World's Largest Sand Trap?

A rather amusing part of the Azapa Valley is the Rio Lluta golf course. (Pachi loves taking visitors to this place because they cannot believe it!) It's a golf course, but as you can see in the picture, it's all sand. But hey, there are serious golf tournaments here, so maybe we shouldn't laugh too hard. No, let's go ahead and laugh. :)

Museo de San Miguel de Azapa

The Universidad de Tarapaca has a special affiliation with the Archaeological Museum of San Miguel de Azapa, which presents the cultural and anthropological development of the region. Its special attraction is the display of Chinchorro mummies, shown in the photo below. Seeing these mummies was incredible, and the process of mummification is astounding: organs and flesh removed; skeleton reassembled, reinforced with sticks; internal organs replaced with clay and dried plants; body remade with the skin of the deceased, and then covered with dark paste. Some mummies had clay masks showing facial features and/or clay sexual organs. The museo actually has the oldest known mummy in existence, a child found near Arica that dates back to around 5050 B.C. My jaw was dropping while looking at this exhibit; you look at these things in the case and realize they were once people!!! Other parts of the chronological display were also really interesting; for example, the arrival of the Bolivian influence to the area brought the color red into clothing and crafts, as you can see in the other photo. I just loved the way the museum was organized as a visual tour through 10,000 years of history.

El Valle de Azapa

Our travels with Pachi also took us to the Azapa Valley, just outside of Arica. This valley is known for its production of fruits and vegetables, especially a unique violet-colored olive that produces a strong-tasting olive oil. I was so interested to learn about this because when I first bought olive oil in Arica back in March, I had noticed that it was especially strong - and good. It was from the Azapa Valley, and now I know that I was not imagining the strong taste! One of my students had me try olives that her father, who works in the valley, had prepared from scratch - right from the tree. They were amazing. There's a whole process of soaking them in salt water for a period of days until they reach perfection. Also in the Azapa Valley are the famous geoglyphs, which you see in the photo. Geoglyphs are huge figures made by collecting stones from the hillside to form figures or by removing debris to expose the differently colored surface as the image. The valley's geoglyphs are thought to have been made by ancient peoples, but it is not certain what purpose they served - whether they were used for directions or as some type of worship ritual. We do know one thing, though: Pachi pointed out to us the large, protruding male genitalia on the animal figures, representing their wish for fertility. Isn't it a riot that thousands of years pass, and some things don't change?!

El Morro de Arica

My dear friend and colleague Pachi was kind enough to take Mom, Gordon, and me on a fantastic personal tour of Arica. Her family has been in the travel and tourism business for years, so she knows everything! The photo you see here shows Arica's main attraction: El Morro ("the steep hill," for lack of a better description). The final blow in the War of the Pacific's Battle of Arica was the taking of El Morro by Chilean forces on June 7, 1880. Until that time, Arica had been part of Peru. Although it functioned as part of Chile for years, Arica was not officially declared a Chilean city until 1929. At that point in time, it is said that people were given the choice to stay in Arica and be Chilean, or move to Tacna (9 miles away) and be Peruvian. I have also heard that many indigenous and poorer people were coerced into going to Peru. These are the bits of "history" I learn from taxi drivers and bartenders!

Catedral San Marcos

These photos capture Arica's other attraction, La Catedral San Marcos, whose claim to fame is that it was designed by Gustav Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower fame! (I have not yet figured out or been able to understand when people try to tell me what he was doing here...). Anyway, it's made of metal and has a white and pink facade; very unique. I love the photo taken from El Morro, which essentially shows La Catedral and the whole downtown area, which has now become so familiar to me. Arica is a town of about 200,000 people, although it often feels smaller, as I already run into people I know!

Cristo de la Paz

An interesting little story: This is the "Cristo de Paz," (Christ of Peace) which sits on top of El Morro. It is supposed to represent peace between the two countries of Chile and Peru. The Golden Rule is engraved on the bottom. Ironically, however, it is facing neither the town of Arica nor the country of Peru because people could not agree on which way it should face! Should it face Chile or Peru? In the end, Christ has his arms spread open to the Pacific Ocean, and if you look up from downtown Arica you see him from the back! It seems to me that people have somehow missed the point!

