Travelers Not Tourists

We´ve seen a lot of great stuff on our trip so far, but today may have been the most uplifting experience yet. We were on a high on our way home from our first day of work with the Traveler Not Tourist program in Arequipa, Peru. We thought that we would be working at a school, but TNT is doing very well and the school was fully staffed today. Instead, we went to an after-school program on the outskirts of the city in the Chachani community.

Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru, but after a 45 minute bus ride, it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere. The people there are very poor. They are basically working towards squatter´s rights. After two years, they will own the land. Right now, the houses are underdeveloped with limited plumbing and electricty.

Getting there was an adventure in and of itself. We took a local "bus", which is basically a van. A fare collector stands half out the door soliciting passengers. On occasion, he jumps out while the van in still going into a full sprint to the corner. He stops at the corner, gets some paper stamped and jumps back into the van A-Team style while we are making our turn. Very entertaining!

When we finally arrived, we sought out one of the community leaders for some essential supplies, some shelf board that would serve as our student´s desks, a basketball, volleyball, and of course a futbol. We went to our "classroom" (a combination basketball court / soccer field with concrete stadium seating) while Stephanie, our young prodigy, rounded up the local kids.

We would have an hour for english and an hour for sports. The crowd was thin at first. We were warned that the kids would be shy until they saw that some other brave kids were having fun. With only a couple of students, we got warmed up with a little volleyball before eventually turning to Frisbee. When we said that Stephanie was a prodigy, we mean with her English, but she had some disc skills as well. Within minutes, she graduated from a backhand to a forehand!

Eventually, we had critical mass for an English lesson. We prepared some exercises to teach the children colors in English. Some of the students already knew quite a bit of English. Others had absolutely no clue, a familiar classroom experience for both of us.

It´s amazing how such little things can make them happy. We brought some colored pencils for them to color with and a huge bottle of water for them to share. Both were big hits! They colored for a while and worked hard to complete an English colors crossword puzzle. Then it was time for games!

They loved Frisbee (or el disco), The girls especially enjoyed it. Some of the boys were stubborn to give up their soccer, but eventually everyone gave it a try.

Chris tossed with some girls while they all screamed "lista" (ready). They all wanted the disc! Without any prodding, they formed a line and took turns thowing and catching. Meanwhile, Jen was teaching another group of kids how to throw.

Well, we couldn´t pass up an opportunity like this. With no trouble at all, we joined the two groups, set up two lines, and actually had them running a go-to drill. Watch out for Peru at Worlds in 15-20 years!

We´re hopeful to get out and see the kids again tomorrow. Since it´s in the middle of nowhere, we need an escort to get there without getting lost. Stacy, an Australian who has been here for a couple weeks, showed us around today. She was great! If we can find an escort, we will go again tomorrow. If not, we´ll be out there on Wednesday with a Halloween lesson of paper Jack-O-Lanterns and face painting.

Enjoy the rest of these photos....

This girl was a natural. At first, she was terrified to catch the disc, but would scramble for any disc on the ground. She loved to throw. Eventually, after handling a couple of high floaty backhands, she was brave enough to throw and catch. We´ll make a handler out of her yet!

Chris waits his turn in line during the drill. They needed some work on their high 5´s.

The kids are hard at work while we review colors. They had a little problem with rasing their hands. They raised them and shouted out the answer at the same time.

This kid, Fernando, was hilarious! He was launching full field hucks with his flick! We had to get him to reel it in before he decapitated someone. Notice the placement he chose for his smiley face sticker too!

Chris helps some of the girls with their crossword puzzles.

Jen explains the finer points of the flick grip.

Lake Titicaca

Today we spent the day out on the famous Lake Titicaca. It is the highest navigable lake in the world (pretty cool, huh?). We started the day by visiting two Uros, otherwise known as floating islands. That was a totally unique experience. The people who live on these islands build them by putting a layer of dirt about 1 meter thick and then multiple layers of the native growing plants from the lake (similar to reeds) on top of it another meter thick. They throw rocks over the side to anchor the island and then build up the sides with more reeds. Surprisingly, these islands can last about 20 years before needing to be repaired! And by repaired, we mean that they just keep putting more reeds on top. Crazy!


