Chile Pictures

Chile Pictures -- Click Here

9th Entry -- 7-20-2012 -- Chile

Ok, so I’m now back in Texas and have been for about 4 days but….. I’ve been putting off writing this last entry.  Anyway, I’m jumping on it now!  The last week of my journey was spent in Chile.  Chile covers a large chunk of the South American west coast.  As I said in the previous entry, I stayed with my friend Jean Paul, JP.  We are friends from William Carey University.  We spent most of our time in Santiago, the capital of Chile.  Santiago is a huge city that I thought was really nice.  Granted we stayed in nicer areas of the city, but from what I saw the city is really clean and very modern overall.  There are nice parks and walking trails in the parks, police/security in many places that were really helpful, and a TON of malls.  I only note that there were a ton of malls because I felt that they were just everywhere  J.  There is also a lot of construction going on throughout the city.  New buildings are going up all over the place.  As a matter of fact, the tallest building in South America is under construction in Santiago right now.  The building is already HUGE, but it still has a ways to go before it is done.  I enjoyed spending time in the city and actually need more time to see it all.  The city is walled in on one side by mountains and about an hour the opposite direction is the beach.  The mountains around the city were beautiful and many were snowcapped.  There are also a few mountains (more like big hills honestly) in the city.  One of them is called Cerro San Cristobal where on top is a large statue of the Virgin Mary.  It is a beautiful place that is supposed to be quite, as it is a place of prayer, with some really great views of the city.  We also went to Viña del Mar and Valparaiso which are two really nice side-by-side beach towns.  One day we also went up one of the snowcapped mountains where there is a skiing area.  JP did some snowboarding, and I opted out.  The snowboarding in Argentina was nice, but….. I was definitely reminded for numerous days after that adventure that my Achilles tendon had been torn in the past. 

            JP and I also played some computer games while I was there.  I know you might say, “why would you do that when you are in a different country when you could do so much other stuff?”  well my response is “what’s fun is fun” and that’s just it (FYI:  I also played computer games with my friend in Paraguay and went to a movie…. I know I’m a terrible tourist).  We had a great time so why not haha.  We also saw the new Spiderman movie which was pretty good.  One night we went out with some of JP’s friends.  It was a lot of fun.  I was named “Gringo” for the night J.  Also, many of them wanted to practice their English with me so that was good because the Spanish spoken in Chile is VERY difficult for me to understand.  I did ok when someone was talking directly to me or if it was on the radio or on TV, but when I heard Chileans talking amongst themselves….. that’s a whole different level.  I also ate a lot of hotdogs in Chile.  There is a fast food chain called Doggis where JP and I had some pretty intense hotdogs J.  I had a great time in Chile, and I can already tell that I need to get back to South America sooner before later to explore everything again and try to hit up some new places!  That’s it for the South American part of this blog unless I think of something that I missed big time.  Thanks for reading!

Argentina Pictures

Argentine Pictures -- Click Here

8th Entry 7-9-12 – Argentina

8th Entry 7-9-12 – Argentina

Howdy All,
I’m currently in Santiago, Chile and have been here for about 36 hours.  Before Chile I was in Argentina.  From Brazil Christina and I flew to Bariloche, Argentina.  Bariloche is a town located in the Andes Mountains in Patagonia.  The town is pretty geared for tourists and is well known in South America as being one of the skiing and snowboarding hot spots.  The town is situated on the banks of a lake of which there are many in the region.  The town is beautiful and has many mountains all around.  While in Bariloche, Christina and I saw some beautiful scenes, ate a lot of local chocolate, took a snowboarding lesson, and had our first snow storm on the 4^th of July.  The snowboarding lesson was pretty fun.  Our lesson was in the morning on a mountain called Catedral.  There was snow everywhere, but it had warmed up a little the day before so much of the snow had a layer of ice on top.  We had a group of 6 people in our two hour class.  Our teacher was Dutch and travels to different hemispheres for winters so he can teach snowboarding almost year round.  During the class we pretty much tried to learn some basics of snowboarding.  I’m pretty sure I was the worst in the class which I’m blaming on my Achilles because it doesn’t let my foot bend quite like it needs to.  Christina did pretty good and was able to do a little bit of snowboarding by the end of the day.  I couldn’t really stand up with the snowboard attached to both my feet….  Oh well it was fun.  We stayed on top of Catedral for most of the day even though it started snowing pretty heavily by early afternoon.  We did a lot of walking around in Bariloche going up and down various streets.  There was a local mountain called Otto that we wanted to go up, but it didn’t work out. 

