...of how many more to come (or, not come), I don't know. My first real suit - that's something to be excited about, right? Now, all I have to do is get a job.
Read more!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
#1
...of how many more to come (or, not come), I don't know. My first real suit - that's something to be excited about, right? Now, all I have to do is get a job.
Read more!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Into Easter
It’s been about a week into Easter break. To no one’s surprise, the Library was bustling with students, once again, on the first day out of the Easter long weekend. If only people would stop recalling my books, I could legitimately spend my days at home instead of trekking to the school.
Not that the recalling of books would ever cease. I’ve been repeatedly amazed at how limited the book and journal selection is at the LSE Library. Recent books written on the most political and economic of subjects, such as the WTO, don’t exist, and their subscription to online journals is limited - you can’t access some journals volumes printed in the 1990s. It’s as if the school thinks the 90s is a decade long gone, of neither particular interest nor importance to students today. As a historian, I obviously object: history, of all things, matter more often and dominantly than we may like, recognize, or know.
I digress. It is now week 2 of Easter break and my review/essay-writing schedule stares at me from the bulletin board. This is no ‘break’ at all, with three assessed, 4000-word essays, 4 exams, and a thesis looming darkly over the back of my head. I would be tempted to call it a ‘break’, watching people leave residence for a week-long trip to the Eurocontinent, fly home to their respective countries, and/or party hard night after night… yes, for some it looks as though this is some ‘break’. But really, for all intents and purposes, if you seriously take a glance back to reality, this is what the Canadians call ‘Reading Week’. A good chunk of students go off to ski or snowboard or even dare to surf - if not, at least a camping trip of sorts would be in order. And of course, there are some who stay put, and do exactly what the week says it’s for: READ.
The belated posting of the 2008 exam schedule gave me a pleasant surprise, although it seems to have pointed a dagger to the throat for most others. I have three days in between each exam, and all my exams are at 2:30pm, instead of the dreaded 10:00am. I start with the easiest, and end with the most difficult. Not bad at all.
The assessed essays are a bit of a downer. As you can imagine, considering how all my work so far has counted towards 0% of my final grade, that the essays constitute 50% or more of my final grade is both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, my formative grades seem to say I should just play my game and if written in the usual manner, the outcome should be of a similar numerical figure. On the other hand, £13,000 goes down the drain should I royally screw it up. An all-or-nothing deal is not exactly we, the North American-educated, are used to - but, there is no turning back now.
If there is one fat, ‘F’ I should be receiving, it would be in Job Hunting. Job hunting sucks, period.
Read more!
Not that the recalling of books would ever cease. I’ve been repeatedly amazed at how limited the book and journal selection is at the LSE Library. Recent books written on the most political and economic of subjects, such as the WTO, don’t exist, and their subscription to online journals is limited - you can’t access some journals volumes printed in the 1990s. It’s as if the school thinks the 90s is a decade long gone, of neither particular interest nor importance to students today. As a historian, I obviously object: history, of all things, matter more often and dominantly than we may like, recognize, or know.
I digress. It is now week 2 of Easter break and my review/essay-writing schedule stares at me from the bulletin board. This is no ‘break’ at all, with three assessed, 4000-word essays, 4 exams, and a thesis looming darkly over the back of my head. I would be tempted to call it a ‘break’, watching people leave residence for a week-long trip to the Eurocontinent, fly home to their respective countries, and/or party hard night after night… yes, for some it looks as though this is some ‘break’. But really, for all intents and purposes, if you seriously take a glance back to reality, this is what the Canadians call ‘Reading Week’. A good chunk of students go off to ski or snowboard or even dare to surf - if not, at least a camping trip of sorts would be in order. And of course, there are some who stay put, and do exactly what the week says it’s for: READ.
The belated posting of the 2008 exam schedule gave me a pleasant surprise, although it seems to have pointed a dagger to the throat for most others. I have three days in between each exam, and all my exams are at 2:30pm, instead of the dreaded 10:00am. I start with the easiest, and end with the most difficult. Not bad at all.
The assessed essays are a bit of a downer. As you can imagine, considering how all my work so far has counted towards 0% of my final grade, that the essays constitute 50% or more of my final grade is both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, my formative grades seem to say I should just play my game and if written in the usual manner, the outcome should be of a similar numerical figure. On the other hand, £13,000 goes down the drain should I royally screw it up. An all-or-nothing deal is not exactly we, the North American-educated, are used to - but, there is no turning back now.
If there is one fat, ‘F’ I should be receiving, it would be in Job Hunting. Job hunting sucks, period.
Read more!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Here came Lent - Now, gone.
10 weeks sounds like a long time, but it really is not. The Lent term began in the second week of January, and its end arrived just as I started to feel like I was finally getting used to it. This sense of familiarity, however, was covered up by a hurricane of assignments (unassessed, of course) in the final two weeks. There was no time to look back and reminisce about where the 10 weeks had gone - papers needed writing, presentations needed completing, tests needed taking.
At the very end of February, I took an examination with the United Nations. The UN had been very mysterious about the format and content of their exams, so I spent the the last two weeks of February memorizing resolutions, conventions, terms, phrases, all 8 Secretary-Generals, dates, facts, and case-studies. The exam itself was not surprising, either in content or format. 3 full essay questions, and 8 short-answer questions - 4.5 hours of straight writing. Needless to say, it was a long and grueling 4.5 hours and my hand hurt at the end of it.
Preparations for the UN exam took up the last two weeks of February, so I ended up neglecting a lot of school work. Luckily, I had planned for this to happen, by being at least a week ahead of all my classes until those two weeks. Afterwards, there were only two weeks of school left anyway, and I simply played the catch-up game until the end. Not a big deal.
What really is surprising - and I say this knowing that I’m repeating myself - is how quickly the 10 weeks had flown by. The Michaelmas term felt much longer. Although there is one more term left in the summer, and a few classes here and there, this past Friday was the last day of ‘real’ classes. No more lectures to really attend, no more unassessed assignments to turn in. Three more assessed papers, four exams, and one thesis - and I’m done. Scary.
But I suppose they say that time flies while you’re enjoying something. In hindsight, the Lent term may have been more enjoyable than the Michaelmas, but I attribute this more to the fact that I knew my way around things in January than I did in October. Plus, I knew what to expect, and so more time was spent doing the work rather than figuring out the logistics (recalling that course selection was a bit of a nightmare).
11 weeks until exams, 6 weeks of Easter break. The first thing I did on my first weekend off since January? Read Harry Potter.
Read more!
At the very end of February, I took an examination with the United Nations. The UN had been very mysterious about the format and content of their exams, so I spent the the last two weeks of February memorizing resolutions, conventions, terms, phrases, all 8 Secretary-Generals, dates, facts, and case-studies. The exam itself was not surprising, either in content or format. 3 full essay questions, and 8 short-answer questions - 4.5 hours of straight writing. Needless to say, it was a long and grueling 4.5 hours and my hand hurt at the end of it.
Preparations for the UN exam took up the last two weeks of February, so I ended up neglecting a lot of school work. Luckily, I had planned for this to happen, by being at least a week ahead of all my classes until those two weeks. Afterwards, there were only two weeks of school left anyway, and I simply played the catch-up game until the end. Not a big deal.
What really is surprising - and I say this knowing that I’m repeating myself - is how quickly the 10 weeks had flown by. The Michaelmas term felt much longer. Although there is one more term left in the summer, and a few classes here and there, this past Friday was the last day of ‘real’ classes. No more lectures to really attend, no more unassessed assignments to turn in. Three more assessed papers, four exams, and one thesis - and I’m done. Scary.
But I suppose they say that time flies while you’re enjoying something. In hindsight, the Lent term may have been more enjoyable than the Michaelmas, but I attribute this more to the fact that I knew my way around things in January than I did in October. Plus, I knew what to expect, and so more time was spent doing the work rather than figuring out the logistics (recalling that course selection was a bit of a nightmare).
11 weeks until exams, 6 weeks of Easter break. The first thing I did on my first weekend off since January? Read Harry Potter.
Read more!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Basketball!
You may think there isn’t much going on beyond academics at LSE. After all, it is a pretty small school, with give-or-take 8,000 students total, and the campus is tiny. Athletic facilities are nearly non-existent, except for the so-called ’sports hall’ in the Old Building basement with a pathetic basketball hoop and the basic gym in the East Building (which I actually don’t mind at all). There isn’t really much space for ‘hanging out’ and sitting around on the LSE campus, and hopefully this will be slightly ameliorated next year when they open the New Academic Building (when I’m not here anymore!).
But, despite the ‘pathetic’ basketball court at LSE, it has a basketball team. I joined the team in October during the Athletic Union day, and it may have been one of the best decisions I’ve made at LSE. Being made co-captain subsequently was nice, but what was more awesome and important was that I met a really fabulous group of girls - like-minded, fun, talented, and smart. In fact, we may have been a little too smart at times, analyzing certain basic basketball rules and the sheer nature of the game, but that was really what made it almost new for me. Indeed, I was used to playing the game with people who knew the game in and out, and I was also used to coaching a group who had no idea what the game was about. My team was an interesting mixture of people with a wide range of skills and capabilities - from the highly experienced to the not-so-experienced - but all so smart that it didn’t take much to explain the basics. Explaining the subtleties, however, was a very different task I had not encountered before.
