Aaaaannnnnndddddd...we're back!

After 9 weeks we finally returned to the United States exactly 1 week ago.  We've spent the last week recovering from the adventure...showering, washing clothes, drinking water straight from the tap.  I even shaved off my beard...check out the before and after shots:

We spent our first night back in the LAX Hilton, and enjoyed a gourmet breakfast the next morning at Carls Jr.!!!  After enduring a few hours of car trouble, we finally got on the road and headed out to the desert for a few days of downtime (since our house was still occupied) where we did nothing more than sit by the pool, relax and eat anything other than rice or potatoes!  We finally made it back to our house on Friday, and have spent the last several days unpacking before the kids go back to school tomorrow.

Since we've gotten back we've gotten tons of questions about the trip.  Of course, we're more than happy to regale people with crazy tales of the zoo, adventures at Lake Titicaca, or all the weight I seemed to have lost (I lost some 15lbs), but the conversation always seems to come back to whether our kids now have a different perspective after living abroad.  The answer is definitely 'yes', but it's less an appreciation for all our luxuries we enjoy (cars, houses, toys, etc.) and more an appreciation for the basic standards that we in the U.S. have grown all to accustomed to.  Things like...

• Ice -- Peruvians don't ever have ice and drink most drinks at room temperature (think warm coke).
• Working sewers -- Being able to throw our toilet paper in the actual toilet.
• Water -- Having access to water 24 hours a day...being able to drink it straight from the tap, having a hot water heater with access from every faucet.
• Clothes Dryer -- Drying your clothes in a dryer and not outside on a line.
• Food Variety -- Not eating bread, butter and cheese for every breakfast or having rice/potatoes for every lunch/dinner.

Keep in mind that the way we lived while in Peru was considered "middle class" for that country.  

Anyway, that's pretty much it for our blog posts on Peru.  Perhaps we'll use this forum to continue to post family updates if any of you are actually interested in the more mundane happenings of the Silvermans.  

Thanks for following our summer adventure,

Scott, Melanie, Lucas & Sydney

Our Israeli Brothers

Not surprisingly, there aren't many Jews in Peru so when Melanie happened across a little area of Cusco with lots of hebrew signs it was worth a little more exploration.  As it turns out, Cusco is a popular tourist spot with Israelis so one Saturday a few weeks ago we decided it was worth trying out Cusco's only bagel place for lunch.

Simply named, The Bagel Cafe is exactly what it sounds like...they serve half decent bagels, cream cheese, tuna melts, pizza bagels and pretty darn good milkshakes.  It's run by a guy named Ohad Duchovny and his twin brother Gilad...both moving to Peru from Israel.  Ohad was very funny serving us himself, and it was a great lunch.  In fact, the kids asked to go back several times afterwards, but we never had the opportunity.  We enjoyed it enough that we even tried one of the other restaurants run by the brothers...a Sushi place if you can believe (who knew Israelis ate sushi?).

Anyway, we figured Ohad would soon forget the 4 Jews from Orange County, CA and our paths would likely never cross again...but we figured wrong!!!  As it turns out Ohad, Gilad and their father decided to take a trip to the jungle at the same time as we did and stay at the same lodge.  We're sitting at dinner one night and Lucas looks over at me and asks "Is that the bagel guy, Dad?".  Sure enough it was...and he remembered us too!  Well, weather delayed our return from the Jungle so we had to spend an extra night in Puerto Maldanado, and we hung out that extra night with the Duchovny family.  The dad loved Lucas & Sydney and by the time we finally landed back in Cusco, the 7 of us had become fast friends:

Anyway, if you ever find yourself in Cusco and craving a bagel (or sushi) we know the perfect spot...just drop our name and our Israeli brothers will hook you up.

Lost Cochoa

Today we're hiking to a place called "lost lake".  Not sure why it's considered lost because we had no trouble finding it…albeit it took a good 2 hours of hiking and another hour by boat!  On the way we saw tons of birds…vultures, wild turkeys, toucans, screamers, tons of turtles and more, and once we got to the lake we even found a few black caimans…

Lucas was pretty excited, but Sydney seemed a bit overwhelmed (or perhaps it's fatigue since the whole hike was about 8km round trip).

We even climbed to the top of a 200+ foot platform (a little high for my taste) to have a look around:

On the way back, we stopped at the biggest tree I've ever seen:

By this point, Sydney was a little tired and needed a ride so I obliged…

But i had to put her down to watch our guide coax a tarantula out of it's nest with a blade of grass.

That was enough hiking for us so we took the rest of the day to relax in the hammocks and view the local botanical garden before an early bed time.

EcoAmazonia & Monkey Island

On Tuesday morning we had a quick breakfast at Ana's and then off to the airport for our flight to Puerto Maldonado.  It's a short trip, only about 45 minutes, and we were met by our lodge at the airport to take us to our transportation.

