We went to Machu-Picchu today! We ate breakfast and set off. We walked up a beautiful jungle path filled with creepy and eerie sensations but they decided to be silent when we were there. We peeked around an overgrown archway made of palm leaves and realized why we were here. There in front of us was the most mystical thing we had ever seen (well of course that was because the air was filled with mist.) I looked up to see towering walls of power with every stone placed in its one perfect position.

Our group walked for a while then came to what was my favorite place, I called it The Echoing Chamber. We all scrabbled in the small space and attentively listened as our guide starting talking, “this is a room for music, when the wind blows from the west the music will play by blowing through the rocks” and he showed us a demonstration. We walk out of “The Temple of the Wind” and everything happened so fast after that. All of a sudden our guide left and then we had lunch and before I knew it we were walking down from Machu Picchu as we finished our miraculous journey.


By Sinclaire


Layers of mountains beyond Machu Pichu

I can’t take my eyes off the women. They are so stunning in their wool skirts and their top hats that sit high up on their heads. I pretend to be active while I stare at them. One woman in particular is wearing a white top hat and the sun is coming through the window and shining only on her. Her white hat is glowing above her rich dark skin. She has no idea how beautiful I find her right now.

The women are gathered for Talleres which is a handi-craft collective. Peru’s Challenge organized the Talleres three years ago to give the women a means to earn money. They are given wool or material and they produce the crafts to sell. A portion of the money goes to the individual and a portion goes to the community.

The Talleres has not met for a few months following the school break and the women are like giddy girls. Understanding this, Iris (the famous social worker) has the women play a game before coming inside. We form two lines out on the grass and when she says “GO!” we hurriedly pass a ball of wool between our legs. The person in the back runs to the front and continues to pass the ball. Some women run, some walk, some stroll. We are squealing and falling, and mostly we are laughing. We are laughing so hard. It is so wonderful to laugh with the women who often appear so serious.

So proud of my girls- they are like little mountain goats bounding to the top of the passes first. I nearly didn’t’ do this trek because I thought they wouldn’t do very well with their questionable digestive health over the past month, and with a bunch of strapping 20 year olds in the group. I can’t imagine missing this. Aside from being with the kids at Puma Marca, this is the best experience of our trip. The beauty is beyond description because it is so different from anything I have seen. It reminds me of Alaska combined with what I imagine Scotland to look like, combined with someone’s superb imagination of the most beautiful place on earth. The girls and I are the first ones down this valley and we can’t help but run and leap in this verdant beauty. We are surrounded by high peaks, mist, pools of water, and a green, spongy, mat plant that completely covers the ground. We feel like we are the only people and it is the beginning of the world. It seems like a dinosaur could walk into the scene and we wouldn’t be surprised. We have trouble waiting for the rest of the group because we can’t stop walking and being filled by the raw beauty.

This is the land of the Incas. The land of the proud Quechua people, distinct from the Spanish. This landscape looks exactly as it did during the time of the Incas in the 1500’s, and then again exactly as it did with the first people. It is such a natural combination of people living with the environment. The llamas and alpacas are the same animals that have been here 6-7,000 years (domesticated from the vicunas and guanacos). The inconspicuous homes are made of the same rocks and Andes grass that is covering the hills. There are no roads here, only trails that lead up and over the high misty passes and down through the valleys. As we hike the trails we are suddenly joined by several young kids, or a mother and baby, or a lone man with a horse in tow. They are dressed in colorful hand-woven alpaca clothing that looks like their finest attire. Our guide explains that this is what they wear daily. It is like artwork and I devour its beauty as I pass in my drab head-to-toe REI hiking attire.

The people are curious, or passing by, or seeing what we might offer them. They are very humble, never imposing. On our second night after climbing our third and highest pass at over 15,000 feet, five women suddenly appear at our campsite and spread their beautiful hand-woven blankets near our tents. They display large bottles of Cusquena beer beside hand woven socks and alpaca hats. I really want a beer, but I hold off because I need to respect the altitude and instead buy a pair of socks. As dark approaches they pack up and head back to their homes that are hidden somewhere in the hills.

Sinclaire shows off her talents after being accepted to the the Peruvian Women's Pro Basketball Team.

All night bus ride

Returning to Cusco feels like coming home. We took an all night bus ride that started off fine- the seats tilted far back, the driver was reasonable, the kids fell asleep, and I had my cozy sleeping bag to snuggle. At 1:30 AM I was jostled awake and felt like we were hurling downhill. In the front of the bus there was an LCD screen and instead of broadcasting the time and temperature it was a blinking Kilometros Maximos, Kilometros Maximos! I was instantly wide awake and madly checked the seat belts of my kids. My broken seat belt which had previously seemed inconvenient, suddenly seemed like a death sentence. I pulled my seat belt out as far as it would go and tied it in a large knot around the arm rest. Damned if I was going to be thrown from a crashing bus, instead I would be the one they couldn’t extricate. I slept only fitfully the rest of the night and thought a lot about death (traveling has a way of doing that to you). When we got off the bus in Cusco I realized that we had a different driver (a young speed junky). As a mother this is the hardest part of traveling. My kids are so dependent on me and in turn sometimes I am dependent on careless people.




The Uros floating islands, Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca, Amantani Island

Coming here is like going back in time a hundred years. No streets, no cars, no big stores, no hotels, water at a trickle from the faucet if you are lucky, and electricity from a car battery.

We have been traveling by boat for 3 hours and are greeted at the dock by our home-stay family. They are dressed in their finest which for the women is red woolen skirts, white blouses and black embroidered shawls, and for the men, black pants and ponchos. As we walk up the narrow cobbled path to one of the top houses we realize this is the attire for all Amantanis, not just those greeting the handful of tourists.

The home is better than I had imagined. The bedrooms are on the second floor and are clean, colorful, and pretty. The house is built around a garden that has a profusion of 5 foot pink hollyhocks and the red stalks of quinoa growing side by side. There are several mud brick buildings that surround the garden. One of them is a cozy kitchen that has a large table with benches. At one end of the room is a rounded clay cook “stove” with a hole for a small fire beneath. The fire is kept burning with eucalyptus leaves and small twigs. We sat while our host mom (Teadora) and her teenage daughter prepared a lunch of sopa (soup), followed by fried cheese (that was squeaky against your teeth) and papas (potatoes). One of the papas was a small fingerling that was waxy, sweet and delicious.

After lunch Sinclaire and I were enjoying the tranquility and beauty when suddenly there was the strangest noise in the room. We heard it twice and couldn’t comprehend what it was. We looked at each other and then at Teadora who smiled and then reluctantly reached into her blouse and pulled out a cell phone. She looked at it and then handed it to her teenage daughter. She gave us a resigned look while her teenage daughter broadly smiled. Suddenly Amantani Island was part of the modern age.

Peru by day, Grass Valley Charter School by night. For the past four nights I have been dreaming about home and school. I am beginning to feel the first bit of homesickness dawning on me. I’ll imagine what time it is back in California, and what everyone is doing at the moment. Dad, golfing. Grandma, playing cello. Friends, school. Everything is so new here it is sometimes a bit overwhelming. Although we Scype my dad it almost makes me miss him more. The tug of seeing his face, but him not actually being here is a little bit crazy.

by Elena


Tug

Tug, tug, tug

My heart is being pulled
In different directions
Pulling, pushing
Moving, morphing
Hurting, healing
Connected by
So many
Delicate threads
Some of them
Are going to break
But others
Will only
Get stronger
Binding us
Gravitating together
When apart,

Tug, tug, tug.