  Things are going smoothly having completed their Llama Trek.  From what I heard, camping was good (Easy?  Difficult?  An adventure?  I don't know) - All I know is it involved tents and sleeping bags and camp food.  At such altitudes it was three steps then take a breath; three steps then take a breath.  Tomorrow they head to Machu Picchu and return to Cuzco by bus (am I getting this right?).  I'm a little confused about where they are right now.  I was under the impression that the Llama Trek was TO Machu Picchu, but it sounds like that is not true.  Who knows!  Anyway, that's what I know.

Can't wait to get Kate back on Friday, I know that! But I am happy things are going smoothly and they're having fun.  

Jeremy

Hola from Agua Calientes

Lisa here. We finally made it through the Lares Trek, and what a trek it was. Our team was wonderful -- our fearless leader was Cynthia, her able assistant was Johan, and they were accompanied by four horses, siete llamas (still adorned with earrings and other colorful attire from a celebration honoring animals back on 24 June), a llamero, a caballero, an amazing cook or two that made incredible onionless and garlicless Peruvian dishes (for Gary's allergies) as well as a surprise birthday cake on our first day out to celebrate Kate's birthday (without an oven at that)!

Our first day out began with a trip via a van to the town of Lares. The first hour and a half was on a nice paved road, followed by two more hours on a narrow, winding dirt "road" cut into a cliffside (Kate was not too pleased with this, but was a real trooper). About half way up on the dirt road, the snow started. Cynthia is 27, has been guiding tours like this for 5 or so years, and this is only the second time she saw snow. (She never saw it before on a tour.) I'm not quite sure if the pictures will come out, but it will be something to send to her to remember for a long time. This is the coldest winter that Peru has ever had, and I will get back with more temperature statistics later on.

Before arriving in Lares, we stopped at some other small village to try to find petrol, only to be told to go in different directions by at least four or five different people. We did actually find it and continued on our way to Lares. Once there, we took leave of our van and went up to take advantage of the hot springs (Kate took the time to take photos and write in her diary, while Gary, Ariel and I braved the cold air to bask in the hot springs for a half hour or so.) Once we finished and changed back into our clothes, we went into a grass roofed open air hut to have our first lunch. It started raining (not snowing this time), but by the time we finished eating, the rain stopped. We then walked back down to where we left our van to meet up with our horses and llamas. Equipment was packed onto the animals while we commenced our four hour hike to the first night's base camp. About 20 minutes after departing, our team of llamas and horses trotted up behind us and soon left us in the dust. We arrived at camp at dusk, barely saw (but heard) a waterfall. The tents were already set up and we went into the "dining tent" to have tea, hot cocoa, mate de coca, popcorn and biscuits. After setting down in our respective tents, we went back to the "dining room" for dinner. Needless to say, by that time we were extremely exhausted and went straight to our tents to try to sleep.

(Gary here.) Amazing the things you learn about your spouse on these things. Like, Lisa has never camped in her life. We were like two elephants trying to get the tent arranged. By most standards it was a roomy two-person (even 3 or 4) tent. Lisa treated it like a hotel room: she got in the middle and started distributing stuff everywhere. It took a while to get this process under control. Meanwhile, the temperature was dropping. When we arrived at the site, it was about 40F. By the end of dinner it was down to around 34F. (Temps drop very fast in an open field with no woods to hold warm air... at 11,800 feet!). By the time we finished settling in for the night, it was well below freezing. I suspect it touched 20F by 4:30 when I got up to try out the latrine. Droplets of mist had frozen onto our tent. A spectacular dawn was beginning.

