Sunday September 20 to Sunday September 27 - Croatia and Paddling the Adriatic

So Sunday morning I get up early and head over to the bus station to get down to Dubrovnik. The bus is like a charter and fairly comfortable but the ride is ridiculously long and takes 6 hours to cover around 350 kilometers, which when converted is 218 miles. I actually thought this was a mistake when they told me how long it would take but was unpleasantly surprised to find it correct and actually took closer to 7 hours to cover the distance. On the way down I decide to investigate renting a car to return.

Part of the reason it takes so long is that the bus stops constantly for little 15 minute breaks that last at least 30, there were at least three of these. We also spend close to an hour sitting at the Croatian border while the border guards go through everybody’s passport and take a few people off the bus. I’m not sure if they got back on and for the most part was rather clueless as to what was happening during the stop but the noise levels in the bus did go up and people got rather twitchy once we got to the border.

In any case we got to Dubrovnik around 2:30 in the afternoon, driving down the coast on the way in. We had two more border crossings to go through, as Bosnia has a very little 25 kilometer corridor down to the Adriatic Sea, but at least at those we did not need to stop long and pull out our passports again.

Dubrovnik harbor at the Old City

Narrow streets of Dubrovnik

Getting to the kayak office proved to be a bit of a challenge as the streets in Dubrovnik are not well marked and the language is rather confusing to me when they are. Additionally there are a lot of stairs to deal with and if you can’t stand climbing stairs then stay out of Dubrovnik. It was quite warm when I arrived and I figure in the upper 80’s or lower 90’s Fahrenheit. I eventually found the office and dropped my bags off leaving about 1.5 hours to explore the city before we had to leave. I did not do a whole lot other than visit the war photography museum. The photos are great and I did not realize that the fighting in and around Dubrovnik lasted a full year. It was a lot less intense than what occurred in Bosnia but still much more than I realized. They also have a write up on each photo that tells you more about where, when and what was going on. During the second night there was a war memorial across the street from our restaurant with around 20 names of locals who were killed during the fighting. Unlike Bosnia, the signs of the fighting in Croatia have been largely repaired and you have to get away from the tourist areas to find anything left over.

 

Note that I do not have a lot of photos from kayaking as I was afraid to bring my camera with me and ruin it, So all I brought was a cheap camera and it only got used on dry land.

First night was camping in Zaton Bay and I got a chance to meet the others on the trip.

Zaton Bay

 

Borna is the guide and from Zagreb Croatia. He is 30 and has a scruffy beard and long hair that he pulls back with a hair band and looks rather like a wise man from the Old Testament if you dressed him for the part.

Simon is from the UK and I am guessing around 55. He is on his own as his wife is not too keen on kayaking.

Dorothy is from Vermont and 73. She too is on her own and is a bit of a character. She knows something about everything and liked to eat things she would find along the road, berries, nuts, etc.

Adrian and Jan are a couple from the UK and I guess also around 55. They are pretty lively and usually one of the first to try something.

JR and Christy are also a couple whom I guess are around 28 to 33. JR seems a little older. They have a house in Pensacola Florida but now live in Germany most of the year.

The first night (Sunday) was pretty uneventful other than we had a few drunk tourists from Britain ask us for cigarettes at around 2:00 in the morning. In the morning was windy and we head out around 10:00 after getting our equipment. There is some chop but after a little bit the sun comes out and it becomes a beautiful day. We arrive at our next stop around noon in time for lunch at Trsteno. The place is very cool with a boat dock and a bit of a castle feel to it. Our camp site is at the top of the hill so we have to hike up a lot of stairs to get there. But once there we camp in a grassy spot with olive and walnut trees growing on it. The place just smelled good and it was really quite nice and my favorite spot to camp during the trip.

Dock at Trsteno

After lunch and a quick nap, I went swimming in the Adriatic and practiced an eskimo roll with the kayak, which is righting it with your paddle once you go over. I was not able to do it so for me, it is best if I don’t flip my boat out in the sea.

The water here is very warm and an incredible sapphire blue and very clear. The bottom drops off fairly quickly but close to shore you can see the rocks that line the bottom. They are almost a white color. The water is also very salty so it is easy to just float without working to stay up.

 

There is also a fair amount of boat traffic around the islands with some incredible yachts, one actually flying a Chicago flag, down to simple two stroke motor dinghies that go putt, putt, putt, as they churn along. Sound carries here and you can hear the motors of some of the large boats puttering along for miles.

In the evening we have dinner at a local restaurant and get to bed around 9:30. There is not much to do around here after dinner.