                We had planned to leave Bariloche at 10:30 one morning, but there was pretty serious snow falling at that time and our plan had to be rerouted to land somewhere else.  We ended up spending a great deal of time in the airport waiting for our plane.  Our plane finally arrived, and we took off for Buenos Aires.  Our flight lasted an extra hour because there was not a place for us to land in Buenos Aires because we had left so late from the previous place.  We ended up doing some circles in the air I think…. I’m not sure, I was in and out of sleep most of the flight.  We finally got to Buenos Aires which is the capital of Argentina and has about 13 million people in the metropolitan area.  The city is pretty impressive.  There is a combination of old buildings with classic architecture and newer buildings with modern styles.  Christina and I didn’t have much time in Buenos Aires and even less when we lost an afternoon because of the delayed flight.  We did a lot of walking around the city and saw many of the important buildings in the city.  We actually were able to go inside the Casa Rosada, The Pink House, which is where the president works.  We also went to a Tango show.  The Tango show was really entertaining.  There was a live orchestra, about 8 dancers, and 2 singers.  Christina and I both really liked the show.  We also had some typical Argentine meat.  Meat, and beef in particular, is very big in Argentina.  The first night in the hostel, there was a BBQ with all kinds of food.  It was really good.  Christina and I also had a great time in Buenos Aires. 

Now Christina is back home after two weeks of traveling around South America, and I am into my last week of travel.  I’m in Santiago, Chile right now.  My first impressions of the city so far are that it is really nice.  The city is has been really nice so far.  There are a lot of well-kept parks, the city has been remarkably clean, and everyone has been friendly.  I am staying with a friend of mine from William Carey University named Jean Paul.  His brother was on the tennis team with me, so I go to know them both pretty well.  It is awesome to have someone that can help show you around a new place. 

So my next post will probably be written from Texas or on the way back to Texas on one of my 342 layovers.  Over and out!

Brazil Pictures

I'm not sure why when I uploaded these it made two different albums, but here are the pictures from Brazil.

Brazil Pictures -- Link 1 -- Click Here

Brazil Pictures -- Link 2 -- Click Here

7th Entry 7-2-12 – Brazil

7^th Entry 7-2-12 – Brazil

Howdy from Brazil! 

I’m currently sitting in the airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil waiting to get on my flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina connecting to Bariloche, Argentina.  Christina is here with me.  She met me in the Rio de Janeiro airport.  Christina and I spent 3 nights in Rio at a pretty cool hostel located in a neighborhood called Santa Teresa.  Rio is a huge city, but there is actually way more “green” throughout the city that we didn’t expect.  You can see on the mountains around the city all the tropical jungle style vegetation.  The city is actually very pretty.  We saw some great stuff while there.  We saw the “Christ the Redeemer” statue that is the image most associated with Rio.  It was really great.  The statue is beautiful, and the views from the top of the mountain where the statue is located are incredible.  We also took two cable cars to the top of a mountain called “Sugar Loaf.”  We managed to be on top of the mountain at sunset.  Again we were able to get some really spectacular views of Rio and the sun setting behind the city.  “Escadaria Selarón” is a set of famous steps in the city that are made up of all kinds of different tiles from around the world.  The steps have been in TV shows, movies, music videos, and now my pictures so…. they are pretty famous.  Jorge Selarón is the builder of the steps, and he happened to be sitting on the steps when we came by.  He was nice enough to take a picture with our tour group; you’ll see the picture where we are all sticking out our tongues and holding up a hand… apparently that is his style of taking pictures.  Since Rio is right on the ocean, we had to go to the beach.  Although it’s is the “cold” part of the year, it was generally at least in the 85 degree range during the days.  The beach actually had pretty many people.  We went to one of the most famous beaches of Rio, Copacabana.  It was very nice.  The waves were pretty big though so we didn’t venture to far out into the water, especially after we saw a helicopter have to rescue someone out not far from us.  Before we went to Copacabana, we went to the “Jardim Botânico” (Botanical Garden).  The garden has been in place since 1809.  It was really a great place to visit; we saw lots of impressive plants, trees, and fountains. 