The LSE Women’s Basketball team had, overall, a fairly impressive season record. We were entered into two different leagues: the BUSA and the ULU. We ended in the third seat for the BUSA league, and second in the ULU. But again, it wasn’t so much the game record I was concerned about (although admittedly, winning is nice); the entire team improved substantially over the course of the season, and our second-to-last game against the University of Bedfordshire (1st seat in BUSA), in which we played put up a huge fight (despite physical disadvantages!), stood as solid proof.
There are a few colleagues with whom I’ve become close over the school year. But the girls I met on the basketball team have probably been the most significant and most memorable. Yes, the facilities could be improved, but that would have merely been a bonus. The team gave me a good reason to meet people across departments as well as programmes (we were 50% postgrad and 50% undergrad) - and I’m so glad I took advantage of it!
Read more!
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Amendment
An entire season of Grey's Anatomy later, here I am sitting alone in my dorm room in the middle of London, looking around to see piles of books, a slew of papers in shambles covering every inch of my desk, and wisps of curly strands of hair in my peripheral vision and can only wonder, "What's the point?"
Sometimes it doesn't feel like anything that I do really matters that much. I work my ass off to get a really good grade for my paper and sometimes I do, other times I don't. I learn languages so that I can talk to different people in the world they understand and make sense of and derive truths and lies. I read books, books on politics, books on citizenship, books on music, novels, biographies, autobiographies, human anatomy, music compositions and cooking and baking and listen to podcasts from the BBC and the Economist. And I stop and wonder, "Why?"
My flatmate is being noisy as usual. I can't tell the difference between her squealing and screaming and when I think she's crying she turns out to be squealing in laughter and when I think she's laughing she is screaming in the middle of sex. He laughs and laughs and talks loudly. I get up from my desk chair to get out through the door, knock on her door, put on a half-casual, half-exhausted look to tell her, "I'm sorry, you've just got to keep it down, it's 1:30 in the morning." But I catch my blanket. And then I sit down, readjust my blanket, and wonder, "Why?" And now things are being thrown around next door. Should I go and tell them to be quieter? But then again, why should I, why would it matter?
I reflect on why I decided to study the topic that I do. Global politics. GLOBAL POLITICS! In London. At one of the best institutions in the world. Allegedly. With some of the smartest people in the world. Apparently. In London, one of the greatest, the most extraordinary, cosmopolitan cities humankind has developed over the course of its history. Supposedly. In THE most expensive cities in the world, known to humankind. Definitely. WHY?? In truth, it was partially a decision out of convenience, in a few ways. I didn't think I really knew what I wanted to do after being a pseudo-teacher for a year, and all I really knew was that I didn't want to stay in Tokyo. It was also convenient that the man I thought I loved and loved me would be in the same city. I had to pick from five offers, from three very good institutions. The best offer came from this school. So I made the decision.
But I was wrong. Wrong on a lot of different levels. Life, love and everything in this world - yes, everything - is what you try to make of it, and that trying is an important part of it all, but you don't have full control of what it becomes, and that, too, is also a very important aspect. Ourselves, this world, spelt W-O-R-L-D on the computer screen or handwritten on a piece of paper or in the form of a blue ball or clouds or a face. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Because something that you thought was THAT could easily turn into something that barely resembles it as you remember it. The transformation, as well as its product, doesn't make it anymore fake or real, true or false. It changes, yes, and sometimes, if you're lucky - luck (which is not just a random force) is also important - you get to see all the great things it can do. Other times, you become a witness to the deepest, ugliest, most horrific reality you can barely imagine.
People do things for a reason. A reason that is clearly justifiable in their minds. At times a constructed justification, perhaps, but nonetheless justifiable and as long as it is justifiable, it is viable and it is one gleaming, very tangible reality. Things happen for a reason. A reason that you never find out until you do. And when you do, you tell yourself, or your friend tells you, "Oh well, I guess that's life." And then that reality is justifiable, too. Deaths, lives, pains, joys. Happinesses sadnesses jealousies wonderings hopings thinkings writings killings livings beginnings endings. All, justifiable. it's what we do. Justify. Why? Because we are taught to do so. We are raised to be strong, to move on, to live a life and dream, and that requires justifying. So we justify. Over and over and over again, oblivious to the remnants of our repeated justifications. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because we have to live. We have jobs. Essays to finish. Friends to hang out with. Kids to take care of. Food to procure. Diseases to cure. People to mourn about. People to love. Justifying. Every moment, every day.
And that's the world. A world like that has no 'fix'. A world like that has no 'cure'. People aren't meant to be eternally happy. They were not meant to be eternally unhappy. Some forms of perceived happiness, in fact, are unhappiness to others, and vice versa - this is a very well-known phenomenon. So there is no cure. Which is why I'm here.
So, an amendment to my new year's resolution: Focus. On nothing more than the barren reasons for my existence. Sans flair, sans emotion, sans life. Just, focus.
Read more!
Sometimes it doesn't feel like anything that I do really matters that much. I work my ass off to get a really good grade for my paper and sometimes I do, other times I don't. I learn languages so that I can talk to different people in the world they understand and make sense of and derive truths and lies. I read books, books on politics, books on citizenship, books on music, novels, biographies, autobiographies, human anatomy, music compositions and cooking and baking and listen to podcasts from the BBC and the Economist. And I stop and wonder, "Why?"
My flatmate is being noisy as usual. I can't tell the difference between her squealing and screaming and when I think she's crying she turns out to be squealing in laughter and when I think she's laughing she is screaming in the middle of sex. He laughs and laughs and talks loudly. I get up from my desk chair to get out through the door, knock on her door, put on a half-casual, half-exhausted look to tell her, "I'm sorry, you've just got to keep it down, it's 1:30 in the morning." But I catch my blanket. And then I sit down, readjust my blanket, and wonder, "Why?" And now things are being thrown around next door. Should I go and tell them to be quieter? But then again, why should I, why would it matter?
I reflect on why I decided to study the topic that I do. Global politics. GLOBAL POLITICS! In London. At one of the best institutions in the world. Allegedly. With some of the smartest people in the world. Apparently. In London, one of the greatest, the most extraordinary, cosmopolitan cities humankind has developed over the course of its history. Supposedly. In THE most expensive cities in the world, known to humankind. Definitely. WHY?? In truth, it was partially a decision out of convenience, in a few ways. I didn't think I really knew what I wanted to do after being a pseudo-teacher for a year, and all I really knew was that I didn't want to stay in Tokyo. It was also convenient that the man I thought I loved and loved me would be in the same city. I had to pick from five offers, from three very good institutions. The best offer came from this school. So I made the decision.
But I was wrong. Wrong on a lot of different levels. Life, love and everything in this world - yes, everything - is what you try to make of it, and that trying is an important part of it all, but you don't have full control of what it becomes, and that, too, is also a very important aspect. Ourselves, this world, spelt W-O-R-L-D on the computer screen or handwritten on a piece of paper or in the form of a blue ball or clouds or a face. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Because something that you thought was THAT could easily turn into something that barely resembles it as you remember it. The transformation, as well as its product, doesn't make it anymore fake or real, true or false. It changes, yes, and sometimes, if you're lucky - luck (which is not just a random force) is also important - you get to see all the great things it can do. Other times, you become a witness to the deepest, ugliest, most horrific reality you can barely imagine.
People do things for a reason. A reason that is clearly justifiable in their minds. At times a constructed justification, perhaps, but nonetheless justifiable and as long as it is justifiable, it is viable and it is one gleaming, very tangible reality. Things happen for a reason. A reason that you never find out until you do. And when you do, you tell yourself, or your friend tells you, "Oh well, I guess that's life." And then that reality is justifiable, too. Deaths, lives, pains, joys. Happinesses sadnesses jealousies wonderings hopings thinkings writings killings livings beginnings endings. All, justifiable. it's what we do. Justify. Why? Because we are taught to do so. We are raised to be strong, to move on, to live a life and dream, and that requires justifying. So we justify. Over and over and over again, oblivious to the remnants of our repeated justifications. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because we have to live. We have jobs. Essays to finish. Friends to hang out with. Kids to take care of. Food to procure. Diseases to cure. People to mourn about. People to love. Justifying. Every moment, every day.
And that's the world. A world like that has no 'fix'. A world like that has no 'cure'. People aren't meant to be eternally happy. They were not meant to be eternally unhappy. Some forms of perceived happiness, in fact, are unhappiness to others, and vice versa - this is a very well-known phenomenon. So there is no cure. Which is why I'm here.
So, an amendment to my new year's resolution: Focus. On nothing more than the barren reasons for my existence. Sans flair, sans emotion, sans life. Just, focus.
Read more!
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
2008 Commences.
At certain moments throughout 2007, I seriously doubted whether I would actually get through 2007 alive to see 1 January 2008. But I have, and that's a good thing. My yearly horoscope last year said that 2007 was going to be a great year for me, and it wasn't. This year, they predict that I'll be undergoing an internal transformation... we'll see about that.
As fireworks crackle through the cold and humid air of London this evening, I thought I would share a few resolutions, a few goals, and a 2008 Reading List that does not include the thousands of articles and books I'll have to read for course work. Not that anyone actually cares, but I didn't particularly have any desire to finish reading the 20-paged article tonight (alas, it is already 2:30 am) and I felt like procrastinating.
Resolutions
1. Stop procrastinating.
2a. Understand that not everyone holds the same morals as I do.
2b. Understand that not everyone has morals, period, and there's nothing to be done about it.
