Dave Matthews concert on June 3rd? Want to come?!

Hey Guys,

 Want to go to a DMB concert June 3rd at Blossom?!

Ethan

--
Ethan Karp, PhD
(617) 999-5931
http://www.ethankarp.com/

A TRIP TALLEY

Well, after 5 months of traveling,
documented with 112 blog posts through

16 countries and

39 cities visited by traveling on

38 planes including 4 translatlantic flights,

20 boats,

7 long train rides (no trams or subways included),

51 taxis,

36 buses,

with 7 metro system navigated while staying in

54 hotels and 16 campsites being led around by

49 tour guides necessitating

39 ATM withdrawals and 

44 passport stamps resulting in over

16,000 photographs all the while

carrying an average of 51 lbs in our backpacks that led to

a loss of 15 lbs of body weight that was helped by

being sick 5 times (ear infection, altitude sickness, food poisoning, and traveler´s diarrhea twice) requiring 154 Pepto-Bismal tablets and
SPENDING OVER 592 HOURS (24.5 full days) IN TRANSIT...

we have seen a very, very small part of our amazing world! 

Hey, and we almost beat our underwear company's claim!

The Best Place We Have Been To Is...

No one place that we saw can win a title of Best Destination, but each has its own special appeal (or lack of appeal as the case may be).

Most Relaxing - Galapagos
Best Food - China
Worst Food - Argentina (beef just is not a substitute for vegetables)
Best Nature For:
   Wildlife - Serengeti, Tanzania
   Scenery - Torres del Paine, Chile
   Other Worldliness - Bolivian Salt Flats
   Most Intense Nature in One Afternoon - Iguazu Falls, Argentina Side
Most Non-Western Experience - India
Nicest People - Argentina
Best Transportation - Hong Kong
Worst Transportation - Africa
Most Attractive People - Turkey
Best Place to Leave the World Behind In - Amazon Jungle 
Easiest Place to Get Sick - Bolivia or India
Least Expensive Destination - Bolivia
Most Expensive Destination - China (excluding Europe)
Place Most Necessary to Have a Guide - China
Best City Based On:
   Cleanliness - Hong Kong
   Things to See - Rome
   Urban Design - La Paz
   Architecture - Buenos Aires
   Best Markets - Istanbul
   History - Jerusalem
Most Religion - Israel and India
Most Colorful - India
Best Snack Foods - Lima
Three Lifelong Goals Fulfilled - Seeing Galapagos Tortoises, watching flowing lava, and visiting the Amazonian Jungle

But, most telling of all in terms of what we most liked on our trip is a list of future destinations that based on the last five months would excite us most:
Western China and Nepal
Batswana and the Okavanga Delta
The Amazon Jungle (again for longer and going deeper in the jungle)
More time in Cambodia and Thailand
South Georgia Island and the Falkland Islands
More time in Israel

From Sea to Shining Sea and Volcano to Erupting Volcano

    Our last tour stop is the big island of Hawaii, the newest island in the Hawaiian island chain.  The island has been resurfaced by lava eruptions completely over the last 1000 years.  A 27 year-old-eruption continually attracts visitors to the Kileaua crater to watch the earth produce new ground.  This blog post is very simple.  All I have to say is that I saw lava, I watched it gurgle, I watched it sputter, and I was only 10 feet away.  Another lifelong goal fulfilled, and all that I had to do was drive to the end of the road and watch the molten goo meander its way to the ocean.  Michelle and I have been very privileged to travel and experience the world, so thank you to all of those people who have travelled with us, guided us, or just talked with us as locals.  But more importantly, thank you for reading this blog, it has been Michelle and my pleasure to share our visions of the world with you!

For pictures, as always, please feel free to click here or go to www.ethankarp.com!

Happy Travels!

Oh the Place We Will Go, and The Stuff We Will Lose

That is what Dr. Seuss naively forgot to mention in his children´s masterpiece.  No matter how carefully you plan your vacation and what to bring, you lose stuff and break stuff on the way.  So, in the name of your entertainment, here is what has often mysteriously grown legs and wandered away or decided to self destruct at inopportune times during our travels.

