On the Move all February Long....

I can't believe how quickly February came and went. I've been on the road most of the month. I spend Monday through Thursday or Friday in Washington, D.C. and come home long enough to do my laundry, run some errands, and pack another bag.

Luckily, not all my travel was work related. As many people already know, I spent about 8 days in Peru. It was my first trip to South America. I have to admit that I was VERY nervous about traveling to a Third World Nation--especially when I had to get so many vaccines to go. Luckily, things went very smoothly (except for a small accident from which I'm still recovering). In order to catch up those I didn't email, I've included my week of emails from Peru with some pictures added.

The other thing I've been working on is my job search. I have actually had quite a bit of luck. Before I left for Peru, I had a couple of very good positions lined up, but during my vacation, I made the decision that I location is the most important part for me, so I withdrew my candidacy for the positions that were looking promising and am now involved in a couple other positions. The ones I'm looking at now are in Southern CA. I'm hoping that something good will happen soon and I can move away from my nutty boss!! Keep your fingers crossed for me. :)

Love,
Samantha

Here's my Travel Log....Hope you enjoy! (For those of you who received my emails, this is a repeat.)

February 17 2:30 a.m. - I made it!
Wanted to let you know I just made it to the hotel. The plane was 2 hours late leaving Newark, but the trip itself wasn't bad--7.5 hours, but I got an exit row, so I had LOTS of leg room. The guy next to me sang and danced in his seat and liked to play drums on his tray table. I had to give him a dirty look for the drums...but the rest was fairly entertaining! Customs took me over an hour to get through--all the other lines moved quickly, but the woman doing customs in my line seemed to have a problem with every other person. Oh well! I'm heading to bed. The hotel has made a reservation for me for a city tour. I'll get to sleep in then spend the afternoon with the tour. Should be fun!

PS in case you didn't know, Peru is on Eastern time so no jetlag for me! Wooohooo


February 17 (evening) - Lima, Peru


My first full day in Peru went pretty well. Luckily, they don't have alarm clocks in the hotel, and since I knew the tour I scheduled for today didn't start until 2:30 not to mention that I didn't get in until 3 am, I felt no guilt sleeping in. I didn't get out of bed until 11 am. The beds are
really hard because they don't use box springs--they put the mattresses on some type of wooden structure to keep it off the floor, which does not a lot of extra give. After being up 24 hours straight, it didn't keep me up, but I woke up a bit stiff--getting older stinks! :-)

I found this great little bistro my tour book recommended for lunch. My hotel is actually is very well located near a bunch of restaurants and shops and a block from their central park. The bistro overlooks the park, and it was so nice to eat outside and enjoy the beautiful view. The food
is interesting, they put fruit on their sandwiches--the one I had had a big old peach on it sliced up. It was actually quite good, if slightly odd.

My tour went well. It was about 4 hours long. When the tour picked me up, they had us on a mini bus, but then took us to a central location where they herded us around based on language. I graduated from the short bus to a normal sized bus. They made a loud announcement that "Mrs Sully-van is not on the short bus anymore--please go to the big bus". It was a proud moment. :)

Lima is a very poor city with a LOT of slums (take comfort in knowing that I'm in the upscale suburb of Miraflores). There are casinos everywhere. Apparently gambling is a favorite past time for women--both the tour guides and my driver last night said 80%of gamblers in Lima are women. We stopped at a couple different plazas to look around. The second one we stopped at had the Presidential palace. The guide said that until a few years ago, all areas of Lima were considered extremely dangerous due to the high crime. They've been putting the smack down on crime and have really cleaned up things. There was a LOT of security, including armored
vehicles with soldiers with big guns everywhere we stopped, but we were warned to still be very alert.

We toured a Franciscan Monk monastery. The library is the 2nd oldest in South America. It was very cool. One disturbing things about the tour was the catacombs. Thousands of bodies due to it being a public catacomb, but sometime in the 1940's a group came in and dug up a bunch of the people and took out a bunch of bones. They separated all of them into pieces..there were big piles of leg bones, then arm bones, etc up to skulls. It was weird seeing people's skeletons separated and piled up like that.

Our last stop before dropping everyone off was at the Amore (Love) Park. It was beautiful. It sits right on the coast. There were beautiful gardens, tiled walls, paths that led down to the beach, and this huge sculpture of a couple in a passionate embrace lording over it all. I'll send pictures when I get home.




