From Coca to Inca

2003-12-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I have been in a very irritable mood today. I guess I'm just stressed out because I have a lot to do before I leave tonight. I don't like to travel with dirty clothes, so I decided to do my laundry after lunch, but I forgot to bring my dirty gym shorts to the lavanderia (furthermore, the sun is not out, so I can not hand wash and line dry my shorts). I needed to take out some soles, but the smallest amount that I could take out is 100 soles which is a lot more than I need. However, just because my preferred ATM language is English does not mean that my preferred currency is US dollars. I now have 100 US dollars and 100 soles. The reason why I am so annoyed about this is because I lost my ATM card a while back, so I have to take a cash advance on my credit card, and the interest they charge me is exorbitant. One last complaint: I tried to buy a towel at the grocery store and found out at the cashier that it costs 17 USD (I told the cashier that I didn't want it after learning the price). Towels don't even cost that much in the states!

So, all of these errands have been driving me crazy, but I did run into Juan Carlos, my driver, and Tony from Martincitos on my way back from the grocery store at which time I had to say "good bye" to both of them (Tony said he had been looking for me at the house). I said "goodbye" to the abuelitos at Martincitos yesterday. I must have gotten at least 100 hugs and kisses. I almost started crying but was able to contain myself. I promised everyone that I would come back and visit in July. I also invited myself to stay at Tony's house in Villa El Salvador when I come back. Tony is awesome! He is one of the most compassionate people I know. He is also one of my heroes.

2003-11-29T09:55:00.000-08:00

Ugh! I hate ABBA, and I have one of their songs stuck in my head because they were playing it over and over at the gym.

2003-11-28T11:40:00.000-08:00

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! We had a Thanksgiving lunch at the house yesterday (lunch is the bigger meal in Peru) which was nice.

One of our night guard's mother passed away a couple of days ago, so yesterday morning, I along with the staff went to the guard's house to pay our condolences. The coffin was inside the house which I found to be a little strange. There were a lot of people sitting and standing around grieving. One of our cooks told me that the night guard's mother had stomach cancer, so although it's very sad that she's no longer with us, I'm glad that she's not suffering anymore.

On the last Friday of every month, we at Martincitos celebrate the birthdays of all of the abuelitos who have birthdays during the month. Today was one of these special Fridays. In addition to cake, there was a lot of music and dancing. I even got up and danced with the abuelitos for a while. I can't dance, but I figured they wouldn't know the difference and would probably just think that Americans look funny when they dance.

Erasmo, the abuelito to whom I have been teaching English, gave me a working watch today. He said that it was his way of thanking me for teaching him with such care. I was so touched that he thought of me (and chose to give me something when he himself has so little)! I'm really glad that he appreciates my efforts and slightly guilty that I was sometimes impatient with him.

I could write more, but I have to go get ready for soccer now.

2003-11-26T11:29:00.000-08:00

Wow, I just found out that my friend, Kay, is getting married! I think that this is going to be the first wedding of a friend of mine that I am going to attend (I've been to weddings of family friends and family of my friends but never just a friend). Friends are getting married. Uh oh...I must be growing up.

2003-11-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Yumi called on Thursday night, and we talked for a long time. We used to talk on the phone A LOT but haven't done so as much lately mostly because we are both busy, so it was really nice catching up.

On Friday afternoon, I played soccer with the CCS volunteers and staff. I used to dread Fridays because I would have to come up with some excuse explaining why I couldn't join them for soccer, but they managed to talk me into playing one time, and I discovered that I really enjoy the game. Since then, I have looked forward to the games. However, this is not to say that I am any good at soccer. In fact, I have absolutely no idea how to play, but that's part of the fun because I spend half the time laughing at myself.

My weekend was pretty uneventful. We played cards and Jenga Friday night, but that was the only entertainment we had all weekend.

Oh yeah, Lionel and I are friends again which is awesome. We might even go on a short road trip together over winter break.

I think I posted a while ago that I will be back in Berkeley on the 4th of December. Well, I was wrong; I will actually be back on Wednesday the 3rd. I can't believe that I only have one more week left in Peru. While I am excited to be going home, I am also very sad to leave my new friends here. I really hope to return for a month or so in July.

2003-11-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

My friend Karen called today. We had been playing phone tag for a while but finally got to talk this evening. It was really nice catching up since we havent talked in a very long time. She bought a $10/750-minute phone card specifically for Peru, so we will definitely be speaking some more in the next two weeks (especially since she doesn't know anyone else in Peru). Thanks for calling, Karen!

2003-11-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day!

I had fun at work today. Nothing extraordinary happened, but I enjoyed being with Alex and the Spanish volunteers. Alex was a volunteer with CCS a couple of summers ago, and now she is back to write her senior thesis on Villa El Salvador. Anyway, Alex and I were both working with Erasmo (the man to whom I normally teach English) this morning. Alex told Erasmo that I was a math student. Erasmo seemed very impressed and asked Alex to ask me (Alex's Spanish is much better than mine) how much I thought the door to the library weighed. I had never heard that one before. I have been asked if I know calculus, if I can do arithmetic very quickly, etc., but never had I been asked if I can estimate the weight of a door. I was both amused and confused by his question.

