Archeology and Surfing

Where we last left off, we had just taken an overnight bus to Trujillo. We decided to bed down in the beach resort town just outside the town named Huanchaco. We checked into a nice hostel right off the beach and reveled in the silence of this little surfing town in the off season. Most mornings began with an overcast sky with a cool breeze but we would often get a sunny sky in the afternoon. We liked it so much that we decided to make this a base for the remainder of Mom's trip outside of Lima. From this base we were able to explore three different archeological gems in the area.

There are three big archeological sites near Trujillo. The first we visited was Chan Chan. This place is the remains of a huge city completely made of adobe. Nowadays its in a pretty sad state, most of the walls have melted away due to rain (mostly El Nino effect rain since Trujillo is still a desert). However, archeologists have been able to discover a lot about the culture from what remains. The most interesting thing about the Chimu people was that every ruler built his own palace complex from scratch. When they died, they buried the king (and his whole court) inside and then shut the place up and moved to a new palace. Mom of course was in heaven. We hired a great guide and she pummeled him with questions during the whole tour.

From Chan Chan

From Chan Chan

The next big site was close by but of a different culture. It was called Huaca de la Luna and its culture was the Moche. These people were older and they preferred to rebuild their temples on top of each, rather than start from scratch. This is a boon to archeologists though because the newer temples on top keep the older temples very well preserved. The Huaca de la luna (translated means “temple of the moon”) was the religious center of the Moche people and was the place they would do their sacrifices (sometimes human) to ward off the El Nino floods. The current theory is that a particularly bad El Nino happened and the sacrifices didn't work to stop the floods and people got disillusioned with the rulers and they lost their power.

From Huaca de la Luna and Sol

From Huaca de la Luna and Sol

From Huaca de la Luna and Sol

The third site was actually not that close but we opted instead for a day trip to see the famous Lord of Sipan. This place is a Moche site where they discovered a burial of a king in such opulence that it rivals that of the more famous King Tut in Egypt. Walking through the excellent museum translating all the signs for Mom (we were proud we could do this) was quite an experience. They set it up kind of like how they discovered the tomb layer by layer. We were blown away by the amount of gold and the amazing artifacts they found. Unfortunately we were unable to take any pictures with our camera so you'll just have to take our word that it was awesome. We do have pictures from a smaller museum and the actual site:

From Lord of Sipan

Suzanne being amazed:

From Lord of Sipan

Artifact found in the tomb:

From Lord of Sipan

The trip to see this site and museum was quite an adventure. First off, we forgot that we needed passports to get on a three hour bus ride up to the city of Chiclayo. So that set us back by an hour and a half on a very long day trip. Once we arrived we hired a taxi for going to the museum and the actual site outside the city and got going. Our deadline was 5pm when the site would close and the area around it would start getting dangerous. After spending longer than expected on the great museum, it was 2:30pm and we decided to skip lunch and head out to the actual site. Our taxi driver extracted a couple more dollars out of us since we were at the museum so long but we agreed on a new price and we began the trip out to the huaca. He took us east and of course within minutes we were on a dirt road bumping bumping inland. On either side of us rose up sugar cane plants from seemingly endless sugar-cane plantations. As the minutes ticked on and we could see nothing except more sugar-cane we started to get worried that our cab driver was taking us out in the middle of nowhere to rob and kill us. We managed to stay calm and keep telling ourselves that our guide book had told us it was about an hour outside the city but fear is definitely not that rational... After what seemed like ages though, we saw a bit pile of melted adobe rise out of the horizon and breathed a sigh of relief. We were going to live after all! We had only about 45 minutes at the site before we hit 5pm and it was time to get going. The taxi driver decided to try another road back to the city due to the previous road being very terrible (unmaintained pavement IS worse than just a dirt road). He then proceeded out and before we knew it we were back on the road, but something was wrong. We were headed south and east and the city was west and north. I kept asking him if he was sure we were going the right way and he kept saying yes, but when we definitely started heading east and the road went as far as the eye could see east, I convinced him to ask for directions from a (luckily) passing moto-taxi. The taxi confirmed we were going the wrong way and he generously told us to follow him and so we did and got back to the city just as the sun was setting and things got too dangerous. After a three hour bus ride back to Trujillo we were just glad to be alive and safe once again!