I wound up back at central park and decided to adventure down "Pizza Road", which is a street with tons of restaurants. It turned out to be quite stressful for me. The places are extremely aggressive at trying to get you to go eat at them. They chase you down the street and try to literally pull you into their places. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I wound up at this nice, quiet outdoor place and had a real Peruvian meal. It was definitely different. One thing I want to mention is their corn. It's one of their main staples. The kernals of their corn are HUGE. They
aren't sweet like ours-more heavy and chewy--definitely different.

I then walked around the park and checked out the work and goods of a bunch of artisans and musicians. The people seem very simple in their tastes. It's kind of cool to be somewhere much simpler--it's like going back in time.

My friends get in around midnight tonight if all goes smoothly. We have to be at the airport at 7 am to fly to Cusco. It's very high up, so I'm hoping I don't get high altitude sickness, which is extremely common. We'll see the Sacred Valley tomorrow and then Machu Pichu on Monday.


February 18 - Cusco
Greetings from Cusco!

I caught up with my friends this morning. Some of them got into the hotel at about 1 am and the others got in at 3 am due to a delayed flight. A 6 am meeting was very tough on them, but we had to catch our plane. Someone from the tour guide company met us at the airport and got us all hooked up with the flights. I commented on the fact that the guy looked like a Mormon missionary, and it turns out the tour company (Lamanite Tours) is owned and operated by Mormons. I thought that was pretty cool.

We are staying at a very nice hotel here in Cusco. It's right next door to one of the Mormon churches. The neighborhood looked questionable, but as soon as we walked into the hotel, it was a different world. My windows open up to an enclosed atrium with several of my friends' rooms looking in too. It's very quaint with a pretty little fountain and plants in it.We went on a city tour and went to this really cool church. It was built by the Incas originally, but was later altered in parts by the Spanish. The architecture is astounding--the engineering genius of the Incas is something to behold. They were also very astrologically inclined and have created amazing things that build on the movement of the sun and stars. They were quite an advanced people.

I also think it's interesting how some of their beliefs were very Mormon aligned--three degrees or levels, they have drawings of the tree of life, they believed in an after life, and of course they believed in a second coming of Christ to the Americas. Of course, they did a lot of idol worship and pagan type rituals as well, so I don't want to imply that it was a Mormon culture.



From there, we went to a very high providence of Cusco. The vistas were breath taking. We walked down from the top. We found lots of alpaca and llamas, which are both key to the Peruvian economy. We saw a lot of ruins.

We also came upon these rock formations that people slide down--they were formed by glaciers and are smooth and fast. We all, of course, had to have a turn. We were taking pictures as each of us slid down the rocks. We had one of me and one of the others in our group racing. Unfortunately, we were going so fast that I couldn't catch myself at the bottom and wound uplanding on a big rock sticking out at the bottom. It really jarred my back--especially my tailbone. I went into shock right away--nauseous and blacking out. It took a long time until I could walk and even then I could only go a little way until I'd get sick and black out some more. A lot of it was probably attributable to the high altitude--almost 12000 ft up. As we got down and I got hydrated, I got better. I am just sore. Luckily the entire event is well captured in pictures and even video. :-)




After that our tour guide took us to an alpaca textile factory. She taught us how to distinguish real baby alpaca from other materials street people try to pass off as baby alpaca. She even helped us negotiate for fair prices. It was a great experience.



After that, we eventually made it back to Cusco for a traditional Peruvian meal. I had alpaca, which was absolutely delicious. It tasted like a blend of lamb and beef. Some brave souls in our group tried the very traditional guinea pig. It was roasted full--head and all. The poor thing looked like it's last minutes on earth were painful--it looked like it was screaming. I was truly horrified. The only person who had more than a bite or two was a woman who has no sense of taste or smell. Not a rave review in my opinion.

We walked back to the hotel and were in our rooms by 7:30. I have a 5 am wake up call tomorrow. We were going to go to The Sacred Valley, but due to train cancellations, we have to go up to Machu Pichu tomorrow.


February 20 - Machu Pichu
Things are going extremely well here. Our travel guides are awesome. I didn't get an email out yesterday due to the fact that I lost my Blackberry. There was about an hour's worth of panic because I thought I had been pick pocketed at the train station, but the tour guide company found it on the bus we were riding and returned it to me this morning. I was so relieved!!! :)

Yesterday we went to the Sacred Valley. Due to the train schedule, we had to meet at 6 am to get started---UGH! We were at the Valley with a light misty rain and cloud cover, but there was something mystical about it...kind of mysterious.


