Special guest blog today, "Strangers in a Strange Place"
By John Pastorius (Katie's D.O.D - dear ol' dad)
Let me make one thing clear before I tell you about the amazing time we had in Peru for the past 2 weeks thanks to our wonderful travel planner/daughter, Katie; NO HABLO ESPANOL.
I can’t believe that I didn’t know how great a vacation a trip to Peru would be, or the variety of experiences one would have in a trip to Peru (even if one doesn’t get to see its number one attraction, Machu Picchu). It’s like going to Yellowstone Park and not seeing Old Faithful, but realizing you still experienced an amazing world you didn’t know existed. So I’m telling you all now, visiting Peru needs to be on your “bucket list”.
If you are Anglo Saxon and live in the US, especially Minnesota, you take many things for granted - being in the majority, speaking English, insulated houses with floors, flush toilets, refrigerators, schools, education, literacy, health care, owning a car, freedom from earthquakes, etc., etc., etc.. An observation I made in Peru is even a bankrupt person in the US is better off than 99% of the people in Peru.
We saw the damage done by the earthquake in the Pisco area Aug 15, 2007, much like the one that occurred in Haiti. Houses still in shambles, a school and hospital still not finished, large pot holes in the road, and people living in shanties. We saw many areas of people living in shanties, even in undamaged areas.
We saw the damage done by the excessive rain and flooding in the Cusco area, affecting mostly the shanties of the poor built on the flood plain of the nearby rivers. The abject poverty we saw throughout Peru was very disconcerting to this writer. If more Americans traveled abroad to see what living conditions are like in third world countries, they would better appreciate what they have and why we need to, in the words of Michael Jackson, “Heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race.”
Now to our Adventures in Wonderland (i.e. Peru)…
We were four gringos who arrived in Lima late on Saturday, February 6th, JoAnn and I (Katie’s parents), JoAnn’s sister (Senorita Rita), and her partner Colleen. Katie had arranged a taxi ride to take us to her apartment but gave JoAnn her best birthday present ever when she surprised us at the airport with her boyfriend, Seth. February 6th was JoAnn’s Birthday. The first tears started flowing, as we hadn’t seen her since mid-July. I wish we didn’t have to worry when loved ones travel to third world countries, but we do. Another thing we take for granted in the US, Law enforcement throughout the country.
On Sunday we rested after staying up till 4am “catching up” with each other. That afternoon we had a fun time at a nice get together put together by Katie’s good friends in Peru, Bruno and Romina, hosted at Bruno’s parents house. There we were served our first Pisco sours, the national drink of Peru. And has a herbinger for things to come, we saw Bruno’s 3 snakes and large turtle. It was a wonderful introduction to Peru and reassuring that Katie has found such very good friends to support her when we cannot. It was very awkward though when we couldn’t speak to Bruno’s parents except through Katie’s interpreting as we, “No hablo Español”. The first of many times we developed empathy for immigrants who come to the US who, “No hablo Ingleis”.
The remainder of the trip can be broken into four segments-Paracas, Cusco and the Sacred Valley, the Amazon excursion, and Lima. I find it difficult to be succinct because of the awe and wonder of all we saw, did and experienced in these places, culturally and spiritually, the diversity of the plants and animals we saw, the diversity of climates - desert, beautiful, tall, green mountains, the Amazon Rainforest, the colorful, crowded (9 million people) Lima – all balanced against the poverty we saw everywhere, and being barely able to speak the language.
On Monday the 4 gringos, plus Katie and Seth, headed down to Paracas for 2 days. I believe Katie has already blogged you on that. The coach bus ride down to Paracas took us through the desert area of Peru, past the slum areas, and amazingly saw shanties of people still trying to live in these areas, trying to eke out a living. And I felt the same where everywhere we went in Peru, poor, hardy people trying to eke out a living.
The highlight of our trip to Paracas was the boat ride on a beautifully sunny day to the Isla Ballestas where we saw thousands of birds-Cormorants, Pelicans, Terns, and Humboldt penguins. We also saw seals, sea lions, and dolphins. Like humans, birds excrete also, called guano. Know anyone who needs a job? Every few years they hire people to work for 8 months to collect and shovel up as much guano as they can for the local fertilizer companies who like it because of its high nitrogen content. They say the job pays well and your stay on the island is free (personally, I think the job stinks).