Surfing

With all our archeological sites done and visited we had the next couple of days to relax before heading back to Lima to drop Mom off at the airport. Since we were staying in a surfing village of course we had to try it out! I've always wanted to know how to surf and we had the time so I took my first surfing lesson. It was great! The place we went to guaranteed you'd stand up on your first lesson and that I did. It turns out that they make this guarantee because they end up giving you the proper push right when the wave is coming so all you have to do is stand up. Even though it felt a little like cheating, I have to admit that it was nice at first to just focus on standing on a moving board. I can understand the reason people like surfing because the rush you get on actually riding a wave towards shore is quite exhilarating. It is also a lot of exercise! You have to use your arms to paddle out to sea so every foot you travel on the wave that's a foot you have to paddle back. I did just fine for about 1.5 hours, but after that my shoulders were mush.

From Trujillo

We waited one more day before trying again, this time I had convinced Suzanne that she also should take a lesson and so we went back. However, while Suzanne did great on her first lesson, my shoulders were still sore and quickly returned to their mush-like state. Since I was at the point of trying to catch my own wave I needed those muscles to respond but they just wouldn't! In the end though, it was a ton of fun.

Exhausted Mike:

From Trujillo

Suzanne surfing it up:

From Trujillo

Finally it was time to head back to Lima. One overnight bus trip later and we were there with a day or two to spare before Mom's flight. We used these days to hit some of the national museums that were located in Lima. Of these the most strange one was the exhibit of erotic pottery! It was really weird to see thousand year old pottery with people engaged in all sorts of sexual acts as well as pottery of venereal disease and the like. Then there was the very strange figures of skeletons engaged in acts with living people... Very weird. Consider this a disclaimer and warning for the pictures on my public albums!

Artifacts and gold!

From Lima Museum Day

From Lima Museum Day

From Lima Museum Day

From Lima Museum Day

Birdman:

From Lima Museum Day

Finally we had to take Mom to the airport. We had a ton of fun with her and really enjoyed having her around to share some of her knowledge on all these sites. She is also the easiest person to travel with. She left all decision making up to us and told us that whatever we decided was fine with her. She didn't care when we wanted to eat pizza or just hang out a day reading in our room. Nor did she complain when we picked hotels that had all night parties going on next door. She just went with the flow and had a great time. So thanks Mom!

From Trujillo

~Mike

ps. Since Mom wanted to remember a lot of information and use it for her class planning (she's a professor at Baylor) we took a ton of pictures of museums artifacts and information cards at the museums. So our public albums will hold a ton more pictures than we usually put up there. If you're interested in learning about these things too though, hopefully you'll find it interesting.   

Back in Peru!

We entered Peru and passed through customs for the 4^th time on our trip. This time, my mom was with us and we had come to see some of the big archeological sites of the country. We decided to ease her into Peru by staying in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima, which is the most western and upscale in Peru, but still has that unique Peruvian flavor. We walked in the main plaza area and visited a market which had some very unique and high-quality crafts. Among the people cutting stone and polishing it and people making cool souvenirs from olive wood on-site, we also saw a guy who would write whatever you wanted on a single grain of rice! Also in the plaza was a band with this amazing flute player, which we caught on video if you'd like to hear him:

The day we flew in happened to be Peruvian independence day, but we figured we would miss most festivities since we came in late at night and slept late the next day, but this was not the case. They decided to take the long weekend to celebrate! Since we arrived on Weds, this was quite a long desfile! This was both good and bad news for us. Good news cause we could also celebrate and witness the city in celebration mode, bad news because all the museums we wanted to go to were closed. So instead we just walked around the old city and the Plaza de Armas.  Here's Suzanne and Mom at the plaza with the Peruvian flag:

