I am getting tired of the internet places with mysterious keyboards and stuff that doesn't work, so the blogging has gotten scarce.
We came back to Lima Sunday at 1:30am. Almost as brutal as the trip there that left here at 4:30am. Tomorrow to Cuzco at 5:30am. Why?
I have reverted to my Latino self which includes a kind of mental fogginess so the whole technology thing is getting difficult.
So I don't think I will keep up the blog. JJ seems to be blogging, so you can check his. losgringosperuanos. There is a link somewhere.
Goodbye to Tomas.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
What a day
We began with lakeside turtle soup, moved on to the old ILV center where we lived for 6 years, met Ronco at his shop on the way back to town, then to a ribbon cutting ceremony at the orphanage where my Rotary Club de Yarinacocha furnished three new classrooms. Severo del Castillo gave a speech about how happy they were to have me and JJ there with them all the way from the USA for this auspicious occasion. The ceremony and interviews will be on Good Morning Peru tomorrow -- channel 5 I think. Just in case you are watching.
Tonight we dine again with my former neighbor Armando. His daughter Susan´s art is AMAZING. I´ll post some and an album about Yarina when we get back to my laptop in Lima.
I can´t even begin to write about all that is happening, but at least this brief record will remind me what to fill out after leaving the Amazon.
Tomorrow evening we have a date with a Shipibo shaman.
Why did I ever leave this place?
We met Andy yesterday -- a perpetual traveller, about 55 but so different from Stephan. He has been to Vietnam, and his description sounded encouraging. Except that the women are bossy there. Well, I´m accustomed to that...
Off to sit and stare at the lake for awhile. You will enjoy the photos JJ is taking.
Tonight we dine again with my former neighbor Armando. His daughter Susan´s art is AMAZING. I´ll post some and an album about Yarina when we get back to my laptop in Lima.
I can´t even begin to write about all that is happening, but at least this brief record will remind me what to fill out after leaving the Amazon.
Tomorrow evening we have a date with a Shipibo shaman.
Why did I ever leave this place?
We met Andy yesterday -- a perpetual traveller, about 55 but so different from Stephan. He has been to Vietnam, and his description sounded encouraging. Except that the women are bossy there. Well, I´m accustomed to that...
Off to sit and stare at the lake for awhile. You will enjoy the photos JJ is taking.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Yarinacocha
This is my second try -- the computer shut down earlier. Our hotel has wireless and I left my eee in Lima. Silly me. Yarinacocha was a sleepy little jungle village 20 years ago and now it´s a little city. The buggy motos everywhere, drugstores, a hospital, swarms of Shipibo indians thrusting their beads in your face. I don´t think they´ve ever seen a beard like mine before. Giggle giggle.
So much has happened. I can´t even begin to describe all of it (but here I go anyway). We left Lima at 4:30am Monday after hanging out at the airport from midnight on. The Pucallpa airport used to be a wooden building surrounded by thatched roofed jungle eateries, but now it´s a modern concrete building. The eateries are gone. Just lots of cabs. Someone from the Hotel Mercedes awaited his clients, so we went along with them and got a room at 6am. The owner Teadoro Inversini is an old friend but he was home in Switzerland.
Pucallpa is a motorcycle track lined with funkey buildings and stands, slanting down into mud trails by the river lined with riverboats. I wanted to go to Iquitos on the river (3 days on the river, $15. No time for that.
We moed to Yarina Tuesday, and later I located Willi Shuple at El Alamo, a lush green restaurant. Willi is now 78 -- when I knew him he was 58 and had a 30 year old Peruvian companion. She has stuck with him, a gracious woman who wheeled him out to visit us. We sat and just looked into each others´eyes, tears rolling down our cheeks. I loe Willi. He too is Swiss, settled in Peru as a young man. Smart. Why did I ever leae this place? (Because they sent me home in disgrace.)
Today we went by the house I built in Yarina. It is still there doing well. I´ll post pictures when we get back to Lima. As we walked away a 50 something woman rn up and hugge me. TOMAS! So we sat an disited wih a former neighbor. Then on to the next neighbor, Armando. We´re going over there to visit in a little while.
But just now I realize I left my money and passport in the hotel, so I suppose I´d better go and fetch it.
I on´t ant to leae this place. Why, why did I ever go back to crazy land? JJ keeps saying it´s paradise here. I don´t know about that, but I keep saying that it doesn´t get any better than this and then it does.
So much has happened. I can´t even begin to describe all of it (but here I go anyway). We left Lima at 4:30am Monday after hanging out at the airport from midnight on. The Pucallpa airport used to be a wooden building surrounded by thatched roofed jungle eateries, but now it´s a modern concrete building. The eateries are gone. Just lots of cabs. Someone from the Hotel Mercedes awaited his clients, so we went along with them and got a room at 6am. The owner Teadoro Inversini is an old friend but he was home in Switzerland.
Pucallpa is a motorcycle track lined with funkey buildings and stands, slanting down into mud trails by the river lined with riverboats. I wanted to go to Iquitos on the river (3 days on the river, $15. No time for that.