The next morning (Tuesday) we have 18 kilometers to paddle and set out for Slano. The weather is great and long the way we pass a sea cave in the cliffs as well as a white cross erected on the cliffs just above the water. I am not sure if it is because somebody drowned there or ran off the road which is just above us. Lunch is at a beach restaurant and one thing I have noticed is that there is no sand on the beaches here, everything is small round, white rocks. That evening we camp for one last night in a campground that definitely could use some improvements. It is all old trailer homes and dirt and not the prettiest thing I have ever seen. But the family that owns it feeds us at their home that night and that part is fantastic. The breakfast they give us the next morning is incredible too.

The next morning (Wednesday) we get an early start as weather is supposed to be moving in. We are staying at a B&B just outside of Ston and it is another 20 kilometers so the idea is to get there before the weather turns rough. We have to kayak across a large open crossing that takes a lot longer than expected but the weather holds and we have a perfect day for kayaking. And because we left a bit early and did not stop on the way we have more time in Ston in the afternoon.

Link to video I took this day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTiBxnQJ9zI&feature=share

The B&B is easily my favorite place to stay on the trip. It is a big house on the bay about a 20 minute walk from Ston down a country road and everything is very comfortable. They serve us lunch on their front terrace which was full of flowers and other great smelling plants, and homemade moonshine, which was also quite good. More of it was being whipped up in jars out front.

 

 Moonshine in the making

After lunch I walk over to Ston with Simon and we wonder around the city which has high walls similar to the Great Wall of China. In fact we are told they are the second largest in the world. They were built to protect a salt mine or salt flat that is located here. The city is old and there are a lot of buildings that sit abandoned with the roof caved in. Some of this is probably from the war, on the walk over we noticed a building with lots of bullet holes in it still. But there was also an earthquake here in 1996 that also accounts for some of the damage. In a lot of cases the people were killed or moved away and nobody is left to care for the property. Borna did tell us that if you squat in vacant property for 7 years it legally becomes yours in Croatia. But it sounds like you have to be a Croatian citizen to do this, too bad.

Ston Croatia

Empty hotel on Sipan Island, needs some work

Another thing about Croatia is it is full of cats. If South Africa and Peru were dog countries, Croatia is a cat country. If you walk into the grocery store, cat food lines the shelves. There are a lot of feral cats but a lot of people just let their cats run loose too. In fact there are signs all over Ston’s restaurants that say do not feed the cats. From the number of them hanging out around us at dinner I suspect most people don’t follow the signs.

On the walk back we hear coyotes yipping off in the distance and discover that Dorothy has been eating berries along the road. Once Borna discovers which ones she ate, he is like, “no that is bad and they are not for eating” so we joke about the book Into The Wild and finding Dorothy dead in her kayak. She seems unfazed but I notice she stops eating things, or at least telling us she is eating things on the road.

Thursday morning the weather has moved in with a lot of wind and we can’t kayak to our next destination. So Borna arranges for a fishing boat to pick us up and take us over to Sipon Island, pronounced “Ship On”. There is a funny little mark over the S that I can’t type on an English keyboard. The fishing boat was rather small for 8 of us and kayaks, but this is the islands and it is not like there are tons of boats to choose from, so we make it work.

The sea did not look rough in our bay and I think everybody was rather second guessing taking a boat, which was until we started moving. The seas were actually really rough and the boat ride should normally take only 30 minutes or so took over an hour to make the crossing. Once we got out of or protected area the seas were easily 4-6 feet and the waves were coming in quick succession and from multiple directions. Add in that we were down below deck which smelled of 40 years of musty smells and body order and had the diesel fumes coming into the cabin, and everybody was rather happy to reach the island.

The boat was probably from the 60’s or 70’s and had wood paneling inside and all the windows were blacked out, save one small porthole. So you had no idea what was going on but you knew when the captain would slow the motor we were about to hit a big wave. I was penned into a corner and really could not escape any of the smells and had the theme song from Gilligan’s Island running through my head most of the trip. Add in that under the shelves you could see where the boat had opened a big crack in the hull and has been patched over. The light shown through the fiberglass and the waves would make shadows as they splashed by. But all and all it was good and just added a little bit of interest onto the trip. One of those things you would not choose do to but make a good story at the end.

We got in around 11:00 and the rest of the afternoon it just rained and stormed and the power on in our hotel on Sipan Island kept going on and off. Between the rains I walked around a little bit but otherwise there was not much to do other than drink beer and read a book.

Sipan Island

The hotel itself was very nice and comfortable so I watched an old episode of ER with Croatian subtitles and took a long hot shower. They also had a bar in the hotel so I made use of that as well. Between the rains I walked to the top of the hill and did some quick site seeing but that was about it.

