Friday, February 26, 2010

What´s New...

Hello again all,

Well, it’s rainy season again finally. Technically it started in December, but due to El NiƱo this year we’ve been pretty dry- up until now, that is. In the last couple of weeks all of that rain we should have been getting has finally shown, up, making things interesting, to say the least.
When I was returning to site from my Cahamarca trip, which I’ll talk about below, an unfortunate mudslide occurred about ten minutes from my friend Ryan’s site and twenty-five minutes from mine. That is dry driving conditions, however. What it translated to in reality was a thirty minute slog in mud and rain at 10:30 p.m., an extremely cold night wrapped in one blanket on my friend’s floor, and an hour hike through mud the next morning to get home, all with more books than I should have liberated from the Cahamarca Peace Corps book exchange. Ah, Peru…
So, for that Cahamarca trip. Those of you who have seen the Facebook pictures have some idea of how crazy it was, but I’ll recap anyway. Cahamarca has the biggest Carnaval party this side of Rio, and I took full advantage. The biggest day involved roving groups of scantily dressed folk marching to drums and soaking everyone they find with super-soakers and handfuls of paint. At the end of it all I looked like an extremely sunburned Jackson Pollock, but it was a handful of the craziest hours I’ve ever spent and well worth the 30 hour bus ride.
After Cahamarca I popped down to Chiclayo for a day to see one of the most significant archaeological discoveries ever- the Sipan tombs. Several generations of northern Peruvian lords’ tombs were unearthed and continue to be unearthed revealing some of the most stunning concentrations of riches ever discovered. The most famous Lord of Sipan was almost completely covered in gold, silver, and intricately detailed conch shell accoutrements, and he was only one of several dignitaries discovered. I also popped over to see the Peruvian valley of the pyramids at Tucume, which was the product of the most prolific pyramid building culture in the world, and that includes the Mayans and the Egyptians. Not a lot of money has been thrown at excavation yet so the sites are not nearly as impressive as the aforementioned locales, but even the hint of what they have there is worth the visit.
Well, I’ve got to get back to trudging through the mud and making a final stab at getting a few projects off the ground, but I’ll try and write a little more regularly from here on out… for someone who may aspire to be a writer someday, I realize this is a pretty poor effort. Until next time…

Monday, February 1, 2010

Pictures!

Hey all,

Here are the pictures from my trip to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile-

http://picasaweb.google.com/zijerem/SouthTrip#