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.

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Dance Photos (1 day at a time)

I now have a replacement thumb drive, which means I can finally post more pictures. Eliza wrote about Ollanta Raymi and had some excellent photographs and video. I have edited and selected some of my favorite photos from the dances after the show, and I am posting them (one per day) here:
http://jarrardcole.wordpress.com/
The first one went up a few minutes ago.

When I get a little more time, I will try to upload all of my best recent photos to the flickr account. Thanks again to everyone for looking at the pictures, reading this blog, and commenting!

-Jarrard

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Ollanta Raymi

Yesterday was Ollanta Raymi, the Ollantaytambo version of Cusco´s famous Inti Raymi festival. Besides the Festival of Chockakillka, it´s the biggest festival of the year, and in my opinion, one of the coolest. Unlike the other festivals which were basically lots of chicha and dancing, Ollanta Raymi is unique for its full-scale production of a Quechua drama, the last of its kind in Peru.

The drama has been performed every year since 1780 on the Fortaleza, or the ruins for which Ollanta is famous. This year´s production included more than 450 actors from the town playing parts in the drama of Ollantaytambo. The entire play was in Quechua and lasted about 90 minutes, with sporadic  Spanish and English translation.

The Fortaleza sits at the edge of town and consists of a series of large steps built by the Incas that lead up to some questionably religious stones at the top of the mountain. Forgive me if I sound skeptical, but I´ve heard one too many tour guides wax poetic on the magic of the Incas. The truth is, no one knows for sure what they massive stone ruins were actually intended for. But no one can deny they are impressive.

The drama was supposed to start at 10 a.m., but the first act did not begin until noon. Classic example of Peruvian time. Although we were sitting in plastic lawn chairs at the base of the ruins in the direct heat from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., I´m really glad we sat as close to the action as we did. Even if I do feel a little sunburned.

The majority of the 450 actors served as dancers on the ruins or soldiers in the fight scene. Only about ten people actually had speaking parts. The basic plotline is that the great warrior Ollantaytambo wants to marry the Inca princess with a crazy name, but her father the Inca king forbids it and sends his daughter to jail for ten years. Nice, right? But he dies of ¨rage,¨ so I guess he got what he deserved.

The princess sits in jail for ten years but somehow has a baby with Ollanta, who grows up to be a kind of moody teenager who yells at her dad and makes him let her mother, the princess out of jail. He does, as during these ten years of bachelorhood he´s defeated the Inca king and become head honcho of all the land.

It wasn´t easy figuring all this out. An announcer with a very annoying voice would tell you before each scene what was going to happen, but it wasn´t always reliable or helpful. So our friend Modesto, who speaks only Spanish and Quechua, translated the drama into Spanish to our friend Catherine, who relayed the story in English to myself and Jarrard. Whew. A lot of languages going on there.

The production itself was arrestingly beautiful. The actors were dressed in bright colors of red, yellow, blue, purple and gold, and spread out along every terrace reaching up toward the sky. They would periodically dance to the traditional flute music, and then disapear to the back of the terraces so we couldn´t see them from down below. Watching 450 colorful dancers appear from seemingly nowhere on the drab stone terraces beneath the bright blue of the sky was just incredible.

After the drama ended we watched traditional dance troupes perform, and also did some exploring up in the ruins. Usually entry to the park runs about 70 soles, and we´d gotten in for 10 that morning. Gotta take advantage when you can.

Then my host mother made me go eat lunch at the food stands, since god forbid I go hungry. After eating what seemed like an entire chicken with my fingers, she brought me a trucha, or trout, still looking at me with it´s googly eyes. Can´t say that was too appetizing, but the fact that I didn´t realize it still had a head until I was halfway done is kind of impressive. Plus there´s no better way to feel like a local than to eat greasy meat with your fingers. And toss the bones and skin to stray dogs when you´re done.

Below are three links to videos of the festival:

Introducing the Drama from Eliza Kern on Vimeo.

Ollanta Raymi Dancers from Eliza Kern on Vimeo.

Quechua Dancing from Eliza Kern on Vimeo.

A view of the afternoon dancing from the ruins.

A man dancing.

A Quechua woman dancing.

Quechua girls dancing.

Two Quechua girls dancing.

A few Quechua dancers in mid-spin.

Dancers from Cusco.

Women from Cusco dancing.

