our new digs

Sabado (Saturday) was a great day.  We moved into our own "home."  We stayed in Lula's B & B for two weeks, reveled in the views from our terrace and thoroughly enjoyed Max's cooking, but it was time for us to move on.

Julie found a promising place online, and after some difficulties connecting with the owner, we finally were able to see the place.  We liked it and rented it for one month, potentially longer.

It is quite small, especially when compared to our place last year which came complete with a maid's quarters.  This one has a small living room, a small eat-in kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom/closet upstairs.  Size aside, it has many attributes.  It is actually a part of a "compound" which is within a gated community.  The owners live in the rest of the compound, and we have a lovely garden out our glass front door.  The unit also includes a picnic table and a grill.  The apartment has been recently redone, so we have tile floors, granite counter tops, new appliances, furniture, etc.  We also have cable TV, complete with HBO and Cinemax, as well as a CD player and wi-fi.  What more could one ask for?

Here are some pics for your viewing enjoyment:

Here is the door knob that provides entrance to "our" compound.

As you enter, you see the rectangular garden with beautiful flowers and plants.  The table is right in front of our patio door entrance.  The rest of the buildings belong to the owner. 

Here is another view of the garden, along with a view of the grill which we can use (under the gray cover).

Here is our front door, and the window off to the left is our kitchen window. 

You enter the front door into our living room, complete with a brand new leather couch that is also a sofa bed.

Moving around the living room, this decorative wall and table is straight across from the door (the couch is on your right as you look at the picture).  And yes, that's "moi" in the mirror.  It's hard to take a picture of a mirror without having your own image in the mirror -- unless you are a ghost, which I, apparently, am not. 

And the last wall in the living room holds the TV, VCR, etc.

Here is our pint-sized kitchen, which does everything it needs to do.

And within the kitchen we have a table/chairs (we obviously won't be doing much entertaining, but there are a couple more chairs, just in case).  The circular staircase you see goes up to our bedroom.

Next to the staircase, we also have a nice-sized pantry and frig.

This is the little hallway between the kitchen and living room.  
It goes to the bathroom.

And here is our bathroom.  No problem with hot water  :-).

And here is our bed (rather sloppily made, I see). 

And lastly, we have our clothes closet. 

It meets all of our needs and has the plus of being very quiet.  The price is $600 per month which is a bit high (although less than we paid in Ecuador for our "mansion"), but it has other assets that we couldn't dismiss.  In addition to the beautiful garden, we like the owners, both of whom speak decent English.  Cesar is an accountant for a copper mine.  They have a gardener and at least two maids (I only have Harold).   It is somewhat close to downtown and is in an area of town which has some good restaurants.

So, life is good in Peru!

Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it’s back to school we go. . . .

We are back at school – Spanish language school, that is, along with about 16 other students from all over the world:  Germany, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, Australia, and the USA -- at least for this week.  We are all attending EDEAQ (see website at http://www.edeaq.com/index2.htm ), right in downtown Arequipa, a half block from Plaza de Armas.

We are especially fortunate because we are currently staying at the home of the managing director and “head honchos” of this school, Juana Lourdes Díaz Oviedo de Seelhofer, a native Peruvian, and her husband, Max Seelhofer from Switzerland, who plays a major role in scheduling, maintaining finances, organizing home stays, etc.   Along with the school organization, they also run Lula’s B & B – our home for two weeks (see previous blog posting on "our" terrace).

Lula talking with one of the teachers.

Max talking with two of the new students.

The all-important weekly schedule bulletin board.

The school is the only one in Arequipa which is accredited by the Peruvian government, and it also has won kudos from German and Swiss governments.  These standards, their website indicates, are “difficult to be found elsewhere in Peru and the rest of South America.”   Their school currently has about 14 different teachers, all of whom are young and energetic, and there are also 14 different classrooms -- you got it, one classroom per teacher.    

The hallway leading to one wing of the classrooms.

One of the teachers getting his room ready for his next student.