The next day (Friday) the sun was out but the wind was still blowing, but we continued on with our trip and headed for the outside of the islands. The seas outside of the protection of the islands was also very rough and the further we got to the end of the island, the rougher everything got. To add to it the storms were still around we just did not see them due to the mountains on the islands. For around 2 hours we paddled two strokes forward and one stroke back and it was all I could do to concentrate on keeping my kayak upright. If I went over here I figured I could get back in eventually but it would take a while and I would not be happy. The worst part was as we passed the end of the island and had to turn back into shore as we were sideways to the waves and they were bigger here. Finally we managed to get into the shelter of a bay and rest for a bit but I was ready to get to our next spot. That was another 45 minutes of paddling and we arrived at Lopud Island just in time to beat the thunder storms that were returning. We somehow managed to miss all of them while out on the water.

Outside of Dubrovnik, Lopud Island is very touristy and has the gift shops and such that we did not see elsewhere. Also plenty of bars and a couple of big hotels. There was also one old semi-abandoned hotel that was being worked on called the Grand Hotel. This was right next to where we were staying and is reported to have the largest palm trees in all of Europe. The place has been empty for decades but it looks like it is being fixed up a bit, or possibly used as apartments by squatters as there was laundry hanging outside. If fixed up this place would be a perfect hipster hotel and could make a lot of money. It has the perfect location just off the water and right on the bay where the boats dock.

Grand Hotel 

In the shower I managed to hit my head on the valve for the toilet as the shower was only 2.5’ x 2.5’ and it was hidden behind the shower curtain. I have noticed that space is a premium in Europe so the bathrooms are kept small and tight, I don’t know how a fat man would cope in them. The result of hitting my head was a gash and blood all over the towel. I was a bit dizzy for a half hour or so but nothing too bad and after a walk and short nap I felt fine. During my nap a cat wandered into my room and I awoke to it making a bunch of squeaky noises. I came to find out it was a cat that always hangs around the hotel trying to get guests to feed it or scratch it.

Our final day of paddling (Saturday) we again paddled outside the islands but the water was much calmer now and we could paddle close to shore. The cliffs came straight down into the sea and all along were rocks sticking out of the water and caves made from the Adriatic crashing into the sides of the islands. We were able to paddle into several of them and a few went quite deep into the side of the cliff. We also paid a visit to the “Blue Cave” which had a very small entrance but opened up into a big space once you were inside. The water glowed a light blue from the sun and white sandy bottom and it was quite pretty to watch the light dance off the walls.

From there we headed off to lunch on Kolocep Island at a local restaurant on a bay and back across to Zatan Bay where our trip ended. That night we were staying in Dubrovnik and had a very nice dinner in the Old City.

Tile rooftops of Dubrovnik

The next morning most everyone had an early morning flight, the exception was me and Dorothy who had an evening flight out. In the morning I walked the Old City and took pictures and met up with Dorothy for lunch and then we walked the outer walls before I headed off. The night before I found a car to rent that was rather expensive I thought for a week, but much better than being tied to the bus schedule.

 

On a side note, I hate Enterprise. They are always expensive and when I asked about dropping the car off in Prague, they told me it would be a 1,000 Euros just to drop the car and then more for the daily rental.

The drive out along the coast Sunday afternoon was very nice and I have to say that I have rather missed driving. The car is way more than I wanted to spend but having it is nice for a change and it totally frees up my schedule. I drove the coast for around 1.5 hours then headed inland to Mostar Bosnia, arriving right around 7:00. The passport controls were easy to get through this time and it was nice driving along the sea then through the mountains.

Mostar's Stari Most or Old Bridge at night

Friday September 18 to Saturday September 19, Zurich and Sarajevo

Arrival in Zurich is very welcome by me as getting up at 3:00 am to make my flight out of Peru has left me very drained and my stomach is churning a bit, a left over gift from Peru. The planes have been so crowded since leaving South Africa it has been quite impossible to sleep more than an hour at a time on them. On my flight from Miami to Zurich the guy in front kept pushing his seat back all the way, which essentially jammed my knees into it and left the monitor only about 12” from my face. I am quite ready to get out of the airport for a while and get some fresh air. I might not do it at all but the layover is 6 hours, the airport Wi-Fi requires a cell number they will text a code to so sitting in the airport is not really all that attractive to me.

The cool air feels good to me and reminds me that I am going to be returning to the U.S. during the fall and another reminder that I have essentially missed the summer this year.

Zurich pedestrian street

Zurich reminds me a bit of London, or at least the East Putney part of it, and the feel is instantly different than Peru. For one it does not smell like shit but is quite clean and cosmopolitan. It also has the old world buildings of Europe with the small winding streets and cable cars. I walk around a little bit but the streets don’t really follow any kind of grid and it is easy to get lost and Peru has left me tired and my stomach a bit upset so I also don’t really feel like wondering so I just walk around a bit and grab some lunch. One interesting fact, mustard in Zurich comes in the same type of tubes oil based paint does.

