Trip Wrap-Up

Hey all,

Well, I´m back safe and sound in the Colca Canyon and just got done partying down for Chivay´s town fiesta. I may write on that a bit later, but there isn´t anything particularly different from last year´s post on the same party. What I haven´t written about up to now, though, is the end of my trip in Chile.
I was on a bus for nearly two days before I got to Santiago de Chile, so I probably would have loved anywhere, but I seriously appreciated that city. It doesn´t have a whole lot going for it as far as vistas or beautiful architecture goes, but it is a really chill city with, thanks to Pablo Neruda, a poetic soul. They do have a cable car to the top of a hill with a nice view of the city that was worth checking out, but the highlight had to have been Neruda´s house, La Chascana. Neruda was a bit of an architect in addition to a poet, and built or redesigned each of his three houses. He also was an avid collector of a lot of randomness, which gives his houses a kind of House on the Rock feel, the most interesting collection of which was the various awards he won over his lifetime, including an Order of Lenin and the ultimate accomplishment of the Nobel Prize. Oh, and another thing for Chile... fantastic empanadas (though not sure if they beat Argentina´s or not, but certainly Peru´s) and a novel approach to hotdogs that covers them in more sauce than hotdog, the most recognizable of which is avocado.
After Santiago I wandered over to the Chilean coast to Valparaiso, which is the polar opposite to Santiago as far as views go. The city is built on a series of hills descending to a wide bay of the Pacific, and, although quite steep, the climbs are worth it to see the city and the vast blue ocean spread out before you. Neruda also had a house here, which is probably more interesting than La Chascana. He used a ship motif for the building, reflecting his obsession with all things maritime. Climbing up the five stories is like ascending through the decks of the ship, with a spectacular view of the city on the captain´s quarters-like fourth floor and a small masthead lookout-type room that he used to write on the fifth and final floor. Outside of Neruda´s house I just spent my time wandering through the city appreciating the hundreds of views popping out around every turn.
My last stop in Chile was Arica, where I spent a few hours before crossing back into Peru and heading for home. Arica was actually a Peruvian city up until the Peru-Bolivia vs. Chile war (War of the Pacific) that ended up shortening Peru´s coastline and completely eliminating Bolivia´s to the gain of Chile. It still has a Peruvian colonial feel a bit like Arequipa, with similar gorgeous weather. The other attraction would be the iron church prefabricated in France by Gustav Eiffel and assembled in the plaza. It is a very unique little church that doesn´t have a likeness to anything I´ve seen in Europe or South America, with internal arches and naves reminding me of a decorative iron garden chair.
Well, that´s it for traveling for awhile. The next couple of months will be spent with various town parties and an effort to finally finish up the town library I´ve been working on. Oh, and the rain is a-comin´...

Patagonia and Southwards

Well, time to put down some words on all of this southern Argentina I´ve been seeing lately. Outside of being on the bus a ton, I have gotten to see the Perito Moreno glacier in El Calafate and world´s end, Ushuaia, the world´s southernmost city.
I´d never seen a glacier before, so Perito Moreno was going to be pretty special however it went. Still, I was as or more blown away by the surrounding scenery than the glacier itself. I saw some pretty awesome glacial lake and valley action when I went to Ancash awhile back, but this was Ancash twice over. The mountains were not as large, but everything was covered in snow and the glacial lakes were massive and completely ringed by the forested peaks. There were several, and they all had that powdery turquoise color to them common to most glacial lakes.
The glacier itself was a crazy shade of blue, almost like something out of a kool-aid packet, and massive. I was intrigued by how jagged it was... I was expecting something more flat and ice-cube like I guess. The real reason glaciers are so cool, though, is the periodic shearing off of large chunks of it, which fall into the water with enormous splashes. I didn´t see anything incredibly dramatic, but I did see some car-sized pieces break off with the sound of a cannon firing and plunge into the lake below.
Afterwards I headed towards Ushuaia, where I´m at now. This is a port town on the tip of Tierra del Fuego and as I mentioned before, about as far south as you can get conventionally without going all the way to Antartica (someday...) The setting is pretty spectacular, with the town surrounded on three sides by snow-capped mountains and the Beagle Channel and its port providing the fourth. When I got it it was honest-to-god snowing, the first time I´ve seen that in just about two years, and it was beautiful. I´m those at home won´t be all that impressed, but I was smiling like a six year old and thoroughly enjoying it. Today I did a nice hike along the coast to a beach and ate some spam sandwiches while staring across the channel at an archipelago of islands... the last land left before hitting the seventh continent. Tomorrow I´m heading off for what will be a pretty crazy stretch in bus before seeing Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile and heading on back to the canyon just in time for the big parties... should be great...

