tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89201270101586664822024-03-14T04:35:24.662-04:00Carl's ChroniclesThe account of my adventures from November 2007.Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-77310546313969858182009-10-12T07:28:00.003-04:002009-10-12T07:32:26.775-04:00Watching the dawn in Sanur<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Well I struggled awake this morning at 5:00. Not because I had been anywhere the night before (for too long anyway) mind you. Just some vivd dreams kept me awake at times in the night. My old nightmare used to be about a white Tyrannosaurus Rex chasing me (must have mashed Harryhauser movies with the Moby Dick novel I was reading at the impressionable age of 8). Nowadays its about putting things down and leaving them somewhere, fruitlessly trying to locate them. Basically how I go about every day in my waking hours.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Struggled awake anyway and was out by 5:20, biking over in what I hoped was the general direction of Sanur so I could catch the dawn as the sun rose on the east side of Bali, Sanur being on the east coast of the long promontory that is the site of most tourist development in Bali. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The road was calm, not the daily frenzy that makes Bali's main roads resemble Jakarta. This helped, because finding your way and driving on the left (wrong) side of the road and dealing with traffic all while trying to find mostly imprecise road signs is, frankly, a challenge. Best time to explore is the very early morning. Problem was, I was too late, of course - the sun rises earlier than the forty minutes or so I was taking to discover the way to the open beach at Sanur. One false turn, one rapid rush to shelter to escape a light rain shower, and I made it.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The horizon was deep with dark storm clouds, the sun itself barely glimmering through the foreboding, high fronted clouds. I had hoped for a bright and sparkling dawn; instead it was a turbulence of stirred emotions, the sun battling with tempest. I set up the tripod, which had rattled its way with me on the bike, and tried to shoot for something interesting.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">There were people out early - teenage girls resting in the two kiosks atop a stone platform, mothers walking their babies into the warn, shallow water, fishermen-turned-guides readying up for another catch as they shuttled air cylinders to day trip boats moored offshore. The most bemusing was a group of five middle aged Japanese tourists sitting in shallow water in a rough circle, discussing something with great earnestness. All the while the skies above us wheeled with dark clouds that threatened a deluge, held magically at bay by the sun's yellow light. It made for some interesting and unexpected contrasts.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">After a couple of hours, I headed back home, fulling expecting a tropical rainstorm to chase my heels and beat on my back at any moment. It didnt't happen, the clouds lightening and slipping away from this part of the island. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">In the late afternoon I went over to the beach at Seminyak to shoot the sunset. This time the clouds had lumped themselves together; the sun was hard pressed to make any meaningful light - everything was flat and faded away. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I hadn't been on the beach this side, which essentially is the same as at Kuta but further up. The sand itself is coffee colored, with strong accents of dark grey. Maybe it lightens in the day, but the areas where many of the locals were playing very intense games of beach soccer were almost coal dark with volcanic ash. The beachfront was alive with people. Other than the soccer players, there were hawkers offering ship-shaped kites and rings of dried biscuits as tourists ran, walked and jogged their way along. The water often curled in deep along the broad fronted beach. Playing at my feet, it was the softest gentlest touch - until it tugged away to return to the ocean and then I found the sand pulled away from under me. Red flags advertized t regular intervals that it was dangerous to swim in the ocean. With the fast currents and booming surf I could understand why, but this didnt stop children running into the rippling eddies, or their parents build sandcastle follies, or the determined brave the surf to ride atop a board in the last moments of the day.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">With many days in the sun, at work and at play, the youths are tremendously athletic and deeply tanned. Their bright-dark eyes and a winningly welcome smile truly makes you feel you are in some Pacific island, so maybe the old refrain about this being Bali, not Bali Hai, is a little mistaken. There is a certain redolence, a pleasure in the moment, a glance of an eye, that is the hallmark of all tropical idylls. I could certainly live here awhile and let the turbulent world without remain there, jut over the horizon with the storms that threatened all day, but somehow left this perfumed, graceful island alone for another day.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Again going home to dump the foto gear and download fotos, I also picked up my laundry so I'm set for the week ahead. Twice now, as I bike over, I can hear a frenetic chirp in the fields. I first thought this was some sort of bitd, bt it turns out the sound comes from a small frog, severla of twice I discovered crossing the bumpy, potholed track that leads up to the main road.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"> </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Dinner was at the Cosa Nostra, an Italian pizzeria with wood fired oven. I had passed by several times, only to see it is mostly empty even though another Italian pizzeria on another crossroad to Raya Seminyak is overfull. This time I stopped to see if the pizza was any good. It was - the dough is fine and the topping is OK, which outside Italy is always a challenge. They need to add a little more olive oil and basilico, but otherwise OK. And yes, the owner is Italian - but he doesnt work here. Seems to be a rule, this.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Past the guys who at night are tearing up the paving stones on the sidewalk so as to make the road a chaos for the next few weeks, and I return home again. To find my Mac charger/transformer is blown. Grrr.....</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-15315399443728758812009-10-12T07:28:00.002-04:002009-10-12T07:31:20.745-04:00Lunch and a chat<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I woke up late this morning, having had but one small beer at a bar in Seminyak last night. Walking out of the house I looked up and saw the high billowing, brilliant clouds that are the hallmark of tropical islands. I realize with another quizzical smile that, by some really convoluting twists of fate that I actually live and work here. Much more fortunate than the English guy who gets to live on a semi-deserted paradise island in the Barrier Reef.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The shrine and offering stones in the enclosed garden here are bereft and abandoned. The grace and beauty of offering flowers to propitiate the local gods is such a delight that I'm tempted to ask Wayan, my across-the-street neighbor, if she would be so kind as to feed the gods at the same time she comes to clean house every morning.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">As always, the sun is high in the sky by an early hour. At 10am it has already struck shrine that sits on a platform above the garage space in the house diagonally opposite mine - its everdark stone a strong contrast to the clean blue sky behind.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I have some work to do in the office. Once done I bike over to the laundry stall to pick up my last batch of laundry. As I walked up, the woman attending the stall jumped up from the mattress on which she had been lying, suckling her young infant. The baby refused to let go, mewling when she tried to adjust her garb so as to maintain modesty while letting the baby continue to suckle and serving me at the same time. It was an effort she barely managed.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Four shirts, one T-shirt and two pairs of socks and two pairs of underwear, all done in a day and costing 17,000 rupiah - about 1.80 USD. I think its does elsewhere too, as the listing of items has a laundry in Denpasar marked on it. Not bad at all. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I returned some minutes later with the next batch. This time the old crone who was there the first time had returned. I saluted her with 'Siang!' (afternoon!) and shook her hand, as I would in other cultures. Seems to work - she cackled with humor and said something in Balinese to the same attendant.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Another scramble from mattress, but this time without baby attached. My bran is elsewhere and I actually take the bag of laundry back in my hands, so she has to lunge out and take them from me. The old woman reeled back in mirth. I'm getting terrifyingly forgetful...</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I decided to see if I could find my own way to the bungalow I will be renting from the end of next week. It lies in a complex of small bungalows just off Jalan ---, the road that heads to Denpasar. I missed the entrance the first time, but carried on for a kilometer or so more as the road itself was a delight of artisan stores of all types and manners. Wooden carvings jostled with stone relief, ceramics, furniture. All for the local market and export. Behind the soft, dark browns of sun bronzed carvings, verdant fields of rice grass growing tall, palms curving their frond heavy trunks in the light wind and the constant light, bright blue of the sky behind. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Reluctantly, the road being so interesting, I turned around and headed back to find the entry to the bungalow complex. Found it second time around, headed in, located the bungalow I'm to stay in and introduced myself to my future over-the-way neighbor, who was most bemused by the immediacy and intrepid style of my walking up and saying 'Hi!".</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I biked over Sunset Road down Jalan ----, over the intersection with Raya Seminyak and headed for the Cosa Nostra pizzeria, as I was hungry and tempted to see if their pizzas were any good, given there is a large pizza oven installed in the corner. Maybe its the time of day, but yet again there was no one seated and eating. So I decided 'not today' and headed back up the street, past the bars and towards Raya Seminyak.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The cellphone rang, I pulled over and as I did so two women seated at a table at the Warung Austria called out 'its your girlfriend!' It was Ilham, so they were way off. Call over, since the two women were still joshing "you like sweet girl? or you like a beer?" It was done with such a humorous touch I asked them "hey you still serving food?" "Yes we are" "Good, Im hungry!"</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Went for grilled chicken and french fries, along with lemon juice and a 'Copi Bali', which is the local mix of roast coffee and maize. Rough but flavorsome. Katie, the younger of the two, decided to sit herself opposite me and ask the usual - where from, how long will i stay in Bali, do i like it ... At the end the conversation was about culture, origins of Europeans, difference between the gods and God, beauty in Brasil and the cost of becoming a ladyboy in Thailand. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">We also talked of how Moslems and Islam is viewed in the world, Katie and Lulu both being moslem. As I find everywhere, there is always great frustration that Westerners they meet are so fearful and suspicious of anyone moslem - that all are blamed for the actions of the few. The feeling of raw injustice is everpresent. Lulu, the elder, chimed in with her thoughts from time to time but it was Katie who led the conversation. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Katie comes from Lombok, the island to the east of Bali (Lulu too, I think). Pleasantly beautiful and quite alive, Katie came across to Bali three months ago to look for something 'better' than in Lombok, which is a little surprising as Lombok's tourism is growing also nowadays. Better turns out to be a waitress in bistro owned by an Austrian and managed by quite a hard faced woman, who turned up during the course of my lunch. Katie is intelligent and interested in the world: I hope she does better than where she is right now.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">After lunch I went in search of the facial and massage parlor, the owner of which I had met yesterday evening. No luck - the address was a fiction and another turned out to be a restaurant. I gave up and went shopping in the Bintang supermarket instead, buying stuff to keep me going another day.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-75729945509487977832009-10-12T07:27:00.001-04:002009-10-12T07:30:43.836-04:00Sorting out the mess<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">A check back with Chase in the US to get a replacement card sent out and I'm told I have to wait until the International Desk begins work at 9am in the morning - Chicago time. That's 10pm Bali time. I've found US banks tend to have worldwide images but scratch underneath them and they are remarkably domestic in operation. I'm even told they can't or won't send replacement cards outside the US, only for this to be contradicted by the next person down the line. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Anyway, it appears that I left the card in the ATM as it wasn't used after my withdrawals. Im getting terribly forgetful - or there's too much on my mind and not enough is sticking.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Short term needs have been very kindly taken care of, so Im OK for the moment, though most of the funds go home to care for people there. Im the reverse of the third world immigrant moving to the developed world to earn good money to send home. Im a 'first world' guy in a developing economy sending funds to others in the 'first world' - and quite frankly much more enjoying this latest adventure than being stuck back in the 'first world'.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">In the evening headed off to a bar in Seminyak but didnt find much enjoyable so headed straight back home.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-13007951771885165792009-10-12T07:26:00.000-04:002009-10-12T07:26:15.879-04:00Disaster!<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Disaster!</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Early this morning I went to several ATMs to pull money so I could pay the rent on the bungalow I've taken from October 15th for two months. That done I went to work for the day, part of which took me to meet with --- Bagus ---, head of the Bali Tourist Board and owner of a really beautiful resort in Sanur called ----.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">In the course of exchanging cards (rather my accepting his, as I have none left of mine) I saw my credit card was no longer there. My worst fear had happened. Disaster! I've lost my card, and my only access to funds. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">It either fell from my wallet (most unlikely) or I left it in the ATM (most likely as I'm forgetting several things nowadays, more than usual). I try to call the US, but unsuccessfully, so I call the office to inform them and see if I've left it on my desk for some stupid reason. Not there.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I carry on with the meeting and head back to the office. Double search. Nothing. So I call the US and finally get through to one department of Chase to kill the card. Tomorrow I have to see what I can do about getting a replacement and getting through the next couple of weeks before it arrives.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Ouch!</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-10610484938682319072009-10-06T19:24:00.000-04:002009-10-12T07:25:25.694-04:00Househunting in Bali<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Well what a surprise! This morning I got a call from the guy I had tried to call yesterday when I saw his announcement regarding a place to rent for two months from October 15 to December 15. Exactly the price I'm OK with and the timeframe I need.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">We arranged to meet up later in the day, which we did. Ryan, a guy from Pennsylvania that runs an export company supplying artisan work to the States these last four years, has to head to Japan as his wife is expecting their child, she being Japanese. The place is a small bungalow at the end of a small complex of bungalows, which in Indonesian is called a ----.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Fine enough place, certainly big enough for me, though a little dark. But I won't being staying in it much during the day as either I'm at work or I will be out exploring. There are no long nights here - the sun is long gone by 7pm and sunset rushes after at breakneck speed. It's a deal, at 6 million rupiah for two months - approx 300 USD a month.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">During the day a local guy turns up with a motor scooter for me, at a monthly rent of 600,000 rupiah (60 USD more or less), negotiated down from the 650 he first asked. Next month I'll get a better deal.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">So, within 24 hours of being on the ground. I have accommodation and transport sorted out. That has to be a record!</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">In the evening I head back to Bintang, the supermarket on Jalan Raya Seminyak, to buy some supplies for the house. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">In the warm night air, a bare whisper of a breeze touches the heavy, rippled tongues of leaves on the tall standing trees planted by the street wall. Two dogs bark at each other and the sky, a baby cries and its parents hush to still its worries. In the background the constant dull whirr of motorbikes and cars. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">And indoors the buzz of small mosquitos, one of which has really jabbed me on a nerve. The nerve!</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-80176266958199128472009-10-05T02:17:00.000-04:002009-10-07T02:18:43.877-04:00Landed in Bali<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I arrived past midnight in Bali's main airport at Denpasar, which is actually south of Kuta. In no time I had checked through baggage claim, grabbed a cab and dumped the bags in the room at Agung Cottage, the place I've usually stayed in in Kuta.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The day turned out to be a gentle one as my principal colleagues-to-be were out of town. Did some more prep work, connected to the internet and in the afternoon took a cab to the office as there I was to be given a key to some temporary accommodation not so far away.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Fortunately for me, Lucie (a French former nurse and mother to the principals) also took me to check out the stores and other places nearby, most of which is in easy walking distance of the place I'm to stay in a few days. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">This is the main street of Seminyak, the district just north of Kuta. It feels like many tourist strips around the world, in the throes of disordered development that in a few years will appear to be the most established place on earth. Buzios, Surfers Paradise, Ocean Drive were all once as Seminyak is now.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Now to find a simple, cheap place to stay for a few months ....</p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Helvetica, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-74875933393530766742009-10-03T02:32:00.000-04:002009-10-03T03:34:09.409-04:00Singapore Sling<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I flew to Singapore from Jakarta on Thursday evening, the reason being to get a 60 day business visa for Indonesia. Slung out so I can sling back in.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The trip to the airport wasn't the usual jam of traffic all the way, but this time I had to deal with a cab driver who had obviously been working far longer than he should. He was visibly drooping and half way to the airport his eyes started clamming shut. Plus he was belching constantly from his lunch, much of which I could smell too. Didn't know people ate seaweed here (that's what it smelt like).