 

Zurich seems like a rather young city and has a similar feel as Sydney did to me many years ago when I was there. Most people here look to be under 35 or over 65. My 2-1/2 hour’s downtown is not scientific but there seems to be a big gap where everybody but a few hardy souls move out of town when they get older.

Sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to Sarajevo leaves me with a feeling of anticipation. Of all the places on my trip, I have been wanting to go to Sarajevo for the longest. It came onto my radar during the Bosnian war of independence in the early 90’s and has held a level of interest for me ever since. I was in my mid 20’s during the Bosnian/Serb war and was quite outraged by what was going on. Perhaps it was an idealistic age for me but the images of the siege of Sarajevo were constantly on the news and I could not believe how the west could sit by and do nothing about a slaughter in their back yard. I found it very cowardly of Europe and wrong of the U.S. to simply sit back and wave their fingers at the Serbs who were clearly doing it out of what seemed like bizarre nationalistic reasons that went back hundreds of years to WWII 40 years earlier. Arguments that we can’t get involved with every conflict just did not cut it for me.

Since then I have watched several movies and read several books on the subject. One of my favorites is “Hello to All That” by John Falk as the guy was essentially my age and I can relate. I read it again before leaving Chicago and read another book called “Goodbye Sarajevo” by Atka Reid and Hanna Schofield while in Peru.

It is evening when I arrive but there is still some daylight left and I’m immediately excited to be here and one of the things I am struck by is that you can still see some buildings showing war remnants from 20 years ago while there are also several new shiny glass office towers and shopping centers that have been erected. I am also struck by the large amount of graffiti that many of the older buildings have.

Bascarsija Square fountain in Old Town, in the background is the minaret of a mosque

I take a long hot shower and afterwards wonder around the Old Town part of the city for a few hours. My hot shower is perhaps only the third one I have had since the 4^th of July and I have to wonder when a long hot shower became a luxury for me on this trip, but it is. My hotel is located right in the main shopping and bar area so it is pretty busy all night and as I walk around I can quickly tell when I get outside the area with the nightlife.

Sarajevo

The next morning all I have to do is get down to Dubrovnik by the bus so I also sleep in late and finally crawl myself out of bed to find that there is no water in the building. I also find out as I go downstairs that the buses do not run as frequently as I expected, and in fact I missed the only bus to Dubrovnik at 7:00 am! Shit! So it looks like I am spending an extra day in Sarajevo, which is somewhat upsetting to me as now I don’t know how much of Dubrovnik I will actually be able to see. But I can’t change it so instead I take advantage of it and see a bit of the city.

Sarajevo is about half a million people and the central part is very walkable. I stroll around. In the daylight the old signs of the 92-95 siege of the city are everywhere. Many buildings have been fixed but many more still show the scars, either intestinally or because they owners possibly have not had the money to fix them. On my walk over to the bus station to get my ticket for Sunday, I see several buildings that have been riddled with bullets and patched or the holes still there. Often they are next to fixed buildings or new ones. There are also several war memorials set up and a large number of graves from 92-95 in some of the mosques as well as one of the city’s parks.

Bullet holes plastered over but not gone

Bullet scarred wall

This building across from a park is in pretty bad shape but the one just up the hill has been largely rebuilt

In the late afternoon I went over to one of the museums that shows pictures of the war as well as recount the massacre at Sebrenija in 1995 just before the war ended. Before the UN grew a pair and finally did something, at the arm wrenching of NATO, the Bosnian Serbs has surrounded several areas and were systematically killing the Muslim men, the biggest and most documented being Sebrenija. In all an estimated 8,000 men are estimated to have been executed over a 2-3 week period in July of 1995. It was particularly bad because the Dutch UN troops at Sebrenija not only let it happen but actually handed over 6,000 people to the Serbs that were in their care. A pretty appalling and disgusting failure of military troops sent in to protect. I don’t get it and wonder how they could live with themselves after something like that. They were sent in to help and all they did was stand by and watch and be humiliated by the Bosnian Serbs. They apparently tried to get the UN to help but were constantly denied assistance, but even then I don’t know how they could have done something like this with the full knowledge that the Serbs were executing the male prisoners.

Green Market where the Bosnian Serbs dropped a mortar shell into a lot of people waiting in a bread line and killing scores. Today it is a normal market again, just with a notorious past.

I’d like to lay that all at the feet of the Dutch but I was told at the museum tour that in some U.S. documents declassified after 20 years, there was an agreement in place with the Serbs by the U.S., British, and French that they would not intervene if U.N. troops were left unmolested by the Bosnian Serbs. I doubt that the intent was to hand over the Muslims but that was the outcome. Anyway in July/August when it became clear to the UN that the male “prisoners” were disappearing in the hands of the Bosnian Serbs, the UN finally agreed to intervene militarily to stop the Serbs. Probably because it sounds like NATO members told the UN they would bomb regardless if the UN agreed, so they did to probably save face.