1 Amazon Kindle electronic book reader
1 Tilley hat
1 inflatable pillow
1 ipod
2 pairs of pants (growing legs to wander off is a particularly apt analogy for this item)
1 pair of underwear
5 watches (one stolen, 4 broken)
2 wallets including credits cards and IDs
1 fleece
2 pairs of shoes (worn down too far)
2 pairs of flip flops
2 pairs of insoles (also worn to bare threads)

But at least our luggage was never once lost in transit!

This picture was taken when we had to remove all of our stuff from our bags that got wet whilst we tried to get a full 4 hours of sleep in Buenos Aires.

A Complete Travel Experience: Quito Crime

My parents once bought be a model San Francisco trolley car that had a knob at the bottom that, when turned, played the song "I Lost My Heart In San Francisco."  My souvenir from Quito should be a model trole (the name for Quito´s busses) that plays"I Lost My Wallet in Ecuador´s Capital."  After having guarded our wallets all over the world, two days before we were going back to the states, Michelle and I were both pickpocketed and relieved of our credit cards and some cash in a crowded bus.  They had to unzip Michelle´s pocket to get to the wallet.  I had ironically just purchased a new wallet that was sitting empty in my other pocket.  Only the full wallet was taken (these were pros).  When we reported the theft, we had no real hope that we would recover anything (this was confirmed by the not-so-helpful tourist police officer who was the only one in the police office who spoke no English), but we also did not expect that the police officer would know prior to our saying so on what trolley and at what stop our wallets were taken.  Thanks to the Quito police for not warning passengers with helpful signs or, I don´t know, taking one of the million of officers everywhere else and assigning them to this particular station.  Fortunately nothing of huge value was lost, and at least we can roundly say that our travel experience was well rounded :)

But, later in the day, we took a taxi and without a proper wallet, two dollars and my room key had fallen out into the back seat when I left.  The taxi driver got out and ran a block to return BOTH the key and the two dollars.  Then, later that day we met a rabbi in the mall of Quito whose happiness to meet other Jews in Quito ran very deep.  By all accounts, this day was one of great interest!  Things have a strange way of balancing out.

New Year´s Eve Mayhem, Shrek Burns

  While in the Galapagos, we had the chance to see Ecuadorian culture up close when we went ashore to the small 7,000 person town of San Cristobal to celebrate New Year´s eve.  People were all out with their children at 11 pm dressed in their finest.  The girls had dresses that would rival those from prom.  Kids ran around throwing fire crackers at each other and in public bathrooms while the sea lions on the beach burped and bellowed about their disturbed sleep.  A public showing of Shrek was playing in the park while a life size paper mache statue set of all of the main characters lingered nearby.  In fact, all along the street there were dioramas of cartoon characters such as Woody from Toy Story and Hellboy as well as representations of people and events that memorialized the previous year for better or worse. Some mache dolls were of disliked politicians and some were representations of bad fires that had happened in 2010.  Unfortunately, at midnite, all was not going well for Shrek.  For at 12:00 and the New Year, the effigy burning commenced and bonfires lit up of the city streets.  The toxic smell of burning plastic and paint lasted for only as long as it took the youngsters to throw fire crackers in the fire. It was mayhem and picture that I took of the event looked like an enormous riot was taking place.  But, as soon as the innocent Pixar creations were nothing but ash, and the kids tired of putting their limbs on the line for the sake of a loud bang, the sea lions were at peace once again and everyone still dressed as if they were going to a state dinner went out to eat.  The Ecuadorian New Year´s eve.

Effigy burning.

Someone committing Woody to the fire.

It looks just like a crazy riot!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Evolution at Play

   Scientifically, the Galapagos is a haven for biologists.  Evolution is literally everywhere. Yes, there are the finches whose beak sizes vary according to what type of seeds they eat, which prompted Darwin to propose Natural Selection (modern researches have even measured how the beaks of the finches change size over generations in response to harsh environmental pressures such as droughts!).  But, each island with its handful of creatures and different micro climates and vegetation has animals that have evolved to adapt to the environment.  For example, the marine iguana on the island with pale stones has become pale over the years.  Unfortunately, evolution today may be caused less by nature and more by the approximately 120,000 visitors to the islands each year and the many introduced species that threaten to eat or out compete the natives for food.  Even on our visit, there were less penguins and no flamingos on the islands that we saw (this could be a cyclical thing, or it might be the gradual destruction of the Galapagos as it currently is).  So, my advice, go soon if you want to see things closer to the way nature caused them to evolve. 

An example of evolution, this is a red-footed boobie.