The boats that they use are also made of these same plants and 30 people can fit in just one boat! These boats don´t last as long as the islands, though. We read somewhere that they need to be replaced every few months due to water saturation. We were lucky enough to ride in one from one island to the other today. On the second floating island, they even had a museum (well, if you could call it that, check out the photo). It was definitely a great experience to see how these islands work.

Later in the day we continued on to the island of Taquile (a real, solid island, not of the floating variety). The views of the lake were great from there and there were lots of excellent local crafts for sale. Of course, we took advantage of both!

Tomorrow we head to Arequipa. Hope you enjoy the photos!

¡Peruvian TV Superstars!

We made it to Peru yesterday, but it was quite an adventure. We had tons of fun at the airport in Lima. Things were looking up when we spotted not one, but two Dunkin Donuts within the first couple minutes of landing. It felt just like Boston.

Things took a turn for the worse when we found out our flight to Cusco got cancelled. We´ve had very good luck so far, so a two hour wait for a new flight wasn´t the worst thing ever. Especially since the airport provided so much entertainment. Immediately after passing through security, there were two enormous clear boxes of things that have been confiscated. To name just a few items, there were saws, swiss army knives, a rusty old shovel, countless scissors, and even a few visabley loaded guns (you could actually see the bullets in the clip)! Those boxes attracted a bigger crowd than some of the street performers we´ve seen. Awesome!

When we finally made it to Cusco, it was a bit late, but we were still able to enjoy the city´s atmosphere. Our hostel is right on the Plaza de Armas, and at night it´s all lit up. There´s a cathedral on one side, and another enormous church on another. The Plaza itself is very well kept with a nice fountain and plenty of flowers.







Today, we took a walk, short in distance, long in time up to some Incan ruins. It´s going to take a while to adjust to the altitude, even the hike up to the second floor of our hostel is a challenge. On our way up to the ruins, we saw some of the locals. They are a little pushy, but some times they are very hard to resist. We´ve almost perfected the art of saying, "No, gracias" every time we go out on the street.





The site we went to today is named Sacsayhuaman (that´s pronounced ´sexy woman´if you´re scoring at home. No kidding.) The size of the stones at the ruins were very impressive. It´s remarkable to try to imagine how they built these things. We´re now even more psyched to see the main attraction, Machu Picchu.
















By now, you´re probably wondering about the title of this post. One area of the ruins has some smooth slidelike rocks that the tourists entertain themselves on. Of course, we had to join in. Here is the amatuer video. The real coverage will be appearing on Peruvian TV. Seriously, there was a cameraman and an interviewer there. They asked us where we were from and everything. They filmed Jen on her first run (much faster than this one) and even got an extreme closeup interview. We actually have a TV here, but we have no idea what channel it´s going to be on. We´re sure it´s going to be a huge hit!







PS- More local cuisine. Everything here seems to be green. Last night, we got corn soup, but we were not expecting it to be green. Here, Jen enjoys some Peruvian Arroz con Pollo.

Adios Argentina!

We said our goodbyes to Argentina as we left early yesterday morning. We managed to finally have at least one nice day of weather in Buenos Aires, before we had to leave. We made the very bad decision to walk to the neighborhood of La Boca (the hostel worker claimed that it would be perfectly safe mid-day). Well, about halfway there, a police officer approached us and warned us not to continue on the path we were taking because of extreme danger ahead (thanks, hostel guy). We were so thankful for the police officer warming us and we managed to make it the rest of the way there without incident. We got to see a tango show while we had lunch and do some more local shopping. Needless to say, we took a cab back to the hostel afterwards.





When we got back, we had some luck with perfect timing. We went to the desk to ask for directions and it turned out that we had a phone call. It was a friend that we made at the Moreno Glacier who lives in Buenos Aires. Carolina and her friend, Mariella (I hope we spelled that correctly) took us for a nice stroll through Puerto Madero, a swank riverside section of the city. We went out for some drinks and dinner at TGIFridays, that´s right, TGIFridays. The walls were filled with typical fare, just like home. Even the menu was the same. It was awesome! Thanks Carolina for a great end to our stay in Argentina!