From Lima

Our plan was always to get out of Lima quickly and start seeing archeological sites so we quickly left Lima for Huaraz. The big site located near Huaraz was called Chavin de Huantar. The Chavin culture was highly spiritual and intellectual using soft power to extend their influence across modern day Peru. People would come on pilgrimages to hear an oracle tell them messages from the gods. The center of their culture was this site, which consisted of a very large temple and plaza where they would do their ceremonies. It was larger than I had imagined it would be and much more elaborate too. There were labyrinths and tunnels underground that would even go out of the site and under a nearby river. They would use water in interesting ways, using steam that they would push from under the ground to make the priests look more mystical. Mom was in heaven, she loved everything and quickly exhausted the battery on her camera taking pictures. Suzanne was the main translator, using her superior skills to translate for Mom and for me (I was filling in at taking pictures of everything). Finally, we had to bid adieu to Chavin and began the long trip back to Huaraz, which was only 100km away but the road was so bad it took hours. However it was such a beautiful drive over the mountains that we didn't mind it (that much).  Picture of Chavin site followed by a couple of mountain shots:

From Chavin de Huantar

From Chavin de Huantar

From Huaraz

Unless you're an archeologist, you don't come to Huaraz for Chavin though. You come for the amazing mountains that surround the city. The Cordierra Blanca and Cordierra Negra (which mean “White Range” and “Black Range”) are stunning ranges that frustrate attempts to describe. They have the highest peaks in Peru (most over 16,000 ft), are covered in snow (white range at least) and glaciers, and their peaks seem to shoot straight up out of the earth resulting in huge cliffs that just cause you to drop your jaw and wonder. We spent the two other days we had in Huaraz going on day hikes around these mountains. Most people who come though aren't really day-hikers so we found ourselves quite isolated up there. We had to take a taxi to get to a decent starting point but the road quickly got too rough for it and he had to drop us early. So we started in this little village up on the hill. We got to see a true rural Peruvian village. It was great; everyone looked at you and smiled and said “buenas tardes” or good afternoon and wanted to know where you were from. No one asked us for money or wanted money if you took their picture. Then throw in the scenery (rolling hills with wheat, cows, sheep and dogs with a brightly dressed shepherdess watching them graze with the mountains behind) and you get as close as you can to those romantic paintings you see in museums around the world. It wasn't perfectly ideal though. We had been warned that sometimes there is petty robbery up there so we had to leave behind Niko (my camera). Hopefully though we got some good ones with the other smaller camera we brought. Thankfully we never experienced any problems like that.

From Moms_Camera_2

From Moms_Camera_2

From Moms_Camera_2

We ended up not being able to take a taxi back down and had to walk all the way down the mountain to Huaraz, a elevation drop from 13,566 to 10,178 (3,388 ft) over a distance of 5.5 miles (thanks to Google Earth). Mom really impressed us both. She had no problem with the elevation and often took the lead! By the end, we were exhausted and had an overnight bus to take so we showered in our hotel (thankfully our hotel was cool with this since we had already checked out) and ate way too much Chinese food and drank too much beer. But these factors all made us very sleepy and we ended up sleeping the best we've ever slept on an overnight bus!

Our next stop was Trujillo, more of that later...

~Mike

Peru and Little Brother's visit

As described in Suzanne's last post, June didn't start out so great for us between the camera being stolen to counterfeit bills to my Dad canceling his trip down to visit us. However, one thing did end up being good about June as we wind down on our birthday month, Thomas. My little brother, ten years younger arrived at the beginning of June, right after his graduation from high school. We had extended the invitation to him at the beginning of our trip and he was one of the few who had the time and resources (through our Dad) to accept our offer. When we asked, his top destination ended up being Machu Picchu so that is where we went. After arriving in Lima, we hopped on a 21 hour bus trip to Cusco the old Incan capital. This was Thomas' first trip on a bus for that length of time so we took him in style, buying 1^st class tickets on the best bus company in Peru. The only bad thing about our trip was the fact that the road to Cusco is quite serpentine so even though we were comfortable in our huge leather seats that reclined almost to horizontal, our inertia and the road caused us to move around a bit, making sleep difficult.