</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I killed a few minutes at Starbuck's then checked in. The airport surcharge is now 150,000 rupiah (15 USD), which I think is more than I paid last time. Strange how airport taxes and surcharges seem to be charged twice nowadays - first by the airline, then by the airport. Anyone any idea who's scamming here?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The flight, courtesy Air Asia, was late again - this time by a full hour. But at least the ground staff kept to their routine and didn't bother telling passengers waiting at the gate.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Crushed knees for 90 minutes and then we were in Singapore. Pulled some cash (I still have some) and got my passport fotos for the visa from a foto kiosk in 90 seconds. Much easier than hunting in a shopping mall in Jakarta for a foto shop.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Fast cab ride into Chinatown and my usual hotel, the Royal Peacock. Dump bags, check the internet, fall asleep.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Friday morning I had everything ready for the visa agent, then met with a couple of people during the day.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">In the evening I walked the full length of the main road from the bottom end of Chinatown (where the hotel is) to Chijmes, which is a church-turned-restaurant complex, down the road past Raffles Hotel, past the War Memorial and the rest of the strtuctures people were dismantling after the recent Formula One race, through to the Esplanade.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The Esplanade is Singapore's main theater complex, its twin roofs a light studded carapace that looks for all the world like the backs of two gigantic wood lice. I had never been her before I was hunting for some good shots of the roof. That can't be done from close up (you need to be in a higher building) but there is a wonderful walkway around the structures that leads you to the original 'pool' or harbor.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">On the outer rim the casino complex is going up (so far it looks weird); this was where the ship we traveled on from Sydney to Genova was moored. With the three main towers of the casino complex going up, the whole pool now looks hemmed in, a tranquil lagoon ideal for water sports (get ready for power racing).</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">This is the period of the mid-autumn festival, so here there are several free performances of puppets, jugglers and musicians. I hing around one of them waiting for the sun to set, the night to cover the sky with a blue-purple mantle and the lights to blaze from the skyscrapers in the Central Business District - a perfect evening shot of Singapore.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Later I wandered around the Esplanade, then retraced my steps back to the hotel.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Downloaded fotos, showered, checked internet and went out for a drink. Not much into clubbing so was soon back at the hotel seeing if I'd taken any good fotos. Maybe a couple.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Saturday is an obligatory easy day, with many hours in the airport waiting for my flight. I could have wandered around Singapore some more, but the clouds are heavy and I'm not into shopping or stuffing myself with food. So better to do the airport sit-out.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-74369871757802291642009-09-27T23:21:00.001-04:002009-10-03T03:17:33.114-04:00Idul Fitri in Jakarta<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">These last few days are lazy days. It's the end of Ramadhan, with the feast days of Idul Fitri and Labaran making for a whole week of slowed business and an air of vacation and many take off work for the whole week.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Most of this time I have been doing preparatory work for the new project in Bali, whence it looks like I will be moving in the first full week of October.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">In the free time, and when Ilham was free from his own family obligations, we biked around Jakarta looking at some sights that I hadn't seen or hadn'te visited for a while.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">On the Thursday (September 24th) Ilham suggested we go and see the old Dutch era cemetery, which is now a museum (or as he cleverly says, a 'musuleum'. Many havy old slabs, heavily engraved in Dutch proclaiming the qualities and origins of directors and captains of the Dutch East India Company. All of these mostly dead by the age of fifty, just as in Malacca. Other than these, the Victorian cast iron monuments to piety (as perceived by the pastor), the fine marble plaques of the Belle Epoque and simpler cement ones cast around with no sense of care.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">We also stopped by the once-Dutch, now Catholic, cathedral. There is an active Christian community in Indonesia that dates back to the first Portuguese traders. A distinct minority, their descendants are quite evident at the church here.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The structure is still austere as the few baroque ornaments the Catholics have fixed to the walls barely impact the somber Dutch feel. What does stand out is the chocolate brown wooden ceiling, its planks arching overhead like an upturned boat. The one touch of lightness is outside as the two spires are a white painted open lattice of iron fretwork.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I jumped off the bike to go inside a park and snap a foto of what Ilham told me is the liberation struggle of/for Papua. A desolate park of cracked concrete and unhinged marble tiles, used now by some equally abandoned souls for god knows what purpose. Reminds me of many other liberation monuments set up by liberation governments who then moved on to the next theme of the political season.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">On Saturday (September 26th) we went to old Batavia once more as I wanted to take some sunset shots of the harbor. Just a bit too late in getting there, but having a look around sunset isnt the right time to be here - dawn is.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">However, sunset and the early evening is a great time to be in the main square of Batavia. It was full of students and street traders, just as I remembered from my visit last year. Ilham went one way, I went the other and managed to take a couple of OK fotos. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">In the course of my wandering around six teenagers came up to me and asked if I would speak English with them. This doesn't happen frequently, but for sure most times when Im out many teenagers will shoot phrases at me to practice. Good sign, that. So these six girls pulled me into the light of a food stall, started to ask me questions and even began videoing the whole 'lesson'. I'm famous!</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Sunday dawn (September 27th) found me back in the old port of Sunda Kelapa, shooting for the warm pastels of the fishing vessels moored against the harbor wharves. Timing is OK, but its way too early for most people so there's almost nothing going on. Just boats at rest, the occasional fisher with his craft in the breakwater beyond and one or two sailors caulking the hulls of their boats.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Sunday evening brought us to the obelisk in Merdeka Square, Jakarta's iconic tower with viewing platform that dominates the center of the city. The park was absolutely full of families spending the last day of the holidays in picnicking, kite flying and general relaxation. It was too late to join the queue to go up the tower - and anyway the queue was way too long. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">As we walked around the park, the late afternoon turned quickly into sunset, twilight and night. Still the children played, the music played, the muezzin chanted in the distance.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">For me too the long period of preparation is over. One more week to set some things moving, sort some other things out - and then I'm set for Bali.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-32333720899170635682009-09-21T20:11:00.001-04:002009-10-03T03:18:32.979-04:00A second trip to Bali<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The last five days I have been in Bali on work related matters (this blog isn't about work, so don't worry I won't bore you excessively). This does mean, of course, that I wasn't wandering around like the tourist I was last time. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">It wasn't planned to be so, but in the end I spent my four nights in the same hotel, which is actually quite a nice place and in a good location in Kuta. The Agung Village Hotel is only 100 meters or so from where the bomb exploded in 2002, killing upwards of 200 people. Nowadays there's a monument to the victims on the corner, which has turned out to be the gathering place for many tourists that some to visit. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The rooms of the hotel are clean enough, their doorways and covered terraces all faced in the traditional raw terracotta painted brick and sea grey stonework. The swimming pool is not long, but long enough for a good swim, which I managed most days. The room rate is quite good, even for a tourist trap like Kuta - 300,000 Rupiah a night (approx 30 USD). Staff is most friendly, and adeptly handled my constantly changing plans in the middle of one of their busiest weekends.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Early Saturday morning (September 19th) I was shaken awake as the whole room was shaking. Another earthquake! Unbelievable! This one was much shorter that the one last week in Jakarta and probably a little less powerful where I was. But the room shook more and I could hear some cracking. So out I go again, bag in hand (laptop and camera). This time I waited only a few minutes before crashing back to bed for another hour.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I learned later that, apparently, though Bali can shake a bit, this tremblor was a relative biggie that they only experience once every sixty years or so. What's with me? Why do I drag tremors and quakes around with me?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Saturday evening I went to a bar/club in Seminyak for a drink and to meet up with an acquaintance. He had been partying too long, so I walked him home, which was not far way) just to make sure he didn't fall into anything on the way back. It was late and I had trouble finding a legit taxi; fortunately two other people I have chatted to in the bar passed by on their motorbike and offered me a lift to Kuta, close to my hotel. Yes, its risky, but its just as risky walking the streets in the deep dark of night, so I accepted. And they were great. Just as good, as I had to get up early for a trip up the west coast of Bali on Sunday.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Sunday morning (September 20th) I was driven up the west side of Bali. Which turns out to be both fascinating and beautiful - easily the most beautiful part of Bali I've seen so far, with the exception of the cove at PadangBai on the east side. The trip up, 90km or so, took just over two and a half hours. Really enjoyable, with the scenery constantly changing and activities of the villages everywhere. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">First we went through some flat land. the outskirts of tourist development, then very quickly across rice paddies into some rolling hills with their narrow valleys punctuated by fast flowing streams (it had been raining during the night and was still in the air). Here the village stores fronting the winding road are very much tourist oriented, with artisan workshops annexed to the back of most of them.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Then the scenery opened up into a broader plain with wider rivers, the coast in view and rice paddies stretching to the edge of some hills hidden in the mist and rain inland. The villages are obviously agricultural here. Dark stoned temples, shrines and sacred posts in the fields are absolutely everywhere.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The hills creep back to the shoreline and we go back to winding our way through vale and gully, but steeper than before, the rivers raging with angry storm water, villages perched on crumbling earthen escarpments.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Beyond the ridge of hills another plain in which the provincial capital of Negara sits, large temple complexes and enclosed spaces confirming the eternal commitment of the Balinese to their gods.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Not far from here my rendezvous, to see a property development on the coast. And as I ull my camera from its bag to shoot some fotos, the skies open and I'm drenched. Which is why you see no fotos from this tript.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">From here I'm taken inland, to the edge of a national park, where hills cede to the moutain chain that crosses the north of the island. The wether is much more clement here. The villages are neatly arranged, tidily kept; flowers and fruit tress are everywhere. Its a garden land, a tranquil place nestled under the cover of deep forest and terraced rice fields. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Very very beautiful up here. There's even a lake, made by the damming of a river. Almost Africen. Almost Caribbean. Almost Pyrenean. A true Arcadia. What a delight!</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The afternoon passes too fast; my driver must take me back to the clutter of Kuta.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I spend the evening in the hotel - I don't want to rub the image of West Bali from my eyes.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Monday (September 21st) I was up super early so I could take some fotos at dawn on the beach at Kuta. Of course it faces the sunset and it was still stormy, so there wasn't really much I could shoot. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">One guy was taking some shots of a couple, so I took a shot of him. Turns out he's a good photographer - way better than me at portrait work. So here's his link and judge for yourself.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Afternoon flight back to Jakarta. Thanks to the end of Ramadhan the city is quiet so it was a fast trip back to the residence. What happens next?</p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Helvetica, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;"><br /></span></span></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-2387416236159346552009-03-11T23:12:00.000-04:002009-05-11T02:44:19.702-04:00A day in Arequipa<div style="text-align:justify;"><br />I had already fixed my departure from Arequipa for tomorrow morning, so today was all set for walking around the city some more. First up, I needed some breakfast. There didn't appear to be anything at the hostal so I wondered around a few blocks looking for somewhere interesting to sit down for a coffee (a real one) and food. Eventually I found a place, not far from the convent of Santa Catalina, advertizing American breakfast. Great! Flapjacks! In the end I went for a delicious and wonderfully prepared bowl of fresh fruit salad, some toast and jam - and a real coffee. The place is called La Casa Blanca, another classic house where with inner courtyard which is also a hostal, as Jorge the bartender told me. The food was excellent, the coffee perfect, the service superb and the hospitality unforgettable. I am beginning to like Arequipa a lot!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetD7ZZiE4I/AAAAAAAAAtw/m80Qc5-oFgA/s1600-h/090311+028+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetD7ZZiE4I/AAAAAAAAAtw/m80Qc5-oFgA/s400/090311+028+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326425672005063554" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">By the back entrance to the Jesuit church and cloisters</span><br /><br />From La Casa Blanca I walked up towards the green park at the top of the old part of town. Students an many places were queuing up to register for end of term exams. One street seemed given over to language institutes (primarily English but a couple of French also). At the end I got semi-lost: I knew where I was in relation to the center but couldn't find what I was looking for. After walking down the central ring road, eyes beginning to water with the car pollution (Mexico!) I found myself in a maze of extremely tidy alleyways, with houses so similar to those of an southern Andalucian fishing village. This looks like it was once a poor quarter, totally refurbished by artists and well-to-do. <br /><br />I wandered out of San Lazaro, as this district was called, through an another alleyway full of artisans' stores and into a plaza next to the monastery and church of San Francisco. The square, shaded by trees, was a place for old people and students alike to sit, converse and watch the world go by, much as I was doing. As always, an itinerant shoeshiner was sitting on his portable workstool, cleaning someone's shoes. Two pensioners were sitting on a bench opposite, each silent but obviously together. Two students, a reflection of their earlier lives, sat in tender embrace just two paces away. Such is life.<br /><br />After a few minutes trying to take fotos of some of the people I walked over to the alley of the artisans and a small museum that fronted the plaza. There wasn't much to see (a contemporary art exhibition) so I headed down the main street street, past the convent of Santa Catalina again and towards the Plaza de Armas. The great iron gates to the cathedral precinct were open so I peeked inside; it seems to have the standard, severe appearance of most religious buildings built in the late 19th century (the cathedral being rebuilt after an earlier, devastating earthquake). As I retraced my footsteps a woman came up to me offering to sell cactus fruit. As of yesterday I'm an expert of course, so I ask "How much for the 'tuna'?" "Oh you know about them? One sol for three, señor." Well that beats the three soles for two I paid yesterday! So I bought three, ate one immediately and pocketed the other two for later. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />Past the church to San Domingo, back up the street I walked earlier in the morning, and to the gates of the convent to Santa Teresa; closed when I first walked here, open now. Bought my ticket, signed in, accepted the company of a guide and was given a most capable and professional tour of the convent. This one is infinitely smaller that the convent to Santa Catalina, and obviously built with the ladies of the tradespeople in mind, not dueñas of the hacenderos. No independence here - strict observance of church doctrine, right down to the wooden carousels on which outsiders could deposit messages, gifts and articles for their relatives, secluded inside as voluntary (and not-so, possibly) lifers. Never once could a nun be seen from someone outside the community. A community of nuns still lives in the convent; like that of Santa Catalina, the greater part is given over to the local government and is used as a tourist attraction.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Setbdx-t8JI/AAAAAAAAAuY/jbB_rgNZFWI/s1600-h/090311+041+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Setbdx-t8JI/AAAAAAAAAuY/jbB_rgNZFWI/s400/090311+041+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326451551486472338" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The seller of seed for the pigeons</span><br /><br />As always, the guide wanted to draw my attention to the extrinsic value of the religious artifacts on show in the Viceregal Art Museum, which forms a part of the convent. As always, I was more interested in the intrinsic value of the art itself. I learned that plaster figurines, some of reasonable size, were actually created by building skeletons of light wood, which then were covered in plaster soaked cloth to render the sculpture's clothing more realistic. Clever - the same technique was used for cire perdue bronze cast sculptures; I didn't know it was downscaled also. As in other buildings there was a sense of clean freshness in many of the rooms, so I asked if they had been restored. "Yes, after the earthquake in 2001 many of the ceilings in these rooms caved in, so they were rebuilt with the traditional slllar (a light colored form of tufa). We lost many of the plaster frescos that were once painted on these walls". Amazingly, the mahogany floors survived virtually unscathed. <br /><br />To my guide's visible embarrassment I breezed past religious reliquaries, tableaux and dolls. One of them was fascinating and truly impressive. Imagine a nativity scene with its wooden dolls. Now take the same idea, apply it to other key events in the Old and New Testaments (Garden of Eden, Noah and his Ark, Murder of the Innocents) and put it all together. Takes up a lot of room, right? So build a big box around them all, open it up and use the interior sides as a back drop for the scenes. When you want to travel, pack the figurines inside, close the sides up and the top down, and off you go. Not this particular version (its glass panels would break), but smaller, simpler ones were taken by the priests into their parishes to both show and tell the locals of the mystery and magic of the Bible. Propaganda Fidei.