After a day of rest back in Lima, the 4 gringos headed off to Cusco without Katie, to the mountainous highlands south of Lima. When we initially planned our trip, we had 3 goals in mind – to visit Katie, see Machu Picchu, and to see other parts of Peru if we had the chance. January and February are the rainiest months of the year in Peru, so we knew we were taking our chances when we planned to come to Peru in February, but what we didn’t count on is the rainiest rainy season in over 50 years, wiping out both the famed Inca Trail and the train route from Cusco to Machu Picchu. So no Machu Picchu. Can you imagine planning a trip to Egypt to see the Pyramids and not get to see the Pyramids?
As disappointing as it initially sounded, we got to spend 4 days with our very knowledgeable guide, Leo, and very fast driving Raul, seeing the Cusco and Sacred Valley area, seeing many other very good Incan ruin sites, and arranged a trip down the Amazon, most of which we would not have seen had Machu Picchu been open, and our trip was better because of this.
In Cusco and the Sacred Valley, we saw the most beautiful green mountains we have ever seen, an advantage to going there during the rainy season. In the US we are used to having tundra on mountain tops at about 10,000 feet. Here they are green to at least to 18,000 feet because of the rain and close proximity to the Equator. We saw llamas and alpacas and learned how they color the yarn and weave their beautiful tapestries. We learned of the Incan religion, and culture, of their use of the Condor to represent the sky and things above the earth, the Puma to represent the earth, and the Snake to represent life underground and the after life.
We learned of the history changing event when the Spaniards, led by Juan Pizzaro, defeated the Incas at the battle of Cajamarca in 1537. The conquerors were accompanied by the Dominican priests and soon large beautiful churches were built on top of previous Incan religious sites. While it destroyed the previous Incan site, the New World wealth contributed to the churches being beautifully and magnificently adorned with beautiful works of art including statuary, wood sculptures, frescoes, and paintings. We found this beauty in churches we visited in Cusco and Lima. Even if you are not Catholic, it is worth visiting these magnificent “art museums”.
With the subsequent intermarriages of the native Peruvians with the Spaniards, almost everyone in Peru is mestizo, resulting in no bias or prejudice based on skin color. As John Lennon said, “Imagine if you can” a United States with no bias or prejudice based on skin color.
The combining of these two races has resulted in what I would arguably call the most beautiful people in the world. Many of the women’s and girls’ faces are stunningly beautiful. And this is not just a male opinion, even Katie commented on seeing a woman at an airport she called the most beautiful girl she had ever seen.
The most memorable thing of our trip to the Cusco area blends the stunning natural beauty of the land and the amazing architecture of the Incas, such as Ollantaytambo, Tipon, and Sacsaywaman, with the beautiful dresses, clothing and beautiful multi-colored weavings, shawls, blankets, etc. of the native people. These beautiful people in their Joseph-like clothes of many colors are a photographer’s dream.
The other striking feature was the lack of modern farm implements. The area is very fertile and they grow a lot of corn, potatoes, and beans. But there were no tractors. The fields were plowed by yoked oxen. Corn and potatoes were picked by hand, often from amazingly terraced fields high on the mountain sides, some of which were built and used by the Incas 1000 years ago.
If you ever go to Cusco, we recommend staying at Hotel Marani for $32 per room per night, eating at Jack’s (large quantities, reasonably priced) where we ate twice, and having a late afternoon beverage at Duffy’s pub next to the Cathedral, with a table by the window with a beautiful view of the Plaza de Armas, the city of Cusco, and the surrounding green hills. That view from Duffy’s is imprinted in our memories forever.
On Monday, February 15th, we flew from Cusco to Lima, met Katie at the airport so she could accompany us and be our interpreter, switched planes, and flew to Iquitos to begin our Amazon excursion. There are a variety of companies that offer Amazon trips, and we chose one of the Explorama options, since it was the only one with several features that appealed to the women in my group-hot showers, air-conditioning, and a pool (with waterslide, which you can also go down head-first or backwards on!). I’m having a hard time figuring out if we somehow missed out on something by not having to rough it more, but there is something to be said for being able to clean up after sweating like a dog and liberally applying Deet and sunscreen to avoid harmful interactions with mother nature.
We were very lucky in that despite being in Cusco and the Amazon rainforest during the rainy season, the rain gods looked favorably on us and we almost never got rained on, (but sweated as much as if we had)!