The lodge is actually about 30km downriver so after a quick tour of the town and local market and a stop for water (and ice cream!), we're off.

We arrive at the lodge about 1.5 hours later:

And after lunch and seeing our bungalows, we're ready to see some animals…which is good because first stop on our tour is Monkey Island.  It's small island basically across from the lodge that's used to house monkeys that have been injured or for some reason need rescuing.  There are about 50 of them, across 4 different species, on the island, and they stay there until the local authorities determine they're ready to be returned to the wild.  In the interim, they're available for us to view and even feed…

The spider monkeys are our favorites, but they tend to be afraid of the smaller capuchins so they wait until after the other monkeys have their fill before coming down to say hi…

Tons more pictures on Flickr, but this gives you a little perspective…quite the first day in the jungle.  Now back to the lodge for dinner and then…a night boat ride looking for the ever elusive white caiman.  Well, its not so elusive because we saw a few:

Now time for bed…we have an early start tomorrow at 5am so nite nite!

Nutrition Clinic

For the past two weeks I forged ahead alone far far away from our house (an hour walk there and back) to the nutrition clinic where I worked with a Peruvian nutritionist.  Before I went, I was looking forward to the experience and had done some research on the nutritional issues in Cusco.  I knew iron deficiency anemia was a huge problem.  Being here six weeks, I could now see why.  We have been pumped with so much rice, corn and potatoes that it isn't even funny anymore.  The clinic is called MONET and basically is like the American version of Early Intervention, WIC and a cooking class all in one.  There are seven MONET clinics serving the city of Cusco.

The nutritionists name was Catalina (Caty) and the woman has many responsibilities.  Each family that comes into the clinic must have an updated growth chart on the kids.  Caty checks the charts to insure each kid is growing.  The families pay 1 sole for both breakfast and lunch for each kid they have, which is about 33 cents per meal.  If the kids are not growing well, she calls them out on it and gives them a talking to.   I thought I was direct with my patients.  This woman is a force to reckon with and has to be given the situation.  She gives them nutrition handouts to emphasize variety and the importance of protein and fat, which is often deficient in these kids' diets.  There is also this huge push for hand washing.  Many of the kids have parasitic infections, which stunts their growth and brain development.  This has all been traced back to lack of hand washing so she spends loads of time teaching the kids and parents to wash their hands before they eat, after they change diapers or go to the bathrooms themselves.  Once they are checked in, the kids are free to play and we cook.  Aside from Caty, there is another woman that comes in as an assistant cook, but takes orders from Caty.    There is a very small play area where they also eat. 

 

Here is the kitchen they work out of.  NOTE:  The kitchen is smaller than it appears here. 

 

There is a four week menu cycle in this clinic.  I have been able to order food in restaurants, tell taxis where our home is located and buy tickets to museums, but learning the Spanish words for Peruvian food was a challenge. I had to ask Ana, my Spanish teacher at Maximo Nivel and then did a lot of Googling (when I could find internet access) to figure out what the hell the menu items were. Once I did, I realized the menus were very well balanced.  

 

As they cooked through breakfast and lunch, Caty and the cook graciously offered me food to try. Sometimes I took it.  Sometimes I did not.  I watched food preparation very closely and asked a lot of questions to learn their techniques, especially on how to cook quinoa (I am the world's worse quinoa cook).  While there are many wonderful things about Peru, food safety standards in the country are not the same so I was hesitant to try the food because where they cut the fish is where they may make a salad.  Wouldn't you be nervous?

Before I went to the Monet clinic I envisioned sitting at a desk, asking families to be patient with my Spanish and telling them how to feed their kids so they grow well.  That is not what I did.  I did do some simple nutrition counseling, especially when I saw a mother force feeding her kids.  (THAT DRIVES ME CRAZY IN PERU AND AMERICA!)  Here my responsibilities were broader in a larger effort to support the clinics day to day operations, which they desperately needed.  And…I was OK with this.

• I cut potatoes, carrots and onions with the dullest knives you could imagine. It took me 25 minutes (no exaggeration) to cut an onion until they told me it was just right for the lunch that day.
• I washed and dried dishes in the coldest water you can imagine in that tiny kitchen.
• I swept and mopped the floor with a broom that had a towel around it that kept falling off.  Mopping took twice as long.
• I cleaned the kiddie plastic tables and chairs over and over again and organized the developmental toys for the kids. 
• I held and played with some of the cutest babies and kids.
• I sat on the floor talking to mothers in broken Spanish about the differences and similarities between Peru and America. They had a lot of questions for me.  We talked about everything from feeding kids to Barack Obama and how horrible they thought guns were.
• I bought wipes and diaper cream for a mom who I saw changing a kids diaper the day before and taught her how to properly clean and change the baby.  He had diaper rash (and many other medical issues).  I was stunned watching her change him and will spare you intricate details about how she changed and cleaned him.  His diaper was a thin washcloth she wrapped around him and then secured a plastic grocery bag (the kind they are trying to phase out in the US) as "rubber pants", similar to the 1970's version some of us may have worn.
• I made grocery lists for the clinic.
• I served food and tried some, when I felt it was safe.
• I read the Peruvian governments goals for a healthier population (more about hand washing and lots about the importance of safety of children from abuse…of all kinds.  Violence in homes seems to be a big problem.