<br /><br />Other items that had found there way here were Wedgwood china (the bridge and the swallows being the give-away), a Chinese vase I was told was from the dynasty of Huang Di (OK, I know) and examples of lace. I asked if lace had become something for which Arequipa was known, as often an activity generated in monasteries is a stimulus for local artisan craft; not here apparently. At the exit the ever forbearing guide asked me sweetly for a tip; she was a student and this was her way of making some extra money. Of course!<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />I continued my wanderings around the central area of the city. Some time later I found myself passing the entrance to yet another of the wonderful colonial period houses here. The courtyard of this one was very attractive; being a museum I paid the entrance fee and walked in. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_del_Moral">Casa del Moral</a> was once the home of one of Arequipa's leading families. With the passing of time and generations, the family dissolved and the property was sold off. Eventually one Arthur Williams of England bought it in 1948. By then a ruin, he rebuilt and refurbished it, keeping to the primary blue and red exterior walls of the convent. His heirs sold it on to a local bank, which then as part of a cultural program, has kept it in good order and sponsors its use as a museum. I marveled at the grace of the place, walking around its rooms twice and discovering the small garden through which a small stream no doubt flowed in the rainy season. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetCZ-Y5YmI/AAAAAAAAAtg/ixHcP0XIje4/s1600-h/090311+014+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetCZ-Y5YmI/AAAAAAAAAtg/ixHcP0XIje4/s400/090311+014+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326423998307328610" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The Casa del Moral</span><br /><br />I was on my way out and the guardian asked if I'd been on the roof yet. I didn't know one could, so followed his directions back to the garden and there found the steps up to the roof. Here, walking over the shallow vault of the sillar-and-tile roofs, was a tremendous view over the town itself. Looking across the street I could see another abandoned ruin of what was once a fine house. That got me thinking ... I walked all around, looking down and out and around. <br /><br />Eventually I made my way back to the stairs and glanced back for a final view of the town. I could see the beginnings of the mountains through which I had traveled to Colca yesterday. Up and up they rose, seeming so close by. The clouds broiled past the higher slopes as the heat of the day caused them to rise. I could see the furthest extents of the city by now. Something caught my eye a little higher - the mountain continued to rise. I kept looking up. And up. A flash of light that surely wasn't a cloud. No, it was snow. At that very moment the clouds shredded against the utmost peak of the mountain and I could see its summit. It wasn't a mountain. It was a volcano. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misti">Misti</a>, at last! And so overwhelmingly close! Stunningly close. My jaw dropped. I sat down. Couldn't help it. The view of Misti was awesome. I stayed another fifteen minutes waiting for the clouds to clear sufficiently to take a shot. Here it is.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetDD_3W05I/AAAAAAAAAto/ImDP9L6wMKY/s1600-h/090311+022+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetDD_3W05I/AAAAAAAAAto/ImDP9L6wMKY/s400/090311+022+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326424720258028434" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The Convent of Santa Catalina with Volcán Misti behind</span><br /><br />It was lunchtime. I strolled through an alley way behind the cathedral I had come across earlier; there were a couple of places that looked interesting. One had a top terrace, so I headed up and ordered a prawn ceviche, followed by trout. The waiter brought me a complimentary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisco_sour">Pisco Sour</a> - my very first. I had thought of it as a Caipirinha, given its ingredients are similar (change the cachaça for pisco and you have it), but it came prepared as a Margarita (a semi-frozen slurry). Softer than a Caipirinha, sweeter than a Margarita. Not bad at all. The prawn ceviche was delicious - and now I found out why there is a Pampa de Camarones near Arequipa. These are river prawns, but nothing like the freshwater crawfish taste I was expecting; these are as firm and succulent as any I've ever eaten that come from the cold oceans. Must be the altitude. Yum! Trout was good too, as was the glass of white wine, the coffee and desert. Mixto's is the place - I recommend it. After lunch, what else but back to the hotel to check email, have a cup of coca tea and take a short siesta.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />In the afternoon I finally found the way into the complex of the Jesuits, with its light beige sillar courtyards, cloisters and patios. In the main courtyard a group were being taken through dance sequences by their choreographer. When costumed I'm sure its a sight. In by the back entrance, out by the front, I walked up one block then down the pedestrian precinct. "Hey señor, you need some laces!" The street vendor was right - the ones one my shoes were frayed. "OK - I'll buy a pair from you if you let me take a foto of you!" I shot back. "No hay problema, señor, but I recommend you buy these laces, as they are stronger." So, thanks to Pablo the lace seller, I have a foto and a new pair of stout laces.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetaD1RYgdI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/P9j8XzH6L10/s1600-h/090311+034+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetaD1RYgdI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/P9j8XzH6L10/s400/090311+034+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326450006181839314" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Pablo the Shoelace seller</span><br /><br />As the afternoon turned into an early evening, I simply wandered the main square, watching the people as they met up at the end of the day, let their children play, paid court to each other, read the papers. Resplendent in new laces, I had my soft comfortable suedes brushed clean by one of the shoeshiners. One woman, who had expertly caught a pigeon to show it to her nephew, wanted to see the fotos I had taken, including hers. So we all chatted for a few moments. A young, timid boy came up to me. His relatives were sitting on the same bench as I; one man gestured to me they were all deaf and dumb; if I had some change it would be appreciated. I didn't, unfortunately, so within a few moments they all moved off. One youth was sitting on the steps to the cathedral, apparently reading his textbooks but infinitely more interested in the five female students babbling away to his left.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetZWXvhyMI/AAAAAAAAAuA/4cXZ-gmQX5Y/s1600-h/090311+048+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetZWXvhyMI/AAAAAAAAAuA/4cXZ-gmQX5Y/s400/090311+048+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326449225161099458" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The sun sets over the plain of Arequipa</span><br /><br />The sun was setting; I walked back to the hotel so I could see it from the top terrace. "Hola señor! Would you like to eat at our restaurant?" I got from the three women stationed at the door. "I still live here!" I smiled back at them. "I will eat there tonight, but on one condition - I can take a foto of you all!" Which I did, of course. Up on the top the air was chilling quickly as the sun faded away. They have a clever answer to this: ponchos, courtesy of the house. Very functional, very comfortable. Two guys were playing 'traditional' music for the guests. "Would you like to buy our CD señor?" "Sure, but is it really you on the CD?" "Yes it is, all five of us." "But there are only two of you!" "Our friends are preparing for another show; soon we go to join them." So, along with my laces, I'm the proud owner of a CD of Andean music.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetZEGnV0YI/AAAAAAAAAt4/SNHJ9OEXPvo/s1600-h/090311+053+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SetZEGnV0YI/AAAAAAAAAt4/SNHJ9OEXPvo/s400/090311+053+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326448911325712770" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Mary and the music</span><br /><br />Night rushed into the sky, banishing the sun another day. The cathedral was now lit by great floodlights; the plaza by a myriad of streetlamps. I ate my steak, washed down a glass of red wine (Peruvian wine remains very good), arranged my taxi for the following morning (as Betty insisted, saying that there were still problems with rogue drivers drugging passengers and robbing them).<br /><br />And hit the sack.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><br><br>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-31550508371579240862009-03-10T22:05:00.003-04:002009-04-16T10:39:24.263-04:00The Valle del Colca<div style="text-align:justify;"><br />With all alarms set for 02:15 (time for quick shower), there was o way of course that I could sleep. So I worked on the fotos awhile and finally closed my eyes around midnight. <br /><br />The alarms rang, I jumped into the shower, there was a knock on the door.'"The driver is here for you!" Early! Jump out of shower, frisk water off with towel, ram clothes on, grab bag with camera and money and zoom down the stairs. Outside on the square a white 'colectivo' was waiting, two people already sitting there looking sourly at me as I boarded. The driver gunned the engine and we rocketed off.<br /><br />Instead of leaving town the minibus went around town collecting other people till the vehicle was full. First the people already on board, whom I quickly heard from their accents were English from east of London area, then me, then three women in their 60s (who from their accents I figured were Canadian French), a remarkably healthy looking young man (100% Norway), two young women (Canadian also) and finally a guy who had been pulled live from an all night disco party (German). All aboard then, and we pulled out of town, most everyone trying to find some place against which they could lean their head. Further sleep was next to impossible because of the road's bumpiness and the constant chatter of one of the Quebeckers. Still a couple of hours I managed; I remember being shook awaked in the slight lightening of pre-dawn as the minibus turned left off the main road and began shaking like a Mexican jumping bean as the new road turned to the surface of Mars.<br /><br />For many, many kilometers the bus jerked, veered, slewed and jammed as the driver navigated the moonscape of potholes that pretended to be the road to somewhere. For more than 40 kilometers the road was a disaster - and the main reason, I figured, why we had to get up at 02:30 am for what is a 90km distance trip. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec-nWPqw4I/AAAAAAAAAqs/RP6RzXTPs4E/s1600-h/090310+006+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec-nWPqw4I/AAAAAAAAAqs/RP6RzXTPs4E/s400/090310+006+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325293930096018306" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Fellow passengers silhouetted at dawn</span><br /><br />Dawn seemed a long time coming, but when it did, it came with a rush. Finally I could see our surroundings, rocky, grassy rolling hills with snow touched mountains far in the distance. My camera finger was itching and at one point I couldn't take the frustration of seeing so much I wanted to take fotos of and not being able to. "Richard", I called out to the driver, "can we stop for a few minutes please? I need to stretch my legs and maybe the others do too". He pulled over and everyone piled out (no thanks from anyone, I noticed). I scrambled over the rocky field to see the area more clearly. At the top of the slight incline was a ceremonial rock pile, the type that in other cultures is used to mark a grave or a sacred place. The colors were stupendous - red rocks, the early sun flushing them with a suffused orange, the dark mountains in the distance, snow sparkling from so far away, the sky a wispy, frosty, icy blue.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec7wjLXZ5I/AAAAAAAAAp8/JtoHsjYK0Jg/s1600-h/090310+004+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec7wjLXZ5I/AAAAAAAAAp8/JtoHsjYK0Jg/s400/090310+004+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325290789651572626" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Dawn's first light</span><br /><br />The driver was in a hurry; we all headed back to the minibus. Not too much further along the road and we halted again. "This is the highest point of our trip today", said Jesús, the guide for the tour. "We are now at the Paso del XXX", he continued, "4810 meters above sea level." Again we clambered out. I headed up the hill to see the stone huts at the top. The white stuff I had seen on some rocks earlier turned out not to be guano, as I thought it might have been, but wind sculpted ice. These huts must be set up as shelters, like in the Alps and the Rockies, their battered doors bright red against the now azure sky.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec8HMDnJhI/AAAAAAAAAqE/HttStGf1Cx8/s1600-h/090310+013+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec8HMDnJhI/AAAAAAAAAqE/HttStGf1Cx8/s400/090310+013+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325291178582025746" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Shelters at 4800m high</span><br /><br />On we sped, heading down an ever steepening hillside towards a valley below. The driver was careening round the curves way too fast; one of the younger Canadian women was getting visibly worried. "Riccardo, slow down - we are very uncomfortable in the back here!" It worked for a few minutes. Once down on the valley floor we came through a toll where we paid to enter the <a href="http://www.colcavalley.com/">Valle del Colca</a>; quickly after that were in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chivay">Chivay</a>, parked by a hostal/restaurant. Breakfast was being served. That's why he was rushing .. <br /><br />I finished in about five minutes, leaving the others to carry on. I walked around Chivay a little, seeing some people gathering in what I suppose was a marketplace but in reality is a bare, muddy corner of ground; others were clambering into an open truck to head off somewhere. Many of the men were dressed in jeans and workshirts, the type you'd find anywhere; the women were mostly dressed in a more traditional style, black shows, stockings, pleated dress arching to the knees, blouse with two cardigans, brightly colored scarf and hat. The sun was bright, the air quite alpine, the temperature fresh. Half an hour later we were back in the bus, threading our way through the valley towards its ever narrowing neck.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />Soon the road began to climb out of the valley itself, up along its southern slopes. I was fuming with frustration - I wanted to get out at every turn. Every ten meters. The scenery is absolutely tremendous here. In the still relatively early light (just short of 9am, the sun already high in the sky) every shade of green was visible - in the woodland, the fields, the cultivated terraces. With its clear sky and alpine surroundings, this is like an ever-abundant Swiss Oberland. I reckon that almost anything that you might like to grow here would grow here. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec8aBwfv_I/AAAAAAAAAqM/KBSOYjeTc80/s1600-h/090310+019+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec8aBwfv_I/AAAAAAAAAqM/KBSOYjeTc80/s400/090310+019+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325291502235009010" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The terraces of the Valle del Colca</span><br /><br />Here in the Andes I remembered a tale by HG Wells I read long ago, about a one-eyed man who found himself in a village of blind people, thinking himself king because he could see through his one eye. What I mostly remembered from the tale was the descriptions of a beautiful land, high up on the roof of the world. This could be such a place. The <a href="http://www.colcavalley.com/">Valle del Colca</a> is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.<br /><br />We stopped once, when Jesús stepped out to buy two different types of cactus fruit - 'tuna', which is sharp and acerbic, and another which is sweeter. I took the opportunity walk up the road to grab a couple of fotos, thumbing a lift to get back in. I don't think anyone smiled at my bravura. <br /><br />Eventually we came to the top of the long drive up the valley. The valley itself had narrowed into a gorge, the gorge into a canyon. There was a long drop down to the raging river below. "This <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colca">Cañón del Colca</a> is the deepest in the world", our guide told everyone before we got out. "The total drop is almost 4,000 meters, more than the Grand Canyon in Colorado," When we did get out and I looked down I commented "Doesn't look like 4,000 meters to me." "True, here the drop from where we are standing to the river below is only 1,200 meters. Further up the canyon, where the road doesn't go, it gets more extreme thanks to the drop in the river and the closeness of the mountains. We are here for a different reason - condors."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SedCgKOlW5I/AAAAAAAAAq8/23Wyy_I29Bc/s1600-h/090310+021+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SedCgKOlW5I/AAAAAAAAAq8/23Wyy_I29Bc/s400/090310+021+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325298204657671058" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The Cañón del Colca</span><br /><br />This is the Cruz del Condor where, regular as clockwork, condors that roost in the crags below take flight ever morning. We have to be here early (so, not just the breakfast, where there was no hurry) to catch them before the warming air thermals allow them to take off for other parts of the countryside. We were there at just after 9am. I heard once voice exclaim "you all should have been here at 8:30 - there were ten condors then!". Yes, apart from our minibus there were at least ten others parked in the area provided. About as solitary an affair as visiting the Vatican....<br /><br />I wondered over to the side of the upper mirador, one two jammed with people and their cameras, not really expecting to see anything, and not particularly interested either. I was more frustrated at not being able to take good shots of the countryside than focusing on looking for oversized vultures. I've seen vultures at work; it's not a pretty sight. Anyway, with this little putt-putt camera I'd never be able to shoot anything more than a distant blur. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec81nV77jI/AAAAAAAAAqU/s77Tn_5fTr8/s1600-h/090310+052+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec81nV77jI/AAAAAAAAAqU/s77Tn_5fTr8/s400/090310+052+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325291976180624946" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The Cruz del Condor overlooks the deepest canyon on Earth</span><br /><br />Irony of ironies, right below the people on the terrace, and just out of sight of them, a solitary vulture (sorry, condor) was perched, glumpily looking around. OK, then a couple of shots then, on maximum zoom. I blinked, it was no longer there. A wave of exclamations with whirs of cameras followed, as the condor glided along the length of the cliff edge and back to its rock. This it did a few times, occasionally sweeping low over the people who strained up to capture one foto or video of the great bird. By now I was hooked of course, sitting athwart a rock at the very edge of the cliff nd scanning the canyon for a glimpse of the thing. Every time i passed i panned and shot like crazy, hoping that at least one foto might be in focus - and have a condor caught forever. Here's one I managed: <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec9Y1NHttI/AAAAAAAAAqc/2bgz3ng3XfY/s1600-h/090310+042+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec9Y1NHttI/AAAAAAAAAqc/2bgz3ng3XfY/s400/090310+042+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325292581197166290" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">In the Canyon of the Condors</span><br /><br />Just in time too, as the park guard called me off my own condor's perch with "You can't sit there, it's dangerous". He was right too - no way to recover if i slipped.