The museum is a little bit of a downer but seeing some of the history of the war is part of why I came and in some ways it is like a trip to the 9/11 museum in NY. When I return after kayaking I have a tour to hike in the hills and see some of the old abandoned Olympic sites and I also plan a trip to the War Tunnel museum out by the airport.

The eternal flame memorial

But it is also good to see the city alive again with a lot of energy and new construction going on. It is signs of the city slowly recovering and the people moving on.

A Little About My Peruvian Host Family and House

While in Peru I have been staying with the Ramirez family, which consists of Nelio and Norma and their three children Lucero, age 19; Nicole, age 12; and Gabriel, age 5, Nelio’s sister, Yaki, and on occasion another sister, Goya and her husband Benicio. The house actually belongs to Goya and Benicio but they mostly live in Cusco. Nelio and Norma are building a new house across town but I’ve been told it will be another year before they think it will be finished.

The house is set up in what seems like typical Peruvian fashion, with a parlor or sitting room at the front entrance and a center courtyard which everything connects to. The courtyard in my house is not that large, probably to make space for more rooms. The front of the house is two stories and the families rooms are above the front parlor. The back half I think was constructed as an addition and is actually a four story tower with Benicio and Goya’s room and a second seating area at the bottom, Ian’s, mine and a spare bedroom on the 2^nd floor, two more spare bedrooms on the 3^rd floor, and a laundry drying space with what may be one more bedroom on the 4^th floor. The tower is one of the tallest in the areas and I can actually see it from General Ollanta when I am teaching there.

My host families house, the dentist office is Yaki's

I think the Ramirez’s are fairly well off in Urubamba and their house is one of the nicer in the town. Benicio is a politician and was mayor of Urubamba recently so that makes sense to me and it goes with the house being one of the tallest. By western standards the house is fairly modest with concrete block construction and all the rooms have tiled floors. Somewhat like a vacation rental on the beach. It is clean, no small task in Peru which seems to be built on loose dirt, and quite comfortable and I have my own room with areas to put my stuff.

Nelio is around my age a cop in Puno, which is a 10 or 12 hour bus ride away from Urubamba and the first part of my stay he was not home. He has the month of September off, however, and when he is not being bashed on the head by some drunk, he has been home spending time with the kids and working on their new house across town. Cops in Peru work for the central government and not the townships and it is my understanding that they get rotated from city to city to help prevent corruption, which is why he is so far away from home. He tells me he has one more year of being stationed in Puno before they rotate him out.

Norma is Nelio’s wife and I think around 5-6 years younger than I am. She is rather the glue of the family and takes care of both the house and the kids when she is not taking care of the volunteers. She has her work cut out for her and I am not quite sure how she finds the time to take care of the house, her three kids and still cook meals for lunch and dinner every day for everybody.

Lucero is the oldest daughter at 19 and is out of school and preparing to enter college. Actually in Peru, college is K-12 and university is higher education. During the day she helps out Norma with the cooking and taking care of the kids and I can tell is ready to go off to school and do the kids of things 19 or 20 year olds want to do. But such is the life in Peru and I suspect most of my kids at General Ollanta will go straight into working full time when they get to this age, so she is lucky in that respect.

Nicole is the middle daughter and still in school. She attends LaSalle across the street from the house with is a private school and I am told much better than General Ollanta for an education. She is nice but distant and a bit moody, like I would guess most 12-year-old girls are, regardless of what country they are from.

Gabriel and my camera

Gabriel is the youngest son of Norma and Nelio and also attends LaSalle. He is a whirl wind of activity and constantly fluctuating between being hyper about something and upset. He is cute and into everything, especially if electronics are involved and proof that the electronic device revolution has occurred even in the mountains of Peru. He likes to call me Victor, I guess because they have a cousin named Victor. But it sounds like Be-toe instead of Victor and Norma is constantly correcting him. As a result I call him Charlie when he calls me Be-toe.

Yaki I think is one of Nelio’s younger sisters, but I am still not 100% sure on that. But she lives in the house with us and runs a dental office next door. Yaki somewhat acts as a second mother in the household and helps Norma take care of the kids. She dresses sharp every day and it is not uncommon to hear the compressors going in the house courtyard if she is working on somebody’s teeth.

Goya I believe is Nelio’s older sister but I am not totally sure of that. She tends to live in Cusco with her husband Benicio and they come and go from the house in Urubamba. If there is a schedule to it I have not figured out what it is.