While it wasn't what I expected, I learned more in those two weeks than I would have sitting at a desk talking protein the whole time.

MORE PHOTOS POSTED HERE.

Heading to the Jungle!

We've now bee in Cusco for almost 8 weeks, and frankly we're running out of activities so thankfully we leave tomorrow for 5 days in the Amazon rainforest.  We're staying at this place called the EcoAmazonia Lodge, and for 5 days we'll be busy hiking and looking for wild animals.  Of course, we're practically experts at dealing with animals after spending 2 weeks volunteering at the zoo!

There's no internet access in the jungle so we wouldn't be able to post anything until we're back next Saturday so stay tuned!

The Bathroom Situation

Mothers and daughters have many opportunities to bond in life.  I never thought one of those opportunities with Sydney would be the Peruvian bathroom situation.  The two of us have had bathroom experiences that I hope none of the women reading this blog have to have...EVER!   Our Cusco home bathroom situation is acceptable (although I am in a now six week fight with the shower as you may have seen in an earlier post) It's the bathrooms we encounter outside the home that are the problem.

In an effort to make this bathroom situation more bearable for the two of us and to get us in and out of bathrooms as fast as possible, we decided to develop a rating system each time we go.  Here is our scale:

EXCELLENT
GOOD
POOR
HORRIBLE

Here are examples so you have a clearer understanding.

HORRIBLE:  We were visiting one of many Incan ruins, in the middle of nowhere, early in our trip and Sydney looks at me, crosses her legs and says, "Mom, I gotta go."  I cannot let this child pee on Incan ruins (disrespectful!) so we search for a bathroom.  I found the "bano" sign and we got into the line.  There was a man sitting outside the bathrooms with a bucket of water.  As people stepped out of the stalls, he took a bucket of water and threw it inside the stalls.  I thought he had amazing aim to be able to  get the water into the toilets after people left the bathroom.  What a talent this guy was!  When it was our turn, he pointed us into one of the stalls.  We walked in and all we saw was a drain, about the size of a standard checker board, on a flat floor. There was no toilet.  There was no toilet paper.  There was this drain on a very wet floor and it smelled "DEESKUSTING", as Sydney pointed out.   I had to brace Sydney on my arms, over the drain while she peed.  She looked horrified  and said, "Mommy!  This is awful!  I wish I was a boy right now".  I could not have said it better myself, bless her little heart. When I walked out of the bathroom a woman said to me in English, "You are a brave soul.  I used bathrooms like that in Europe 20 years ago and swore I would never do that again!"

EXCELLENT:  The JW Marriott of Cusco wins!  We happened to find the hotel walking around the city and Sydney had to go.  (They also had internet access so Scott and Luke had a few minutes to surf and check email) WOW!  This lobby bathroom wasn't reality.  There was marble and granite, working locks and hooks on the doors, hot AND cold water options, fragrant soap and the floor was D-R-Y!   Both of our mouths dropped when we walked into the bathroom.  We started to jump up and down and dance out of sheer joy because when we found the JW Marriott it had been about four weeks of mostly HORRIBLE and POOR experiences.  I told Sydney I wanted to hang out and live in this bathroom, but of course, we couldn't.  But we both washed our hands in the temperature of our choosing and our hands were nice and dry when we left because they had real towels to dry your hands with!  HEAVEN!

While this is not the most riveting blog we have posted, I want to remember to be forever be grateful for bathrooms with water temperature options, clean floors and towels or air for drying hands.

Cuy

Well, for lunch today we made plans to go to a traditional peruvian restaurant that specializes in Cuy (guinea pig for you gringos).  At La Qunita Eutalia they have no menus.  Instead you look at the hand written chalkboard for what's on the menu that day, and the waiter hands you a sheet of paper and a pen to write down what items you want to order.

In addition to Cuy (3rd item down on the menu), the restaurant is known for rocoto relleno (stuffed peppers).  We also decided to try Costillaro (lamb ribs)...you can probably guess which is which in the picture below:

And, here is the Cuy...it's served basically deep fried with the head still on.

Melanie fell in love immediately...

It's actually quite good...tastes much like fried chicken...the only problem is that it's not easy to eat.  There's not a ton of meat and it's not something that you can just cut into pieces.  Honestly, it's meant to be picked up and eaten with your hands like you would a chicken leg.  We did our best and it turns out Sydney is a big fan (Luke, not so much).  If you can stomach another picture, here's the finished results...