Alex and the Spanish volunteers invited me to go out with them tomorrow night, but unfortunately, I don't think I can go out with them because they are going to a bar in Villa El Salvador (they are staying with people in Villa). I am not supposed to be in Villa El Salvador after 5 pm because it is supposedly very dangerous. I really want to go, though, because the Spanish volunteers are leaving for the Amazon jungle early Friday morning and won't be back until after I leave for the states. However, even Tony who is in love with Villa says that the district is very dangerous at night and is best avoided (Tony grew up in Villa, is very involved in the development of Villa, and is very proud of Villa) .

I told Sandro today that I would like to come back to Peru in July and spend a couple of weeks at Martincitos and a couple of weeks trekking in Huaraz. He asked me if I was planning to come alone or with Lionel, so I told him that we had broken up. He was surprised and said that it was too bad because we made a very good couple. His response seems like the one I get from just about everybody.

Lunch was rather extravagant today. The sushi rolls, sashimi, tempura, and hot dish were very delicious. I left the table very satisfied.

After lunch, I went to a classical music store and bought a couple of CDs (one of which I am listening to now). I have to thank Lionel for getting me into classical music again. Anyway, when I get back to the states, I am going to the symphony with a friend to listen to an interpretation of Stravinsky. I am very excited! I haven't been to the symphony in years!

2003-11-18T17:09:00.000-08:00

I had a fantastic massage at the Miraflores Park Hotel this afternoon. Afterwards, I walked to Larcomar (the seaside shopping center in Miraflores) and had lucuma and strawberry gelato. I'm feeling much better.

2003-11-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

I had some staff members break open my lock only to discover that I had identified the wrong locker as mine. Fortunately, they seem to be more amused than annoyed. I hope they get around to removing the correct lock today, though, as I really need to take my medicine.

When I tried to take the kitten down from the tree at Martincitos today, it scratched me. I sure hope it's not rabid (it doesn't look like it is).

On Wednesday, one of Kique's friends is going to come to the house to show our cooks how to make sushi, so we are going to have sushi, sashimi, and tempura for lunch! Woohoo!!! Hopefully, the raw fish will be safe to eat and of high quality. The staff has been very careful about this sort of thing, so I'm sure everything will be fine and no one will catch cholera (there was a cholera epidemic in Lima in the 90s).

2003-11-16T17:55:00.000-08:00

Things are at an all time low right now, but I think I'm coping. First of all, Lionel and I are definitely broken up (in fact, he promised me that he will not change his mind about this). I respect his decision even though I don't understand his reasons at all (apparently, neither does he). However, I have decided that it would be easiest if we cut off all communication at least for the time being (yeah, it's going to be rough: we are in the same department, and we share an office). I am incredibly sad. If you want, you can call me and try to cheer me up. My phone number in Lima is 011-511-275-7683; I am on east coast time and should be around between 2 pm and 10 pm everyday. I hope life gets better soon because this really sucks...

This morning, I discovered that I lost my wallet (I still had it to pay for the cab home last night), but luckily the neighborhood guard had it and returned it to me when he saw me this morning (I don't know if I dropped it, or if I left it in the cab, and the cab driver brought it back). Just earlier, I discovered that I lost the key to my locker. All of my important documents are in there, but worse yet, all of my medication is in there. I tried to pick the lock with a paper clip but had little luck.

2003-11-15T10:04:00.000-08:00

Here are some anecdotes from the past week.

A woman at Martincitos reached into her pocket and took out a handful of what looked like bugs to me. I thought that she had swatted some flies and didn't have a place to throw them away. Anyway, I was curious, so I asked her, "Insectos?" She said something something "comida" something something, so I thought that maybe they were raisins. Then another woman took some out of her pocket and stuck her hand right in front of my face so that I could get a better look. They were definitely insects. I screamed and ran out of the room with the tray of bowls that I was carrying (luckily, the bowls were empty). Tony, the director of the program at Marticintos, saw me running and heard me screaming and asked what was wrong. The women explained to him what had happened, and everybody (including the seniors who were waiting for breakfast to be served) started laughing except for me. It turns out that the insects were roasted ants from the jungle. Ewww...

I was very angry with Mantequoso because he had kept a beautiful kitten up in a tree at Martincitos for at least two days. On Wednesday morning, the kitten was crying/meowing. I wanted to help it down, but it didn't want to come down because Mantequoso was there with me. I tried to get Mante to go away, but the harder I tried, the louder he growled at the poor kitten. I think that the kitten was hungry, too, because it was nibbling on the bark of part of a tree branch.