3. Recognize that I am actually appreciated in my entirety, the sensitive, intuitive, crazy nut-case that I may be.
4. Get back into a fitness schedule and "adjusting to life in London" is no excuse any longer.
5. Stop doubting life. It just happens, in all of its qwerkiness and hypocrisy.
Goals
1. Find a job to last me through another year of London.
2. Finish my thesis before May.
3. Visit Vancouver.
4. Understand economics.
5. Eat more veggies.
6. Stop eating wheat.
7. Figure out if I'm actually allergic to alcohol.
8. Expand my cooking repertoire.
9. Expand my baking repertoire.
10. Be reasonably able to speak French, but keep the Italian.
2008 Reading List
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (TBF)
The Satanic Verses - Salaman Rushdie (TBF)
Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
Blake - Peter Ackroyd
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordecai Richler
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
History of Love - Nicole Krauss
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak
Read more!
As fireworks crackle through the cold and humid air of London this evening, I thought I would share a few resolutions, a few goals, and a 2008 Reading List that does not include the thousands of articles and books I'll have to read for course work. Not that anyone actually cares, but I didn't particularly have any desire to finish reading the 20-paged article tonight (alas, it is already 2:30 am) and I felt like procrastinating.
Resolutions
1. Stop procrastinating.
2a. Understand that not everyone holds the same morals as I do.
2b. Understand that not everyone has morals, period, and there's nothing to be done about it.
3. Recognize that I am actually appreciated in my entirety, the sensitive, intuitive, crazy nut-case that I may be.
4. Get back into a fitness schedule and "adjusting to life in London" is no excuse any longer.
5. Stop doubting life. It just happens, in all of its qwerkiness and hypocrisy.
Goals
1. Find a job to last me through another year of London.
2. Finish my thesis before May.
3. Visit Vancouver.
4. Understand economics.
5. Eat more veggies.
6. Stop eating wheat.
7. Figure out if I'm actually allergic to alcohol.
8. Expand my cooking repertoire.
9. Expand my baking repertoire.
10. Be reasonably able to speak French, but keep the Italian.
2008 Reading List
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (TBF)
The Satanic Verses - Salaman Rushdie (TBF)
Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
Blake - Peter Ackroyd
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordecai Richler
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
History of Love - Nicole Krauss
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak
Read more!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Winter in London
> Midnight Eucharist @ St Paul's Cathedral. Christmas Eve.
> The end of 2007, Trafalgar Square.
Read more!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Off to Milan in 30 hours
"What an awkward countdown." - This must be what you are thinking. It's awkward because in the next 30 hours, I sleep, work a double-shift, take a cab to Victoria Coach Station at 1am, hang out until 3am, catch the National Express bus at 3:30am for London Gatwick Airport, hang out until 6am, and catch a flight to Milano Malpensa for a (hopefully) relaxing weekend in Milan.
Stay tuned..
Read more!
Stay tuned..
Read more!
Friday, November 09, 2007
The National - Best. Show. Ever.
I went to go see The National play at Shepherd's Bush Empire tonight, with a friend. It had been a while since I'd been out for a non-classical concert, so for one thing it was a nice change. I had also 'turtled' into my shell that is my room for the past two weeks, completing two presentations and two essays, so I felt like this was my reward for all the socializing time I had given up. And man, was it ever a treat! I'll be looking for a second-hand CD store the next few days to get a hold of all their CD's, because they were fucking good!! Such a presence on stage, and very intricate layers of music going on all at once. While at times percussive and explosive, they still managed to sustain the complexity that really lay at the heart of their music. At no point during the show did I feel that what they presented was clichéd, simplistic, or uncreative. A solid, solid show.
Read more!
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Settled? Settling
The fact that it’s been ages since the last time I updated this blog should be a telling proof of how busy I’ve been. I can positively say that within the last two weeks I’ve devolved into a geeky hermit who’s already checked out 20 books from the library, and has spent at least £10 printing articles in the computer lab. This is probably more indicative of how not to spend your entire year in London than anything else.
Nonetheless, no one can really deny the keen mood that constantly hangs in the air. Such a mood drove a good handful of students to pack a sleeping bag and stand in line (since what obscene hour, god only knows) in the Old Building in order to obtain tickets to see Alan Greenspan talk. It has also consistently driven half the population at the LSE to step into the aesthetically appealing, yet funnily dysfunctional library at least once a day, and driven the other half to resist (deny?) any urge to go near it, let alone lay hands on a book in its shelves. Last week, it also drove a large majority of students who wanted to book a seat for the International Organizations’ Day to overload the school’s network system so much that it caused it to shut down for an entire afternoon. The list continues.
What exactly have I been doing? I have classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and have had two presentations to prepare for within the last two weeks. I have two essays due this Friday (week 5). I play for the LSE women’s basketball team, and I work a double-shift, waitressing, every Friday. I’ve also been to the Barbican to see the London Symphony Orchestra perform Mozart’s Requiem, and spent an afternoon at the Borough Market, browsing through and tasting every kind of cheese imaginable with an old friend from grade school. I’ve taken part in the “G4 Summit” @ George IV Pub on Wednesday afternoons, finally stepped into the LSE Gym, taken advantage of 90p lattes at the Garrick on early mornings, and have indulged (twice) in a breakfast a la British at The Shakespeare’s Head. Sure, I haven’t exactly been plastered every night, nor have I basked in glory in the pub quizzes at the 3Tunnes. But I’ve managed to carve out for myself a piece of the London Experience. A few hiccups here and there, but all in all it’s been fairly alright thus far.
Read more!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Oh my god I'm in London
Skipping ahead to London.. (New York/Philadelphia entries to come later)
That's what I thought I'd think the moment I landed in Heathrow. But actually, I didn't. It's been three days since my arrival and it still hasn't hit me yet. I guess that's just how it goes. I expected a large, thick curtain to be lifted off my eyes, revealing something extraordinary, magnificent, and different. In reality, it was more like wiping away some spots off my glasses and putting them back on: most of it I'd seen or encountered before, and there were some details in the picture that were a bit blurry.
I took the Underground from Heathrow, and noticed that the London Tube doesn't smell like smoke, or sweat, or even urine, but excessive amounts of different colognes and perfumes, mixed together. I was slightly dizzy coming off the Underground at Angel Station. When I arrived overground at Angel at 6am, it was again the smell of the city that I first noticed. It wasn't like 6am in Beijing where you breathed in and out CO2, or like 6am Tokyo where you can smell the previous night's parties on the streets infused with carbon monoxide, or like 6am Vancouver where you can smell the ongoing rain, or like 6am Florence where you were tempted by whiffs of espresso and freshly baked brioches. I smelled 'Europe' but definitely not its continental counterpart. I smelled newspapers, trees, fresh cologne, and an aire of an inexplicable sophistication wavering through the busy, hurrying crowd. That was my first impression of London.
I spent most of the first day catching up on sleep, and exploring Angel in the early evening with a friend. On the second day, I ventured out to take a look at LSE, happily took a picture of it, forced my way into its famous Library and made use of the internet, took a picture of the spiral staircase (of course!), visited the bookstore and got a Watermark's card, booked a dentist appointment for mid-October, and then walked along the Thames from Aldwych to London Bridge (which is not Tower Bridge), and paid a visit to my residence in Southwark.
On my third day (today), I called up LSE Accommodation to see if I can move in a couple days early. Every night up until 30 September costs me an additional £15 but I thought it would be worth it - I haven't had my own room in so long! The said it wouldn't be a problem. Fantastic. I called my movers and asked them to deliver my boxes the next day. Then, I went and printed off copies of my resume and walked around in grey weather, looking for a job around Southwark. I visited T-mobile later in the day in an attempt to get myself a phone so that I'm more connected to the civilized world, but failed, when they said I have to sort out my bank account first so they can run a credit check on someone who just landed in England for the first time. Of course. By the time I left T-mobile, however, the banks were closed, so the HSBC Bank question and T-mobile question is left for tomorrow afternoon, after I've fit everything in my room at Sidney Webb.
Oh my god I'm in London.
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That's what I thought I'd think the moment I landed in Heathrow. But actually, I didn't. It's been three days since my arrival and it still hasn't hit me yet. I guess that's just how it goes. I expected a large, thick curtain to be lifted off my eyes, revealing something extraordinary, magnificent, and different. In reality, it was more like wiping away some spots off my glasses and putting them back on: most of it I'd seen or encountered before, and there were some details in the picture that were a bit blurry.
I took the Underground from Heathrow, and noticed that the London Tube doesn't smell like smoke, or sweat, or even urine, but excessive amounts of different colognes and perfumes, mixed together. I was slightly dizzy coming off the Underground at Angel Station. When I arrived overground at Angel at 6am, it was again the smell of the city that I first noticed. It wasn't like 6am in Beijing where you breathed in and out CO2, or like 6am Tokyo where you can smell the previous night's parties on the streets infused with carbon monoxide, or like 6am Vancouver where you can smell the ongoing rain, or like 6am Florence where you were tempted by whiffs of espresso and freshly baked brioches. I smelled 'Europe' but definitely not its continental counterpart. I smelled newspapers, trees, fresh cologne, and an aire of an inexplicable sophistication wavering through the busy, hurrying crowd. That was my first impression of London.
I spent most of the first day catching up on sleep, and exploring Angel in the early evening with a friend. On the second day, I ventured out to take a look at LSE, happily took a picture of it, forced my way into its famous Library and made use of the internet, took a picture of the spiral staircase (of course!), visited the bookstore and got a Watermark's card, booked a dentist appointment for mid-October, and then walked along the Thames from Aldwych to London Bridge (which is not Tower Bridge), and paid a visit to my residence in Southwark.