(Lisa is back). The second day was the hardest, albeit the most spectacular. We probably started out around 7:30. For the first 5 or so hours (it should have only been four but because I am so slow and I took so many pictures, it took longer.) It was all uphill to the pass. The footing itself was nowhere near as bad as hiking is in New Hampshire, but because of the thin air, it was difficult to breathe. Along the way, there were spectacular views of snow-capped mountains in the distance (some not so far in the distance), and all kinds of wildlife. We encountered pigs of all sizes and ages, horses, cows, an eagle, other birds indiginous (sp?) to the area, and, most importantly, llamas and alpacas. There were also many dogs along the way, but no cats. There were chickens of all colors, sheep, some goats and --- ? If I think of any more, I will add them to the list.

Once I finally made it to the pass (and almost exhausted my battery in my camera), we rested for a short while and started our descent to our lunch site. (Gary said the pass was 15K feet). I don't know how everyone else felt, but I was glad to have my feet moving in a downward motion. We stopped by a beautiful lake to have lunch, which as was our campsite the night before, ready and waiting for us. Near the lake there were hundreds of sheep with many tiny lambs, some of the smallest I have ever seen. Also along the way, we encountered many young children walking either on their way to or on their way home from school. Most of them asked for some "ducles", but we gave them "lapizes" with the fingerspelled alphabet on them and they seemed quite content with their gift. At some point here, we passed the home of an older woman weaving in her back yard (along with her puppy and unusually colored pig), so of course I had to go down to observe and make a small purchase.

After lunch, we had an additional three or so hour hike down we arrived at a canyon where the campsite was set out for our second night's stay outside. Tea time again, followed by some alone time in our tents, followed by dinner, followed by another frigid night. Ariel and Kate had a reading of 34F INSIDE their tent the next morning. (Anyone thinking of coming to Peru might want to opt to come here during their summer, although their summer is rainier than winter and this was the coldest year they have ever had.)

Now to today. After a cold breakfast (the breakfast was hot, we were cold), we started the final part of the trek, which was partly on dirt hiking paths and partly on a dirt road. Today is Independence Day here and we saw many celebrations in small houses along the way and heard loud music coming from these houses. After two or so hours, we arrived at our final outdoor lunch site, met some lovely children who hung around with us for the hour or so we were there, and said goodbye to our horses, llamas, llameros, caballeros, and cooks. We then went by van to Ollantaytambo where there were incredible Incan ruins of the great Incan city and ---

They are closing the lights at the internet cafe so we will have to continue with this blog mañana. We are off to Macchu Picchu--

Hasta mañana, y con nuestra amor,

Lisa, Kate, Ariel and Gary

Some Rapid Comments

Lisa is off to bed, but sends her love to her family back at home and will sit down to type if Kate ever surrenders the computer. :)
Since we have started classes, Lisa and I have had far less time to compose our thoughts and our blog entries. Tonight will be brief as I have homework waiting for me and must be up early (although, not HMS early) for class tomorrow.
Today's random observations:
--80's song of the day: Journey, Anyway You Want It
Note: Dad, the Queen on pan-pipes was sold out. I guess you'll have to wait for iTunes. ;)
--We, or rather, Lisa has seen only one cat in our entire time in the country.
--Some effects of high altitude that we have experienced: headaches, joint pain, light-headedness, and tingling (as in when your foot falls asleep) in various places on our faces.
--Greatest altitude reached without the help of a plane: roughly 11,000 ft above sea level.
Note: when Kate and Jeremy went skydiving, our plane took us up 10,000 ft.
--Even though it is winter, because of our altitude and the thinness of the ozone layer here, the sun is very powerful. After only a half-hour or so I burnt the part in my hair. Lesson learned; today I wore a hat.

I can't remember if I mentioned, but we met some local Deaf people yesterday. We even videoed some of their signing. The educational opportunities (ha!) for the Deaf outside of Lima are horrible! And if you haven't read about the education available for the regular hearing kids (it's been in the news due to all the protests), it's FAR worse. I keep saying, "more on that later" but we only have so much computer time. If anyone reads a point they'd like us to expand upon, just comment or send an email. I hope that we are able to meet up again with Jack and Judith so that I can ask them their opinions (perhaps on video) of what they have seen here in Peru. They have a Deaf collegue who we saw briefly at the airport, but it appears she is the exception rather than the rule in this country.