We were also very fortunate to have a wonderful guide for 4 days, Roldan. He was born in a village a short distance from where we lodged and has worked for Explorama for 25 years. He is a gentle man with a gentle spirit and a walking encyclopedia of the Amazon rainforest. He knew every plant and tree and flower, every insect, amphibian, reptile, mammal, or bird by their English and Spanish names. He knew uses for just about every plant we saw. He recognized all the birds by sight, by their calls, and how they flew. He was incredible. He obviously has a deep love of nature (as do I), and he enjoys sharing his knowledge with everyone.
We saw beautiful birds-scarlet Macaws, Amazon Green parrots, Jacanas with their beautiful yellow wings, the beautiful orange blackbirds, and the large hanging nests of the Oropendulas. We saw iguanas and racerunners, bizarre turtles and very large frogs and snakes.
Now to appreciate the snake stories, you have to know that JoAnn has ophidiophbpia - a deathly fear of snakes-. She would have been tickled pink if we didn’t see any at all. But no trip to the Amazon would be complete without seeing macaws, parrots, monkeys, piranhas, and snakes, right?! Well we saw all of the above.
Our first night at our Amazon Lodge we went on a night walk through the Jungle armed only with flashlights to look for nocturnal animals. Is your heart beating faster and the theme from Jaws playing in your head yet? Katie and I could not talk, convince, or cajole Rita and Colleen to come with us, but somehow Katie convinced JoAnn to come along – “oh the things we do for love.” The huge 8” long frogs, tarantulas, and scorpions were neat to see. Soon we heard another group shouting to come and see a “serpiente”. Roldan, Katie, and I rushed to see the snake-a 30-foot long Amazon tree boa in a nearby tree, leaving JoAnn alone, in the dark, armed with only her small flashlight, stuck in the midst of a moral dilemma – move to join us and see the snake, or stay put and be alone in the dark jungle, fearing another snake or something equally bad might attack her as she stood there alone. Soon we could hear, “Katie, come back here,” repeated over and over, each time a little louder and a little more panicked. No more night jungle walks for JoAnn.
On our second day there we went to visit the Yagua people, a tribe whose name means “red skin”. They use the juice from a red fruit to paint their skin red, partly for decorative purposes, but mostly because it is a natural mosquito repellent. We danced with them, they taught us to use blow dart guns, we learned the men had long hair and wore green shirts to confuse enemy tribes as to who was male and who was female. We saw the smallest monkey in the Americas in a tree there, the pygmy marmoset. We had the cultural experience of a lifetime with these gentle spirited people.
One of the days we went piranha fishing, or should I say Piranha feeding. Despite seven people using about 200 pieces of cubed beef, we only caught about 8 fish. It was amazing how the Piranha’s could eat the meat with their razor like teeth and yet we felt very little tugging on the line. They fried up some of the Red Piranhas we caught that day, and presented them to us beautifully at supper that night. They were fantastic.
On the way to go fishing we saw pink river dolphins and stopped to take a short walk to a pond with large water lilies. Almost 2 feet wide, they can support a sleeping child. Along the path there were some local people paddling canoes and showing us a few things they “found” nearby, a sloth that was fun to hold, and a 6 foot long anaconda that I mustered up the courage to hole, while JoAnn stayed a long way back. So in one day, I held a Piranha and Anaconda in my hands. Now there’s something you don’t see everyday.
Our third day there we traveled two hours down river to the Explorama lodge for a walk on the canopy tops. This is an amazing series of 19 platforms at various heights, the tallest over 100 feet high, connected by swing ladders, some over 50 yards long. It was an amazing view from these swing ladders and platforms. The main reason to go there was to see birds as the Amazon rainforest is home to 20% of the worlds birds. We only saw one bird that day but walking on the ladder swings at the tops of the trees (which felt like the top of the world) was so cool that seeing birds would have only been a bonus to the experience of walking in the sky.
As we returned to our lodge at Ceiba Tops (named after the large Ceiba trees that are your typical rain forest tree-over 100 feet high, large canopy branches, 10-20 feet wide, and hundreds of years old - they remind me of the tree in “Avatar”. You think it might be more than coincidence?) (see photo below),
we took a short cut between bends in the river in a parade of motortaxis from one side of Indiana, Peru to the other side. This is the major motorized mode of transportation on the few roads in the region, especially in Iquitos. No trip to Iquitos could be complete without a ride in them. They are like motorized rickshaws. I can’t imagine being a rickshaw operator before they were motorized.