Overall, a cool experience, but we pretty much all agreed that we won't be running out for another round of guinea pig so all your little furry pets back in the states will be more than safe around us when we return!

The Black Market

A few weeks back we picked up an alternative map of Cusco called the "non touristic map".  One of the items on it is a place called Baratillo.  The description is "second hand market (buy northface, Adidas, jask wolfskin, zara at very cheap prices."  It goes on to provide a warning "keep in mind this place is not 100% safe" so of course now I feel absolutely obligated to check it out!  Plus, Melanie has developed a slightly unhealthy infatuation with North Face products.

Anyway, our excursion to the market was planned for Saturday.  We first stopped for lunch.  Melanie recently found the only bagel place in Cusco, which is run by an Israeli and fellow MOT (oddly enough he also runs a sushi restaurant).  After bagels and milkshakes, Melanie strapped on her money belt, we hid all our valuables, grabbed the kids by the hand and headed off to the black market.  

After about a 10 minute walk we come to an area packed with peruvians.  There are tents covering the entire street for about 3 blocks selling anything you could imagine...used phones, chargers, toilets, and tons of old clothes.  We spend the first 20 minutes just walking around browsing and getting our bearings (we're the only white people in the whole place)...and then the real shopping started!  We duck down some alleyway into an actual building with 3 floors of vendors selling name brand shoes and apparel.  On the surface, it looks like high end stuff, but the prices suggest otherwise.  We start negotiating for a North Face jacket for Melanie...we start at 58 soles (~$20), but get it down to 51 soles pretty quick.  We find another North Face fleece for Luke for 40 soles and some North Face hiking pants for me for another 50 soles.  We even found a vest for sydney for only 8 soles.  

All told we spent about $50!  All the items look legit on the surface, but the labels are in all chinese so guessing that they're completely counterfeit...no matter because we're feeling confident that we not only braved the cusco black market, but are now looking extra sharp decked out in all our fake north face gear!

Entertainment...Part 2

Well, I feel like I'm part of a Seinfeld episode, but it seems our entertainment issues have been solved...at least temporarily.  Yesterday, as we were walking home, we passed a street vendor selling DVDs.  I casually inquired if he had any in english, and he answered in the affirmative so we all started perusing the titles.  Then it hit me...these were 1st run bootlegged DVDs (for you Seinfeld fans out there, picture Jerry with a video camera taping "Death Blow" or "Cry, Cry Again")!

I have to say, the selection was pretty damn impressive, but I was very skeptical whether 1) these would be the actual movie and 2) they would be in english.  Regardless, after reading 9 books and watching the 5 movies we brought no less than 3 times each, I figured it was worth the risk.  Plus, you couldn't beat the price...we bought Iron Man 3, Oblivion and Wreck it Ralph for a total price of 5 soles or about $1.80 (or about $0.60 per movie).

We rushed home to check them out and see if they were legit ("legit" meaning they were the actual movie, since at $0.60 each these movies aren't exactly "studio sanctioned"), and to our pleasant surprise they were!  Other than a weird intro featuring chinese writing (which just reinforces that there's no copyright protection in China), the movies are all the real deal!!!  Not only are they studio quality, but the sound is good and we can choose english as one of the set-up options!

The kids and I enjoyed a movie night yesterday with Iron Man 3, and I plan to stop by my favorite bootlegger often to refresh my DVD collection.  If you have any requests, let me know!

A Little Girl

A heartbreaking thing happened today. I was on my way home from the nutrition clinic walking to meet the kids and Scott.  I noticed this peppy little girl, about 8 years old, walking by herself ahead of me.  She was way too young to be walking by herself through the busy streets of Cusco.  I looked around for an adult near her.  There was no one.  I sped up to get behind her and saw her shoes;  they were broken, worn, torn, and disgusting.  I then saw her stop at a restaurant to look at the menu.  (Could she read?)  We came to a stoplight and I said "HOLA".  She looked at me and flashed me a small smile and had the cutest face I have ever seen (besides Lucas and Sydney, of course).  I followed her up to the street where I was turning.  I stopped next to her, leaned down, said hi again and asked her where her parents were.  She opened her mouth to respond to me (with still the CUTEST face you have ever seen) and her teeth were actively rotting out of her mouth.   I have seen a lot of rotting teeth; this was the worst.   She told me her parents are at home and she is going home now.  I asked her if she was hungry and she said yes and then took off.  I had a energy bar in my backpack, but I could not get it to her fast enough. I felt so badly.  Hungry kids make me sad.  

The San Pedro Market

A few weeks ago we went to this famous market in Cusco.  I forgot the camera.  We finally made it back today.  My pictures don't do the place justice.  I find the entire culture under this roof fascinating.  Have an open mind.  Here goes...

I'll start slowly...here is the bread we eat EVERY SINGLE MORNING with butter, jam and sometimes cheese. Yum, right?  Not that yum after six weeks of it. 

