Off to Cusco! And a Visit to Qorikancha

Posted on July 7, 2020September 11, 2020 by Lark

Travel day! Our final morning in the rainforest was another leisurely one. After eating 7AM breakfast, we walked to a boat, boated to a bus, and bused back to the tour company’s office in Puerto Maldonado to pick up the bags we’d left there. We arrived at the airport about three hours before our flight. Checking in, checking our bags, and going through security took up about 5 minutes of that time. Exploring the entire terminal took maybe 1 minute. Great! Only 2 hours and 54 minutes left.

The Puerto Maldonado to Cusco flight is one of the best I’ve ever been on. You take off over the rainforest and get one last look at the rivers winding their way across the earth. Then, for the landing, you fly through breathtaking mountains, descending into the valley that is home to Cusco. It’s quite the welcome!

These mountains just have such good texture to them, you know? I love them.

Besides the dramatic change in landscape, we also experienced quite the change in climate! After three days of hot, humid rainforest air, eternally damp clothes, and sweaty, sticky skin, the crisp, cool air of the mountains was invigorating! Cusco also brought a fun change to our group dynamic. Jocelyn, my friend from Esperanza de Ana, and her brother Benjamin joined us for the Cusco/Machu Picchu portion of our trip! The more the merrier! Well, sometimes that’s not true, but I wasn’t worried about this group. Everyone was easygoing and happy to leave the planning to me. Since I had already been in Cusco (when I was in Peru in 2017), it wasn’t too hard to put together an itinerary of what I felt were the “must-dos”.

We made it to our hotel, said hi to Jocelyn and Benjamin, and took a little time to get settled before heading back out into the world to make the most of our day. This was also the first day of Tour Guide Lara, a title I qualified for by 1. Having a guidebook, 2. Knowing incrementally more about the things we were seeing than the rest of the group, and 3. Having previously visited most of the sites (throwback: you can check out my original post about Qorikancha. We’ve certainly made some photo-quality improvements since then).

Our destination was Qorikancha, an Inca temple that was converted into a church and convent after the Spanish conquest. I love Qorikancha. It’s an incredible example of Inca construction, and since it was the most important temple in the empire, dedicated to their supreme deity, the sun god “Inti”, the craftsmanship is exceptional. Unlike many other Inca sites, there’s actually a decent amount known about its design and function in the Incan society.

On that note, there’s another important point to make, and it’s the fourth reason why the group was fine with having me as its tour guide: even real tour guides have a questionable quality of information, not because they’re bad guides but because there is so much that is unknown. This isn’t as true for Qorikancha because the Incas were still there when the Spanish arrived, and there are numerous written accounts of what it was like, but for places like Machu Picchu (which we’ll get into later) where everyone was gone by the time it was found, it feels like every “fact” carries a strong “maybe” disclaimer. If you want to know every theory about each stone, hole, etc. then it’s totally worth getting a real guide. If you are happy to know some vague details and have the time to walk around and appreciate the beauty of the site and its construction, you might be better suited to a Lara-guided tour.

The general format is this: I read all sorts of information that I’ve gathered from here, there, and everywhere. Everyone gets to participate while we assign the information to what we’re seeing (“Maybe that is the stone they’re talking about?” “I think this is the rainbow temple?” etc.). It might be wrong, or it might be right, but does it really matter? In the end, you probably remember everything better because it’s an active discussion instead of a passive lecture. Sure, some of what you remember might not be right, but what is “right” when it’s 90% a mystery anyway? (This seems like another good time for a disclaimer that I try to make these posts factual but don’t guarantee anything.)

Qorikancha is a fantastic example of the cultural tragedy that was the European conquest of the “new world”. As I said, it was the most important temple in the Incan Empire, and as such, the best of the best was put into its construction. The stone used in the temples is incredibly difficult to work with, and any stone that was less than perfect would not have been included. The sheer effort that went into its construction is a testament to both its importance in the Incan culture and the labor resources of the empire.

Cool shadows on the rainbow temple maybe? We’ll go with that. But look at how tight those joints are!

Even though you can still see the phenomenal stonework, today’s Qorikancha is but a shadow of its former self. Originally, there were hundreds of solid gold sheets mounted on the exterior stone and inside the sun temple. The temple literally would have shone. Inside, temples dedicated to the moon and stars were decorated with sheets of silver. Other interior walls featured other precious metals and stones. Golden corn, golden llamas, and golden babies were used in various rituals, and life-sized golden people and other figures filled the lawn. I can’t even begin to imagine how it must have looked, but it must have been an incredible sight! Then, the Spanish came. They melted down the gold, took the jewels, and destroyed what was left behind. Like I said, cultural tragedy.

This building, now the church, was built on the foundations of the sun temple. Look at how weak the Spanish stonework is in comparison to the crisp precision of the Inca temples.

Moon and stars temples. Imagine those walls covered in silver! This is also where you’ll find the famous 14-angled stone. It’s in the doorway at the bottom of the picture, covered in glass. It’s one stone with 14 edges that line up perfectly with the stones around it, just another example of their impressive stonework

What remains of the temple grounds. This is what was filled with golden figures. They also used to actually plant the golden corn during agricultural rituals.

I read something that explained the difference in how the Spanish and the Incas viewed these riches. The Incas valued them highly for their beauty and thought they should be displayed for people to enjoy. They didn’t place a monetary value on these precious metals and stones, but since they were seen as valuable, they were used mostly in religious contexts. The Spanish, on the other hand, valued them monetarily which meant that they took the beautiful things and hid them away so that no one could steal them. That seems like a shame, doesn’t it? I wish we operated more on the Inca mindset than the Western one for this.

Other random fun Qorikancha facts:

Mummies of the old incas (kings) were housed here and brought out each day to be “fed” via burnt food sacrifices.
The golden fountain in the middle of the courtyard used to be covered in 55kg of gold (which sounds like a lot, but I have no concept of how much gold weighs. Okay, I just looked it up, and 1kg gold brick is about the size of an iPhone 6. Geez).

Just imagine 55 solid-gold iPhones sitting right there in the middle. Magnificent! (hehehe)

Qorikancha means “golden courtyard” or “golden enclosure” in Quechua. It can also be spelled literally however you want, as long as you kind of end up with the same pronunciation. This is a typical problem with Quechua names as there’s no standard spelling, so you might also see it spelled Coricancha, Koricancha, or Qoricancha. Even “Inca” can be spelled “Inka”. (This irregularity bothers me, so I choose default spellings based on whichever one I like best.)
Qorikancha has survived multiple large earthquakes, as have many other Inca sites, thanks to their no-mortar construction technique. The lack of mortar allows the stones to move individually during earthquakes, and they’re so well-fitted that they settle back into place when it’s over.

Pretend the flowers are facing us. I didn’t want to disturb them just to get a better picture.

There’s also some stuff onsite to see that’s associated with the church, but I don’t have much to say about that. Lots of religious art that sometimes intriguingly combines aspects from pre-Spanish cultures with Christian images. To me, though, the building is the most interesting part.

The response when I told everyone to make cool shadows. Kind of weak, but we’ll give everyone a pass as it was our first day all together.

There are some changing art displays in the museum as well. This industrial-vibe nativity is a little offbeat but kind of fantastic.

When we’d had enough, we stopped for dinner and then headed back to the hotel. Before going to sleep, Mom, Dad, and I hung up every piece of clothing that we had with us in the rainforest. Literally everything was damp because of the rainforest humidity. The rainforest was great, but I wasn’t upset about leaving its air behind!

Lomo saltado (beef stir fry), a Peruvian classic and one of the best meals at EA.

Oxbow Lake

Posted on July 3, 2020 by Lark

We got to “sleep in” on our second morning in the rainforest. Breakfast was at 7AM, and we left directly after for our morning excursion. The weather looked mildly threatening, but since it wasn’t raining, we decided to chance it and visit a lake about an hour’s walk away, Lake Condenado.

Despite our optimism that the rain would hold off until we got back, well… that didn’t happen. We were walking for maybe half an hour before it started sounding like the rains were coming. Have you ever been in a forest as a storm was approaching? It’s a little intimidating! You hear the leaves rustling and the rain pounding down in the distance, and it sounds like it will be on top of you in a second. I always feel this tension in the air, like a foreboding, and a voice in the back of my head is yelling, “Run! It’s coming!” It’s pointless, of course. There’s no outrunning a storm like that (at least not at my speed). So, we did the next best thing and took advantage of the warning by donning our rain gear. We’d all brought umbrellas, too, which ended up being the best idea of the day.

Mom in full rain gear. I used to think ponchos were nerdy. In a rainforest, ponchos are incredibly fashionable and also practical. Also, the entire path, as you can see, is a puddle. So yeah… waterproof boots were a must!

I thought this was a big tree until we saw some actual big trees later in the day… stay tuned!

These are the roots of a “walking palm” tree. The name is based on an unsubstantiated theory that the tree can move up to a few centimeters per year in order to position itself for the best sunlight. True or not, I would believe just about anything weird that you told me about this tree, including that it comes alive at night and walks around on those creepy stilt legs.

Speaking of weird roots… I don’t know if this is another variety of walking palm or something else, but it just looks like the tree has no idea what it’s supposed to be doing.

A couple of minutes later, the rain reached us, and from then on, it was pouring. POURING. I kept hoping it would let up a little… nope. We got the full rainforest experience. It was still going strong when we reached the lake.