<br /><br />While the others carried on condor-watching, I clambered up to the large white cross at the top of the hill above the miradores. From here I could see the length of the canyon proper, the valley we had come from to right, the deepening rift of the canyon curving away to the left. Back in the park I offered the minibus driver a cup of coffee, bought from one of the floridly dressed women who had set up their stalls in order to sell trinkets to the tourists. Richard, like Jesús, was a university student, working in the tourism business to earn the extra buck. Explained his driving anyway - the coffee was my peace offering for having told him to drive more carefully earlier.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SedB78bCsBI/AAAAAAAAAq0/ZIUyR-MGGP0/s1600-h/090310+030+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SedB78bCsBI/AAAAAAAAAq0/ZIUyR-MGGP0/s400/090310+030+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325297582476537874" /></a><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />Everyone gathered back into the minibus, we headed back down the same road we had traveled, this time with less of a rush. Twice we pulled over so the others could take photos of some places I had desperately shot out of the window on the way up. No point by now - the sun was brilliant and way up in the sky - no shadows, all the earlier shades and hues of green flattened into a singularity. I bought a couple more of the cactus fruit and shared them out between my fellow passengers. The most miserable of murmured thank yous. What a bunch. I made a couple more attempts at conversation during the outing but gave up.<br /><br />On the way down we stopped at a town in the valley we had passed earlier - a place called Maca. Here, Jesús explained to us, was one of the classic churches of the zone, with its covered balcony above the main doors. I was more taken by the great Imperial eagle, trapped into a life as a tourist clown and trained to perch on the head of any tourist so stupid as to let the raptor do such a thing. Again more tourist trinkets, polychrome pettiskirts and ribboned ponytails.<br /><br />We were back in the same hostal/restaurant for a long buffet, bursting with samples of the local food (all very good). Worth paying extra for but not the 20 soles (26 with coffee and desert) they charged. No-one was rushing any more. Jesús and Richard both grabbed to-gos as well. The weather turned bleak and cold, with rain hammering down in a mater of moments. After lunch there was one more place to visit according to the plan, a resort with thermal springs. Since it was still inclement Jesús asked who wanted to visit the place. Only the three elderly Canadians did, everyone else stoically not answering the question. Peer pressure won out and the minibus headed back towards Arequipa.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />Up over the valley walls again, past streams torrenting down from the mountain sides as the rainstorm moved away. Soon the road turned to the equivalent of a magnified gold ball, pitted in every direction. Past the high point, past the high, soggy moors we barely saw in the beginning of the day, were the first glimpses of vicuña I had seen, slender miniatures of the llama in Lima's park. Eventually Richard relented, letting us out to stretch legs and try to get close to the animals. I walked downwind of them, turned back up and managed a couple of shots. Then it was back on board, hell for leather to the next stop, a depot called Sumbay at the junction between the roads to Arequipa and Cusco. Behind us now was an impressive limestone cliff, the winds have blown its face into arches, columns and caves. I'm sure someone would have lived here in times past, some of the lines were too precise for nature.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec9rfFHhFI/AAAAAAAAAqk/zWnuEeCBLLg/s1600-h/090310+054+Colca.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sec9rfFHhFI/AAAAAAAAAqk/zWnuEeCBLLg/s400/090310+054+Colca.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325292901675533394" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Vicuña live at high altitudes - enough to take your breath way</span><br /><br />Past the control post at Quiscos, down into the dry valley at Yura, dominated by a massive cement works, through fog that obliged me once again to tell Richard to slow down 'or else', we came back down into Arequipa. One by one the others were returned to their pick up points till it was my turn. Thanks to Jesús, a wave to Richard and a tip for them both (I think I was the only one to do this) and I was back in front of my hostal.<br /><br />"Hola señor, would you like to eat at our restaurant? " cried one of three women dressed like the dancers in Lima that were blocked the doorway. "I live here! This is my hotel!" I grinned back as I excused my way though and headed up the stairs. Shower, shave, crash on bed, download fotos. Its becoming a routine.<br /><br />As you can read from my description, I'm not one who takes kindly to organized tours. Still, this was probably the only way to see the Valle del Colca the first time round. Next time (I'm planning on it) the best way to do this is on motorbike and over a couple of days, staying in the valley at last one night. And in the end I'll have a thousand images of exceptional beauty.<br /><br />I couldn't manage any more this day, my eyes were too full of what I had seen and my body was telling me it was a wreck. I keeled over without dinner and slept.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><br><br>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-1969246105110936112009-03-09T22:10:00.006-04:002009-04-15T16:46:38.056-04:00A walk around Arequipa<div style="text-align:justify;"><br />The bus terminal in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arequipa">Arequipa</a> was a more general affair than the one in Lima. Here buses from various operators were parked, a melange of locals and tourists embarking, disembarking and milling around. I asked the information desk how much a cab took to the center of town. "Six soles is the normal price". Armed with this vital information, as taxis aren't metered here, I boldly dtrode out and signaled 'yes' when one driver hailed me. "How much to the center of town?" I asked. "Six soles" was the reply. "OK your price is right! Let's go!" And with that we were off in his much-mended Mazda, to the Plaza Mayor of Arequipa. "Where are you from?", the cabbie asked me. I was ready with my answer this time "I'm from Norway. A Viking. You know, like you guys say here ' drunk like a viking'! ", and he laughed at that.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZB5Ny2ayI/AAAAAAAAApc/5Xlnx2GqkDY/s1600-h/090309+012+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZB5Ny2ayI/AAAAAAAAApc/5Xlnx2GqkDY/s400/090309+012+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325016060623481634" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The cathedral in Arequipa, with the Andes looming behind</span><br /><br />A few minutes later the taxi dropped me off at the corner of Arequipa's main square. The central part, as in Lima, is a great square with trees, lawns, flowers, pathways, lights and large fountain in the middle. Three sides of the square are arcades two floors high, with a sidewalk and storefronts below, the second floor having balconies for restaurants and hotels. The fourth side, up the slight incline as the square isnt on level ground, is completely taken up by a massive, double spired cathedral. For those that have been to Mexico, which is my base point for comparison, my immediate reaction was how similar this is to Cuernavaca and Coyoacán, an impression I was to have several times in the day.<br /><br />Another image reminiscent of Mexico: behind the cathedral loomed an immensely high range of snow capped mountains. Amongst them there should be the volcano Misti, but it was shrouded in early morning haze. Were it visible I'm sure the image would be like the volcanoes behind Mexico City, that I very occasionally saw from my top terrace in Coyoacán after a heavy storm beat down the air pollution of that city.<br /><br />I had eaten breakfast on the bus, so first objective was to find a hotel to stay in. Walking around Lima earlier I had noticed that hotels broke into two categories - hotels and hostals. Hostals are like Italian 'pensione', simple places that are more economical than hotels. Since all I needed (ever need) is a good large bed with clean sheets, hostals are fine for me. I had checked the Internet before various places before flying; since I didn't know the cities or how it worked here, this didn't help me so I didn't book anything (unlike for Lima, where I needed to go direct to somewhere sure). <br /><br />So I walked around the square, then one block away from the square, to see what there was. A great number of hostals, is the answer. Arequipa is obviously a city geared for tourism; the Mexican equivalent jumping into my mind now being 'San Miguel Allende!', a beautiful town in central Mexico best known for being where many movies are shot, thus becoming popular with Hollywood and the California crowd of artists and creatives.<br /><br />Back to the main square, which was now quite busy with morning traffic and people. I went for a hostal called <a href="http://www.asuitesplaza.com/">Arequipa Suites Plaza</a> in the top right of the plaza, not least because it was connected to a restaurant with a strategic view over the plaza. "How much for a room with a queen size bed? (I'm tall, singles are never long enough, and I sleep restlessly, singles are never wide enough)'. "With bathroom or without?" "With, thanks." "60 soles (18 US$ at current rates)." replied the desk manager, whose name I later learned is Betty.<br /><br />Up to the room (bed just right), dump bag, charge phone, download fotos from camera to laptop, jump out f clothes and into shower (lovely hot water), throw dirty shirt etc into shower with me to wash them (remember I'm traveling light here, just one backpack), hang same, shave and brush, dry and dress. Look out of window onto Arequipa's plaza below me and the spires of the cathedral right in front of me. Splendid! <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeY_8bAYrfI/AAAAAAAAApM/EgsG3OVpQ2s/s1600-h/090309+013+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeY_8bAYrfI/AAAAAAAAApM/EgsG3OVpQ2s/s400/090309+013+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325013916686265842" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The cathedral and square of Arequipa</span><br /><br />Once 'respectable' I went down to the lobby to check emails, there being a PC available free of charge for guests to use just by the desk. "Would you like a coca?" asked Betty, pointing to a thermos of hot water and some leaves in a jar. Ah, the famous coca leaf! "No thanks, but do you happen to have some coffee?" "Sure, instant OK?" Again! I'm in a country that grows coffee beans and I'm offered Nescafé! I went for the coffee. And took the opportunity to ask Betty what there was to see in Arequipa. "Lots! Here, let me show you." With this Betty pulled out a couple of maps and showed me some of the places I could visit in the center of town - churches, townhouses, institutes and musea.<br /><br />"How long are you planning to stay?" Betty asked me. "Two nights, maybe three". "Oh well then you have to visit the Valle del Colca, its only a day trip from here." "Yes, I've been told it's worth seeing - I met some people yesterday who come from there", I replied, telling her about the dancers. "Well I have a friend who has an agency just over the square. Take this card and he'll give you a discount." "Thanks, I might at that. But first I want to see Arequipa!". And with this I was off to explore the city.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <br />Looking at the map for a moment, I walked down the arcade to the corner on the same side as the hotel. On the corner opposite was a church with a very ornately carved stone façade. This, and the complex behind it, which I didn't go into, is Jesuit territory - the Compañia de Jesús. Walked up the street so see what was there, and found another church, to San Domingo. I went in and was quite amazed by its almost Calvinist simplicity. Well, it wasn't quite, obviously. The altar was a cornucopia of gold leaf. But the walls were bare of any decoration except for eight very well carved statues, excellently lit. Very elegant.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZBSdiAF8I/AAAAAAAAApU/VYwQBYN2_Ck/s1600-h/090309+017+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZBSdiAF8I/AAAAAAAAApU/VYwQBYN2_Ck/s400/090309+017+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325015394832881602" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Detail of the façade of the church of the Compañia de Jesús</span><br /><br />From here I walked up a few blocks then cut back to the Plaza Mayor. Crossing the façade of the cathedral I walked up another street, passing an entrance to the University of San Agustín, where students were milling about. Across the street was a wonderful building with an internal courtyard, its walls a brilliant blue, with a dark stone fountain in the middle. Another image from Mexico, famous for its own use of primary colors. The windows looked familiar too; familar but not the same. Here in Areqipa the stone is a soft beige, almost white, like that of Provence - or Andalucia. What was obviously once a private house is now host to small boutiques selling jewels and alpaca knot clothes. <br /><br />A bit further up the street, back on the side of the University, was the entrance to a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Catalina_Monastery">convent dedicated to Santa Catalina</a>. This place was very much open to the public; the cashier's booth proclaimed the entrance was 10 soles. I walked in, refused the guide, and walked into another world. Literally.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZCuiUYkPI/AAAAAAAAAps/sPU7Gpy579g/s1600-h/090309+064+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZCuiUYkPI/AAAAAAAAAps/sPU7Gpy579g/s400/090309+064+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325016976665907442" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The convent of Santa Catalina</span><br /><br />This convent is amazing. I've never seen anything like it. Here, from the late 1500s onwards, ladies from the privileged families of Arequipa (and, I assume, other places) came to retire from the mundane world in which they had lived before - the one we live in. Nothing new in that, that's part of what convents are for. Here, however, although shut away from the world officially (limited contacts with relations and all that) they did not intend to shut themselves away from a genteel way of living. These had been, still were for the most part, wealthy dueñas, so could afford something that, while humble, was still graceful.<br /><br />Each therefore had their own, what we would call mini-apartment, with salon, bedroom, kitchen, private garden and, yes, servant's quarters. Made of adobe for sure. Wooden bed also (nice wide ones mostly). Simple furniture. Crucifixes, icons, the works. But quite livable. Each house, for that's what each nun lived in, was named after the occupant too - her religious name of course, not her worldly one. There were communal baths, and a communal washing area too, its 'tubs' made of great terracotta amphorae split in half and laid on the sloping ground as though they were the tossed halves of walnut shells, a watercourse running the length of them. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZCTAiNNzI/AAAAAAAAApk/sd-Huy-QB08/s1600-h/090309+035+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZCTAiNNzI/AAAAAAAAApk/sd-Huy-QB08/s400/090309+035+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325016503740610354" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The convent of Santa Catalina - a nun's abode</span><br /><br />The streets and lanes, for this convent is enormous and really deserves the description 'city within a city', were obviously all perfectly maintained. Indeed this city-within-a-city was also a state-within-two-states, secluded from the outer world and independent of the church authorities too, for the better part of its existence. Again the astonishing similarity with Mexico - all outer walls in the convent are painted in primary blues, reds and whites; inner ones in soft yellow or mellowed white. Flowers and plants are abundant; there's even a deep shady garden in one corner. There are several cloisters, remnants of frescos still painted on the walls.<br /><br />Thank goodness there is also a cafeteria in the middle of this. By midday I was feeling the heat and strength of the sun beating down on me. Through an archway a delightful garden beckoned, chairs under a large canvas umbrella, easy chairs in the corner terrace, shaded with thin poles of bamboo. One coffee and a tall glass of water later, I was able to move off and complete the tour of this stunning place.<br /><br />The reason the convent is open to the public is primarily because not so long ago it fell into ruin and decay after one of many devastating earthquakes hit Arequipa. The nuns had to leave for property next door, where they still live. The local government took the massive complex over, restored a good part of it (not all, that's evident) and opened it to the public.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZDRM_9AKI/AAAAAAAAAp0/DL4SR62NX2Q/s1600-h/090309+051+Arequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeZDRM_9AKI/AAAAAAAAAp0/DL4SR62NX2Q/s400/090309+051+Arequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325017572238491810" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The convent of Santa Catalina - the laundry with its split amphorae</span><br /><br />I eventually made it out and, hungry, headed for a restaurant, the cortile of which I had stuck my head into earlier. The interior was quite contemporary, the colors less primary but still bright - orange, violet and apple green. Mexico again ... The food was delicious : recoto relleno with papas (stuffed pepper with side order of sauteed potatoes), which I ordered without knowing its one of Arequipa's classic dishes. A glass of the always excellent Peruvian wine and I was happy. Luis, the waiter, was super attentive and happily explained some of the dishes to me. Peruvian cuisine is known to be good (I didn't know this before arriving, of course) and believe me, it is.<br /><br />After this i headed back to the hostal. Another receptionist was on duty. I asked if I could go up to the top terrace, where the restaurant was, to see the view. 'Of course you can, and our cuisine is very good if you want to eat there this evening' was her reply. I'm sure it is, but I'm way too stuffed with my recoto relleno to eat any more today. Returning to the lobby I asked if I could check the internet (usual stuff). She offered me the option of coffee or tea, and this time I went for the tea. Tea made by throwing some coca leaves into a cup then pouring boiling hot water over them. My first coca tea, then. Taste? Like hot water poured over scented leaves, somewhat sweet thanks to the sugar, a little oily thanks to the natural oils in the leaf itself and a slightly bitter aftertaste. No buzz or anything like that. Its supposed to be invigorating for high altitudes. I found it mildly relaxing, like hibiscus tea is. Anyway, took it up to my room to appreciate the moment, downloaded the many, many fotos I had taken, showered again and took a short siesta.<br /><br />In the late afternoon I walked over to the agency that Betty had suggested and booked a day trip to the Valle del Colca, departure time 02:30 am the following morning. "It's a little way and there's much to see. Plus we have to be back by 5pm before it gets dark." was the explanation given. Right, well if I'm getting up that early, forget the drink on the terrace - I'm off to bed! <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><br><br>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-73042591676052068542009-03-09T11:21:00.003-04:002009-04-15T11:40:25.744-04:00The road to Arequipa<div style="text-align:justify;"><br />The coach left the terminal on time at 6pm, heading out south into the press of cars on the main roads of Lima. The taxis here, miniature Mazdas, operate like the ones in India, buzzing all over the place; the colectivos swerve around as they pull up for passengers who may, or equally well may not, be at the scheduled bus stops. Sometime later we passed a toll, which formally told us we were on the Panamericana Sur, the great highways the runs the length of the Americas. We sped past the ruins of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachacamac">Panchacamak</a>, one of the pre-Inca settlements that dot the area around Lima, not that I could see anything from my side of the bus, though I could see some small islands offshore. Then, abruptly, the dingy gray, dusty hills gave way to pure desert. The road settled into a winding highway that followed the coast, punctuated every so often with beachside villas and compounds, somewhat reminiscent of southern Italy below Rome. Every bay held a small town, which I hadn't noticed from the air. The traffic heading back to Lima was intense. Bright headlights lit up the interior of the coach, quickly shuttered out by people pulling closed the curtains.