Iguazu

Well, I´m off on bus for the next fifty-odd hours, all the way to the end of the inhabited world, so I wanted to throw down some thoughts on Iguazu falls.
Iguazu falls are close to 100 feet taller and four times higher than Niagara falls, its closest comparison. Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly said upon first seeing them, ¨Poor Niagara Falls...¨ Still, none of this really makes sense until you first approach the Garganta del Diablo (Devil´s Throat) outlook. You first notice the brown water accelerate and rush towards a common point, and then you turn a corner and see the full spectacle, tons and tons of water plunging headlong off of cliffs hundreds of feet high in a giant horseshoe formation. It´s hard to put together that much movement in your head and the effect is kind of mesmerizing, particularly as you just watch the water cascading and sending up clouds of mist from far below. I´ve certainly never seen something like it...
After Garganta del Diablo you can take several smaller trails to see the dozens of other waterfalls that make up the entire Iguazu Falls. Some of these vistas are as or more spectacular than the Garganta, simply because mist isn´t obscuring the bottom. All around you is a panoply of jungle life and you need to take care not to step on a lizard or bump into a coati (one of these- link to follow). And yes, Dan, I do want one... not sure whether it or Mitzi would win a snaggle-tooth competition. There also are hundreds of different types of butterflies, covering the entire color spectrum, including some sweet little numbers with markings that look like the number 88 on their wings. All-in-all, it was a sick afternoon and if I don´t come down with yellow fever, one of the absolute highlights of the last couple of years...

Rio

Well, I´m in Argentina now, just having crossed the border this afternoon. Rio was excellent, one of three cities I would most like to live in at some point along with Barcelona and Miami. Unfortunately, two of them suffer from oppressive heat, so it looks like Barcelona will always stay ahead.
I will have to get back to Rio at some point, though, if only to relax on its beaches and get some photos. My camera batteries (freshly changed) crapped out at the top of Sugar Loaf, the iconic ridge with the James Bond cable cars. The only known use for Panasonic batteries is putting them in a sock and beating a Panasonic executive about the face with it. I´ll just have to get some generic online ones and throw them up to let y´all know what the view was like... because it was spectacular. The green mountains pretty much just tumble into the ocean, with a few peaks masquerading as islands further out. Rio is built up and around these hundreds of peaks, which is why the favelas (super-ghettos) are in such close proximity to the nicer areas. Favelas are built up the mountain sides and the businesses and nicer residences are built in the flat parts surrounding them, ironically giving the poor the better view, perhaps the only place in the world that can say that.
Where the mountains meet the ocean there is invariably a beach, including the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches along with dozens of others. Across the harbor Niteroi could be clearly seen, and most famous of all the giant Chris statue on Corvocado peak stretches its arms over the entire city. It was quite a view and bears much more exploring, which I¨ll hopefully have time for in the future...

Brasil!