I was surprised to hear that there are lakes in the rainforest. Maybe it’s just me, but “rainforest” puts a picture of rivers in my head rather than lakes. Well, the reason for the lakes is actually the rivers! Remember that picture of the winding river that I took from the plane? Here it is again, in case you don’t:

Look at those crazy bends. This is what causes lakes to form!

As the river turns, there are two things happening: the outside of the bend erodes and inside builds up deposits of silt. Eventually, enough erosion happens between two bends that a shortcut is formed, and silt keeps building up until the loop of the river between the two bends gets cut off. Water stops flowing through this original route, turning it into a lake, called an oxbow lake. These lakes create a completely new habitat within the rainforest. Enjoy a very helpful visual aid below:

Focus on those two bends where all of the arrows are pointing. On the insides of the curves, there are silt deposits (red arrows). On the outsides, there’s erosion (blue arrows). Eventually, those two erosion points meet, essentially short-circuiting the river and making the loopy original route unnecessary. After the silt deposits build up enough, the loop gets cut off from the river and becomes a lake (green oval). (Excuse this rudimentary visual aid. I tried.)

We loaded into a canoe at the lake, and Juvenal paddled us across while Dad bailed out the boat. And it kept on raining.

Calm, serene oxbow lake (actually though, that rain is no joke!), and another group.

Mom smiling because she’s dry under that poncho.

Dad taking a break from bailing (see bail bucket aka cut off milk jug to his left).

We unfortunately didn’t get the full lake experience because of the rain. Normally, these lakes are great places to see wildlife. Endangered giant river otters, the longest of all weasels (they grow up to 5’ long!), take advantage of the more sheltered habitat to raise their young. Caiman, including the 15-foot-long Black Caiman, and anaconda sightings are possible if you’re very lucky (or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint). Piranhas are guaranteed to be in attendance, and Juvenal brought bread to lure them up to the surface. Who knew that piranhas were such carb-lovers? We couldn’t see them, but we could see the pieces of bread bobbing up and down as they were eaten from below. Apparently, piranhas will jump out of the water when the weather is nice, but they don’t do that in the rain. Why not? Who knows? It’s not like they’re worried about getting wet!

(Here’s a terrible piranha video I took where I apparently got distracted partway through and let the bread drift out of frame even though it’s only 20 seconds long. My videography skills could use some work still…)

Speaking of animals getting wet in the rain… We saw some birds around, sitting in the trees around the lake. They looked just about how I felt: soggy and a little miserable. I hadn’t really thought before about the animals having to deal with the rain. In my mind, they all have nice, dry jungle houses to go to. But those birds were definitely not nice and dry. Maybe that doesn’t actually bother them at all, but they sure didn’t look very happy. As they say, misery loves company, and seeing them made me feel slightly better… and also thankful for my umbrella and waterproof clothes. At least I was dry!

Across the lake, we got out of the canoe and to visit a couple of trees. The best thing about trees is that there’s a 100% chance of them being there where you left them (except maybe, theoretically, in the case of the walking palm tree…), unlike any time you go to look for wildlife. The first was a huge tree with some serious buttress roots. I don’t remember what kind of tree it was, but maybe a ceiba (kapok tree in English)? That’s my unprofessional guess, based on other ceibas I’ve seen. We’ll just go with that unless any of you know any better, then feel free to burst my arborist ego.

We asked how old it was, and Juvenal said that there’s really no way to know for sure. Even if the tree was cut down, there are no rings to indicate its age! Each ring marks the beginning of a “growing season”, and in places with cold winters and hot summers, the result is one ring each year. In the tropics, the weather is relatively stable throughout the year which means that the trees have nothing telling them to stop growing. Their growing season is ongoing. So, we have to be content with the mystery.

This isn’t the ceiba. This is just a tree that I thought was pretty.

My first attempt to convey the magnitude of the ceiba.

It really doesn’t come through well in pictures.

People shown for scale. Still not helpful, though.
Note: Despite how it may look in this picture, I’m not pregnant and also do not have a new beer belly (ditto for Dad). I put my backpack on my front/inside my rain jacket to protect my stuff because it’s much easier to keep a backpack dry with an umbrella when it’s in front of you! Otherwise, the umbrella runoff often falls right onto your bag.

The other “tree” was a parasite. You can see these growing all over the forest in varying levels of development. It’s quite the long process… the parasite tree grows around an existing tree. It looks like interconnected vines wrapping around the trunk, and eventually grows to about the height of the host tree. The parasite ultimately chokes out the host tree and kills it. Over time, the host decays and leaves the parasite standing on its own with a cavity in the middle where the original tree trunk used to be.

So, this particular parasite tree was at the point where the original tree was gone, and since it was so big, we could go inside! How weird. It was hard to take pictures with the rain and such, but I did my very best (and that will have to be enough).

Mom making her way into the parasite tree

The ride back across the lake was about the same as the way there. Juvenal paddled. Dad bailed. Mom and I sat and tried to stay dry (important work we were doing). From there, we headed back to the lodge, and the rain started to slow when we were nearly there. I was ready to turn around and give the lake another try! Thanks for nothing, rainforest weather! Though, I do have to point out that we were incredibly lucky/foresighted when we decided to visit the macaws the previous day and not risk hoping for better weather the next morning. That would have been a huge disappointment! The trees are there rain or shine, but the macaws aren’t.

It would probably be super nice on a sunny day.

We had some good relaxation time for the rest of the day. We made a quick trip across the river in the afternoon to check out some of the plants that people grow in the region, as there are people who live and farm in unprotected areas of the rainforest. There are also indigenous tribes who live in the protected parts of the forest (as many as 15 uncontacted tribes in the Peruvian Amazon alone), but they aren’t planting and growing cacao and sugar cane.

Did you know that a banana tree only produces one bunch of bananas before it dies? Well, the whole tree doesn’t die, but most of what you see does. The base of the tree remains, and after about nine more months, another tree will stand in its place and produce another bunch. Seems like a lot of work for a substandard fruit (sorry if you’re a banana-lover. I’m decidedly not).

A pretty night after a not-so-pleasant morning.

A little too cloudy for a good sunset, but there are some hints of color!

Dinner was a lot of fun that night. There were so few people staying at the lodge that everyone started talking. It was like a weird extended-family dinner. I got to practice my Spanish with one lady who works as travel agent in Lima. She was visiting with her sister and niece to take pictures and assess the lodge for work. Pretty cool! She could speak English, but it was probably about the level of my Spanish… decent but tentative. We made good Spanglish conversation buddies!

After dinner, we had to pack up our stuff because we were headed to Cusco the next day! I was sad to be leaving the rainforest but excited about the possibility of sleeping past 6AM for once…

Our last time coming “home” to the lodge.

Brazil Nuts, a Lizard, and Creepy Night Crawlies

Posted on June 30, 2020June 30, 2020 by Lark

After a morning full of macaws, we had a slightly more relaxed afternoon plan. We were heading to another clay lick, this time one that’s frequented by mammals like jungle pigs, deer, and other herbivores. Unlike the macaws, the mammals’ schedules aren’t so predictable, so Juvenal warned us that there was a good chance we wouldn’t see anything. Oh, well… what can you do? I’ve been working on my patience, so at the very least, I’d get the chance to practice that.

Before we headed out, though, Juvenal showed us how to crack open a Brazil nut pod. Remember when I talked about those? Brazil nut trees are super tall, and the nuts are contained inside large pods that are similar to coconuts. The pods fall to the ground, and that’s how they’re “harvested”, even for commercial purposes. People just gather the ones that have already fallen to the ground.

Juvenal had said that we didn’t want to get knocked in the head by a falling pod, and after witnessing the effort required to break through the hard outer shell to reach the nuts, um… yeah. Definitely not the kind of thing I want hitting my head. He handed us a machete and told us to take a crack at it (hehe he didn’t say it in those exact words, but he should have). Dad went first, and despite his many strong swings, the coconut held strong. I took a few until I felt like there was no progress being made. Mom even hopped in there for a second. And then Dad went back at it until we finally got a hole big enough to squeeze the Brazil nuts through. Geez. It’s quite the undertaking! And then, that’s not even the end! You still have to crack the casings around each of the nuts, though they had a big nutcracker for that so it was much easier than opening the coconut.

What a good sport! (This was the end of her swing, by the way. This was just bad picture-taking timing on my part.)

There MUST be some sort of trick to this, right???

Here’s Dad in action:

The whole thing is fascinating. The coconuts can have anywhere from 10-30 nuts in them, and based on its size, Juvenal guessed that ours had 20. There were 19. What an impressive and yet incredibly useless skill. I didn’t realize until we got it open that I’ve seen Brazil nuts before. Mom used to buy them, and she said that she used to really like them and then decided that they weren’t worth the effort. Ha. And she didn’t even have to open the pod! But I hear ya, Mom. I tried one of the ones we cracked… it was fine. Kind of bitter. I don’t know. I wouldn’t choose them necessarily, but if I was starving or lost in the rainforest, that would probably be the thing I would go for (though then I would almost certainly die because I’m not sure that the energy you get from eating the nuts is greater than the energy you put into accessing them).

Pulling the nuts (in their final protective layer, as if they needed another one) out of the tiny hole we managed to make in the pod.

And cracking them open to get to the actual nuts inside.

After that whole adventure, we headed out into the rainforest to visit the mammal clay lick, about a 30-minute walk from the lodge. There were a few cool things that we came across along the way…

This mud tube was built by a cicada! This isn’t unique to the rainforest, but I’d definitely never seen one before. They build these when their tunnels are in danger of being flooded, to keep the cicada nymphs from drowning (that’s what comes out of the ground, the nymphs. Then, they shed their exoskeletons and begin transforming into adult cicadas).