Once in Cusco, we spent a day getting acclimatized and exploring the city. We went up to the ruins of Saqsaywaman and walked around, getting our first good Incan ruin tour from a guide in Spanish. We helped Thomas with translation but he must have paid pretty good attention in his Spanish classes since he got most of it. Back in Cusco we kept coming across folklore dances and processions in the main plaza. It seems every school child from kindergarten up to high school was involved and each class had their own dance and elaborate, colorful costumes! This also coincided with the end of Corpus Christi and there were tons of processions of huge statues of saints from the Cathedral to all the other parishes of Cusco. It was perfect, we couldn't have asked for a better example of what we've seen in South America to show Thomas. Here's our album of Cusco:

Then we headed down into the sacred valley of the Incans, exploring the ruins of Ollantaytambo and then caught a train to Aguas Calientes, which is the base town for all Machu Picchu visitors. We stayed one night there and caught the 5:30 am bus up to the famous ruins. We took a tour immediately and learned all about the city and its history, which lasted about 1.5 hours. Since we were there early, we were able to be one of the 400 people to climb Huana Pichu. It's the big rock behind all the famous Machu Pichhu pictures, so you get to get a birds eye view of the whole city. It was a hard climb so after that we headed down for a delicious lunch of tuna and crackers, then being a bit tired but not wanting to leave (so many people leave at 1pm!) we decided to take a nap on some of the agricultural terraces. After our nice sleep (Thomas likes to take a sleep sometimes), we decided again to go on a long hike and went up to the Sun Gate which was longer than we expected and higher too but we ended up being able to see the famous Incan trail that so many people take to arrive at the ruins. We were then some of the last to leave, making it a very full but very rewarding day. Here are the pictures of Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu:

After getting back to Cusco very late (same day we were at Machu Picchu), we recovered for a day and decided that since we were so close to the rain forest that should be our next destination. We spent a day or two going to all the travel agencies, bargaining down and trying to find the best value for our trip. There were two basic tours, one was 4 days and the other 8. Only the 8 day tours got you into the pristine untouched rainforest so even though they were more expensive, we decided that if you were going to make it to the rainforest, you might as well go all the way.

The tour didn't leave for 6 days but since it was so expensive (even after our bargaining), we decided to try to lay low a bit in the Cusco area. We spent this time getting to know my little brother a little better. I was a little surprised at a couple of things I learned. The first was that Thomas had very little financial education. We set about rectifying this omission, teaching him about credit cards, stocks, bonds, IRAs, and all their advantages and disadvantages. It was crazy for us that Thomas who is now 18 had not been taught any of this in his school. He's heading off to college but he has friends who are not and are entering the “real world” without any of this kind of education! It only underscores for me the need for parents to teach their kids about money. I think that parents shy away from it because they think that money shouldn't be too important in their relationship with their kids and they don't want to obsess over it, but in reality they're doing their children a disservice. If they don't become victims to easy credit and get involved in paying 19% interest on credit card debt, then they'll never save for retirement or make any kind of investments, making whatever savings they have be whittled away by inflation. So anyway, we tried to teach Thomas all about this and even convinced him to go ahead and apply for a credit card which we did online. However, easy as it was for me to get one, he had a bit harder time. The credit card companies seem a bit more strict for first-time cardholders and new legislation is making it harder for young adults to get cards. I'm not sure I agree with the legislation since education seems to be more important in this regard but I digress... It wasn't all just about finance though, we also got Thomas hooked on the TV show “Lost” which we finally have started watching, so we would often sit up late at night huddled around EEVA watching 4 episodes in a row!

Finally, the day arrived for us to head into the rainforest. This particular national park was called “Manu” after the river that runs through it and it is one of the best places to get to primary rainforest (which is untouched rainforest). It's relatively close to Cusco which makes it convenient. Manu has several different administrative zones, one is multi-use which allows people to set up lodges that can use generators (only for a couple of hours a day), the other is the reserve zone which is open only to a couple of tourist companies, and then there's the vast majority of the park which is completely off limits to everyone except scientists. In there they have some native tribes who don't really want any contact with the outside world.

