Machu Picchu

Hola Amigos! Hello Friends!

Que tal? This is a special blog entry for two reasons. First, it is all about our visit to Machu Picchu, one of the most famous places in the world! Secondly, it will be my last blog entry as Nathan and I only have a few weeks left of our trip. Even though our plan was to travel through Central America and Mexico, we decided we just didn't have enough time. Besides, there is so much to see here in Peru that we don't want to rush.

Have you ever heard of Machu Picchu? If you don't recognize the name, the pictures might look familiar to you. Machu Picchu is an ancient Incan city that was built high on a mountain in southern Peru around the middle of the 15th century. It is sometimes called "The Lost City of the Incas" because it wasn't known to the rest of the world until the early 19th century. Archaeologists believe that the Incans only inhabited the site for a hundred years or so, then abondoned it during the Spanish conquest. However, the Spanish never found out about the site so it was never plundered or destroyed. For this reason one can still see many of the original structures.
There are records of people discovering and visiting the site in the late 1800's and early 1900's. By then it was very overgrown with jungle vegetation. Local people knew of the site for years, but it wasn't until an archaeologist named Hiram Bingham was led to it by a native Quechua boy that the rest of the world found out about it. Bingham did a lot of research and published books about the site. This helped turn it into one of the most famous Incan sites in the world and now thousands of people visit the ruins every year. This is the entrance gate to the city.

The buildings themselves have been restored and now visitors can see the incredible stone work the Incas used in creating their structures. The stone blocks of their temples and royal palaces are so well worked that they fit together exactly, with no gaps. This was all done with simple hand tools! This is an example of the tight fitting walls of a temple, but the land has settled since construction so you can see some spaces between the bricks now.

The city was built between two mountains, Huayna Picchu (meaning "young mountain" in Quechua) and Machu Picchu (meaning "old mountain", and the mountain for which the city was named). These mountains were sacred to the Incas and they constructed the peaks of roofs to be in line with them. Huayna Picchu is the most well known of the mountains and is the one you see in most images of the site.

To the Incans, the sun was a very important part of their religion. They believed the sun was a god which was responsible for creation. They also used the sun to develop a calendar year and keep track the days of their year. This stone, called the Intihuatana Stone, was carved and aligned so that it points directly at the sun on the winter solstice, the longest day of the year. It also casts no shadow at midday on the spring and fall equinoxes. This position with the sun helped the Incans determine the days of the year.

One can also see large agricultural terraces at Machu Pichhu and today there are still llamas and alpacas grazing on the slopes.

It was really a special opportunity for us to have been able to visit the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu. It has also been a wonderful experience for us to travel through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru, learning about their cultures and visiting so many amazing landscapes. I have had so much fun sharing these experiences with you all, and I hope you have had as much fun reading about them. Hopefully you have learned a few things, too! We are excited to return home, however, and see all of our friends and family. Maybe I will get to visit you as well and share more stories of our adventures!

Lago Titicaca and Isla del Sol

Buenas dias! Como esta?

As I said in the last entry, we are getting to see all kinds of Incan and pre-Incan ruins and learn about these ancient cultures. We recently spent three days walking and camping on Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun), which is lies on the enormous Lago Titicaca (Lake Titicaca). Lago Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, and at over 3800 meters it is one of the highest navigable lakes in the world. It lies along the borders of both Peru and Bolivia and is so vast that looking out over it you could imagine you're at the ocean.

The lake held much significance for the Incan and pre-Incan Aymara and Quechua cultures, whose descendents still live in the region. The name Titicaca comes from Aymara and Quechua words meaning ¨Puma Rock¨, perhaps because the island´s shape resembles a puma. Sacrifices to the lake were often made to ensure safety in sailing and good harvests. Isla del Sol is also very culturally significant. The Incans believed that it is the birthplace of their Sun God, whom they highly worshipped, and indigenous people today still consider the island to be a sacred place.

One can find many ruins of ancient structures on the island. This site, called Chincana, was built by pre-Incan people and is also called the Laberinto, or Labyrinth, for its complex network of rooms.

The Ruta Sagrada, or Sacred Route, follows a high ridge from one end of the island to the other and leads you past ruins and beautiful views of the island and Lago Titicaca. It was built hundreds of years ago and is still maintained by the islands inhabitants.

The people living on Isla del Sol are very friendly and we enjoyed chatting with them and sharing greetings as we passed each other on the island's footpaths. Most of them speak Spanish, but occasionally we had the treat of overhearing the native Quechua language being spoken as well! There are no vehicles on the island so walking is the main means of transportation. People make their living from farming, fishing, and the growing tourism to the island. All over the island are terraces where wheat, oats, corn, fava beans and other crops are grown.