Tomorrow is the last day of Spanish lessons and they have been going well, but the loss of two days has made quite an impact. Also I must admit having Ariel here makes a difference as her Spanish is many levels above ours and we will most likely take advantage of her if things get really difficult.

I'm sure there is much more we should be writing about, but I can't think of anything right now so that's all folks!

Two MORE to Peru!!

Ariel and I are here! Cuzco is eye-boggling. The landing pattern into Cuzco reminds me of soaring flights over Lafayette and Mt. Washington... with if anything more aggressive maneuvering.

This is a non-American keyboard, so I am amazed at the length of the blog entries Lisa and Kate have posted with nary a typo. To give you an idea of what one is up against, here is what this blog´s URL looks like if I touch-type:

http<Ñ--twotoperu.blogspot.com-

Ariel is currently napping. She got about 90 minutes of sleep during last night´s flight - I got none. We were too stressed out and frantic. You see, our plane from Boston left its previous location (JFK) an hour late, so we left Boston 75 minutes late, leaving only a 15 minutes Atlanta layover before our connection to Lima was supposed to leave its gate... and our arrival gate was over a half-mile from our departure gate. With full backpacks. As we rolled up to the arrival gate (after 10 minutes of nail-biting taxiing and 2 minutes of excruciating waiting for gate clearance) a cabin crew person got on the P.A. and said passengers connecting to Peru should go to gate so-and-so (even farther away from the boarding pass´s gate!), THEY ARE HOLDING THE PLANE FOR US! We began breathing again. And it turned out there´s an underground train that did about a quarter mile of the distance. Then, the question became would they be kind enough to also hold for our baggage. They did!

Our 4 hour layover in Lima was a picnic by comparison, but though we tried, neither of us got any significant sleep in the lounge area, even though it was reasonably quiet (being 5 am local time).

From there, everything has gone flawlessly. Well, nearly. We had to wait in the Cuzco airport parking area for nearly an hour to find out that the other people who were supposed to be on our flight and be taken to our same hostal, hadn´t been on the flight.

The hostal, the room, the people, and the views are all marvelous. I had three cups of coca-leaf tea while waiting for our room to be prep´d, and now despite being up for 32 hours straight, I cannot nap. But the weather is 60 degrees with a whisper of a breeze, the air is crystal clear and smells of interesting food, and I am quite content to gaze out at the tile roofs below our window, and wait for Lisa and Kate to "get home from school".

Arriving soon at your local Cuzco...

(if you are Lisa and Kate) will be Gary and Ariel.

Ariel expects to arrive at Harvard by noon EDT, whereupon packing and general merriment will ensue. When we're done, it's off to Brighton to park her car, switch to a taxi, and head to Logan. Our first flight is at 1900 EDT to Atlanta; then another to Lima; then another to Cuzco. I got up at 6:30 this morning; we arrive in Lima sometime around 5:30 AM Tuesday; there's a multi-hour layover before continuing to Cuzco; so basically we'll be traveling for a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time. Viva la red-eye.