On Thursday night, I took Sister Jackie, Lucy, Sandro, and Tony out to dinner. They are all staff from Martincitos (Sandro and Tony are also affiliated with CCS). Sister Jackie is an American who has been volunteering in Peru for a while (she is fluent in Spanish and is very helpful with translations). Anyway, during dinner, I heard a lot of stories about the various attendees of the program at Martincitos. Most of them were very sad. One man who was on drugs beat and almost killed his mother. The neighbors heard the mother screaming and contacted Tony. Tony took a cab over; he had to knock down the door in order to get inside to help the mother. He said that there was blood everywhere when he got in there. Anyway, he called the police. They came, beat up the son, and left. Later, Tony tried to get the mother to press charges against her son, but she wouldn't do it. There were rumors that the son was after Tony because he had called the cops on him, so Tony went to the police and explained that if anything happens to him or the woman, this man is responsible (of course, he also informed the man of what he had told the police). It's been four years, and everything has been calm. Thank goodness. Another girl who had graduated first in her high school class and aspired to become a doctor was raped by her brother and has since become mentally ill. Jackie said that when she went on a house visit to that house one day, the brother opened the door, and she was very tempted to punch him in the face. I would have been too.

On Friday, the students from the beauty school came to Martincitos and gave free haircuts and perms to the seniors. Another volunteer and I did manicures. I had done this once before the previous Friday (but that is the extent of my experience painting nails). Anyway, I decided to paint my finger nails silver just for the fun of it. I thought that the women would get a kick ou of it, and they did. However, they weren't the only ones. The volunteers at the house joke that I am the goth girl.

Anyway, I just looked at the time and realized that I am late for lunch. Bye for now...

2003-11-05T10:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening, I suddenly got the worst headache I had ever had. All throughout the night, I felt dizzy and feverish. Anyway, since I didn't get much sleep last night and was still feeling unwell in the morning, I decided to skip work today. The doctor came, checked me out, and told me that I had some sort of throat infection and low blood pressure which was causing the headache. She prescribed me some medication and told me to drink a cup of coffee to fix the low blood pressure problem. I decided to stop here at the internet cafe on my way to the coffee shop.

Oh yeah, I went to the travel agency yesterday afternoon to change the date of my return flight - I will now be returning to Berkeley on the morning of December 4th (a couple of weeks sooner than I had originally planned to return)!

2003-11-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

I returned to work at Martincitos today. I received a big welcome from Mantequoso (the dog) which was nice, but I felt a bit disoriented since I hadn't been there for a week.

It was so wonderful to see and be with Lionel again. We spent the last ten days or so travelling in Peru. He came with me to work on a Friday morning. After helping out in the kitchen for a little while, we went to visit Trini with the doctor and the nurse (I wanted to see her before going on vacation because I thought that it may be the last time I would see her). Then we took a cab from Martincitos to the airport in order to catch our afternoon flight to Cusco. During the cab ride, Lionel was able to witness the insanity that is Lima traffic. Anyway, we arrived in Cusco in the late afternoon and just rested for a while before meeting up with Katie and Natalie (friends from CCS who were also in Cusco for the weekend) for dinner. Both Katie and Natalie adored Lionel and gave me their stamps of approval. On Saturday, Lionel and I explored Cusco and walked around the streets in the hills. We had hoped to go on a day hike to the nearby ruins, but I forgot to bring the book with the directions and wasn't able to find the trail anywhere online (besides, it started to rain in the afternoon, and it wouldn't have been pleasant to hike in the rain). Early Sunday morning, Lionel and I embarked on the Inca Trail. The second day was rougher than I had remembered (probably because I wasn't feeling so well and was in a terrible mood), but other than that, I enjoyed the trek. It rained a bit, but it really wasn't as bad as I had feared since it was light and intermittent. I wasn't as satisfied with SAS, our tour operator, as I had been with Peru Treks (the company that I went with in August) since our tour leader was kind of unprofessional and the whole trip seemed a bit disorganized. Anyway, we returned to Cusco on Wednesday night and flew to Arequipa Thursday morning. In the afternoon, Lionel and I took a tour of the city (he did not enjoy the tour - he is not a fan of organized tours) and visited the Santa Catalina convent. The convent is sort of a city within a city. The place is absolutely charming. A lot of the belongings of former nuns were on display - it appears as if the nuns had led rather cushy lives. There are still nuns living in the new area of the convent, but they no longer live in the same way as the nuns had centuries ago. Friday morning, Lionel and I left on a 2 day/1 night tour to the Colca Canyon. The easily accessible part of the Colca Canyon is a five-hour drive from Arequipa. I had read in my Lonely Planet guide book that the scenery along the drive is worth the trip, but I found the landscape rather bleak and desolate (Lionel thinks that I need to expand my definition of beauty). We did however see lots of highland animals such as llamas, alpacas, and vicuÃ±as. In the evening, we went to the hot springs at Calera in the Colca Valley. I really enjoyed the hot springs although even I thought the water was a little too hot (I normally enjoy taking very hot showers and baths). On Friday night, we stayed at a lodge in Yanque, a village in the Colca Valley. The next morning, we woke up early and drove to the view point near the edge of the canyon to watch for condors (alas, there were no condors to be seen). I found the canyon a bit disappointing because it was advertised as twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, but the easily accessible part of Colca was neither very deep nor wide. The nearby pre-Inca terraces were fantastic, though. I think that the trip to the canyon would have been cooler if we had more time to trek or to raft. We returned to Arequipa Saturday night and then to Lima early Sunday morning. Lionel and I went to Miraflores, the trendy part of Lima, and attempted to do some Christmas shopping at the Indian market there and at a shopping center near the ocean. We then went paragliding off the cliffs in Miraflores - the experience was absolutely SUBLIME. We want to take paragliding lessons together when I get back to the states. Anyway, we also enjoyed sandwiches and desserts at San Antonios , a popular bakery, twice yesterday - once for lunch and once for dessert after dinner. I'm very glad that Lionel came to visit me, but I was sad to see him leave last night. We also decided yesterday that it might be better in the long run if we stop dating each other for at least the time being, but nothing is certain yet except that we are still very close friends.