We also stopped at an alpaca/llama farm where we were able to feed them and take lots of adorable pictures of them. A little boy came out and met us and brought alfalfa for us to feed them. It really was a lot of fun.


We also stopped at another spot and looked at ancient ruins (but I'm terrible at all the Spanish/Quenchan names). We had to climb 246 stairs to the top of this big ruins. it was the center of many Incan ceremonies and a temple. It was amazing with all the terraces. The face of the main Incan God and the Incan king were carved in the side of the mountain. It was quite a feat.

We did all of this by about 8:30 or 9 in the morning. We were exhausted because of all the climbing involved. Being so sore, the climbing was tough, but I made it through. At about 10 am, the guide stuck us on a train to go to the village at the base of Machu Pichu, where we had all afternoon to do whatever we wanted.

We got there and it was a cute little town. We had some problems with the hotel because the travel agent forgot to book our rooms. Luckily, we have a couple Spanish speakers and we were able to contact the travel agent and quickly get things straightened out.


There was a HUGE market place where thousands of people were selling their crafts. We spent quite a bit of time there. We all bought souveniers, which was great. Carrie, one of my friends and I decided to check out the town a bit more. We hiked along the river that ran throught town (this river feeds into the Amazon, but isn't the Amazon where we were at). We did hike quite a distance hoping to catch a glimpse of Machu Pichu, but it was just too far. We walked back then checked out the natives scene.


We found a local soccer game and some races down one of the streets. I don't know what was going on, but they closed down the street to hold foot races for a large group of boys.

One thing we have noticed is the animals. They let their animals wander around anywhere. Cows, donkeys. Llams, etc. It's just a given. They also have TONS of stray dogs roaming the streets in every town we've been in. Most of these dogs are pretty good size too. They have the run of everywhere--even the soccer field while people are playing and no one seems to care. It's really weird.

Yesterday as we were roamimg the town, we could tell the town was preparing for some big event because of all the sprucing up going on and all these dancers in native costumes in the town square. It wasn't until this morning that we found out that the President of Peru was suppose to be coming for the campaign to make Machu Pichu one of the 7 Wonders of the World.

We took off for Machu Pichu at 7 am. We wanted to beat the crowds for when Alan Garcia, Peru's Presidente, was going to be there. I can't even begin to tell you how magical and mystical visiting Machu Pichu was. It started with a 25 minute bus ride up a switchback mountain to the starting point.




Then we started the 4 hour journey. Pretty much uphill for the first hour to an elevation of about 9500 ft (much lower than the last few days). About half way up, we could see the village and the terraces. It was cloudy and misty and just amazing. It was like we were getting to see it as the world woke up, slowly unveiling it's mysteries. By the time we got to the top, most of the clouds had dissipated and we could see all around.



We climbed down into the city from there, and it was so amazing to explore. Late morning started bringing the crowds for the President's visit. Television crews arrived and they filmed us signing the ballot to make Machu Pichu one of the wonders of the world. Then several of our group were interviewed by the camera crews about why we thought people should vote for Machu Pichu. We were famous!

A couple people from our group decided to hike up a taller mountain while the rest of us explored the city. All of the sudden, it started pouring. We headed back down, and headed back to the town. We did find out that Alan Garcia cancelled his visit, which must have been really disappointing to all those who had really worked hard to prepare for this visit.

On the bus back down the mountain, a little native boy (probably 10 years old) was on the bus all dressed in native garb. As we started down, he started chanting and then at the first switchback, the bus driver let him off the bus, and he took off running. He ran down the mountain and caught up with the bus probably 8 or 10 times--chanting at us each time. Then just as we reached the bottom of the mountain, he pops out of the trees and starts running in front of the bus across this narrow bridge. I swear I thought the bus was going to run him down. At the last minute he hops back on the bus and chants some more. It was really amazing to see someone run down that mountain that fast. Of course it's all part of the show, but he was really something.

When we got down to the village, we did a bit more shopping then back on the train for a 3.5 hour train ride to Cusco. We're back in the nice hotel, and are heading to Puno (Lake Titcaca region) tomorrow. We have an 8 hour van ride (we originally were doing a 10 hour train ride, but the van will be faster even with several stops to see things, and the trains here are terribly bumpy and uncomfortable--I thought I was going to die today with all the bumps and jars on my injured tailbone). It'll be another long day, but it will be great to get to the lake country.