<br /><br />During the night I woke up a few times. Once I think was were going through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisco,_Peru">Pisco</a>, a town by the coast and famous for a distilled liqueur, normally served as part of a cocktail called Pisco Sour. I've never had it (yet) so can't tell you what its like. Another time I think we stopped at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca">Nazca</a>, but it was dark and I couldn't see anything. One thing that did surprise me was the volume of traffic, and the fact there were quite a few places; this even though I saw so little from the air.<br /><br />I really woke up at around 6am. We were sometimes by the coast, sometimes on a bluff and occasionally inland a bit as the road sliced of a cape or promontory. Shortly we turned inland and I never saw the ocean again.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeX718Z-drI/AAAAAAAAAo0/1ExxG96EGOY/s1600-h/090309+004+ToArequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeX718Z-drI/AAAAAAAAAo0/1ExxG96EGOY/s400/090309+004+ToArequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324939038602196658" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The river valley at Camara</span><br /><br />From desert we turned into a low, broad, green valley with rice paddies. We hurtled over the river bridge at Camara and found ourselves immediately back in the desert, right down to the ocean. Again we turned inland, a sign reading 17X km to Arequipa zipping past so fast I didn't get the last digit. Here the already arid desert sand turned white with patches of what I suppose must be salt or lime. Nothing at all grew here; the earth itself seemed crusted over. Over flat land went the bus, driving past many small crosses planted beside the roadway. People had died here, whether of accidents or thirst I know not. Some minutes later I could see fields of maize, lines of trees acting as barriers against the wind. Another sign whipped by, this time for or to a place called Apiao.<br /><br />Now the sun was breaking through dawn's early mist. All around were green fields of maize and sunflowers, irrigation canals, cattle. The bus began a steep descent into a valley, the Massibe gorge, another green valley with a respectable river running through it called the Siuhas. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeX8NtAYMYI/AAAAAAAAAo8/TgGJyQI5sxY/s1600-h/090309+007+ToArequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeX8NtAYMYI/AAAAAAAAAo8/TgGJyQI5sxY/s400/090309+007+ToArequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324939446785159554" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Back into the desert</span><br /><br />Climbing back up the other side of the valley we were back in a spectral desert again, the sand dunes formed into regular crescents by the wind blowing up from the ocean. Another descent into a verdant valley, over the river Vitor, the bright green, flat fields surrounded by dry unbounded sand round looking for all the world like a smaller version of the Nile.<br /> <br />This time we clambered out of the flat lands into rocky hill country, the bus swerving abruptly each time we came to a curve in the road - and there were many. Over the top of the last escarpment and I could see, in the far distance, the sharp rise of volcanos. We were heading into Andes territory at last! The vegetation changed too - now, along with the ever present maize, were acacia and cactus. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeX8vCQAS9I/AAAAAAAAApE/iutRs5wsaI0/s1600-h/090309+011+ToArequipa.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeX8vCQAS9I/AAAAAAAAApE/iutRs5wsaI0/s400/090309+011+ToArequipa.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5324940019423529938" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The volcanos of the Andes on the distant horizon</span><br /><br />Through a broad valley floor the bus carried on, through cultivated fields interspersed with barren patches. We passed a place called Pampa de Camarones (what are prawns doing here?) and ever so quickly we were obviously in the outskirts of Arequipa.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-7752514494904302822009-03-08T22:47:00.009-04:002009-04-15T03:56:11.707-04:00A walk around Lima<div style="text-align:justify;"><br />I had set my plans: Arequipa by bus in the evening. So today was to see a bit more of Lima before heading off to the bus terminal. In the morning I had arranged to meet up with Svetlana, the guide from yesterday's tour of the monastery of San Francisco, but there was a sudden press of American tourists from a visiting cruise ship so there was no way she could have freed her herself to tell me more about Machu Picchu. I'll just have to ask along my way.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeH_T95k9EI/AAAAAAAAAm8/VSDqse8uDfo/s1600-h/090308+006+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeH_T95k9EI/AAAAAAAAAm8/VSDqse8uDfo/s400/090308+006+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323816953027294274" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Lima and the old ramparts by the river Rimac</span><br /><br />I walked around the back of the monastery. heading towards the Rimac and thinking of taking a couple of shots of the river and, possibly, the shantytown opposite Lima, its brightly painted houses a cascade of color in the dusty desert that surrounds the city.<br /><br />I found a park where couples were romancing and young children were playing, built atop and below the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_city_walls">old river ramparts</a> of the city. The many times breached walls are now some distance from the Rimac, the slightest traces of pathways barely evident amongst the exposed and reconstructed brickwork of their bastions. At key points a descriptive text explains what you are looking at - all done very well.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />In the area above the ramparts a group of people in folk dress were finishing a dance. There was a full band and at least ten dancers. I sat down on a bench within the dancing circle, ready with camera. Within about a minute the young woman asked me where I was from. "Norway! I'm a Viking!" Sweet smile from her (I would learn why later in the day). She turned out to be one of the organizers of the group, which were from a place called Colca, as announced by the banner behind them all.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeH_iya90MI/AAAAAAAAAnE/AjjuIW5yWKE/s1600-h/090308+002+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeH_iya90MI/AAAAAAAAAnE/AjjuIW5yWKE/s400/090308+002+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323817207644147906" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The dancers from Colca take a break</span><br /><br />The dancing stopped awhile and several of the dancers stood by the organizer, others sitting down a bench to my left (the band already sitting on a bench to my right). Where was I from? "Norway! I'm a Viking!" Same sweet smiles (so what does Norway do here that people smile? Maybe no-one has a clue where it is). "Do you know where Norway is?" "Yes, up in the north of Europe. What's the weather like?" "Like the top of that mountain", I said, pointing to a snow capped mountain painted in the poster proclaiming the Valle del Colca.<br /><br />"Have you been to the Valle del Colca?" asked Silvia, one of the dancers. "No. Never heard of it before. Tell me about it!" And Silvia did. It's most beautiful valley in all of Peru, a place where condors fly, the food is wonderful and the people the very best of all Peruvians, especially those from Chivay, which coincidentally is where Silvia and the dancing team come from. I cannot visit Peru without seeing Colca. <br /><br />"Where are you traveling to from Lima?" was the next question. "To Arequipa, tonight", I answered. "Excellent! You can visit Colca from Arequipa in a day." exclaimed Silvia. "Well it's an idea. I might at that", I replied, in part for interest an in part for happy politeness, as I was gaining the impression that Peruvians are proud of the home towns, each of which being the most beautiful in all Peru, the food wonderful and its people the very best. This brightens my spirit immensely.<br /><br />I asked them about their costumes, which are a mix of three elements - almost medievally heavy dresses, light military dress jackets and abundantly rich embroidery. Its local to the Colca area, I was told. And the reason the men wear dresses also? <br /><br />"No we don't!" shouted one, raising his skirts to show blue jeans and sneakers underneath his dress. "Yes they do!" chorused the women. <br /><br />"Its because of an old legend we have", they continued. " Long ago invaders came to take and rape our womenfolk. This happened only occasionally but as the beauty of Colca women became to be known, it happened more often. So one night the men of Colca dressed up as women. The invaders attacked again, but this time were met with knives. Never again were we attacked. In celebration of their courage, when dancing our men wear their dresses again."<br /><br />"No that's not it!", another voice rang out. "It's because the men of Colca are the most beautiful in Peru!" At which everyone burst out laughing. <br /><br />I think both stories are true - these are are a bright, happy people with a great sense of fun and spirit. It shines through them and makes them all beautiful.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />Soon the dancers from Colca packed up and I walked along the old city walls. From this area you can cross over a metal footbridge to another area near the new river walls. As in most cities, the river that was once its lifegiver and lifetaker has been straightjacketed, Hannibal Lecter style, by thick concrete retaining walls, reducing it to an afterthought and a drain. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIAw1SeA3I/AAAAAAAAAnU/fnonm_0Iq2c/s1600-h/090308+005+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIAw1SeA3I/AAAAAAAAAnU/fnonm_0Iq2c/s400/090308+005+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323818548443612018" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The multi-colored shantyown of San Sebastian</span><br /><br />In a walk area by the new river wall I found a lone llama cantering around, trying desperately to ignore the persistence chugging of a miniature train that was pulling local tourists around. I tried to get not-too-close to the llama to take a foto, this being the very first llama I'd ever seen that wasn't in a cage. <br /><br />The llama saw me and decided I might have something of interest (or worse, be something of interest). I tacked left, it tacked right. Remembering that I had once heard that llamas are like temperamentally like camels, and knowing camels from my times in Africa, I knew that excessive zeal to get up close (by the animal) could spell disaster (for the human). I started to tack briskly abeam (walk fast away), at which point the damn thing started cantering - in my direction. I headed for the steps of the footbridge, which given these rugs-on-tenpoles are mountain animals, was of course a thoroughly useless gesture. <br /><br />Just at the moment when the people looking down from the same bridge were with bated breath waiting for the denouement, the moment when I could see close up the llama's slightly crazy, ice crystal blue eyes glaring from its black muzzle and chocolate coat, the toy train burst on the scene. Its unexpected tinny hoot was enough to frustrate the llama at the point of conquest; with flaring nostril and angry stamp, it wheeled away from me. Alive to fight (and flee) another day!<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />Back up in the Plaza Mayor it was almost midday, time for the ritual Changing of the Guard. Being a Sunday, this was more elaborate. The band came out of the Presidential Palace's courtyard and began a the long circuit of the square itself. They were preceded by the squadron of cavalry and followed by the presidential Honor Guard. All most impressive. I didn't get to ask if the Palace Guard were volunteers or that this was a position of great honor and esteem, as is the case in Norway (one of my friends did this); I will ask next time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIBudr3jEI/AAAAAAAAAnc/WB1nRCXvN9Y/s1600-h/090308+015+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIBudr3jEI/AAAAAAAAAnc/WB1nRCXvN9Y/s400/090308+015+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323819607259581506" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The band marches past Lima's cathedral in the Plaza Mayor</span><br /><br />The ceremony over, I headed back up to what it becoming my favorite bar in Lima for another pork sandwich and glass of red wine. I prefer the smoked pork to the sweet; both wines are great.<br /><br />Grabbed a cab to the bus terminal, which is to the south of the city. Answered the inevitable question with the inevitable answer. "Hey, do you know we have a saying here in Peru: 'borracho como vikingo' (drunk like a Viking). Is it true you all drink till you are drunk?"<br /><br />Great! Now I know the reasons for the smiles all yesterday and today.... The usual words of explanation and excuse - and a mutual laugh with the cabbie as I told him I'd being saying the same with evident pride these last two days.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />The operator I had chosen, Cruz del Sur, has its own bus terminal and its absolutely spectacular, something between a new bank and a new airport terminal. Exchanged voucher for ticket, checked some other information and headed to the upper floor to buy a coffee and some water. <br /><br />On the off chance I pulled out my iPod to see if there was a WiFi signal. There was! And strong too, from the terminal itself! And free!!!! Oh, why is it that the developing world does the commercially sensible thing and 'developed' one is always nickel-and-diming (only not even that cheap)? In a few minutes I was able to get up to speed with everything, post a few mails and check my financials. <br /> <br />Boarding the bus I was amazed. The seats are like the best business class seats in airlines. Multiple audio channels, flip down monitors, intro program, local sites program, then four videos through the evening/night. Snack, dinner, drinks all provided. Seat right back, cushion and coverlet. Stewardesses. Even a bingo game with the prize being a free return ticket.<br /><br />Brilliant! Absolutely the best bus ride ever, anywhere.<br /></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-67242949853642408472009-03-07T22:20:00.007-04:002009-04-15T03:35:57.524-04:00A tourist in Lima<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Given the early start and late end yesterday, I decided to take today very easy and be a tourist in Lima. <br /><br />Around 9am I walked back up to the Plaza Mayor, through the pedestrian precinct that was still shuttered (evidently things don't start that early here either. I had been wondering how to organize my trip around Peru after seeing Lima. The best way seemed to ask a travel agency what was the best way to get around, so I found one and set up the net phase of my travels here (you can read how it works out later).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeICZdss4eI/AAAAAAAAAnk/oD-yIkv8Oa0/s1600-h/090307+009+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeICZdss4eI/AAAAAAAAAnk/oD-yIkv8Oa0/s400/090307+009+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323820345997451746" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The Plaza Mayor in the center of Lima</span><br /><br />I crossed the Plaza Mayor a few times, looking at the sights in the nearby streets and the way the fast rising sun changed the yellow of the public buildings from a canary to an intense cadmium. <br /><br />A group of traditionally dressed Indios were standing on the steps of the Cathedral, one of them with a long horn which he raised up high over the others and blew from time to time. I asked them if this was a special event or festival they were celebrating. 'No,' was the reply of two women at once, 'we just want to walk around and let some tourists take photographs. You want to take a photo? How much money will you give us?' Well, I had the photos already so I thanked them kindly and headed off to see the Cathedral itself.<br /><br />It costs 10 soles (a bit less than 3 US$ at time of writing) to visit the Cathedral. Thanks to earthquakes the building has been rebuilt several times, so the interior is more the stark 1880s version than the older Baroque version, even though it appears Baroque on the outside. The decor is more muted than I would have expected too; the most beautiful pieces being some painted and gilded wood statues.<br /><br />But what really got me was that, just to the right of the entrance, lies the sarcophagus, coffin and body of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Pizarro">Francisco Pizarro</a>. I was standing in front of the direct link to 500 years of European history in South America. There was the Spanish Conquistador himself. Unbelievable. <br /><br />Doubly so. As some of you know, I lived in Mexico for over two years. Mexico and Peru were the two Viceroyalties of Spanish America, so I am oblige for both reasons to use Mexico as my point of comparison for Peru. Never in a million years would Mexico put Hernan Cortes in a sarcophagus and celebrate his feats in the capital's cathedral as here I see before me in Peru (someone please correct me if I'm wrong - I don't for the life of me remember seeing such a thing).<br /><br />So here is something different - though both countries are a cultural and racial fusion of Indios and Europeans, does the European power still exert itself more openly in Peru? <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />On leaving the cathedral I walked up a street, the presidential palace on my left. I hadn't had breakfast yet and on the corner of the street just past the palace was a old style cafe called Cordaro. One espresso please! Yes, the short one. Gracias! Looking at the photos on the wall the bar hadn't changed much in a hundred years. Given its proximity to the center of political power, it must have seen many events in its lifetime. While I was there an Indian trail of tourists walked into the bar from the entrance on one street, past the bar counter and out the other door on the other street. The bar tenders just looked on, as though this was something to be suffered, like waiting for traffic to pass by. Most surreal.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIDXMxLrVI/AAAAAAAAAns/7q2-F1L1s_4/s1600-h/090307+030+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIDXMxLrVI/AAAAAAAAAns/7q2-F1L1s_4/s400/090307+030+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323821406604733778" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Lucho and Albino look on as the tourists trail through Cordaro's</span><br /><br />I walked on up past the stores selling Indio souvenirs up to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery_of_San_Francisco,_Lima">Monastery of San Francisco</a>. This is one of Lima's oldest standing structures, though even this has had to be rebuilt several times thanks to tremblors. Large, heavy, dedicated to religion as only exists in Latin America. Room upon room of artefacts. For me the most interesting was the (rebuilt) wooden dome, the geometric design pure Moorish, and the arched courtyards, with their many tiled walls and verdant gardens. With their two floors, its built like the many monasteries and hospitals I saw in Mexico. <br /><br />The tour ended with a trip to the 'Catacumbos' - the underfloor crypt where many people were once buried, the tradition being that if you were buried under a church, then your chances of getting past the Pearly Gates were significantly improved and you would be on the highway to resurrection come Judgment Day. Well, not since 1821 when San Martin banned the practice. You can see the pits and the ossuaries, if you have a mind to.<br /><br />Back out in the sunlight I wandered around a few more streets and found myself back at the bar where I had morning coffee. Not by accident. I had seen a delicious haunch of smoked ham on the bar counter earlier: lunch! One delicious sandwich-and-a-half plus an even more delicious half bottle of Peruvian white wine later, and I was happy to head back to the hotel for a siesta.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />In the afternoon I returned to the historical center of the city, walking around and generally enjoying seeing the people of Lima as they relaxed on the steps of the cathedral and benches in the garden which is the plaza itself. <br /><br />The honor guard of the presidential palace announced itself with a brassy blare of trumpets. Many people crowded over to see the ceremony. The band played, a platoon wearing late 19th century cadet uniforms marched smartly out, to be met by another heading in the other direction across the palace's courtyard. A banner detachment with the flags of Peru and the presidential guard stamped out. The music changed pace, the soldiers performed some impressively coordinated maneuvers, the flags were exchanged and everyone marched back to their positions as though the whole exercise was an exceptionally well crafted clockwork.