On Top of El Morro

Pachi drove us to the top of El Morro, where there are spectacular views of Arica, and you can actually see Peru in the distance. I am pictured here with Pachi with the Port of Arica in the background. I am also pictured sitting on a cannon. I had Gordon take this photo because I was transported back to the days of my childhood when my dad thought family vacations should be to Civil War battlefields. I think we have photos of me on every cannon on the U.S. East Coast. This one's for you, Dad! :)

Dinner at "Passion Fruit" with Gladys and Wilfredo

Gladys, my colleague and Fulbright contact at UTA, and her husband Wilfredo have been so kind to me since my arrival. Mom and Gordon took us all to dinner at the restuarant Maracuya, which sits right on the ocean in Arica. Maracuya means "passion fruit," and the dessert I ordered allowed me to experience for the first time what a cut-open passion fruit actually looks like (see photo on left). It's very unusual! It almost looks like a kind of fruit salad inside, but that's the way the fruit comes in nature. It's really tart, but I've come to like it a lot.

Mom and Gordon Go Back to School!

On Thursday of their visit, I took Mom and Gordon to my undergrad class at la Universidad. We joined with my colleague Monica's class to play Apples to Apples. It was new for these students, and Mom and Gordon knew how to play and were a big help with their native English speaker knowledge. Gordon got right to work explaining things in a clear way. Pilar's card said "shoplifting," and he explained to her that "it's when you steal something from a store." (My students later said how nice they were!) I enjoyed seeing them in my school setting, and they liked seeing me in my teacher role.

Back to Arica!

It was exciting to bring Mom and Gordon back to my Chilean home of Arica. First things first: I took them to DiMango, my cafe/restaurant hang-out on the beach, where they serve amazing ice cream creations. Mom and I shared a "Copa Potrich," which is manjar (dulce de leche/caramel) ice cream and lucuma (a fruit we don't have in the U.S.) ice cream with manjar and chocolate sauces, topped with whipped cream and wafer cookies. (You can see my spoon making its way toward Mom's bowl.) Gordon had a yummy combination of coconut and lemon ice cream.

City of Cusco

We took a private tour of the city of Cusco the morning of our departure. Cusco was once the capital of the Incan empire but was proclaimed Spanish territory by Francisco Pizarro in 1532. He made this proclamation in what he named the Plaza de Armas (formerly called ‘Huacaypata’ by the Incas), which is home to the beautiful Catedral de Cusco you see in the photo taken at night. Cusco is marked by a mix of Incan and Spanish architecture. I like the picture on the right because you can see remains of an Incan structure with colonial walls and roofing on top of it, and a cross in the distance. Today, Cusco is a very busy tourist city (95% of its residents have work that relies on tourists). Side streets are narrow and are often filled with people like those you see in the photo of one of the small street markets. Our tour ended with a visit to the walled complex of Sacsayhuamán, described in the next post.

Sacsayhuamán

Sacsayhuamán (pronounced very much like "sexy woman") is a walled Incan complex near Cusco. Had it been untouched, it would have been a site nearly as impressive as Machu Picchu; but the Spanish used many of the rocks from the structure to build their churches. The complex was a religious center for the Incans, the "sun's house," but the Spanish thought it was a fortress. Again, the precision of Incan stonework is present, and this has kept the stucture from being destroyed during various earthquakes in Cusco. You can even see the cougar paw they put in the stonework in the photo! A llama and a guinea pig can be found elsewhere in the complex. Amazing!

More Machu Picchu

There is so much to discuss and describe, but I have chosen two things that I really liked. One photo shows a temple with three windows. The number three is very important in Incan culture because of the three worlds in which they believed: the upper world of the stars and gods; the middle world of life on Earth; and the lower world of death. These worlds are also represented by animals: the condor, puma, snake, respectively. The other photo shows an open area that the Incas may have used for speeches, celebrations, or even sports. What is amazing is that from the spot the photo was taken, the Incan ruler could speak and be heard by the whole community. Our guide demonstrated this, and it was as if his voice was carried right into the mountains. The stone structures you see in that photo made up the "residential" area of Machu Picchu, which is separate from the worship area comprised of temples.

Inside Machu Picchu

One of the interesting things to note is that the people who lived at Machu Picchu were of the higher class and were not the ones who built it; workers were brought in. Having made the trip in a bus and climbed just a tiny portion of Inca ruins myself, I cannot even imagine how people were able to get from place to place in these mountains; but they did. The photo on the left shows the "gate" through which the rulers and nobility entered the community.