This is an entrance into a leafcutter ant colony. It may not look like much, but don’t let that fool you! The nests can be 30-60 meters in diameter underneath the ground. That’s 100 to nearly 200 feet! And they go 6-8 meters deep (20-26ft). Also, did you know that the ants don’t actually eat the leaves that they bring back to the nest? They bring them into a special chamber underground where they cultivate fungus to feed their larvae. THEY’RE FARMERS. Is that not the craziest thing????

At the clay lick, there’s a “blind” to sit in, a camouflaged hut with a little sliver window to look through so that the animals don’t see you while you’re creeping on them. It was kind of rough in there… hot, unventilated, and not the most ergonomically designed… the window is too high if you’re sitting down and too low if you’re standing up. So if you want to keep an eye on the clay lick, you have to stand in an awkward half-squat the whole time.

Since I’m so young and agile, I took one for the team while Juvenal worked on a Rubik’s cube and Mom and Dad lounged. Mostly there was a lot of nothing, nothing, and nothing. I kept having a feeling that something was going to happen soon, but it was just my optimism at work. No herds of jungle pigs came thundering through the forest, though if they had, I absolutely would be saying right now, “I knew they were coming! I must have some sort of gift.”

Finally, I saw some leaves moving! I couldn’t see the rustler at first, but it seemed unlikely that it was very big. Definitely not pig-sized. At first glimpse, it seemed like it could be a snake? But no, as it got closer, I could see that it was a big lizard! I got everyone up to check it out, and while it wasn’t exactly what we were hoping to see, it was better than nothing! I was content with our creepy forked-tongue lizard.

There he is! He was probably at least 3 feet long. I don’t know. I’m a terrible estimator.

That forked tongue really kind of freaks me out.

Check out the cool patterns on his skin.

We headed back to the lodge, had some downtime before dinner, and then had another activity after we ate! They do a “night walk” each day where you walk around the forest at night with a guide, and he points out all of the cool things that you can see more clearly at night. Mom opted out of this one, but Dad and I went and had a great time!

There was a different guide for the night walk, and after about 5 seconds of walking with him, it was clear why he got the job of leading that activity. He LOVED bugs and night things. He was seriously having the time of his life, and even though I am generally not excited about bugs and night things, his enthusiasm was contagious. We were also lucky because we were the only two people in the group which meant that we could ask as many questions as we wanted!

We started out by wading in some ankle-deep water where he pointed out various frogs and their eggs which look like weird jelly-like globs hanging off of branches. While we were still standing in the water, the guide started shining his light on the surface like he was looking for something. I asked what, and he said “caimans”. WHAT. They’re like alligators! I would have thought he was joking, but that didn’t seem like his style. I freaked out a little and he goes, “but just small ones!” OH, JUST SMALL ONES? THAT’S FINE THEN. Um. NOT. Much to his dismay (and my relief), there were no caimans to be found. Except now that I think about it, just because we didn’t see them DOESN’T MEAN THEY WEREN’T THERE. Ahhhh. Now I’m retroactively freaking out which makes no sense, but ahh, I can still imagine standing in that water and now I’m picturing my reaction if a caiman had come and it is decidedly not chill.

See that weird, jelly-like stuff hanging off of that branch? Those are frog eggs.

Another frog! (Smack dab in the middle.)

ANYWAY, we headed back to dry land, past a large, poisonous spider (no pictures of that, sorry. I practically ran past, as if it was planning to leap through the air at me). I started thinking that maybe it hadn’t been a bad idea for Mom to skip this. We saw a bunch of other bugs… grasshoppers and a scorpion spider and crickets maybe? I don’t know. They’re all just bugs to me. I also spotted a little red snake on a tree.

Then, this was crazy… the guide turned on a blacklight, and it made a little scorpion glow bright green! There’s something in their exoskeletons that glows in blacklights, though no one knows exactly what the purpose is. When it was glowing, it was incredibly obvious because everything around it was that regular, blacklight purple. Then, he switched back to normal light, and we could barely see it because it was brown and so was everything around it.

The best part was when the guide told us to turn our lights off and wait. We stood there in the dark for about a minute before these little glowing things slowly started to appear at the base of the tree near us! Glowworms! Like, what the heck?? Nature is insane!

Mom was asleep when we got back, and it didn’t take long for the two of us to join her. It had been a VERY long day! Thankfully, we didn’t have quite as early of a start the next day, though we still weren’t “sleeping in” by any stretch of the imagination.

A cricket? I think? Kind of terrifyingly large…

Macaw Morning

Posted on June 16, 2020November 10, 2020 by Lark

If you’re looking for a relaxing vacation where you can sleep in and lounge around, the rainforest probably isn’t a good destination for you. Well, there’s plenty of lounge time, and you couldn’t pick a prettier place… but don’t expect to do much sleeping in. We set our alarms for 3:30AM because we had a 4:15AM meeting time with our guide, Juvenal.

So, what exactly was exciting enough to rouse us at such an absurd hour? Macaws. We’ll get to that in a bit, but at the end of this post, you can be the judge and let me know if you think it was worth waking up well before dawn was even considering cracking.

When our alarm went off, it sounded like it was raining outside, and Juvenal had mentioned that it’s only worth going if the weather isn’t bad. We got dressed anyway and headed to the lodge to figure out the plan.

Juvenal said that he thought the rain might stop, and it was up to us if we wanted to chance it and go or if we wanted to try the next morning instead. I was 100% on team “let’s go” because no way was I trying to have ANOTHER 3:30AM wake up call the next day! The only thing worse than an early-morning wake-up is an unnecessary early-morning wake-up! And what if it was raining even harder then? We delayed for a few minutes in the hopes that it would let up a bit and then grabbed our boots and umbrellas and hit the road. Well, hit the trail. And then the boat.

My first attempt at taking a picture of a flying bird… hehe not great.

Much easier when the birds are moving slowly!

We had a two-hour boat ride, and by the time we reached our destination, the rain had stopped completely, and the weather was absolutely perfect!! So, what exactly WAS our destination?

Every morning, as long as the weather is nice, you can find huge numbers of macaws gathering at clay licks to, as Juvenal put it, “get their daily vitamins”. The macaws visit these areas to literally eat the exposed clay. Experts aren’t entirely sure of the reason for this behavior, but a leading theory is that the clay contains salt that is otherwise hard to find in the Amazon. Salt is important for many bodily functions and helps to keep the nervous system and heart functioning properly. Animals, like macaws, with a primarily plant-based diet can have trouble getting sufficient salt from their food. Consuming the salty clay helps to cover this deficiency. Another theory is that the clay helps to cleanse the naturally occurring toxins that are found in plants and prevents them from being absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract. The sodium theory is more widely accepted because studies of macaw behavior have found that they prefer saltier clay. There was one clay lick in particular in Peru where macaws were seen eating from a specific clay layer, and analysis showed a much higher concentration of sodium there than the layers above and below. This isn’t a behavior of only macaws in the Amazon. Other plant-eating birds, like parrots and parakeets, do the same, and even mammals like jungle pigs and deer make regular visits to the clay licks, though not quite as often as the macaws.

The boat docked, and from there, we had an easy 10-minute walk to the viewing area. There was one other tour group already there, but everyone had plenty of space and a good view. Juvenal said that it can get very crowded in the high season, so I felt pretty good about our timing, even though the more unpredictable weather of the rainy season was less than ideal.

When we first arrived, there wasn’t much going on. There were some macaws high up in the surrounding trees, but none of them were anywhere near the actual clay lick. Juvenal said that they partner up for life, so if we watched closely, we’d notice that they go and come in pairs. More and more gathered, and then they started creeping down to lower and lower branches. He said that all they needed was for one bird to make the first move and then they’d all be on the clay. Sure enough, one brave soul boldly landed, ate some clay, and flew away… and then came back after nothing disastrous happened. Pretty soon, there were birds all over it!

Getting a liiittle bit closer, with a couple of new friends.

These are all basically the same now, but my gosh I just can’t even believe that this is a real, normal thing. Like, this happens EVERY DAY. What a world.

I’d never seen anything like it! I mean, I don’t know when I would have, but the screeching and the sounds of their wings flapping… well, I think you have to hear it for yourself.

I was having quite the orientation with my new camera. I still wasn’t really sure about the settings or what everything meant, and Dad told me to just shoot on auto because it would still be better than anything I would take with my cell phone. True. The next leg of my trip, after my parents left, was with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, and my uncle knows a lot about cameras. I planned to take advantage of his knowledge, but until then, I just had to make do and play around with it. So… yeah, these aren’t the best pictures. But I’m pretty sure that taking pictures of distant, flying birds is just about the hardest thing to start with.

I wanted to get some pictures of them flying because the colors are even more incredible when their wings are open.

Pretend this isn’t blurry and just appreciate how majestic these birds are.

That one with its wings open on the tree… whoa.

Those two birds flying away on the left are awesome!

The best thing, though, was that Juvenal had a telescope with him. It made you feel like you were right next to the clay lick! And you can literally take pictures through the telescope using a phone camera which is crazy!

It’s like he’s staring straight into our souls

If I were a bird, I think I would like to be a macaw.

That one on the bottom left is taking a big ‘ole bite. Yummm, clay!