2003-10-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

Woohoo!!! My sweetie is visiting me in about a week! We are planning on doing the Inca Trail (yes, I am going to do it again) and more...

2003-10-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

Nightlife in Lima

Usually, I'm in bed by 9:30 pm (M-Th); occasionally, I stay up as late as 11:30 pm (when we go out on F, Sat, or Sun nights). Anyway, last night, I made it past midnight. We went to a bar in Barranco (one of the safer and trendier barrios of Lima), and even though I left earlier than the others (like I did the last time we were there), I didn't leave the place until 2 am. I had a glass of red wine before we went to the bar, and at the bar, I had a pisco sour (Peru's most popular cocktail - it's a blended drink containing pisco, sugar, lime juice, egg white, and ice) and a peach daquiri, so I was pretty set since I am a light weight when it comes to alcohol. Right as we were about to leave, a group of guys from the table next to us came up and introduced themselves and started chatting with us. One of the guys, Jose (he spent two years living in LA and just got back to Lima a week and a half ago), asked me what we like to drink, and I said that we like pisco sours, and within minutes, the waitress arrived with six more glasses of pisco sours, a treat from the guys. After the pisco sour, Jose convinced me to have a little bit of his beer (which he was drinking out of the pitcher), so I just took a sip to be polite. I don't think I was drunk last night (my definition of being drunk involves dancing on a table top), but I think I was at least half way there.

When the guys joined us, they moved their table closer to ours, and Jose was sitting right next to me so he ended up talking to me the most. One of my friends, Katie, thought that Jose was hot (she had been commenting on it continuously throughout the night even before the guys came over and introduced themselves). Whenever I wasn't talking to Jose and looked over at Katie, she would mouth, "Oh, I think he loves you," and I would mouth back, "No, I don't think so. Plus, I have my Lion." Anyway, I found out that after I left (people were moving on to a different bar, and I decided that I was tired and wanted to go home and sleep), Katie made out with Jose (go Katie!) and got his number.

I rather liked the bar we went to last night. There were several small rooms, but you can see into all of them. The place was very cute. They played some nostalgic 80s music and also some pretty good Spanish rock. There was also live music every now and then. On Thursday nights, they play 60s music and have an all-you-can-drink deal for 25 soles (about USD $7). I think I shall return on a Thursday. We've been out to Barranco and Miraflores (the other trendy seaside barrio of Lima) where most of the nightlife is concentrated. I hear that San Isidro also has some nice new bars, but we have only been there for dinner (Japanese food!). Still a lot of exploring ahead...

2003-10-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the new governor of California! What were people thinking? Perhaps the more appropriate question is: were the people thinking? Anyway, I probably shouldn't complain too much since I didn't bother to request an absentee ballot to vote.

2003-10-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

Today is a national holiday in Peru (something about the Peruvians beating the Chileans in some battle). As a result, many of the volunteer sites were closed today, so everybody except for Natalie came to Martincitos this morning. On Monday, Erasmo (a senior who goes to Martincitos) told me that he wanted to learn English, so I brought a workbook and some photographs to share with him. I thought the photographs would be good because he could try to describe the subject of each picture in English and learn a little bit about me at the same time. Anyway, it turned out that quite a few of the seniors were interested in looking at my photographs, so I did a little show and tell before breakfast was served. When I showed them the pictures of Lionel and told them that he was my "novio," they seemed very surprised and amused that I had a boyfriend. One of the women who was looking at my photographs is from Cusco, so I gave her a couple of my photos of the Plaza de Armas in Cusco to help her remember her hometown. Anyway, after spending about an hour at Martincitos, we went on a picture-taking tour of Villa El Salvador. I think I need to start organizing all of my photos. After I finish my blog entry, I am going to go to the supermarket to buy a photo album (the supermarkets here are rather "super": they have just about everything).

