from arequipa to the frontera - catch-up!

Of most days, perhaps I feel I could write ten novels, but really the leaves stay inside me, the words and lessons internal. I have been more than a little lazy with the blog, so much has happened that I'm afraid you'll just have to miss out on the stories. But there is a way of making up for that... flyyyy!! Ven aqui!

From Arequipa, I left for Cusco, taking a night bus that got me into the city at dawn. An impressive sight, but the city itself I had a mixed relationship with, loving and disliking it in turns. There was one spot that I liked to consider a favourite, outside the church up on the hill breathing in the early morning. Very nice. I stayed in Cusco for about two weeks, working in Loki hostel and volunteering with Aldea Yanapay, a lovely little kids centre, where they teach the kids art and games. It's really nice actually, they're very nationalist in Peru, much like when I was in school, I remember learning about the same couple of wars and the same history of the UK over and over, here they learn about Peru all the time. But in Yanapay, it's really nice, they have a different theme every couple of weeks so the kids are always learning about a different culture, religion or language and then they put a show on every Friday about what they've learnt. It's sweet.

One day was particularly great, albeit stressful. The project that week was split between child exploitation and circus skills (yes, indeed, not themes that usually run parallel) because there is a cultural centre in the city that had a photography project with the kids. We took the kids out to a central plaza where they set up the exhibition and the kids put on the plays they'd created about the theme and showed off their by now impressive circus skills. It was really fun, but really stressful trying not to lose the hyperactive kids under my care.

Shaman in the market on Avenida Garciloso

View of the church where I liked to sit

View from the church where I liked to sit

Hospital de la solidaridad, as you can see. At the feria de Wanchaq.

A bunch of other stuff also happened. I met some really great people, but I can't go telling you about all of them, I don't have enough time. Adventures were had.

From Cusco I went to Moray and spent a couple of nights there. It's a really nice village in the Sacred Valley and from there I could go to visit Maras, a pretty site of concentric terracing, with a very nice hike to get there and to Salinas, where a lot of the community works salt panning. It's quite a spectacle, but it's also really funny. Tourists go for fun where others go for work. Then on to Urubamba por Ollantaytambo. Ollanta is incredible. It really is stunning, you feel strangely protected by the mountains. The ruins were the last stand of the Incas, they flooded the valley to defeat the conquistadores. It worked, but only temporarily. They returned with reinforcements. Still, clever use of the locale.

My new house

Occasionally I use the timer

Really funny truck journey back from Salineras to Maras.

Then started my journey to Maccu Picchu. I opted for the economico route, the so-called 'back door' route, which means taking a few different buses through little villages rather than paying a hundred dollars for a tourist train. I really liked my journey. The views from the buses were just incredible. There were no seats left on the bus from Ollanta to Santa Maria so I sat in the front cab with the drivers, chatting and asking them the names of the all bands they were listening to. Another girl got on after me and stayed in the front too. She only stayed on the bus for an hour or so, in which time she shared her food with the driver, then he let her get off at her college without paying. He then gave his lunch to a woman begging by the side of the road. There are houses in places where it seems nothing should live. Dotted everywhere.

As we continued, the rain started and it became clear how close we were to the jungle, everything was lush and there were banana trees everywhere. One combi and one taxi later, me and some other economico visitors were at the hidroelectrica, to start the two hour hike to Aguas Calientes. Really stunning walk through the clouds at points and dark by the end. The power was out in Aquas Calientes which added some much needed romance to the most touristic place I've ever visited.

Never before seen view of Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu was something pretty special indeed. I could wish not to be so cliche, but why lie? It was amazing. I hiked up the seemingly endless steps up the mountain, starting at five in the morning, in order to get to Machu Picchu for sunrise. I met a French girl on the way and we somehow managed to get a bit lost, walking round in circles in the dark until at last we stumbled upon some Brazilian guys more experienced/awake/sensible than we and we followed them up. Easy peasy, though my red face and sodden t-shirt would like to tell you something different. Then I was in. And.......waaaa.. I won't say too much about it, suffice to say I enjoyed myself rather a lot.

Trying to cram one month into one blog post is perhaps a bit ambitious. Your coffee is long since finished and the dog needs taking out, but honestly, we're getting closer to the Bolivian border now. Or just skip to the photos. I'll keep them to a minimum while these words just ramble on.