On my third day (today), I called up LSE Accommodation to see if I can move in a couple days early. Every night up until 30 September costs me an additional £15 but I thought it would be worth it - I haven't had my own room in so long! The said it wouldn't be a problem. Fantastic. I called my movers and asked them to deliver my boxes the next day. Then, I went and printed off copies of my resume and walked around in grey weather, looking for a job around Southwark. I visited T-mobile later in the day in an attempt to get myself a phone so that I'm more connected to the civilized world, but failed, when they said I have to sort out my bank account first so they can run a credit check on someone who just landed in England for the first time. Of course. By the time I left T-mobile, however, the banks were closed, so the HSBC Bank question and T-mobile question is left for tomorrow afternoon, after I've fit everything in my room at Sidney Webb.
Oh my god I'm in London.
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007
"Vive la Quebec libre!"
Of all the cities I've ever visited or lived in, Montreal was a city that was most conscious of its own existence. Walking down the streets, whether it be Saint-Laurent, Mont-Royale, or Saint Catharines, the proud vibe resonated vibrantly and consistently. And even though parts of Montreal are considered more Anglophone or Francophone, the dominant language in use - despite it being a Canadian city - was French. Everyone spoke in French and all the signs were in French. If you didn't know the history of Montreal or Quebec or even Canada, you would not know that this was an English-speaking city (which it is). The language barrier, surprisingly, was intimidating. Surprising, because I feel rarely intimidated by the lack of knowledge of a certain language - I usually end up picking it up within a short period of time. I had previously heard that the French are so notorious for being overtly proud of their language (for good reason?) that they find foreigners' attempts to speak the language to be distasteful. Of course, my friends are different - they'll help me pronounce "Mont-Royale" with the back-throat "R" and compliment me if I'm articulating it close enough. But having been informed of French linguistic pride before, I was scared to even attempt pronouncing anything in French, and boldly stuck with English. This, however, was highly uncomfortable for someone like me who enjoys and also finds importance in conversing in the region's language. Feeling like an alien, I sorely wished that I had French under my belt - and I had scarcely wished so for Spanish in Peru!
While one magazine's claim that "Those who choose not to live in Montreal solely because it is Francophone are pussies" can be violently debatable amongst socio-linguists and cultural theorists, that the city is, for all intents and purposes, French, shouldn't put anyone off to live in it or at least visit. It is unique and vibrant and lively in its proud way and perhaps for this reason, full of character and so much color. For one thing, I enjoyed great coffee and grub, and also a hip music scene that would have been enjoyable if it were not for froshers of McGill bombarding the bars. Like many European cities, some neighborhoods are old old, and others quite new. I can definitely see myself hanging out in Montreal for a tad bit longer - and would have if LSE didn't beckon me.
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Friday, August 31, 2007
Ontario: Yours to Discover
And it certainly has been mine to discover, with the help of my good friend Alicia who drives me around to places and shows me boats and takes me to great restaurants. In truth, I really love this small, quaint town of St Catharines. It has so much character on its own and is so peaceful and quiet - totally different from the loud and busy streets of Tokyo. Furthermore, Alicia's company has been therapeutic, to the extent that I feel so much better about where I am in life and who I am, and am grateful for the awesome friendships that make my life the wonder and beauty that it is.
Niagara Falls (picture above) was also a great time. I wandered through this casino-town built on the shores of one of the world's greatest natural wonders, thinking about how sad it is that such a natural beauty has to be accompanied by an unrestrained form of commercialism and hedonism. I myself could literally sit on the look-out dock and watch the Falls for hours on end, breathing in air that is actually more oxygen than carbon monoxide, feeling the mist of the waters from afar (and this you actually can) and listening to the echoes of roaring, powerful waters.
And now, after having finished an entire bottle of wine with Alicia and having thai curry at a local bar restaurant, I am, for the first time in a few months, totally tipsy and it feels great. But not it is time to go to bed. So much for my brief moments of intoxication.
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Sunday, August 26, 2007
From Pittsburgh, PA to St Catharines, Ontario
So my week in Pittsburgh was fantastic and I greatly enjoyed staying with my friends Daniel and his wife, Joyce. Pittsburgh is such a character-full city, with most of its buildings - new and old - constructed with red brick. The Heinz factory lay nearby, and bridges stood over the merging of two great rivers. A wonderful city, and most importantly, wonderful company.
I always hope, when riding any type of vehicle (train, bus, airplane) that someone interesting would sit next to me so that the hours spent sitting can be spent entertained. Well, my train ride to Buffalo, NY where my friend Alicia awaited me, manifested this hope into reality but in a most extreme manner.
I sat next to an African-American man with corn-rolls, who was taking the train out to Chicago and then to Michigan to visit his 16 year-old son. But it wasn't him who turned the 2.5 hour ride to Cleveland interesting for me; it was a Chinese lady, probably in her late forties, who sat across the aisle from me. When everyone boarding from Pittsburgh settled down into their seats, she let out a huge "OH MAAANNNN" in a tone of complaint. I hadn't a clue what she was complaining about, exactly. She continued to sigh, and move about in her chair, talking to herself. Then she got up, and starting folding and refolding her blue blanket around herself, until it was wrapped around her to her utmost satisfaction. It was then I realized that this woman was probably mildly autistic.
Moments later she declared to the conductor walking past, that she needed to use the restroom. The conductor put a finger to his lips and explained where the toilets were located in the car. It took four more repetitions of directions to the toilet facilities before the woman started walking in the direction pointed by the rather frustrated conductor.
My interesting train ride physically began when the woman returned from using the restroom. She walked rather energetically up the aisle towards her seat... and then passed right by it. Opening the door to the next car, she slid through them and continued to walk. Few seconds later, she came back, looking confused. Staring at the numbers above the seats, and concluding that her seat did not exist in this car, she returned to the next car, only to return a few seconds later. When she went off to the next car again, I couldn't stand just watching anymore, so I pulled off my iPod and my alpaca sweater onto my seat and ran - yes, I had to run as she was now running down the aisle - to guide the woman back to her seat.
"Ma'am, are you looking for your seat?"
"Wha...?"
"Are you looking for your seat," I repeated, a little bit louder. She nodded. I gestured to her to follow me.
When we returned to the original car, I pointed to her seat and her blanket, and told her that that was her seat. However, she remained looking confused, and after a few seconds of pondering she shook her head. "This isn't my seat. My seat is number 53. This isn't my seat. 53. Number 53."
"But that's where you were sitting, that's your blanket, right?"
"Yeah, that's my blanket. No, I'm sitting in number 53 with the same colored blanket. Next to a fat white chick. I remember because I felt squished against my window. You have to help me. I have to get back to my seat. It's number 53. This isn't my seat.." and it went on.
It took a good 15 minutes to convince the lady that the seat she was looking at, with the blue blanket, was indeed her seat. I even conceded to take her to seat 53, which was occupied by an elderly couple who was fast asleep. "See, this isn't your seat." Pulling her by the arm towards where I had seen her when I first got on the train, I pointed again and told her, "That's your seat."
When she finally sat down and I was able to convince her that it was now time to sleep because everyone else in the car was also sleeping, it had be an entire hour into the train ride. It was nearly 1 in the morning and I was getting drowsy. The woman kept trying to have conversations with those sitting behind her, telling them she could 'help them' - in what way, I wasn't entirely sure - and I kept putting my finger to my mouth, encouraging her to keep her volume down, and telling her, "Not now. Later." Furthermore, she kept insisting that the Chinese youth sitting behind me was my brother, that everyone in the car were "my people" and that they knew me, and that I looked like her younger sister who apparently only cared about her 'faith'. Whatever she thought after my appeasements I don't know, but she finally did stop talking and started gathering her blanket, with which she attempted to hit my legs. When I just smiled, she took her blanket and started wrapping herself with it.
I closed my eyes and was starting to drift off into my dreams when a "Oh god!! Oh no!" woke me up and startled me out of my seat. I looked to my right, and surely enough, there was the Chinese woman again, looking confused and worried and fluttered. What now?? I thought.
"I've lost my bag. It was up there (pointing to the overhead storage space), a black bag. You have to help me find it. I'm sitting at seat 53. This isn't my seat.." and the whole ordeal had started all over again. What concerned me most was not that her obsession with seat 53 was up and running again, but that, according to her, her passport was packed into the lost black bag. Thinking that the best idea would be to speak to the conductor about it so they can search for it rather than herself, I told her, "We'll find it. But not now."
"NOo, but I need that bag now. My earphones are inside it and I need them. My passport is in it. Shit. I need to find my bag."
"Nooo, you are not walking around, we'll find the bag, don't worry," I said.
In a few moments the conductors came walking down the aisle. I stopped one of them and explained the situation. The conductor then told me something I didn't even think about: "At the station she got on from, she had been tested for alcohol and they found that she was drunk."
Drunk? I could no longer figure out whether the woman was mildly autistic for plainly drunk and unemployed and nuts. The good news was, upon hearing of the entire ordeal, the conductor decided that he would keep a careful eye on her in case she caused any more problems. When I got off at 3am in Cleveland, OH, the woman was no longer in our car but was relocated to some other car. Thank god!!
Read more!
I always hope, when riding any type of vehicle (train, bus, airplane) that someone interesting would sit next to me so that the hours spent sitting can be spent entertained. Well, my train ride to Buffalo, NY where my friend Alicia awaited me, manifested this hope into reality but in a most extreme manner.