Machu Picchu, The World's Wonder

Machu Picchu - "The Lost City of the Incas." It is safe to to say that I have never visited anything so breathtaking in my life. I'd seen pictures, I'd heard about it, but I could not have imagined what it's like to be there in person, looking down at the Incas' impeccably crafted community of stone and looking up to see the Andes poking through the clouds. The Incas started building Machu Picchu in the mid-1400's, but it was abandoned less than a hundred years later during the Spanish conquest, as its occupants escaped to the jungle or died from smallpox. Had the Spanish ever found this place, it would have suffered the fate of so many other Inca sites; what is so miraculous is that it is so intact. In 1911 Professor Hiram Bingham discovered Machu Picchu hidden under thick brush; he'd actually been looking for something else! He was led to the site by Quechuans who were living in the ruins. It was Professor Bingham who gave the place its name, which comes from the Quechua words machu ‘old man’ and pikchu ‘peak’.

Getting to Machu Picchu

The next day we began our journey to Machu Picchu very early, boarding a train from Cusco at 6:55 am. The train ride to Aguas Calientes (the stopping point for boarding a bus to MP) is three hours long, and as you'll see in the photo of Mom and Gordon, we were not quite prepared for the cold at this hour! We were on the first-class "Vistadome" train, but alas, it does not have a heating system. (The less expensive train is called the "Backpacker." I'm not sure what it doesn't have, but its name suggested to me that it might not be for us!) Fortunately, the mother in a family from Lima seated next to us seemed to have extras of every piece of cold weather gear in her bag; she was pulling scarves, gloves, hats, etc. out of the bag as if it was a magic hat. She insisted we use them to get warm, and we were very grateful; the train also keeps blankets on hand. We were treated to a lovely breakfast on the train, though, and by the time we arrived in Aguas Calientes, the sun was out, we were warm, and ready to go! We boarded a bus and had the amazing view you see in the photo as we took the 30-minute ride to the entrance to Machu Picchu. In Spanish there's a word "emocionante," which is a combination of emotional and excited, and that's the word that kept coming to my mind as I looked out the window.

The Village of Chinchero

Chinchero, a small Andean Indian village, was our last stop for the day. We arrived at dusk, which made the views overlooking The Sacred Valley even more spectacular. Chinchero is believed to be the mythical birthplace of the rainbow, one of the phenomena of nature that the Incas worshipped. What I found so interesting here, once again, was the combination of the Inca life with the Spanish life. An adobe colonial church, dating from the early seventeenth century, was built on the foundations of an Inca temple or palace.

Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo (fun name!) was our first stop after lunch in Yucay. The town is built on original Inca foundations and is considered to be the best remaining example of Inca town planning. Ollantaytambo is divided into "canchas" (blocks). Each cancha has a huge stone doorway as its one entrance. The doorway leads into a central courtyard, which is surrounded by houses. Gordon - God bless him - opted to climb the steep terrace leading up to the Inca temple area. The steep terracing helped to provide excellent defenses (it obviously kept me away!). He took the photo you see from atop the terrace. Meanwhile, I was wandering around finding some fascinating things in the town. You can get a ride around the rocky, uneven streets in a sort of expanded motorcycle (see photo). I actually saw fancy versions of these things at a Honda dealership in Lima! A great idea. I also stumbled upon a family of ducks hanging out in the town, but they were unlike any ducks I had ever seen at home.

Lunch in Yucay

We stopped in Yucay for lunch, and I just loved this little town! Its name means "bewitchment" (maybe I felt some connection to Salem!). It was so peaceful, with two large, grassy plazas nestled below the Andes and along the Urubamba River. Just standing in one spot you could look around and see the mountains that had been home to the Incans, and the influence of the Spanish in in the town's architecture; for example, the church of Santiago de Apostol you see in the photo. You could just feel and imagine all the different types of people who had come through this town - and who are still coming through as visitors! I took a walk after lunch and had a little "power siesta" on a bench under the tree in the photo - still recovering from my hike to the Pisac ruins!