We saw three different types of macaws. The scarlet macaws are, to me, the classics. They’re the ones that look the most rainbow-like. The red-and-green macaws are very similar, but they don’t have yellow feathers like the scarlet macaws. And finally, the blue-and-yellow macaws are pretty easy to separate from the other two. See if you can spot all three types in this photo!

At one point, something scared the macaws and they all flew away. It happened so quickly… they were all on the clay lick, and then a second later, they were gone! I guess they just went and took a lap or something because soon enough, they started gathering in the trees again, and the whole creeping process repeated until they were back on the clay lick in full force.

I’m telling you, taking pictures of flying birds is not easy!

Not a great picture, but I just love those two blue-and-yellow macaws who look like they’re resting their heads on each other.

Getting set for another round at the clay lick

I think I could have stayed there watching until all of the macaws left, but after a while, we called it a morning and headed back to the boat. The ride back to the lodge was so pleasant. There was no sign of the nasty weather from the morning. The sky was blue, and being on the boat on the river was the best feeling in the world. I sat cross-legged on the bench so that I could face forward and look out at the riverbanks and decided that I was at my peak happiness on the river. You think I can live on one of those boats?

The fam with the clay lick in the back left

We didn’t see anything too thrilling on the way back, but we did see a bunch of birds. We cruised past another, small clay lick right on the edge of the river. I was no longer afraid of using my camera on the boat, so I had it out (with the strap around my neck and a VERY tight grip in my hands) and was snapping sure-to-be-terrible pictures along the way. The only way to get better is to practice!

It was only about 10AM when we got back to the lodge, but I felt like we’d already lived an entire day! Thankfully, we had some downtime before lunch, and I used the time to lounge on my bed and rest up for our afternoon adventures… which I’ll talk about next time!

Puerto Maldonado

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Lark

We’re back in Peru! I know, for a time when travel is all but impossible, we sure do seem to move around a lot. But that’s the joy of the internet! And memories. For me, it’s been fun to relive some past excitement while actually sitting in Pennsylvania, feeling like I’ve had my wings clipped.

So, we last left off in Peru as I headed to the airport from Esperanza de Ana, not to leave the country but rather to meet my parents and kick off our family Peruvian adventure! I had quite the crazy mix of feelings. I was sad to leave EA, happy to see my parents, sad to leave my friends, happy because Jocelyn and her brother were meeting up with us later in Cusco… and on top of my conflicting feelings, it was nearly the middle of the night which is never good for processing emotions or thinking clearly.

Seeing my parents walk out into the arrivals hall was surreal. I don’t think I realized how much I missed them until that moment! Between that and my excitement for the trip ahead, I didn’t have a chance to dwell too much on my feelings about leaving everything else behind.

OH! And I had one more thing to distract me… my new camera!!! I had been thinking about buying a real camera for years, and this seemed like as good a time as any to take the plunge. I bought one, shipped it to my parents in the States, and they brought it along with them! This is my first “real” camera, so bear with me… things started out a little rough as I tried to figure out what the heck I was doing, but you’ll see that over my month and a half of travels, my skills went from very rough to kind of okay! (I still used my phone a lot for pictures as well, but the camera was infinitely better for anything requiring a zoom.)

Anyway, after our bleary-eyed airport reunion, we headed to a hotel near the airport to get a few hours of sleep before our morning flight to Puerto Maldonado!

It’s a far cry from the brown desert climate of Lima!

One of the major places to visit in Peru, besides Machu Picchu, of course, is the Amazon Rainforest. Most of the rainforest (about 60%) is in Brazil, Peru has the second largest area (~13%), and seven other South American countries contain the remainder. The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest, containing more than half of its entire rainforested area.

The Peruvian Amazon covers more than half of Peru, but only about 5% of the population lives there. (The majority live along the coast, like in Lima and its suburbs, where it’s easier to find work.) The two major tourist gateways are Iquitos in the north, home to the famous pink river dolphins and the only place to actually cruise the Amazon River, and Puerto Maldonado in the south, sitting at the intersection of two Amazon tributary rivers, the Tambopata River and the Madre de Dios River.

Check out these river views. What a crazy route!

I chose Puerto Maldonado because it’s a much smaller city, there’s a ton of biodiversity in that part of the rainforest, and it’s way more accessible to/from the other places we were planning to visit (you can fly direct to/from Lima and Cusco). One of the EA directors recommended an eco-lodge that she had visited, and so, we had our first destination!

After a short flight from Lima, the company picked us up from the itty bitty Puerto Maldonado airport and drove us about 5 minutes to their office in town where we left any luggage that we didn’t need for the rainforest leg of our trip. From there, we had an hour-long bus ride to the Tambopata River followed by a 1.5-hour boat ride to the lodge.

Lunch on the go! Chaufa (fried rice) in a banana leaf

Along the way, we got our first glimpse of rainforest wildlife! One of the guides spotted three capybaras down by the water (the guides all have eagle eyes, it’s crazy), and we watched them climb their way up probably 15 meters of what seemed like an impossibly steep riverbank. It was extra incredible because capybaras are NOT the most agile-looking animals. They’re the largest rodents in the world and my best description is that they’re like large guinea pigs or maybe large, tailless rats? I would have a picture to show you… but they were too far away for my phone, and I was still in the “new electronics” overprotective mode with my camera (I was certain that I was going to drop it into the river… and I still had no idea how to use it).

Once we reached the “dock” near the lodge, we had a 20-minute walk through the forest with our guide for the rainforest portion of our trip, Juvenal (who-ven-ahl). He gave us some basic rules of the rainforest: Stay together, never put your hand somewhere without looking first (unless you want to risk touching a biting ant or worse), and walk quickly when you see Brazil nut pods on the ground or flowers from their trees. Okay, the first two seem like common sense… but the third one?

Brazil nut trees can grow to be VERY large: 160ft (50m) tall and with a 100ft (30m) diameter canopy. The nuts are contained in coconut-like pods that are usually around 3-7 inches (8-18cm) in diameter and can weigh more than 5 pounds (2+ kg)! Within each pod, there can be anywhere from 10-30 Brazil nuts. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. The most important thing to know is that the pods fall from the trees whenever they’re good and ready, so unless you want a 5-pound coconut to whack you in the head after a 160ft fall, it’s best to minimize your time underneath the trees during the falling season. Juvenal showed us how some of them had embedded themselves into the ground after the fall. Eek! Don’t have to tell me twice! No, thank you to a dent like that in my skull!

Brazil nut pod (I was really taking my life into my hands by pausing to take this picture, so I hope you appreciate it… I was kind of operating on the “lightning never strikes the same place twice” principle, even though that’s a bunch of baloney even in regards to lightning and definitely doesn’t apply in this context).

This tree is funky… look at how weird and smooth it looks! I don’t remember the type of tree, but Juvenal explained that it sheds its bark every so often to get rid of anything that might be growing on it. Cool!

This tree should take some hints from the bark-shedding tree because there’s all sorts of stuff growing on this trunk.

The lodge! This is where the common spaces are, like the dining area, spa, and educational spaces.

If this isn’t the most picturesque place to get a massage…

They have nightly lectures about bugs and other similarly thrilling topics here (okay, that was rude. I’m sure the lectures were interesting… but it’s a fact that they were frequently about things like moths. MOTHS).

The walkway from the main lodge area to our room.

View of our room’s building from the walkway.

We had some downtime after we reached the lodge and used it to get settled. Mom wasn’t thrilled about the room… our rectangular room had only three walls, and even those barely qualified as such. They were made of bamboo and had “windows” (aka openings) just above head level between the room and the outdoor walkway/hallway. And the shower was a step up from floor level, so you could literally see people walking by while you were inside. It’s good that we went in the off-season because if there were people in every room, the lack of privacy/separation would have been more apparent.

The fourth “wall” was left open to the rainforest. Juvenal promised that we probably wouldn’t end up with a jaguar in our room. Heh. I’ll tell you now that we didn’t have any animal issues, but there are some LARGE rainforest bugs. Our beds had mosquito nets, at least. We gave Mom the bed farthest from the open wall, I slept in the middle, and we offered Dad up to the forest.

Yeah, there’s nothing covering that “window”.

Camera practice. Not especially well-focused, but a cool flower nonetheless.

We saw these tamarin monkeys from our room as well!

Unfortunately, the bugs didn’t have the same sense as the monkeys. I should have put something in this picture for scale, but this beetle was at least an inch and a half long. Mom wasn’t into it.

We had some time before dark and took advantage of the good weather by climbing the “canopy tower”, a tower that’s maybe 150 feet tall? Its top platform sits up above the tree canopies, and we spotted a few birds flying around and watched the sun start to set before heading back to the lodge. We headed down before it got too dark at the top, and by the time we reached the forest floor, it was juuust light enough to see our way back. The canopy-level and the ground-level are two totally different worlds!

The ground around the tower. I liked the colors.

Quite a different perspective from the ground!

The viewing platform at the top of the tower

Dramatic skies from the top of the tower

Back at the lodge, we ate dinner, slipped into our mosquito-net-shielded beds, and passed out. Not only had it been a long day, but we had a painfully early start the next morning… 4:15AM! I wish I was kidding.