Chicken soup, anyone?

 This was the meat aisle. I did not recognize the white stuff for sale in the bucket.  Do you?

This pig had a rough day, but is for sale.

I am told Peruvians will use all parts, and I mean every single part, of animals for soups and stews

Intestines for sale...

This is such a learning experience for us all.  We all have to eat on the planet...we just go about it in different ways.  A few more pictures will be posted on Flickr soon. 

The Inca Trail

6 months ago when we were thinking about a trip to Peru, the one thing I really wanted to do was to hike the Inca Trail.  For those of you that don't know, the Inca Trail is the walking trail created by the Incas some 500+ years ago to go from Cusco to Machu Picchu. So rather than just take a train all the way Machu Picchu like most people, this past Saturday at 6a we started the 2D/1N "mini-Inca Trail" hike (it's mini because the 4D trek is a little too much for the kids).  

The first part of the trek is train ride to KM 104.  KM 104 is a little more than 2 hours outside Cusco and isn't an actual train station (we had to give the conductor a special pass for the train to even stop there).  Stop is relative because the train barely even comes to a halt long enough for us to get off and as soon as we're clear it moves on leaving us in the middle of nowhere.  

No train, no car, no road, no electricity or phones…just nearly 8 miles of walking in front of us to get to Machu Picchu so we strapped our backpacks on, slathered on sun screen and bug repellent, loaded up with water and started walking.  Our first stop, only about 10 minutes in, is Chachabamba, a small Inca ruin that was thought to be primarily a guard post for Machu Picchu (since Machu Picchu was primarily reserved for the upper class).  After a tour of the ruins, our guide Miguel warned us that the next part of the trail is the hardest.  For the next 3 hours, save for a few brief stops to rest and have a snack, we walked up the mountain on our way to a place called Winaywayna.  

For those of your familiar with Laguna Beach, picture walking up Park…about 10 times on an unpaved and uneven surface…and that's maybe close to what this was like.  On the way, we were able to freshen up at a waterfall:

And the reward for getting to Winaywayna…more stairs straight up!  The Incas weren't just incredible engineers, but they must have also been in amazing shape to traverse these trails and steps on a regular basis.

After Winaywayna, we start the more "gentle" path to Machu Picchu.  The trail winds through several different climates.  At times it's blazing hot as the sun beats down on us, and then the trail turns and we're in the midst of the cool jungle.  All the while, we have some of the most amazing views of the canyon and Urabamba river far below, and the mountains that completely surround us:

After another 2 hours of walking, we're in desperate need of a break, but Miguel pushes us on.  No rest for the weary until we finally make it to Intipunku, The Sun Gate.  Entering the gate provides the very first view of Machu Picchu and only those who take the Inca Trail ever get to see it!  

After soaking in the view and catching our breath, and with the sun starting to set, we begin the final hour walk down from Intipunku into Machu Picchu itself.  We'll spend the next day touring Machu Picchu in depth, but we stop briefly at the Guardhouse for the signature photo:

The hiking was hard, but the scenery and the experience were amazing…in fact, it's hard to do it justice.  Despite sore feet, shoulders and backs, all of us felt such a sense of accomplishment that made the whole experience so worthwhile.  But the day wasn't quite over yet.  We head to the buses to go into Aguas Calientes to spend the night.  The bus takes a winding road down the mountain side with what seems like mere inches from either crashing into the mountain, or toppling off a cliff…but at this point it's nice to be riding and not walking!  And once we get into town, what's the best best way to recover from some 7+ hours of walking?  How about a natural hot spring (video on flickr)?

After a quick dinner, it's off to bed because we're headed back to Machu Picchu at 6a the next day.  I won't bore you with all the details of our tour of the site because I don't think it will come close to doing it justice.  Here's a map of the site that might help, but all I can really say is that it truly is one of the 8 wonders of the world:

If you're interested, you can check out the 300+ photos and videos of both the Inca Trail and the next day's tour of Machu Picchu on Flickr.  There's also photos/videos of our hike to the Inca Bridge, which is a treacherous trail that extends on the back side of Machu Picchu mountain.  ENJOY!!!

Entertainment

As much as we're enjoying our time in Peru, I'll be honest that we're running a little short of entertainment options at night.  After the kids go to sleep (between 8p and 9p), time seems to slow a bit for Melanie and me.  At this point, I've read 7 books, watched 2 full seasons of Game of Thrones and started season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  Melanie has read 4 books herself, and even Lucas has read 4.

Since Season 3 of Game of Thrones won't be out for a few more months, any entertainment ideas are welcome...books we should read, shows we should download, whatever.