2003-10-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Hola chicos. I just returned from the Amazon jungle. My friends, Katie, Natalie, and Sophie, and I took Friday off from work and travelled to the Amazon jungle for the weekend. We flew into Iquitos early Friday morning. The Iquitos airport is the strangest place - it does not have walls on all sides of it. Anyway, there, we were greeted by fifteen or twenty taxi drivers who were all eager to drive us to the center of town. It was a bit overwhelming, but because of the competition, we managed to get to the center of town (about a 15 minute drive from the airport) for 2 soles (which is less than one US dollar). It was a bit worrisome, though, when the car started making weird screeching noises as we drove away from the airport. However, we did arrive safely at the tourist office in the center of town.

We did not book a tour in advance because we had read in our guidebooks that it is cheaper to arrange tours to the jungle in Iquitos. So, after getting some information and recommendations from the tourist office, we decided to go to the individual travel companies. Employees from the different travel agencies walked around the streets and tried to sell us their packages. They all know each other and most likely have some sort of deal set up with each other. It all seemed pretty sketchy. We think that Iquitos is run by some sort of mob. Anyway, we went to two travel agencies before deciding the the Ceiba Tops 3 day 2 night TGIF Special. Ceiba Tops is well known as a luxury jungle lodge, but what we didn't know at the time was that they cater mostly to the 50 and over crowd.

On Friday afternoon, we took a boat to Ceiba Tops which is about 45 kilometers downstream from Iquitos. When we arrived, we were given welcome drinks (I think it was a mixture of the local rum and orange soda). Then, we went for a short hike where we saw several different kinds of palm trees, banana trees with semi-ripe bananas, beautiful blue butterflies, and enormous ants (our tour guide told us that one of these ant bites will put you in bed for five days). After the hike, we watched a magnificient sunset from the dock. We then ate a delicious buffet dinner and spent a bit of time at the bar in the lodge that night.

On Saturday morning, we first visited the nearby village of the tribe of the Yagua (SP?). They shared with us some of their traditional music and dance. They were dressed up in traditional costume but told us that they no longer do this in their everyday life. They also explained that most of the Yaguas can speak Spanish now even though they have their own tribal language. In the village, I had the opportunity to hold a three-toed sloth which is one odd animal. After visiting the Yaguas, we went dolphin-watching. Both gray and pink dolphins live in the Amazon. In the afternoon, we went fishing for piranhas. I didn't fish (I don't know why, but it would have made me feel guilty to do so), but it was kind of exhilirating to watch the others fish.

On Sunday morning, we went to see the giant water lilies. They are considered the largest leaves in the world. Then we went to visit the nearby village of Indiana (I think it was originally set up by Canadian missionaries or something like that) which has its own school and hospital. There, we saw wild mango trees among other tropical plants. The flowers of the mango trees smelled so good. Anyway, it poured all morning, but what else can you expect from the rainforest?!

I am back in Lima now...

2003-09-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I am actually doing a little bit of math again. I have been reading out of Dummit and Foote, and I am just starting to work on a revision of the paper that I co-authored at the Williams REU two summers ago. Math is fun is small doses.

2003-09-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

Today's house visits were a pretty emotional experience for me. Even though I don't really know the people that I visit every Tuesday and Thursday, I have grown fond of them. The first person that we visited this morning was Paulina, Villa El Salvador's oldest resident (she is 106 years old). Tomorrow, she is moving back to Ayacucho, so I will probably never see her again. When we hugged and kissed each other goodbye this morning, she mumbled something to me in Quecha which I did not understand. I will certainly miss visiting her. The third person that we visited this morning was Trinidad (we call her "Trini"). She is dying. She always seems to be in tremendous amount of pain. It is difficult for me to just sit there and watch her, but I don't know what I could possibly do. Monticoso (the dog from Martincitos) came with us on the house visits today, and when Trini saw him, she lit up and put out her hand to try to pet him. She attempted several times throughout the course of our visit. Unfortunately, Monti was not very cooperative - he went up to just about everybody except for her (probably because we were sitting on the bench, and she was lying in bed). We tried to bring him up to Trini's bed, but he would never stay for long. I know he's just a dog, but I'm kind of disappointed in him. I guess it's still better that he came along than not because he seemed to help Trini forget about her pain momentarily. Trini kind of reminds me of myself because of her love for animals and stuffed animals (she has a stuffed rabbit of which she is very protective). At some point during the house visits this morning, we got into a moto-taxi (it's kind of like a carriage attached to a motorized tricycle - it's not very safe) and took it across town in order to save time. We left Monti behind when we got into the cab. It thought it was kind of sad, but the others assured me that Monti would be fine and would find his way home (he did). One of the last people we visited this morning was a woman named Ignacia. She has some sort of brain injury, and her right half is paralyzed. I think this is a relatively new development because she is still not used to it and broke down in tears when she tried to explain what had happened. The others told me that she will be okay; I sincerely hope that they are right.