There are also several ecosystems in the park. The park begins at the eastern slope of the Andes so they have high altitude grasslands, then as the slope goes down, cloud forest where you constantly see clouds in the trees, then further down it flattens out into rainforest. What amazed me was the temperature difference between the highlands and rainforest. It went from cold to hot and humid so quickly! We stayed in lodges designed to keep insects out. All our beds had mosquito nets and the rooms had screens to keep them out as well. It was kind of fun to have your own little net around your bed, kind of like your own little kingdom. However I suspect that it wasn't completely effective because I definitely got bitten a couple in places that were always covered by clothes! So the only explanation that I could think of is that some little crawlers were either able to crawl underneath the net or were already waiting in the bed! In any case, the bugs were everywhere! I've never put so much Deet on my body for so long! Even when I would cover my body, the mosquitoes and flies would just hover around my head and arms. I realized I was torturing them, offering such tasty blood (I'm such a sweet guy you know) but covering myself with a dreaded smell. Perhaps it was like Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit. So tasty but they knew it would kill them. In the end I think some flies and mosquitoes succumbed to the temptation and bit me anyway through my Deet or maybe through some tiny uncovered piece of flesh and I got plenty of bug bites as evidence!

In every zone, we took walks through the jungle with our guides, during both day and night in order to spot some animals. The most exciting animal was the Giant River Otter which is very endangered and lives on a lake formed when the river changed direction. We got on a small raft in the lake and paddled out to where they were fishing with their whole family. We got to watch them try to avoid the caimans (essentially crocodiles) who wanted to eat their babies. It was pretty cool. The other interesting animals we got to see were of course, monkeys! We saw five species of monkeys. They were relatively easy to spot since they usually go crashing through the trees as they move through the canopy. We saw and heard them eating, fighting and mating! One of our guides brought a telescope and we even got some real close up looks at their faces! It was also pretty cool. Finally on the way back out of the reserve zone we stopped at a lodge to spend a night and there they had a pet tapir! It's kind of like a giant pig but friendlier! So we got to feed Pancho and see a big mammal up very close, including all the disgusting ticks that were all over his head! :(

Overall, the jungle was really great! It was cool traveling along the rivers because roads there are really difficult to maintain. It was the dry season and the river was pretty low though, but you could see the huge trees that the river knocks down with every rainy season. Every rainy season the river knocks down more trees and leaves more new land for the forest to regrow. Some of the trees it knocks down though were so huge! The thing about the trees down there is that it's impossible to know how old they are since they don't really have seasons where they don't grow. I think I'd like to check out the redwood forest up on California to compare how they look to the trees we were just walking under.

We finished with the jungle and began our trip back to the U.S. We're currently in Lima awaiting our flight back to San Francisco. We dropped Thomas off at the airport yesterday and spent the day today looking for a new dress for Suzanne for the two weddings we are going to be going to. We're really excited to go back to the USA. It's been more than 5 months now and it'll be nice to speak in English to everyone and see a lot of our really good friends. I think the thing I'm most looking forward to is the almost 100% chance that we'll have toilet paper in all bathrooms and that we can also flush said toilet paper into the toilet! Small pleasures... Suzanne is most looking forward to being able to drink water from wherever and whenever she wants. This includes not being paranoid about accidentally opening your mouth in the shower. :) The thing I'm least excited about is 18% tipping at restaurants. What a ripoff! Here its maximum 10%!!! And no annoying tip jars at fast food places.

~Mike

ps. Will post pictures of jungle soon, though there won't be as many.