I sat next to an African-American man with corn-rolls, who was taking the train out to Chicago and then to Michigan to visit his 16 year-old son. But it wasn't him who turned the 2.5 hour ride to Cleveland interesting for me; it was a Chinese lady, probably in her late forties, who sat across the aisle from me. When everyone boarding from Pittsburgh settled down into their seats, she let out a huge "OH MAAANNNN" in a tone of complaint. I hadn't a clue what she was complaining about, exactly. She continued to sigh, and move about in her chair, talking to herself. Then she got up, and starting folding and refolding her blue blanket around herself, until it was wrapped around her to her utmost satisfaction. It was then I realized that this woman was probably mildly autistic.
Moments later she declared to the conductor walking past, that she needed to use the restroom. The conductor put a finger to his lips and explained where the toilets were located in the car. It took four more repetitions of directions to the toilet facilities before the woman started walking in the direction pointed by the rather frustrated conductor.
My interesting train ride physically began when the woman returned from using the restroom. She walked rather energetically up the aisle towards her seat... and then passed right by it. Opening the door to the next car, she slid through them and continued to walk. Few seconds later, she came back, looking confused. Staring at the numbers above the seats, and concluding that her seat did not exist in this car, she returned to the next car, only to return a few seconds later. When she went off to the next car again, I couldn't stand just watching anymore, so I pulled off my iPod and my alpaca sweater onto my seat and ran - yes, I had to run as she was now running down the aisle - to guide the woman back to her seat.
"Ma'am, are you looking for your seat?"
"Wha...?"
"Are you looking for your seat," I repeated, a little bit louder. She nodded. I gestured to her to follow me.
When we returned to the original car, I pointed to her seat and her blanket, and told her that that was her seat. However, she remained looking confused, and after a few seconds of pondering she shook her head. "This isn't my seat. My seat is number 53. This isn't my seat. 53. Number 53."
"But that's where you were sitting, that's your blanket, right?"
"Yeah, that's my blanket. No, I'm sitting in number 53 with the same colored blanket. Next to a fat white chick. I remember because I felt squished against my window. You have to help me. I have to get back to my seat. It's number 53. This isn't my seat.." and it went on.
It took a good 15 minutes to convince the lady that the seat she was looking at, with the blue blanket, was indeed her seat. I even conceded to take her to seat 53, which was occupied by an elderly couple who was fast asleep. "See, this isn't your seat." Pulling her by the arm towards where I had seen her when I first got on the train, I pointed again and told her, "That's your seat."
When she finally sat down and I was able to convince her that it was now time to sleep because everyone else in the car was also sleeping, it had be an entire hour into the train ride. It was nearly 1 in the morning and I was getting drowsy. The woman kept trying to have conversations with those sitting behind her, telling them she could 'help them' - in what way, I wasn't entirely sure - and I kept putting my finger to my mouth, encouraging her to keep her volume down, and telling her, "Not now. Later." Furthermore, she kept insisting that the Chinese youth sitting behind me was my brother, that everyone in the car were "my people" and that they knew me, and that I looked like her younger sister who apparently only cared about her 'faith'. Whatever she thought after my appeasements I don't know, but she finally did stop talking and started gathering her blanket, with which she attempted to hit my legs. When I just smiled, she took her blanket and started wrapping herself with it.
I closed my eyes and was starting to drift off into my dreams when a "Oh god!! Oh no!" woke me up and startled me out of my seat. I looked to my right, and surely enough, there was the Chinese woman again, looking confused and worried and fluttered. What now?? I thought.
"I've lost my bag. It was up there (pointing to the overhead storage space), a black bag. You have to help me find it. I'm sitting at seat 53. This isn't my seat.." and the whole ordeal had started all over again. What concerned me most was not that her obsession with seat 53 was up and running again, but that, according to her, her passport was packed into the lost black bag. Thinking that the best idea would be to speak to the conductor about it so they can search for it rather than herself, I told her, "We'll find it. But not now."
"NOo, but I need that bag now. My earphones are inside it and I need them. My passport is in it. Shit. I need to find my bag."
"Nooo, you are not walking around, we'll find the bag, don't worry," I said.
In a few moments the conductors came walking down the aisle. I stopped one of them and explained the situation. The conductor then told me something I didn't even think about: "At the station she got on from, she had been tested for alcohol and they found that she was drunk."
Drunk? I could no longer figure out whether the woman was mildly autistic for plainly drunk and unemployed and nuts. The good news was, upon hearing of the entire ordeal, the conductor decided that he would keep a careful eye on her in case she caused any more problems. When I got off at 3am in Cleveland, OH, the woman was no longer in our car but was relocated to some other car. Thank god!!
Read more!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Pittsburgh, PA
Pittsburgh has their salad with french fries on top. As healthily I try to eat (although, getting back into school-mode hasn't helped, as my body now craves cookies with my tea), if I get french fries with my salad, I mean, what can I possibly do?
I'm starting to feel a bit gross with all this American food.. THAT'S IT, I'm going running tomorrow in the cemetery. Thunderclouds and rain?? Bring it.
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I'm starting to feel a bit gross with all this American food.. THAT'S IT, I'm going running tomorrow in the cemetery. Thunderclouds and rain?? Bring it.
Read more!
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Memoirs of Loner Traveler: Conclusion?
Note to self: don't travel to a country you've never been to and whose language you don't speak fluently totally alone because it's not really all that fun. It's good to have travel company, especially if a magnitude 8 earthquake happens to hit you with its epicenter less than 20 miles away from where you're staying.
However, surviving what I did made every other problem in life seem stupid. I feel stronger, and I surprised myself for all the decisions I made down in Peru, instantaneous ones. At least now I can sit back and relax, and read and be peaceful.
Transitioning back into modern society was somewhat awkward. The new Macbook and iPod Nano is awesome and I love it. But, the paved roads, the un-crumbled brick buildings, the relatively low crime rate, the smell of grass and not poo, packaged fruits and accessible internet and the huge library, all seem too perfect and somehow unfair. The world, I feel now more intensely than ever, is so divided, and neither side of the division line know what life's really like on the 'other' side. It's sad.
Hopefully all these experiences will come in handy once I start studying all about it in the academic sphere.
Read more!
However, surviving what I did made every other problem in life seem stupid. I feel stronger, and I surprised myself for all the decisions I made down in Peru, instantaneous ones. At least now I can sit back and relax, and read and be peaceful.
Transitioning back into modern society was somewhat awkward. The new Macbook and iPod Nano is awesome and I love it. But, the paved roads, the un-crumbled brick buildings, the relatively low crime rate, the smell of grass and not poo, packaged fruits and accessible internet and the huge library, all seem too perfect and somehow unfair. The world, I feel now more intensely than ever, is so divided, and neither side of the division line know what life's really like on the 'other' side. It's sad.
Hopefully all these experiences will come in handy once I start studying all about it in the academic sphere.
Read more!
Monday, August 20, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Memoirs of a Loner Traveler: Ica to Lima, Peru
Of course, the last two days had to be the most 'adventurous', to put it euphemistically.
I woke up in the morning not really rested, the obvious reason being the sporadically shaking earth, and the less obvious reason being the uncertainty of how I was to get to Lima in time to catch my plane. Earlier in the day I had the guy at the hostel reception help me book a bus ticket back to Lima. He had told me he would have it for me by that afternoon, but afternoon came and went and he was no where to be found. Much later, I found out that immediately after the earthquake, apparently he tried to rush back to the hostel from wherever he was in Huacachina, only to be injured when a brick wall collapsed upon him. Allegedly the injury was so major that some of his toes had to be surgically amputated.
So when morning came, I still had no bus ticket and we had no clue what was going on - no one did. Even the police were useless; with all electricity and telephone lines unavailable, Huacachina remained horribly isolated, besides one battery-run radio whose frantic DJ made me increasingly nervous. From what could be gathered, we found out that going to Lima was nearly impossible, as the infrastructure on the southern coast were mostly destroyed.
When you're 23, and lived a fairly multinational life, the likelihood of you encountering a totally virginial, first-time scenario is very slim, unless you are forced into participation. So in Huacachina, in this isolated neighborhood, I was facing a VERY virginial situation: how to get from point A to point B in the face of a major natural disaster, in a foreign country whose language I did not speak. I couldn't even think of where to begin, especially with limited access to any means of communication.
In truth, I was horrified and wanted to cry, even though that wouldn't have solved anything. I started by gathering as much information as possible, listening to the radio and talking to people who came into Huacachina from Ica. the problem was, no one was really sure about the information they had; it was almost always second-hand, something they had (over)heard in an adjacent conversation. Some people said that the buses were running to Lima, others said that nothing ran to Lima. Some spoke of a bridge by Pisco that had collapsed, other said it was half-collapsed and you can walk to the other side... So, by the end of my information gathering, I felt I had gotten nowhere, and was still as lost as when I had started.
I laid out the options in my head: I could stay in Huacachina until further information could be confirmed - this was something I instinctively wanted to do. Someone would, I hoped, hand me the best answer in time, and I could delay my decision until then. But, the fact that I couldn't speak Spanish, and the hostel owners' unwillingness to do much (like feed us or give us up-to-date info) told me this was a poor option. I feared nothing would be handed to me. And the 30m+ sand dunes on all but one side of Huacachina was nerve-hacking and didn't help my mental health: the image of a gianormous sand avalanche I had so feared causing the previous day appeared all at once plausible of happening.
