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Escaping the American Credit Nightmare
Note to readers: My opinion piece “Escaping the American Credit Nightmare” appears in the Sunday (Oct. 12, 2008) edition of the Miami Herald, in the “My View” column of the business section. Here’s my original piece below — Barbara Drake: One of the pleasures of moving to Peru last July (2007) was escaping the flurry of credit offers that used to besiege our mailbox in Florida. Each afternoon I’d grab the stack of new mail and spend a good 15 minutes going through the envelopes. There’d be offers for new credit cards, lines of credit, adjustable-rate mortgages on our home, home-equity lines of credit, cash-out refinances. I had never asked for…
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Big Sister, Little Sister, Ausangate-style
Adorable big sister from Puca Rumi I met this girl two weeks ago while trekking around Mount Ausangate. We were camping on her father’s land in Puca Rumi, and she shyly came up to our tents, wanting to meet us. When I took out a bag of chupetas (lollipops) her two brothers magically appeared in our campsite. For two hours the girl followed us around. The entire time she carried her little sister on her back, tied in a fabric sling. She didn’t complain once. The baby sister peeked over her big sister’s shoulder and sucked on her bottle of straw-colored liquid. I have no idea what it was. My…
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Totally Offensive: McDonald’s Opens at Cusco Plaza de Armas
The “M” is brown, but it’s still the same Mac-chain Several posts ago, I incorrectly announced that Cafe Ayllu on Cusco’s Plaza de Armas had closed due to a pending rent increase. My source was wrong; what I found out when I visited Cusco last week is that the Ayllu is still open, for now. (It will close soon.) The real news is: fast-food chain McDonald’s has opened a franchise just three doors down from the Ayllu. The McDonald’s opened last Wednesday with little fanfare, according to John at the South American Explorers Clubhouse in Cusco. “They sort of snuck in,” he says. “There wasn’t any word about it.” The…
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Beautiful Weavings Made on Nevado Ausangate
Justina weaving on her hand loom, in Pacchanta We spent about 45 minutes talking with this lovely Quechua-speaking woman, who lives with her children and mother-in-law in a small village called Pacchanta. It’s on the trekking circuit around Nevado Ausangate. Justina earns money by weaving textiles on her handloom. The day I met her she was weaving a striking piece of fabric with condors and geometric designs, made from handspun, home-dyed wool. The colors were quite beautiful. Her daughters looked on as she deftly wove the threads in and out, tracing intricate patterns. The weaving would be done in two weeks, she told me. The symbolism of weavings like Justina’s…
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Back from the Land of the Blue-eyed Alpaca
I spotted this unusual blue-eyed alpaca on a hillside in Upis I returned to Lima this past Saturday after a week trekking around Mount Ausangate, in southern Peru, with my cousin and a Quechua-Spanish translator from Cusco. What an experience. It was a work trip, rather than a vacation per se; we’d wake up at six each morning, bolt down some oatmeal and then walk to the next pueblo to find people to interview. I was there to talk to people about climate change and how it’s impacting their daily rituals and religious celebrations. A few random observations: (1) The ice caps are melting rapidly, and extreme weather events are…
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Blog Babysitting
For the next eight days I’ll be in the Andes with little to no Internet access, so I won’t be publishing new posts. This wasn’t my plan. I wrote a bunch and wanted to schedule them in advance, but the Schedule Post feature in WordPress (what this blog runs on) is a dud and it simply queues the posts ad infinitum. Sigh. It’s a programming glitch that WordPress has not solved, and if this kind of thing interests you, click here to follow the thread on the WordPress Boards. I’ll be back to the blog on Sunday, September 21, with news about my trip to Ausangate and hopefully some great…
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Photo of the Day: Apu Veronica
The beautiful Apu Veronica, considered a female mountain lord by indigenous people in the Peruvian Andes Many mountains in the Andes are considered male by the local people, but a few are female, like Nevado Veronica. She rises wide and conical over the Urubamba Valley, like a big-hipped mama towering over her children. In the photo above, she’s bathed in luscious drifts of snow that resemble swirls of soft-serve ice cream. I suspect the photo was taken a while ago or immediately after a heavy snowfall because Veronica has lost much of her snowcap in the last fifteen to twenty years, as a result of global warming. She’s mainly brown now. Veronica is my favorite mountain in…
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Photo of the Day: Plaza de Armas, Cusco
Early morning, Cusco Plaza de Armas; photo by Jorge Vera 2008 Quite beautiful in the morning light. Later in the morning, filled with tourists and restaurant employees hawking luncheon specials. Former mom-and-pop stores around the plaza have now been converted into high-end jewelry boutiques selling reproduction Sipan brooches. People on the street pester you all day and night to buy stuff (tours to Manu, chompas), as American blogger Alli notes in Corriendo La Liebre. Still beautiful though. Venerable local cafe — the Ayllu — declared part of the city’s cultural patrimony. El Fotografo and I were sitting there one morning in 1995 when he saw a porter rush by with a…
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Photo of the Day: Masked Sheep’s Head Dancer, Qoyllur Rit’i Pilgrimage 2006
Masked dancer at Qoyllur Rit’i festival, Peru, 2006 El Fotografo spied this guy at the 2006 pilgrimage. He embodies the fertility cult that underpins the festival’s Catholic traditions, which have been sycretized with older, Andean rituals. I find this image rather terrifying, for some reason. We looked again for the Sheep’s Head Dancer this past May but didn’t see hide nor hair of him, as they say. —Barbara R. Drake
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Photo of the Day: Ausangate Mountain Range
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Preparing to Visit Apu Ausangate
The local Quechua-speaking people consider Ausangate the mightiest apu or mountain lord of the region. Like all apus, Ausangate has a gender (male) and a personality (powerful, easily offended). Local customs dictate that we pay our respects to the apu prior to beginning our trek, to ensure a successful journey.
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Looking for Love, Doggie-style
The come-ons are written in Spanish and taped to a wooden counter by the cash register: ” I’m handsome, neat, and my name is Chester. I’m looking for a hot little bitch who’s crazy for me!” “I’m playful and loving, with a good character. Searching for a beautiful girlfriend to make a family. (Please call my owner’s cell phone number.)” Many include color photos of the machos, like this one for “Diego”: “Hi, my name is Diego and I’m a 4-year-old bombón Lab. I’m searching for a girlfriend. It’s already time to think about the future.” El Fotógrafo and I check out the signs each week when we…
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How Pitiful! Peru Spends 3 Soles per Peruvian on Sports
A recent article in El Comercio, summarized in English by reporter Israel Ruiz, exposes why Peru performs so abysmally in international sporting events like the Olympics. Here’s Ruiz’s complete story published today in Living in Peru: Peruvian sports are trapped in time, said reporters for El Comercio, explaining there were records in the Andean country that had not been broken in almost 40 years. Fernando Acevedo, one of Peru’s past athletes that has not had his records broken affirmed he was not proud of this or the difficult situation the country was facing. “The fact that no one has broken my records shows we have not progressed,” said Acevedo, explaining that without…
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How to (Maybe) Cure a Lima Chest Cold
El Fotografo can't kick this chest cold he's been suffering from for three weeks. Not even the schlep to Santa Eulalia last weekend could knock it out of his system. So I decided to try a home remedy on him that I read about in Suite 101. Now EF's lying in bed swathed in poultices and blankets, just four feet away from me, and the room reeks of Indian food.