And this is a blue-footed boobie!

Galapagos Tortoises...My 1st Grade Dream

  Ever since I wrote a report and made a diarama out of a shoebox in 1st grade about the amazing Galapagos Tortoise, I have wanted to meet one.  When I finally had the chance, I relished every moment.  First, Galapagos tortoises are rare. In fact, the giant tortoise of the Galapagos ilk can only be found in one other island across the world, although fossils show that giant tortoises were all over the world millennia ago.  In fact, there were originally 300,000 tortoises on the Galapagos until pirates, whalers, and others stored them alive on their ships for food for months at a time, exploiting the amazing ability of tortoises to go without water and food for a long while.  The tortoise can be over 500 lbs and lives inside a shell that it creates and grows over time (there are even rings on the shell that one can count up until age 40 to determine one´s age).  Scratching a tortoise on its shell is even enjoyed by those tortoises who are acclimated to humans.  Here is the kicker.  How old are the big turtles?  No one knows!  All that we know is that we have seen tortoises live in unnatural conditions for over 175 years! But today these poor endangered animals who might have met Darwin on his visit do not even have a safe enough environment to lay their eggs in.  Introduced rats eat their eggs while goats out compete them for food and generally taunt them (pictures actually show goats standing on tortoises to reach higher food sources).  Here is where people actually help.  A research station goes out and finds eggs of giant tortoises and brings them to an incubator, hatches them, and raises them until them are ¨rat proof¨ in size around age 3.  This process is remarkably successful and is progressing the Galapagos to have new populations of these gorgeous creatures.  And, the great by product of this effort is the ability for tourists to see baby tortoises, all 3 inches of them!  These tiny little guys are very strange in that they look like clones of their burly old parents right after birth.  Benjamin Button would be at home.  Our experience with the tortoises brought us up close, and as long as we made no sudden movements the tortoises would neither hiss nor retract into their shells.  Let's hope that efforts continue to bring back this endangered species!

Tired turtles.

Ethan and turtles!

Yum, vegetables!

Baby turtles!

Michelle turtle.

The Land Before Time 364...Coming To Theaters Near You!

   That´s not true, actually.  The Galapagos are not really going any place any time soon (except perhaps by growing bigger as their volcanoes continue to erupt). But if the beleaguered and venerable Land Before Time cartoon series ever wants to make a live movie, these Ecuadorian islands are the perfect place for them!  The scenery, animals, and remote locale feel Jurasic as much as they look even more so.  Let me paint the scene for you... there are over a dozen different islands some of which are large enough for multiple active volcanoes and a 30,000 person town to inhabit and some are so small that the 500 meter dash would result in a splash ending if the island were hosting.  To get to each island requires anywhere from 3 hours to two days on a boat.  We stayed for 10 days on a boat exploring an island every morning and evening.  Between island visits, we snorkeled in the crystal clear waters with sharks, rays, sea turtles, and tuna.  

A ray underwater, there were sharks around here too (although rays are actually just sharks with enlarged fins).

  What were on these islands that made us want to explore more than one?  Each island either had one or two unique animals on them or a unique environment in which to watch the behavior of the animals up close. I do mean up close, often sea lions (the most abundant creature on the islands) would belly flop on our path or jump in the small boat that ferried us to islands while we were eating a meal on the main ship for an afternoon siesta.  

Sea lion cubs are ADORABLE!

   What are the animals like?  Well, first there are the mini-godzillas. No, I am serious.  Godzilla was modeled after the mug of the marine iguanas who tend to lie on each other´s backs and bob their heads up and down in jerky movements that turn each other on.  

Japan is next for this one!

The iguanas are everywhere.

   Fortunately, they are only about 1 foot long and when our presence bothered them, rather than destroy us with fire, they started sneezing in our general direction spraying us with the salty mucous that was emptied from their salt glands.  Sometimes, beside the marine iguanas, slightly larger and often multi-colored (red, green, beige, black, and orange) land iguanas would wander by eating the yellow flowers of the cacti that dotted the islands.  Birds were also a mainstay of the paths that we walked.  Blue footed boobies performed their mating dance by lifting one of their audacious treads up in the air slowly and then the other.  The only penguin in Northern Hemisphere made an appearance, bravely defying any traditional wisdom that penguins only live in the cold.  Bright red crabs fought each other as they scurried over most rocks while 2 day old sea lions bellowed most pathetically to find their mothers and then proceeded to make the loudest suckling noises on record.  As a side note, sea lion mothers were not always happy to feed their little tikes resulting in some very hilarious tumbling, biting, additional pathetic child bellowing, and even some face slaps with flippers.  