Benicio is Goya’s husband and also comes and goes from the house but less frequently than Goya. He is a politician and was mayor of Urubamba for three or four years. 2011 to 2014 I believe. Most recently he was running for President of the Cusco region of Peru, which is similar to being Governor of a state, but did not win the position and I am unsure if he currently holds an office. His political part is APU, which has signs all over and I thought was a local soccer team until I was later told it was a political party logo.

Ian is the other volunteer living in the house with me and he is 24 and from Switzerland. He is also doing the English teaching project at a school called Valley Sagrado or Sacred Valley. From talking to him it sounds like his school is a little saner than mine is. Ian is a self-described “hipster”, not inaccurate, and will be on the teaching project until October when he then plans on traveling around South America for several more months before returning to Switzerland and continuing college.

Monday September 14 to Thursday September 17 - Peru Week 5, Leaving Urubamba

My final few days in Peru have been rather quiet ones as all of the other volunteers in Urubamba have left to visit another town for the week. There have been a few other new volunteers to arrive this week and I’ve had a few drinks with a new guy named William who is coming in to teach English at another school. I’ve not wanted to go into too much about my experience with my school as he is just beginning and if somebody told me what would happen the first week I was in Peru, I might have bailed. But he is close to my age and it has been hard not to say anything when he asks me what to expect, so I tell him a little bit without going into a lot of details and provide a few suggestions on what I think he should do at the school. I got somewhat annoyed at my professor this week too and those of you who know me, know I sometimes have a hard time keeping my mouth shut.

This week the school is having exams and my professor decided to have oral exams for around 400 students and he wants me to help. I have no problem with this but I do have a problem with not being told how to grade them and not being provided any materials to do it with. It is all rather subjective so I have to wing it on my own and decide what is good and what is not. Add in that he asked me to do each student in 2 minutes or less and this was rather absurd I thought and there was no way I could spend just 2 minutes per student doing this. To be honest I think he wanted to have oral exams so that he did not need to prepare anything for the tests.

The 5^th grade class (high school seniors) had to give me an oral biography of themselves in English and I had to drag some of them through it and often if I asked a question I got back nothing more than yes or no. The 4^th grade just had to memorize vocabulary words and for some reason they thought all they had to do was spit them out. So when I asked them to tell me what the word was in English when I gave it to them in Spanish, a lot protested that they did not need to do this.

The Glorious General Ollanta

If I were the professor I would have flunked around 80% of the students I tested, as it was very clear many did not prepare at all. And these were among the easiest exams I have ever seen and they still should have failed miserably. However, I did not feel that it was appropriate to do this so I dragged as many as I could across the threshold that was finally set for them to pass or fail. But even then there were still a few who even I could not pass doing this.

I am glad to find out on Wednesday that the first few days William has spent in his classrooms have been very good for him and it just reinforces my belief that I just had the bad luck on getting in a rather disorganized school.

On Wednesday I decided not to teach at the school and just concentrate on getting my stuff ready to go. Laundry, packing, close out paperwork at the Projects Abroad office, etc. Besides I did not want to rush out without being able to spend a little more time with my host family and have time to properly say good bye to the people in Urubamba before I left. As I have said before I don’t like good bye and prefer to think of it as until we next meet, but the reality is I won’t see many of these people again.

I had a little time to simply relax after lunch with Norma, Yaki, Nelio and Gabriel, my host family. Norma in particular has been great the past weeks and I don’t know how she keeps everything up. I bought a Quena flute while here and Gabriel took a liking to it, I probably need to wash it off from the amount of times he has been spitting into it, and since he liked it I picked up a cheap one for him before I left. He was happy with it and I joked that it was good that he did not really know how to play it, but strangely, the compass I left behind seemed to bring him the most pleasure. I don’t know why I had a compass, I just found it in my backpack when I was looking for weight to shed, and he seemed to like it equally as much if not more than the flute.

Wednesday afternoon I had a cab to Cusco as my flight out was at 5:30 the next morning. Project’s Abroad has arraigned a taxi for me and there is a volunteer social the same day in Cusco, so I head in with a few new volunteers in Urubamba. That evening we are learning how to cook Ceviche and there are a bunch more new volunteers in Cusco who join us.

Ceviche is raw fish marinated in lemon juice, but I tasted what they call lemons in Peru and I think they are a lot more like a Key Lime than a lemon. They are also green and not really yellow. Raw fish does not turn me on, any raw meat does not turn me on, but I’ve put worse into my mouth while on Peru. I still don’t dig the idea of raw meat but it was quite good and rather spicy, which was not something I anticipated.

Saturday September 12 to Sunday September 13 - Peru Week 4, Drunken Idiots

I don’t know all the details of what happened but while we were having dinner last night, Nelio, the husband of the family I am staying with, was attacked by a crazy drunk while he having a beer with a friend outside the house they are building in Urubamba. This is where speaking more Spanish would come in very helpful because I can’t fully understand what is going on.

