A week has seven days, 168 hours or 10,080 minutes theoretically. But in Peru, you can cram in thousands of years. More than potatoes or ceviche stands or presidential candidates, this country has history. Start with sexy women…no, not those pious women but sexy women, the tourist-friendly pronunciation of Sacsayhuaman, the citadel on the northeorthen outskirts of Cusco, not Costco, […]
Time Travel
Ollantay-something
I can’t remember where I put my phone, how to do long division, or the password to LATAM airlines, or the name of this hummingbird, yet alone how to pronounce Ollantayambo. It’s an ancient city outside of Machu Picchu, Peru. But in the middle of the ancient ruins in the Ollantay-something, I AM able to remember a face I hadn’t […]
Why I didn’t get my grading done on Sunday.
Excuses, excuses. My dog didn’t eat my red pen (not that I have a dog), the internet didn’t break, nor any other phoney boloney. I headed to San Mateo (about three hours outside of Lima) to reset my hard drive. This time of year is particularly spectacular on the lush outskirts of Lima. Pictures and words can’t do it justice. […]
queso
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Cognitive Test for the Rest of Us
If you’re old enough that you still remember what a phone book and Facebook are, see if you can answer these questions: Where are your house keys? What’s the password to your Frequent Flyer account? What’s the 6 digit code the airline just sent to your email so you can access your account, but can only retrieve if you close […]
How not to get robbed in Chile
I sent a photo to the affordable tour guide in Valporaiso so he’d recognize me at the meeting place. His response? How about I meet you at the bus station? You look too Hollywood. You’ll get robbed by or scammed. That’s all it took for me to put personal safety over penny-pinching and sign up for a cram- in-a-can sardine […]
Vacation Outtakes
One thing I’ve learned over the years while scanning the luggage carousel for my bag, s that your vacation never ends up like the travel brochure. Your trips (well, at least, mine) are usually like the part of the photograph that was cropped out, the trailer park behind the pricy water park destination, the burnt bits on the overpriced fries. […]
lluvia
This weekend in Lima, I saw something rather unusual. It wasn’t seeing a guy getting beat up downtown –which I did see–near the used bookstore street–about five guys pummeling one guy. Yep, just another day in the Lima city center. The unusual thing I saw in Lima wasn’t the rare yellow-tailed oriole–which I also saw– the bird looking like a […]
Census
I was walking home from work on Lima’s ocean, the roaring of the waves making it hard to hear athe call. “Buenos Noches, Miss.” It was Samuel, the doorman at my building. He’s from Venezuela but has a larger English vocabulary than our American president. “I hate to bother you, but there’s a woman from the Census Bureau here. She […]
Lil’ Machu Pichu
I don’t know why it’s called this, either. I guess the name is an oddity, like GrapeNuts, Buffalo Wings, and autotheft, a word which continues to baffle my language learners, who envision an object stealing itself. Anyway, I went to Not-so-Macho last weekend, which is about a three-hour ride north of Lima, and a five-hour schlep back thanks to honking […]