Aqochaka and the Way Home

Posted on May 8, 2020May 10, 2020 by Lark

As well as I slept during our first night in Canta, that’s how poorly I slept the second night (despite having an exhausting day). The major issues were 1. Jocelyn coughed at 1AM, and then I was awake when 2. a marching band started playing around the same time. You may be wondering, why did Jocelyn’s cough wake me up? Am I really THAT light of a sleeper? The answer is no, I’m not, but Jocelyn coughed IN MY FACE. Yes, that’s right. I woke up, completely confused. I mean, I knew what happened, but I didn’t understand why our faces were so close together and why we were facing each other. I made a sound like, “ehhuw”, rolled over, and pulled a blanket up to block her face in case she coughed again. Then she coughed, definitely woke up, realized what happened, gave a sleepy/embarrassed, “oh,” and rolled over as well so we were back to back. At the time, I was VERY irritated because that’s what happens when I get woken up in the middle of the night (PSA: steer clear of sleeping Lara), but when we talked about it in the morning and confirmed that yes, it did happen, and yes, we were both aware of it, the whole situation was just funny. On the topic of the marching band, I don’t know anything more than what I already said. The constant questions of international living: “Huh?” and “But… why?”

In the morning (aka at an acceptable time for being awake), we decided to get moving quickly to avoid the traffic. We were headed home, so we packed up the car and headed to Obrajillo for breakfast. Before leaving Canta, I walked with Jocelyn and Kylie up a little hill nearby where we had an awesome view of the mountains. It had rained the night before, so the air was clear and the greens were extra vibrant.

Can you believe this view?? The greens are practically glowing

Definitely worth the 2-minute walk to this view.

What do you think of this roof-fastening method? It seems effective (at least until a rock shifts and falls through your roof).

Amazingly, we made it to Obrajillo without any traffic delays. We all ate our daily egg sandwiches and then piled back into the van to make one more stop before starting the trek home. Kylie wanted to visit this other little town, Aqochaka, that was supposed to be really pretty and had a “famous” bridge. The road to get there from Obrajillo is nice and skinny and winds up and around the mountains, giving us some breathtaking views… and also some heart attacks because it’s one of those roads where, if someone’s coming the other way, you need to back up until you find a little pull-off and it seems inevitable that someone is going to end up tumbling down the side of the mountain. But, we survived, and I wasn’t driving, so it was all good.

The trusty van in the most attractive surroundings of its life. Look at those blue skies!

Looking towards Obrajillo on the road to Aqochaka

Once we got to the town, no one was really sure what we were supposed to do there. We checked out the “famous” bridge… I don’t know how many people have to know about something in order for it to be famous, but I have my doubts about the famousness of that bridge (if this is any indication, the bridge doesn’t even have a marker on Google maps). Either way, it was interesting and kind of terrifying and obviously we walked across it because what else do you do with a famous bridge? (Well, we also posed on it and tried very hard not to fall into the water and die.)

Standing on the modern/stable bridge next to the old/mildly terrifying/famous stone bridge

Took this from atop the stone bridge with a death grip on my phone

Probably loading this bridge to its limits… Even though it’s really not THAT narrow and it’s relatively stable-looking, I was still ready to get off of it ASAP. Like, how much confidence do I really want to put in this old stone bridge in middle-of-nowhere Peru?

Pretending that we’re not terrified of falling in…

The most awkward posing as everyone was trying to keep from throwing someone else off balance.

Pleeease don’t make us go back to the desert

Now, THIS is where I would choose to camp for the weekend. These people know what’s up.

Then, we wandered a bit, and the farther we got from town, the more spectacular the scenery became. I wish we had more time because I would have been happy to just keep going and see where we ended up… but we did need to go home eventually (psh).

These mountains feel very abrupt… it’s flat, flat, flat and then BAM you hit a wall of green.

Savoring our last minutes of green landscapes

Can you find Dina’s daughter and me? Hehehe good luck.

I must have been feeling pretty good about my luck that day because this bridge was even more questionable than the first. I did walk with my feet over the two beams running underneath, though, instead of trusting the integrity of the individual boards (because they were NOT trustworthy).

I know I was making fun of Aqochaka and its probably-not-very-famous bridge, but like… can I please move here?

The ride home wasn’t as traffic-free as the ride there. We hit our first spot of traffic on the road between Aqochaka and Obrajillo, though thankfully not on the “tumble down the mountain” part of the road. I know I’ve complained about Peruvian traffic before, but here’s the major problem: there’s this Peruvian phenomenon where as soon as there’s traffic, everyone becomes a traffic conductor. Everyone knows the best way to end the traffic jam, and they all get out of their cars to put in their two cents. In reality, no one knows what they’re doing. And then there are going to be at least five people trying to do the same job, all recommending different courses of action. And the drivers are still doing whatever the heck they want. The whole thing is doomed to failure before it even starts. It’s the same story every single time, and it actually might be contagious because every time it happens, I find myself wanting to get out and direct traffic because I’m SURE that I know better.

The weekend squad… in the front: me, Jocelyn, Julie, Dina, and her daughter, and in the back: Paul, Kylie, and David

Anyway, once we got through that, we were fine until we got back to Lima. It was good, actually, because most of the drive was downhill which meant that we weren’t as worried about the car breaking down. Worst case, we could just coast back to the city (kidding… mostly).

The final event of our trip was a stop at the car wash. The van was a disaster, and since we had borrowed it from EA, we wanted to return it looking like it hadn’t just come out of a dust bowl. So, we stopped at a car wash off the highway near home.

Now, don’t be thinking that this is a drive-thru style car wash. It’s one dude with a powerful hose, a sponge, and some towels. The Peruvians got out and waited in this little seating area outside. The Americans were all lazy and said we’d just stay in the car. That would have been fine… except that apparently, the van isn’t even CLOSE to watertight. Kylie got blasted with some dirty water through a gap between the sliding glass windowpanes. There was water running along the edges of the floor and draining out the trunk. The metal above the sliding doors is literally rusted through, so yeah, those aren’t sealed anymore. Paul found that out the hard way with a nice dirt-water shower when the hose blasted by.

The good news is, Julie took a video so you can feel like you’re right in the middle of the action.

The perfect end to a very strange/wonderful weekend, don’t you think?

**This is my final post about volunteering in Peru. Next time, we’re headed back to Argentina! We left off at the end of Mike’s and my time in Patagonia and the beginning of our visit to Buenos Aires. For those of you (the majority, I’m sure) who have been missing my history lessons, get excited because we’re about to dive into some Argentina history.

Adventure Walking

Posted on May 5, 2020May 11, 2020 by Lark

After winging it on our first day in Canta, we started off Day #2 with a very well-defined plan: hike to “that” waterfall. See photo below for details… (Can you find the waterfall?)

Took this picture while speeding down the road between Canta and Obrajillo (David was appreciating the open road after we got past a spot of traffic). Have you located the waterfall? Scroll down for help…

To orient you, Obrajillo is in the valley to the right, the overlook is at the edge of a village, San Miguel, and we hiked up to the waterfall trickle that you can barely see (which seems kind of close to San Miguel, but I promise you that it’s not).

Okay, so the plan was vague, but Julie did some research and came away with the conclusion that it’s definitely possible to hike there (probably). The directions, as far as she could find, were to start by walking up to a popular viewpoint overlooking Obrajillo. Okay, easy enough. And then, walk to the waterfall. Hm. Welp, at least we knew the beginning part! We could figure things out from there, right?

The good news is, I love to overpack for hikes which means I was already prepared for uncertainty. My formula for day hikes is roughly: (day hike + 4 days) x # of people… and then I pack snacks and water accordingly, as though no one else is bringing anything (even though they are). It’s good to be prepared! What if someone else is underprepared? What if we get lost? What if someone gets hurt? What if there’s a mudslide and we get stranded and don’t want to resort to cannibalism? No one ever says, “I wish we had less food.” Worst case, you don’t need it all and get stronger from carrying the extra weight.

Once we were ready for anything, we walked to get breakfast sandwiches before heading out. This was our staple meal for the weekend (literally 3/5 meals in Canta): a fried egg on a roll. After you eat approximately four, you’re good to go! Then, we piled into the van and drove down to Obrajillo. There was traffic because of course there was. As soon as there are two cars on the road, it seems to be inevitable (I think it’s because Peruvian are so proud of their traffic, they need to make sure it’s always living up to its terrible reputation).

After we parked, we located the path to the viewpoint, and David, Dina, and her daughter split off to do other things… apparently the idea of a potentially endless hike didn’t appeal to them. Sorry, I mean “adventure walk”. Julie doesn’t like “hiking”, so we rebranded the activity. That ended up being a much more appropriate name in this instance anyway. “Hike” implies order, a defined path. “Adventure walk” says “I don’t know where we’re going, but that’s part of the fun!”

I can’t get over the greens! Maybe if they knew THIS was the view they were missing out on… nah, they still would have ditched us.

Anyway, the path to the overlook was easy enough to follow. Maybe that could be called a hike. From there, it was inarguably an adventure walk. After the viewpoint, we started asking every person we met for directions. That may sound like overkill, but it was a necessity. When people don’t know the answer to your question, they don’t say, “I don’t know.” They say, “Oh, it’s that way!” and point and say it with full confidence and make you think they have a clue. So, the only way to be safe is to ask as many people as possible, rate their trustworthiness, compare answers, pick a direction, and remind yourself that not knowing where you’re going is part of the fun.

Like seriously. (Also, that’s Canta on the left.)

HOW ARE THERE SO MANY GREENS? Also, fun fact did you know that the human eye can differentiate more shades of green than any other color?

The good news was that we could see the waterfall, Catarata de Shupucro, in the distance. The bad news was that it wasn’t clear how to get there. Even now, the only thing of which I’m certain is that our beginning route was NOT right… because there was no path, and we ended up inside the locked gates of a school. So, thanks for nothing, people who gave us directions up until that point.

