-
Extreme Bird Love, That
Here in Lima, the trees and rooftops are overrun with cuculis — plumpish grey morning doves who coo mournfully, mate in treetops, and shit absolutely everywhere. With all this cuculi mess around, it’s easy for a Limena to forget that Peru itself is considered a birder’s paradise. I certainly forgot. Then I read an article in last Sunday’s El Comercio about “the four types of foreign tourists” in Peru and what they like to spend their money on, and of the four prototypical turistas, one of them was The Birdlover. Otherwise known as Wads ‘o Cash. Birdlovers, the article claimed, spend more than other visitors to Peru — more than Archaeology/Cultural Tourists,…
-
Peru’s Porters Win Ausangate Gold Medal for Weightlifting
The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics are officially over, the winners have scurried home with their medals, and the losing athletes are either chastised, pitied or forgotten by most of the world. No laurel wreath, no glory, the Olympic equation goes. Not on this blog, however. In the same spirit of honoring athletic excellence that inspired the first Olympic Games, An American in Lima introduces the Ausangate Awards for High-Altitude Athletic Achievement. Just as the Olympic Games are named after Greece’s highest mountain, Mount Olympus (2,919 meters above sea level), the Ausangate Awards take as their namesake the tallest peak in the Cordillera Vilcanota, Mount Ausangate (6,384 meters / 20,945 feet above…