            After our days in Rio, we took a bus to Santos, Brazil.  Santos is where my friend Gabriel lives.  Gabriel played tennis with me at Meridian my sophomore year, was one of my roommates, and lived with me in Texas for a while when we worked at tennis camps.  I actually have another teammate that is from Santos who is also a good friend, but he was in the states taking summer classes.  The bus ride was about 7.5 hours.  It was supposed to only be 6 but….. that didn’t work out.  The ride was, for the most part, very pretty.  We got to see some of the Brazilian landscape.  When we finally arrived to Santos, Gabriel and his friend Gustavo were there to pick us up.  Christina and I stayed in Gabriel’s house where he, his dad, and his older brother live.  They live in a big apartment building about 5 minutes from the beach.  Christina and I spent some time on the beach that is close the Gabriel’s house.  The beach there is really nice because it is pretty flat, and there are big open areas of slightly compacted sand.  There were lots of people playing soccer and other sports all over the beach.  We also went to another beach called “San Pedro” in a nearby town called Guaruja.  The beach there was awesome.  It is actually a private beach, but since it isn’t really the high beach season in Brazil, it is open to the public.  The waves there were still pretty big for Christina and me, but they were a lot of fun.  There was also a lagoon near the beach with an artificial waterfall and a diving board.  We stopped there to jump off the diving board.  I did my customary diving board move, the pencil.  Well it turns out, the pencil wasn’t such a good idea because my foot smashed into the bottom and got scraped up a little…. oh well.  In Santos we visited Gabriel’s tennis club that had a sort of fair/party.  We ate some great food at Gabriel’s house.  His friend, Gustavo, who is studying cooking, made us Brazilian style stroganoff twice, and it was really delicious.  Just as in Paraguay, it was a huge help to have a friend there to show us stuff and help us out.  Gabriel, his family, and his friends were all fun and nice.  Also, it was really fun to see Gabriel who I hadn’t seen for between 2 and 3 years.  We had a lot of good laughs. 

I’m now finishing this entry from the Buenos Aires, Argentina airport.  Its 10:00 am, and Christina and I have been awake since yesterday morning sooooo if some of this doesn’t make sense (less sense than normal that is) sleep deprivation is to blame.

Paraguay Pictures -- Click Below

Paraguay Pictures -- Click Here

6th Entry 6-24-12 – Paraguay

 6^th Entry 6-24-12 – Paraguay

I just had my last meal in Paraguay.  The time has flown by here just as I expected.  I’ve had a great time here.  I stayed with a Meridian tennis teammate named Andres AKA Grandpa and his family.  Andres technically lives in Lambare, but it is actually about one block from Asuncion which is the capital of Paraguay.  Nic, another Meridian teammate lives in Asuncion as well.  I arrived to the Asuncion airport at about 3 in the morning last Monday.  Nic and Grandpa were there to meet me which was great because I was quite tired. 

During the week, Andres and I did all sorts of stuff.  Grandpa and I went to the country capital, saw some monuments around the area, saw the congress building, drove past the president’s house, saw the cathedral, played tennis, golf, computer, and ate some great food.  The capital building where the president actually works is an impressive building called “El Palacio de los Lopez.”  I was amazed when we visited the building that there were not any walls or fences around the boarder.  I’m pretty sure if I ran fast enough; I could have run up the front stairs of the building and given the president a hand shake!  Grandpa told me that there aren’t really any worries about terrorists or anything of that sort here so the lack of a fence isn’t a big deal.  Downtown Asuncion is crazy busy as you would expect any national capital to be.  Asuncion has about 2.5 million people in the metropolitan area.  The driving here is well….. Let’s just say you need to be aware at all times for a possible motorcycle rushing by, a public bus cutting you off, or a horse and carriage slowing you down.  Parking, as in any large city, is chaos here.  Something that I’m not accustomed to, however, is the people that “help” you park and “watch” your car while you are away.  Really the ‘car watchers’ just hang around where people park then when you come back to get your car, they come running up to get some money.  I told Grandpa that I wouldn’t pay them ever because I don’t think they do anything.  He said it’s better to just pay them so there aren’t any problems, so that’s what we always did. 

Asuncion and Paraguay overall are not touristy kind of places like Cusco, Peru was.  In Cusco for example, I had to really watch for pick pocketing, which if you have read the previous articles know didn’t go so well.  Here in Asuncion, I never really got that feeling.  I didn’t have people running up to me trying to sell me stuff or following me around talking to me in all sorts of languages trying to get my attention.  It was nice to not have to worry about shop owners try to pressure you into buying something as is common in more tourist centered locations.  Right around downtown is a train station that had very little, if any, postings talking about what it is/was.  Without Grandpa being with me, I would not have known that the train station was very, very old and that Paraguay actually had the first train in all of South America.  Andres and I both thought that there should be all sorts of information about Paraguay’s train past in and/or around the building.