2003-09-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

I am enjoying my new placement. Yesterday morning, Mary Jo (a fellow volunteer from Newport, CT) and I worked at Martincitos. We arrived before the elderly did. The first thing that we did was to help remove fava beans from their pods (I have a great fear of fava beans because I am allergic to them; see www.favism.org) - these beans were later used in a soup that the elderly had for lunch. After the elderly arrived and did their morning exercises (volunteers from the Red Cross led the exercises), we served them breakfast. Then we walked around and greeted them with hugs and kisses on the cheek (they really enjoy those). Afterwards, we updated Martincitos's inventory of medicine. Meanwhile, the elderly painted little wooden jewelry boxes that they get to take home with them. They then played a game led by local high school volunteers. We were present during the game but mostly just observed. Finally, lunchtime rolled around, and we served the elderly some sort of noodle soup.

Today, Mary Jo, Lucy, Tony, and I (Lucy and Tony are residents of Villa El Salvador who are very involved with Martincitos) visited six different homes. Most of these people live in the "middle class" neighborhood of Villa El Salvador - the bedrooms have some sort of roof, but the walls are made out of cardboard, tarp, and sometimes bricks that are precariously stacked up on each other, and the floor of the house is just dirt or cement. Most of the people we visited this morning are ill or recently had some sort of operation. What amazes me is the willpower and pride that all of these people possess especially given the circumstances under which they live.

Oh, I think I have befriended a dog at Martincitos. His name is Monticosco (sp?), but people just called him Monti. He likes to stand on his hind legs, put his paws on my chest, and lean his head against my tummy, and I like to rub his head.

Now, for something completely different, I got my hair trimmed today. I went to www.babblefish.com and typed in "hair trim" and "cut no more than one centimeter," copied down their Spanish equivalents on a sheet of paper, and brought that sheet of paper to the local salon. It worked out surprisingly well, and the haircut costed less than USD $3.

2003-09-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

It's only been a week since I last posted a message, but it feels like it's been so much longer because a lot has happened since then. In the mornings of Tuesday through Friday, I worked as an assistant at Villa Hermosa. Villa Hermosa is a government-funded daycare-like center that offers before- and after- school programs to children of ages 0 through 17. I worked with a class of about fifteen 4 and 5 year olds (there are 22 students in the class, but on a given day, about 15 will show up): I helped serve and feed them breakfast and lunch; I played with them; I tried to prevent them from killing each other. My impression on the first day of work was that the placement was going to be challenging but worth the challenge; however, I have changed my mind since then (I will discuss the reasons at another time). Starting tomorrow, I will be working with the elderly at Martincitos. On MWF, another volunteer and I will visit and plan activities for the elderly at Martincitos. On TuTh, we will visit the elderly in their homes to get a better sense of their living conditions and to see if there is anything they need. I hope that this new placement will work out for me.

Five of my friends from Cross Cultural Solutions and I took a weekend trip to Paracas, a seaside resort about 3 hours south of Lima. It was very cloudy most of the bus ride there, so we were beginning to worry that it had been a mistake to go to Paracas, but just as we were driving into town, the sky turned blue and the sun came out (you have to understand that the sun does not shine in Lima, so we were really looking forward to a change of climate). Unexpectedly enough, Toledo, the president of Peru, arrived at Hotel Paracas shortly after we did, so we had the opportunity to meet him and have our pictures taken with him. He was in Paracas to open an Argentine oil company or something like that, so we joked that our picture would appear in the paper the next morning with caption "Americans support oil drilling." This morning, we took a boat tour to the Ballestas Islands (half an hour off the coast of Paracas) where we saw pelicans, penguins, and lots and lots of sea lions (the sea lions make the strangest noises). The water was very clear, and the caves and pink rock formations were awesome.

Anyway, I could go into much more detail, but for the sake of time, I won't.

2003-09-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Lima on Saturday morning. I was the second volunteer to arrive at the house. There are a total of eight of us, and we are all female. Soo-Hwa is from Singapore; the rest of us are from the states. My roommate, Natalie, just finished her freshman year at Brown and is taking a semester off to volunteer in Peru and to backpack through Spain. I like everyone in the group - everybody is friendly and interesting. We live in a spacious house (the house can accomodate up to 28 people, I think, and there are only 8 of us at the moment) in a safe, middle-class neighborhood of Lima. We have three cooks, a cleaning staff, and security guards - they are all wonderful! I believe that all of these people are from Villa El Salvador. Villa El Salvador is an amazing place. I can't find much information about it on the web, so I might just have to write something up myself sometime. My volunteer placement is at the Institute of Welfare for Children and Infants at Villa Hermosa in Villa El Salvador. I am going to be working with three year olds; I'm not exactly a kid-person, but the placement is appropriate since I don't know much Spanish. We visited several of the volunteer sites in Villa El Salvador today. When the residents saw us, they all stood up and clapped and many of the women ran up to us and gave us hugs and kisses on the cheek - it was very touching. Anyway, I'll write more when there is more to write. Tomorrow is my first day of work. I need to wake up at 6 in the morning, so I am going to head back to the house and get a good night's sleep.

