Flooding and disaster in the Sacred Valley and Ollanta

While the world’s focus has turned to disaster relief in Haiti, the Sacred Valley in Peru was hit hard last week with flooding and heavy rains that destroyed much of the infrastructure and community that Kelsey, Jarrard, and I came to love last summer.

Pictures and information on the flooding can be found here.

Awamaki is raising money to help re-build the road, bridges, homes, and fields that were destroyed in the storms. Please consider making a donation to support the Ollantaytambo community at the Awamaki website, or contacting the organization to see how you can help.

Pictures from the flood here and below:

Come fly with me, let’s float down to Peru

I’m currently sitting in the car, driving through soybean fields in Delaware on my way to the beach. There’s an iced tea in the cupholder, Taylor Swift in the stereo, and my sister in the passenger seat.

I’m physically moving in a new direction, and it would be easy to mentally do the same. It’s unthinkable that I was in Peru only three days ago. The transition from third-world living to my house in Bethesda occurred in less than 24 hours, a testament to the power of modern transportation and very short layovers.

If I’d been living one hundred years ago, and I’d taken a six-month ship voyage home, I might have had more time to reflect on the transition. But I guess I might have had the opportunity to get scurvy too.

I’m back in the land of hot showers and fresh vegetables, humid D.C. heat and U.S. Treasury dollars. And it feels good. Eight weeks is a long time to be away from home and morning delivery of the Washington Post. But there are things that I miss.

I miss freshly-squeezed orange juice. I miss Dilmar making a  beeline for my knees in the morning. I miss the Puka Rumi steak sandwich Kelsey is so fond of, and taking a comvi ride with twenty people, plus livestock. I miss my host mother’s horror at my lack of reaction to the “chilly” Peruvian weather or her attempts to feed me endless amounts of soup. I miss Choko Soda cookies. And I’m going to sorely miss attending little Paulita’s baptism in two weeks.

I feel indescribably lucky to have had the summer I had. I’d never traveled to another country before except to Canada. (Which I’m not sure even really counts). I relished the opportunity to live in another culture and work with children so appreciative of my attention and affection for them. I am grateful to everyone who was patient with my poor attempts to speak in Spanish. I can now successfully tell jokes, yell at kids, and deflect comments from sketchy men in another language. I’m basically set.

So this is it. I’m heading off to school in three weeks and back to work at the Daily Tar Heel. Hopefully my compadres will make it back from the Amazon in one piece, and we might even get some more pictures out of Jarrard. Who knows.

I want to thank all of our readers, of whom there are a creepily large number, for following our exploits and my stories so avidly. Really, the ridiculous number of you who visited the site each day gave a huge boost to my self-esteem. And made me want to give up on school and become a professional travel writer.

I realized that I neglected to write about some great stories from out trip, such as the man driving a motorcycle with a broken leg or our friend performing an autopsy on someone in the health clinic while drinking chicha. I guess you’ll just have to come find me in the fall to catch up. I’ll be the one in the corner, drinking coffee and singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in Spanish. Ciao!

Been away so long I hardly knew the place

Tuesday was my last full day in Peru before I flew home on Wednesday. I went from Cusco to my doorstep in Bethesda in less than 24 hours, which was disorienting, to say the least.

On Monday we met up with John Danello and Rebecca Crabb, friends of ours from UNC and fellow Morehead scholars. They had been traveling in Peru this summer as well, teaching in rural areas as well as in Lima. It was fun to swap tips on avoiding sticky hands and surviving P.E.

We went to dinner Monday night at Ciccolino, a seriously nice restaurant in Cusco. I had a delicious green(!) salad and something called oso buscu. It tasted like a very tender steak, but slightly gamey. It also had a very large bone in the middle. I’m totally unsure what kind of animal I ate, but it was tasty.

On Tuesday morning we slept late in our lovely hotel. It was built by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century and had absolutely gorgeous carved wooden doors, hot showers, and English t.v. For $33 a night. What more could you possibly ask for? I love the exchange rate.

We’d taken several day trips to Cusco while we were living in Ollantaytambo, and it was always during the middle of the day, when it’s sunny and in the high 70’s. But sleeping in Cusco was another matter altogether. The city sits at 11,000 feet, and sleeping at that altitude was difficult. I was awake for several hours during the night trying to catch my breath, and I could hear my roomates periodically wake up gasping for air. Altitude does weird things to people.

But on Tuesday, after enjoying the hotel breakfast of the best scrambled eggs I’d had in Peru, we took John and Rebecca to the San Pedro market to buy our favorite wheel of Andino cheese, get some Choco Soda cookies, and see the requisite dead pigs before hailing a taxi and heading to Sacsayhuamán.