Observations

Last post I (Kate here) mentioned a few random facts about dogs and other things we had noticed. I´ll add more observations today.
80's music is alive and well in Peru. You haven't heard Queen until you've heard "It's a Kind of Magic" played as muzak with a pan-pipe accompaniment in a grocery store. This morning at breakfast I even got to hear Martika, who will be playing somewhere near here in the next month!
On gods and worship:
When we made our trip to Pachacamac we learned (ok, I learned this in High School) that the Incas worship a sun god. Having spent so many days in the haze and cloud cover that is Lima, I am quite ready to worship the sun each time I walk out of my door in Cuzco.
On earning money:
There are any number of vendors here in Cuzco who will sell you glasses, woven belts, postcards, and plethera of textiles woven, knit, and crochet. There are also many people in native dress who are carrying cute babies, sometimes human, sometimes lambs or goats who will let you pose for a picture if you're willing to pay. There are also many children not yet up to my waist, and that's saying something who will sell you a doll or not, for a bit of change.
Communicating:
During a phone call with Jeremy today he asked how our communication skills were working out. It's a shame that scheduling required us to make our school visits prior to our Spanish classes. I definitely need to sit down and write more in depth about our tours at the schools, which were both in Spanish, but they provide two ends of the spectrum of Spanish communication experiences we have experienced. At CPAL the director of the school was warm, inviting, and spoke to us as fellow educators. Melva (pardon if I have to correct this later, I don´t have her card with me now) had an aura of one who can convey information in a variety of ways. She explained that she only had a bit of English and spoke Spanish the entire time, but was patient and never condescending when we didn't understand and always found a way of conveying what she needed to say. Melva spoke of her month-long stay in the United States and how she felt it reinforced that the ideas expressed by people with limited skills in a particular language, in her case English, should never be the sole indicator of intelligence. Just as with Deaf children in English or Spanish. Or in our case, Spanish. We felt welcome, respected and not at all overwhelmed.
At the second school the experience was quite different. The experience was wonderful, but we left feeling much more overwhelmed. More on this later as my time online is slipping away.
In general our experiences have varied depending on the situation. Here in Cuzco most of the haggling we've done over various wares has been in Spanish. A vendor may pull out a few words of English to try and sway us. When we meet up with a more complex situation while asking for information or help we have used as much Spanish as possible, throwing in a few words of English when we are stuck; the person with whom we are communicating will do the same. At the yarn shop "safety pin" required a picture and then we both exchanged the words to file away for later.
Tomorrow starts our first day of Spanish classes so there will be lots more to say after that. Actually, there's always lots more to say, we just can't get it all down when we sit to write. If you have any questions about what we're doing or have requests for more (or less) information on a particular topic, please let us know.
Also, many thanks to our readers and to those commenting. It's the taste of home we need to keep from feeling too homesick.
Adios for now!

Lisa Can Leave Happy

Kate here:
This entry will be a mix of things that we forgot to write about in previous posts, but I'll start with today for those who have limited time.
As Gary said, Cuzco is beautiful after all the cloud cover and pollution of Lima. Mountains, blue skies, llamas... who could ask for more? Poto, if you're reading this (and I'll fall over if you are) I could see within my first 10 minutes why you loved Cuzco so much.
But let us back track to Lima. We discovered yesterday that our flight was to leave earlier than expected and the first order of business was to find a shop that sold alpaca yarn. After much wandering we found an indoor market that had yarn for sale. 12 skeins of an alpaca, cotton and wool blend for the bargain price of 80 soles. That translates roughly to $25, maybe a little less. Quite a deal, but not alpaca yarn. On the way back we happened across an alpaca boutique with some AMAZING baby alpaca yarn for about $4-5 dollars. For you textile nuts out there, it was more than quite the deal. As we left the store, with the yarn in Lisa's hot little hands she stated, "I can leave happy now!" Not that we're leaving...
Back track to our first attempt to leave Lima, on Thursday. While in the check in line at the airport we saw signing. A little nosing through the crowd made it clear that it was ASL. A few minutes later we were chatting with Jack and Judith L. of Freemont, CA. Those of you back at HMS should ask Buddy and Karen if they know them. As it happens, J&J were on our flight to Cuzco.
Be Careful What You Wish For...
As I finally found a comfy position in my seat on Lan Peru flight 023 to Cuzco I thought, "it would be nice to have a slightly longer flight so thatI can doze off." But the whole flight is an hour, so it was not to be. The snack trolley rolled down the aisle as the in-flight display monitor showed 27 minutes until landing. The little crunchy bread sticks that were given as a snack along side the mini-muffins were quite tasty. Muffins stowed ad water swallowed (yes Jeremy, I've been drinking water) the captain began to announce that there was bad news. Due to bad conditions in Cuzco we would have to turn around and head back to Lima. Or at least that's what I gleaned of the message with my rusty Spanish. Darn weather! Then in English a similar message with one major difference, ¨due to riot conditions." How often do I tell my students that missing one word in a sentence can completely change its meaning?
Some Observations:
Clear Channel appears to own every billboard in Peru.
In Peru Pizza Hut and KFC are always side by side.
In Peru Radio Shack sells luggage locks. Note: at the Lima airport Lisa's locks, although TSA approved, were taken from her luggage along with one of my caribeeners (sp?).
If you don´t want to wait in a check-in line at the airport, just ask for help and you get to jump to the front of the line!
If a dog is on a leash (ie, has an owner vs a person it just hangs out with), it will be wearing a doggie coat.
Lisa here: Back to Cusco. The fact that as we were driving over here from the airport we saw multiple llamas and alpacas along the way has me ecstatic. Ever since I met and fell in love with my first alpaca, Carlotta, at an alpaca farm in Hartland Vt one sunny February day in 2004 when the temperature was about 10 below 0, I have looked forward to the day when I could see them in the wild. When I was in Ecuador a couple of years ago, I saw some, but nothing like here. Now my goal is to wander the city photographing all the alpacas and llamas I can find. After that it will be on to vicuñas, and that will be a real treat since there are no vicuñas in the states. If anyone wants a history of the camelid family, maybe my husband can find one of the sites on line with a good synopsis of their evolution.

