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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…