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeID0d8M0iI/AAAAAAAAAn0/k-89jIa-twg/s1600-h/090308+028+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeID0d8M0iI/AAAAAAAAAn0/k-89jIa-twg/s400/090308+028+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323821909430555170" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The Band plays for the changing of the guard</span><br /><br />I walked back across the square and sat down to continue watching the late Saturday scene. Out of nowhere woman popped up, hand outstretched. With a "Hi! Where are you from?' she introduced herself as Rosanna and obviously wanted to start a conversation. I was never sure of her purpose, but its always fun starting a conversation. It lasted the better part of the evening as I quizzed her about Peru, Lima, its life and society. She told me one of the places to go to was the north of Peru, up by the border with Ecuador. That's where the beach-and-surf life is apparently. Very tempting, but my goal is Inca territory. If I have time, though ...<br /><br />I was always aware this could have been for some other purpose from her side, but fortunately it turned out not to be, so in the end her bright chattiness was a delightful complement to the day.<br /></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-56223604376772649432009-03-06T22:17:00.006-04:002009-04-15T04:15:05.983-04:00My first day in Lima<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />After lunch and a quick siesta to stay out of the midday heat and recover from being up since 2:30, I asked Miguel and Christian, the two guys handling the front desk, how to get from the hotel to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Mayor,_Lima">Plaza Mayor (Main Square)</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima">Lima</a>, which I knew to be walking distance.<br /><br />Omar, Miguel's cousin who was giving them a hand, said that he had to go in that direction and would show me the way. Nothing better!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIEi9aHz3I/AAAAAAAAAn8/NIVsvY8C8Ko/s1600-h/090306+036+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIEi9aHz3I/AAAAAAAAAn8/NIVsvY8C8Ko/s400/090306+036+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323822708151537522" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">South Americans flags fly in the afternoon sun</span><br /><br />So we walked along the roads, most of which are being dug up and relaid as part of an urban renovation project, past the central police station (just by the hotel) over a main road towards the Palace of Justice (central court), by the brutal concrete horror that goes by the name of the Sheraton Hotel and whose only value is that its the tallest building around so serves as a good point of reference, up by an abandoned green monster that once was a hotel but now is, well, no-one knows, up a pedestrian precinct called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiron_de_la_Union">Jiron de la Union</a>that reminds me of the one in Buenos Aires, full of shops and eateries that pretend to the image of North Rodeo Drive but don't quite get there, and into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Mayor,_Lima">Plaza Mayor</a>.<br /><br />The great thing about all Spanish (colonial) towns is they always have a heart, and that heart is around the Plaza Mayor (sometimes known as a Zocalo in Mexico and often as the Plaza de las Armas in many other places). Here you will always find the principal church, the center of political power and a generalized collection of stores, restaurants. hotels etc.<br /><br />Lima is no exception - to the right as I walked into the square is the Cathedral, in front of the President's Palace. The other two sides of the square are large porticoed buildings, painted a rich, bright yellow, the window frames a stark, brilliant white. What distinguished them are the dark brown, wooden cassonnetted balconies - high boxes of wooden grills in the southern Spanish style, influenced deeply by Moorish architecture. And here it is, half a world away.<br /><br />Omar explained to me that Lima has been reduced to almost rubble by earthquakes a number of times, including recently, so a lot of the freshness I see is because of the recent reconstruction, as well as initiatives over recent years to make the place more livable. Lima holds one third of Peru's population, so the logistics of city planning are immense.<br /><br />This I discovered for myself soon after, because as we finished a short tour of the President's Palace, Omar suggested we go to meet up with his girlfriend and see a regional folklore festival in the south of town. I was more than happy to see something like that, not least the opportunity to see traditional dance from Peru.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br />We crossed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rímac_River">Rimac River</a> to the stand of 'colectivos', white painted minibuses with room for 12 people that are the principal means of transport for workers here. Most people don't live in the center - they live in the great arching rim around the city; north, east and south (the west being the ocean).<br /><br />One driver and one conductor/hustler, bawling out where they are headed to all who may want to go that way. So, four hours after landing, I'm whizzing around the roads of Lima in a colectivo just like any other commuter. <br /><br />Quite some distance away, in the southern part of town, is a recreational park. It was founded, unbelievably, 80 years ago, for the purpose of giving people a green are to relax in, the area surrounding of Lima being arid hills and dusty plains. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIEzl3glTI/AAAAAAAAAoE/fZ220YaHIRk/s1600-h/090306+037+Lima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIEzl3glTI/AAAAAAAAAoE/fZ220YaHIRk/s400/090306+037+Lima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323822993890121010" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Argentinan folk dance</span><br /><br />I didn't see all the show - it started at 6pm ad was still going strong at 10:30pm, when we all headed to a Chinese restaurant over the way. The show started with Argentina, singer then dance. Other than some brilliantly executed tango, which got raucous applause from the Peruvian crowd, the Argentinians danced to music from the pampas - gaucho music. Excellent choreographer, superb skill. <br /><br />Then the Brazilians came on - not samba (except one song the very end) but music and dance from their southernmost province, Rio Grande do Sul, which abuts Argentina and Uruguay. Omar commented on the irony of my seeing this, having just flown in from Brazil. I commented on the double irony of being able to see traditional folk dance from Brazil somewhere else, given its never shown in Brazil! Except for the street version of samba of course.<br /><br />The Peruvians appeared. Dressed like Amerindians, the first show a pure African beat, with pure African dance movement. 100% Guinea. Even the flute sounded like griot. Omar told me it was a dance from the north of the country based on the slave tradition, many Africans having been shipped to the ports. Then there were several more obviously 'colonial' pieces, a concoction representing the Amazon, then a delightful dance where the woman is courted by the man, her mother watching on and interfering, both women dancing with jugs of water balanced atop their heads. So graceful. What a delight!<br /><br />Finally, before we left to eat dinner, the Chileans came on, first with some ranchero style dances and then, since they have islands way out in the Pacific, dances that I recognized as Samoan and Tahitian. If I'd seen Maoris then I would have thought Chile was stretching its boundaries too far... The Peruvian audience were fascinating by the different music and dance of those far away places that, for a quirk of history, belong their southern neighbor.<br /><br />Dinner in the Chinese restaurant, good byes all round and I was back in the hotel.<br /></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-38080571847147102982009-03-06T22:14:00.007-04:002009-04-15T03:43:18.018-04:00Off to Peru!<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />OK this has to be one of my earliest rises - 02:45 to be at the airport shuttle terminal to catch the 03:45 shuttle to the airport to catch the 06:00 flight to Sao Paulo.<br /><br />The nice thing about an airport at this time of the morning is that there are few people meandering around, the other is the airplane tends to be at the airport already, so its entirely possible that it might take off on time (which for TAM and service in Brazil in general is quite rare). The downside is that most everyone is still waking up, so service is slow. This time it was friendly and fast. I got caught at the pass control trying to smuggle a stick of deodorant through (OK, its Armani) but the real purpose was to oblige me to buy a transparent plastic bag for 2 Reals. Man, do places like this adore the recent rules on security (which are totally ineffectual). Not just Brazil of course, but I really don't like the system here, with the pervasive, invasive presence of the state and its complicit operators, using every opportunity to pull money from your pocket. Grrrrr.<br /><br />Landed in Sao Paulo. Since the connecting flight to Lima was only one hour from planned landing time, during the flight from Belo I asked (insisted) there was someone at the gate at Sao Paulo to take me through to the gate for Lima, this to avoid my going through domestic baggage claim and re-enter the circus of controls. I was assured there would be someone at the gate. Of course, we did not pull into a conventional gate, we disembarked from buses. Naturally there was no-one at the bus or at the pull-in or anywhere else. So I had to re-run the circus as though I had just stepped off the bus from Sao Paulo city. This is typical.<br /><br />Like most everyone nowadays, I begin to hate the 'airport' part of any journey. Brazil's airports are bad. Sao Paulo is the worst. (No. maybe Rio de Janeiro airport is - I can never decide which I hate most.)<br /><br />Eventually we took off and I stopped steaming.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIFdrg-OUI/AAAAAAAAAoM/vfbEsGvZwlc/s1600-h/090306+001+ToLima.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIFdrg-OUI/AAAAAAAAAoM/vfbEsGvZwlc/s400/090306+001+ToLima.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323823716960713026" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Flying over the Parana in Brazil. </span><br /><br />The flight across Brazil was amazing. As always, as you fly over Brazil you begin to appreciate the sheer size of the place, and what a powerful potential it always has. Here the flight crosses the lower section of the country, eventually angling up over the Andes towards the southern border of Peru.<br /><br />Most of the way, I see rolling countryside, grazing and crops. Small towns are everywhere. Every so often middle sized rivers meander through these fields. The scenery goes a little more hilly - cattle country here, with lonely ranches dotting the hills. The land flattens out again and is much greener; sometimes its woodland but mostly its farmland. We cross cross one enormous river (I discovered this to be the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraná_River">Paraná</a>) and very soon after a second large river with a town built close to its shores, looking for all the world like the radially splashed shards of an impact crater (I discovered this was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_de_la_Sierra">Santa Cruz</a> in Bolivia), so alien is it in the great expanse of green that surrounds the town.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIGbS5jHNI/AAAAAAAAAoU/yJcHtREXktU/s1600-h/090306+005+SantaCruz.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIGbS5jHNI/AAAAAAAAAoU/yJcHtREXktU/s400/090306+005+SantaCruz.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323824775504796882" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Santa Cruz in Bolivia</span><br /><br />A short while after the scenery starts to go more wild. Yet, amongst this wildness, there are still plantations: enormous squares, diamonds and grids cut viciously into the depths of forest. Long, straight bare roads connect them but there is no apparent centers of habitation near them. Are these deliberately remote research stations, experimenting with crops that could be the basis of future economic development? Are they another state project or private initiative, as has happened in the past? I don't know. Very unearthly seeing this though. So deeply remote as to be secretive.<br /><br />The foothills of the Andes appear below me. The green fragments as great mountains break the power of the Amazon forest. Ravines disgorge torrents of fast flowing water, cascading white over the rocks until muddied in the myriad rivers at the forest's edge.<br /><br />Clouds steam around the bare peaks, breaking only where the mountains stretch high enough to escape their clammy grip. A few breaks in the clouds and I can see snow capped peaks below me, their steep cliffs falling away into the misty void below.<br /><br />We are over the main ridge of the Andes quite fast; the Peruvian side a high, dry plateau. Here deep canyons and high sided valleys break the olive and ocher ground into great decks. The area looks shorn of settlements; little seems to grow here. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIGvK-9mWI/AAAAAAAAAoc/l6srg9hp0bY/s1600-h/090306+013+Andes.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIGvK-9mWI/AAAAAAAAAoc/l6srg9hp0bY/s400/090306+013+Andes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323825116977404258" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">Over the Andes</span><br /><br />Flying over a ridge of snow topped mountains, in the distance off to my left I can see a high, solitary volcano, its white top well clear of the clouds. I think this must be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacora">Tacora</a>, the almost 6000 meter volcano in the very north of Chile, just south of the border with Peru. I know where I am!<br /><br />Below me the land has turned to desert, as dry, harsh and unforgiving as anything I saw flying over Baluchistan to the way to Kandahar. There's nothing here, only angry colors as the land bakes in the stark light of the sun.<br /><br />Within a moment there is a deep blue below me. We are over the sea - the Pacific Ocean!<br /><br />The plane turned and began to follow the Peruvian coast up towards Lima. This is desert and sea. Nothing else. one solitary road winds its way over rocky bluffs, through sandy bays, along gullies that occasionally might become life giving streams or death giving torrents. Just occasionally could I see some isolated settlements, huddled in a low valley with a smudge of dust faded green around them.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIHEfh-_nI/AAAAAAAAAok/7nuMD6DwVcw/s1600-h/090306+025+PeruCoast.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SeIHEfh-_nI/AAAAAAAAAok/7nuMD6DwVcw/s400/090306+025+PeruCoast.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323825483270258290" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;">The arid coast of Peru</span><br /><br />It was desert right up to when we flew over Lima, sitting in its dusty plain as though Cairo had been transplanted from the Nile to the Sea. A circle over Callao, Lima's port, a turn back and we had landed at Lima.<br /><br />Through customs and baggage claim (easy - I'm traveling with a back pack only) in the light, airy, clean Jorge Chavez Airport. The taxi driver the hotel I had arranged to stay with wasn't there, so I took an official one. <br /><br />The cab driver talked me through the town - 'this is Callao, the port of Lima. Now we are one the main road to Lima center. By the way, do you have a hotel room yet? In the center? But there's nothing there, only some old buildings! Why not Miraflores? its modern with good shops... Oh, so you like the old stuff and your hotel is in the center. That you may enjoy Lima then!'<br /><br />The hotel <a href="http://www.hostaldelasartes.com/">'Hostal de las Artes'</a> was simple and welcoming. Dumped my bag and had lunch in the restaurant (good food, very economical) attached before taking my first walk in Peru.<br /></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-67673884731429021772009-03-03T13:06:00.009-04:002009-03-04T11:18:53.464-04:00Diamantina (Sunday)<a href="http://flickr.com/photos/carlottersen/sets/72157614759005120/detail/">View all my photos of Diamantina here</a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Since one of the reasons for coming to Diamantina was to take some photos, I was up very early to walk up the hill above the town to see what the dawn would bring. Yesterday evening I had calculated that the sun would come up behind the cathedral's spires - and sure enough it soon did, first timorously behind a curtain of roiling grey clouds on the far horizon, then in in a blaze of reds and yellows that fired up the sky. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6YZ-gOfVI/AAAAAAAAAmE/P_zNhaYtDCE/s1600-h/090301+012+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6YZ-gOfVI/AAAAAAAAAmE/P_zNhaYtDCE/s400/090301+012+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309348582758710610" /></a>Lazy high clouds were shot through with the molten power of the sun's hot rays; a foretelling of the hot day to come. <br /><br />Then ever so quickly the sky turned the palest of pastel dove grey as a screen of misty clouds broke away from the cliffs on the other side of the valley. The sun's strength took pause as the burst of fire waned to a soft yellow light that gently touched the façades of the houses and hostels.<br /><br />Within almost no time, this being the tropics, the sun was up high, the sky had turned blue and the once-grey film of clouds a bright fluffy white. For a moment still the light was still soft, but then it was gone; windows shone, shadows lengthened.<br /><br />I strolled past Chica da Silva's house again, this time the dark green window frames warmed in the morning's light. Wondered down past the church to the square where another is being reburbished.<br /><br />There a man was sitting on a stone plinth, catching the early rays. And as is the habit in country places, we exchanged good mornings. I shot a couple of photos of Valdemar, as he turned out to be named, we both decided they weren't very good, so I shot another, which wasn't very good either. He told me about the Camino dos Escravos (The Slaves' Road), that lead from Diamantina through the district at the bottom of the valley, where he lived, and up over the cliffs on the other side a further 20km to where the main fields once were. Something more to do then!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6Y9GVClHI/AAAAAAAAAmM/uR9TrV10zqM/s1600-h/090301+059+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6Y9GVClHI/AAAAAAAAAmM/uR9TrV10zqM/s400/090301+059+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309349186154697842" /></a>I checked the time. It was barely 8am. So, back to the Pousada for breakfast - grape juice, coffee, coconut cake and pao de queijo, little balls of cheesebread that I adore.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />I wandered around town some more, then took a taxi out of Diamantina, down the valley through the district where Valdemar lives, up to the big cross that is set on the highest point of the cliffs opposite the town.<br /><br />Nilton, the truck driver turned cab driver, waved me on as I scrambled out of the cab. 'Take your time, don't hurry. I'm happy to sit here and wait for you'. Yes, well he doesn't know I'm the type of guy who can wait all the time it takes for what I hope is the right moment to take a photo (or ten). Fortunately we fixed the price for the trip before leaving, which I'm sure is inflated for just these moments.<br /><br />Up here by the concrete and iron hooped cross, the view is wide open. I'm standing on a sharp ridge, one of several, its steep rocky escarpment tumbling down to the left and towards Diamantina in front of me, a rounded hunch curling away on the other. The rocks are grey and flaked, looking rather like old, worn away concrete from a century ago. The scattered clouds paint a pattern of shadows over the town as I shoot for the sunnier gaps. Nilton is going to have to be patient...<br /><br />From the cross we followed the top of the ridge, keeping the valley on the left. Not much further one there was a graveled parking area. 'The Camino dos Escravos runs across this road.' said Nilton. 