I think we´re going to sign off now. Hasta luego amigos.

Cuzco at last!

[Transcript of phone call I just received from Lisa.]

"Gary, this is gorgeous. There was nothing like this in Ecuador. The mountains, the streets... llamas and alpacas wandering everywhere. Sunshine after 5 days of clouds. I'll call ya later, we're going out!"

safe in cuzco

got a message from kate that they have arrived safely. That's all for now.

J

Pachacamac

Lisa the ex-history teacher reporting here. As Kate mentioned earlier, we decided to head outside of Lima today and went on a tour of Pachacamac. We went with a tour group of about 8 other people that was lead by a wonderful tour guide Juan Carlos from Lima Vision. Pachacamac is an Incan and pre-Incan temple site. Pachacamac was the creator god of 3 or 4 pre-Incan civilizations and the site existed for 1000 years prior toarrival of the Incas .

The first place we saw was the place where offerings were made before being allowed to ascend to the temple of Pachacamac. We went up the road a bit and found out the reason the original settlement was situated there; in the midst of the desert, there was a green fertile area which allowed people to inhabit such an area. From that site the Pacific was in clear view and close proximity. The next stop was to the first and second temples. The first basically looked like a mound of sand, somewhat amorpheously shaped. (The temples in the area were not pyramids, but rather had flat roofs. It was on these roofs that the sacrifices were made.) That was the oldest temple. In later years, still before the Incas arrived, a newer temple was built that clearly had much more definition. Finally, a bit further up the road, we arrived at the most majestic Incan temple, built atop a hill with clear views out to the ocean, to the east, and the north and south.

While at the Incan temple, we learned all the juicy details of the workings of the temple. The Incas had sacrifices, but they were not of animals. Young virgins, identified at birth, were raised to be sacrificial ¨lambs¨. This was a very priviledged position to be in and they were raised in very high standards. The final place we visited on the site was a recreation of the ¨house¨the virgins lived with with all women servants at their beck and call (no men allowed for obvious reasons.) The actual sacrifices were not regular events but only occured in times of disasters (earthquake, volcanic eruption, el Niño), when the Incas thought they needed to give something to the gods to restore order The sacrifices themselves were done in two ways which I will not detail here, but although one was considered more humane than the other, both sounded fairly horrible to me. Once the sacrifice was complete, their bodies were thrown into a burial pit below the sacrifical slab. To date, 11 bodies have been found at the site.