They also raise livestock, including sheep, pigs, llamas and mules, and we passed many people herding their animals to and from grazing lands.

I have to say that Isla del Sol is one of my favorite spots in Bolivia. The incredible landscape, the rich traditional culture and friendly people made it a very memorable experience!

El Camino Choro

Buenas Tardes! Good afternoon!

It had been quite a while since we'd been out on a trek so we finally hit the trail again after a two month break. We just finished the Choro Trek, or Camino Choro. Camino means "way" or "path" and Choro is the name of a small settlement which lies along the trek. This path dates back hundreds of years to Incan and even pre-Incan times. It was, and still is, used as a trading and transport route for people travelling from the high mountains of La Paz down into the Yungas jungle region. This is me on the first day of the trek, climbing up to a pass at over 14,000 feet.

The Incans were the native people encountered by the Spanish when they first arrived in the Andes Mountains of South America in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Incans had a vast and complex civilization stretching from Ecuador down through Peru and into Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. They built amazing structures, including roads, temples, houses, irrigation systems and agricultural terraces, usually out of stone and precious metals, like gold and silver. Though the Spanish took much of the precious metals, one can still see the remains of Incan stone work throughout Peru, Bolivia and Northern Argentina.

The Camino Choro is a wonderful example of pre-Hispanic engineering (pre-Hispanic refers to the time before Spanish arrival) . It was actually built by people pre-dating the Incan empire. They cut the path out of the steep mountainsides by hand and paved it with stones. The Incas eventually widened it and expanded the paving, and while walking on the Camino Choro today one can still see this paving, still preserved after centuries of use!

Because the Camino Choro is an ancient transport route, you can find the ruins of Incan structures along the way. This was a rest stop for travellers coming over the high mountain pass where they could stay for the night and prepare for the next days' long walk. You can see the path here as it heads past the ruins and off into the distance.

We walked 42 kilometers (about 28 miles) of the path over four days and saw everything from barren, high mountain peaks to lush and humid jungle. Along the way we passed through small hamlets and sometimes solitary huts where people often live much like they did in Incan times. Some of these are two days walk from any town or city! Families can live on the nearly vertical hillside, carving out small flat areas by hand and planting crops, like corn, yucca and potatoes, on the very steep slopes. These women are harvesting yucca and potatoes, a staple of their diets.

One night we camped on this small, level area where a family tends banana plants, which you can see in the left of the picture. It is a jungle environment here so the trees grow very large. The fruits support the family's diet and help them earn money from the sale of the bananas, or platanos.
Another important part of the diet and economy of rural Bolivian life is the meat and wool from llama and alpaca. At the start of the trek we saw a group of people getting their llama herd ready for the walk down into the jungle and the towns below. Perhaps they were transporting them back home from higher grazing grounds, or taking them down for sale to the communities. Whatever the reason, they look ready for the long journey ahead!

In the coming weeks we hope to see more ruins of Incan civilizations and visit sites important to Incan history and culture. If you haven't learned about the Incans yet in school, I suggest you do a little research on your own! They had a fascinating culture and it is amazing what they could accomplish with minimal technology. Ask your teacher where you might be able to find information about the Incans in books or on the internet.

Farming in Santa Cruz

Hola a todos!

Nathan and I have just returned from spending three weeks on a farm near Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We did this as part of a program that connects people who want to work on organic farms with organic farmers around the world. In exchange for help on the farm we got to stay with a family and spend time getting to know them and their friends. We stayed at a small family farm called Rancho Montana near a village about 14 hours east of La Paz.

This time of year, the autumn, is the beginning of the dry season. During the summer there is a lot of rain and it is quite hot, usually in the 90's. Autumn and winter, however are still quite hot but the sun is a little less intense and there is much less rain. For this reason they grow their vegetables at Rancho Montana in the winter. They grow many of the same things we would at home, like tomatoes, beans, squash and lettuce, but with such a warm climate they can grow all kinds of other things that we cannot.

On the farm you can find oranges (naranjas), lemons (limones), guava, papayas, coconut (coco), passion fruit (maracuyá) and lots of other fruits growing. Everyday at lunch we would drink fresh juices made from pureed fruits from the farm--delicious! This is a papaya tree. The green fruits you see will turn yellowy orange and fall to the ground when they're ripe and ready to eat.

Maracuyá, or passion fruits, grow on vines like this and also turn yellow and fall to the ground when ripe. Sweet, juicy and wonderful!