I also did some very non-tourist activities.  For example, there is a computer game that Andres and I along with a few other teammates used to play back at Meridian, so one evening we played.  J  We also played golf one day with Nic.  We played nine holes.  I shot about 234 on the 9, which is about average for me.  The golf course was nice except for the mosquitos that were eating me alive.  Andres and Nic are both much better than I am so I frequently just kind of dropped a ball in a convenient place for myself.  We went to the driving range one day as well.  It was a lot of fun, especially trying to not hit the guy that was picking up golf balls about 75 yards away J  Honestly, Andres and I were bothered by the guy, and we were afraid to hit him…. All part of the fun I guess.  One afternoon we also played tennis.  Andres’ sister, Veronica, is the #1 female tennis player in Paraguay.  She will actually be playing in the Olympics in a few weeks.  Anyway, she played with Grandpa and me as well as one of Andres’ friends named Marcelo.  I was not only the worst one on the golf course, but also the worst one on the tennis court.  I had a great time playing though.  We played a few sets of doubles, and I actually played pretty well for having served about 50 balls in the last 16 months.  Andres who hasn’t played in about 3 months, of course played quite well.  His sister, Vero, played at another level.  She actually just came back from Europe where she played the qualifying rounds to get into Wimbledon and Roland Garros (The French Open).  We all had a great time on the court and no one took it too seriously. 

I’m very glad we went to downtown and to visit the capital early in the week because Paraguay’s president was impeached later in the week.  I happened to be in the country, in the capital nonetheless, when the first full impeachment happened in Paraguay’s more than 200 year history.  Nic had taken off work for Friday because we all had planned to visit Iguazu and Itaipú Dam.  Iguazu is home to a set of incredible water falls that are a big attraction.  The falls are situated ten minutes from the Parguayan boarder and separate Argentina and Brazil.  We were going to visit the Brazil side because I already have my Brazililan visa.  Itaipú Dam is huge hydroelectric dam shared between Brazil and Paraguay.  The hydroelectric dam is the most electricity producing hydroelectric plant in the world.  It was also the largest hydroelectric dam in the world for time before China built the Three Gorges Dam.  However with all the controversy going on with the impeachment, we opted to not make the trip.  Instead, we went to a few other smaller cities around Asuncion.  We visited one of the oldest churches in the country, Andres’ family farm, and a city that is geared for summer vacationers built up around a lake.  We spaced the trips out over two days since we had planned to visit the other locations during those two days.  It was great to see some other parts of Paraguay, and we all got to travel together, Nic, Andres, Nic’s brother Diego, and me. 

My next destination is Brazil.  I’m excited about Brazil, but I’m really not ready to leave Paraguay yet.  Andres’ family is really top notch.  They have done anything and everything to help me have a great visit to their country.  It has also been fun to visit old friends.  During my time at Meridian, I spent a lot of time with Nic during my freshman year, and Andres during my sophomore year, so getting to spend time with them again has been great.  I’ll be posting pictures from Paraguay soon (thanks to Grandpa’s camera… remember mine is bouncing around the black market of South America). 

In a few hours, I’ll meet my sister in the Rio de Janeiro airport, and we’ll begin our trip through Brazil and Argentina.  

5th Entry – June 17, 2012 – Teaching and Graduation

5^th Entry – June 17, 2012 – Teaching and Graduation

The last seven days have been busy as usual.  This week was teaching week for the TEFLers (as we are called sometimes; students in training for their Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate).  We still had class in the mornings but just for three hours.  The class I taught was from 7-8pm and was alto basico (High Basic).  My students ranged in age from around 18 – 30 (I think), and the students were in their 5^th month of learning English.  I had 14 students on the roster, but I never had all of them in class.  As a matter of fact, two of the students didn’t show up until Friday.  We had specified topics we had to teach during the week, but how we actually went about teaching those topics was up to us.  Some of the other TEFLers had more material than others to teach.  Luckily, I didn’t have to cover too much information.  On Monday my class learned how to talk about a schedule or routine.  For example, we talked a lot about what they did every morning.  We also learned some useful frequency adverbs like always, usually, sometimes, and never.  On Tuesday we studied “what do” questions.  Questions like, “What do you do?”, “What does he play?”, “What time does class start?”, etc.  Wednesday we covered comparatives like:  better, taller, older, more beautiful, etc.  The students had a good time with the comparatives.  I started the class by holding up a picture of two very different looking people with a few pieces of information below each picture.  The students then compared the two pictures using the information I provided.  Thursday we talked about superlatives like:  tallest, most handsome, richest, heaviest, etc.  Again it was a fun class.  I got them using some comparatives and superlatives to talk about soccer players.  Finally on Friday, we did a Jeopardy review game.  I had a total of 16 regular questions and 2 bonus questions.  The 16 questions ranged from 100 to 400 points and were arranged into 4 categories:  “What Do” questions, Comparatives, Superlatives, and Vocabulary.  The two bonus questions were 500 points each.  The students did very well in the game.  There was only one incorrect answer, and the students were going for the hardest questions to get the most points.  My teacher said that they really understood what we had covered during the week to have only missed one question.  Teaching a class made me very nervous, especially the first class.  Luckily, my first class went pretty well which helped the students see me as an established teacher rather than a first-timer.  The days were very long because I had to get to school in the morning for class, and I stayed at school until my class was over at night.  I spent most of the afternoon preparing for the class that evening or working on other assignments.  I’m really glad the class is over, and it went well.  Although the TEFL course took much more time than I had expected, I ended up having a great time during the course.  We had a great group of people taking the class, and I’ll miss them all. 