Another interesting tidbit about the place concerns Hernando Pizarro, ¨honorable¨ brother of of the more infamous Francisco. While Francisco was up north doing his deeds, he sent his brother down to investigate the temple of the god Pachacamac. We saw where Hernando walked up to make his initial offerings in order to be let into the temple in general. His offerings were accepted however he was not allowed access into the temple to set eyes on Pachacamac. He was not a happy camper about this and tried to figure out how to gain access to the palace of the god. (If the god was an actual person, his plan was to ¨kidnap¨him ala the taking of Atahualpa in Cusco. If the god was a statue made of gold, you can imagine what his plan would have been.) Anyway, he finally used forced to enter the temple and was quite disappointed to find Pachacama to be a 230 cm high, carved wooden totem with a diameter of about 12 cm. As a show of his disappointment, he proceeded to burn the original god as well as almost all copies made of it. There are only two of the copies left today and they are both in a museum in Lima.

As for the god itself, it had a dual nature. On one side it was a happy god, a god of fertility. On the other, it was a more fierce sort, complete with a jaguar to beware of. All of this is shown pictorally on the totem.

While there was a lot more, this is the gist of the story. It was truly fascinating and our guide was incredible knowledgeable, articulate (in English y en Español), and personable. As soon as we are able to get to either a computer where we can upload the pictures or a place where we can make a photo disc, we will start boring you with our pictures.

Time for bed-- hasta manaña.

Of Spaghetti and San Antonio

Kate here. Last night I stated that those reading the blog should really take time to read the comments. To eat up more of your time, I should also say that it's worthwhile to go back and see new comments added. Apparently some of our more faithful readers (read all the puns you want into that) have really latched onto the conversation we had with Claire regarding the teaching of evolution. What has evolution to do with spaghetti? Read through some of the comments and you too can be in on this discussion! Besides, what else is there to read during the final hours before HP #7 arrives on the shelves?
San Antonio now... not the city, but our lovely hotel. They've managed to arrange for us to stay in our room another night! THANK GOODNESS! It's really starting to feel like a home base for us. High recommendations to anyone traveling to Lima. The neighborhood is safe and easily walkable. The rooms clean and comfortable. The staff incredibly helpful. What more can we say?
Today we're off for a day trip to see some ruins, or maybe mummies, or perhaps both. But it's time to escape the city for a while. Our attempt to leave by plane yesterday thwarted, we will stick to more conventional means (bus) today and see where that gets us.
I just occurred to me that perhaps when we arrive in Cuzco we will have similar problems in being unable to post pictures. If that's the case we may go to one of the multiple photo shops I've seen and get a few put on disk. No promises, though.

Our Aborted Trip to Cusco and ...

Well, you have heard from Jeremy, Gary and Kate about our day, I guess it is my turn now. By now you are all aware of the teacher strike causing the airport to shut down in Cusco, and our return to our first Peruvian home at the Hotel San Antonio Abad, which we cannot say more good things about. We contacted LanPeru, the airline, and got the first available flight out, which is on Saturday at 3:oo. Everybody expects everything to be pretty much back to normal by tomorrow, but all of tomorrow´s flights were booked even before today´s incident. Kate and I decided to treat ourselves to one of the finer restaurants in the area which is situated overlooking a pre-Incan pyramidal temple. The ruins were very impressive and even at night I think I succeeded in getting a few good shots of the ruins. We finally tasted the ¨national drink¨, a Pisco Sour, which is quite good. We both greatly enjoyed different versions of sea bass, mine with quinoa, yucca and asparagus and hers with cilantro risotto. I can´t remember what the desert was called, however it was a sort of a cylindrical wafer with a cream based filling, surrounded by strawberries and possible lychee nuts with drizzled chocolate. Either the wafer of the filling had something to do with quinoa. It was all quite satisfying.