If you are reading this, please drop me an email sometime! I'd love to hear from you!

2003-09-07T16:46:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Lima yesterday morning. So far, everything is wonderful! I think that I am going to have a very enjoyable and memorable time volunteering in Lima. I will write more about more about Cross Cultural Solutions (the organiztion with which I am volunteering), the people, the house, and the city another time since I just spent a long time writing about the Inca Trail and am thus tired of typing.

2003-09-07T16:43:00.000-07:00

I survived "The Inca Trial!" Although it is difficult to capture the experience in words (especially with my skimpy vocabulary), I am going to attempt to summarize each of the four days.

Day 1:

I woke up at 3:30 in the morning so that I could shower (I wanted to shower because I knew that I wouldn't be able to shower for a few days) and pack before I was picked up at my hostel at 4:30. I was the first to be picked up, so we then spent about another half hour picking up the others. In my group were two girls from Uruguay (Claudia and Fabiana), a couple from Ireland (Antoinette and James), and two friends from England (Dan and Jenn - I had thought that they were a couple until the second to last night of the trek). I ended up getting to know my group pretty well. Everyone was very friendly and supportive. Our tour guide, Agustin, was also wonderful.

We were driven to Km 82 where the Inca Trail begins (we stopped in a small village along the way where we used the restroom and bought some snacks). The first day's hike was pretty unextraordinary, although we did visit a Inca site. The hike is supposed to be the easiest of the four days (Agustin calls it "flat," but it really isn't), but it had been the hardest hike that I had done up until that day, so I was a little worried.

It was the first time that I had ever gone to the bathroom in the great outdoors and the first time in 15 years since I had camped out. I experienced a bit of "culture" shock, but I think that I had adapted pretty quickly.

I should mention something about the food: It was awesome for camping grub. We had a cook who prepared three-course breakfasts, lunches and dinners. I was better fed for those for days than I usually am.

Day 2:

We woke up at 6 am on Day 2 (the cook woke us up each morning by bringing a cup of hot tea to our tent and saying "buenas dias").

The hike in the morning of Day 2 is supposed to be the hardest part of the Inca Trail. It is about 8 or 9 kilometers uphill. People who survive this part are usually able to complete the whole trek.

There were porters for hire for the uphill part of the hike of Day 2, so remembering that I found the easiest part of the trek very difficult, I hired somebody to carry my backpack and sleeping bag. The hike was still incredibly difficult even without the burden of my pack. The girls from Uruguay and I stopped about every few minutes to catch our breaths (it becomes difficult to breathe at a high altitude because there is less oxygen). Even though I was very focused on getting from point A to point B (point A usually being just a few meters from point B), I was still able to enjoy the spectacular scenery. The sky was blue, the grass was green, the trail was hugged by snow-peaked mountains, there were waterfalls and rivers, etc. After about 5 hours, we finally reached the top of a peak which is situated at 4,200 something meters (some of the other group members had gone ahead of us). I stayed up there for a little while and took some photos. It was a wonderful feeling to be up there. I was proud of myself for surviving that leg of the trek.

We descended about 500 meters and had lunch. I started to feel a little sick, so the porters offered to carry my stuff for the rest of the day as well (the rest of the hike for Day 2 was only an hour and a half and downhill), and somebody from my group gave me an altitute sickness pill to take. Everyone took good care of me, and I am very grateful. I felt much better after descending to our campsite (which is located at 3,500 meters above sea level) and taking a short nap in my tent.

Day 3:

We woke up at 6 am again on Day 3.

The hike for day 3 is supposed to be mostly downhill except for the first hour or so. We visited a lot small Inca sites along the trail. After the first hour and a half or so, the flora changed, and it became kind of jungle-like. After lunch, we all went at our own pace. I was the slowest because I am out of shape and also because my knees started to hurt. Noticing that I was kind of limping, Agustin found me a couple of branches to use as walking sticks. The sticks helped a bit although they also slowed me down. After a while, I could no longer spot anybody it my group since they were so far ahead of me. It then started to rain, and soon, I was all alone on the trail. I started to worry that I was going in the wrong direction since the trail seemed oddly familiar and there was nobody else there, but after about ten minutes or so, some other trekkers caught up with me.

We walked down about 2,400 fairly steep steps on Day 3. The steps really killed my knees. Also, I didn't have the right shoes for the hike (I just wore my tennis shoes), so I almost twisted my ankle and slipped a few times. I was very relieved although annoyed with myself when I finally arrived at our campsite.

Our campsite was locatedo near a lodge that offered hot showers for 5 Nuevo Soles (a little less than US $1.50). I decided that I deserved a hot shower. There was a long line for the showers, but I waited. When I got into the shower, it was cold for about the first minute or so, but it did finally warm up (although it was not "hot" - "lukewarm" is probably a more accurate description). I also had the brilliant idea of washing my trekking pants in the shower (after all, I had worn and sweated in them for three days) but did not have the foresight to realize that I would have to wear those wet pants back to the campsite. My shirt and clean underwear which was just outside my shower stall also got wet somehow. I was very annoyed by all of this. Luckily, I had a dry pair of fleece pants that I usually wear to bed, and Antoinette lent me a clean top of hers.