These ruins, which are best pronounced by saying “sexy woman” really fast with Spanish accent, sit several hundred feet above Cusco, halfway up the mountains which form a bowl around the city below. For those of you who took my recommendation and read the White Rock, you’ll know that Sacsayhuamán was the site of a big battle between the Spanish and the Incas, where the outnumbered Spanish somehow defeated the Incas in the terrifying fortress.

It’s easy to see why it would have been terrifying. After convincing the woman at the gate to let us in for only half the exorbitant rate, we entered the site to find ourselves standing on a huge flat plain of grass, with stones walls on either side.

To the left, toward the mountains, were huge slabs of stone that looked like whipped egg whites made by giants. And on the right was a huge retaining wall of sorts, holding back dirt that creates and ledge overlooking the city.

The wall was particularly interesting, not only because of its immense size, but because it sits in a jigsaw pattern. If the Spanish had tried to climb any of the walls, they would have been easily flanked by the Incas standing above. Wikipedia has a cool panorama of the wall that you can clink on here.

We ate our cheese and bread in a prohibited section of the ruins, trying to look nonchalant. Then we rejoined the law-abiding tourists at the lookout, where we took silly pictures of ourselves. Or made Jarrard take them of us.

When deciding what to do next, John suggested that we “hike to Jesus.” This was not some veiled religious metaphor. There actually is a huge Jesus statue perched on top of a mountain abutting Cusco. But after laughing at his suggestion, we vetoed the idea, and instead went to McDonalds for McFlurries. Because ice cream should always win out.

The McDonalds was awesome. The prices were about the same as they would have been in the States, and my compadres said the McFlurries were nothing more than ice cream with stuff on top. But the decor was fabulous and there was free WiFi, as the boys with their iPhones discovered. There was even cheesy American music and the strong smell of things being fried in vats of oil. We were very pleased.

To continue in the vein of behaving in an American manner, we then went shopping. Shopping for real clothes isn’t easy, as teens and young adults favor the kind of clothes you see on MTV but would never actually wear. Or at least I wouldn’t. I’m not so fond of  jeans with “Angel” written on the rear end or hoodies embroidered with skulls. But maybe that’s just me. Or maybe I felt I was whistled at enough in Peru already.

But in Cusco we discovered a store that sold reasonably normal clothing for dirt-cheap prices. Sounds good, right? It was even better. The store was called TopiTop, which when said out loud, provides endless entertainment.

After spending about $40 on an entirely new wardrobe, we watched English television in our hotel and laughed at the Spanish subtitles, before dinner at Jack’s. Jack’s is a delightful gringo establishment where one can order a “big juicy hamburger” or a veggie burger with “lashings of guacamole.” These were not written by someone who speaks poor English. This was someone excited about food.

Then suddenly, time started to fly. I was packing and checking email and trying to figure out if I’d miss my connecting flights the following day before I realized that I would be leaving Kelsey and Jarrard for good, or at least until school started.

We’d spent eight weeks together and it was weird to think that I wouldn’t again watch Kelsey spill jelly all over the breakfast table or ask Jarrard to take a picture of something. The three of us got really close this summer, and I honestly believe that we accomplished more as a team than any of us could have done on our own. Future travelers, take note. Two scholars are better than one. Three is perfect. And five is a party.

The usual. Dead piggies go to market.

John in front of Peruvian flags.

An archway in Cusco.

The gang, walking through a smaller Plaza in Cusco.

The courtyard in our hotel.

The frog in the fountain. The Spanish had a sense of humor.

Up to the ruins.

Kelsey on the ruins.

Cheese!

Looking out over the city.

The girls at the lookout.

The Incas never figured out the arch, making doorways narrow at the top.

Kelsey kissing the rocks. She’s tall. You can get a sense of the scale.

The main grassy area below the wall.

Clearly the reconstructed part at the top wasn’t done too well.

Let’s hike to Jesus!

The wall from the other side.

Curvy rocks. Do not know if the Incas made them this way, but they’re cool. So probably.

More rocks.

The ruins, with the city behind.

The Peruvian kids slid down the smooth rocks like they were jungle gyms.

For some reason, they insisted on doing handstands. Because standing on your feet isn’t good enough?

Independence day in Cusco.

McDonalds!

The decor in McDonalds was lovely. There were tribal masks and pottery on the walls.

Rebecca and Kelsey with their McFlurries.

The tables in McDonalds had a drawing of the Inca Trail.

The Plaza de Armas looking pretty.

The sky over the city.

One of the smaller plazas, near our hotel.

A street near TopiTop. Peruvians love that shade of blue. I do too.