Since we will still be in Lima tomorrow, we plan to visit a pre-Incan archeological complex 31km SE of the city. We might also go to another Incan site where about 2000 well-preserved mummies were found a few years back. Part of this site has a reconstruction of the chief´s house complete with one room that has been identified as a guinea pig ranch. I feel I owe it to my guinea pigs at home to pay homage to this ancient site.(I also refrained from eating the guinea pig special that was on the menu this evening.)
Well, we´re both tired and will add more tomorrow.
Note from Kate: I put this link in the comments, but not all of you read them (you should) and I can easily make it a hyperlink here, even in my tired state. This link= an article on the strike/riots . That's all for now, g'night!

Riots and Refuge

Hi all - this is Jeremy.  Just a quick post on behalf of our Ladies in Lima.  And yes, they are still in Lima.  

You may recall the news of riots in Peru airports [BBC News] from a couple days ago.  Well, the riots have spread to other airports including Cuzco (though the news has not yet made it back to the US, it seems.  Wow, I got the scoop!).  Don't worry, Kate and Lisa are safe, albeit back in Lima.

Anyway, 15 minutes from landing in Cuzco, riots broke out in the Cuzco airport and the plane was sent back to Lima.  Kate and Lisa will be spending the night back in the hotel at which they spent last night.  They made friends with a Deaf couple from...  details are fuzzy...  California, I think?  Anyway, they will be calling family and posting shortly, but they asked me to post in the meantime.  If I hear more I will post, but in the meantime, don't worry - they're safe!

Jeremy

OK, well, my flight tracker never reported the flight landing at Cuzco... because it didn't. It got close, but had to return to Lima because some protests in Cuzco caused the airport there to be closed. (Hilariously, it still says the flight is "On Time".)

Our intrepid ladies have been given free tickets to try again when the airport re-opens, and have gotten rooms at the same Lima hotel as yesterday.

In the airport, they saw some people signing, struck up a conversation, and discovered that they work with Robin and Greg (Horace Mann alumni who moved to CA a decade or so ago).

They'll be on their way back to the hotel shortly.

According to my flight tracker...

... Kate and Lisa's flight on LanPeru is on time and should be arriving at Cuzco right about now.

We're Here!!

There is so much to write... where to begin.
We arrived a little late at about 1 am EST, as Jeremy posted in the comments earlier. (Please note that Jeremy and Gary will be posting in the comments or in the actual blog when we can't make it to a computer.) There was a driver from our hotel waiting to pick us up, thank goodness. We shared the car back to the hotel with a woman named Claire, from Belgium. She and Lisa chatted a good deal about Peru and travel in general. We came to learn that Claire just finished her thesis in "Osteopathie" and she was curious about Americans' attitudes toward science. Specifically, Claire was curious if it was true that in America a law was passed that prohibited the teaching of evolution. More on this later, but it is amazing the reputation we have abroad. Feel free to add your opinions on this subject in the comments area. I'd love to leave a message for Claire as she may be heading back to this hotel when she's finished with her 3 week mountain trek.
Today we were able to visit not one, but two schools. Again, I won't get into details just yet (Kate typing now, by the way. We'll save that for when I have the camera and can upload pictures.) but we learned a lot about the educational system in Peru and just how much the teachers have to fight and fund-raise for their students. It was quite a shock to see such homogenous classes. For those of you who work at HMS, take Marvin T. and Kelyn C and imagine an entire classroom of such cuties. In one classroom I was mobbed by students who were trying to pull of my glasses! Why? They couldn't believe that blue/green eyes could be natural! But it was when a student asked my age that we both felt as though we had truly visited a school for the Deaf. ;)
Alright, I'm off for now to try and navigate the spanish version of blogger to see if we can enable Jeremy and Gary to post for us when we're out of touch. Hopefully later this evening there will be pictures for you all.

And We're Off!

Just a quick post to say that we're off to Peru! Of course it will be more than 12 hours from now before we get there, but this morning starts our journey. We will post as often as possible along the trip and USB connections willing, we'll have lots of pictures for you to see.
See you all soon!
Kate and Lisa

The Countdown Begins...

