-
Greetings from the Glacier Pow-wow
The United States is doing a good, not-so-small thing in Peru by co-sponsoring (via USAID), with The Mountain Institute, an international conference in Lima and Huaraz on the topic of “Adapting to a World without Glaciers.” El Fotografo and I were graciously invited to be part of this effort, which brings together social scientists and biophysical scientists working on climate change. The idea is for all of these brilliant minds to come up with suggestions on how to cope with the pending water crisis in Peru. (Just to clarify: EF and I aren’t scientists. We just like to hang out with them.) So much to learn from these interesting people. El Hijo is coming…
-
Photo of a Pilgrimage Leader
"The Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i wants us to live together on this earth peacefully," he explained. "We travel to Qoyllur Rit'i in comparsas to learn to share, to stop being egotistical and hypocritical."
-
Photo of the Day: Our Campsite at Qoyllur Rit’i
We camped out for three nights (June 6-9) in the valley below receding Qolqepunku Glacier. That dark mountain on the right used to be covered with snow and ice. Once upon a twentieth century… I look at this photo, and what strikes me is how pleasant and cozy the scene appears. Warm sunlight, plenty of space between campsites. That’s anything but the truth. Climbing out of that tent in the frigidly cold morning was torture. I got dizzy bending over in the high altitude and sort of collapsed onto this chair just minutes before El Fotografo snapped this shot. There is an 11-year-old child inside the zippered tent, refusing to come out after a sleepless…
-
Climate Change & Disappearing Glaciers, Festivals, Sacred Rituals, Religion, Peru's Andes Mountains, Traditions + Rituals
I End up Doing the Whipping Dance
El Fotografo and I were making friend with our camping neighbors — a comparsa from Cusco — at the Qoyllur Rit’i pilgrimage last weekend, when suddenly one of the young dancers snatched me by the arm. “Come on, dance,” she said. No, I said, several times — No to the satin skirt being pinned around my (enormous) down jacket, No to the elaborate flat hat (montera) being strapped on my head, No to the leather whip being thrust in my gloved hand. No, because this gringa didn’t want to risk having a heart attack by foolishly dancing the “Yawar Mayu” (River of Blood) ritual whipping dance at 15,500 feet above sea level. Not…
-
Getting Our Bearings Back after Qoyllur Rit’i
Back in Lima today after four days and three nights at Qoyllur Rit’i. We got great material (interviews, photos, video), and all of us survived, but it was an ordeal. Bitterly cold temperatures (-10 degrees Celcius), sleepless nights accompanied by constant drumming, dynamite being set off helter-skelter. Having to re-set up camp ourselves in the dark due to our arriero‘s incompetence (tents pitched at angles, facing wind). El Fotografo passing out due to exertion at high altitude….I could go on and on. But on the plus side — we met a great comparsa from Cusco-Santiago, who welcomed us into their rituals and let us understand the remarkable faith that drives pilgrims to make this…
-
Going up the Mountain Today
It is quarter of nine in the morning, and we’re waiting for the van to pick us up at Hostal Buena Vista, in Cusco, to take us to Mawayni. That’s where pilgrims begin the eight-kilometer climb to the shrine of Qoyllur Rit’i. The hostal is owned by El Fotografo’s cousin Jorge, who’s got a nice thing going here. We’re listening to the Waifs and eating local bread with eggs, cheese, ham — 100 percent energy, as Jorge says. El Hijo likes Cusco this time around. I have no idea how well he will cope at high altitude, surrounded by tens of thousands of dancing, chanting pilgrims. Tonight we’ll find out.…
-
In Search of the Vanishing Snow Star
El Fotografo and I are turning the house upside-down this weekend, as we air out camping gear to go to the glacier pilgrimage of Qoyllur Rit’i (“Snow Star” in Quechua) next week. The annual Andean pilgrimage takes place in a remote valley in southern Peru, at the foot of 16,000-foot-high Qolqepunku Glacier. Pilgrims travel from all over central and southern Peru, as well as northern Boliva, to attend this remarkable event, the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. The Catholic Church has its hand in Qoyllur Rit’i, but what really interests me and El Fotografo are the indigenous, ice-worshipping rituals that people perform at Qoyllur Rit’i. That’s why we’re…
-
Pres. Obama, Where Is Your Commitment to Climate Change Adaptation?
