Month: March 2014

Well, it has become clear to us, that 2 hours per day with the Spanish Teacher for 4 weeks is not going to turn our kids into fluent Spanish speakers.  We’ve all heard about how quickly kids under 10 can pick up new languages, and yet the conditions still have to be right.  Our options were really, to give up the dream of really learning spanish on this trip, or give up the dream of exploring the “South American Alaska”, Patagonia.  It just so happened that the friends we met from New Hampshire, started school this week in Peru after months of planning and research.  We tend to think of these things as a sign.  I had an ulterior motive in that my vision for our time in South America was to “live” in one place for awhile to both control costs, and really get a flavor for the culture.  There may arguably be better places than Cusco for this, but it’s very safe, they speak relatively slow version of Spanish, it’s beautiful, and there is lots to do and see closeby.  The downside is, it pretty touristy, and by comparison expensive.  Thankfully, we have an apartment in a very “residential” area that is not very (if at all) touristy.  If fact, only about 2% of the cab drivers in town know how to get to our street! (that is a precise number based on tens of rides, and 1 guy knowing).

In an even bigger surprise, when we asked the kids about enrolling in school here, they were “all in”.  I’m still not sure why or how, but it must have to do with either:

1. Wanting to be like their new friends.
2. Wanting to “upgrade” their teachers.
3. Being tired of being with Kim and I 24/7.
4. Soccer Fields, Swimming Pools, & Snack Bars

Whatever it was, after a couple of days of thinking about it, operation “peruvian school” was launched with great fanfare.  By the end of the following weekend, the kids were enrolled, uniforms bought or ordered, school supplies purchased, and high-fives distributed.

Although this was the over-riding theme of the week (and Kim already did a post on it), we did manage to acquire some other experiences along the way.  We had ruins to see, and unbeknownst to us, “Carnival” had begun.

Saturday, our schedule was empty and operation “peruvian school” had not yet begun to percolate.  During one of my Spanish lessons with my substitute teacher, Warner, (and Kim was out too) I had inquired about the possibility of a zoo on Cusco.  Warner told me about a small zoo inside the University.  He mentioned bears, parrots, puma, monkeys, and condors.  He had me at monkey.  Kat has already posted on the zoo experience, but I mention it here for time reference.  It was an awesome Saturday, last minute, adventure.  We even walked back, and got to see more of the city.

Sunday, we had planned a guided side trip to Moray and Salineras (we also thought it included another place too, but we were confused).  We showed up 40 minutes early as instructed, and were led over to the Plaza San Francisco.  The morning was glorious!  After 20 minutes, they came back and led us to a bus.  The bus was completely full, every last person was Latin American, and the bus smelled of heavy perfume.  There were 2 seats in the last row, and I’m not sure anything else available.  We had been recommended to have a specific guide, and assured by the ticket office that we’d have “alfredo”.  This was a “bait-n-switch”.  We marched back off the bus, and asked for another with a fluent english speaking guide.  They took us up the street to bus #2, which was totally empty, except for a grumpy driver who didn’t want us on his bus.  We got on anyway, because Kim was quickly becoming a “women scorned”.  The downside was, we had to wait another 30 minutes for the bus to fill and the guide to show up, but it was well worth it.

We headed up toward Moray, with a quick bathroom break and wool dying clinic in Chinero.  The guide was OK, he was “bi-lingual” which means he would talk for 4 minutes in rapid Spanish, and then 45 seconds in broken english.  He was funnier that he was informative, and to kill time, he interviewed people and tried to shame them into singing.

The ruins at Moray are pretty cool.  Mostly terraces, but the unique thing about them is they are in a “crater shaped valley”, and are circular terraces.   The guide suggested that at some point a meteor there and created the circular valley.  I’m not so sure about that.  He also said the Incans used the site to acclimatize crops for various elevations.  Not sure about that either, but sounds cool.  Kind of like a natural, ancient Monsanto lab.

At the bottom we could see workers mowing the place with weedwhackers!  What a job.  I’ve noticed lots of jobs being done “the hard way”, I guess because of cheap labor and expensive equipment.  There is a 3 month project going on to along on of the main roads that we travel… avenue Sol.  You’ve got guys digging by hand with chisels and pick-axes, and boards being cut with hand saws!  But I digress.