La Serena and the bus trip up to Arequipa

Since we were in a hurry to get to Arequipa we only spent one night in La Serena but we made the most of it. On top of our list was the observatory that is located in the hills east of the city. It's built especially for tourists but in a way I was glad for it. The tour was excellent and the guides had these awesome green laser pointers that they would use to point out constellations to us. It was hard to tell myself to look at the constellation being pointed at and not longingly at the laser pointer. But in the end it was great to find out how to find south in the southern hemisphere (no northern star here). First you find the southern cross, then take the long end and count 4.5 lengths towards the bottom of the cross and that's south. They also showed us this real cool computer program Stellarium that gives you a nice map of the night sky wherever (and if you want, whenever) you may be.

Next we hopped on a bus for Arica, Chile which is right across the border with Peru. We didn't stay longer than to catch a taxi over the border to Tacna where we bought a bus ticket to Arequipa. The first bus ride took about 20 hours and was overnight and the second about 5.5 hours during the day. Pretty much the whole time in the bus we were going through the Atacama desert, the driest in the world.

From Arequipa

We thought patagonia was dry but there's nothing but dirt in this place. The only exception was when a river happened to be going by. In this case a settlement sprouts up and irrigation brings a refreshing bloom of green to the otherwise brown landscape. We thought that when we got to Peru this would stop but it didn't. Arequipa is (we hope) on the edge of it, but it is very dry as well and the whole trip up it remained very much the same. Irrigation again saves the day, making this a beautiful city with a beautiful temperate climate.

We are staying in a most wonderful little bed and breakfast. It is run by a European (Dutch I think) guy named Hans who bought the house and restored it 5 years ago. While restoring the place he found a pre-columbian archeological site filled with pottery and little stone structures. All the pottery is on display as well as the site so you can walk in and step back in time. In addition to the pool right outside, our room is amazing. We have a beautiful balcony where we sit in the mornings after breakfast and read or relax with the Volcano Mount Misti in the background.

Palm Sunday


Our Palm Sunday started with a delicious breakfast after which we headed downtown to the Plaza de Armas.  When we got there, we heard and saw a band marching around the plaza and headed to the cathedral.  Mass had already started so we hurried inside where there was standing room only.  Before we went in we bought from some street vendors our beautiful palms.  The bishop was saying mass.  During the  “Hosanna Hosanna” chorus, everyone shook their palms in the air.  Later that night, at dusk the procession started. We watched as a band moved into position followed by official looking men and women.  Then the giant doors of the cathedral opened and out came a float with Jesus carrying the cross.  Jesus was carried by about a dozen men in front and another dozen in back.  The crowd clapped and the church bells rang as they got the float down the stairs and then they moved down the plaza a little bit.  Then the same thing happened again, this time with a float with Mary on it.  Then the procession began officially.  Between the floats there was a car with speakers on it which broadcast a woman who was leading the rosary.  Suzanne and I, after taking some pictures and video, joined in the procession and followed it for its whole course.  It was a very prayerful and spiritual experience for us as we contemplated a similar procession that occurred over 2000 years ago as Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem.  Overall the procession went 3 blocks south, 3 blocks east, 3 blocks north and then 3 blocks west to arrive back at the cathedral a little over 2 hours later.

Santa Catalina Convent

On Monday we took a tour of the Santa Catalina Convent.  It's a whole block of the city that was used by an order of Dominican nuns who had cloistered themselves behind these high walls.  Their job was basically to pray all day.  However it was not exactly the ascetic lifestyle that we think of when we think of convents.  This convent was founded by a woman from Spain who recruited her nuns from among the richest families in Spain.  Somehow the nuns were allowed to live in a manner befitting their birth so they were able to have private apartments as well as servants and private things.  According to our tour guide, the 1st daughter of a family was to be married, and the second to go into a convent.  All nuns that entered the convent had to pay a dowry until 1871 when complaints of the extravagance reached the Pope and general reforms began to have their effects.  The Pope sent a strict nun to clean up the convent and she forced all the nuns to live communally and no longer have servants or as many private possessions.  In 1970 the city forced the convent to open up by requiring the convent to have electricity and plumbing.  Now poor, the convent had no option but to open itself up to tourism and that is where we come in. It was like stepping back in time and it's a photographer's paradise.  As you will see, we took a lot of pictures. :)