Remodeling…. Or Messing Up My Nest

Kudos, to the people that can survive remodeling. Especially, if you are living in it at the same time. I am fairly patient but I guess my strong nesting instinct is finally overriding my patience. I can nest almost anywhere and it doesn’t have to be here in my tiny red tin roofed cottage. I nested just fine in the late 60’s when I was moving around from base to base with my Marine Corp husband and I nested fairly well in China. I just need a space that I can call my own with some of my stuff in it. And the stuff needs to be fairly organized.

Obviously, I am remodeling. It was past time to make a couple of repairs on my 1940’s cottage so that it would be a little more safe and livable. I had the outside painted, some rotten decking and siding replaced, the 16 wooded windows in the living room replaced, some rewiring and had my bathroom updated. It doesn’t sound like a whole lot but as Bob (my great contractor) warned me– it is always more than you imagined - not in money but in disruption.

Updating my bathroom meant moving the bathroom door, which meant rearranging the bedroom furniture, which meant getting a new dresser, which meant painting and re-carpeting the bedroom, which lead me to the decision to re-carpet the other two bedrooms also. That decision led to the job of ME actually having to clean out the bottom of my closets so they could install the carpet – not one of my favorite jobs as proven by the number of moldy shoes I tossed out. And then there is the construction DUST to deal with, it can get onto the tiniest places. Can’t they make dustless drywall mud?

They ARE getting close to finishing. Basically, just a little of the bathroom and bedroom to finish. The carpet is being laid today. I am hoping I will have a bedroom to sleep in tonight because all the furniture of the 3 bedrooms is spread all over the house and porch and it is already 2:30pm. I may be sleeping at Rosie’s tonight. With all the furniture shuffling my Internet is disconnected which is adding to my distress. They are messing up my NEST.

Side Note –the guys were done by 6pm that night & I slept in my own house - but not in my bedroom yet (still under construction). Couple of good things that I keep reminding myself - is that most of the dust producing jobs are done and I can now get to my underwear drawers. This means I can start putting all my laundry and other stuff away. I still have lots of pictures to re-hang which is a drag because I am “tool challenged” . I can use a shoe to pound a nail like any other female – but some of the shelves and bigger pictures will need a little more than a shoe. Guess I will have to dig out the hated toolbox. Just 2 or 3 more weeks- maybe. Then my nest will be finished. (for a while)

Lima Tours

Lima was our last stop. Saturday morning we went to two museums. The first and best one was The Rafael Larco Herrera Archaeological Museum which is the world's largest private collection of pre-Colombian art. Rafael had collected 45,000 pieces of pottery with some of gold, silver, semi-precious stones and textiles thrown in for good measure. Not sure if this guy is classified as a collector or a grave robber. But at least his stuff is still in Lima - whereas the 5,000 items excavated from Macchu Picchu in 1912 by the American Hiram Bingham are NOT in Peru. It still is housed in Yale University's Peabody Museum. Supposedly he put them there for "safe keeping" Yeah right... Probably the most notorious pottery in his collection were the erotic ones. The erotic pottery depicted normal types of sex and birth. The only strange thing was that in all of them the women never looked very happy. Our second museum was the disappointing National Museum. The only interesting thing here was the museum shop. This is where I finally found my "every trip souvenir" a refrigerator magnet.

That afternoon we had our official city tour. We drove by the beach, past a couple of ruins, and visited a church and their catacombs. Going back to the hotel we had an unexpected treat when they drove us past the Japanese Embassy which was taken over by terrorist in 96. Our book club had read Belle Canto by Ann Patchett which is a great fictionalized book based on the hostage situation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_embassy_hostage_crisis

Great Peru Picture

We had beautiful weather and beautiful scenery for most of the trip - we were so lucky. Peru is not a place I would like to return to, but I am really grateful I got to see it - not even my broken ankle made me regret going. Peru was worth the hobbling around.

Cemetary

After leaving Puno with our best tour guide of the whole tour, we traveled on some really bad roads including one section that was reduced to one lane because of rocks the striking teachers had put there. The rocks were small enough to be easily moved (my guess 20-100 lbs at the most) but they hadn't been and they looked like they had been there a while hampering traffic. Strange. Anyway our guide was great in that he answered all our questions that we had stored up - so a lot of the Peruvian history and tidbits you have read about in these blogs were from him. After about an hour of bouncing around the road we arrived at another part of Lake Titicaca where there were some burials towers along with souvenir stands and "pay-to-take-my-picture" children.