The Zoo is Crazy

Seriously, I've never been to a place quite like this zoo.  Every day something new happens that would likely result in a normal zoo being closed down by whatever authorities oversee these things, but in Cusco there is no such oversight.  Anyway, this morning we had 2 separate incidents of monkeys escaping from their cages.  In one instance, we look up to see a full size spider monkey swinging from the condor cages.  As the zoo administrator tries to coax the monkey down by tempting him with some bread, she asks me to grab the toucan.  I guess she was worried that the monkey might grab the toucan and kill it so I grabbed some loose clothing lying around (the old clothes are used for the animals to sleep with and to cover the cages from the sun) and cover up the toucan (you can't catch the toucan if she can see you).  Once covered, I pick her up and take her to her cage.  All the while, one of the other zoo keepers somehow convinced the spider monkey to jump into his arms, at which point he took him back to his cage and disaster was averted.

Later, we start our daily responsibilities of cleaning some of the animal cages.  We're supposed to clean out any excess food, and pull out the loose clothes that are left in the cages overnight.  Sometimes the animals crawl inside the clothes and make it difficult to pull them out without letting them loose.  Today, I'm cleaning out some random animals cage and he's not visible so I'm assuming he's hidden in the clothes and so I'm trying to be a little extra careful.  After pulling out a few pieces of clothes, it quickly becomes apparent that the cage is empty...the animal has apparently escaped in the night!!!  We of course alert the zoo administrator, who doesn't really seem that worried.  By 11:30a when we left it was still unclear if the animal was ever found...oh well!

Finally, Friday is apparently "meat day" because next thing we know some random guy is walking in with a side of beef draped over his shoulder.  He literally has a huge chunk of meat about the size of a 10 year old boy, hanging over his clothes...no protection, no gloves, no nothing.  After he deposits the meat in one of the back rooms, for some reason he insists on shaking all of our hands.  Keep in mind that he has raw meat literally all over him...thanks goodness we were all wearing gloves.  I gather someone else comes in later in the afternoon to hack the meat up to give it to the animals!

Next week we're back at the orphanage, but the zoo will never be far from our thoughts.  We'll miss it's non-stop entertainment and look forward to volunteering there again in 2 weeks.

Zoo

This week we started a new volunteer assignment at the Cusco zoo.  When I say "zoo", I use the term very loosely.  While there are animals (and some of them are even kept in cages!), there are no vets and the people who work there seem to have little if any formal training on being zoo keepers.  There's a fee for visitors, but no one actually mans the entrance to collect the money, and there's really only 1 rule…keep the door to the zoo closed so the free-roaming llama doesn't escape!

Volunteering at the zoo typically starts with taking some of the animals out of the back storage rooms.  It's unclear why these animals aren't just left out overnight, but no matter.  We start by loading the turtles (there's probably about 20 of them) into a wheelbarrow and wheel them out to the exhibition area where we place them amongst the birds!  Next up is several monkeys and some other animals that look like ferrets and possums, but their exact names are unclear.  One, named LuLu, was allowed out of his cage and actually attacked Melanie, but she survived!  Finally, we bring out the toucan...for him we just open up his cage and let him hop out.  Today the Toucan, while roaming the zoo uncaged, actually attacked another bird...caught it in his mouth and seemingly killed it!  Check out the video:

It was unbelievable to watch, until the zoo administrator rushed up and grabbed the toucan and basically yanked the still alive bird out of its mouth!!!  Needless to say, this place is never dull!

Next up...feeding the animals.  What do they eat?  BREAD!  That's right, pretty much every animal in this zoo starts the day off the same way we do every morning…with a breakfast of bread.  The monkeys, the parrots, the macaws, the peacock, the bears, the ostrich, the deers…all of them get bread!  And how do they get the bread?  We feed it to them by hand!

I don't mean to be critical because it's a lot of fun…and I'm no vet (but mind you that neither is anyone who actually works at the zoo)…but I'm pretty sure none of these animals are meant to have a diet of complex carbohydrates.  One story I heard is that the zoo used to have a cheetah.  When we asked the woman who runs the place what happened to it, she informed us that it died of some kind of an intestinal disorder…likely from all the bread!  We also saw a dead monkey…can't say the bread was the cause, but guessing it didn't help.

Needless to say, I don't think this particular zoo is going to win any awards, but they do the best they can with the resources they have available.

Anyway, after the bread, we help clean the cages and then cut up fruit because the best way to wash down complex carbohydrates is bananas, watermelon, apples, pineapples and papayas!  On Monday's the bears, vultures and condors get Alpaca meat that one of the employees cuts up for them.  On other days, some of the animals get chicken.  The feeding isn't an exact science.

One Of The Boys

Before we came to Peru, I thought our work in the orphanage would be sad. That has not been the case. The boys are in a great moods when we see them and greet us with smiles, hugs and high-fives. Today was different.