While most of the teaching in this school in one-on-one, Harold and I form an “affinity” grouping (don’t laugh, friends), which means the two of us are together with one teacher.  Our teacher is Joaquín Barrientos, a young native Arequipeño who is quite knowledgeable about Peruvian politics, and about all those other things one needs to know about a location when one lives there for 3 months.  Beyond that, he also does quite a nice job summarizing grammar and pulling together various aspects for us, assuming we either know the background or will learn it before class the next day.

Our classroom which is all ready for us.

Joaquin expounding on a grammar point. 

Our board at the end of our class.  This day, it was half verbs and half Peruvian Presidential politics.

Most of the students have class for 4 hours a day, generally with 2 different teachers.  We have class for 2 hours a day, and that time period works well for us.  We spend the first half on Spanish language materials and the second half on cultural studies.  The other bit of good news is that halfway through the 4-hour sessions, there is a lunch break, and everyone gets together to chat, to talk in various languages about various trips students are taking, and to get to know each other a bit more.  Oh -- there's also coffee and tea and a few sweet goodies to provide energy for the last half of the session.

The lunch break table, all ready for teachers and students who will flock to the table momentarily.

The table with teachers and students sitting down and relaxing, probably also talking about a hike up El Misti, how long they will be at the school, where they are living, other trips, housing arrangements, etc.

So, if you are planning to learn Spanish, this school is a good place to do so.   We have thoroughly enjoyed our experience there. 

Sunday visit to the Freezer

Our intended visit of the “ice maiden” on Sunday afternoon did not work as she was not home.  Juanita -- as the Inca mummy found on Mt. Ampato at 20,700 feet by Joliet, Illinois native Johan Reinhard in 1995 is known -- is in the local laboratory for further examination and will be there until May.   Juanita is kept at the Catholic University's Museum of Andean Sanctuaries (Universidad Catolica de Santa Marisa Museo Santuarios Andinos) which is a short walk down the street from the main plaza in Arequipa (Plaza de Armas).  Since Juanita was not present and the refrigerators were not working for the other mummies, we purchased tickets for half price.  However, it was an interesting tour led by an English speaking guide.

Technically, Juanita is not a mummy since her body after death was frozen and thus she became an instant celebrity as scientists waited in line to examine her intact body.  She was a sacrifice to the gods of the mountains, but was probably a willing sacrifice as she would go live with the gods.  It is assumed that she was somewhat drugged and somewhat disabled by the high altitude, but she was killed by a violent blow to her head (supposedly as she knelt in prayer).  She had a full stomach of vegetables, cocoa leaves, and chicha (the low-grade corn alcohol) when she died.  Her death is thought to have occurred around 1470 or about 550 years ago.

She was about 14 years of age and was a healthy young girl.  She had fine teeth, good muscle and bone structure and no evidence of disease. She could have been raised from birth knowing she was going to become immortal as a sacrifice to the “apu” of the mountain to assure the mountain would not damage the lives of the Incas.   “Juanita” was a name applied to the mummy as it is the feminine form of “Juan” which is the Spanish equivalent of “Johan” the name of the explorer who found the mummy.

Below are two pictures taken from Wikipedia (cameras were not allowed in the museum). The first shows Juanita's body in a fetal position with wraps around the body. The picture was taken when Jaunita was found and it shows that her face had been exposed to the elements since the melt from a glacier had dislodged the body from her grave site. The 2nd picture is of her frozen hand.

Some of the people standing in line to view and study her body were researchers at Johns Hopkins (sorry, Mayo, you weren't on the list as far as we know).  They were the ones to ascertain that her death came from a blow to the head.  And other researchers have tried to ascertain her heritage.   

Taken from Wikipedia:   “According to the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), her closest kin are the Ngobe people of Panama, but she also shared genetic patterns found in people from Taiwan and Korea. Scientists at TIGR examined two mitochondrial DNA D loop sequences and found that Hypervariable region 1 (HV1) was consistent with Haplogroup A, one of the four Native American gene groups. Hypervariable region 2 (HV2) included a unique sequence not found in any of the current mitochondrial DNA databases.” 

This unique sequence could help identify today’s “relatives” if people are found who contain that sequence.