Okay, let’s try again with the directions. We asked the school groundskeeper (who looked confused about why we were on the school property… yeah, same) and he unconvincingly pointed us in a direction. A few steps later, a woman vaguely motioned that was as well. Finally, we found a guy who confidently pointed at a path and said it would take us 2 hours to get there. He had the highest trustworthiness ranking. Welp, nothing left to do but cross our fingers and start walking!

Despondent donkey on the path. He was probably trying to find the waterfall as well.

Just starting out, back when we were so young and naive

I mean, it’s kind of like being in an airplane… The earth looks like a patchwork quilt.

Our biggest mistake was asking for more directions after trustworthy-guy. Right as we started up the path, we saw a few people coming down. Julie asked how far it was to the waterfall, and the guy said 20 minutes (LIES) and then gave some directions for how to get there. They seemed trustworthy… I mean, they had just come from there, so you’d think they’d know something. YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

The way up was unpleasant. The path was well-defined but also steep and rocky, and we were all feeling the effects of the altitude. Eventually, Jocelyn tapped out and told us to pick her up on our way back down. I felt bad leaving her, but she clearly wasn’t going to change her mind. We left her just before a fork in the path where we started following the directions of the guy we saw coming down.

Taking a breath before scaling these rocks…

Wrong choice. Very, very wrong. I still don’t know what we should have done, but definitely not that. We ended up on the wrong side of the mountain, and after maybe 30 minutes of walking up the worst ever uphills, we bumped into a couple coming down. Julie asked if we were going to the waterfall, and they said, “No, this is the path to the cross!” And then they pointed at this teeeeeny tiny cross at the top of a mountain in the distance. Can you spot the cross?:

THERE it is. My gosh. Is there anything about this picture that makes you want to walk to that cross??? It looks like torture.

This is me, standing on the path to the cross, looking up at the trail ahead, zig-zagging up this steep mountainside. No, thank you.

The only benefit of going the wrong way was getting this view of the valley

Yeah, no thank you. So, we turned around and tried to find where we went wrong. At this point, we also realized that we were almost all the way back to Jocelyn, so we sent Paul to bring her to meet us. She was nice and rested after her 40-minute break, and we were exhausted after our spirit-crushing uphill climb to nowhere.

Time to change strategies. We could see the waterfall, so instead of looking for the “right” path, we decided to walk towards it until we got there. I’m Peruvian-giving-directions confident that we took the proper route, and I will now describe it here, just in case you ever find yourself hiking in Canta: when you get to the fork in the path, don’t go left. Also, don’t go right. Instead, walk across the poop-covered field, following no path. Jump down the 5’ wall into the cornfield. Cross the field and climb over the short wall at the other side, taking care to avoid the cacti on top (nature’s barbed wire). Cross the river. Walk along the river until you reach a big rock and little waterfall. Cross the river again. Climb up the 7’ rock wall. Continue to walk towards the waterfall until you see a path. Follow the path to the waterfall.

Keeping our eyes on the waterfall while hopefully not destroying this cornfield

Can you spot the Lara? I’m hiding somewhere in this picture!

Exhaustion break disguised as a photo op

Got that? I couldn’t have made it any clearer. No wonder no one could give us directions!

As is generally the case with waterfalls, the view of the actual waterfall wasn’t great from up close. We did, however, get a better view of the valley and took a moment to pat ourselves on the backs because we made it!

The hike up had been steep and tiring, but the way down was brutal. Lots of slipping and sliding with a few falls. Jocelyn had the worst luck. On one of her falls, she caught herself on a cactus and got a cactus spine stuck in her finger. We tried to pull it out on the trail but couldn’t get a good grip or tell how deep it went. I had tweezers at the hotel, so she decided we should just leave it until we got back.

Can’t believe we were at that waterfall…

The layers in this picture are crazy… the bright green foreground, the hazy green middle (thank you, smog), and the low clouds above, chopping off the mountain tops.

Once we got past the steep part, the rest of the return trip was easy. Well, there was one part where a rock wall collapsed beneath me, but it’s fine because Kylie caught me by the backpack and saved me from disaster. It’s good to have friends with quick reflexes!

Found this kitten model on the way back to town

Back in town, we met up with David, Dina, and her daughter and drove back to Canta. Our first order of business was getting the spine out of Jocelyn’s finger. I got my tweezers and tried to ease it out, thinking it might be short. That did nothing, so Jocelyn braced herself and I pulled as hard as I could until it came out. It felt like I was going to pull her finger off! When it finally gave, we all freaked out because it was SO much longer than we thought. I can’t believe she walked around with that thing stuck in her finger for like 4 hours! And I can’t imagine how much the extraction hurt. Geez! Jocelyn wins the pain tolerance award.

We headed to dinner after the drama and devoured our food, only slightly hampered by the nightly power outage. It’s clearly not an uncommon occurrence because the waitress was prepared, bringing in an emergency light. And then the power came back on… and went out, and came on, and went out. Geez, just leave it off.

Back at the hotel, we made a solid effort to stay awake a little longer (it was only like 7:30PM) and eventually gave up and passed out. What a day!

Canta Adventures!

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Lark

Now that you’ve seen the final building pictures, you’re probably thinking that we’re finished with Peru and Esperanza de Ana and ready to move on to the next thing, right? Well, yes, we probably should be, but I realized while writing about our Ica weekend that there was another trip I briefly mentioned, said I would write about in more detail later… and then never did. *sigh* We’ll give last-year-Lara a break because she was a little overwhelmed, but now is the time to right that wrong and tell you about our Easter trip to Canta! (Hehehe better late than never, right?)

The week before Easter was a short one, and the break came at just the right time… approximately one second before I lost my mind or collapsed in a puddle of my own tears (to set the scene, I had only been in Peru for about a month and a half and was feeling the pressure of the work + unfamiliar working/living conditions + wrapping my head around having committed to a year in Peru when the first six weeks had already been a rough adjustment period). The major motivations for the weekend getaway were 1. Everyone else felt similarly exhausted and wanted to escape from EA for a few days, 2. We were sick of the brown desert-ness of Chilca and were craving green landscapes, and 3. Julie’s friend Kylie was visiting from the States, and there’s nothing like a guest to motivate action!

And so, a trip was inevitable. But, to where? One of the staff suggested Canta because it’s not too far away, but the mountains are green and there are outdoor activities. That was enough to sell me! Julie also convinced David and Dina, the two Peruvian missionaries at EA, to come with us, and besides adding more fun to the group, David can drive which saved us from the mess of navigating the public buses. Thank goodness. And so, we had quite the travel crew: Jocelyn, Julie, Kylie, Paul (the intern from the beginning of the year), David, Dina, Dina’s daughter, and me. Can you say “party”?

I think mountain roads are amazing. They must have been such a pain in the butt to build! For this one, whenever a hill got in the way, they were like, “NOPE you’re going to have to move” and just cut a chunk out.

Canta is northeast of Lima, so we left at 5:15AM to avoid the horrible Lima traffic. Yuck. The good news is that it worked! The anticipated six-hour drive only took four! I can’t give all the credit to the lack of traffic, though. It’s also because David drives, well, fast. Even on windy mountain roads. Even in the 12-person EA van that’s poised to rust apart at any moment. BUT, we were so distracted by the sight of real mountains flecked with green that it almost didn’t matter that we all thought we might throw up with each turn and that I bounced off my seat and headfirst into the ceiling with each bump. As we got closer, the surroundings got greener, and we got more excited.

View during a stretch break along the drive. Spot the toilet! (Why???)

We found this random moto-taxi on the same stretch break as the random toilet. Julie and I had a dream of recording a stereotypical reggaeton-pop music video. They’re all essentially the same… some dramatic shots by the ocean, people partying in the streets of a village, and a fancy car. But instead of a fancy car, we’d use a moto-taxi because they’re way cooler. Anyway, we’re weird, and this was meant to be our album cover.

We made it to the hotel around 9:30AM, and everyone felt like we had already lived a whole day. I was sure it was 2PM. None of us felt capable of existing without a nap, so we all passed out and moaned and groaned when it was time to get up, only managing to do so because we were starving.

Jocelyn and I shared a twin-sized bed, and Kylie and Julie shared a full-size bed with a mattress covered in plastic (see colorful plastic in the bottom left). This is truly the height of luxury.

We piled in the car and drove down to Obrajillo, a small town in the valley nearby. It’s gorgeous! There are mountains all around, a river running through the center of town, a bunch of waterfalls… and approximately a bazillion Peruvians who were also escaping Lima for the long weekend. We saw no other non-Peruvians, but apparently, Canta is a hot vacation spot for people who live in Lima.

We had a brief delay while driving through the streets of Canta, thanks to this herd of sheep hehehehe. Why is it that animals in the street never get less funny?? Where are they going?

This is the church in Obrajillo, and we were entertained every time we drove past. I assume that’s supposed to be God popping out above the doors like a jack-in-the-box? Interesting architectural decision. (This is why I generally like mosque decor better… geometric patterns never look so unsettling.)

Lunch, anyone? Just casually cooking some flattened meat in the street.

The Chillón River, running through the center of Obrajillo

Our clean van. Dina’s daughter practiced her finger-cursive by writing our names in the dirt. Ew.