An abby that houses nuns.

TopiTop. The coolest name of anything, ever.

Cathedrals. There are many.

There was a dog with a steel muzzle. They went to pet it. End of story.

On the way home…

I have officially left Ollantaytambo and am embarking on my journey home. We arrived in Cusco at our gorgeous hotel this morning, and will spend three days here before I fly home on Wednesday and Kelsey and Jarrard head off to Arequipa and the Amazon.

It´s really too close to everything to have any clear thoughts about leaving, but last night we had a great send-off. We started with a despedida, or goodbye party, at our friend´s house. There was chocolate cake like you can´t even imagine. It was delicious. We ended the party in the Plaza, hanging out and telling stories with the police on duty. It was quite spectacular.

I went to Cusco last week and bought paint and canvases and got a chance to finish one painting and start another before a five-day monsoon started and we had to leave. Below are some photos of the paintings. Even though I bought a lot of beautiful things as mementos of my trip, I have a feeling that my 16 sole canvas might be my favorite thing crowding my suitcase.

We met up with Jacob for lunch at Jacks, a popular gringo establishement that serves such items as ¨big juicy hamburgers.¨

My painting of the valley looking down towards Ollantaytambo.

My unfinished sketch of the train tracks going toward Machu Picchu.

Me and Kelsey with our host family. They gave us gorgeous flowers with an unpronounceable name.

Our first farewell party, hosted by our host family.

The calendar we had band-aided to our wall for eight weeks.

At the party hosted by Awamaki volunteers.

Me and Jen giggling in the rain.

There´s not a lot to do in Ollanta on a Sunday night but take silly pictures of yourself.

This guy was hilarious. He kept asking Ann Marie if she was from laska. I mocked him in two languages.

Cheesing for the photo with the Ollanta police. They loved us.

A Morehead reunion in Cusco for lunch at Jack´s.

One more Jarrard

There is really nothing I could make up that could possibly improve in any way the following story I have to tell.

Jarrard was walking home last night when he ran into one of our fifth-graders, Esmeralda, with her mother.

Kids here get really excited to see us around town, and because Jarrard lives so far away, he often walks home from school with them. This is pretty common.

Esmeralda and her mother walked with him for a while and seemed very intent on having him spell his entire name for them. Also not too unusual, considering the number of names the average Peruvian possesses far outnumber those that the average American possesses.

But as impressively as Jarrard has picked up on Spanish in the last eight weeks, I guess he couldn´t spell his name sufficiently for them, so they invited him into their house to write it down. They live right near his host family´s house, so once again, not too weird.

So he went into their house and wrote down his name. Then they asked him to write down my full name and Kelsey´s full name. Okay. That´s a little weird.

Then they brought out a baby that Jarrard estimated to be about two or three months old, and gave him the baby to hold. Jarrard asked the baby´s name. Well, it was Raul, he was told. But no longer. The baby would now be named Geoffrey Jarrard Cole.

Yes, this is correct. A random Peruvian family decided to rename their baby after Jarrard. Apparently if they have any more girl babies, there could be a little Eliza Simpson Kern or Kelsey Rushing Farson running around Ollantaytambo.

Never mind the fact that this family cannot actually pronounce Jarrard´s name, or that the baby has had the name Raul for the first three months of his life. Apparently these facts are irrelevant.

The best part is that Jarrard was entirely freaked out by this family naming their baby after him. I believe his words were, ¨I just wanted to go home and eat my dinner.¨ 

I told him he had to blog about the incident and he refused. He said it was an uncomfortable experience. Kelsey and I think it´s hilarious. But one thing is for sure, we all have to come back to Ollantaytambo in a few years to meet our namesakes.

Jarrard´s photos, Part 2

The rest of Jarrard´s pictures of the three of us. Check out more festival photos at http://jarrardcole.wordpress.com/.

Looking cute.

Hiram Bingham pose.

The girls.

Jacob laughing, with Mount Veronica in the background.

UNC! We really like doing this.

Jacob on the solstice hike.

The three of us at the solstice hike.

Jarrard´s photos

Below are some of Jarrard´s pictures of us from this summer. You can see more of his beautiful work on his photoblog, http://jarrardcole.wordpress.com/.

 

Kelsey being awesome.

Kelsey doing a split on Machu Picchu.

UNC!

Looking cool on Machu Picchu.

Kelsey working on her pot.

Trying to look stern.

Me, teaching.

The happy drummer.

Jacob, the not-so-little little drummer boy.

Jacob taking a picture at basket-weaving.

Jacob in the middle.

Favorite. Dancing on Pumamarka.

Technically, I took this picture of Kelsey and Jarrard being giants.