On Thursday after class, we all planned to go out to eat as a sort of TEFL farewell.  We got out of class at about 1pm and walked to a nearby restaurant.  On the way over, I moved my wallet and camera from my pants pockets to two separate zipper pockets in my jacket.  We got to the restaurant at about 1:10ish.  We went to the upstairs section of the restaurant, pulled some tables together, and sat down.  I put my jacket on the back of my chair.  There was not a table behind me but there was enough space for the waiter to walk around.  There was a table kind of diagonal from ours.  A few minutes after we sat down, someone asked if we could take some pictures.  I reached back to get my camera and the zipper pocket was open.  I checked the other pocket, and the pocket that held my wallet was also open.  My camera and wallet had been stolen.  Two of the other students came back to school with me to make sure I hadn’t just forgotten the items in my backpack, but I didn’t leave them at school.  We went to the international office at our school, and they helped me to get ahold of my bank so I could cancel my debit card which was in my wallet.  I got ahold of my bank at about 1:25.  The thieves had already tried to get money at an ATM unsuccessfully 4 times by 1:23.  I then went to the tourist police station with an employee from the school so we could file a report.  I had to spend a good chunk of time there answering questions and signing papers.  In the meantime, the girl who came with me went with another officer to the restaurant to talk to the owner.  The owner said that one table came in around the same time as us, sat upstairs, but then left without ordering any food.  We are pretty sure they must have spotted me moving the items from my pants to my jacket and followed us to the restaurant.  We have no idea how it happened though because we were sitting relatively close to the wall, 7 people were at our table, and the items were zipped in separate pockets.  No one saw anything suspicious.  We were all a little rattled because it happened so quickly and without anyone noticing.  Finally after signing some final papers that had quotes of things I had said in Spanish that I didn’t actually say at all, we went to the ATM where the thieves had tried to use my debit card.  The ATM was located inside a pharmacy.  Unbelievably, there were no cameras which I thought was rather strange.  In my mind, all pharmacies have video surveillance and so do all ATMs….. how could an ATM inside a pharmacy not have any kind of video.  We’ve talked about it since, and this was obviously not the first time the thieves had stolen from tourists.  They followed us into a restaurant, stole my items without anyone noticing and in a rather difficult location, and knew exactly which ATM to use.  After all of that, the police officer asked me to pay the fee associated with filing a police report.  I thought that was terrible.  I got robbed and then I had to pay.  I had to borrow money from someone because I obviously had none, my wallet had just been stolen.  I tried to explain that to the officer…. But it wasn’t working.  Also, going to and from the restaurant and then to the ATM, we used taxies which we paid for.  After we were done with the police, I went home to make sure I didn’t have any other credit cards in my wallet that I had forgotten about.  When I got to the house, my bedroom was locked and there was no toilet paper.  My host parents weren’t there, but they didn’t expect me home until about 8:30 after teaching my class.  They often lock the doors inside the house when they go out, but it really timed out poorly for me that day.  The lack of toilet paper didn’t help the situation either.  Anyway, I don’t expect to see any of my stuff again which really sucks because I have 4 more weeks of travel coming up. 

Last night there was a graduation style party for the TEFL students.  Many of the other students were also invited.  It was a lot of fun.  And more importantly, everyone passed the course J  I am now in the airport in Lima, Peru on my way to Asuncion, Paraguay.  I’m going to be on a super budget at least until I meet my sister in Brazil in about 8 days.  My Paraguayan friends have assured me I’ll be fine there without spending much.  I hope they are right. 

