Pongo helps in the kitchen

Isn't he helpful?!?

Brrrrrrr....

Winter has arrived in Colorado. It's actually colder in Boulder than
up in the mountains.

Pongo gets friends

Pongo has been very social since we brought him home on Tuesday night. Gracie came over Tuesday night (and mostly they just played dress up...) and then Mifflin came over on Wednesday night and really let Pongo have it. Or was it the other way around? Either way, they had loads of fun and we think they will all be lifelong friends. Here are some photos of the meetings.

Pongo Halsey joins the fam

The next chapter of our lives begins with the addition of Pongo. He is a stray that was found in Salt Lake City and transferred to Boulder. He's 3 1/2 months old now and about 20 pounds. We'll be sure to post his achievements, potential screw ups (although he's been a model puppy so far...I'll regret that tomorrow...), milestones and just general fun dogginess. Stay tuned for more on this next adventure.

We are home!

Hallelujah!!!!

Lima evening traffic

It's raining...we are stuck in gridlock...the air is choked with exhaust fumes...time to head home!

View from the hostal

We're not crazy about the painfully steep road we have to hike up, but
the high setting does provide a fine view of Cuzco.

We're also not crazy about a front desk clerk barging into our room at
2:40am and insisting that we haven't checked in (5 minutes later he
apologized for having the wrong room - WTF??!). But the Loki hostal is
a pretty cool renovation of a 450 year old building.

The rainy season has begun

We kept seeing forecasts like this and didn't believe it. But after
three days in a row with rain, we're finally conviced the rainy season
really does begin here in October.

Happy Birthday Molly!

Molly enters her fourth decade of making the World a better place.  Brent should be spoiling her rotten about now...

The Andes from the Inca Trail

This was our view from the Inca Trail for three days. Note the Incan ruins in the distance. We saw about six significant ruins before we arrived at Machu Picchu. The Inca Trail was originally used by royalty and important people as they travelled to Machu Picchu. All the other ruins were either religious sites, resting places or farms (like in this photo) for growing food for Machu Picchu. It was an incredible experience to walk in the footsteps of the Incas and feel the power of Machu Picchu drawing us towards it. Unfortunately it rained cats and dogs on the fourth day when we arrived at Machu Picchu so we weren't able to see it from the sun gate as you can on a clear day. However we were extremely grateful to have beautiful weather for the three long days of hiking by day and camping at night (wet tents...ewww).

What a beautiful country.

Our porters

Here are our red tents (me in the first one) that our porters set up for us each day. Our porters were incredible. They carried our bags, tents, sleeping pads (and not Thermarests...full thick mattresses), food for three meals a day for 12 of us plus 2 guides plus all SEVENTEEN of them, a dining tent that fit 12 of us, a kitchen tent, plus dishes for all. Not only that, they left after us, ran past us on the trail wearing sandals made of old tires, got to camp and had everything all set up by the time we arrived. They all clapped as we arrived then brought over warm water and soap for us to wash our hands and faces.

Talk about roughing it...

Each morning we were awakened by the porters tapping on our tents saying "buenos dias - mate de coca?" which means "good morning - would you like hot tea?" And not just any tea; they drink mate de coca here which is tea made from the leaves of coca trees, the same thing you make cocaine from. The tea is supposed to have almost magical properties and is great for avoiding altitude sickness. Brent is concocting a new business plan to sell it at the ski resorts in Colorado. Might have trouble importing it but we are working on it.

The attitude of the porters could not have been better. They had smiles on their faces the whole trip and they even helped us with our Spanish. Brent learned that in Peru, "Que Mamacita" means "What a babe" and when he said it to me as I was summitting a 4200m (14,000ft) peak called Dead Woman's Pass, it became a nickname that stuck. The porters and guides loved it and we were Mamacita y Papacito the rest of the trip.

Fire near the Inca Trail

Here is the view from our first campsite and you can see the fire damage on the hill. The fire was started about two weeks ago by a controlled burn that got out of control. It burned across the train tracks that lead to Machu Picchu and they almost had to cancel train trips. This could be devastating because the train is the only way to get to MP and the small town of Aguas Calientes at the base of MP relies on the train for all supplies. Thankfully they were able to extinguish the fire after a few days but not before it burned a large swath of the Urubamba River Valley.