We are suppose to help the boys with their homework; some need it and some don´t.  I sat down next to a boy that had his head down on his backpack today and told him I would help him with this homework. He shook his head no.  One of the directors came over to the two of us and yelled at him to pull out his homework immediately and begin. He had tears in his eyes.  When she walked away he put his head back down.  In my best Spanish (which is not terrific yet) I explained to him that I would stay with him and we could do the homework together.  He shook his head no. I decided to find out what the hell was going on so I walked up to the woman that yelled at him and asked about him. Here is his story:

JC is a 12 year old boy who apparently used to LOVE school and do well.  Apparently his father was horrible to him and everything changed. I did not get exact details;  I am not sure I wanted them.  JC ran away from home and lived in the streets.  The police finally picked him up and brought him to the orphange. Since then, he has been depressed.  He hates school.  He hates to shower.  He hates everything.  He has been in the orphanage a few years so, if you do the math, he ran away and lived in the streets when he was likely UNDER 10 years old.

We bring fun activities with us to the orphanage (balls, jump ropes, art supplies, etc.) I had colored pencils and paper with me today and so I sat back down with JC and told him that I would make him a deal.  I told him that we would play tic tac toe three times and then look through each of his notebooks to see what homework he had.  I drew the grid, nabbed him lightly with the pencil and told him to go first.  He looked up, took the pencil and marked an "X".  I let him win that first one.  The last two games we tied.  Then I began opening up his notebooks to see where his homework was.  As I flipped through his notebooks I noticed that some of his school work involved pictures he had to draw and color.  The kid had some artistic ability!  I asked him if he liked art and he said yes.  He had about six notebooks that we went through and for the life of me, I could not figure out what he had to do for homework.  But I did begin to figure just how much this kid loved art.

As I was going through JCs notebooks Sydney came to sit with us and she began coloring this picture where I had scribbled a bunch of black pen on white paper.  She added color to the spaces.  The finished product looks like a mosaic.  He just sat and stared at her picture.  I asked him if he wanted to try it and he said yes. So he and Sydney sat there and he completed about three of them and they were gorgeous!  I wrote a bunch of postive notes about his works of arts and told him to keep them.  By the end of the day he had done NO homework, but he was all smiles and had beautiful art.  Scott and I left him all the pencils and told him he can have them for the night ("JC, you are the boss of the pencils") and we will do more art tomorrow.  I would like to think the homework would get done tomorrow, but this is as far as I got today.

Day 3: Taquile

Our "mama" woke us about about 6a.  We slept in our clothes and there's no running water for showers so it didn't take long for us to be "up and at 'em".  Breakfast was pancakes with jelly…which everyone loved.  After saying goodbye to Lindy (Celestina's adorable 3 year old),

then came the long dreaded trek back down to the boat, but this time with a twist…our "mama" strapped our suitcase to her back and carried it for us!  Admittedly, I did the hard work of carrying it up the hill, but Celestina carried it, strapped in a blanket and hanging from her neck, all the way down the mountain without 1 complaint or so much as a stop to rest (I was not as generous going up).  She explained that all girls on the island, starting at age 15, learn to carry very heavy loads on their back…Melanie and Sydney have a lot of work to do to catch up!!!

Once loaded up, we started the short trip over to Taquile where we observed how the locals weave clothing the old fashion way…by hand on a loom, crafting designs entirely by memory.  Then…more hiking.  We spent the next hour walking to the city center:

where we had lunch of lake trout and of course potatoes and rice!  There's really not much more to tell about Taquile…it's much like Amantani where locals spend their entire time either catering to tourists or farming potatoes.

After lunch we walked over 520 steps down to our boat where we started the now 3 hour boat ride (which should probably only take 20 minutes on a normal boat) back to Puno.  In Puno we hit an internet cafe, since I was suffering from withdrawal, and then we had pizza dinner (pizza is incredibly popular in Puno…you can barely walk 10 feet without coming across a place that serves it).  By this time the kids could barely walk…in fact, Lucas fell asleep on the lobby couch at the hotel we where we waited to be picked up.  Our ride showed up at 9p, and took us to the bus terminal where we boarded the "night bus" back to Cusco.  Honestly, the night bus may have been the highlight of the trip for the kids.  Each seat reclined into a bed, we had movies (the kids watched Ice Age in Spanish) and we even had wifi!!  We probably didn't fall asleep (in the same clothes we've now worn for 2 days straight) until near midnight and the bus rolled into Cusco at just before 5a.

Exhausted and disgusting we spent all of Sunday recovering.  Enjoy all the pics and the few videos we took.  Next weekend is Machu Picchu!

Day 2: Uros & Amantani

Despite hot showers, Day 2 started a bit slow because of the higher altitude (Puno is roughly 600 meters higher than Cusco)…but don't worry it's nothing that a spot of breakfast and a little fresh lake air can't cure.  Today we're venturing out on to the lake, with our first stop being the floating reed islands of Uros, about a 20 minute ride from Puno.  The reed islands actually float about 20 meters above the bottom of the lake and are anchored in place by large stones.  Every 2 weeks or so, the locals put down a fresh layer of reeds, as the old layers slowly deteriorate.  There is no running water here, but they have some limited solar power.  The whole way of life is incredibly simple and backwards, and the only way these people can survive is money made from tourists (like us) which is bit ironic since they could practically swim to Puno where more modern accommodations await.  Regardless, it was very cool to see!