After we ate and felt semi-human again, the group decided to go horseback riding to a nearby waterfall. I decided that I didn’t want to ride a horse and instead opted to ride ATVs with David and Paul! There were only two ATVs, though, and when we asked if two of us could share, the woman said, “el joven y la chiquita pueden compartir.” The youth and the little girl can share. Little girl? 😂 Hey, I’ll take it.

Paul drove on the way there. The ATV rental man rode along with David and was very concerned that we were going to be reckless and fall off a cliff. “DESPACIO!” (Slowly!) was his constant call, and Paul mostly pretended he couldn’t hear/understand him. I think that the only speed slow enough for the ATV man to be assured of our safety was 0 mph.

The horseback riding crew on the way to the waterfall

Don’t we look like we can be trusted? (Also, LOL at the helmets they gave us. Regulation ATV helmets for sure.)

The waterfall at the end, Cascada de Huamanmayo, was just a little thing, but I’m not hard to please. I thought it was great! There was a trail up to the waterfall from the road, and when we reached a point where the trail was flooded, we scrambled our way across the rocks in the river, doing various gymnastic maneuvers to get a closer look. It was kind of like a team-building challenge. We all worked together to strategize the best route and help each other across. I loved it. Also, the water was FREEZING, so there was plenty of motivation to stay dry.

Travel friends! Except for David because he was taking the picture. This is at the first waterfall… just pretend that you can see up, up, up the hill behind us because that’s where the waterfall is. Also, ignore all of the horse poop on the ground in front of us hahaha.

When we’d had our fill, we headed back to our horses/ATVs. I got to drive on the way back! It was my first time driving an ATV, a fact of which Paul was apparently unaware until we were already on our way. Hehe. But I’m sure I did a fabulous job. And the ATV man was far behind us, so there was no one to cramp my style as I whipped around the corners. Kidding! Kind of… All that matters is, I didn’t fall over the edge, and I didn’t have any close calls. Nothing to worry about! Plus, we were wearing helmets (that would have been completely worthless had we fallen off the cliff), and I was totally a natural.

Jocelyn and I really started to cement our friendship on this trip (she clearly loves me).

We hit some heavy traffic on the way back, something that became an ongoing theme during our trip. How is there traffic in the middle of nowhere? Well, when you have a single-lane, two-way road (as in, a single lane for both ways to share, not for each way) being used by cars, buses, horses, ATVs, and motorcycles, how could there NOT be traffic?

We were all tired after that mess but decided to walk across town to see one more waterfall, Cascada de Lucle, before heading back to Canta. This one is in a campsite, and it was so crowded that it was like a music festival campground but without the music. Definitely not the place to go to if you want to commune with nature for the weekend!

And yet, it was still absolutely beautiful. We walked uphill for a better view of the valley. So green! I didn’t realize how starved I was for green until we were surrounded by it and my heart was jumping for joy. It may sound stupid, but living in a brown wasteland takes a mental toll.

Finally, it started to get dark (I say “finally” because we spent the whole day just trying to survive until it was time to sleep again). We stopped for dinner at another generic restaurant on our way back to the hotel, and the power went out/came back like 12 times while we were there. Oh, the joys of rural living! I awed the group with the classic water bottle lantern trick (shine a phone flashlight up into a water bottle to diffuse the light). We unquestionably had the best-lit table in the restaurant. Mom and Dad will be happy to hear that I’m still putting that lighting design degree to good use!

A picture of one restaurant in Obrajillo that might as well be every restaurant in Obrajillo. They’re all the same.

From there, it was back to the hotel, and even though it was dark outside, it was only about 7:30PM… so we stayed awake for a few more hours and then completely crashed.

Final Building Pictures!

Posted on April 28, 2020 by Lark

That’s right, folks. It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the moment we’ve all been working towards for over a year now. I could ramble and make you wait even longer, but I think we’ve all waited enough already. And so, now I’m going to do my very best to give you a virtual tour of the completed school building! (Note: a big thank you to David Espinoza for taking these pictures!)

LOOK AT IT! (Ignore the fact that it’s orange and focus on the fact that it exists and is finished and that’s amazing!) This is the view from the “front”, as viewed from the soccer court (I say “front” because when you enter the property, you’ll see the other side of the building first because of how the property is set up… but this is the functional front of the building).

If it looks ginormous in this picture… well, that’s also how it looks in real life. The other buildings on the property are only two stories, so this one really does stand out.

Back view. You can see the small side of the building better from this angle… there’s the big part with the gabled roof and the smaller part with just a single sloped roof surface.

This is the first view of the building that you get when walking into the property. It’s not especially thrilling, but the side of the left building has no windows because the thought is that there will be more buildings along the left side of the sidewalk someday, as the school grows and needs more space.

Approaching the building… Thanks to this “tunnel” and the walkway above, the two sides of the building can be accessed by a single staircase.

The building is actually designed as two separate structures. The left side and the walkways are one, and the right side is another. You can see the joint between the two really clearly in this picture, at the right side of the second-floor walkway.

Looking back through the tunnel towards the property entrance from the soccer court.

Do you remember how the building was constructed around an existing bathroom structure? That’s what you see on the right side of this picture, with the decorated tiles at the entrance. To the left of it, there’s a big, new classroom.

These are the doors into the classroom by the bathroom. Debbie had the doors custom-made, like many other things in the building. That may sound fancy and unnecessary, but there’s not the same selection of standard doors, windows, etc. as we have in the States.

Inside the classroom! The mounting post for the projector is the thing sticking out of the middle of the ceiling (the thing that’s not a beam, I mean). I am so happy with how bright the rooms are, especially compared to the old classrooms! These lights are each more than twice as bright as the old fixtures, and their layout and design are far more efficient. The weird bump-out in the front wall is to create a flat surface for the whiteboard (with some storage space underneath, interrupted by a column).

Here’s the other first-floor classroom, located in the other “side” of the building, across the tunnel from the bathroom. Things really came together! You can see a smoke detector for the fire alarm system on the ceiling, and at the top of the wall between the door and first window, the internet system is connected!

There are a lot of nice, big closets in this building! It may sound lame, but it’s very necessary. Schools have a lot of supplies to store! That mess you see on the shelf is the internet equipment. The internet cabling goes from this point to each of the classrooms.

Staircase from the first floor to the second.

There are a bunch of cool bamboo details like this throughout the building. Also, admire that nice, sleek outdoor fixture that took us way too many hours to find.

Second-floor hallway. This is the view from the staircase. You can see the joint between the two buildings in the walkway. Also, remember how worried you were that the transition between the brick structural wall and the cement board/drywall wall would be ugly? WELL, check it out! (The structural wall is the one facing us, with orange tiles on it. Around the corner, the green-tiled area is cement board (starting after the thickness of the brick wall). Seamless!

I do love that mountain view! Even if they are mostly brown mountains. The walkway is super wide, but the thought is that they’ll put low lockers/cubbies between the columns for the kids to store their stuff.

Now we’re all the way at the end of that long hallway. These are the windows outside of the classroom above the big first-floor classroom. Please, take a moment to appreciate these windows. This is really the only building on the campus that has windows on both sides and can (hopefully) get a cross-breeze going to keep the classrooms cool. These windows also slide open, unlike most of the existing windows which are louvered and the worst thing ever… If you’ve never seen windows like that, it’s similar to Venetian blinds. They have a bunch of long, narrow horizontal panes of glass that are either rotated open to let air in or closed. I suppose it works, but my gosh those windows are a PAIN to clean.

The entrance into that same classroom. The exposed brick is pretty cool, especially on this floor where the paint isn’t orange (bit of a color overload when there’s orange paint + exposed bricks + colored tiles).

Inside. Check out all of that natural light! And the artificial lighting, of course. I’m just so happy with how they turned out. And we have acoustic ceiling tiles which I used to think were super boring but now appreciate for the acoustic marvel that they are. Without those ceiling tiles, every single surface in this room would be primarily reflecting sound, whereas the ceiling tiles help to absorb sound. As soon as multiple people are talking, that adds up to a very noisy room. Not good for learning!

This is the classroom next door, right above the bathrooms. It’s the most awkward one because of where the columns had to be placed (you can see one on the right side of the picture), but it’s still huge compared to the old rooms.

Okay, now we’ve left the above-the-bathroom classroom and have walked back towards the stairs. In this picture, the stairs are to our right, the other classrooms/hallway to our left. We’re standing on top of the tunnel.
Here we also have all of those not-so-attractive-but-necessary building elements, like the fire extinguisher, emergency light, and siren/strobe for the fire alarm system. I’m just happy that the fire alarm system came together!

The final second-floor classroom (through the doors on the right in the previous picture).

Staircase down to the first floor or up to the third.

Here’s another bamboo screen. It may seem kind of weird, but it’s there because the old building has a window on the other side. Rather than closing it in permanently, they made it so that there can be some flexibility in the future. They could replace the window with a door and connect the two buildings, or something else. Who knows? But that’s exactly why there’s a bamboo wall instead of a concrete one.

Going up the stairs to the third floor (standing on the landing and looking back the way you just walked). These bamboo pieces add some funky shadows!

The rest of the way up to the third floor… with your first glimpses of the bamboo roof!

Looking back from the top of the stairs, here’s a better view of the bamboo above.

Check. Out. That. Roof.
This is a “multipurpose” space aka who knows what it will be used for but probably lots of things.

The big challenge for Debbie and the structural engineer was creating a design that would span the entire space without needing any columns in the middle. It took some creativity (and a couple of crazy trusses), but they did it! And it looks awesome, at least in my opinion.

You can see how the bamboo pieces were all custom cut to fit together snugly. Those trusses were a big job!