'To the right there's no access but to the left, down that cleft there, you can see the road they made. And don't bother about me, you can take your time here too.' <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6ZewEnnEI/AAAAAAAAAmU/-K47qIOqmHs/s1600-h/090301+118+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6ZewEnnEI/AAAAAAAAAmU/-K47qIOqmHs/s200/090301+118+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309349764295793730" /></a>This part of the road is a wide stone road of surprisingly robust construction. Its more like a ramp, made of heavy stones and built up in parts to keep the surface level where the hillsides fall away. This was obviously made for carriages to be drawn up, not a simple pathway for mules and slaves to toil their way to pan for diamonds for the Crown of Portugal (from the 1720s diamond mining was a Crown monopoly). Walking down it the 500 or so meters I did is no effort, but I'm out of breath walking back up. A small stream gurgles by the roadside; no doubt many a slave and freeman took a gulp of the rust tinged water. And checked to see if that glint was a diamond, not just the sun playing tricks with the cascade.<br /><br />A circuit back into town and I thanked Nilton for the ride. He didn't hesitate to give me his card, if ever I was back here again. This is a custom of cab drivers here; I appreciate the initiative. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The squares in town were all quite empty and most of the stores were shuttered still. It being Sunday, many of the townspeople were in the cathedral, their choruses clearly audible. Strangely, its seems that only the cathedral was open - all the other churches were grimly closed too, as though they also observed the shopkeepers' hours.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6Z79QMyyI/AAAAAAAAAmc/80GOvSS6QuQ/s1600-h/090301+141+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6Z79QMyyI/AAAAAAAAAmc/80GOvSS6QuQ/s400/090301+141+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309350266050235170" /></a>In one street the manager of one enterprising tourist store has laid out fresh coffee for passers by to enjoy, courtesy of the store. I do, of course, and I buy a couple of trinkets for the house, of course. As intended and a pleasure. Just over the alleyway another lady is selling biscuits and cake. To her left a band of four musicians is hitting the notes of what is clearly a well known local song. They switch over to 'Parabens pra voce', the Brazilian words for, and sung to the same tune as, 'Happy birthday to you'. One of the people walking through jumps with surprise and her friends start clapping - its her birthday, and the band were told of it. <br /><br />Old Maria Teresinha sits on the steps of the bookstore smiling at a small boy who's sitting there with her. They could be relations, but no, Maria Teresinha was married once but never had children; this is the small son of the store manager.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Going back to the Pousada I find that the owners are there. I compliment them on the beauty of the place, only to find that he is the fourth generation Nascimento, great-grandson of the assayer who first owned the house, and his wife is the daughter of a local writer and photographer, Couto (who's book I had riffled through just after breakfast). <br /><br />Now there's one thing I want to buy, but I haven't found it yet. At tea yesterday and breakfast today, fine lace doilies with heavy beads sewn along the rims were placed over the dishes of food and jugs of juice to stop flies crawling in. Now I know what those things are for! Where can I buy some? 'Oh you can't, these aren't made in stores - my grandmother made them', said the Senhora. What a graceful touch, something from the family used to make a guest's stay more agreeable. 'Ah but if you go to this store,' Senhor Nascimento says, holding out a card for me to take, 'then you may find some interesting artisan work there'.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6aQzaCB4I/AAAAAAAAAmk/xs_OZp8-3Bs/s1600-h/090301+133+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6aQzaCB4I/AAAAAAAAAmk/xs_OZp8-3Bs/s400/090301+133+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309350624184371074" /></a>The store is just along the street so I stop by. I explain my need to Rosa, one of the shopkeepers. 'No, we don't have those. We do have normal lace placers, if you like those'. I take a look, paint a rim of heavy beads stitched around them in my mind's eye. 'I'll have four please!' Rosa packages them up while Christiane, her colleague, complains about the cold. 'Yes it does get quite cold here in the winter time', she replies when I ask the question. Then we get into where I'm from and how can I support this heat. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />I walk down to the square where the public market is, with its red painted horse posts. There a small restaurant is open (I had a beer there yesterday), so I have lunch - the usual steak with fries, rice and some sauces - and a cold beer. That's three in a week - record!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6bFFkX2JI/AAAAAAAAAm0/wJ7hqVOkYlc/s1600-h/090228+067+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6bFFkX2JI/AAAAAAAAAm0/wJ7hqVOkYlc/s400/090228+067+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309351522412779666" /></a>It's too early to walk up to the Rodoviaria, so seeing others sitting there, including the cab driver, I clamber into the shade along one line of stores by the cathedral. Nilton leaves and the person he was talking to asks where I'm from. 'Norway', I reply, 'do you know where it is?'. 'Certainly I do! I'm from Greece!'. <br /><br />Athanasios emigrated with his four elder brothers to Brazil from a dirt poor existence in the Peloponnese way back in 1958, when he was 18. What brought them over was a merchant who knew his eldest brother and suggested Brazil to them when the last great wave of emigration to Brazil occurred in the late 50s and early 60s. Eventually he and some of his brothers wound up in Diamantina, shopkeepers. As we talked his daughter drove by and stopped; she had just come back from a vacation to the coast. He told me that he had been back to Greece three years ago, and was amazed by how it had changed in fifty years. As we gazed out over Diamantina's placid, landlocked plaza, he went silent for a while, the lines in his tanned face just a little more tense.<br /><br />Soon we all had to go our ways, me to the Rodoviaria and the six hour bus ride back to Belo Horizonte.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The coach turned up on time, I managed to get a window seat again. With the glass slid right back I could see the broad open country turn to bare hill top, to grazing land, to pasture land and to farming land. Locals clambered aboard and clambered down again as their stops came up. One of them I recognized from Saturday, when he also ridden a short ways on the coach. He looked the image of the classic Brazilian ranch hand, curled up hat and bright blue jeans.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6atUu4a9I/AAAAAAAAAms/uvaBrQ-VlUA/s1600-h/090301+163+MinasGerais.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6atUu4a9I/AAAAAAAAAms/uvaBrQ-VlUA/s400/090301+163+MinasGerais.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309351114166528978" /></a>Just after the stop in Curvelo the last of the light died and the rest of the way was in soft night of the Brazilian hill country. My iPod held out all the way as I watched 'Amor en el Tiempo de Colera', a film that manages to miss every spark of Garcia Marquez' magic and doesn't even have its own softness like 'Para Agua comc Chocolate'.<br /><br />Back in the apartment and I begin sorting out the almost 700 photos I've shot in little more than 36 hours.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><br><br>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-85802819455519776032009-02-28T23:35:00.009-04:002009-03-04T11:01:45.913-04:00Diamantina (Saturday)<a href="http://flickr.com/photos/carlottersen/sets/72157614759005120/detail/">View all my photos of Diamantina here</a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />'Thanks for the ride', I say to the driver as I'm leaving the bus. 'Just three questions though, if I may? Thanks. Does the bus leave from here also? And its at 15:30 tomorrow, right? Last one - where's the old part of town? Straight down the hill. Down that street there. That steep street just there. Well, thanks again!'<br /><br />So, down the steep street it is then, though I haven't a clue where its going. All I can see is a bare, rocky ridge across the valley beyond. <br /><br />The driver was right! Round a big curve I can begin to see terracotta roofs, a patchwork of pastel and there, the twin spires of the cathedral. Instead of being built along the hill's spine, old Diamantina was built slip-sliding down the hill's steep slope. Must have been to avoid the bleak wind that must blow in the winter, to be that bit closer to the river for water - and to search for the first diamonds, washed out of cracks in the rocks by the rains, lying there a million years waiting for a man's hand to reach out and grasp them tight.<br /><br />The sun still sizzled in the late afternoon air, refreshingly light as the town sits 1200 meters above sea level. There's always something special about being high up in the tropics; all of the color, richness and variety of the verdant lowlands mixed in with the luminance of a high sky and clear mountain freshness. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6U9SxvYHI/AAAAAAAAAls/iTZkvbdYMgM/s1600-h/090228+018+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6U9SxvYHI/AAAAAAAAAls/iTZkvbdYMgM/s400/090228+018+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309344791449788530" /></a>Walked around the town to get my feel of the place, shoot some afternoon photos before the sun faded away over the mountain's ridge behind the town, and find a place to stay for the night. But five days ago the place had been a-bustle with Carnival; now life was concentrated in a small square between two bars. And noisy too, as though the people didn't want the buzz to die away too quickly.<br /><br />As in all of the places on the Estrada Real, the old Royal Road that once lead from Rio de Janeiro and Paraty to just this place, the town's success is expressed by its baroque churches and trader's timberframe houses. Diamantina is of the same epoque as Ouro Preto but, like a diamond, it is more expressively lighter than gold. The streets in both tumble down the hillside, but Diamantina's streets tend to be broader. The churches are pastel, not bold. The houses are wood-and-brick, not wood-and-stone. Same, but different. A delightful unmatching pair.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />One of the houses I especially sought out was the house of Chica da Silva. Depending on your (in Brazil, often ethnic) point of view, Chica was a heroine or a scandal. Either way, she remains famous 200 years after her death. What she did was, become the provincial governor's companion and bear him several children. Correct, they didn't marry. They could have, but convention wouldn't permit it. You see, she had once been a slave (the governor had bought her and freed her). She was African. And she had had children by her previous owners. Including a priest (well, he would, wouldn't he). Count the scandals! <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6VXM6iTaI/AAAAAAAAAl0/i1CkzYfK4WQ/s1600-h/090228+051+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6VXM6iTaI/AAAAAAAAAl0/i1CkzYfK4WQ/s400/090228+051+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309345236552666530" /></a><br />Not that this apparently bothered her much - or the governor. When she was denied access to one of the local churches, as the legend goes, the governor had one put up right next to her house (I checked - there's a crucifix over the carriage gateway but no identifiable chapel, and the church the Governor did built is down the ways a bit),<br /><br />Why is this important to me? The second time I lived in Brazil one of the many (eternal) soap operas running on TV that I used to learn the language from was about Chica da Silva. Really well played with the necessary dash of courage, calculation and charisma. And the only soap opera before or since with an African as main character. My five years in Africa and the experiences I saw there and in many places since always, always makes me sensitive to unfair and false discrimination. So, of course, I fell for Chica's story way back - and had to find her house, once I knew it was here.<br /><br />The house is now a museum. With hardly anyone there I roamed around the rooms, courtyard and garden at will (there are grapevines here - the first I've ever seen in Brazil!). The lower rooms have a paltry collection of broken plates dating from recent times, nothing to do with Chica. The upper rooms have great planks of mahogany for their flooring (I adore this). A few items of furniture from the time (maybe) and several paintings by the same artist depicting Chica in various guises, which if I read correctly are the Seven Deadly Sins. Well, we know which side of the fence this artist is on, anyway. And the local tourist board, despite the tourist Real the legend brings in.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The sun was going down quickly now, so I went back to the Pousada (hostel/inn in the old sense of the word) I thought looked the most interesting and attractive, checked in and found it a delight. Would you believe this place still serves a complimentary tea with cakes at sunset? Wondrous! Hospitality!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6XmvXFsYI/AAAAAAAAAl8/0jJFdBKAEIk/s1600-h/090228+096+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6XmvXFsYI/AAAAAAAAAl8/0jJFdBKAEIk/s400/090228+096+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309347702520525186" /></a>A fast hike back up the hill to take the very last shots possible before twilight closed in, then back to the Pousada for a delectable orange tea and coconut cake in the enclosed courtyard. <br /><br />At the end, the inn's attendant invited me and some fellow guests up from Rio (the ladies' loud nasal voices gave them away) to take a small 'tour' of the little museum set up in the house. In this spacious room was set out the story of panning for diamonds (here they were all alluvial, not mined as in Africa or Australia), with equipment and a small diorama. Think panning for gold and you have it. Also on display were the assayer's and jeweler's tools, this because the house once belonged to the Nascimentos, assayers and jewelers in the the diamond trade.<br /><br />Quick turn around the town in the evening, just to discover that it mostly closes down as the night closes in. Then bed, in an old wooden room with mahogany floorboards, large mahogany bed, fresh white sheets, embroidered coverlet, soft fluffy pillows and the gentlest of cool breezes rustling the white linen curtains as I left the sash windows open. Memorable.<br /><br />Somewhere in the distance a telephone was ringing (and not being answered) constantly.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><br><br>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-48190560590816086462009-02-28T22:33:00.014-04:002009-03-04T10:47:49.549-04:00The Road to Diamantina<a href="http://flickr.com/photos/carlottersen/sets/72157614759005120/detail/">View all my photos of Diamantina here</a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa2YN0u7aHI/AAAAAAAAAk8/0oFmlG5UwVQ/s1600-h/090228+001+Curvelo.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa2YN0u7aHI/AAAAAAAAAk8/0oFmlG5UwVQ/s200/090228+001+Curvelo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309066899000879218" /></a>I had tried to travel to Diamantina during the Carnival period but the coaches were full and so ,the teller told me, were the hotels. Which turned out for the best as I found there was work to do anyway. So Friday evening I returned to the Rodoviaria to buy a return ticket for the weekend.<br /><br />Bright and early on Saturday therefore (not so bright and early as when I went to Ouro Preto, but respectably bright and early) I found myself sitting once again by a window seat, gazing out at the countryside as we headed north for Diamantina.<br /><br />Why go to Diamantina? Because of all the diamonds there, of course. Well, not quite - the town gets its name from the diamonds washed into deposits by the cascading rivers and streams, first found by the same people who found gold in Ouro Preto around 300 years ago. Nowadays its the town they built that draws people, rather than the diamond industry itself, which still exists but is industrialized and remote from the everyday life of the Diamantinines (not Diamantines, though it sounds way easier).<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Heading north meant heading into much different terrain than the way south to Ouro Preto and Congonhas. No mountains and deep ravines here - this part of the world has been settled by ranchers and foresters, with the occasional steel mill thrown in. There are more small towns too, and rarely the view is devoid of some sort of habitation.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6UIEHMvHI/AAAAAAAAAlk/ByPdGR4CPFQ/s1600-h/090228+004+Minas+Gerais.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6UIEHMvHI/AAAAAAAAAlk/ByPdGR4CPFQ/s400/090228+004+Minas+Gerais.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309343876980194418" /></a>After the relatively steep hills around Belo Horizonte, the land softens, with more gentle open rolling hills. There seems to be an equal mix of open countryside, grazing land, crops (mostly maize/corn) and plantations of eucalyptus. Roll back a couple of hundred years (or less) and these lands must have been woodland, strip burned away like the Amazon basin continues to be today. Past Caetanopolis the earth is as red as South Africa or northern Queensland - rusty laterite full of iron - hence the steel foundries, islands among the plantations of trees. <br /><br />These transplanted Australian eucalyptus are set so close together that nothing lives underneath their high canopies; only the outermost trees are fully leaved, making each planted section look like a shaggy, upturned box. With their slender, silvereen trunks its like looking through an elven forest. Wish I could stop to wander through, but the coach presses on. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Three hours we have traveled non-stop. Now the scenery is much more open, almost savannah. We roll into a town called Curvelo, which seems to be in the heart of rancher territory. Fifteen minutes to stretch legs, have a coffee, check up on the soccer matches screened on wall mounted TVs. Not much of the town to see in that time - plus the Rodoviaria is not centrally located. Back up into the coach and off again. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa2ZbjNVtcI/AAAAAAAAAlM/A7XWKV8cnfo/s1600-h/090228+009+Minas+Gerais.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa2ZbjNVtcI/AAAAAAAAAlM/A7XWKV8cnfo/s400/090228+009+Minas+Gerais.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309068234326390210" /></a>From now on right up to Diamantina the coach would stop at several places along the road; obviously this is one of the 'local' buses. The people coming aboard are the farming people and small town traders, young and old, just going a short ways down the road. They are regulars; they all know the driver, the conductor and each other.<br /><br />Soon after Curvelo we slipped off the main road into a place called Ita......, a country town where houses are for the most part kept prettily clean, the public lawns are flowered and waters, their curbstones painted white and tree trunks daubed with quicklime. The same in Gouveia too, a place just a little larger than Ita... just up the road - almost like the towns in Morocco, with the sun brightening the green and white alike.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Between Curvelo and Gouveia the land changes quickly and dramatically. The grasslands give way to rough land spiked with singular grey boulders and broad green ficus bushes. Not that the cattle mind much; they are still tranquilly roaming around, three strands of barbed wire keeping them from short-lived freedom. <br /><br />Then the stones coalesce into rocky outcrops and the lush vegetation falls right away. I can see miles and miles into the distance, like across the grimly bare hills of Scotland. These are the Brazilian highlands, broad expanses of land that never were jungle (too high for that), but some sort of steppe land, with isolated ranches stretching the land to its utmost as they raise cattle. No wonder the beef here tastes so good. <br /><br />We slip between treeless plateaux and green river vales, eventually coming over the last ridge and into Diamantina. The little town of Diamonds.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6TTTTM6KI/AAAAAAAAAlc/ccldg-NeuVk/s1600-h/090301+147+Diamantina.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/Sa6TTTTM6KI/AAAAAAAAAlc/ccldg-NeuVk/s400/090301+147+Diamantina.