“There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act now and act internationally” –Lord Stern Spent a few hours this morning at a group meeting with Mr. Robin Gwynn, the U.K’s newly appointed special envoy on climate change for vulnerable countries. He came to Lima with spokesperson Kirsty Lewis of the Hadley Center to talk about Peru, climate change and the U.K.’s commitment to helping threatened countries adapt to the environmental crisis. (The image above shows children in Puno being treated for respiratory illnesses in 2008 when record colds induced by climate change led to a rash of mortalities.) FYI: Peru is one of three…
-
California to Die of Thirst Like Coastal Peru?
image courtesy L.A. Times blog Word has been out for a while that dwindling meltwater from Peru’s tropical glaciers will lead to dire water shortages in 40 years unless radical measures are taken to find and conserve new sources. Most of the water used along Peru’s coastal region, including Lima, originates in the glaciers of the Andes, which are receding due to rapid climate change. Climate patterns in the southern hemisphere, however, don’t worry most U.S. citizens, who mistakenly believe that their own lives will be minimally impacted by climate change. Changes are coming sooner than they think. In his first interview, the U.S. Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu is predicting the end of California agriculture and…
-
High-tech Super Tree Combats Air Pollution in Surquillo
The Urban Air Cleaner UAC-20, a.k.a. “Super Tree,” is busy sucking up fumes in lovely downtown Surquillo What is it with Surquillo, lately? The working-class Lima district is making headlines for advocating innovative, sometimes radical solutions to urban problems. First Surquillo’s mayor Gustavo Sierra raised eyebrows around the world when he suggested that Peru solve its drug problem by legalizing illicit drugs and handling them through the national health ministry. (Sierra later claimed that he was misquoted and that he does not want to legalize drugs, but, rather, he wants the Peruvian government to fund programs to treat drug addicts. Read his refutation in Spanish here.) Now Surquillo is tackling the less-controversial problem of air pollution by installing a state-of-the-art air purifier nicknamed…
-
Artists Envisioning Climate Change: Come Hell or High Water
A 21-meter-tall high tide in Bristol, England? It’s projected to hit the city if the Greenland Ice Cap melts completely and no mitigation is put in motion, as this installation dramatizes Following up on a link to yesterday’s post about climate-change denial among U.S. citizens, I discovered an intriguing blog about the arts and the environment. RSA Arts & Ecology blog reports on an outdoor arts project in England that forces viewers to confront the future impacts of climate change on their own city: Tomorrow evening at dusk Chris Bodle’s Watermarks Project comes to life in Bristol city centre. The artwork takes the conjectures about the effect of global warming on sea…
-
Hah! An Old Friend Laughes in My Face about Rising Sea Levels
The napkin is my witness: Notes from my Dec. 20 conversation about climate change with reporter Jim DeFede Reporter Jim DeFede and I were office buddies at Miami New Times back in the mid-90s. He sat in his tiny cubicle, digging up dirt on crooked politicians and fending off threats from the angry subjects of his no-holds-barred exposés. I sat a few seats behind DeFede at the copy editing desk, tidying up commas and occasionally contributing a feature story on something offbeat, like full-moon drumming circles on South Beach. We were two very different writers; he was a hard facts, investigative guy who’d risk anything to expose corruption in high places. I was a…
-
Quit Spewing Out Greenhouse Gases, America!
That, in short, is my message to the United States. I’m inspired to scream in my headline after watching Al Gore warn the U.S. Senate on Wednesday that the U.S. needs to join the rest of the world in signing a treaty to cut greenhouse emissions. The planet will soon reach a “tipping point” of damage to the climate, Gore told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (Click here for CNN news brief, Gore Warns of Damage to Climate Change). If the United States — the world’s biggest per-capita producer of greenhouse gases — doesn’t get on board with cutting emissions drastically, the world’s climate will heat up to levels that may not be able…
-
Global Warming Claims Another Peruvian Glacier
Awful news. Quilca Glacier (5,250 meters above sea level) in Puno has disappeared completely, reports Peru’s National Institute for Natural Resources (IRENA). The disappearance of Quilca is part of an ongoing recession of tropical glaciers throughout the Andes, where climate change (mainly rising air temperatures) is making it impossible for the ice to regenerate. Experts such as Marco Zapata, of IRENA, predict that no glaciers will be left in Peru by 2025. Please do the math. That’s 16 years away. Why should people care that tropical glaciers are melting in this Andean country? The reasons are both local and global. First, Peru derives 80% of its water for drinking, agriculture and hydropower…