I returned to Cusco the same way, stopping en route in Santa Teresa for a very pleasant day and night in the thermal baths. It was really nice to have a good soak after my mini hikes and less than perfect straw mattresses. And once it got dark, it really felt magical. They're open twenty four hours but after about four hours, I felt I was probably pruned enough. Plus, some new friends were teaching me Quechua so we went back to the village for dinner and more lessons in the plaza! Chaska nahui.... ima munay sonq'o. (eyes of stars, what a beautiful heart. They wanted me to know that it was a romantic language and Antonio wanted to know how to pick up girls in Quechua (only his friend, Ronald, spoke it).

Baños Termales, lindo lindo..

Then on to Quillabamba, a jungle town. Soooo hot. Really. And for once I wasn't alone in thinking so, even the locals keep to the shade as much as possible. It has a really nice market where you can buy all the second hand clothes, socks and razors that a travelling girl could need. Mostly though, they sold chickens and guinea pigs for taking away, killing and eating. I had no room in my rucksack though.

Arriving in Cusco, I then had a quick dash from one bus terminal to another for the last bus that night to Puno. I boarded.

Puno is in Peru but being the border city, I will leave off scribbling about it until next time.

Phew. Mammoth catch up done. And I'm still about three weeks behind. Enjoying.

Odontologos sin fronteras and then a farewell

I'm pretty much at home now in Arequipa and today is my last day here. I am sick so I will be spending it resting instead of frantically taking and re-taking pictures of things I have previously tried (and in the most part, failed) to capture. A month has passed quickly and yet so much has happened. 

Last weekend I was in Coporaque for the second time. It's a beautiful village in the Colca region and the organisation I've been volunteering with, Intiwawa, runs an intercultural project there. Last weekend we were there for something different. Intiwawa were working with odontologos sin fronteras to run a weekend-long free dentistry project in Coporaque and in neighbouring town, Chivay. Unfortunately the name dentistas sin fronteras was already taken so I'm forced to trip over the name all the time, adding in extra 'ogos' and 'ogicas' as the mood takes me. You get the drift.

The lovely dentist, Sophie, with a patient.

It was a really great project and I have only the highest respect for all the dentists who work tirelessly with these projects almost every day for months at a time, lugging a lot of equipment around and living in buses as much as anywhere else. Hundreds of people had teeth hauled, plugged, poked and spruced up. Unfortunately for the populace, there was an awful lot of hauling in mouths that already didn't have many teeth left to haul.

We, as Intiwawa, helped to clean the tools, assisted the dentists and put the patients in order. I took down peoples personal details and put them on the correct list depending on what treatment they needed. Thus, I now know how to recognise and spell the surname Choquehueñca, even when spoken in both thick Peruvian and Quechwan accents. I am picking things up after all!


We stayed the night in Chivay and I was lucky enough to see this sky, this church and a traditional fiesta, full of bright costumes, masks and saya dancing (I think it's called) which my camera failed to do justice. I predict the inadequacy of my camera will be a continuing theme of this blog.

The kids have had school holidays these last two weeks, so we planned activities instead of the usual homework-help in San Isidro. It was great, we played games with the Scouts, taught them (and me) chess, and completed a geography project. While I've been ill, the others also took them to see Los Pitufos (The Smurfs) as a treat for the end of holidays.

This (skipping a lot of stories, skies, barbecues, falling-downs, new arrivals and sad departures) takes me to today. My final one in Arequipa, the beautiful white city with a stunning centro historico which has given the texture to my days, and the friends I've made who added the lights. I will miss the cows wandering past our apartment in the afternoon, the cakes and the ladies from the corner shop, again, the texture of the colonial-era buildings and, of course, the Intiwawa house and family. And that's me trying to avoid listing wondrous things (and favourite kids! - I know, I know) as my parting words.

The city reflected in a church housed almost entirely in glass in Alto Selva Alegre

The house that time split.

Blur or texture?

From our lovely terrace.

On to Cusco!

¡Sube, sube, sube!

Long bus rides from the volunteer house to San Isidro, sunsets to make me quiver, salsatecas to make a fool of myself in while people try to teach me to dance, spinning little Bryan fast, fast, fast in the mornings til we both nearly fall over, taking the kids to the waterfall and falling in el rio a little. Dust, dust, dust. Elva from El Refugio and her glistening open eyes and hearty menus. Hikety-hike-hikes (with the vague idea of preparing for real treks). 


I've been in Arequipa for a few weeks now and I like it. I wanted to share some photos from Chala, a rickety fishing village that I stayed in before, but I have (hopefully temporary) camera problems, preventing me from sharing the eerie image of the foggy coastline and all the romantic thoughts of solitude and strength that it brought to mind, grey photos for a bedazzled imagination.