Side note: Most people here are so poor you really didn't mind giving them money for a photo and buying alpaca hats that you will probably keep in a drawer for the rest of your life.

The tower above was a tomb. They buried their dead in a squat position and in a inverted cone shaped container. The size of the outside tower depended on their rank. The towers were more examples their spectacular stonework. The circular depressions in the outer stones were filled with a ball of cement-like stuff to hold it together. (Remember this is an area that has a lot of earthquakes as you probably read about- It is amazing that so many of the Inca structures survived). Clever!

I was looking around the Internet to find the name of the place I mentioned above - which obviously I couldn't find it since I still have the blog title of "cemetary"- Paula do you remember? Anyway I found this neat website while I was surfing. Try it.

Lake Titicaca Algae

If you haven´t seen the show called "World's Dirtiest Jobs" it is because you are probably not a guy. It is definitely a "guy" show. Anyway Lake Titicaca has lots and lots of algae growing on top of the shallow waters around all the boats and by the hotels. Definitely turns off any thought of taking a dip. That late afternoon when arriving at the port, we saw a dump truck and a shovel type of machine trying to pick the nasty algae up. There was a guy on the top of the truck shoveling in the "misses". It appeared that sometime the big shovel guy would "miss" on purpose and hit the shoveler with lots of the slimy green stuff on his pants and boots. yuck. We found out later that they use it as fertilizer.

The Taquile Island Climb

That's me looking down to at our boat (it's one of those small white dots on the center left of the photo). Two more hours in a boat and you arrive at Taquile Island. This island is a TALL dirt and rock island. I stupidly thought that I could do the climb with my damaged ankle and I did because after we got off the boat - it left us at the first dock and traveled around the island to the other side - so no turning back. Going up for my ankle was only a small problem when compared to the huffing and puffing (and I thought I had become adjusted to the altitude - HA). Thankfully, on the way up there were lots of kids handing us the leaves that you crush and sniff to help you breathe. Surprisingly, going down was harder on my ankle (and hip) with the 530 uneven, unpredictable stairs. To make the trip down safely I led only with my right foot which made it being really hard on my right hip. I was so slow at both going up and down we didn't have time to look at all the stuff the people were selling on the sides of the narrow path. The outside meal at the top of the hill was good- fish, bread, fries and beer. (Restaurant bathroom was also outside and just a pit)

As you can tell I mostly seem to remember the climbing part of this trip, but the island has a pretty neat history. You can spend the night here with locals in their small homes (definitely NO private baths here) and if you want to find a wife bring a big boom box. That is supposedly how the modern boys attract the girls. Not sure what you need to bring if you are looking for a guy. Also if your marriage didn't produce children in 5 years, you move on to someone else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taquile

100 Ways to Use Reeds

Islands, houses, boats, mats, roofs, food, and souvenirs!

Puno

Our Hotel was our third one in the Libertador group http://www.libertador.com.pe/eng/puno.php and a white monstrosity (but really nice) that was situated on a point quite a ways from town and any shopping. This meant that you were sort of limited in where you could eat. You ate either the hotel restaurant fare or your suitcase snacks.

The neat thing about Puno http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puno was the Lake Titicaca and the Uros Islands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uros They are floating islands mostly maintained for the many many many boats that go out every day to visit them. Only a couple hundred actually still live on the islands (which were further away) so really we were just visiting really unique floating souvenir stands. Our boat stopped at one floating island that coordinated the boats activities to allow the tourist dollars to be spread around. One island provided instructions as to how the islands were built and the other one had dancers and a boat ride on a reed boat. And of course both islands had lots of souvenir items to sell. Did you notice that they use Solar Power. One of islands we went past had a house boat anchored to it. It belonged to the Church of Later Day Saints.

Peru's Continental Divide

Except for the tourist stands this was one desolate area. Yes, this is part of the same "Great Divide" that runs thru America. We stopped and took pictures.

This is where we had lunch - Not a McDonald's in site

Yes, there really was a restaurant here among all the dirt roads and this is around the time I think I picked up my Peruvian Parasite (we won't discuss that part of the trip - but I am now "bug free"). Food was pretty good. It was native food with some of it quite tasty. The bread was great! Most of the tables as well as the toilets and sinks were outside.

Peruvian Graffiti

Since a lot of the people can not read, the candidates attach a symbol to their name and have it painted on the sides of houses. The symbol will have a x thru it so that the voters know how to mark the ballot. We never got a good photograph (had to get this one off the Internet) but the symbol we saw a lot of this summer was a red painted pottery pot with the x drawn across it. Wonder if he won or will win?

