July 17, 2005
The Last Entry
This is the end of the blog. I'm back in the States--in Fargo, North Dakota. This is a picture of my weekend house in Devils Lake. It's actually my friends' farmhouse, but they let me use it when I visit. I should probably blog about life on the prairie because that may be as exotic to some of you as my travels. I'll let you know if I start a new blog. Bye for now!
Faith
If you ever need to renew your faith in humankind, TRAVEL. This picture shows a few of the things I received from friends and strangers along the way. People will always surprise you with their kindness, generosity and willingness to help. My revival began in Vancouver when Arti gave me Gnesh to remove obstacles from my path, and Karime gave me a Colombian bracelet. On the train to Chicago I met Les who gave me the blue carabiner that proved quite useful in attaching things to my pack and keeping the pack secure. In Ukraine, I got the frog from Slava and the t-shirt from Oleg. The t-shirt has me as Snow White surrounded by animals and dwarves with the faces of many of my Ukrainian friends. Eli and I combined our winnings from carnival games at Coney Island and got matching bracelets. I wore mine throughout the Americas. I'm still wearing the bracelet Lisa gave me in Bangkok and will wear it until Arti also comes home from Thailand. Perhaps even more surprising, though, are the small acts of kindness from strangers: the American couple in Prague who bought me a Coke on a hot day, the Ukrainians who kept me company on the walk from Prague castle, the Starbucks worker in Dubai who gave me a couple coins to remember the UAE, the Thai restaurant that gave us a cup of tea on a rainy night, the taxi driver in Peru who made sure we made it on the bus, and so many others. I feel like there's a world out there looking out for me. I once heard faith described as hope mixed with trust, and that's the kind of faith I have in people. I just needed a little reminder.
Nasca
Mom and I in the small plane in which we flew over the Nasca Lines. This is the before photo because after we would look considerably 'greener' from air sickness.
Lake Titicaca
A view of Lake Titicaca from Isla Taquile. The snow-covered peaks in the background are in Bolivia, which shares the lake with Peru.
Salinas
These are salt pools near Urubamba, Peru. The community mines the salt by flooding the area then letting the water evaporate. The process takes about a month.
Scootering
Lisa gives me the "okay, I'm on the left side" wave as we travel around Ko Chang on our scooters. It took a little while to adjust to driving on the 'wrong' side of the road.
Shaslik in Ukraine
Andrey, Me, Slava, Alla, Irina and Andrei (hiding behind Irina) having a picnic in the forest near Kiev. The picture is a little blurry because we were all laughing so hard, including Lyuda who was taking the picture. The mosquitos were out in force, and Irina was trying to use a jacket as pants to cover her legs.
June 25, 2005
Tico Country
While Peru may seem like Tico country due to the proliferation of cars there with the name Tico (made by Daewoo), Costa Rica is where the true ticos live. Tico is what they call themselves instead of using the more cumbersome costariccense. I'm not even sure I spelled that right. Those of us from the USA have a similar shorthand of calling ourselves American, even though everyone who lives in the Americas is an American. I last updated the blog on Wednesday, and it is now Saturday, so I'll quickly review the last few days. On Thursday, Mom and I took a boat tour of the Islas de las Ballestas. These islands are covered with birds, including penguins, and with guano (bird droppings) that has become an international export because it makes an excellent fertilizer. From there we traveled to Lima by bus. On Friday, I visited a very poor area of the Lima and met with some people from there and from the city planning office to discuss potential partnerships between them and the planning school at UBC. The major stumbling block, as always, is money to do partnership projects like this. Today Mom and I went our separate ways as I flew here to Costa Rica and she flew to Chicago. I fly to Chicago from here tomorrow. So far Costa Rica is everything they say it is: progressive, safe, friendly. My taxi driver was a woman, something you don't see often in many countries, including the States. I'm definitely adding Costa Rica to my already long list of places to visit, but it'll have to go after Ukraine, Colombia, Taiwan, Canada and other places where friends are. Friendship is most important after all.
June 22, 2005
More from the Desert
Or should it be dessert? Because pecans are in season here, and we tried a tasty treat called chocotejas (I think) that was like a pecan turtle. Delicious! Yesterday Mom's student Roberto and his family picked us up and took us on a tour of Ica. We visited a bodega where they make wine and pisco, then went to a local restaurant and ended up at the house where they live, which is in the countryside near Ica. The sand dunes stretch for miles around here, and Roberto and his uncle have climbed them for hours, even as far as the oasis where we are staying, which takes them almost three hours. We saw the highest dune in South America today (possibly in the Americas?) that was bigger than the mountains in front of it. We also flew over the Nasca lines and luckily I brought Dramamine (like Gravol for the Canadians) because otherwise I would've thrown up it was such a small plane. It's still difficult to understand how these goeglyphs were made because they were done before any type of flight was possible, as far as we know, yet can only be truly seen from the air.
June 21, 2005
The Beginning of Winter
While it may be the summer solstice up north where most of you are, it is the winter solstice down here, and we do feel it, but not as much as the locals. We are at least accustomed to quite a bit of cold weather. We found out that the night after we left Puno was one of the coldest they'd had, and about 30 people died of exposure, many of them children. Very sad. We are now in Ica in the desert. We are staying next to a laguna. It looks like an oasis in the Sahara because the laguna is surrounded by high sand dunes and palm trees--not something we expected to find here. One of mom's students spends the summers here in Ica, so we are going to try and see him and his family. We are also going to do tours of the Nasca lines and the Islas de las Ballestas from here. We decided to settle down in one place for awhile and tour from here. We arrived early this morning on a night bus from Arequipa. The service was almost like being on a plane, including an attendant and meal and reclining seats. We even left from the Terrapuerto which sounds to me like a play on words in Spanish, combining earth (tierra) and port (puerto), though it may just be a word in itself that I'd never heard before.
June 19, 2005
Juanita
Today I went to visit Juanita. She's not a living person (well, she was once), but a mummy that is hundreds of years old. She was found on the top of a mountain called Ampato that is near Arequipa, the town in Perú where we are now. She is supposed to be the most well-preserved mummy in the world. She was preserved by natural means, not artificial means like the mummies in Egypt. They found her about 10 years ago when a nearby volcano melted the snow on Ampato. It was the cold and snow that had preserved her all these years. Scientists think that she was a sacrifice to the gods from the Incas when the volcano was erupting hundreds of years ago. She was between 12 and 14 years old and probably of the Incan nobility. They found three other mummies on the same mountain and others have been found on other high mountains in South America. The museum where Juanita now resides and the food have been the two highlights of Arequipa. The food here is the best in Perú, at least that we've tried so far.
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