This gives a good view of the trusses, plus some of the light fixtures! And that gorgeous blue box in the background is the neighborhood quinoa factory (obviously).

Looking back towards the stairs. In the back left is the kitchen/lab space, then there are two little bathrooms, the opening for the stairs, and a closet to store the plastic tables and chairs that they’ll someday use for multipurpose things.
And if you’re wondering what those pimples on the bamboo roof structure are, I’m afraid I’m responsible for all of them (this is why engineers and architects have problems… I know my stuff is ugly, but they don’t make invisible boxes yet). In the front, we have a smoke detector prominently featured, and then all of the lights have bright white junction boxes because that’s the only color they sell.

View facing towards the front of the property.

With all that green in the background, it almost looks like a lush and pretty place to live… Don’t be fooled, that’s just because the brown ground is cut out of the picture.
Also, a thrilling outdoor electrical outlet is visible in this picture. And an even more thrilling emergency light. Bonus points if you can spot the electrical box on the wall… it’s painted the same color, so it’s actually not the eyesore that all the rest of my stuff is.

Here’s the table/chair closet. Most exciting closet you’ve ever seen, isn’t it?

And don’t even get me started on the bathrooms! Can you say “gorgeous”? (hehehe)

It looks so nice and neat from this angle…

…and then you look at it from here, and you’re like, “Ew, what is that mess of a box on the right side underneath the counter?” And the answer is, of course, an electrical box. Let’s all just pray that they add cabinets underneath the countertops someday so it’s hidden.

I like how you can see the other part of the roof from here. I just think it looks so cool! (Just telling you one more time, in case that hasn’t come across yet.)

So, there you have it!! What do you think? I know that it can be hard to get a feel for the building when there’s no furniture, so I have one more picture. Jocelyn’s classroom is all set up, and she sent me this after she moved in…

It looks so nice!!! I know you don’t have any concept of how small the old classrooms were, but this one is nearly twice the size. There’s still about a third of the classroom behind where this photo was taken.

I hope you find these pictures as satisfying as I do! It’s been a long year and a long project… we deserve a little satisfaction!

If you think we’re all finished now with blog posts, don’t get ahead of yourself. The building may be finished, but the blog action is just getting started! Next time, we’re off to Canta, a town in Peru that we visited for a long weekend (don’t ask me how long ago we went there… you’ll find out the embarrassing truth soon enough). From there, we’re off to do some more South America exploring! So really, the fun has only just begun.

The Home Stretch

Posted on April 24, 2020April 23, 2020 by Lark

My final days at EA were full of fun holiday activities, but I had to balance those with the work that was still going on. The construction was in full swing, and I wasn’t going to be around through completion which meant I REALLY had to make sure I had my ducks in a row before leaving.

This actually didn’t get finished until after I left, but this is that shade structure we were working on for approximately an eternity! (aka 4 months)

About one second after reviewing my to-do list, I gave up on the nice idea that I could get everything done before leaving Peru. There was simply too much to do, between finishing the drawings and organizing the documents/construction pictures/files in a somewhat intuitive way for someone else to be able to find information in the future. Instead of rushing to get it done and doing a mediocre job after working so hard to do a great job on everything else, I decided to leave the things that could be done remotely to the future… a big ‘ole gift from past-Lara to future-Lara (that present-day-Lara has been ignoring… I know, I know. I’m going to get it all done, I promise! I just know that it’s going to be a pain in the butt, and I haven’t built up the courage to face it yet. Past-Lara is always sending me the absolute worst presents. It kind of makes you want not to open them, you know?).

So, I made the electronic work second priority because I could technically do it from anywhere. That freed me up to focus on the things that I could only do while in Peru and onsite. I gathered info sheets/manuals/etc. for the products we used and scanned/filed them. I took pictures of the light fixture boxes to document exactly what was installed. I sketched a diagram to further detail the fire alarm system installation because it was happening after I left, and I was worried that the drawings alone were confusing.

These are some electrical-unrelated pictures, but enjoy anyway… They decided to put a band of colorful tiles to brighten things up and also to help protect the walls. The old building doesn’t have tiles like this, and the bottom part of the wall is covered in pencil marks and marker lines, plus it’s just really dirty from people touching it. So this should hopefully help and is easier to clean than paint. Also, check out that gorgeous emergency light above the blue/purple tiles to the right! And that black hole next to it is for a siren/strobe for the uninstalled fire alarm system. AND this is a good picture to see how the wall facing us is structural – it’s made of bricks and then stuccoed – and the one containing the window isn’t. That wall is metal framing with drywall on the inside and cement board on the outside. They look pretty different now, but the goal is for them to look the same after the building is finished. WILL THEY? That’s the real question. Tune in next time to find out! (Wow, what suspense!)

Check out those pretty windows! Debbie found some window builders in the neighborhood, and while they did a bit of prep work ahead of time, when it was time to install the windows, they were cutting glass and assembling the frames and everything onsite to make sure they fit perfectly. This one is still missing the glass on top… it’s two sliding panes so the windows can be opened.

The roofed area to the left is the kitchen/lab, and to the right with the drywall-in-progress is two bathrooms (in the front) and a storage closet (behind).

Another view of the completed part of the roof. And you can also see the only column that’s freestanding in open space. Pretty impressive that they made a bamboo design to span the entire multi-purpose space without any columns in the middle!

Second side of the roof finally taking shape! Those trusses are crazy. Also, I know I just made a big deal about no columns in the middle… Those are temporary supports.

Teamwork! One guy is sitting on a piece of bamboo while the other cuts it. Strenuous work

This is standing under the already roofed area. You can see that the other side of the roof comes in below the finished roof… which meant that a gutter was extra necessary to keep water from dripping inside… which I suppose sounds basic, but you’re not guaranteed a gutter on these buildings, and the ones that exist are basically half of a PVC pipe running along the edge of the roof.

My electrician best friend, Hector, and I strategized a few things that weren’t totally worked out during the design phase. I’ll admit that I was kind of hoping they would vanish or solve themselves, but that’s generally not how things work, especially when you’re the only one responsible for that aspect of the project.

I learned the most during this phase of the project. As I spent more time with Hector and understood more about how everything fits together, I realized where I should have designed things differently or been more particular about their installation. If I ever design a building in Peru again, I will do a MUCH better job!

One of the things I had been avoiding was figuring out the internet situation, but this was mostly because I knew it was going to be a mess. Let me try to explain, and if it sounds totally ridiculous, you’re understanding it correctly. The property has four phone lines used for internet. Ideally, we would get a new line for the new building, so we called the internet company to ask about doing this and they sent a guy to talk through it with us. Here’s the gist of the conversation:

Internet man: Well, we aren’t selling new phone lines for internet because we’re focusing on fiber.
Me: Okay, then can we get a fiber connection?
Internet man: No, it’s not yet available here.
Me: When will it be available?
Internet man: Sometime this year. Maybe. We hope. (Our translator Dina was there and said not to put much faith in this claim because they’ve been saying the same thing for years.)
Me: …
Internet man: There’s also another option! This is good for businesses and other clients who need more reliable service. It’s better than fiber and comes with any service or troubleshooting included.
Me: Okay, can we get that?
Internet man: No, it’s not yet available here.
Me: Soooo… what do you suggest we do?
Internet man: Wait for fiber to get here. It should be this year. Probably. I think.

Promising (not). I did at least get him to help me decide what to do for the cabling within the building. My goal was for it to work well whether it’s connected to a phone line or (maybe someday eventually) fiber and won’t be immediately outdated. Then, Hector helped to ensure that we were buying the right cables and connections and such.

To give you some context… The building along the right is the current classroom building, and the second floor has rooms where teams stay when they visit.
Our new building is straight ahead (obviously), and the already-roofed part is somewhat hidden behind the existing building.

And… we have lights on the roof! I actually didn’t get to see this… Debbie sent me this picture a few days after I left. But it’s very exciting!!

Hector also installed the projector mounts, ran an HDMI cable from each projector location to a wall box at outlet height, and installed the HDMI outlets so there’s not just a cable sticking out of the wall. We didn’t order these outlets until later in the construction process, and I didn’t realize that they’d need more space in the wall than a typical outlet… so Hector literally drilled through the backs of the boxes into the brick wall to make extra space. I’ll admit, sometimes Peruvian construction methods frustrate me, but the “make it work” attitude came in handy in this situation!

I also made a teeeeny mistake with the wire colors. Basically, you’re supposed to use three colors in a certain order in the panel, and I mixed up the order. Luckily, Hector realized it before he connected the wires, and after a brief panic, I realized that it could be fixed by moving the circuits around in the panel. Phew! But, that changed the circuit numbers which meant that every single drawing had to be updated to match… it was a big headache, but crisis (mostly) averted!

The HDMI outlet is to the right, looking all nice and clean and not indicating in the least the chaos happening behind. So you plug another HDMI cable into your computer and then into the wall, and you’re connected to the projector!

Debbie took this picture while walking by at the beginning of the wire color crisis, not realizing that at this moment, my brain was turning into dust and I was trying to disappear into the ground. Clearly it wasn’t going well.

The building still had a ways to go when I left. The major things: the roof wasn’t finished yet, and they weren’t planning to paint until January which meant that neither Debbie nor I have seen the actual completed building. It’s a little funny.

Me and Debbie with our building on the day that I left! I think this is actually the only picture we ever took of the two of us with the building.

NEXT TIME… completed building pictures coming your way!! I’m VERY excited about this.