Bus, Train, and Boat

I was figuring that the last part of our trip would be easy on my ankle (that I am icing down on the "morning after") because the amount of riding we would be doing. After we rode the train back to Cusco, early next morning we hopped on a bus ride that was supposed to last 9 hours. The bus didn't have the same nice Lima/Ica recliner bus seats but it had lots of stops. More dry scenery, llamas, alpacas and sheep.

Rainbow of Colors

There seem to be a lot of festivals during our stay. I am not sure what this one was but it was colorful and had a religious theme. I got to watch a lot of the groups parade around the town square while Paula was scouting for a walking stick for me.

The Peruvian Nose

Bloody noses. The high altitude and dry air make for some really nasty nose companions. I felt like I had a nose full of scabs. Paula described hers as having the feel of rock candy. We saw a lady in front of us on the boat put Vaseline inside her nose which looked like a good idea. Next time....

Bus Ride Entertainment

To get to Macchu Picchu you ride a bus that winds around a mostly one lane dirt road (pictured above). There are probably a fleet of 30 or more buses that make the round trip many times throughout the day. It is amazing that they do not have daily accidents because the buses are generally going around blind hairpin turns. There is a lot of stopping and backing up so that the buses can get to a wider part of the road to pass each other. Maybe to keep our minds off of the harrowing driving experience, they have young boys in native costume that run down the 7 or 8 mile road waving at our bus at each bend. Granted they take the steep stairs that cut thru all the hair pin turns but you can tell that they are getting quite a workout in their sandals. At the bottom they climb on the bus and take donations. Yep, we made our contribution for that bit of waving entertainment. I hope they get to ride back up instead of climbing up.

The Roof Attachments

See how the roof is attached to the stones with the protuberances

Clever....

Those stones that are poking out of the side of the buildings were stone carved knobs or rings used for tying the roof down. They anchored the wood and other materials down with rope tied onto the stone protrusions.

Stairs

So if they can make walls like what you see pictured below - why couldn't they build stairs that were just as even and smooth. Paula learned on the Internet that Peru was rated a 4 out of 5 in terms of physical difficulty. With altitude adjustments and the amount of uneven climbing that is required we are both glad we did it NOW. It probably should have had a 40 age limit so we were really pushing our limits. And yes that is Paula checking her pulse...

Constuction Skills

Picture sort of speaks for itself.

Macchu Picchu - Continued

It is really hard to pick the best pictures. We were very lucky in that we had perfect weather the entire trip. When we went up the second day we sat in one spot and took pictures every couple of minutes of the sun rising over the mountains. None of them does it justice. It is one of the things you need to see for yourself. The guides constantly talk about the construction and how the stones fit perfectly together but Paula figured out another reason it is so inspiring - She said "It is the how everything was built within the land and scenery". The whole PLACE just fits perfectly not just the stones.

Macchu Picchu

We keep hearing about all the people that do the 4 day hike to Macchu Picchu. We talked to 3 girls that had finished this morning. they were young, healthy and ran half marathons to get into shape. It was the altitude that got to them. All of them were from sea level. Now we know why some of the Olympians train in Colorado. We had a nice tour yesterday thru the MP site with a guide. Lunch afterwards in the only hotel that is up on the site (EXPENSIVE) and then Paula and I went back into the site to look around some more, we decided to save our climb up to the guard´s house for tomorrow morning. It was nice to climb and descend at our own pace for a couple of hours. We got back to the town in time for a little festival in their town square and had another Pisco sour. Took a nap then had dinner and crashed because we INTENDED to get up at 4:45am to catch the first buses back up to the site and see the sunrise. Unfortunately the hotel forgot to give us our wakeup call and we didn´t catch the bus until about 6. But we did get up there before the sun had risen above everything. Probably better that we were not climbing all those steps and rocks in the dark .... Went back down to the entrance for potty break and ice cream then back up for an hour more of reading in the shade of one of the ancient ruins. WOW one of those unforgettable moments! - When we went back down for the last time to catch the bus. I fell. Literally on the last step possible before standing in the bus line. Bus driver picked me up. At least it was after we had been to Macchu Picchu. And how many people say they broke their ankle at Macchu Picchu (but I didn't know it was broken at the time so I couldn't use that line till later).