But the short trip through Indiana, as well as our side trip up or down the Amazon and its tributaries again brought us close to the poverty, small thatched shanties without doors, windows, or floors, and lots of children, some playing as all kids do, and some working. We saw kids fishing on the fiver, families washing clothes and bathing in the river, a husband and wife netting fish together. We sometimes think we work hard for a living here in the states. Most of us haven’t a clue what living is like for the poor in third world countries. We haven’t a clue. Until you see it first hand. And then you are changed.
On our last day in the Amazon, we got up early to go bird watching, where our guide pointed out over 20 types of birds to us and knew all their calls-our favorites were the Jacanas, Kingfishers, and white headed tyrants.
After returning for breakfast, it was off to Monkey Island, where a gentleman has started a refuge for orphaned young monkeys, whose mothers were killed for food, their tails, or by illegal poachers and discovered in the street markets. The monkeys were very happy to see us - and our crackers! They jumped up on us, and climbed on our backs and heads. One of them wouldn’t let go of me, I almost brought home another souvenir. We saw wooly monkeys, spider monkeys, and several types of tamarins. Our favorite was the small tamarin who loved to sit on the owner’s head, and my head too.
After lunch we took the boat back to Iquitos, and Explorama’s bus took us from the river back to the airport to return to Lima. On the bus to the airport, we passed by a large farmer’s market with banana vendors everywhere, the roads were filled with colorful motorized rickshaws, and we realized that only the main road was paved, every side street was a dirt road, mostly lined with small adobe, doorless, floorless houses, with children playing in the dirt.
On Friday, February 19th, the 4 gringos went to the old part of Lima, El Centro, while Katie worked. We saw the beautiful Cathedral, the Presidential Palace surrounded by armed guards even during the changing of the Guard ceremony. We went to a Park where we could see the multi-colored houses filling the hillsides of Peru. Katie joined us for a drink at the oldest pub in Lima, then we caught what was supposed to be a “short” bus ride to see the magnificent water fountain park at night. It turned out to be the most entertaining bus ride of our lives! Vendors would come on the bus hawking candy or ice cream treats. Beggars would stand in the front and give a loud 5 minute speech of why they were down and out, or poor, or handicapped, then they walked around asking for donations. But the highlight of the hour-long 3 mile ride were the 2 guys who walked on, each of who could play a flute or windpipe and sing pretty well, complete with microphones and karaoke machine. We were held up in traffic so long they played 4 or 5 songs. We now have their CD, which only cost 5 soles ($1.70). What a wonderful prelude to the beauty of the water fountain park that night, with 23 multi-colored fountains to wander by while watching the throngs of people enjoying the park on a warm summer’s Friday night!
Then an adventure begins. Do you know what an adventure is? It is a trip that doesn’t go as planned, or, as JoAnn likes to say, life with me. As we left the park, Katie arranged for 2 taxis to take the 5 of us to a pizza restaurant close to her apartment. JoAnn, Rita and Colleen got in one taxi, Katie and I in the other. Unfortunately the girls’ taxi driver did not exactly know where to go, and I had ended up with all our “life lines”, a cell phone programmed with Katie’s number, the piece of paper with her address and phone number, and the keys to her apartment. When the girls didn’t show up at the restaurant after 10 minutes, we started to worry. After 30 minutes we were very worried. We have heard stories of “taxis” taking tourists to shady areas of town where they are robbed, or worse. So with trepidation, we took a taxi back to her apartment where thankfully we found them waiting safely outside. Seems they drove around enough until they finally found Katie’s apartment. It would have been easier if one of the three of them had remembered the name of the street she lived on, or the district she lived in, a little earlier. Imagine a taxi with a driver in front who speaks no English, 3 gringos in the back seat who “No hablo Español”, who first keep saying, “pizza, pizza, pizza”, then later “casa, casa, casa”, but can’t tell the poor man where to go. Back in Katie’s room, we had Domino’s deliver. We watched the Olympics, but it is not the same when all the commentary is in Spanish while we “No hablo Español”.
On Saturday it was time for some last minute shopping in the uptown-like Barranco area where we found some great souvenirs, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Ceviche, one of the top Peruvian dining delights, along with some flavorful Risotto and Calamari.
Then back to Katie’s apartment to clean up, tearful good-byes, and a cab ride by Omar to the airport and the flight back to reality. Our visit to Wonderland was over. But the awesome time we had there will live forever in our memories.
Flight to Peru - $1400
Trip to Paracas - $500
Trip to Cusco - $1000
Amazon Excursion - $2000
Seeing your daughter thousands of miles from home - Priceless.
