Saturday, July 30, 2005

Choquequirao

Or "Cradle of Gold" as the translation goes. This apparently is unlikely to be its original name but is one given to it locally and used for time immemorial. Once it gets on a map that's it.

What is she blethering on about I hear you asking yourselves. Ah yes, I've just come back from a 5 day trek to an Inca site called Choquequirao. Like Machu Picchu it is built on a ridge with spectacular views on both sides of the site. It has fewer uncovered high status buildings but is likely to have been a royal site (archaelogists have different theories) and may have been a country estate. It has vast quantities of unbeliveably steep terraces, more of which are still being uncovered and it will be some years before the entire extent of the site is known/revealed to the eye.

The other major difference to Machu Picchu is that the only way in and out is on foot or if you're feeling terribly lazy on horse/mule back (although even then you have to walk some of it because it is very steep and rocky). This means that the site is quiet, when we were there, on average we could see about 10 other people on the whole site versus the several hundred a day at Machu Picchu.

The trek itself is part of the whole experience, we walked a loop, 2 days to get to the site, a day at the ruins and 2 days to walk out. It's tough and there's lots of straight up and down and very narrow paths with extremely sheer drops, but it's an incredibly rewarding trek. The Apurimac valley is spectacular with jagged, snow capped mountains fringing it and a great green river thundering through it. The valleys that open off it are a little gentler with farms dotted about and a subsistence way of farming that was last used in England before the second world war. Horses, mules and feet are the methods of transport through the valleys. Oxen are used to plough, or on very steep slopes, manul ploughing. The local people speak Quechua first and Spanish second (or not at all). People are polite, welcoming and shy. When trek passes trek, every member says "Buenas Dias" to every member of the other trek, so a little chain of acknowledgement ripples through the lines.

I wondered a week or so ago if after this trip I would want to come back to Peru, would I have "done it all". After this trek I know I will come back, there are so many amazing places in the Andes and by walking you see them slowly and you get a little taste of a way of life and a strong culture that is different to ours.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

School's out for summer

Well I've officially had my last day of school. After four weeks I know what I don't know and that's a lot! It's been really good fun, hard work and frustrating at times but I can now talk to people, albeit slowly. I have a lot of grammar in my head but it is hardly intuitive yet, which leads to a lot of thinking and self editing when I speak. The number of words I know has gone up exponentially though and sometimes when a new word is described to me in Spanish I can understand what it's meaning is (sign language helps as well). I wish I understood the grammatical structure of English better as it would make understanding grammar in a new language easier! There are 3 forms of past (that I know in Spanish) and I think they all have English equivalents that I use without thinking about it!

I guess one measure of progress is that previously when I've been in South America I have carried my phrase book at all times. Over the last few weeks I haven't bothered to carry it at all and I've donated it to the South American Explorers Club, so it can find a useful home with someone else. I have however now got a medium size dictionary which was essential for class and which I will be carting with me over South America.

What I need to continue to do is talk Spanish a lot and I am a bit concerned that I won't as the international travellers language is English. But I really appreciate the effort that all those who speak other languages have put into learning them.

Now off to walk up some steep hills for 5 days to an Inca site called Choquequirao - pictures and itinerary are on the Chaska Tours site.

Thursday, July 21, 2005


Last Saturday it was the fiesta of the Virgin del Carmen in a couple of places near here. Lisa and I (a fellow student) caught the bus over to Pisac and spent the afternoon having lunch and watching the procession of dancers and bands. Inadvertently we sat in a great place to see as all the dancers came round the square in front of us.

It was an amazing sight, over twenty groups of different dancers with specific costumes and different dances. All apparently from the same small town and surrounding area. I can't think of anything similar in the UK. It was a riot of colour and sound and only one of three days! We also experienced the Peruvian attitude to health and safety (there isn't really one). At various points arrangements of fire crackers were let off, mainly to make a noise I think. We were far to close to one early on, along with a load of locals. Unfortunately there wasn't really anywhere to run away too as the crowd was too big but we copied others and turned our backs to the explosion, shut our eyes and put our fingers in our ears! We learnt our lesson and stayed well away from the others that we saw!















Some pictures finally - a local market and the Plaza de Armas in Cusco

Monday, July 18, 2005

Niños de calle

Or street children in English.

Yesterday I was having a little contemplative sit in the sun in one of the very lovely squares that exist in Cusco. Inevitably that means that a slow trickle of people will approach you to sell something. It's quite a gentle sales technique, you say "No, gracias" and on the whole they leave you alone. The children tend to be more hard core and ask why you don't want to buy, the other day a girl selling finger puppets said "Why not" and I said "Because I'm too big". A minute later she was back "But you could buy one as a present!"

However, yesterday was Sunday morning and lots of the tourists were off visiting the local markets in outlying villages, so it's a slow sales time. A boy approached me and asked if I wanted postcards, I said no and he didn't ask why not. He sat down and asked me where I was from (this is also quite common with people who want to practise their English doing the same), so I told him England and he then checked a load of English facts with me - capital city is London, prime minister is Tony Blair - is he a good prime minister - currency is pounds. Did I live in London, no I live in Southampton next to the sea. He thought that the sea must be really nice, a good place for thinking, I think he was around 12 or 13.