Sacsayhuaman

Hard to explain this site. Our guide had a very strong accent and was sort of hard to understand. Also the altitude headache and my huffing and puffing sort kept me off focus - as Larry, my neighbor, would say - I was really "spacey". Even though I didn't begin to understand it, the zig-zag wall was sure impressive. On one of our tour spots we bought a piece of delicious local corn bread wrapped in corn husks.

Click here for more information on Sacsayhuaman

Cusco

Our hotel http://www.libertador.com.pe/eng/cusco.htm was right outside the Cusco Cathedral formally the Inca Temple of the Sun. The hotel was built on old Inca ruins originally used as an ante-chamber, where important personalities of the Empire gathered, bringing offerings to the Inca. When the Spaniards arrived, the building was modified into a residence for the nobility with the name of Casona de los Cuatro Bustos. Many other churches and buildings used the Inca ruins as their base to build on. the Inca stone placement was so sturdy and precise that it resisted any damage from the many earthquakes in this area). After drinking some Coca Tea and having lunch, we went on a city tour and visited churches, town squares and the chilly Sacsayhuaman (pronouced sex-zy-wo-man).

Paula found an outdoor restaurant named "Quinta Eulilia" (sounded a little like she said Eulonia) in Frommers Guide to Peru so we treked up and down a bunch of steep hills and asked lots of people directions - of course we didn't understand a thing they said BUT we could follow their hand gestures for a couple of blocks before we had to ask someone else. The restaurant was a locally family owned business with entertainment that obviously did not cater to tourists except for the ones that had read the Frommers guide. Paula picked a very, very spicy pepper dish and I lucked out and had a nice baked chicken. I got an extra corn dish which was weird. The corn had very big kernals and a grainy taste and was paired with a slice of cheese and weird big brown beans that sort of tasted like lima beans. We figured out that these big pseudo-lima beans were the ones that are smashed, baked and salted and served as a bar snack.

Side Note - Paula is a great person to travel with because she always buys a Frommers Guide beforehand and does background research as to what to see, do and eat. When she gets home she sells the guide on eBay, Thanks Paula

Shopping and Peruvian Hat Fashion

In Cusco we really started our serious souvenir shopping. Everything is so colorful. Alpaca, weaving, pottery, and of course the hats. Not for us, but maybe these silly looking hats will look good on some of my friends or family members (snicker, snicker). I did buy one hat for myself without the ear thingys and it even had funny gloves to go with it. I will be so "cute". Paula couldn´t find a hat to suit her taste and anyway it definitely wouldn´t top the mink one she bought in Russia.

We have noticed that we are easy target for the beggars and the street sales people. I haven´t learned how to say "don´t want any or no thank" you in Spanish ' I can do it in Chinese but that doesn't do any good here. Besides looking like an American - I think that eye contact may be one of my problems. I look around too much. I m curious what they have to sell. Eyes forward! Some poor little girl followed us 4 blocks and still didn't make any sale - so even though I look like an easy touch - I am NOT.

Coco Tea and Native Dress

Yes, we had tea made from the coca leaves. We started drinking it in Cusco ( altitude approx. 11,000 ft). It was supposed to help you with altitude sickness but Paula's husband's Colorado altitude pills worked better. Paula didn't seem to have much trouble with the altitude so she only tried one cup, but I drank at least a cup a day because I had the expected huffing and puffing when climbing stuff. I had the same problem in China's Yunan Province. I tried drinking several cups of the mushroom dirt flavored coca tea and it helped with the headaches but not the huffing and puffing. TIP - don't drink any after 2 pm -- it will keep you awake. In the end Paula split her altitude pills with me and I still huffed and puffed but not as soon and I recovered quicker. One restaurant or hotel gave me a cup with mint in it which really improved the nasty taste. Another Peruvian herbal remedy that was passed around to the wheezers was a handful of Peru's mint leaves. You rubbed the leaves between your hands and smelled the oils. Not sure it they helped me breathe but they smelled good.

Above is pictured is one of the bell boys at our Cusco hotel. He probably didn't have to go to school because of the teacher strike. One of the strangest things in Peru was that most people not in a big city actually dressed in native clothing. As Paula noticed they looked exactly like what you would see pictured in a 5th grade Social Studies book.

Peruvian Drinks and Snacks

Paula enjoyed a few glasses Peruvian red wine with the Tacama label (made around Ica). We tried just one Inka Cola which is a popular, sweet, yellow colored, banana/bubblegum flavored soda. We kept sampling their beers with CusQuena and Pilsen beers being good. My favorite drink of choice was the Pisco Sours made with Pisco, a grape brandy, and lemon juice (which tastes like lime juice) and egg whites - here is a recipe that I found on the Internet --

• 2 ounces Pisco
• 1 ounce Lime Juice
• 1/4 ounce Simple Syrup
• 1/2 Egg White
• 1 dash Angostura Bitters.