SLAP!

  Just be glad that your two year old is not able to crawl on your face while you are napping. And then there were the turtles.  There were the sea turtles whose bedroom antics we were privy to (the mating process is done in the water and takes forever! 

  The poor female has to have her head underwater the whole time while the male clamps on top...enough said.) but they are common enough in the world.  It is the Galapagos Tortoise whose slow movements, scaly old-man faces, and general out-of-time-and-place aura places them as extras in Jurassic Park (see the next entry).   

Great Recipe for Ecuadorian Hot Sauce

This was the best hot sauce in the world!  A tree tomato is like a normal tomato except fruitier.  Look for them in pulp form in your nearest fru-fru grocery store.

5 units of hot peppers (medium sized between yellow and red as the chef explained it)
2 tree tomatoes
oil
small amount of finely chopped white onion to taste
cilantro to taste OR
perejil (parsley) to taste
300 mL water

Blend the tree tomato and the hot pepper together (I think this is when to add the hot peppers, the original recipe left out any mention of the hot peppers) and boil with the water.
Strain the boiled mixture to remove the seeds.
Blend with a little oil and add the white onion.
Chop the parsley and cilantro and add to the sauce.

Hot sauces from a market.

There are amazing new fruits to taste from the jungle!

Post Office Bay

   Even mailing postcards from around the world provides new travel experiences.  For example, many countries did not have postcards, or if they did, then the postcards were yellowed with age.  Some countries had postcards with pictures worse than your family’s old slides.  And some countries had postcards that were beautiful but cost at least $1.00 per card!  What about stamps?  Well, most places cost about $2.00 to mail abroad per stamp, except India, which cost less than it costs in the United States to send a DOMESTIC letter.  I don’t know who was footing the bill to have that one stamp cover the costs to mail through India, across the world, and then to a doorstep but it was pretty awesome.  Sometimes, stamps had to be purchased at the post office, but normally there were touristy shops where stamps could be procured at a 20% markup.  Ice cream convenience stores in Israel sold stamps, some tobacco shops in Rome, newsstands in China if you were able to speak Chinese to the owner,  and tourist shops in Galapagos sold stamps.  But nowhere had more interesting mail than Post Office Bay in the Galapagos.

  150 years ago, when the Galapagos were even more isolated from mainland South America than they are today, there was a barrel into which your pirate mail could be placed.  Then, any passing ship would pick the mail up and bring it to a harbor nearer to your port of delivery.  Generations and eras have passed, but the barrel still sounds.  Now, tourists write postcards and place them in the box that is located on the beach at Post Office Bay.  When other ships come in, they search for postcards from passengers’ hometown and then, lest the curse of the tortoise be placed upon you, you must HAND deliver the letter to the recipient when you return home.  Sadly, our letters will likely arrive home using this free service FASTER than the cheap service from India.

Threatened Rainforests...Yeah, I Know that It is a Cliche

  The bit of Amazon that we visited is in one of the largest protected rainforest zones in the world.  The Amazon is of course deserving of being protected, 25% of the world's oxygen is produced here and 30% of the world's fresh water can be found here.  Not only does farming threaten the forest, but even within this protected region, the safety of the people living here or trying to protect the forest is constantly at risk.  The main industries in this region of the Amazon are what?  Don't know?  Gold mining and Brazil nut collection.  DUH!  Brazil nuts are great because the Brazil nut trees can only exist in primary (that is, old growth and original) forests.  So, the Brazil nut harvest is good for the forest.  The gold, on the other hand, requires the use of mercury to dissolve gold found on the river banks.  This mercury is often dumped into the rivers threatening ecosystems and the people that live here.  But, seriously, how hard it is to find boats that are sifting for gold on the riverbanks...it's a huge, open river for goodness sake!  Well, I asked about this and learned that if the government were to crack down on the illegal gold collection, Peru would see a rise in drug and coca farming in the jungle region.  I suppose that Peru believe that the lesser of the two evils, some river pollution or gangs of drug traffickers, would be to let gold collection continue.  We humans always seem to find some way to hurt nature, but let us just hope that Peru maintains their stronghold on this protected are of the Amazon for all of our sakes!