From what I can piece together some guy was upset and fighting with another drunken idiot when he picked up a rock and attacked the first person he saw, which happened to be Nelio, who he hit in the forehead with the rock. The police have the guy who did it and Nelio happens to be a cop as well, so I imagine Nelio is not the only one waking up with a bad headache Saturday morning.

Norma, Nelio’s wife, and Yaki, his sister, got a call during dinner Friday night, either from Nelio or the hospital staff he was taken to and rushed out. We had no idea what was going on at first, just that something bad had happened. The hospital kept Nelio overnight but it sounds like they either don’t know what to do or don’t have the equipment to do it, so this morning the family is driving Nelio into Cusco to take him to a better hospital there. I saw him this morning and he looks rather dazed and had a lot of dried blood on his shoes and pants. Yaki has stayed home with the kids, who are kept busy with a school fair at Colegio LaSalle across the street from the house. The rest of the day on Saturday we don’t hear anything and that evening they have not returned from Cusco but from what I can make out it sounds like things are better with Nelio.

There is not much for me to do on Saturday, I stay close to the house in Urubamba in case the family needs anything but frankly I am not sure how they could communicate it to me if they did. Perhaps because I essentially don’t do much other than play solitaire and read a book I found in my room, Popular Music by Mikael Niemi, I am pretty much ready for a nap all day long on Saturday. The feeling somewhat compounds itself as the more I feel like taking a nap the more I feel like doing nothing and the more I do nothing the more I want to take a nap. Some of the volunteers are heading into Cusco for the night but I don’t really want to spend the money on a hotel room and essentially just read.

On Sunday morning I am up early as usual and Nelio and Norma have still not returned from Cusco. I kind of want to head into Cusco for the day but all of the volunteers in Urubamba are heading out for the week for “English Week” in some small town about 5 hours away in the Peruvian jungle. As I am leaving first thing Thursday morning I am not going so today is the last day I may see some of them. But at the same time I’m not sure when they are leaving and don’t really want to just sit around all day again. Besides I have a tourist ticket for Cusco that expires tomorrow so today is the last chance to use it if I want to so later in the morning I catch the "colectivo" bus for one last time into Cusco.

 

While in Cusco I visit the ruins of Saqsayhuaman which rest on a hill above Cusco. Believe it or not it is actually pronounced “Sexy woman.” They are not exactly awe inspiring after having seen Ollantaytambo, Pisac and Machupicchu, but they are easy to get to and the air is filled with fragrance from the eucalyptus trees on the hill. There is also a fantastic view of the city of Cusco below from the site. After about an hour I walk down, do some last minute shopping and head back to Cusco so I can catch the other volunteers before they head off.

 

Back in Urubamba I meet the volunteers at the local gas station, Project Abroad’s meeting point and the one place in town you can buy western snacks using a VISA. I do both. I say my farewells to everyone and just as the bus is pulling out it begins to rain hard in Urubamba with lightning and thunder. This is the first time it has actually rained in Urubamba since I have been here and nowhere has there been lightning and thunder.

When I get home Nelio and Norma have returned from Cusco and Nelio is doing well but has been told that for the rest of his vacation he can’t do much walking and absolutely no work on the house. So he can actually start to work once he is due back in Puno for his job, lucky him! Also no red meat or alcohol for the next 10 days and he has a big bandage on his head. But all and all he is pretty lucky and just coming out of this ordeal with a bad headache, about 16 stiches and a big bump on the forehead.

Bird's eye view of Cusco from "sexy woman"

Volkswagens of Peru

So I don’t know if it is true of all of South America but Peru is loaded with old VW’s and it is surprising for me to see them running all over the place. Actually there are overall a lot of old cars running around Peru and it is not uncommon to see 30-40 year old Toyota’s and Datsun’s driving around too. The family I am staying with has an old Datsun pickup truck from 1964.

I see a lot more VW Beatles here than Buses but they both are relatively easy to find walking around. I guess is a testament to how VW used to build cars because they sure don’t build them like this now. I dread having to go back and deal with my 2009 VW CC back home and all the stupid electronic problems that crop up with it on about a weekly basis and the dents some jack ass put in it while parked on the street about two weeks before leaving for my trip. If anybody wants it please let me know.

In the meantime here are some pictures of the VW’s running around Peru, if you don’t care much for cars this won’t interest you much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday September 11 - Remembering

September 11^th has been a day to remember past events since 2002 for me and today is no different but it is a bit strange being in another country for it. Understandably this is just another day outside of the U.S. and in the past six or seven years I generally don’t heavily focus on the past, but it is a bit weird not hearing anything about it here in Peru. Logging onto the internet I can read about today’s events, more or less in real time since time here in Peru is the same as in Chicago. Usually on this day I am working anyway, and when in the office it was always a bit hard to think about the day’s events until I got home and could watch the news.