There was a party at the lodge that night. We all decided to go for just one drink, since we knew we had to get up early the next morning. Dan didn't have any money at the time to spend on beer (he did later borrow money from James and buy a beer), so I told him that he could have half of mine since I didn't have very high tolerance for alcohol anyway. It was a mistake to tell them that I didn't have high tolerance for alcohol because everybody then thought I was going to get drunk after a beer. When I was having trouble walking back to the campsite because of knee pain, everybody thought I was drunk instead (I tried to explain to them that I wasn't drunk, but they didn't believe me).

Day 4:

We woke up at 4 am on Day 4. My knees hurt so badly that Antoinette had to help me up from the floor of my tent . Once I was up, though, I was able to walk around fine.

The plan was to get to Sun Gate by 7 to watch the sunrise. The hike to Sun Gate was mostly uphill and very strenuous (but luckily not very long). We arrived at Sun Gate at 7 am, but there was no sunrise to watch because it was very foggy. We were however still able to see Machu Picchu from Sun Gate which is sometimes not possible because of the fog.

We decided to leave Sun Gate for Machu Picchu after about 10 minutes since there wasn't much to see from Sun Gate, and we wanted to arrive at Machu Picchu before the crowds did. Machu Picchu is really magnificent - it is everything that it is made out to be (if you don't know what Machu Picchu looks like, do a search of it at images.google.com or www.corbis.com). Agustin gave us an interesting 2-hour tour of the place. The buildings were just awesome, and the speculation of their purposes curious. The terraces were green, and there were even llamas grazing on them. We walked around a little bit more after Agustin's tour, and then we took a bus to Aguas Calientes which is the town at the base of Machu Picchu.

Most people went to the hot springs in Aguas Calientes (that's how the town got it's name), but I just bummed around town and had lunch with Claudia and Fabiana (I didn't have a swim suit, and they didn't want to walk uphill to get to the hot springs). Claudia and Fabiana tried to teach me some more Spanish during that time since we had a lot of time to kill. I found the morning and afternoon rather relaxing and enjoyable. At 4:20 pm, we all took the train from Aguas Calientes back to Cusco.

2003-08-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

The PeruTreks office was closed. I hope that I will still get to start the Inca Trail tomorrow. I will call the cell phone number provided on the PeruTreks website to see if I can get a hold of somebody.

I had lunch at Govindas. The food was good and cheap, but two of the dishes in the set menu contained beans that looked suspiciously like fava beans (the waiter didn´t know what the beans were called). I hope I don´t die...

Cusco is pretty amazing. There are lots of churches, squares, stone walls, etc. I walked up a narrow street and up some steps northeast of Plaza de Armas to get a view of the square, but unfortunately, there was a school in the way. I climbed onto the stone wall along the path and walked towards the plaza to take pictures of it (it wouldn´t have been a fatal fall, but it wasn´t exactly safe either especially since there were these electrical wires that I had to hop over). Anyway, I think I got a couple of decent photos.

Well, now that I have PeruTrek´s manager´s cell phone number, I should probably try to call him/her.

2003-08-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I can only legally stay in Peru for 90 days, so maybe I will get to go home and visit all of you in Berkeley after all. Yay!

I was very bored last night (it is not exactly safe to wander around Cusco alone at night), so I read my Peru guide book from cover to cover (figuratively speaking). I learned that Machu Picchu was only discovered in 1911. Archaeologists recently discovered an even larger Incan city to the north (I think) of Machu Picchu, but this new site is not yet open to the public.

Well, I need to go see the folks at PeruTreks and pay them the remainder of the fee for the 4-day Classic Inca Trail Tour. They are conveniently located on the same street as Govindas, a vegetarian restaurant, where I was planning to eat lunch. Govindas is an international chain run by Hare Krishnas. I first encountered Govindas when I was in Budapest. Hopefully, the food at this place will be as good as the one in Budapest.

2003-08-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

Hola chicos! I have arrived in Peru. I spent the night in Lima last night and flew to Cusco early this morning. At the suggestion of the owners of the hostel that I am staying at, I drank some coca tea (coca is the plant from which cocaine is derived) and napped for a couple of hours. Now, I am at an internet cafe around the corner from my hostel.

People have been very friendly and helpful, but I have to admit that I am already homesick (I rarely get homesick when travelling); I miss Berkeley and all of you dearly!

I am spending the week in the Cusco area. I am supposed to leave for the Inca Trail on Monday (the Inca Trail is a 4-day hike to Machu Picchu), but I am having misgivings about my levels of fitness and endurance. However, I think that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I plan to do the hike as long as the tour operators ensure me that I will not die.

Well, I think I am going to walk to Plaza d'Armas, Cusco's main square, have some lunch, and explore the city. More another day...