Machu Picchu or Bust

Molly and Brent are starting their 4 day trek to Machu Picchu.  No internet cafes in these parts of Peru....

One more stop before hiking the Inca Trail

We landed in Cusco this morning at 9am and so far our bodies haven't revolted against all the time we've spent at sea level. Cusco's at about 11,000 feet and locals have all kinds of advice for dealing with high altitude. Their favorite is mate de coca -- a tea made from coca leaves. They insist it's legit and seem a bit dismayed about the bum rap cocaine has given the coca plant.

We're amazed at what a large town Cusco is given it's altitude. It has an impressive mix of Inca and Spanish Colonial architecture. And too many nice restaurants for our short stay.

On Thursday we stop in the Sacred Valley, and then on Friday, we start hiking!! Probably (and hopefully) won't have wi-fi access for a few days...

Cusco

After a very early morning we are in Cusco Peru!! Here's us at our hotel

Huaca Pucllana

Right in the middle of the city there are 1500 year old ruins surrounded by modern society. The site is only 1/3 as large as it was(mostly due to lack of government protection) but it still spans a significant plot of land in downtown Lima. The site was originally used for both religious and civic purposes and today has a fancy restaurant and is often used for conferences and concerts! They are still excavating and restoring large portions of the property while setting up for a large benefit later this week. It is an interesting juxtaposition between the very old and the new.

One of the most interesting parts of the architectural style and construction of these ruins is that it uses trapezoidal shapes throught the walls. Also the bricks are adobe and spaced with gaps between them. This construction style has resulted in the most stable, earthquake proof structure in Lima. Almost every wall here is original and has stood without any noticable damage through multiple earthquakes, including a strong one last year of over 7 on the Richter scale. They checked the walls after and despite over two minutes of shaking, the structure was solid.

Pretty impressive stuff Bob. :-)

Think this restaurant takes Visa?

¡Cuidado!

After being warned to watch our bags countless times by friends and complete strangers, we were happy to depart Valparaíso without incident. If we had only been warned like this in Buenos Aires...

Completos

Some places call them perros calientes (lit. hot dog), but they're usually called completos. And they come complete with guacamole, tomatoes, onions, mayonaise, and ketchup. They're surprisingly good, but I wish more places would offer kraut.

La Sebastiana

The Nobel Prize winning poet, Pablo Neruda, built one of his houses here in Valparaíso. The house mimics the funky and colorful ecletic nature of Valparaíso both inside and out.

Breakfast in the sun

My beautiful wife and I had a nice simple breakfast in the sunny dining room of our funky hotel, Ultramar. A great view of Valparaíso framed by bushes growing out of bath tubs.

Awesome view from our hotel room

That's the end of the bed in our hotel room with huge windows and a view of the ocean.

Valparaíso lunch

We took a bus to Valparaiso today about two hours outside of Santiago. When we first arrived, the city seemed chaotic and dirty. We walked towards the center and found one of the city's ancient ascensors and took it up one of the steep cerros (hills). The whole scene changed immediately. Beautiful views of the ocean, gorgeous multi-colored buildings in vibrant oranges, purples and yellows and this fabulous restaurant where we had a wonderful lunch. Next to our hotel and on a walking tour of the city to see more of the amazing buildings clinging to the side of the hills.

Wine tasting fun

Wine tour

To cap off our last day in Santiago we took the subway 30 minutes out of town and hopped a cab to the largest vineyard in Latin America, Concha y Toro.

Our tour included views of the huge estate and rolling hills of grapes. The vines are just starting to bud because it's early spring down here.

The best part of the tour was the visit to the vast underground cellars. The founder of the vineyard had problems with people stealing his wine, so he started a rumor that the Devil lives there. Worked like a charm, and the Casillero del Diablo label was born. Casillero del Diablo is now exported to over 110 countries around the world...including (we hope) los Estados Unidos! El vino esta muy bien!

There are Stars in the Southern Sky

I don't think the Eagles had the Southern hemisphere in mind for their song, but we were finally able to verify that the Southern Sky does indeed have many stars. Escaping the cities of BA and Santiago was key to escaping the light and haze pollution. In fact, Northern Chile has such ideal star gazing conditions that it has the largest concentration of observatories in the world.