The spectators in the afternoon.

Boys playing soldiers leaving after the performance.

Taking a bow.

Everyone comes out for one last hurrah.

The actors on the steps.

The end of the drama. The princess is being let out of jail.

A scene from the drama. My host sister-in-law, Doris, is on the far right.

Jacob got to be a drummer. He´s the tall American one in the middle with his drum pointed to the right.

Our friend Sandia also got to be in the play. She´s the girl in yellow on the right.

In this part of the drama, the Inca king is offering chicha to the sun god Inti.

The crowd watching the drama at the base of the Fortaleza.

Dancers on the walls of the Fortaleza.

Dancers at the top of the ruins. They were high up there.

They filled every row.

The dancers began to fill the terraces.

The fortress before the action began.

We had two hours in the hot sun before the drama began. But we did have good seats.

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No Mas Fotos

I give up. No mas. The internet is too slow for wordpress to handle these photos. So, I have given up. You all will have to deal with a link. If you would like to see the photos I was going to upload here, check my flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47667889@N00/

I will post here when I update the stream. There are photos currently uploading, and I will title and caption them over the coming days, because Flickr rules.

Good night.

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Pictures coming soon!

I know. I´ve been slacking in the pictures arena. I´ve got several I want to share, I just have some mental block that prevents me from exporting them to my thumbdrive, walking the twenty minutes in Ollanta and posting them. I will soon. For now, if you´d like a preview of some of the pictures that will appear on this blog, go here:

http://jarrardcole.wordpress.com/

Muchas gracias.

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Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

We finished our first full week of teaching today, and we are exhausted. I have infinitely more respect for every elementary teacher I´ve ever had. Mrs. Kasunic, I´m really sorry for being such a pain. Lo siento.

The three of us are teaching in an elementary school in Ollanta about five minutes from our house. The school enrolls first through sixth grades, and there are nine classes total. The kids attend three classes each day from 8:15 am until 1:15 pm, and the three of us are responsible for teaching all the English and P.E. classes.

The classrooms are spacious and clean and bright, and the kids all wear uniforms and sit at their own desks. There are white boards at the front of the room, and windows that look out on the courtyard in the middle where P.E. is held. From stories we´ve heard from other volunteers, the school is very organized by Peruvian standards.

Kids playing volleyball in the center of the school, where P.E. is held.

Since we teach each of the classes once a week, we´ve decided to devise a new lesson plan for each week and adapt it based on the kid´s ages. This week was introductions (Hello, My name is, Goodbye), and the parts of the body. We´re planning on doing animals and numbers next week.

Keeping 30 kids engaged for 90 minutes in a classroom is a challenge, to say the least. The last 20 minutes are usually pretty rough, and Simon Says and Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes pretty much saved us. Having them copy things in their notebooks gives us some peace of mind, but not for long. 

P.E. is basically a free-for-all. The first day Kelsey and Jarrard taught a first grade P.E. class, they found themselves dragging kids out of a construction site, removing rusty nails from little mouths, and trying to keep the hose turned off. It´s gotten better, but it´s still crazy. Volleyball is a big hit, and the kids are surprisingly really good. Soccer, or futbol, is banned, and probably for a good reason.

Also, I totally maintain that boys are the worst, in every single grade, in every single class. There are exceptions, of course, but the worst ones sit in the back of the class and pull out their tops, or ¨trompos,¨ when they deem things dull. It´s not unusual to end a class with boys rolling around on the floor in fistfights, and the fifth-graders mimic what we say or head to the bathroom for long periods of time.

But overall, it´s been an incredibly rewarding experience. The kids swarm at us in a horde when we arrive in the morning and we have to detach ourselves from their grimy hands on the walk home. They keep asking when we´re teaching their class next, when we can sing more songs, and when the big bouncy ball is coming back. The answers are: next week, next week, never. 

We can´t take all the credit for our popularity. Some of the teachers are pretty darn scary, and I don´t think the kids get to sing in any of their other classes. But I think we´re doing okay so far. And even when we leave at the end of the day, exhausted and dirty and tired of the crazy monkeys, or ¨monos,¨ it´s pretty cool hear the kids yell ¨Goodbye!¨

Trying to eat his cookies during break in peace. Good luck.

With some of the kids.

With the kids!

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We´ve moved!

Welcome to the new and improved Postcards From Peru!

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