The bar staff always set down a plate of either big salted unpopped baked corn kernals or a baked or fried flattened dried large beans (looked like lima beans).

Raw Fish

After our boat trip we walked to the tiny village and found an Internet cafe and our tour guide's recommended restaurant. Paula order the local speciality called Ceviche. Ceviche is raw fish that is cut into small pieces and then mixed with lemon juice and left to sit for 1hr. Next, it is mixed with onions, celery, cilantro, salt and black pepper. The dish is served cold. I have never tried sushi because the idea of raw fish sort of turns me off but I actually tried Paula's dish - wasn't too bad but I haven't been convinced to try sushi yet.

Lucky Paula

Second morning in started with a "sporty" (a term used by our local GA charter fishermen and it means the sea was a little rough) boat ride to Ballestas Island which is inhabited by millions of boobies, pelicans, sea lions and Humbolt penquins. We saw all of the advertised birds and smelled all of them too. The locals harvest guano every 6 years and it had been 4 years since the last harvest and the smell was a really strong. Paula took a little of the potential harvest with her. We had been told that it was considered good luck to get "dumped on" by the birds and Paula got the luck.

Paracas Hotel

Situated on the Pacific Ocean, the hotel was sort of like a really nice camp beach bungalow. Small rooms, cement floors, no AC or heat, one tiny fan, tiny TV, and screen doors but it was delightful. Even though it was in the middle of the winter the weather was sunny and not too hot or cold. Bougainvillea was in full bloom and they grow their pelicans really big down there too. Beach was ok until you got to the water line and then it was covered with green seaweed. Pisco sours were great and beer was pretty good too. This is where Paula mistakenly "conditioned" her hair with body lotion, it didn't look any different to me.

Nazca Lines

Nazca Lines were fascinating but hard to photograph. If you ever get to go - don't waste any time trying to take pictures just enjoy what you can see with your eyes. The plane ride was very exciting with lots of steep turns but no one on the small plane got sick. Check out the photos here

False Starts

Most of our trip skirted Peru's week long national teacher strike. Later we heard horror stories where Macchu Picchu was closed for 2 days, trains didn't run and the Puno airport was closed along with other potential trip ruining events, but we were really lucky in that our few encounters with the strikers only gave us a couple of false starts early in the trip. It was sort of humorous - we headed to the small airport for our Nazca Lines plane ride but foggy weather diverted our plans back to a hotel and then to a Museum on the other side of town. When we got to the museum a cell phone call told our guide to take us back to the airport so we could avoid being stopped by the strike parade (they stop traffic and do no let any cross the long walking line). The strike was about the teachers protesting taking a national test to be qualified. (This should sound familiar with older Glynn County teachers when we were told we needed to take a test- remember Harriet's televised quote "Bring on the test" ) We got a variety of explanations from our guides but most of our guides said that the older teachers had not gone to any University and therefore were not good teachers and probably wouldn't pass the test. One of the guides said that only 10% of teachers had passed the first time they had taken it. Another guide said that some of the teachers had been riled up by local militant groups. We only saw very long lines of teachers walking on the road carrying signs (with armed police escorts) but there was evidence of more violent protesting. Rocks were thrown in the road, train tracks were removed (we saw guards stationed along one section of train track on the way back from Macchu Picchu) and airport lights broken.

No Jet Lag -- Trip To Peru

This is the way to travel. Make your travels in the north or south direction- not east or west and avoid the jet lag adjustment. This is one of the few trips where we haven't had to make time adjustments (except for 1 hour). It was so easy on our sleep cycle which was great cause both Paula and I like our sleep! We left Jacksonville around noon and with delays and normal airport stuff we got to our Lima Swissotel about 12am. We only saw the inside of our luxurious room for a couple of hours because we had to leave the next day by 6:15am for a bus ride to Ica. Not a normal 4 hour bus ride -- the seats were like 1st class airplane seats. Foot rests, movies, and snacks. Scenery (typical picture above) was sort of depressing, dry, tan, sandy and poor. We figured that anyone that had a real roof was considered rich. Most roofs in the little villages were grass, sticks, corn husks and plastic. Also McDonalds & Pizza Huts were absent from all cities and towns except for Lima.