So I asked him where he lives. He lives in an institution for street children, he goes to school there and has to pay something towards it and buy his own clothes and shoes. His mother lives in a pueblo (village or small town) in the countryside but can't afford to feed the family so he came to the city (this is a reasonably common story for street children). He is going to school for another year or so and one day he would like to go to university, it is possible to go to public university part time and work to pay your way. He asked me if I believed in God and I said no and he said that he did but sometimes he found it hard to understand the reasons for things.

He wasn't self pitying but he knows he has a tough life and that in other countries it would be different. So I bought some postcards because I wanted to give him money but it was better all round that it was a commercial transaction. Then he asked if he could ask a question. Of course I said yes. He wondered if I had some old shoes that I didn't need, his feet were visible through the sides of his shoes. Unfortunately I don't as I only have sandals and walking boots with me, but I wish I had. So we said goodbye and I wished him luck and off we went to our very different lives.

50% of this country lives in poverty (UN definition less than $1 a day to live on per person) and the longer I am here the more I recognise that the only real difference between people in developing countries and the wealthy nations is an accident of birth.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Parties in Peru

Last weekend I was lucky enough to go to two parties. On Friday it was Eduardo's (the father of my family) cumpleaños - birthday to you and me. The house is an "interesting" design and the integral garage converts into a good party space with easy access into the kitchen and sitting room (all the internal walls are glass!). So the car was taken out and chairs were put all round the room. Some slight differences to parties at home....

- the only drink anyone brought was rum, the choice was rum and coke (cuba libre) or coke on its own, good thing that I like rum and coke then

- you need a good party coat in Cusco as you're likely to be wearing it all evening. The houses are not really built for insulation despite the fact that it's often freezing at night and in this case the garage door doesn't fit that well

- all the men sat together and all the women sat together, men only asked their own wives to dance

- and the most surprising thing for me! When food was served at midnight, the women all went up first, filled up their plates and took them to their husbands. Fortunately as a foreigner with special status I got to serve myself at the same time as the women. Single men were last of all.

The party on Saturday was a bbq, started at midday and went on to midnight. Highlights were more rum and coke, the men building an earth oven to cook the potatoes in and also taking control of the bbq, flames and all. It must be something about male nature that as soon as cooking involves fire and building it's their job!

This weekend there is talk of an outing to a local fiesta, leave at 4pm and come back at 4 or 5am - no sleeping possible. I'll let you know what happens if I go, still trying to work out how much clothing I would/could wear!

Friday, July 08, 2005

Being at school

Okay two weeks in now, so I think I have a feel for how it's going and can describe a typical day! For most of the first week, my head felt like it was going to explode with all the new information that I was taking in and trying to understand. I was with one other person for the first week and a half and she had a bit of a headstart of me, so I felt like I was working hard to hang on to her and not slow her down!

At the end of week two, I just feel tongue tied! Mainly because I am now aware of the mistakes that I am making when I speak, so I'm constantly self editing as I speak and stopping as I search for the correct ending for the verb in the correct tense. I sort of know...pasado perfecto, imperfecto and simple, futuro popular and simple, present and sort of sort the conditional (plus all those little phrases, pronouns etc that make speech understandable. At the moment we're focusing on improving my vocabulary and speaking correctly and more rapidly! The last two days I've been in a group of one, good but hard work for four hours in the morning.

Homework takes anything from 30 minutes to several hours, depending on how dedicated I'm feeling. Language at home with my family is entirely in Spanish (apart from me explaining why have a bread brand called Bimbo is funny!) and there have been days when I haven't spoken English to anyone. I'm also getting there on my aim of having a conversation, though they're verys low at the moment.

And finally I'm sure you'll be interested to know that my reading age in Spanish is infant! Not quite Janet and John but easy fairy tales.....and I need the dictionary for that!

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Peruano transport

Having been in two places in Peru now, I thought you might be interested to hear about Peruano (Peruvian) transport.

In Puerto Maldonado one of the first things that strikes you is the huge number of motor bikes. They are mostly of the trail variety (as most of the roads are dirt) and all the drivers wear some form of helmet (it's a new law and everyone conforms rather than pay on the spot fines - however you don't need to do your strap up and you can wear anything that resembles a helmet, e.g. a hard hat). Most of the bikes that you see are actually taxis and they come in three varieties
- a bike, where the passenger rides pillion (no helmet is required for passengers), women often ride side saddle
- a tuk tuk with soft cover
- top of the range a tuk tuk with hard cover

There are some four wheel vehicles but not that many and no cars. I think the reason is that the only road into Puerto, over the Andes, is a really tough road, it's dirt and extremely rutty, so to get cars in would be extremely expensive.

In Cusco, the roads are also populated pretty much by taxis, but this time they are cars, they come in a Smart car type version and a pretty standard saloon version. The fare is set at a standard two soles (40p) for any trip within town. They offer a really good service except that you don't really want to pay any attention to the driving and other vehicles as it's very bad for your nerves! There are few sets of traffic lights and I think the idea at junctions is that it's like the States in terms of who gives way to who, but it's hard to tell because I haven't worked out a pattern yet. The thing to do seems to be to drive as fast as possible, to brake at the last possible moment and to try and squeeze through any available gap!

So far I've only seen one taxi accident, where in a slow moving queue of traffic, the front half of the queue had totally stopped and the taxi at the front of the second half gently drove into the rear light of the car in front until the sound of breaking glass brought the first driver out of his car! I was late for school and couldn't wait to see what happened next!