After about an hour on the reeds, we boarded our boat to head to Amantani.  Our boat is supposed to be "semi-fast".  I'm not at all sure what that means because there was absolutely NOTHING fast about it.  It took us almost 3 hours to get to Amantani and if the water wasn't just above freezing, I probably could have swam and got there sooner!  On the positive side, I guess you could call the ride relaxing…

Once we arrived at Amantani, the real adventure started.  We knew we'd be spending the night with a local "host" family to experience the Quechua way of living first hand.  What we didn't know is that our "host" would live about 2 miles straight up hill.  While the rest of our tour donned their hiking packs for the trek, I had to carry by hand the roller bag that we stupidly overpacked the 4 of us in.  Luckily our "mama", Celestina, had very nice accommodations for us once we finally arrived:

and she also served us a traditional lunch of sopa (soup), rice, potatoes and cheese cooked inside the most primitive kitchen imaginable.  While they have some electricity from solar power, people in the U.S. bring more modern equipment camping (thanks Greg Brown).  They cook their meals either over a wood fire or on a 2-burner camping stove.  There's no fridge so the food just sits on shelves or on the dirt floor.  There is no running water at all!  Yet somehow, the food tasted good, which probably shouldn't have been that surprising because almost every woman on the island was what we would call in the U.S. morbidly obese (maybe it's all the carbs).

Once we recovered from the hike and refueled from lunch, it was time to hike again because we were only about half way up the mountain…but at least this time I didn't need to bring our suitcase!  We hiked up to the top just in time to see the sunset:

Then back to our house for a rest and some dinner before Fiesta Time:

By this point, the kids are in tears from sheer exhaustion so after a few dances we bowed out for a cold night's sleep and what promised to be an early wake-up call!

Road to Puno

We spent the past weekend traveling to Puno and Lake Titicaca.  It was a long, fascinating and often exhausting 3-day, 2-night trip.  I'll break it up into 3 blog entries, one for each day, because there's so much to tell.

Day 1 started on the "day bus" to Puno.  What's normally a 6 hour bus ride is made into 10 hours by breaking the trip up into a few stops along the way.  The bus is comfortable and modern and we have a bilingual tour guide who pretty much spoke for about 9 of the 10 hour ride, but don't worry the kids stayed entertained by playing video games and watching movies.  After a quick stop in a nearby village that is famous for its bread (it was fantastic), we made our way to Andahuaylillas which is known for only 1 thing…the church in the center square which is often described as the Sistine Chapel of South America.  I've been the Sistine Chapel, and this was no Sistine Chapel…but still impressive in its own right.

Next stop was Raqchi, home of a fairly well preserved Incan ruin.  This ruin is a little more modern then the ones we've seen in the Sacred Valley, but still pretty cool.

Probably the most interesting were the Qolqas or storehouses constructed to store food for when it's needed.

Viewing ruins always works up a good appetite so we stopped for a buffet lunch before heading to La Raya.  La Raya is the highest point on the road to Puno.  At 4,335 meters (over 13k feet) it's easy to be left short of breadth.  Let's just say that the altitude didn't sit too well with one of our group…

Altitude is no joke…Melanie felt nauseous, had blurred vision and was tingly in her fingers.  Despite commenting that it's sometimes mental (I may never let Melanie live that one down!), our guide pulled out the oxygen for her which helped tremendously.

About 20 minutes later, Melanie was about 90% and well enough to enjoy our next stop of Pukara where we briefly walked through the town mark, which is like most other markets we've seen…pretty much anything you could every want or imagine, laid out before you on a blanket placed directly on the street.  Before we get to Puno which is more of a tourist/resort town, we drove through Juliaca.  Juliaca is known as a commercial center of Peru and is famous for contraband.  Honestly, the place is a sh*thole!  I would guess that 95% of the entire city is under construction…not a single building looked completed (apparently because if construction is done, taxes kick in).  Even the guidebooks tell you that if you find yourself in Juliaca, leave as quickly as possible…so that's exactly what we did.

Finally by 5p, after a 10 hour journey, we rolled into Puno.  We were met by a representative from our travel agency who took us to our hotel…a journey that should normally take less than 10 minutes, but in this case took 45 because of gridlock traffic and construction.  The good news was that our hotel was very nice and centrally located with 4 beds, wifi and hot water heaters (Melanie would even say the altitude sickness was worth it)!

After a brief pizza dinner that was mediocre at best, our weary bunch was ready to turn in for the evening because we would be making an early start the next day!