Thursday, August 28, 2008

Lima at last

After being here over two months I have finally gotten the energy to go downtown and see something of colonial Lima. You can't see it clearly, but the houses on the mountain to the left are all brightly colored and look like a party town from a distance. Once you get closer you see that it's a shantytown for the poor - but what a good idea to paint the poor ghetto parts of town with vibrant happy colors!

Speaking of colonial Lima, I couldn't help taking a picture of the sign where we ate lunch - they offer not only an Israeli breakfast (which means that it includes a half a avocado), but also a Colonial breakfast. Coming from the middle east where the term "colonial" is equivalent to "era of suppression and violent occupation" it's hard to get used to the idea that the colonial period was actually a positive thing for some people around the world, it is almost revered as the golden age here in Peru.

In any case I picked up Alexa in the car after her nursery and we drove to the old part of town and saw some impressive churches, one of which houses the grave of Francisco Pizarro (the original colonizer himself), who with 180 men and 37 horses defeated the entire Inca empire of millions. And a big church with catacombs under it housing the bones of unlucky former monks who not only had to live a boring monastic life, but whose bodies can't even rest in (one) peace. They've arranged the bones by type, so there's a room full of femurs, a room full of skulls, vertebrae, etc.

We also saw Lima's Chinatown, complete with an arch and everything, and Alexa had her face painted like a cat, and then ran after the pigeons in one of the main squares for over an hour. I was really bored, but consoled myself by reading a guidebook about all the other neat things to see downtown that I'll have to save for another time.

This last picture is some of us with my Dad up at his cabin in Brighton (Vanessa, Alexa, Lauren, Lila, Eliot, and Keno Keith). It was a beautiful day and I miss that kind of sunshine here. Every day is just a giant misty mist, like a dense London fog. Today I went walking in the wet mist on the beach below the cliffs in front of our apartment and found a dead dog that had washed up on shore. He was a real mutt's mutt. There were a bunch of surfers in the water and I'm sure they must have bumped up against it while they were surfing. I swear I've never seen so many dogs in my life as in Lima. There are mutts that must be a mixture of over 50 breeds.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Clay's Wedding

I just got back from my brother's Clay's wedding in Utah, and of course I have to post a really cheesy short video, it's too tempting not to.

I didn't mean to focus in on Aria's chest area on that one pic, it was lengthwise and it's too late at night for me to go back and change everything. It was your usual large family gathering, a lot of activities, a lot of kids, a lot of food, and some drama to boot. We had a barbecue dinner with the two families the night before the wedding and shared funny stories about the two, and then we had two groups at the Salt Lake Temple the next morning - those of us that went to the ceremony in the temple, and the self-proclaimed "Sinners Circle" that waited outside.

There was a gorgeous reception at a farm in Mapleton that had a lake with boats and there were horses and mountains and stuff. Clay and Aria are now on their honeymoon in Ireland and the rest of us have scattered back to our various places of residence across the country(s).

After the wedding we all went up to my Grandmother's cabin in Smith Morehouse and slept, knitted, ate, fished, and did some small hikes. Then it was off to my Dad's cabin at Brighton for the next day.

On the one hand it's nice to be back in Peru where I have my own place and some control over my situation again, but on the other hand it isn't that fun to be so far away from all of your friends and relatives for such extended periods of time.

I'm really happy for my brother though that he's found the love of his life - their marriage is the culmination of knowing each other and dating on and off for nine years. I wish them the best together.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Huaraz

This week we finally made it out of Lima and went high into the Andes to a town called Huarez. It is right smack in the middle of hundreds of snow covered peaks and is the mecca for rock and ice climbing, mountain biking, river running, camping, or trekking to the top of one of the over 50 peaks that are above 19,000 feet (the U.S. in comparison only has one - Mt. Mckinely in Alaska).

It's streets are full of adventure guides and mountain climbing equipment stores full of grungy die hard European and American climbers and trekkers. There are also a bunch of Israeli tourists and is the only place I know of outside Israel where you will see signs in Spanish, English, and Hebrew.

There was an earthquake in 1970 that killed 70,000 people across the region and flattened or buried all the houses, so the towns are now nothing to look at as they are all hastily build cement and brick structures, it's mainly the setting that's pretty. In one nearby town, Yungay, 25,000 inhabitants were all killed in one blow as the quake launched a 100 ft wall of snow, rock, and dirt that came down the mountain at 300 mph and completely buried everybody. They never dug anything up and it is now a national cemetary people go and visit.

We tried to get out and do as much as we could with a baby, which ruled out about 80% of the activities, however we did hire a guide to take us rock climbing one day (that's Vanessa to the right) and took turns playing with Alexa while the other climbed. We did some scenic driving, saw a glacial lake, saw some pre-inca ruins at a place called Chavin, and visited some hot springs which we promptly left after seeing how dirty they were.

Although it is winter, this part of the Andes falls in a tropical zone, so while the tops of the mountains maintain about -40 degrees year round, in the valleys it stays in the 70's and 80's all winter (in the summer it rains all day). At night it gets a bit nippy, but during the day we were in short sleeve shirts and shorts.

The people here are all speak Quechua and Spanish and wear the traditional clothing and the food is really tasty - although I didn't try the roasted guinea pig or llama. Vanessa accidentally ate a peice of an andean pepper and almost started crying it was so hot, so I showed what a baby she was by eating the whole peice - which I sorely regretted for the next hour.

To the left Alexa spotted a roasted pig in a wheelbarrow that people were pulling meat from and eating and kept pointing and saying "piggy", "piggy" and wanted to pet it. She also kept wanting to pet the llama below and I had to hold her back when it started making a hissing sound and getting ready to spit or something. I think llamas spit.

Anyways, now we're back in dismal Lima, and I'd love to go back sometime and do some more of the outdoor activities there, so if anybody is reading this and they also think it sounds fun, please come and join me.