Another very sweet treat is sugar cane, or caña de azúcar. Sugar cane is widely grown in this area and this is the harvest season. After the sugar cane stalks are cut from the fields they are pressed for juice. Raw sugar is crystallized from this juice and then bleached and refined to make the table sugar we are familiar with. This process takes place in large factories now, but the old fashioned way to extract the juice from the caña, or sugar cane stalks, is with a press like this one. Caña is placed in the middle barrel and the long handle is turned, causing a press to squeeze juice from the caña. It's a lot like an apple cider press, actually. You can drink the fresh cane juice, or jugo de caña, and it is YUMMY! To me it tastes a little like brown sugar.

Other things you can find growing at Rancho Montana are cinnamon (which is actually the dried bark of a tree), cloves, paprika and other herbs, palm trees and yucca (a tuber kind of like a potato). Besides the plants there are some pretty interesting animals, too. Cows, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks and even a couple peacocks roam the farm. A few wild animals paid us visits, too. When digging the garden one day we found a rattlesnake (cascabel), three tarantulas and a baby red tailed boa constrictor! We also saw iguanas and large frogs, parrots, tucans and lots of other very colorful and interesting birds. This cascabel was spotted one evening in the garden.

Another day this parrot came to the house to say hello and get a snack! Can you imagine having a farm or a garden where you can find all these exotic fruits and spices and animals? It's pretty different from home!

La Paz, Bolivia

Hola! Buenos Dias!

Greetings from the highest capital city in the world! La Paz, Bolivia lies at 3650 meters (around 12,000 feet) above sea level. At this altitude the weather can be very cold and severe. In fact, the first night we were here a hail storm swept over the city, leaving the streets white and the street vendors scrambling to cover their goods. Summer in Bolivia (remember that the seasons are opposite here) is the wet season, while the winter is quite dry. As it is now late autumn, we are almost into the dry season but as you can see few storms still come through!

The city was founded and built in a large canyon in the mid sixteenth century. Nearly 3 miles wide, the canyon is now filled completely by the city. A large main street runs along the floor of the canyon and anywhere you go away from it is UP! Covering the sides of the canyon are thousands of houses, shops and narrow streets. The canyon walls are so steep it seems like the buildings could just fall right off! You can get a glimpse of these crowded hillsides behind these city buildings .

La Paz has dozens of colorful markets, selling just about anything you could think of. Most anything you might need, including food, clothes, toiletries, CD's, household goods and much else can be bought from street vendors. In fact, we buy just about all of our meals from street vendors--delicious! My favorite is the salteña, which is a pastry of beef or chicken wrapped and baked in a cornemal dough. Here you can see a woman selling fresh cheeses, or quesos, a Bolivian specialty!

Another thing Bolivia is famous for is its weavings. There are many different traditional styles which are made into wall hangings, clothing, bags, hats, gloves, even placemats and napkins--just about anything you could think of. Generally alpaca, llama, or sheep wools are used. Alpacas and llamas are very closely related--in fact they are also related to the guanaco. Do you remember the guanacos I talked about in Patagonia? Here is just a sampling of the different kinds of beautiful weavings we have seen here.

Something very interesting about the people here is their dress, especially the Bolivian women. Many of them still dress very traditionally, with large pleated skirts, woven sweaters, shawls (chales) and scarfs (bufandas). They often carry their things on their backs, in bundles wrapped with colorful woven tapestries. Because the Bolivian sun is very intense, especially at this altitude, wide brimmed hats like the one this woman is wearing are very common.

La Paz is such an interesting city, full of energy and excitement. It seems like every little street hides something unique and special!

Salt Flats of Bolivia

Hola de Bolivia!

Nathan and I have finally made it into the country of Bolivia, which is north of Argentina. We have now visited three countries, Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Can you find all of these on a map?

This entry, as you can see, is pretty long because we have seen many cool things. If it seems too long to read all at once don´t worry. Just read what you can and go back to it later. Remember that all of my entries will stay on the web so you can read and reread any of them at your own pace.

Our first adventure in Bolivia was a tour of the Salar de Uyuni. A salar, or salt flat, is a large deposit of salt on the surface of the earth. Salt flats occur all around the world and are formed after giant salt water lakes dry up. As the water evaporates, the salts and other minerals that were dissolved in the water are left behind. The lake that created the Salar de Uyuni evaporated around 1,000 years ago. There are several salt flats in southwestern Bolivia, but the Salar de Uyuni is the largest. In fact, it´s the largest salt flat in the world at 12,000 square kilometers and up to 80 meters thick! This is the truck that we rode in during our tour of the salt flat.