The Rainforest and Its Protectors

  A true highlight of our trip was our brief forray into the famed Amazon jungle.  Just a 50 minute flight from Cusco (just 20 years ago it was a 25 to 30 DAY journey for locals to get to Cusco from the port city that we landed in) we were in the thick and tall Amazon jungle.  We took a 3 hour river boat (read: a large canoe with a motor) to a lodge in the middle of the jungle for our one day jungle experience. 

Our deluxe transport.

The rainforest held mysterious relationships.

We saw three types of real, live Macaws (the really colorful parrots) flying high in the trees near piles of alkaline clay which they eat to neutralize their acidic diet. 

We also saw capybara, the world´s largest rodent that is about the size of a dog and about as cute as a guinea pig (truly, cute). 

   The sounds filled every space with birds, insects, and rushing water.  The Amazonian jungle is truly as magnificant as the movie Fern Gully or its ripoff movie Avatar would make one think it is.  Some sounds are unreal and need to be recorded as sound effects for movies (one bird sounded like the whoosh and pop of a Pringles can being opened for example). Our lodge had electricity only for two hours a day.  Lighting was provided by candles and kerosene lamps.  There were no doors for the separate rooms in our unit, we had mosquito nets around the beds and only three walls; the missing wall looked directly out into the jungle.  In one of the most beautiful experiences of our entire trip, we went out on a boat in the middle of the darkness of night to search with a spot light for the reflective light of caymen (alligator like creatures).  Besides spotting some adorable yet mischievous looking babies, it was the sky that held my attention as I gazed amazedly at the lighting that abounded from everywhere in the sky.  It felt like the world was ablaze.  Truly magnificent.

This little cutie was only about 10 inches long (22 cm).

   But alas, after we spotted an enormous and sinister spider (about the size of the human baby's head that I am sure that it wanted to eat) and saw beetles with bioluminescence (they glowed in the dark) it started to rain. 

   Given its namesake, I would have expected rain in a rainforest.  But this was a lot of rain.  After about 18 hours it stopped and the river was at least 20 ft higher!  In the morning, while it was raining, we put on our rain gear and went hiking through the rain forest.  We tried a natural anesthetic plant (it worked better than novacaine when we chewed it), we found a green leaf that was used as a red dye.  We saw a leaf used for impotence that was illegal for export because a European company had a patent on it and we found a flower that was used in bath water because it contained salicylic acid (the active ingredient in aspirin).  We bailed out a canoe and rowed to trees that were large enough to shelter us from the rain inside their trunks.  We went above the canopy and saw monkeys running away from us.  The rain forest is amazing!

Jungle sloshing.

  Almost to punctuate the horror caused to the rainforest by farming, we visited a farm that was across the river from our lodge.  Farming is particularly bad for the environment here because there are no nutrients in the soil.  The trees suck everything from the soil leaving only a hard layer of clay (the ground really was hard).  So, to replenish the nutrient, farmers often slash the crops went they have been picked of their fruits and then burn them to replenish the soil until the process renders the land completely useless in about five years.  But, we were getting to taste some amazing mango, hot peppers and sugar cane until the forest attacked us.  I am not kidding.  The one in our group who was allergic to bees got stuck by a wasp.  As we all waited for the stinger to be removed we all started to scream as a swarm of wasps attacked us.  They were crawling all over us as we ran and they CHASED us across the farm.  I sustained three very painful stings while others sustained 7 or 8.  Apparently the wasps wanted us to know the ills of farming in the rainforest :)
  Our last day revealed toucans, tree frogs, and bats to us and let us know firmly that there was much more to see in the jungle.  We will definitely go back one day!

The Mountain People of Peru

  Who discovered the Inca holy site (actually a town of 500 people with a very important temple inside connected by stone-pave Inca trails trails originating from all around South America in 1911?  Hayram Bingham is what most text books tell you.  Yes, this American did discover it for the Western world, but certainly the locals who live on the Inca trails (PAVED TRAILS!!) knew about it.  These are the mountain peoples who live much today like their ancestors lived.  They farm potatoes and freeze dry them for Inca soup (a minty soup made of ground freeze dried potatoes processed by a lengthy back and forth process of bringing the potatoes to the cold mountains and down to the warmer valleys). 