The Southern Sky really has stars that we never see in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition to seeing an exceptionally bright Milky Way, we saw the two Magellanic Galaxies. We also saw the Southern Cross and the Scorpio constellations. Cool stuff!!

Café con Piernas

Santiago has plenty of cafes like any other city, but the most unique ones are the "café con piernas", literally, coffee with legs. Legs are a consistent theme. You get waitresses serving (pretty damn good) coffee while showing some leg, a bar that makes you stand on your legs, and Molly found that the bathroom favors those who stand on their legs while they pee.

Museo de Bellas Artes

The museum of fine arts in Santiago is just the right size to visit an entire museum in less than an hour. We could almost understand the artists' statements (in español). Of course, we don't always understand them in English, either but we try.

Wine Mecca

Today we dorked it up and took a double decker tour bus around the city. It was just like the one in NYC where you can get on and off all day. The sights weren't quite as interesting as NYC but there are many more parks here at least. We hit this wine store at one of the stops and took in the wine tasting that is included with the ticket. We tried a Sauvignon Blanc and a Cabernet Sauvignon and enjoyed them both.

We learned a lot about wine production here but I am sure we would have learned a lot more if the woman we talked to spoke any English!!!

We are planning a tour to a nearby vineyard tomorrow and we think they have English speaking guides. Otherwise it'll be another lesson in espanol (and in making the person believe that we understand them).

Wish us luck.

ESPN vivo

How cool that we get fútbol americano down here. Ok, it sucks that the
Packers lost. But it's fun to practice listening to Spanish while
watching football.

Dueling iPhones!!

Apologies to our readers for the double posting on the solar oven. After four days without wifi we are both posting madly with our iPhones now that we are back in civilization and we both posted on the same thing! Whoops! Don't mean to bore you...but between the two postings hopefully you get the point. Brent's picture is better than mine too, I'll admit.

A taste of Easter Island

Easter Island is really far away and muy caro (expensive!!!) so we opted for the free museum in La Serena instead. Here we were able to see a restored head that was moved from Easter Island to the mainland, then placed in a square in downtown La Serena. Here it was covered in graffiti and urinated on by drunks (!) so they sent it to Barcelona for an exhibition where it was decapitated. Rough life for the head, but it was eventually returned to Chile, repaired, and now lives comfortably in this museum and only has to endure occassional mocking by silly tourists like Brent.

Flowering desert

We hit the desert at exactly the right time; apparently it only flowers once every 7-8 years and we caught one of them! The desert is carpeted in yellow, purple and red flowers, but is usually all brown and arid.

Tenemos mucha suerte!

Cocina solar

Brent tries a pisco sour at a "solar restaurant" on Friday. This restaurant cooks everything (rice, chicken, goat, bread, etc...) on solar ovens. The woman who owned the restaurant demonstrated to us that you can put a piece of newspaper on one of the racks and in less than a minute, it bursts into flames. That sun is HOT. We couldn't quite translate what they do on a cloudy day, but we did enjoy watching them literally go out and move the kitchen as the shadows changed and their ovens weren't in the sun anymore. Apparently somebody is in charge of tracking the sun each day and keeping the ovens in the optimal position. It was wonderful to see this place making a great living using the power of the sun and zero fossil fuels!! Go Chile!

Pisco factory in Vicuna

Pisco is a type of brandy that is made by distilling white wine. We went to a hundred+ year old family pisco vineyard/factory and heard about the origins of pisco. The fact is that today, both Peru and Chile claim that pisco is their national drink. It has been made in basically the same region for centuries, but that area used to all be part of the Peruvian empire, and is now split between Chile and Peru. However, years ago Chile made it difficult for Peru to claim the drink as it's own by establishing a Place of Origin or apellation in the Elqui Valley in Chile. This "apellation law" states that only pisco made in this region, with a certain process, can be called pisco. They even changed the name of a town from Elqui to Pisco Elqui to get the place of origin name. Think cognac, champagne and tequila; they have all done the same thing.

Now, we can't wait to go to Peru and see what they say about this subject (because, to be honest, we both thought pisco came from Peru)...interesante...

Nonetheless, this photo is the wonderful product that came from the small factory we visited in the Elqui Valley. It makes a mean pisco sour regardless of where it comes from!