Have you ever wondered where the salt you eat to flavor your food comes from? Most likely it came from a salt flat! People in the nearby town of Colchani harvest the salt from the Salar de Uyuni by piling it into mounds like these to dry.

Once the sun has dried out the salt they take it back to their pueblo and process it for different uses. It can be made into table salt for eating or pressed into small blocks which are then carved into trinkets. They also cut the raw salt into large bricks and build houses with them. We slept in a "salt hotel" like this one on our tour.

After seeing the salt flat we drove for two more days through the amazing landscapes of the Altiplano, which means "high plain". This is a geographical feature that lies between two cordilleras, or mountain ranges, of the Andes. It is a very large, flat plateau lying between 12,000 and 15,000 feet in altitude. The environment is so dry that it is considered to be a desert. This picture was taken in the Desierto Siloni, or Siloni Desert, area of the Altiplano.

Throughout the Altiplano there are many volcanos as well. Because of the volcanic activity in the region one can find geysers. Geysers occur when the heat from magma below the earth´s surface causes water, also below the surface, to boil. Of course we know that boiling water creates steam. This steam needs to go somewhere and it often escapes through vents in the earth's surface. These vents of escaping steam are called geysers, and as you can see they make a really cool sight!
There are many lagunas, or lagoons, in the region we drove through as well. These lagunas are also heated by the magma underground, however they don´t get hot enough to boil. Because they are warm and full of minerals from ancient volcanic deposits they make great feeding grounds for birds. Flamencos, or flamingos, are the most exciting bird to spot. One can find three species of flamingoes in the lagunas. I am pretty sure this one here is the Flamenco Andino, or Andean Flamingo. A beautiful volcano is towering in the background.

I could go on and on about the wonderful things we saw on our tour of southwestern Bolivia, but I´m sure your eyes are hurting as much as mine from so much reading on the computer!

Until next time, Chaio!

Easter in Argentina

Hola! Como andan? This is another phrase, like "que tal", which means, "how´s it going?"

If you are well you could answer, "muy bien!" or "very well!" Another phrase that asks how you are doing is, "como estas?" So, if someone gave you any of these greetings, "que tal?", "como anda" or "como esta", and you are well, you can say "muy bien!" Of course you might not be doing well. Then you might say "mal" (bad) or even "muy mal" (very bad). However, let´s hope your answer is always "bien, muy bien!"

As you know, Easter is coming in just a few days! There are many ways that Argentinians celebrate this holiday and some are very similar to our traditions in the United States. Some are very different, though, so I´d like to share with you the traditions I have learned about.

In Spanish Easter is called Las Pascuas. Here in Argentina the celebrations for Las Pascuas can last for two weeks. The first week begins on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, and is called semana santa, or week of the saints. This is the same as what we call Holy Week. We were in the city of Jujuy in northern Argentina on Palm Sunday and on just about every street we saw people selling small baskets woven from palm fronds and branches from olive trees. People hang these baskets in their doorways and fill them with the olive branches or flowers.

Most people in Argentina are Roman Catholic and so on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday they attend mass at their churches. In Jujuy there are several very old (over 400 years!) and lovely cathedrals. Here are some churchgoers leaving Palm Sunday mass at Catedral San Francisco carrying their palm baskets. Can you see the people selling the baskets on the street outside?

We saw another interesting tradition here in Humahuaca, where we are now. Groups of young people from various pueblos, or small towns, in this region form marching bands and travel around to the other pueblos with their instruments. They march around the main plazas and play for the townspeople who come out to watch. Drums and pan flutes, which are a traditional instrument of the Andes Mountains, are played. Each banda, or band, carries a banner with the name of their group and the name of a saint they are representing. These groups travel for a few days, camping out at night in the countryside, visiting many pueblos along the way.

People celebrate the rebirth of Jesus Christ the whole week after Easter Sunday. They have parties, take vacations and, just like home, eat lots of sweets! A special bread called rosca is sold at all the panaderias, or bakeries, during the Easter holiday. It is a round loaf with a hole in the middle, like a large doughnut, and is decorated with dried fruits. Of course, chocolate is everywhere! Many stores have large window displays like this one filled with huge chocolate eggs and other kinds of candy.

Do you share any of these Easter traditions with the Argentinians? Do any of them seem very different to you? What is your favorite Easter tradition?

That´s all for now, so "chaio"! (This is pronounced chow, and is a way to say goodbye in Spanish