It´s Always Chile in Puerto Natales

Today was our second day in Puerto Natales. It´s a small town that serves as the gateway to Torres del Paine. Other than the park, there´s not a whole lot going on. Our options were limited, but we settled on a boat trip. The "21 de Mayo" (they name a whole lot of stuff after dates around here) vesseled us up and down the fjords of Southern Chile.

The first major point of interest was a colony of Cormorants, birds that look similar to penguins. It seems that once they find a spot, they stick with it. They are always in this "Barrosa" or point. It´s even on the map. There were a hundred or so of these guys scattered on the rocks, some of them even taking a dip in the icy sea water. I guess they really are just like penguins.

Next up were sea lions. It´s not their nesting season, but we were hopeful that we could catch a glimpse. We were lucky enough to spot three of them hiding in a small cave near the water. They even got a little feisty. We think they knew they had an audience.

The Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers were up next. The Balmaceda is easily accessible from the water. We were able to sail right up to it. On the sobering side, we were told that this glacier is showing the effects of global warming. Twenty years ago, its face extended all the way down to sea level.

At the end of our loop, we got off the boat for a hike to the Serrano glacier. It was a lot different than the other ones that we´ve seen. Not nearly as wide as the Moreno, we were still blown away by its size. It towers over the lake, extending up into the steep mountains.

To start the long trip back, we were very excited to dig into our packed lunches. It´s weird what you miss when you´re traveling. It is very difficult to get a good sandwich here unless you really like ham. Even the places that say they have sandwiches, really only have 10 different types of ham sandwiches. After striking out in El Calafate, we (ok, Chris) was very excited to find peanut butter in the supermercado. After 3 weeks, PB&J never tasted so good! To top it off, the crew went around offering everyone small glasses of water with glacier ice. We´ve been very careful with water, but Chris figured, "What the heck?" Well, we clearly hadn´t understood what we had been offered because that first sip was a doozey. It was actually vodka and glacier ice! But still, a damn fine lunch!

Torres del Paine

There´s really not much that we can say about Torres del Paine that will do it justice. The park has some of the most amazing scenery that we have ever seen and we finally got lucky with some great weather. We´ll be exploring more of Chilean Patagonia tomorrow by boat. Hope you enjoy the photos!

At the entrance to Torres del Paine

One of many scenic stops

The amazing blue color of the icebergs in Lago Grey.

Brian Whelan, Brian Whelan, Brian Whelan

In South America, one of Brian Whelan´s favorite continents, they have these things in front of all the houses for garbage collection. We think that they are better suited for another use. I am sure that my friend, Brian Whelan would agree. Right, Brian Whelan?

Perito Moreno Glacier

We arrived in El Calafate after a scary flight from Buenos Aires (the turbulence was terrible!). So far this is our favorite town that we have visited. It reminds us of a town you would find in the west by ski resorts and the like. It´s totally laid back and full of charm. We went for dinner yesterday around 7:30 and all of the shops were closed. Everyone we saw was saying "Buenos tardes" like it was the afternoon and the restauants didn´t have anybody in them. We realized that it stays light out here until about 9:30 or so and everyone was just getting started. By 9:00 on Sunday, all of the souvenir shops had opened up and the streets were bustling. It´s weird to be walking around at 9:00 in the sun and it´s cold out.

Today, we took a trip to Perito Moreno Glacier in the heart of Los Glaciares National Park. The weather started off pretty good at the beginning of the day with sunshine and temperatures that were chilly, but bearable. We made a stop at a small farm (estancia) where Chris and I both got to know the "locals". Chris tried to pet one crazy sheep, and he took a horn to the forearm. Only later on did our guide tell us that the sheep is crazy. I decided to pose with him for a photo anyway.

As we started to get closer and closer to the glacier, the weather got worse and worse. It became rainy and very cold (especially when you´re soaking wet), but the views were worth it! The glacier is so blue when the sky is overcast so we got to see a real show.

The glaciar is also constantly cracking and huge pìeces fall off into the water all the time. It´s pretty awesome not only to see, but to hear. Although we spent most of the day wet and cold, we still had an amazing experience. Hope you enjoy the photos!

PS Dpoz, Chris wore his 7x jersey in Patagonia just for you. When are you coming to meet up with us?