We had a little spiritual ceremony near the ruins with our guide playing his flute, then we hiked back up to the rim for some more good views, and returned to the bus.  While the bus was loading, our guide was pelted by dozens of water balloons by a half dozen tween and teen girls.  He was a good sport, and it’s customary to throw water on each other during “Carnival”, however, he informed us that he was dating the girls sister and “they don’t like me”.

It was then off to Salineris and the salt pans.  The view between was quite nice, younger, taller Andes peaks and many glaciers/ice fields to be seen.  Along with some stormy weather in the distance.  It’s amazing how often cloudy weather yields such beautiful views, as somehow the sun always manages to sneak through the clouds in spots to highlight some new landmark.  We see this all the time from our apartment, and on this short trip as well.

Salineris was fascinating, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  They’ve dug a trench along the hillside for brackish water to flow (evidently there is ground water that travels though/over a salt dome, and emerges in this valley full of salt).  All along the trench, and down the hill, they have build elaborate system of pools that flow from one to the next.  I guess it’s like a natural filter.  The water pools up in this little (3 ft x 3 ft) areas, and the salt crystalized in the semi-stagnant water where it is later harvested.  They evidently only harvest the salt for 6 months out of the year, and we missed that, but we still had full walking around, dipping our hands in the warm and salty water, and watching the salt form on our hands as the water dried.  It’s really a remarkable and beautiful place.

After we returned to Cusco, we decided to grab dinner near the square, and watch the “Carnival Chaos” ensue in the square.  We went to a place that advertised “Amazing Thai Food”.  It was amazing that they called it Thai food, easily the worst I’ve ever had!  Totally bland and lacking spice.  The cool part about “The Crown” pub was that it was on the second floor, right on the main square, and the kids could watch people throwing water and spraying each other with aerosol spray foam.  I guess the foam is a new tradition, and young adults were reveling in it!  Our kids were dying to get into the action, but Kim nor I wanted to be covered with foam.  Kat’s moment of excitement came when a double-decker bus pulled up adjacent to our balcony.  The waitress brought over a can of foam, shook it up, and set in on the table in front of the kids.  It took Kat about a millisecond to pick it up.  She then proceeded to spray the folks on top of the bus for about 10 seconds (it felt like 10 minutes).  The main victim was a 50-something Italian man, who was not happy to say the least.  The people scattered, and he scolded Kat for a bit, and proceeded to angrly clean himself up.  I thought for a moment I might get my first knuckle sandwich in Cusco!

One day this week, the kids and I decided to start working on a short film.  Since nobody cared to get in front of the camera, we settled on “The Adventures of Super Brownie”, staring Kat’s homemade stuffed animal (and possibly some pieces of fruit with faces).  So far we’ve shot about half, and figured out how to (sort of) use Final Cut to do green screen work, but we have a ways to go to complete it.

Also, since we had out 10 day ticket from Moray/Salineras, we decided to use it again on Wednesday to go some some Peruvian dancing and music.  It was neat to see all of the various costumes and dancing styles from around Peru.  The music was enjoyable too, though I have to admit most of the songs sort of sounded the same to me!  They mostly plan an instrument called a Charango, which is kind of like a small mandolin.

We spent most of Thur/Fri, running around trying to get the kids ready for School.  Kim went to Kane’s school (Colegio San Jose) with the kid’s spanish teacher, Carina.  After that, Kim went solo to Kat’s school (Santa Maria Reyna) to sign Kat up.  Both schools are private Catholic schools, with San Jose being larger with both boys and girls, and Santa Maria being very small and all girls.  Each school provided a long list of necessities (Both Formal and Track Suit uniforms, and a multitude of supplies/books, including toilet paper!).  It seems as though the classroom is outfit with supplies community style.  Needless to say, it was quite an experience for us to find everything.  Kane even got his first pair of tailored pants!  Some things don’t change no matter where you are, with private school in Peru, the tuition is the tip of the cost iceberg!  They better learn Spanish!

All in all, a good week for us, we felt like we won the Nobel prize by the end and the kids were ready to head off to Peruvian School!

Week 3 felt a bit like a transition from “visiting” to “living” in Cusco.  In addition to that, we started to lick our wounds and recover a bit after the shaky start here.  Ironically, doing “regular stuff” was the real impetus for us to realize just how different life here is!  Case in point… Parque Urpicha.