Tipon Pictures

Tipon Pictures -- Click Here

4th Entry – June 10, 2012

4^th Entry – June 10, 2012

Week three done and just one more week of Peru.  I stayed very busy last week, as usual, with school stuff.  We talked about teaching different skills like reading, speaking, listening, and writing.  Next week we take over a class and start teaching.  We had to draw names to see who got what time slot and what class level.  Unfortunately, my name was drawn last, and I got stuck with a night class from 7-8 in the evenings.  Really the time slot wouldn’t be bad except for the fact that we have class in the morning so I’m more than likely going to leave my house early in the morning and not get back until around 8:30.  The class level is Alto Basico, high basic.  The students are in their 5^th month of English.  The class has 13 students ranging in age from around 18-35.  There are good and bad things about teaching a lower level class like mine.  Generally speaking, I won’t have to teach anything that is too complicated so that will be nice, but I also won’t be able to do near as many activities as I could do in a higher level class. 

I wasn’t able to do a big trip this weekend, although I would have loved to, because of all the teaching preparation (anddddd I don’t have any money).  I did get to go to a place called Tipon yesterday afternoon though.  Tipon is an Inca site with some amazing engineering about 45 minutes by bus outside of Cusco.  The whole complex is much bigger than I thought and what make it so impressive are the water channels that are built throughout the entire site.  I took a bunch of pictures while there, but I’m not sure they do it justice.  I also managed to go to about 4 or 5 museums last week.  When I went on my trip to the Sacred Valley, you have to buy a tourist pass.  I got the 10 day tourist pass that includes entrance into numerous places in and around Cusco.  The 10 day tourist pass was the same price as the partial ticket that only lasted 3 days because I’m a student.  The museums and Tipon were part of my ticket so I’ve been trying to get as much out of it as possible.  Tonight I’m planning to go to “Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo” (Cusco Center of Native Art).  I’m not exactly sure what it is, but it is very close to our school and people are lined up to go there every night.  I believe they have some native music and some type of production to see.  It’s included on my tourist pass, so I’m going to take advantage of it. 

Also this past week was Corpus Christi which is a very celebrated holiday here in Cusco.  There is a big parade and everything in the city is closed.  Unfortunately, the TEFL students had class L  We were the only students in the school, and we were pretty upset about missing the procession.  We went to the main city plaza after class and there was still a bunch of festivities going on.  It was very impressive.  The statues of saints from the churches around town are taken out and around the city.  There were a TON of people everywhere.  It is very famous here in Cusco.  I’ve posted some pictures online to see.

Over and out.  

3rd Entry 6-4-12 -- Machu Picchu and Sacred Valley

3^rd Entry 6-4-12

I am officially slightly over half way through my classes here in Cusco.  I’ve been staying very busy with school and travel.  This past weekend I went to the Sacred Valley, Pisac and Ollantaytambo, and Machu Picchu.  We were scheduled to have some student teaching on Friday and the rest of the class on the following Monday, but it was exam week for the English students so we ended up having Friday off.  On Friday I left for my trip.  We left Cusco at around 9am and headed to Pisac.  The drive to Pisac was really incredible.  We were going up, down, and around mountains.  We were able to stop and take a few pictures which you can see online.  In Pisac we saw some great Incan ruins.  The complex was built on the side/top of a mountain and has some really extensive terraces.  The terraces were used for farming, decoration, and stabilizing the land.  From there we headed to Ollantaytambo.  Ollantayambo again had some impressive ruins that were built on the side/top of a mountain.  Again there were large terraces built.  Ollantaytambo is actually an unfinished site.  Construction on the site was stopped because of the Spaniards.  The stone used to build Ollantaytambo was quarried from a mountain top about 7 – 8 kilometers away.  At the top of Ollantaytambo, you can see some huge stones that seem almost impossible to have been moved.