February 21 - Slow Day
We spent the day in the car today. We drove from Cusco to Puno—Lake Titicaca region. I did find out that Titicaca means the Rock of the Puma (the Puma is one of the most sacred symbols to the Incas). Now that we know, we'll try to be more reverent when referring to Lake Titicaca. We stopped at a couple places on the trip.

One of the places is where it is believed that Christ visited the Indians in the Americas. The BOM told about fire falling from the sky during Christ's crucifixion and death. We saw the volcano that is believed to have erupted and the lava would have been like fire falling from the sky. Very interesting. Prior to this event, there was no sign that the people believed in God. After this time, there is stories of the fair God that visited the people on this continent and was believed to be the fair skinned person the Andean people were waiting for when the Spaniards came and why they were so compliant to the wishes of the Spanish.

In addition to being where Christ visited the Americas, they also had an Incan King roaming around. He picked me out and we got a picture together. You know me, always hanging out with Kings, Rulers, Magistrates, Presidents. I'm just an important deep down inside, and apparently the Peruvians can tell.

We got pulled over by the police 3 times on the drive. They stand just past toll booths and pull vehicles over at random. The tour guide told us that the police are very corrupt and try to get people to pay fines to be allowed to go on. The first time we were stopped for quite a while, but I think they couldn't find anything wrong. The second time we breezed right through. The third time took a LONG time and the police kept pulling the driver away from the van, and it looked very weird to me. Oh well, we made it to Puno safely.

Tomorrow we are taking a boat tour of Lake Titicaca. Should be fun. It's much colder in this region, and our elevation is extremely high--at one point, we were at over 14500 ft up. We're all feeling the altitude. Headaches, some with nausea, etc. We're heading to bed early and up late
tomorrow. We're all glad for the rest! :-)


February 25 - Island People & The Grand Finale
I'm a bit behind in getting my emails out. I think it was the high altitude that was making us so tired, but we were exhausted by 7 pm each night. Now I'm back in Lima where oxygen is plenty, and we're all feeling much more refreshed. We can actually walk more than 5 minutes on flat land and still breathe. Our constant headaches and nausea are over, so we're doing well! :)

When we were at Lake Titicaca, we took a boat tour of the lake. We headed out on the boat and found our way to Uros--the area of the island people. Apparently when the Spanish were moving in and taking control of the area, a group of people refused to be part of that control, so they built islands out of reeds and set up life on these floating islands. In order to remain free from other's rule, the people continue to build and live on the islands. Of course, being built out of reeds, the people have to constantly be adding reeds to the island. Each island lasts for about 25 years, then the people have to build a new island and use the old one for cemeteries, etc.

The island people are amazingly gracious. Each tour boat is told which island to go to as they leave the dock so as not to overwhelm any one island. The island people were out waiting for their boat of tourists, waving and waiting. We arrived at our island and almost everyone from the island was there to meet us and welcome us.
They then went back to their work while our tour guide gave us a history lesson of the island people. We had a chance to be introduced to the President of the island (each island elects a president to help keep order between the families). After our history lesson, we had the opportunity to buy their arts and crafts. The president of the island and I hung out (always good to know people at the top of the social ladder, I always say). Then, the island people put us in one of their intricate reed boats, and rowed us over to another island.

Some of the little boys on the island jumped on the boat with us. We were told before we left to bring candy or gifts for the kids, so we did. The kids weren't dumb, and they jumped on board to keep close to the source of all things sweet. They were adorable. The youngest was probably 4 years old, and he was on a sugar high. We were sure he was going to wind up in the lake. The men rowing the boat assured us that if he fell in, he could swim back to the island just fine. Then the kids sang us songs in about 7 languages--including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It was so sweet.



The kids would do anything for candy. When we were on the second island, I gave candy to all the kids that met the boat. Then they followed us around the entire time. I wanted my picture taken by the sign with the name of the island, and just as my friend Erin was snapping the picture, two little kids I'd given candy to earlier, jumped in the picture (seen here). We thought it was hillarious.

The last of the 3 islands we went to was kind of different. The first two islands seemed to rely almost completely on the tourist industry to support them. The 3rd island also had a trout farm where they raised fish so they could barter with the mainland and others. The previous Pres. of Peru gave some help to the island people by giving each family a solar panel which allows them to have electricity. He also promoted tourism in the area to help them out. Apparently, they are now able to scrape by.