Vina en Chile

(9/19) Today we made it to our first official Chilean vineyard although we didn't get a real tour, just a stop at the gift shop. We got these two bottles for ten dolars US. The first is a Carmenere - Syrah blend and the second is straight Carmenere. Carmenere is a varietal of grape that only grows in Chile and it has a very strong, peppery flavor that begs for steak!

Cocina Solar

We had a solar cooked lunch in the Elqui Valley (home of Chile's
pisco). They bake bread and cook rice and stews all by the power of
the sun. Good thing it was sunny today!!

Air guitar jammin'

We found an actual air guitar in Northern Chile powered by the wind.
It was an art project cleverly positioned at the top of a very nice
looking damn.

We have made it to the beach!

No penguins yet but we've seen the Pacific in the Southern hemisphere! It's COLD. We are hoping that the weather warms up tomorrow and the sun comes out. Beach is nice either way though! We watched a funny black lab (thoughts of Mifflin) play with a rock on the beach that he was convinced was being aggressive. He won in the end though...phew.

Congratulations Brent!

Brent has left beginners level Spanish! He passed his test and he moves into intermediate level next week. Muy bien mi amor! We had a fantastic lunch with steak (weening ourselves off of the wonderful steak we had in Argentina), wine and papas fritas. We are off to La Serena for the four-day holiday weekend to celebrate Chile's independence. Mostly though, we just want to see the penguins!

Another beautiful day in Santiago

And I have to spend it studying for my exam tomorrow :-( This is the
view from our balcony. Not bad. (you can faintly see the 20,000+ foot
mountains in the background)

Our casa en Santiago

Our room is the one with the flag and the balcony! Muy linda, no? The flag of Chile is not identical to that of Texas but very similar. And flags are everywhere these days because Thursday is their independence day. Muchas fiestas todo el pais! Que bueno!

Teleferico en Parque Metropolitano

Here is Brent riding a gondola (teleferico in espanol) through the park after taking a funicular up the front face of the park. It's a beautiful day in Santiago and we are enjoying all the parks and open space!

Lapis Central

We have found lapis lazuli mecca. On one block alone there were three lapis factories like this one. We are now wondering if mom/dad's and ash/dante's wedding ring stones came from here? Doubtful but still fun. We will go check it out another time when they are open. NOTHING is open here on Sunday. We hope we can find a restaurant to get some lunch!!

Streets of Santiago

This is the street where our school is in Santiago. The streets in this neighborhood (which is also very close to our homestay) have large trees, beautiful flowers, and even grass yards in some cases...it hardly feels like a city at all here. Brent is also excited that we've seen two people on actual road bikes and one on a hardtail mtn. bike with disc brakes. Back in the land of active people!!

Molly takes us on a tour of Santiago

Molly stopped to check the guide book in front of the Presidential
Palace - sight of the bloody 1973 coup where Pinochet took power.
We've been enjoying the views of snow capped mountains and lack of
over-crowding here. It's almost a bit too quiet for a big city...

Benvenidos a Chile

We have arrived and Brent ordered a Pisco Sour right away to celebrate!! Cheers to discovering a new city in a new country (yet another new country! Our passports look awesome these days). We are off on a Lonely Planet walking tour this afternoon to get familiar with our new 'hood.

RENT

Last night we went to see RENT in BA to celebrate our last night in the city. It was all in Spanish but I still managed to hum along to most of it. Apologies for the dark photo but it was tough to use a flash in the theater. We had a great time listening to three hours of beautiful Spanish voices; and knowing the music so well I was able to understand a lot of the language. I basically had my own subtitles running in my head. It made me feel accomplished! Brent was a great sport as usual and put up with my musical silliness. We are now feeling ready to head to Chile for our next two weeks of Spanish in a new school. Chao to Buenos Aires and Argentina. It's been a wonderful two weeks.

Puente de la Mujer

We took a nice stroll along the diques (dikes) this morning.
Calatrava's harp-like pedestrian bridge provides a great way to get
across the water. When ships need to pass through, the entire bridge
rotates. Feel like we're back in Milwaukee.

Floralis Genérica por la noche

 
 

Even large metal flowers need to close up at night. This one glows. ¡Qué chévere!