  They serve the local fruit beer that the porters who carried our tents and cooking supplies up the 4-day long Inca trail that we climbed drink as sustenance to carry their unimaginably heavy loads.  Yes, they eat guinea pig (the brain is particularly delicious evidently) and many (such as the porters and guides) carry on the tradition of going to Machu Picchu each day with their sweat and energy.  ¨Don´t be lazy,¨ ¨Don´t lie,¨ and ¨Don´t steal¨ are the three most important rules, transgression of which in the mountains is dealt with harshly by the community leader. 

Nine hours of hiking up hill, and this lady is there to sell local beer.

The superhuman porters.

   These proud people are the purest descendants of the Inca civilization, and even today they are discriminated against in the cities (their first language is Quechua, not Spanish, and so they are identifiable).  Except for some distinctly Spanish introduced cultural elements such as a bull fighting ring (apparently the bulls at times were used to represent the Spanish to vent frustration at the ruling class), the people here are very hard for a foreigner to understand (except for the "Inca Bucks" coffee shop near Machu Picchu...I understood that one). 

  Shoes, for example, are a difficult adjustment for any rural person from the Inca regions to adapt to (as reported by a man who we talked with who had come from a very poor mountain neighborhood and had succeeded in going to college).  It is also very foreign to have a town in which the sun streams down the alley ways as it lights up a Temple of the Sun on the nearby hilltop with sheep from the house across from your hostel who are let out of their yard to wander BY THEMSELVES four or five blocks of winding lanes to their grazing pasture for the day (we also felt them push their way past us back to the same house unaccompanied in the evening time). 

There go the sheep!

This baby cow wasn't as brave as the sheep.

   Just like our campsites, much of the walk to Machu Picchu was so high that it was often shrouded in clouds, imbuing a certain mysterious nature to the lands and people inhabiting the Incan highlands. 

   While the locals here certainly do not have an enviable lifestyle, there is the very strong allure of mystery to keep travelers interested and happy while exploring the many Inca ruins that are surrounded today by the descendants of their original inhabitants.

The Inca Trail (for anyone considering visiting Machu Picchu)

   This blog post is for any out there who might be considering going on the Inca trail to hike to Machu Picchu.  I have normally refrained from just describing what we have done...but if you are thinking of going then this post is for you.  The Inca trail is not the royal Inca trail.  The royal Inca trail is made such that the Inca (the semi-god king of the Incas) could be carried when going to Machu Picchu.  Besides those who get sick on the trail and are carried by porters all the way up and down (this actually happens...the porters' strength knows no bounds), no one is carried today.  In fact, the trail that we take is not flat.  On day 2 of the hike, you walk up 3500 ft to an altitude of over 13,000 ft.  You move at the pace of a turtle over thousands of stairs because you can not get enough breath to go any faster.  On the way down, you brave perilous vertical steps (we saw one unfortunate soul pull his shoulder out of its socket after he tripped).  But on days 1, 3, and 4 for all of your hard work, you are rewarded with gorgeous views of canyons and jungle, or a mysterious cloudy and foggy terrain that obscures the drops beside your path and make you think that the world ends two feet to your left.  Flowers abound in beauty and the occasional llamma and Inca ruin provide ample variety to make the journey highly pleasurable.  The last day culminates in the viewing of Machu Picchu, that, if you are lucky, will be cloud free for a sunrise view of the sun streaming through the sun gate on a neaby hilltop that guides the light directly to the sun temple in the middle of the partially restored town.  Or, you can still enjoy walking around a cloud covered, rainy Machu Picchu by remembering that it is not everyday you walk through a city in the clouds (and certainly the irony of arriving at the sun gate as the rain starts to pour will not be lost on you either).  If you decide to go on this trip, I highly recommend traveling with GAP Adventures who provide a superb tour complete with a visit to a local town where the women show you how they make their handicrafts from the Alpaca that run around your bus as you arrive.  Incidentally, the GAP tours employ these womens´ husbands as the porters.

This cake was made for WHILE CAMPING!

These are Inca stairs.

Example of Inca ruins that you see along the Inca trail.

Stairs that you must climb to get to Macchu Picchu.

One view from Macchu Picchu.