We then took a train, Peru Rail, from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes (Hot Waters).  Aguas Calientes is a small town located at the bottom of the mountain where Machu Picchu is located on the banks of a river that eventually empties into the Amazon River.  The town is called Aguas Calientes because of hot water springs located in the city.  We stayed in a hostel that night and the next morning it was to Machu Picchu.  Machu Picchu is an incredible site that was discovered by the modern world until 1911 by an American university professor.  There are many theories about why the site was built where it was, why it was abandoned, and what it was used for.  The Inca didn’t have a written language so much of their history is based on theories.  Machu Picchu is built on top of a large mountain in the beginnings of the rainforest.  The actual structures of the site are very impressive, but the landscape of where it was built is what makes it what it is.  Machu Picchu was built around 500 years ago and is said to be unfinished.  The Great Pyramids at Giza were built closer to 5000 years ago, are immense, incredible structures also built in a difficult environment.  It is amazing how the world progressed and how if information could have been shared the same way it is today how differently civilizations would have developed.  There is a long Inca Tail that leads to Machu Picchu that many tourists sign up to do.  There is a waiting list on several of the best treks of around 3 months.  We didn’t have time or the desire to camp and hike for days on end J  There is also an Inca bridge on the back side of Machu Picchu that I hiked to.  The bridge itself is not so impressive, but once again the landscape in which it was built is incredible.  I also opted to not take the bus back down the mountain and decided to hike down instead back to Aguas Calientes.  It took 1 to 1.5 hours to get back down.  The scenery on the hike was great.  I saw many different plants and heard all sorts of rain forest sounds. 

After Machu Picchu, it was back to Cusco.  We finally got back to Cusco around 10:30pm on Saturday.  I spent about 5 hours on Sunday doing homework.  Today, Monday, we are doing our student teaching and then back to normal class tomorrow.   June is month of festivities for much of Cusco so I’m trying to stay up with all my school work so I can try to enjoy some of it.  I currently have:  a 5 page grammar paper due on Friday along with 3 sixty minute lesson plans to go along with it, a lesson plan and reflection of my student teaching due tomorrow, 3 classroom observations and papers due this week, and preparations for a grammar lesson I give on Friday.  

Hasta Luego Amigos

Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu Pictures

Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu Pictures -- Click Here

2nd Entry 5-30-2012 Lake Titicaca

2^nd Entry – 5-30-2012

I’ve now gone through a week and a half of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) classes.  The first week we focused a lot on techniques and strategies for teaching English and this week is all grammar.  The techniques and strategies are very different from the way you naturally want to teach.  We don’t do any translation, we talk only in Spanish, you try to have the students talking 60% of the time, and you don’t explain much of anything.  It is a difficult idea for me to grab hold of.  I’m not sure if that’s exactly how I would run my classes, but apparently this method has research backing it up. 

Last Thursday, just a few days into the program, I had to do my first small vocabulary lesson where I just draw a word out of a hat and have to teach the word.  I of course wanted to just translate the word and be done, but we are taught not to do it that way.  One of the reasons for that is if we were to teach in a country that didn’t speak Spanish.  Then on Friday I had my first “mini-lesson.”  A mini-lesson is a teaching session of 20 minutes.  Our first assignment was actually a “How to….” lesson where the students were meant to practice understanding instructions and learn some new vocabulary.  My lesson was “How to make a smore.”  I think it went pretty well.  The students seemed to like it. 

My class has been keeping me very busy, much busier than expected.  Class lasts from 9-12 then 1-4.  There is also homework every night, papers that are due, and observations we have to do.  I had really hoped for more free time to get to know Cusco and practice Spanish.  I practice Spanish at my house, but it usually totals to less than one hour a day. 

On our first day of class, we had orientation which didn’t last too late into the afternoon, so I took the opportunity to go to Sacsayhuaman.  Sacsayhuaman is home to some incredible ruins just outside of Cusco.  There were several other sites along with Sacsayhuaman that I visited.  It was very impressive.  You can see the site in my pictures.  There are really massive rocks that fit together like puzzle pieces and have been stacked together for over 500 years, which is very impressive considering there was no mortar used and there are frequent earthquakes.  Many of the stones look like they were almost melted to fit together as cleanly as they do.  I was very impressed by the whole site.  The site is located on a mountain that overlooks Cusco, and I luckily caught a very impressive sunset before leaving.

I am trying to take full advantage of my time off on the weekends though to see as much as I can.  Last weekend Dominique, a friend I’ve made that is also in the TEFL program, and I went to Lake Titicaca which is located in the Andes on the boarder of Peru and Boliva.  Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world and is also the largest lake in South America by volume.  The lake has a lot of history/mystery among ancient cultures.  There are Inca myths that all creation started from the lake.  There are also ruins submerged under the lake and another culture that arose near the lake on both the Bolivian and Peruvian side called the Tiwanaku.  The Tiwanaku have some very impressive ruins on the Bolivian side of the lake that I really wanted to visit, but the entrance fee for United States Citizens is $130.  If I had a few days to spend in Bolivia, it would have been worth it.  Some archaeologists think that the Tiwanaku ruins on the Bolivian side may be around 12,000 years old which would make it one of if not the oldest civilization in the world.  We also were able to see some ruins from the Tiwanaku culture, but they were not as impressive as I had hoped for.  While visiting Lake Titicaca, we visited three different islands:  Uros, Amantaní, and Taquile. 