Anyway, I am happy. Sleeping well, meeting lovely people and learning a lot. And sometimes when I can't sleep, I see funny things and pin them to donkeyhighdeas, but I can't explain them very well and perhaps I ought to learn about grammar:


When the pieces came together they found they could never make just one picture.


One inhaled the hair of another and was at once a bear, a beat, a blink in the midday sun, occupying all the space there ever was and ever could be and fitting all that quite nicely on the underside of a leaf, a fallen leaf that an ant could carry, if not for the exhale which fluttered the leaf from the ground, seeming as it did, such a flutter, to come from nowhere (though we know, within) on a still, still day. Day it seemed, though uncertainly so as the light was everchanging, a period of activity, opposed to the slumberful eve, we may, if we like, call it day.


Another piece, previously possessing hair which could be inhaled, on intuiting the spine of the leaf of the first, gasped at the mighty river therein, feeling, imagining with delight, how wonderful it would be, how glorious, to be a tributary to such a marvellous flow, winding as it did with purpose and poise, so artfully. Being thus transformed by such sensations, this other, also, continued to metamorphosise, at once, sugarcane, a sparrow, a sprite. 


Two such pieces, if such indeed they can be called, spining through and around the pillars of the imagination, star acrobats in a post-physics world, change in response to the heat and fibre of one another. And I adore it. And yet, this is what they always do, had always done, separately, to everything, everyone shall we say, and everywhere before...


- But we didn't know them then and had no need to, the nature of their meeting, their dawning awareness of their coexistence and what we can take the liberty to surmise is their joy at this recognition, this necessitated the bringing of a frame, which they rightly, naturally, happily, refuse to reside within, but decorate most marvellously with their shadows, echoes, dawn tremblings and lustful light, eternal new views to love the eyes of the night.


...Baja, baja, baja!

El Carmen gives me the heartbeat to start

El Carmen kissed and seeped into my skin, thanks in no small part to the friendship and kindness proferred by one Mario Vargas Meinel. The cotton-picking town is so warm and friendly, and Mario made its history sing to me.

It's 300 km south of Lima, the home of Afro-Peruvian culture, and I went there in search of music, made famous by the Ballumbrosio family and an essential learning curve for anyone hungry for history and heart through rhythms. Not many people go there though. Alas, the fiestas for the Virgin del Carmen take place this weekend, when I've to be in Arequipa. They have such hopes for the pueblo - by (eventually) building a cultural centre based around the late Amador Ballumbrosio, they hope to build on the potential of the place to attract musicians and artists. I can see how wonderful this could be.

A photo by Lorry Salcedo Mitrani from an inspiring photography book for children, comparing African culture in communities in Peru and Brazil. Amador plays the violin. 20 years ago or so.

After talking to me throughout the best part of the night, telling me so many histories of the place, his rich and varied life seeing the world, and the characters he's befriended who fell for various parts of Peru and became part of them, Mario and I met again in the morning and walked out to a ruined hacienda, la casa de san regis. He wanted to check his drawings to the real thing.

 

A lady once sat on the terrace, entertaining her friends from la casa de san jose with iced tea, finery, civility and laughter that could chill your bones. Horses were freed from their carriages awhile and awaited being put to service again. Surrounding them in the fields, spines bent irreperably to make such straight columns. We listen, and hear our hearts too.

Mario with a head from the nearby church that was destroyed in an earthquake but still functions.

Lena, the mama from the hospedaje I found, was a delight too. No running water but she let me use their kitchen. Everyone I spoke to was so open and welcoming, pious and partying souls.

Hasta la proxima vez, El Carmen

robadores, jungle hipsters and assorted confusions

First steps after stumbles; missed flights and London Pride nights. Lima looms but a bed beckons first, a few hours in and I have the traveller smell already. The feeling of a right choice makes twists around the edges of the mind as I try to think and not think together. 

I'm without a first photo but I've painted a couple already. Pretty shocked to discover I'm actually writing here, probably best to start while I'm tired and not thinking too much about it. A welcome change from the notebook, brings out different thoughts. So much traffic this morning and the -gloom- . I was warned of this. The grey, waiting to be born pains of Lima for half of the year, colourless skies sap what from the city? I will see. 

And jungle hipsters? Well that's a stretch... Odd hippie New Yorkers who dress like third world dandies and voyage into the Amazon to play guitar to the locals and sip their ancient histories that he seems so desperate for. With feathers in his hat and coral round his neck and a serious, very serious, love for living. My newspaper went unread. 

¡Venga, venga, vamos!