The museum exhibit displayed artifacts -- pottery, textiles (wrappings used to encase the mummies), ornamens  --  that were found with Juanita and with other mummies that Johan Reihard has found in Peru (a total of 14).  In fact, the mountains that we view from our terrace have yielded nine additional mummies (six from El Misti and 3 from Picchu Picchu).  However, these mummies were found at lower altitudes, so the bodies had decomposed; thus, they have not excited the scientific community as Juanita has.   The exhibit is shown with very dim lights and our guide was a soft speaker, but the visit  -- even though we didn’t actually see Juanita -- was worthwhile.

The picture below is taken from the web site http://www.merrellperu.com/tag/volcan/ and shows Juanita unwrapped.

A View from "our" terrace at Lula's B & B

Feral (?) dogs fighting, cows being milked, goats being tended, farmers tending their crops, and lest we forget, fabulous views of the snow-covered Andes Mountains  --  these are all aspects of the views surrounding “our” terrace at Lula’s B & B where we are spending the first two weeks of our time in Peru.   Here is some commentary about the views along with some pics. 

We wake up to a cacophony of roosters around 5:30 am.  We can’t see the roosters, but wow, are they close!

At 6:30 am, bells rings for several minutes – so much better than an alarm clock. 

Breakfast is served to us on the terrace around 8:00 am.  The view of the mountains is stunning, and it’s amazing how quickly the air warms once the sun arises.

View of El Misti -- a perfectly shaped cone volcano (active):

View of El Chachani -- inactive volcano, a popular hiking mountain:

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Five levels of terraced fields are visible off to our left, and it appears as if one field is unkempt, another is being re-leveled, the third is grazing land for cattle, the fourth is a field (note pics of the workers who are weeding and perhaps thinning), and the next was plowed over the course of two days with a real tractor.

the five terraces:

the grazing land terrace:

the terrace that was weeded over the course of two days:

One lucky farmer has a tractor (or perhaps he hires out to people that need a tractor).  He plowed for two days, and we now realize that on the second day, he was digging trenches for both irrigation and planting.  The planting  was done by hand the third day (second pic).  We think it may be onion sets or something like that; onions are massively grown in Peru: 

People also head to work, walking along the little dirt path between the terraced fields:

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There is a concrete block structure directly in front of us.  It's a milking barn, apparently used by several farmers.  Around 4:30 pm, cows and herders start streaming in in groups, with cows mooing all the way, and they are moved into the structure for the evening milking.

cows on the path heading to the barn:

cows in the barn:

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Directly below the concrete milking barn is a field that has recently been planted.  Every evening, around 5:00, the farmer comes over to cover the new plantings – to keep in the heat.  This operation takes about two hours. By the time we get up and have our breakfast, the coverings are gone.

False alarm!  In the previous two pictures, we had thought they were keeping new seedlings warm, but we now know they were actually trying to get the plastic set right for the dropping off of oregano, which came early the next morning (unfortunately, we missed the delivery).  They spread it all out to dry, fluffing it often and raising a lot of dust, which they then swept off the plastic.  Perhaps this is the oregano you find in the spice jars at Hy-Vee! 

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In the midst of all the activity, Harold does some work on his computer.

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Just over to the right, goats can be seen with goat herders, but we are sure they are very careful not to get them in the corn terrace which is right next door.

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Off to our right and a tad higher, we have a view of a “young town.” Peru's "young towns" often started with groups of people who would spontaneously take over land.  Houses  evolved from the shacks which led to brick, clay, or concrete homes being built. Community structures were born, with communities banding together to build stairs so that residents at the top could get home more easily.

  

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And directly in front of the "young town," we find this contrasting mini-castle surrounded by concrete walls.  The structures at the top of the taller white portion are a series of solar water heaters.

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As the evening milking and other activities take place, we watch the clouds thicken over “our” mountains, but if it's clear, we get to see the marvelous lighting of the sunset glowing on "our" mountains.

 

El Misti:

El Chachani:

Pichu-Pichu -- the mountains off to the far right of our terrace:

   

And so it goes, here in Arequipa, Peru, a couple of days from our terrace, brought to you compliments of Julie and Harold, who hung around “home” because Julie was – well, “under the weather.”