The Uros Islands are actually floating islands that are made of reeds.  The local people of these islands still live in reed houses and have little if any electricity.  It was fun to visit and learn a bit about the culture there.  The language they speak on the Uros Islands is called Aymara , luckily most all of them also spoke Spanish as well.  After that we went to Amantani.  Amantani is about 3 hours by boat from the main costal city, Puno.  The island has 8 different communities and about 5000 people total.  We spent the night on the island with a host family.  There were three Americans on the tour, Jason from Georgia, Dominique from New York, and me from Texas, so we all asked to be in a house together.  Our host family was great; just an older couple with 7 kids that had already moved out.  We were lucky to get a house with some electricity.  The house had mostly mud brick walls, no bathroom, and a kitchen where they cook over an open flame using cast iron pots and pans.  On the island there are some Tiwanaku ruins called Pachamama, mother of the land, and Pachatata, father of the land.  We climbed to the top of the Pachatata.  Ruins and saw an incredible sunset.  That night we went to a traditional style dance where we dressed in the typical clothes of the island, listened to music, and tried to do some dancing.  While climbing on the island, even in the middle of the day, there was still ice in some areas from the freeze that happens during the night so by the time we left the dance it was really, really cold.  Our house didn’t have any heaters so the night was a little rough, but we that’s part of it.  The next day we went to the island of Taquile.  Taquile is about an hour from Amantani, has a population of about 2500, and has 6 different communities.  We did a lot of climbing on this island as well, ate, and learned about the culture of the island.  To get back down to the dock from where we were leaving, there were 536 steps that we trekked down.  The native language on both Taquile and Amantani is Quechua which supposedly was the native language of the Incans.  Also, there are many people, especially in and around Cusco, that still speak Quechua, for example my host parents in Cusco know the language but usually speak Spanish.  We started on the 3 hour boat ride back to Puno, spent some time in the city, and started our approximately 7 hour long bus ride back to Cusco.  We finally arrived in Cusco at about 4:30 am.

This weekend I am going to the Sacred Valley which has numerous Incan Archaeological sites and after to Machu Picchu.

The link to my pictures should  be below this post.

Joe

Peru Pictures

Peru Pictures!

1st Entry -- 5/28 -- DFW to Cusco, Peru

1^st Entry  --  5/28

Ok, I guess I’ll just start from the beginning.  On May 19, 2012 I left Texas for a South American Adventure.  I left DFW at about 3:30 PM on Saturday.   I first landed in San Salvador, El Salvador.  As the plane was descending, I saw almost entirely forest and wasn’t sure there was actually going to be a runway for the plane to land on, luckily I was wrong.  The San Salvador airport was pretty small and was indeed surrounded by a forest so it was neat to look out the windows there.  I then flew from San Salvador to Lima the capital city of Peru.  I had a more lengthy lay over there and luckily found a Starbucks with wifi to help pass the time.  I then boarded my flight to Cusco (Cuzco, I’ve seen it spelled both ways even here in the city) at about 5:40 AM Sunday morning.   After taking my seat on the plane, an attendant called my name and said I had been upgraded to first class!  I’m not sure why or how it happened, but it was great.  Although by that time I was very tired, and slept pretty much the whole way.   I landed in Cusco at about 7 AM Sunday morning.  An employee from the school, Maximo Nivel, was there to meet me.  We first went to Maximo Nivel to get some paperwork taken care of then he took me to my homestay house.  I met my homestay parents, Osmar and Virginia.  They are older, Osmar being 80 and Virginia being a few years younger, and they are really great.  They are very nice and seem to really enjoy having people stay at their house.  They can host up to 6 people at a time.  When I first got here there were 4 other people, but there has been a lot of moving around since then already.  There are some new people that came in this weekend but are on a trip to Machu Picchu right now and one girl that came last Friday, so there are at least 4 students staying in the house right now with me being the only one that was here last week.  My house here is pretty nice.  I am the only one that has a room on the first floor which is fine with me although I think it is much colder in my room than the other rooms at night.   The bathroom, kitchen, and hallway all lead to the courtyard in the middle of the house.  The stairs leading to the second floor are also in the courtyard which is not covered, so when it rains, it rains into the house as well…. Interesting.

More to come soon!