My second option was to tag along someone else in Huacachina, who also wanted to get to Lima and had already figured out how. There was a Swiss family - a mother and her three kids - who had decided that they would attempt to fly to Lima, as they had a 2pm flight to catch that day. The mother had spoken to some woman at Ica's airport, who claimed that they were already building a substantial waiting list for flights to Lima. There were, of course, a few problems: because communication lines were nonexistent, the airport could not get a confirmation from Lima's airport that they could, in fact, land. Until that confirmation was attained, the lady claimed, there would be no flights. And when this confirmation was to be attained, she had no clue. Secondly, the chances of squeezing myself on to a plane when there was already a back-up seemed to me less than slim. Going to Ica's airport, therefore, had some major risks.
My final option, however, seemed to me at the time the most ludicrous of all: I would gamble my luck with the scant information that bus companies were running to Lima, and/or the bridge crossing the river north of Pisco was only slightly collapsed and I could walk over it. This option was entirely based on my desire - however unsure - to get moving. It was only 8:30am. Even if it took me 20 hours to get to Lima, I would still make it for my flight at 10am. My hesitations came from my lack of any knowledge of the earthquake and its aftermaths; the fact that I would be going right through the epicenter, Pisco, on my way; and that I would be doing this seemingly stupid ordeal on my own. But, in consideration of the other options, I felt I had no other 'real' choice. I have to get back to Lima, I thought, and so, I packed up my belongings.
Tom and Elly accompanied me into Ica's bus terminal. There were long lines everywhere, surrounding the terminal office like a tangled bunch of yarn. I lined up behind a Peruvian couple, in a line I figured would lead me up to a counter. "Do you know if going to Lima is possible?" the man asked, surprisingly, in English. "We have no idea, we're hoping," we said.
When I got to the counter, I said, "Lima," and the woman blurted something in Spanish so fast I couldn't even catch the verb or its subject. I poked the couple in front of me and asked for a translation. "She's saying, you can't go to Lima. The bridge collapsed," the woman said. Then, whom I determined as her boyfriend conversed with the counter lady, then advised me to buy the ticket to Pisco. "Don't worry, we'll help you, buy the ticket and follow us. You can walk across the bridge to San Clementine." Seeing as there was no other option available, I did as I was told.
The man and woman whom I thought were a couple turned out to be siblings. "We'll take you to Pisco and across the brdige so you can catch a bus on the other side for Lima," the brother, named Pepe, said. I gave my bag to the bus driver to stow away, and bid Tom and Elly (who decided to leave Ica the next day) farewell. "Good luck, you'll be alright," Elly said. I wasn't so sure about 'being alright' but really, there was no other positive thought to sustain, and so I took it in as much as I could.
Inside the bus, Pepe took my ticket and told me to sit next to his sister, Paola. "We're from Pisco," she said, and continued to tell me about where she was at the time of the earthquake, how she was working at her bank, and was worried about the whereabouts of her brother who turned out to be in Ica as well at the time, and how her father, who was in Pisco, was also doing alright.
The ride to Pisco was peaceful up until the last bit, approximately two miles away from Pisco's outskirts. The bus, in fact, had stopped behind a hundred other buses, and the bus driver merely sighed. Obscenities flew around for no more than 10 seconds, and everyone started getting off the bus. "Let's go, we're walking!" Pepe shouted. So there I was and Pepe and Paola, two miles away from Pisco, the asphalt cracked in various locations, hundreds of buses lined up all the way to the horizon. "I'm a man!" Pepe claimed, and took my 11kg bag, as we walked towards Pisco under a very aggressive sun. I felt like a refugee carrying her entire life on her shoulders, migrating to some unknown land somewhere beyond the horizon on the bare hope that things will work out in the end. To be sure, things WERE starting to work itself out, since the moment Pepe and Paola offered their help, and for this I was unspeakably thankful.
Evidence of the earthquake's realities were painfully visible the closer we got to Pisco. Not only was the road destroyed, shacks and housing were flattened, brick walls partially standing, heaps of rubble were everywhere, food scraps and human feces rotting away on the side - the sewage system was done for. About twenty minutes after we left the bus, we entered the city of Pisco, and even Pepe and Paola were shocked. "We had no idea it was this bad!" Paola exclaimed. "My house is partially collapsed, my friend said." The extraordinary thing, I thought, was that she said this in the most lightheartedly way possible; she was even smiling, laughing, and I was terribly grateful of that, too.
Pepe, in the meanwhile, was talking to various people - friends, I assumed, from their familiar interactions - and asked about how to get to Lima. "We're going to find a friend to take you to Lima," he said, and I was shocked.
"A friend?"
"Yeah, we're from Pisco, we know lots of people. Don't worry."
Still shocked and not knowing what to say in the face of such kindness and really, my luck to have met these two, we continued to walk towards the notorious bridge.
Probably a good two miles from the bridge, Pepe found a family - a woman and her two daughters - who were headed towards Lima, and gladly conceded to take me along. here, Pepe gave me my bag, I gave Paola my email address, and they both smiled and said, "Go, go! You don't have much time!" I turned to the woman with her daughters, who looked at me urgently and pointed towards the bridge, saying something in Spanish at the same time. I looked around for Pepe and Paola, and they were already gone, lost in the migrating crowd.
The sun was hot, very aggressive. With the heat rose the stench from the side of the broken asphalt. And soon, the collapsed bridge was visible, and its pseudo-standing surface swarmed with people. I conversed in my broken Spanish with the two girls, Nadia and Paola, who were fascinated by the fact I was from Tokyo, and asked all sorts of questions, only less than half of which I was probably able to satisfactorily answer. Sharing a bottle of water between us, we half-ran, half-walked towards the bridge, the mother claiming we had to stick together.
The bridge was in terrible shape. Thankfully the river was very shallow, being the dry season, and we were able to cross it without getting wet. Police were fully armed and protected, guarding both ends of the bridge. Some were chasing down prisoners who had escaped a nearby prison that had broken apart during the quake. When we finally reached San Clementine, people were in a slightly rioting state, banging on cars and yelling at its drivers who were forcing their way on to the bridge. I assumed people were angry at such a selfish action that could very well fully destroy the barely standing bridge.
Once on the other side in San Clementine, we forced ourselves on a bus headed towards Chinchay. We literally flagged down a bus, and ran up to and into it while it drove on at 20 km/h. for a couple hours we rode on in the bus along the coastline and I could smell the salt in the air. Along the way we saw more houses collapsed, more roads broken, more people not knowing what should or should not be done.
Somewhere beyond Chinchay, we got off, and the mother pulled me towards another bus where I paid for another ticket. The bus, however, kept trying to go, and the mother kept trying to stop it. They took my bag, opened the side of the bus and launched it inside. The mother gave me a hug and kisses on my cheek, the ticketseller pushed me on to the bus, and like that, like it was with Pepe and Paola, the lady and Nadia and Paola were gone. The bus was off, and I was headed to Lima.
On the bus I sat next to a man who kept insisting on showing me pictures of Pisco and Ica's devastation - mainly in the form of dead bodies - on his cell phone. I looked at him in disgust and was very happy to move to another seat when it became available. This ride, too, took place through a menagerie of destructed environs, the bus tipping this way and that as the tires tried to avoid the gaping cracks in the asphalt. I dozed off for a bit, and when I woke we had arrived in the district of Lima.
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I woke up in the morning not really rested, the obvious reason being the sporadically shaking earth, and the less obvious reason being the uncertainty of how I was to get to Lima in time to catch my plane. Earlier in the day I had the guy at the hostel reception help me book a bus ticket back to Lima. He had told me he would have it for me by that afternoon, but afternoon came and went and he was no where to be found. Much later, I found out that immediately after the earthquake, apparently he tried to rush back to the hostel from wherever he was in Huacachina, only to be injured when a brick wall collapsed upon him. Allegedly the injury was so major that some of his toes had to be surgically amputated.
So when morning came, I still had no bus ticket and we had no clue what was going on - no one did. Even the police were useless; with all electricity and telephone lines unavailable, Huacachina remained horribly isolated, besides one battery-run radio whose frantic DJ made me increasingly nervous. From what could be gathered, we found out that going to Lima was nearly impossible, as the infrastructure on the southern coast were mostly destroyed.
When you're 23, and lived a fairly multinational life, the likelihood of you encountering a totally virginial, first-time scenario is very slim, unless you are forced into participation. So in Huacachina, in this isolated neighborhood, I was facing a VERY virginial situation: how to get from point A to point B in the face of a major natural disaster, in a foreign country whose language I did not speak. I couldn't even think of where to begin, especially with limited access to any means of communication.
In truth, I was horrified and wanted to cry, even though that wouldn't have solved anything. I started by gathering as much information as possible, listening to the radio and talking to people who came into Huacachina from Ica. the problem was, no one was really sure about the information they had; it was almost always second-hand, something they had (over)heard in an adjacent conversation. Some people said that the buses were running to Lima, others said that nothing ran to Lima. Some spoke of a bridge by Pisco that had collapsed, other said it was half-collapsed and you can walk to the other side... So, by the end of my information gathering, I felt I had gotten nowhere, and was still as lost as when I had started.
I laid out the options in my head: I could stay in Huacachina until further information could be confirmed - this was something I instinctively wanted to do. Someone would, I hoped, hand me the best answer in time, and I could delay my decision until then. But, the fact that I couldn't speak Spanish, and the hostel owners' unwillingness to do much (like feed us or give us up-to-date info) told me this was a poor option. I feared nothing would be handed to me. And the 30m+ sand dunes on all but one side of Huacachina was nerve-hacking and didn't help my mental health: the image of a gianormous sand avalanche I had so feared causing the previous day appeared all at once plausible of happening.