Four days until we leave...
After long and laborious hours of work Lisa (with the help of South American Explorers) was able to make contact with CPAL and we'll get to make a school visit on July 18th! Unfortunately the students will be on their winter break at that time. At least we will be able to set up further contacts based on this visit.
More soon!

A Growing List of Thanks...

Frequently during this process I have thought that there are many people to whom we owe thanks as we prepare to leave on our trip. Each time I sit down I realize that similar to the laundry list stars bring to the Academy Awards, no matter how many people we thank, we'll inevitably we'll leave off someone and begin that awful awkwardness that happens when you offend a friend or agent.
My solution is that this post will be a growing list of thanks. Each time Lisa or I have a spare moment and are thinking of someone to thank, we'll modify this post. Keep looking back to see who's been added to the list. This also means we will be adding people we meet along the trip, as I'm sure we'll find plenty of amazing people along our journey who will earn our friendship and thanks.
Thank you list:
*Our families, particularly Gary, Ariel, and Jeremy
*Fund for Teachers, for the funds that made this trip possible
Alice, for the ASL story dvds
Charlotte, for the HMS dvds and for seeing if her dad has any Peru contacts
Claudia, for the business cards
Jerry, our principal, for signing off on the grant
Rebeca, for translation help
Tom, for the ASL dictionaries (the check is in the mail!)

Note: If you'd like to make a case for why you should be included on the list, feel free to leave a comment!

The Saga of Booking the Llama Trek

We finally wired the money for our Llama Trek! Part of the adventure in independently planning our trip is learning how to do new things. While we found the Llama Trek fairly easily via a link on the South American Explorers website, sending in the deposit was anything but easy. As I encountered a few years ago when I visited my daughter in Ecuador and tried to book passage to the Galapagos, not everyone accepts credit cards. At first, I called my bank to ask them about wiring money; they said it costs $35. I then asked my husband; he said our other account wires money for free. The third option, Western Union, was the most convenient so I decided to start there. At $85, I thought again about going to our "free bank." I drove over there today only to be informed they could only wire money to an American bank. No problem, the "other bank" was just next door. I walked over, asked about wiring money and was told it was no problem -- usually. However, the computers were down and they could do nothing until they came up again. Okay, I could be patient, especially when I went to kill time at LL Bean (they were having a sale!) Two shirts, a pair of capris and a bathing suit later, I was on my way back to the bank. This time, the system was up, the money was sent and now all we have to look forward to is coming up with the money to pay for the final 20% of the trek. After this, three days of hiking on the Inca Trail will be nothing!

ITIC

For those traveling on Fund for Teachers grants, you might want to invest in an International Teacher Identity Card (ITIC, for short). Similar to the International Student Identity Card (ISIC), this ID affords discounts worldwide and is recognized internationally as a valid form of teacher/student identification. I had one when I lived and worked in London 11 years ago and it was worth the $26 investment.
Click the ISIC link for more information...

A quick post of dates

It was recently brought to my attention that we have yet to post our dates of travel. For our absolute nearest and dearest we will provide the link to our Google calendar (shameless plug from Kate: I love that the gmail calendar can accept text messages from your phone and add events to your calendar using regular, plain ol' English!) so that they can have our flight info, etc. For the rest of our readers, here's a basic itinerary:
July 17th: we fly to Peru
July 20th - 25th: Spanish classes
July 23rd: Lisa's familia arrives
July 26th - 29th: Llama trek
July 30th: Puno/Machu Picchu
Aug 2nd: Kate back to Lima
Aug 3rd: Kate back to the states
Aug 7th: Lisa et familia return to the states
We will try to post while we're in Lima, Cuzco, and Puno but we definitely won't be able to post along the llama trek.
For our friends and family who say, "this is pretty vague," you're right. This is pretty vague because the blog is open to anyone who chooses to browse through Blogger.com. Before we leave we'll send a mass email to our friends and co-workers with some more details.