Well, time for some quick travel blogging. I will get pics up there later, but for now just some description on what I am up to at the moment. I flew into Sâo Paulo early this morning and explored it for awhile before deciding on heading to Rio a night early.
Sao Paulo is a massive city of around 18 million inhabitants, and it looks it. There is not a whole lot there for the tourist, but it does offer a look at the staggering disparity between the rich and poor in Brazil. There are homeless people in literally every doorway and arch in the center of town, in numbers that I had never seen the like of. I thought that Lima was fairly impoverished, but it holds no candles to the staggering amount of homelessness in just the small part I saw of Sao Paulo. I also had a fun episode with a dude high on something who came up to me and tried to see how close to my face he could swing without actually hitting me. After three haymakers he discovered that he was not going to get any reaction out of me except for a blank stare and wandered off in search of god knows what...
After my charming first encounter with Sao Paulo, I decided not to waste any more time there and took a day bus to Rio de Janeiro, arriving in the evening. I went down to the famous Copacabana beach and watched the sun sink beneath the waves. Since I am not capable of doing everything right at once, I of course forgot to change out my camera batteries and will not be having pictures of that, although I will do more beach wandering and get up to the famous Sugar Loaf mountain tomorrow before heading to Iguazu falls. I will put up more Rio commentary the next time I post, but suffice it to say that it is a beautiful city and one that I should have probably planned more time with. I will not miss the staggering heat, though, so I probably planned just right...

Solutions

Wow, that last post has been hanging up there for awhile. I promised a more optimistic blog this time out, and here it is. Things really haven’t changed in site, but I’ve got a couple of interesting new projects to hope after and something may even come of one of them. First off, we have a new environmental plan in place that may get some of the projects I had proposed off to a start. I also finally tracked down some seeds courtesy of another volunteer in the canyon to start a garden with the health post for the old folks club. Lastly, Salvador and I, another canyon volunteer, may get to do a business video project that would entail some traveling and fancy camerawork.
So, on to the broader strokes. For one, I don’t want the last post to be interpreted that what the Peace Corps does is ineffectual or unnecessary. There are at least six NGOs working in the Canyon from three different countries and I am convinced that Peace Corps has a better development philosophy than any of them. The core of the difference is that PC volunteers actually live in the towns where they try to make a difference. Most NGOs come to town, give a talk about a subject, and head on out. Some turn this talk into a series and even start organizations that are supposed to do a particular task, such as make artisan goods or promote tourism. The problem is that there is little to no follow-up and not living in the town means that the NGOs have a tough time diagnosing what the problem is if something goes wrong. By living for two years in the same town PC has a lot better chance at producing truly sustainable projects.
The second problem with most NGOs is the way they hand out money and resources. The simple action of giving to people isn’t bad in itself, but do it enough and you produce a culture of expectation. One of the first questions I got when I got to site was what I was going to give people. My answer of two years of my time didn’t seem to impress them much. I recently had a conversation with a teacher at my high school where I mentioned the saying where you can either give a man a fish to sustain him for a day or teach him to fish to sustain him for a lifetime. The teacher said that most Peruvians would just take the fish, and I think that would be true of people most anywhere, especially if they’re used to being given handouts. Sounds almost Republican, I know, except that I’m not sure they’re particularly interested in the teaching to fish part either.
So, I have no idea how to solve the world’s problems, but I think that we could do a lot worse than the PC approach. I’m certain that the common philosophy of just giving handouts isn’t working and won’t work. Ways need to be found to change people’s basic outlook. The most probable methods to find success would be to change basic circumstances through universal access to education and improving basic living standards with basic infrastructure projects (3 “basics” in one sentence… and I want to write for a living…). If we stopped giving billions to third world despots or wasting them through projects that treat the symptoms instead of the disease, we might even be able to do it.

Ancash pics and new design

Hey all,

You may have noticed the new design, which was a long time coming. I finally figured out how to spice things up with pictures and such (it really wasn´t that hard). Also, after the dour tone of the last post I will be rolling out a solutions themed essay whenever I get around to writing it. Enjoy the pictures, and here´s a link to the newest from my vacation to Ancash-

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