I know there is a push to keep the remembrance strong back home as the years go by and I don’t think anybody who lived through it should ever really stop thinking about what happened that beautiful day 14 years ago. Actually I don’t know how anybody really could, even today looking at the pictures still bother me. Unfortunately I don’t have access to it but I wrote down my thoughts that evening and would post it with this if I could. Every time I have gone back to read it a rush of feelings and emotions is brought back to the surface.

Our world, especially as Americans, changed forever that day and much the same way WWI and WWII changed the course of the 20^th Century, I think it is safe to say the events of 9/11 have changed the course of the 21^st Century. Imagine what our world might be like today if the events of that day had never occurred. No Afghanistan, no Iraq, no bombings or attacks in London, Madrid, Paris, Tunisia, etc. The course of history that changed that day goes on and on and probably will continue to do so.

But the fact that the memorials are smaller; our memory is not as strong; the major headlines outside of NY are not about the event; and that in general life goes on today tells me that as a nation we are healing and a new generation is coming of age that is not so defined by that day. Personally I will never fully get over what I saw that day and I guess I don’t really want to. But I also know a lot of people who were essentially kids at the time and it seems to me that they have a much more passive feeling about the day. A part of me wants them to be shocked and have incredibly strong emotions about it but at the same time they did not live through it in the same way I did and that is good. I would not want to wish the emotional rollercoaster that 9/11 was on anybody so I think it is good that things are winding down and we are essentially being able to move on with our lives.

That does not mean forgetting about 9/11 but I think it does mean going on with our lives and finding ways to remember the day and everything that has come since. For me, every year I make a donation on this day to The Mission Continues and the Military Family Association, which support military members and their families.

Monday September 7 to Friday September 11 - Peru Week 4

So was my last full week in Peru and next week I only have two days in the classroom before heading out to Europe on Thursday morning. In some ways I am sad but in other ways I am ready to move on. I have liked the people I have met here and the places I have gone and I would not trade the experience, but it has been a rather hard place for me too. The culture is very different and things do not work like they would in the U.S. I'll go more into this in another post.

Urubamba's main church off the Plaza de Armas

For the most part things this week have returned to normal at the school, that is to say it is still a bit crazy but not anything like what last week was like. The teachers did not have any meetings during class time so I was not stuck babysitting 750 students alone at the school. But I still have to wonder as on Wednesday they announced it would only be a half day and that there would be no school on Thursday for a “day of rest” for the students. Frankly the teachers all went to lunch on Wednesday and were drinking some so I think it was more a day after rest for them than the students, but whatever. It is what it is.

I did go to lunch with the teachers, which was nice for them to invite me, and it was interesting with a lot of food and a band that played what I would call Peruvian Polka music. Afterwards we had another social with Projects Abroad, which involved playing soccer but fortunately for me, after two 1 liter beers and a huge slab of pork, that was a little bit gross to look at, I fortunately did not need to play as they had enough players. My roommate, Ian, on the other hand would probably have been better off sitting it out too as he twisted his ankle or something.  This is the 4th or 5th time he has had a problem while I have been here and I feel really bad for him. The guy totally loves being in Peru but I am not so sure that Peru feels the same way. It is not a party until something gets broken and true enough we broke a window at the school we were playing soccer at just as things were wrapping up.

For a long time I thought APU was a local soccer team as these adds are everywhere, as it turns out it is a political party for the family I am staying with, of which the uncle used to be mayor of Urubamba.

Several volunteers left the previous week so it was nice to see a lot of new ones here this week and afterwards we went off to have a beer at a place I wish I knew about weeks ago. There are really no bars in Urubamba but as it turns out there is a private one in somebody’s house. Somewhat like a speakeasy and you have to know it is there, otherwise it is just another door on the street. And they brew their own beer! Very cool and I hung out with a couple of the volunteers for a few, making my total beer intake for the day more than I normally drink in a month back home.

Thursday was a day off and other than to go into the office I spent most of the day catching up on things and more or less taking it easy.

The street market in Urubamba where you buy vegetables, fruit, bread, and what looks like long grass? Not the smoking kind.

Usually Friday is an off day for me but I actually worked at another school with my professor since I had “a day of rest” on Thursday. It was a private school and not a part of my project but it was interesting to compare. The school is much smaller with no more than 20 in a class, where as General Ollanta has over 30 in every class, and the kids seem better behaved overall. But the school is also an active construction site and the classes are full of dirt and dust that get into your lungs and eyes. Totally an unhealthy environment for kids to be learning in and I am glad I am not there every day. Ollanta may be a mad house but it is not full of construction dust.

Friday night I am taking the family out to dinner as a thank you for putting me up in their house.