My second option was to tag along someone else in Huacachina, who also wanted to get to Lima and had already figured out how. There was a Swiss family - a mother and her three kids - who had decided that they would attempt to fly to Lima, as they had a 2pm flight to catch that day. The mother had spoken to some woman at Ica's airport, who claimed that they were already building a substantial waiting list for flights to Lima. There were, of course, a few problems: because communication lines were nonexistent, the airport could not get a confirmation from Lima's airport that they could, in fact, land. Until that confirmation was attained, the lady claimed, there would be no flights. And when this confirmation was to be attained, she had no clue. Secondly, the chances of squeezing myself on to a plane when there was already a back-up seemed to me less than slim. Going to Ica's airport, therefore, had some major risks.
My final option, however, seemed to me at the time the most ludicrous of all: I would gamble my luck with the scant information that bus companies were running to Lima, and/or the bridge crossing the river north of Pisco was only slightly collapsed and I could walk over it. This option was entirely based on my desire - however unsure - to get moving. It was only 8:30am. Even if it took me 20 hours to get to Lima, I would still make it for my flight at 10am. My hesitations came from my lack of any knowledge of the earthquake and its aftermaths; the fact that I would be going right through the epicenter, Pisco, on my way; and that I would be doing this seemingly stupid ordeal on my own. But, in consideration of the other options, I felt I had no other 'real' choice. I have to get back to Lima, I thought, and so, I packed up my belongings.
Tom and Elly accompanied me into Ica's bus terminal. There were long lines everywhere, surrounding the terminal office like a tangled bunch of yarn. I lined up behind a Peruvian couple, in a line I figured would lead me up to a counter. "Do you know if going to Lima is possible?" the man asked, surprisingly, in English. "We have no idea, we're hoping," we said.
When I got to the counter, I said, "Lima," and the woman blurted something in Spanish so fast I couldn't even catch the verb or its subject. I poked the couple in front of me and asked for a translation. "She's saying, you can't go to Lima. The bridge collapsed," the woman said. Then, whom I determined as her boyfriend conversed with the counter lady, then advised me to buy the ticket to Pisco. "Don't worry, we'll help you, buy the ticket and follow us. You can walk across the bridge to San Clementine." Seeing as there was no other option available, I did as I was told.
The man and woman whom I thought were a couple turned out to be siblings. "We'll take you to Pisco and across the brdige so you can catch a bus on the other side for Lima," the brother, named Pepe, said. I gave my bag to the bus driver to stow away, and bid Tom and Elly (who decided to leave Ica the next day) farewell. "Good luck, you'll be alright," Elly said. I wasn't so sure about 'being alright' but really, there was no other positive thought to sustain, and so I took it in as much as I could.
Inside the bus, Pepe took my ticket and told me to sit next to his sister, Paola. "We're from Pisco," she said, and continued to tell me about where she was at the time of the earthquake, how she was working at her bank, and was worried about the whereabouts of her brother who turned out to be in Ica as well at the time, and how her father, who was in Pisco, was also doing alright.
The ride to Pisco was peaceful up until the last bit, approximately two miles away from Pisco's outskirts. The bus, in fact, had stopped behind a hundred other buses, and the bus driver merely sighed. Obscenities flew around for no more than 10 seconds, and everyone started getting off the bus. "Let's go, we're walking!" Pepe shouted. So there I was and Pepe and Paola, two miles away from Pisco, the asphalt cracked in various locations, hundreds of buses lined up all the way to the horizon. "I'm a man!" Pepe claimed, and took my 11kg bag, as we walked towards Pisco under a very aggressive sun. I felt like a refugee carrying her entire life on her shoulders, migrating to some unknown land somewhere beyond the horizon on the bare hope that things will work out in the end. To be sure, things WERE starting to work itself out, since the moment Pepe and Paola offered their help, and for this I was unspeakably thankful.
Evidence of the earthquake's realities were painfully visible the closer we got to Pisco. Not only was the road destroyed, shacks and housing were flattened, brick walls partially standing, heaps of rubble were everywhere, food scraps and human feces rotting away on the side - the sewage system was done for. About twenty minutes after we left the bus, we entered the city of Pisco, and even Pepe and Paola were shocked. "We had no idea it was this bad!" Paola exclaimed. "My house is partially collapsed, my friend said." The extraordinary thing, I thought, was that she said this in the most lightheartedly way possible; she was even smiling, laughing, and I was terribly grateful of that, too.
Pepe, in the meanwhile, was talking to various people - friends, I assumed, from their familiar interactions - and asked about how to get to Lima. "We're going to find a friend to take you to Lima," he said, and I was shocked.
"A friend?"
"Yeah, we're from Pisco, we know lots of people. Don't worry."
Still shocked and not knowing what to say in the face of such kindness and really, my luck to have met these two, we continued to walk towards the notorious bridge.
Probably a good two miles from the bridge, Pepe found a family - a woman and her two daughters - who were headed towards Lima, and gladly conceded to take me along. here, Pepe gave me my bag, I gave Paola my email address, and they both smiled and said, "Go, go! You don't have much time!" I turned to the woman with her daughters, who looked at me urgently and pointed towards the bridge, saying something in Spanish at the same time. I looked around for Pepe and Paola, and they were already gone, lost in the migrating crowd.
The sun was hot, very aggressive. With the heat rose the stench from the side of the broken asphalt. And soon, the collapsed bridge was visible, and its pseudo-standing surface swarmed with people. I conversed in my broken Spanish with the two girls, Nadia and Paola, who were fascinated by the fact I was from Tokyo, and asked all sorts of questions, only less than half of which I was probably able to satisfactorily answer. Sharing a bottle of water between us, we half-ran, half-walked towards the bridge, the mother claiming we had to stick together.
The bridge was in terrible shape. Thankfully the river was very shallow, being the dry season, and we were able to cross it without getting wet. Police were fully armed and protected, guarding both ends of the bridge. Some were chasing down prisoners who had escaped a nearby prison that had broken apart during the quake. When we finally reached San Clementine, people were in a slightly rioting state, banging on cars and yelling at its drivers who were forcing their way on to the bridge. I assumed people were angry at such a selfish action that could very well fully destroy the barely standing bridge.
Once on the other side in San Clementine, we forced ourselves on a bus headed towards Chinchay. We literally flagged down a bus, and ran up to and into it while it drove on at 20 km/h. for a couple hours we rode on in the bus along the coastline and I could smell the salt in the air. Along the way we saw more houses collapsed, more roads broken, more people not knowing what should or should not be done.
Somewhere beyond Chinchay, we got off, and the mother pulled me towards another bus where I paid for another ticket. The bus, however, kept trying to go, and the mother kept trying to stop it. They took my bag, opened the side of the bus and launched it inside. The mother gave me a hug and kisses on my cheek, the ticketseller pushed me on to the bus, and like that, like it was with Pepe and Paola, the lady and Nadia and Paola were gone. The bus was off, and I was headed to Lima.
On the bus I sat next to a man who kept insisting on showing me pictures of Pisco and Ica's devastation - mainly in the form of dead bodies - on his cell phone. I looked at him in disgust and was very happy to move to another seat when it became available. This ride, too, took place through a menagerie of destructed environs, the bus tipping this way and that as the tires tried to avoid the gaping cracks in the asphalt. I dozed off for a bit, and when I woke we had arrived in the district of Lima.
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Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Memoirs of a Loner Traveler: Ica, Peru
15 August, 7am
I stayed in a hostel at Huacachina, located on the outskirts of Ica city. Huacachina, which advertises itself as being "America´s Greatest Oasis," indeed strictly follows the definition of "oasis": it is smack in the middle of a desert! Now, I had never stepped into a desert landscape until today, so the great sand dunes were a marvelous sight to me. I declined the hostel´s offer to take me into the desert for some sand-boarding fun, but did manage to hike up the nearest sand dune. My feet kept sinking into the sand, and I desperately hoped that my solo-escapade did not end up launching a sand-avalanche to swallow up America´s greatest oasis. Fortunately, my fears were not manifested into reality... at least for that moment.
After taking some breathtaking pictures of the desert, I explored the mini-town of Huacachina. It was basically a tourist resort location. The roads and paths leading up to the smelly, green lagoon were completely paved, and some major landscaping work had been done all throughout; this was slightly disappointing, although I can understand that America´s greatest oasis could not possibly be left untouched while it bore such a title.
I spent the rest of the afternoon reading Anna Karenina, and munching on Gummy Bears Aya had given me in a ziploc bag at Puno. I decided to settle on one of those instant noodle bowls for dinner, as I reckoned my stomach needed something familiar and soft, after the malicious bite into some deadly hot pepper nearly killed my poor stomach at the lunch buffet in Chivay. Tomorrow: Lima
15 August, 7:30pm
HUGE earthquake. Never felt anything like it in my life, even while in Japan. It´s about 11am in Tokyo, and my parents are probably freaking out. But there are no means of communication available; the first thing to do when I get access to a phone is call the Japanese Embassy.
At the moment we are outside. I´m with an English couple, from Bristol: Tom and Elly. We grabbed our stuff from the hostel once things settled down a bit; the earth still shakes every now and then. When it first shook, I thought it might be over quickly, but I was VERY wrong - it continued and escalated into one that cut out the lights and slid my bed from wall to wall. I knew then that being inside the building was probably not a good idea, and I ran out the door without even bothering to get my shoes on.
The shaking continued once I made it outside, and I congregated with the others who had already been outside from the beginning. The earth shook, and shook, and shook. When finally it stopped, I went inside the building - which up to now had already survived two large earthquakes and this fact I did not know whether to take in relief or panic - and gathered my things.