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309342970524002466" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><br><br>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-12273541504582990112009-02-22T23:38:00.018-04:002009-02-27T12:37:30.572-04:00Ouro Preto<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlottersen/sets/72157614396489190/detail/">View all my photos of Ouro Preto here</a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Up early to walk down through deserted streets once more to the Rodoviaria, this time for Ouro Preto.<br /><br />Ouro Preto (Black Gold) was once called Vila Rica (Rich Town) because its entire reason for existing was as a result of finding gold in the hills around it in the mid 1700s. If I recall correctly, the fist gold was alluvial; the gold diggers soon had their slave gangs burrowing inside the hills for more. If you have ever seen fotos of the army of 'garimpeiros', men covered by the mud of sluiced down hillsides as they scrabble for nuggets, then this was the true face of Ouro Preto.<br /><br />Even now, as the bus screams around every curve of the highway on the way to Ouro Preto (I'm sure all bus drivers here think they are White Rabbits, convinced they are late, terribly late), I can see that there is mining activity in the region. Now of course its a more industrial affair - open mechanical strip mining owned and managed by the state/federal government. The gold diggers sit in public offices now.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagJqvumhjI/AAAAAAAAAi8/tyrZPwU12C8/s1600-h/090222+001+MinasGerais.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagJqvumhjI/AAAAAAAAAi8/tyrZPwU12C8/s400/090222+001+MinasGerais.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307502790827214386" /></a>While the road to Congonhas slipped through hilly country, the road to Ouro Preto is altogether more mountainous. Nowadays the views are quite open, the still forested valleys releasing a long breath of mist as the sun begins to warm up the air. Imagine what it was like 300 years ago when the first of those enterprising sons of Sao Paulo, the 'Bandeirantes' (Bannermen) who were the first colonists to strike inland, struggled through wild, original jungle forest, slashing a path to their El Dorado without ever being able to get to a viewpoint to see where they really were.<br /><br />The forest around Ouro Preto is long gone; cleared for settlement and grazing. The city itself is picture perfect, a traditional Portuguese fishing village transported whole and plopped down entire and complete in a tropical heartland. Literally the only things missing are the cry of seagulls and the roll of the ocean.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagKKAeY0cI/AAAAAAAAAjE/6Jn6gHb_hrI/s1600-h/090222+020+OuroPreto.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagKKAeY0cI/AAAAAAAAAjE/6Jn6gHb_hrI/s400/090222+020+OuroPreto.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307503327898554818" /></a>The people who built it up were, of course, the wealthy mineowners and the merchant who settled in the town to sell the provisions miners needed - assay offices, equipment, slaves. With their surfeit of wealth the place became a boom town, like Manaus, Klondike and Potosí. People settled, families were born, ladies of the household wanted the latest fashion and the Church was graced by the building of several edifices in splendid late Baroque style. <br /><br />Which is where Aleijandinho's father comes into the story, emigrating from what would have been a relatively poor existence in Portugal to Brazil because his skills as carpenter were sorely needed in the construction of what we see today. Rather like a Brit going to Dubai nowadays (or yesterday, nowadays being what they are).<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Since the bus left Belo at 6am, I'm here in Ouro Preto quite early - 8am - which was as planned so I could shoot some photos at a cooler and more interesting time of day. The sun was climbing fast in the sky, but on the other hand its power was often mitigated by many clouds, some almost Alpine in white fluffiness, others dirty grey laundry suds glowering with menace. A typical summer's day in Minas Gerais then. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagLE18gSJI/AAAAAAAAAjM/0uxf-o7Gs4s/s1600-h/090222+038+OuroPreto.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagLE18gSJI/AAAAAAAAAjM/0uxf-o7Gs4s/s400/090222+038+OuroPreto.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307504338684364946" /></a>I wandered around the streets, plazas and terraces, snapping away. One of the most unusual natural features is a cone of rock perched high up on the mountain opposite the town, its singular shape and oblique angle making it look like an elongated darvish's cap or, to be current, like an alien spacecraft crashed as in the movie Independence Day. <br /><br />Ouro Preto also holds a Carnival, but unlike Rio with its regimented samba parade or Salvador with its trios blaring samba from truck drawn floats, Ouro seems to be an altogether more informal affair. Here college students (from where, I don't know) rent apartments/rooms and set up 'Republicas', complete with logo and banner fixed to balconies, where they revel and use as a base station during the festival. <br /><br />At 8am of course, only a couple of diehards were still a-reveling. Most were in their Republics sleeping Saturday off, and not a few had chosen to let the sun of Sunday raise them from where they laid themselves to rest on the Saturday night - whether that be parapets, doorways or the cobblestones of the main plaza itself. The more professional drunks were recognizable not only by their disheveled appearance, but also by the blisters of too much time spent sprawled under the unforgiving sun.<br /> <br />Between scrambling over walls and things, I broke for breakfast, which was a truly delightful coffee with green cardamom (tossed in whole - I'll remember that) and a warn cake of raisins and cinnamon soaked in a sugary syrup. I have to find the recipe to that - it's unforgettably good.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagLlGwXJFI/AAAAAAAAAjU/H9tUAuzhw5g/s1600-h/090222+046+OuroPreto.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagLlGwXJFI/AAAAAAAAAjU/H9tUAuzhw5g/s400/090222+046+OuroPreto.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307504892952650834" /></a>Walked around the streets some more, which by now were beginning to come alive as shutters opened and the perkier of the students began the day. By 11am the sun was strong and the clouds had declared a truce. I headed for the best point in town to watch the town and its people - the platform on which the column to Tiradentes stands.<br /><br />When my body said 'enough already with sitting on a stone!' I moved off and walked around some more, snapping shots of people. By 2pm the whole town was buzzing with the expectation of the excitement to come. The street stalls and solo traders were open by now, with sizzling skewers and caipirinha, hot dogs and icy beer for all. Soon after the music started up, not live - that was for later, in the evening - but the 'classic' pop and samba songs that got people jigging (too early for the full-blown everyone-together samba that marks Carnival here).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagMHtHSQ6I/AAAAAAAAAjc/ZGAzg2h2Ecs/s1600-h/090222+106+OuroPreto.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagMHtHSQ6I/AAAAAAAAAjc/ZGAzg2h2Ecs/s400/090222+106+OuroPreto.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307505487364899746" /></a>A convoy of police vans arrived, the visibly unhappy cops piled out and went their different ways to make sure the crows stayed happy but safe. At several key points several of them clambered up to temporary observation posts set in the plaza and principal streets. Actually not a bad idea - I haven't seen this at other events and it makes sense. Rather like the beach guards in Australia checking for rip tides and sharks.<br /><br />In the late afternoon I could see heavy clouds heading fast for Ouro Preto. I also felt my face and forearms to be unnaturally hot and sensitive (I was sunburned!). So, after being the subject of a quick interview by a local TV station (as one of the few foreigners here I was collared by an enterprising and lovely reporter) and snapping some photos of people who asked them of me, I headed back to the bus station. No, I didn't stay for the night's revelries. I thought about it, but all the local pousadas (hotel/hostel/B+B rolled into one) looked full and I wasn't going to spend a night in the streets. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagM-gY-LlI/AAAAAAAAAjk/5R_QF0Xv_o8/s1600-h/090222+102+OuroPreto.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagM-gY-LlI/AAAAAAAAAjk/5R_QF0Xv_o8/s400/090222+102+OuroPreto.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307506428842225234" /></a>By 8pm I was back in Belo, rolling through the 300+ photos I had taken. <br /><br />Ouro Preto is a pretty place, and one of the very few that ever were in Brazil. It feels automatically familiar to anyone who has spent time in the Latin/Mediterranean region, a human sized place of wood, stucco and balconies cascading over green hills. <br /><br />If this were in Europe it would be like Portofino, an expensive locale for wealthy people to buy a small apartment, its streets filled with high quality artisan work and day tourists. In a sense its more lovely than that, as Brazilians don't hold such places in the same regard, the money generally going on a beachfront high rise apartment, or in a villa in Buzios, or a gated community in Florida. So it is entirely personable. If it were by the sea, then it would be a place to live in.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagNeqhQ38I/AAAAAAAAAjs/HSJoPO0qBGs/s1600-h/090222+016+OuroPreto.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagNeqhQ38I/AAAAAAAAAjs/HSJoPO0qBGs/s400/090222+016+OuroPreto.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307506981317173186" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><br><br>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-32641139921392913202009-02-21T23:13:00.018-04:002009-02-27T12:38:58.573-04:00Congonhas<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlottersen/sets/72157614353795600/detail/">View all my photos of Congonhas here</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />This is Carnival weekend - five days of non-stop celebration. Unfortunately I'm not in one of the more 'established' centers to enjoy Carnival - Belo is not Rio or Salvador - and thanks to work impediments I wasn't able to book ahead to go somewhere interesting - all full or way too expensive at short notice.<br /><br />So I resolved to do some day trips based from Belo - and from here its easy to visit the colonial era towns of Minas Gerais. Most of these were developed during the 'Gold Rush' of the second half of the 1700's; places like Ouro Preto and Diamantina.<br /><br />My first stop, today, was to Congonhas, a small town on the Royal Road that connected Sao Paulo and Rio to the heartland of mining territory. Congonhas do Campo is special for one reason (and one reason alone), namely the Basilica and its surrounding statues scullpted by Aleijandinho, Brazil's native born baroque era sculpltor.<br /><br />I've been here before, way back in Easter 1996. Then I was with Marcia and we were doing a tour of the region. So this is 'known' territory. Not having, or wanting, a rental car, I took the coach. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Since Brazil doesn't have a rail network to speak of many coach operators fill the gap. These all leave from the same terminal in each serviced town; it looks like each operator has an exclusive route, with the exception of travel to principal cities. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagQWFJGp4I/AAAAAAAAAj0/EX_nPdkKY3A/s1600-h/090221+001+BeloHorizonte.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagQWFJGp4I/AAAAAAAAAj0/EX_nPdkKY3A/s400/090221+001+BeloHorizonte.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307510132379658114" /></a>I'd checked out the 'Rodoviaria' in Belo on Friday night to see where it was and how it worked. On Friday, thanks to the start of the long Carnival weekend, the queues were wound around people waiting for departures and even out of the doors. Saturday morning turned out to be easier, but many departures were full already. <br /><br />I booked a trip to Ouro Preto for Sunday and, given there was probably time enough, bought a ticket for the trip to Congonhas today. In the fifty minutes of waiting I walked around the terminal building seeing what I could shoot with my little pocket camera. Not easy, with the press of people and the scarse neon lighting in what is a low dark hall - Niemeyer's heavy concrete hand is everywhere in public buildings here, constructing caves where there could be light.<br /><br />The coach turned up almost on time and departed quite quickly. Clean, comfortable with reclining seats and enough room for legs too. Most of the passengers were headed to Congonhas, returning home or to visit relatives for the Carnival. <br /><br />Since Congonhas is south of Belo we passed by where the offices are, which felt kind of weird. Soon we were beyond the city limits and into steep hill country. Never mountainous, just very hilly. The road was wide most of the way, all the more room for the driver to zip around, given that he intended to stick to the schedule at all costs. We stopped at a couple of other small towns before arriving in Congonhas itself. A short taxi ride and I was up the hill by Aleijandinho's basilica.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagSvH8D96I/AAAAAAAAAkU/oEL-13knZEU/s1600-h/090221+052+Congonhas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagSvH8D96I/AAAAAAAAAkU/oEL-13knZEU/s400/090221+052+Congonhas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307512761650247586" /></a>There is a dispute about whether or not Aleijandinho ever existed, or if he did whether he ever did what is ascribed to him, or whether he did it solo or as part of a local studio. The story is that Antonio Lisboa was born in Ouro Preto of a Portuguese carpenter and his African slavewoman, raised with the children of his father's official family (presumably white) - so he is the archetypal Brazilian and the true reason why he exists. From these beginnings he learned his father's skills, joined a studio in Ouro Preto, suffered some disease or accident, earned the nickname 'Aleijandinho' (Little Cripple) and worked his life away sculpting façades and statues for the local churches. <br /><br />Who cares? The work is very beautiful, characterized by the rich textures of the sculpted cloth and the almost Etruscan look of the curved, almond eyes. The stone statues are the true reason to come to Congonhas.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />I've never been inside the basilica, aka the Sanctuary of the Good Jesus of Matosinhos. From the outside its a delicate, modestly sized church in classic Portuguese late baroque style which serves as a platform and backdrop for the statues. There are evidently twelve of them, all prophets from the Old Testament, each with a large scroll which carries a quote from the same.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagSasmGaEI/AAAAAAAAAkM/RvjT5rXEeNM/s1600-h/090221+056+Congonhas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagSasmGaEI/AAAAAAAAAkM/RvjT5rXEeNM/s400/090221+056+Congonhas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307512410712991810" /></a><br />Off the platform on which they all stand, down the sloping hill in front of the basilica, are several kiosks with wooden sculptures inside, from the same period as the statues and depicting several events in Jesus' life. I think these must be used in processions and are laid in these one room kiosks for people to view, as in a tableau, but these are so dimly lit by the two window slits that in essence they are invisible. They don't have anything of the quality of the stone statues; just the usual folk-cut emblems of religion.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagTZSIgWtI/AAAAAAAAAkc/9UD0iGs47J4/s1600-h/090221+075+Congonhas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagTZSIgWtI/AAAAAAAAAkc/9UD0iGs47J4/s400/090221+075+Congonhas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307513485941299922" /></a>I wandered around the souvenir stalls that lie around the precinct. The houses are quaint, the products the usual selection of miniature prophets and religious reliquaries you'd expect, plus the regional handwork of hammocks, covers and cloths, as well as painted stoneware, a lot of which is quite pretty - and which I bought the last time I was here.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagTnAUzdyI/AAAAAAAAAkk/o5ME_I37Rug/s1600-h/090221+084+Congonhas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagTnAUzdyI/AAAAAAAAAkk/o5ME_I37Rug/s400/090221+084+Congonhas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307513721679214370" /></a>Strolled down the hill to a large circular building enclosing a round plaza call the Romaria. Other than a sensation of being in a low rise amphitheater, I haven't a clue what Rome might have to do with the name. The Romaria is a very elegant, old style building which I think in part are the public administration offices of the town (the Mayor's office is there, at least). Its quite a piece of architecture for a small town - human sized and quite impressive for that. <br /><br />Back up the hill, knowing that the bus back to Belo was at 9pm and it was now 7pm, my stomach kicked in and said 'dinner'. I was torn between the lower restaurant run by a woman and the upper restaurant, run by a man. The lower was empty, the upper had some people in, so I headed for the upper. The beer I ordered was the most deliciously cold, crisp beer I had had in a long time - perfect for the end of the day (for those that don't know me, I drink beer very very rarely). The dinner (I played safe and ordered steak and fries) was terrible - warmed up something that someone hadn't eaten at lunch, masquerading as steak grilled au point.<br /><br />A taxi took me back to the Rodoviaria, the bus came in on time and by 10:30 I was back in Belo. What a pleasant jaunt out for the day. <br /><br />Tomorrow I have to be up early - 6am bus to Ouro Preto!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagT__8CwPI/AAAAAAAAAks/MfS5-OmgqLA/s1600-h/090221+080+Congonhas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SagT__8CwPI/AAAAAAAAAks/MfS5-OmgqLA/s400/090221+080+Congonhas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307514151072088306" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">---oo0oo---</div><br><br>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-5553517348336943122009-02-17T15:05:00.002-04:002009-02-17T15:07:26.048-04:00It's stopped raining<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />You will all recall my blogs from December about it raining all the time. Well its been raining in Belo Horizonte since I got back here. Every day. Especially weekends.<br /><br />Today is the first day it hasn't. The clouds have retreated, almost, to the horizon.<br /><br />And that is my news for the past two weeks ....<br /></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-11421836322655288702009-02-02T15:00:00.001-04:002009-02-17T15:04:32.030-04:00In Brazil again<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />I'm off to Brazil again - don't know how long for. Its for work, of course. This time I will grab some free time and go and do/see something interesting. Don't have my good camera gear with me as I don;t want to be encumbered and I don't want to take the risk.<br /><br />Not much will happen in Brazil when I'm there, so post will be erratic again.<br /></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8920127010158666482.post-32275467077129845782009-01-15T12:19:00.004-04:002009-01-23T12:43:52.694-04:00French picnic<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Good sunny weather so took a break from fixing the house to go to Nice. Most of the day was shopping (for things for the house) but the highlight was buying two baguettes, some cheese, salami, pâté, ham and red wine then heading for the beach between Nice and Antibes for a late in-the-car picnic. <br /><br />The sea was quite agitated, the waves hitting the stony beach quite hard and high. Hardly anyone there, just some locals packing up their mountain bikes. On days like this the wind pushes away the usual city pollution and you can see how close the Alpes Maritimes really are; today with the snow level down quite low the view was quite impressive.<br /><br />I didn't bring my camera with me this time but here is a shot from the same location taken just about a year ago when I came back from Baghdad.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SXnzUqL3kAI/AAAAAAAAAgs/VqPqc620w4M/s1600-h/080329+Antibes+054.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6qpEFZQdP2U/SXnzUqL3kAI/AAAAAAAAAgs/VqPqc620w4M/s400/080329+Antibes+054.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294530373197729794" /></a><br /></div>Carl Ottersenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10201724383601669936noreply@blogger.com0