I want to pause here a moment to mention how weird it was to be on the islands. Of course they float, so the entire island gently rocks with each wave of the water. It's also a weird feeling to walk on the reeds. Kind of springy. Some of the islands were obviously older. When you walked, you kind of kicked up water. It was a very odd feeling.

Anyway, on the last island after we toured what seemed like everything, they insisted that we go in to see their museum. Now this little hut is probably smaller than my kitchen, but they insisted that they had a museum. They took us inside and these chubby, short native women started getting all excited and throwing native clothes at everyone. They wanted everyone dressed up then rushed us all outside and some of the men started playing music while everyone else started grabbing us and had us dance with them. It was really funny, but a strange idea of what a museum is. :)

After we finished up with the islands, we got on the death defying van and drove about 40 minutes to a little lake place called Sallusitio. Lake Titicaca is very high altitude, but this place was even higher. We wound up climbing up this hill to see pre-incan and Incan burial towers and ruins. It was kind of creepy in that the tour guide would lift a rock here and there, and we'd see the skulls of the guards who were watching the towers. Incas buried their dead in the fetal position preparing them for the next phase of their existence for everyone except the guards who were mummified standing straight up.

Although the skull part was creepy, the views from the hills overlooking the lake was breathtaking. The Incans believed in taking care of their ancestors. They left no traceable day to day living quarters, but the temples and burial chambers have lasted hundred of years.

The following day was mostly a travel day. We were feeling the altitude, so we walked around Puno and played games until around noon, but the rest of the day was pretty calm.

Saturday we spent touring Lima. I had already spent a day there, which the others in the group hadn't, so we went back to see the city. There really isn't a lot to do or see in Lima, so we covered a lot of the same ground I had seen the week before. I did get to see a couple cathedrals that we hadn't seen on my tour. They were really quite beautiful and ornate for Lima standards. We saw Pizzaro's grave, which was interesting. Being Catholic, he is a hero to the church because he brought Christianity. To the natives, he conquered them, so there seems to be quite a duality in their feelings for him (duality is a word they use a lot--opposites in everything is important to them).

We also saw the changing of the guard. It was interesting that everyone we asked about the time of the changing of the guard gave a different time. Amazingly, even though it's only done once a day, they were all correct in their own way. The changing of the guard at the Palace in Lima takes about an hour or so. We watched for about 45 minutes before we lost interest. It was almost 90 degrees and no shade. If you're ever in Lima and want to watch the show, bring a big hat!

The rest of the day we spent shopping. This group of people could shop like no one else I know. They shopped everyday for hours and hours. They spent so much money, which was funny that the two of us who probably make the most money shopped the least. When we were tallying up last night, a couple people had spent more on souvenirs than they had on their very expensive airplane tickets. You could tell that they were shocked at how much they had spent. They just got sucked in thinking everything is sooo cheap that they lost their heads. Those little Andean people can be very persuasive. It might be a while before some people may be able to travel
again. So, just as a warning, I didn't buy a ton of stuff and sent almost no post cards (it cost $3 per post card to mail). I'm cheap, what can I say?

We did find out that blondes are quite an attraction in Peru. When either me or my friend Christina were walking around, people would come up and introduce themselves and want to know where we were from. They also liked people in our group with light colored eyes. They couldn't believe anyone with blue eyes especially were single. It just intrigued them. We made
lots of friends across Peru. It was really funny that people were so fascinated by us.

Anyway, we were all scheduled to fly out around 1 am Sat/Sun. The routing I had was going to make the trip 21 hours long. With my back injury, I knew I would really be suffering. Steve was kind enough to help me contact the airline to see if they could do anything to help me get s shorter routing. When I called and asked them for alternatives, they told me to get a shorter route would require me to spend extra days in Lima, which I really can't afford. They told me that everything else was sold out and I couldn't even pay extra to get re-routed. I got to the airport and they told me that my flight to Houston was oversold and asked if I minded being re-routed through Newark, which would shave over 9 hours off my trip. I explained about my back injury and said I really needed an aisle seat, so for the "inconvenience" they upgraded me to first class for the 7 hour journey from Lima to Newark and got me an exit row aisle for the 1 hour connection to Boston. That was such a blessing. Even though the flight was pretty painful in first class, at least it was survivable. The last hour should bne OK too. I guess God does watch out for us and takes care of our needs. :)

We're about to board for Boston. I hope you enjoyed my little travel log. I hope you all are well and look forward to hearing from you soon.