The Pisac Ruins

Continuing on through the Sacred Valley, we arrived at the Pisac ruins, whose citadel controlled a route connecting the Inca Empire with Paucartambo. Here we got our first glimpse of the Incas' impressive terrace work (for farming), along with the amazing stonework for which they are famous. There are still unexcavated portions of this site at the highest points. Speaking of high, getting to the Pisac ruins was an adventure in and of itself. Our guide let us know that it would be over an hour of some difficult hiking and climbing, and that some of us "might end up coming back to the bus." A little daunting, but off we went! The photo to the left does not even really capture just how long and difficult it was. We were very proud of ourselves for making it - and very exhausted. Those Incas must have been in great shape! :)

El Valle Sagrado

The next day we started our day tour of The Sacred Valley of the Incas. I've let the photo above stand alone because it captures the beauty and fertility of this area, which is what made it so sacred to the Incas. The valley was a veritable treasure in the high Andes and was also a route to the jungle, allowing access to the fruits and plants of the lowlands. It is still a rich agricultural region today. You can also see the incredible luck we had with the perfect weather!

First Night in Cusco

Our first evening in Cusco, we settled in at our hotel in the city center. Mom and Gordon had the view in the photo from their window. We headed off to a wonderful dinner at a restaurant with musicians and dancers.

Highlights were the playing of "El Condor Pasa" and an incredible vocal performance of the Cuban song "Paloma." The dinner was a buffet of traditional dishes, including ceviche (seafood marinated in lime juice and cilantro), trout, alpaca meat, and various corn and potato dishes. The Incans developed 1,000 kinds of potatoes in Peru, and now there are over 3,000 kinds. There are nearly as many kinds of corn. I tried to think of how many kinds of potatoes I could name and came up with three: big ones, little ones, and red ones. I am in awe of the Incas.

Got oxygen?

Mom, Gordon, and I flew from Lima to Cusco on May 3 to begin our journey to the Incan ruins. Cusco sits high in the Andes at 11,000 feet; our "Mile High" city of Denver is only 5,280 feet, as a point of comparison. The photo above shows our approach to Cusco and the incredible view of the mountain range. The recommended drink to avoid altitude sickness is "mate de coca," which is a hot tea made with coca leaves. Coca is the plant used - in large quantities - to make cocaine. However, Peruvians are very quick to point out that coca is not bad; it is people who abuse it and make drugs like cocaine. Coca has been used there for ages for medicinal purposes. We all did very well with the altitude, although the shortness of breath was quite noticeable when climbing or walking fast. Not to worry, though, because if you find yourself feeling short of oxygen, there's "OxiShot" (see left photo). This oxygen station greeted us in Cusco's airport, and we thought it was a riot. I did speak to one man on our tour who arrived at his hotel and needed oxygen; they keep it on hand.

Lima, Peru

"A Little Chile" is going to turn now to "A Little Peru," as my Mom and Gordon came to visit for a week, and we began our travels in Lima. Lima is yet another wonderful South American city, founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1535. The city tour took us to Plaza San Martin, named in honor of General José de San Martín, who proclaimed Peruvian independence from Spain in that spot on July 28, 1821. However, the most impressive plaza I've seen so far was Lima's Plaza de Armas, where we saw the daily changing of the guard in the front of Catedral de Lima (see left photo). During early Spanish colonial times, Lima was the continent’s richest, most important town. I think the grandeur of the city's main plaza seems to indicate this. The yellow church you see above is part of the Monasterio de San Francisco, where we were able to visit the library, which contains antique texts dating back to the conquistadores, and also the catacombs/crypts, which I found to be a little creepy! There were thousands of people buried under this area, and archaeologists have recovered their skulls and bones, which are on display. Many were Incans whom the Spanish converted to Catholicism. When school children come to visit, they apparently have to make sure none of the little ones try to exit with a bone. No need to worry about my doing that! :)

Despedida de Pochy

Pochy, my good friend, colleague, and neighbor, is leaving tomorrow for a month-long trip to the States. I bought her an "helado de despedida" (goodbye ice cream) at DiMango's to thank her for all her kindness. I also presented her with our Salem State Education Department t-shirt, which she loved. I know she'll wear it when she takes her daily walk along the Pacific in the morning. I'm happy that a little part of SSC will be with her in Arica!

Libros para Ninos de Eve Bunting

I was so happy with today's class for my undergrads. Our next topic for writing and discussion is social issues in the U.S. and Chile. I had shipped some of Eve Bunting's books for children and used them to introduce the topics to my students. I used A DAY'S WORK (immigration/unemployment); FLY AWAY HOME (homelessness); and SMOKY NIGHT (riots/violence). The students loved the books, especially the illustrations. In the photos you can see that they were so involved in reading the books aloud that they didn't even notice I was taking pictures!