Inca Lands: Peru and Bolivia

  The Inca civilization was enormous, powerful, extremely forward thinking, and extremely short lived.  But, the indigenous people identify continually more with their most recent non-Christian past.  Multiple languages including the Inca language of Quechua are regularly spoken in the rural communities of Bolivia and Peru (especially in the high lands where the Incas had their capital in Cusco).  Unfortunately this cultural heritage of the 100-200 years that most of non-Brazilian South America was united under the rule of the Incan civilization is looked down upon by those of European decent in all of South America.  But at least where we went near to the holiest and grandest ruins of the Inca civilization near the capital of Cusco there were many proud people to show us the customs, traditions, and religion of this long destroyed but still living civilization.  Today, the last Inca princess lives in Cusco and markets sell the condor feathers, llama fetuses, masks, and ritual items needed to present in burial for blessings from the mother earth, Pachamama.  We saw such a ritual for health and watched as sweets, a llama fetus, confetti, and even a cross were combined with a prayer to Pachamama in a mock Inca wedding ceremony.  We also watched as offerings were made to a devil statue inside the Potosi mines in the form of lit cigarettes, coca leaves, and alcohol to excite the devil to mate with and thus please Pachamama.  In a very odd hybrid religion, houses near Cusco (in Peru) have two bull statues with a cross in between them to symbolize and increase fertility. Christianity for some is a something that is practiced in addition to traditional religion, and sometimes it seems that Jesus is taken into the pantheon of local gods for worship (hence the cross given as an offering to Pachamama in the wedding ceremony).  I can not pretend to understand much of how Christianity and the local religions mix today, but both are clearly alive and respected in a very peculiar blend.

We have rooster windvanes, they have bulls and crosses for fertility.

Bolivia is Almost a Tourist Destination

  Should you go to Bolivia?  Yes, and no.  It is a wonderful place to not feel like a tourist.  If you want adventure without the neurotic safety of Europe or the US then go.  If you want unbelievably inexpensive everything (a chicken meal might cost $1.5), even in tourist areas where local companies have not yet learned to jack up the prices for tourists, then go. But, as I have described, be prepared to get sick by the food and the altitude.  Be prepared to experience a lacking tourist infrastructure that might have prevented our unsafe and uncomfortable 4x4 jeep experience.  The tourist infrastructure is lacking to the extent that even decent postcards are hard to find!  Tour operators even have difficulties.  For example, the double decker tour bus we took around La Paz had to avoid clipping the mass of electric wires hanging on the streets.  The top deck of the bus was open, which threatened any passenger with decapitation should they have stood up at the wrong time.  Lastly, while super dangerous roads are being replaced with only slightly dangerous roads, they aren´t being replaced too quickly.  We once waited over an hour for the road ahead of us to literally be built.  The road workers razed and cleared about a 100 foot section of road as we waited.  Bolivia is almost a tourist destination, but not yet for the feint of heart.

Never will I complain about the Pennsylvania department of transportation road construction again.

The Bolivian version of the Guillotine.

Bolivia´s Internal Strife

  When people think of Bolivia, I believe that they often think of drugs and unstable governments.  I have already discussed the drugs.  How about the government?  Well, Bolivia is experiencing a relatively stable period despite the communist graffiti we encountered.  People still hate the military for its roles in coups over the past decades that have sent the economy spiraling downward.  One college student with whom we talked said that the high paid military ¨suck the blood¨ of the country.  When referring to the government procurement of a castle that was sold a number of years ago to the military, the government ¨took it back from them.¨ This concept of the government being an entity separate enough from the military to warrant it taking something was somewhat foreign to me.  But, then again, a country with three separate army groups that do not specialize in different types of war is also foreign to me and it feels slightly dangerous (there are three armies in Bolivia, one that works for and protects each government branch including the executive, legislative, and judicial branch).  Unrest is just beneath the surface in Bolivia.  It is never a good circumstance when the politicians in a country are also the richest people in the country...nepotism and bribery are always close at hand.  Bloody protests just a few years ago killed three students who were angry that the capital of the executive and legislative branches of the government were being moved from the historic (and beautiful) capital city of Sucre to the business capital of La Paz.  However, just like the university whose law school once was home to priests converting indigenous people to Christianity, and then a torturous prison for enemies of the state, and now a learned hall of juris prudence, Bolivia is fully capable of great changes.  Hopefully this period of peace will turn to one of prosperity and herald stability for a country wracked with the pains of poor governance for so long.

Historic Sucre.