During our chaotic week 2, Rik, the owner of our Spanish School, had introduced us to a couple of other traveling families from North America.  A Mom and 6 yr old son from Canada, and a Mom with 12 yr old son and 5 yr old daughter from NE USA.  We struggled to get together until week 3, where we agreed to meet at “Parque Urpicha” (Quechua for “Small Pigeon Park”).  Quechua is the ancient language of the Peruvian hill people.  The park is in an area of Cusco that we had not yet visited, clearly a mile or so outside of our insulated “historic district”.  We arrived to struggle finding the entrance… the entire park (probably a couple of acres), is surrounded by 12 foot fences topped by barbed wire, spikes, or broken bottles.  What looked like main gates were locked, so we followed some other who looked like they knew what they were doing.  The second shocker of the day was the entrance fee, we paid 80 cents US (2 Soles) for all four of us!  It does turn out that snacks, the ferris wheel, and trampolines are extra tickets, but everyone was shocked by the price.    As a side note, not working for a year has been amazing for us for many reasons, not the least of which is we all (kids included) have finely tuned value meters.  A year ago, our kids would not have  batted an eye to spend 200 bucks going to Six Flags for the day… no concept of money nor value.  Today, Kane is excited when we find a “good deal” for lunch, and he weighs that in his consideration of where we should go.

Back to the park.  When we enter the park, and start looking for our new friends, we immediately come to a tiny zoo within the park.  Birds, chickens, rabbits etc, all in cages as if your neighbor reclaimed some chain-linked fence from the junk yard, and build cages in his backyard.  The park has HUGE slides, and Kane ran-off immediately to check them out.  He came back a few minutes later to let us know that he had to “crab-crawl” past the first 10 feet of the blue slide because the bottom of the slide was torn, and jagged metal was sticking up!  I may eventually stop making OSHA jokes some day as a result.  (not yet though).

After the kids ran and explored a bit, our friends arrived, and headed straight for the trampolines. Kane made an attempt to join them, only to be thwarted by the “trampoline nazi”. She sternly told him that he first needed to buy a ticket, and after he bought 2 tickets and tried to give one to Kat, he got scolded again. The trampoline nazi was frustrated, and the feeling was mutual, but I let him handle it on his own. Eventually they both got tickets and spent some time showing off the skills developed over the last year in Clayton with the tramp in the backyard.

I don’t have any pics of the ferris wheel, but you know the “portable” ones you see at school or city fairs? If ferris wheels played kickball, all of those portable ones from the US would be picked for a team before the “permanent” one at Parque Urpicha. The upside was one ticket seemed to get you about an hour on that sucker! Our kids were literally starting to worry that they’d be stuck on there all day…. hollaring down from the top “WE”RE STILL GOING!”, each time around with more anxiety. The most memorable event from the day, I think for the kids was, when they were stuck at the top of the wheel, they evidently witnessed some dogs being beaten with sticks in somebodies courtyard. They still talk about it.

Later that week, we got another taste of “change”.  We’d been forewarned that for two days this week (wed and thur), there would be a taxi strike.  It turned out to be an all out transportation strike.  I’m still not sure exactly what all the folks were protesting, but I’ve heard various versions of:

1. Gasoline prices egregiously high for Cusco.  Prices around Peru have dropped in recent months, and in Cusco they have gone up 16% since August.  The Government is bilking the tourists (or they assume they are), but in reality, it’s coming out of the wages of the workers.
2. There supposedly has been promised an “international airport” new Cusco in Chinero.  This has been ongoing for decades, and politics are keeping all travelers flowing through Lima.
3. There seem to be regular protests against corruption in local government.  This one seems to be separate, but you never know.
4. Kane thinks the farmers are protesting not enough land and not enough money.

No matter the reason, it was an impressive show of solidarity. Not a single car on the road (the streets had been blocked by debris and burning tires). 75% of the shops, including all grocery stores where closed. Hundreds, of not thousands of workers marching in the streets (in the rain actually), singing, setting off cherry bombs, and carrying scary looking props (like a casket with a politicians picture on it). Police lined the main square in riot gear, and stood at the ready with their plexiglass shields, batons, and mobile phones. I figured it was a hay-day for petty thieves as I’m sure every cop in Cusco was on riot duty!

We finished the week on a really good note, once again getting together with our new friends. We hosted everybody for a simple dinner, the kids played (soccer on the street, and dodge ball inside), and Kat learned to finger knit. We hope to learn to knit with needles etc, but this is a first step. It was a bit odd to have something so “normal” as having friends over seem so “non-standard”, but it was great. It was a good week! We also did the day trip to Pisac, but that is covered in another post by Kane!