The rest of the night shook with the remnants of the earthquake, as the plates underneath us tried to settle into its new positions. We were, however, under the stars, an entire sky full of the smallest ones ever invisibile in Tokyo, plus the Milky Way. Although we woke up with a startle every time there was a low rumble and the ground shifted under our sleeping bags, I will and can still remember the sky that was almost entirely white with stars.
Read more!
I stayed in a hostel at Huacachina, located on the outskirts of Ica city. Huacachina, which advertises itself as being "America´s Greatest Oasis," indeed strictly follows the definition of "oasis": it is smack in the middle of a desert! Now, I had never stepped into a desert landscape until today, so the great sand dunes were a marvelous sight to me. I declined the hostel´s offer to take me into the desert for some sand-boarding fun, but did manage to hike up the nearest sand dune. My feet kept sinking into the sand, and I desperately hoped that my solo-escapade did not end up launching a sand-avalanche to swallow up America´s greatest oasis. Fortunately, my fears were not manifested into reality... at least for that moment.
After taking some breathtaking pictures of the desert, I explored the mini-town of Huacachina. It was basically a tourist resort location. The roads and paths leading up to the smelly, green lagoon were completely paved, and some major landscaping work had been done all throughout; this was slightly disappointing, although I can understand that America´s greatest oasis could not possibly be left untouched while it bore such a title.
I spent the rest of the afternoon reading Anna Karenina, and munching on Gummy Bears Aya had given me in a ziploc bag at Puno. I decided to settle on one of those instant noodle bowls for dinner, as I reckoned my stomach needed something familiar and soft, after the malicious bite into some deadly hot pepper nearly killed my poor stomach at the lunch buffet in Chivay. Tomorrow: Lima
15 August, 7:30pm
HUGE earthquake. Never felt anything like it in my life, even while in Japan. It´s about 11am in Tokyo, and my parents are probably freaking out. But there are no means of communication available; the first thing to do when I get access to a phone is call the Japanese Embassy.
At the moment we are outside. I´m with an English couple, from Bristol: Tom and Elly. We grabbed our stuff from the hostel once things settled down a bit; the earth still shakes every now and then. When it first shook, I thought it might be over quickly, but I was VERY wrong - it continued and escalated into one that cut out the lights and slid my bed from wall to wall. I knew then that being inside the building was probably not a good idea, and I ran out the door without even bothering to get my shoes on.
The shaking continued once I made it outside, and I congregated with the others who had already been outside from the beginning. The earth shook, and shook, and shook. When finally it stopped, I went inside the building - which up to now had already survived two large earthquakes and this fact I did not know whether to take in relief or panic - and gathered my things.
The rest of the night shook with the remnants of the earthquake, as the plates underneath us tried to settle into its new positions. We were, however, under the stars, an entire sky full of the smallest ones ever invisibile in Tokyo, plus the Milky Way. Although we woke up with a startle every time there was a low rumble and the ground shifted under our sleeping bags, I will and can still remember the sky that was almost entirely white with stars.
Read more!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Memoirs of a Loner Traveler: Arequipa/Chivay, Peru
4903m! I´m pretty sure that´s the highest I´ve ever been without the use of an airplane. I was actually more than relieved after arriving in Arequipa - never again, I had thought to myself, would I ever go 3000m above sea level. My days in Cuzco and Puno were fun and great, but my goodness, the altitude! It simply drains the energy right out of you. In any case, little did I know that I would be achieveing my all-time record after Puno´s 3800m, in Arequipa.
But before we get into that: Arequipa. Probably one of the most modern cities I`´ve been to, even compared to Lima. Allegedly Arequipans pride themselves to be slightly different from the rest of the Peruvian population, and their provincial pride can be seen from as small as a beer brand, "Arequipeña" to as grandiose as their own city-festival - held unfortunately after my departure, on 15 August - totally devoted to the celebration of Arequipa. I suppose they do have much to celebrate, as they are 467 years old, and I´ve found Arequipa to be probably one of my favorites.
Part of the reason why my stay in Arequipa is longer than any of the other cities I´m visiting is because of my planned visit to the Colca Canyon. I had booked a tour online, through the hostel I´m staying in, and I expected teh tour to be one of this trip´s highlights. Things brings us back to the earlier number, 4903m. About three hours into the drive from Arequipa to Chivay, our guide gets on the micorphone, and enthusiastically claimed, "We will now be stopping at a rest stop. We are at 3800m above sea level, and I highly encourage you to drink some coca tea because we will be reaching 4800m within the next two hours." Not only was I shocked to hear the numerical value of "4800" (and I even stopped teh guide to confirm), I was surprised that we were already at 3800m and nothing had happened to my well-being. But here I was anyway, relieved to be out of altitude´s way after Puno; my body doesn´t like extreme altitudes, I know, but Altitude apparently likes me.
It turned out that we were oat 4903m for about half an hour, during which we stopped to do touristy things like take pictures and buy more alpaca commodities. I myself bought a small coin purse for 5 soles to celebrate my newly achieved record. And then after that, we gradually began to descend, towards Chivay.
Chivay is a small town, but it fed me well. The meals I had at Chivay were probably some of the best I´ve had all trip. I also tried alpaca meat, which was very tasty and very similar to beef; as well as cactus fruit, which was sweet and juicy but you had to swallow all the seeds. In any case, lunch was at a buffet, and dinner in a local restaurant (probably serving tourists only) where a local group performed some dances with Andean live music.
The next day began bright and early. We loaded our buses at 6am to head towards Cruz del Condor, a look-out spot located inside the Colca Canyon, from where giant condors can be observed in the early hours of the day. With good weather and clear views, the condors were uplifting to watch as they freely soared through the valleys, which, by the way, are 2500m+ deep. Pictures to come later.
When we got back to Arequipa, the city was in total chaos, albeit it may have been pseudo-organized. Its people had started celebrating Arequipa´s 467th anniversary, and certain roads in the city - especially around the Plaza de Armas - were blocked. Our tour bus let us off, therefore, a few blocks from the Plaza, and I exchnaged email addresses with a German couple whom I had met on teh trip. Hopefully I can visit them when I get to Germany in April.
I walked back to the hostel, avoiding the super-crowded Plaza as much as possible, although in hindsight I probably should have paid the celebrations a visit, if only for a moment. In any case I took the 20:45 bus out of Arequipa for Ica and Ica is where I am now. Unfortunately the weather is somewhat gray, but I´m hoping it will clear up soon so I can surf through some of its famous sand dunes.
Read more!
But before we get into that: Arequipa. Probably one of the most modern cities I`´ve been to, even compared to Lima. Allegedly Arequipans pride themselves to be slightly different from the rest of the Peruvian population, and their provincial pride can be seen from as small as a beer brand, "Arequipeña" to as grandiose as their own city-festival - held unfortunately after my departure, on 15 August - totally devoted to the celebration of Arequipa. I suppose they do have much to celebrate, as they are 467 years old, and I´ve found Arequipa to be probably one of my favorites.
Part of the reason why my stay in Arequipa is longer than any of the other cities I´m visiting is because of my planned visit to the Colca Canyon. I had booked a tour online, through the hostel I´m staying in, and I expected teh tour to be one of this trip´s highlights. Things brings us back to the earlier number, 4903m. About three hours into the drive from Arequipa to Chivay, our guide gets on the micorphone, and enthusiastically claimed, "We will now be stopping at a rest stop. We are at 3800m above sea level, and I highly encourage you to drink some coca tea because we will be reaching 4800m within the next two hours." Not only was I shocked to hear the numerical value of "4800" (and I even stopped teh guide to confirm), I was surprised that we were already at 3800m and nothing had happened to my well-being. But here I was anyway, relieved to be out of altitude´s way after Puno; my body doesn´t like extreme altitudes, I know, but Altitude apparently likes me.
It turned out that we were oat 4903m for about half an hour, during which we stopped to do touristy things like take pictures and buy more alpaca commodities. I myself bought a small coin purse for 5 soles to celebrate my newly achieved record. And then after that, we gradually began to descend, towards Chivay.
Chivay is a small town, but it fed me well. The meals I had at Chivay were probably some of the best I´ve had all trip. I also tried alpaca meat, which was very tasty and very similar to beef; as well as cactus fruit, which was sweet and juicy but you had to swallow all the seeds. In any case, lunch was at a buffet, and dinner in a local restaurant (probably serving tourists only) where a local group performed some dances with Andean live music.
The next day began bright and early. We loaded our buses at 6am to head towards Cruz del Condor, a look-out spot located inside the Colca Canyon, from where giant condors can be observed in the early hours of the day. With good weather and clear views, the condors were uplifting to watch as they freely soared through the valleys, which, by the way, are 2500m+ deep. Pictures to come later.
When we got back to Arequipa, the city was in total chaos, albeit it may have been pseudo-organized. Its people had started celebrating Arequipa´s 467th anniversary, and certain roads in the city - especially around the Plaza de Armas - were blocked. Our tour bus let us off, therefore, a few blocks from the Plaza, and I exchnaged email addresses with a German couple whom I had met on teh trip. Hopefully I can visit them when I get to Germany in April.
I walked back to the hostel, avoiding the super-crowded Plaza as much as possible, although in hindsight I probably should have paid the celebrations a visit, if only for a moment. In any case I took the 20:45 bus out of Arequipa for Ica and Ica is where I am now. Unfortunately the weather is somewhat gray, but I´m hoping it will clear up soon so I can surf through some of its famous sand dunes.
Read more!
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