We moed to Yarina Tuesday, and later I located Willi Shuple at El Alamo, a lush green restaurant. Willi is now 78 -- when I knew him he was 58 and had a 30 year old Peruvian companion. She has stuck with him, a gracious woman who wheeled him out to visit us. We sat and just looked into each others´eyes, tears rolling down our cheeks. I loe Willi. He too is Swiss, settled in Peru as a young man. Smart. Why did I ever leae this place? (Because they sent me home in disgrace.)
Today we went by the house I built in Yarina. It is still there doing well. I´ll post pictures when we get back to Lima. As we walked away a 50 something woman rn up and hugge me. TOMAS! So we sat an disited wih a former neighbor. Then on to the next neighbor, Armando. We´re going over there to visit in a little while.
But just now I realize I left my money and passport in the hotel, so I suppose I´d better go and fetch it.
I on´t ant to leae this place. Why, why did I ever go back to crazy land? JJ keeps saying it´s paradise here. I don´t know about that, but I keep saying that it doesn´t get any better than this and then it does.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Waiting on the laundry
We leave for the jungle at 4:30am tomorrow morning, so we dropped our dirty clothes off at a lavandaria yesterday morning. Then just walked through a couple of markets, JJ dined on ceviche and I had a "menu" at a market stall -- typical soup course with bones to chew, milanesa y tallarin con salsa verde (flattened, breaded fried chicken breast with pesto noodles). JJ's ceviche included a mountain of fried squid (calamares chicharron). I got some sandals in my size for the jungle; then we returned to our diggs. The laundry wasn't ready yet. "Four O'clock," she said. I took a nap.
At 4 the laundry still wasn't ready, so JJ brought some hot empanadas and beer home, and we waited some more. We finally found a cab driver who had a rough idea where the Nystrom's address was and he then took the ocean route to La Magdalena. The Pacific Ocean. Beautiful!!!!! Peruvians everywhere having FUN. It's what the whole place is set up for.
Walking through La Magdalena was like a homecoming; it's my old Lima neighborhood. The place I used to stay has been replaced by a giant hole with a huge crane towering overhead. The barrio is the same at street level, but looking up the skyline punctured with high rise apartments. Progress.
I rented us a room in a guesthouse there for our return from the jungle next Saturday, so more on Magdalena later on. Today we're repacking for the jungle trip; probably won't do too much.
This is only day 4 but it seems like I've been here all my life.
At 4 the laundry still wasn't ready, so JJ brought some hot empanadas and beer home, and we waited some more. We finally found a cab driver who had a rough idea where the Nystrom's address was and he then took the ocean route to La Magdalena. The Pacific Ocean. Beautiful!!!!! Peruvians everywhere having FUN. It's what the whole place is set up for.
Walking through La Magdalena was like a homecoming; it's my old Lima neighborhood. The place I used to stay has been replaced by a giant hole with a huge crane towering overhead. The barrio is the same at street level, but looking up the skyline punctured with high rise apartments. Progress.
I rented us a room in a guesthouse there for our return from the jungle next Saturday, so more on Magdalena later on. Today we're repacking for the jungle trip; probably won't do too much.
This is only day 4 but it seems like I've been here all my life.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Hippies linger on
A lonely old hippie sat scoping the action in Miraflores park. A fine Cuban cigar would hit the spot right about now, so JJ approached Stephan, who swept us off to a cigar shop, selected three choice "banana" cigars (about the size of little golden bananas), clipped them, and handed them over for a careful wrapping, each in its little plastic bag.
Stephan knew everything about Peru. Well, he has been here 4 months (and speaks no Spanish) and knows only 2 spots -- both night clubs in Miraflores. We then went to sit under the yellow umbrella to sip some liquid refreshment and people watch while Stephan delivered a non-stop monologue. Been everywhere and done everything in his 55 years, but clueless about life. He confessed to me how he despises his life, disillusioned, burned-out, nothing left to live for.
I remember feeling that way in Ecuador in 1973 -- age 31. This is the end of the hippie trail. And people are still treading that trail.
I did make a few cryptic comments during the monologue without effect. I know what Stephan needs to do now, but he can't be told. He got where he is without listening, why start now?
I read the book of Ecclesiastes and found my way back to my Father. Stephan is still a lost soul -- very, very lost as I was. My Father is patiently waiting for him to come home but, like many of us, Stephan is too proud to ask for directions.
A ghost from life past, he demonstrated for me what I would have been like had I continued on the hippie trail another 24 years. Even though I took a new route in 1973 I was still searching for meaning, and in many ways still as confused and as filled with self-loathing as Stephan. Until I began this latest journey last August.
For most of my life I assumed that there is a secret to life and that everyone knew it but me. In October (after my wife asked me to leave) I discovered that I have known the secret all along, and everyone else is still looking. The vexing part is that I cannot just let people in on it. I thought that the secret was how to construct a successful self and relate to other selves. Everyone else has always seemed to know how to do this but me. But I was wrong. The secret is the destruction of the self so that I have become my Father's son. Does that make any sense to you? Unlikely.
So Stephan plummets down the hippie vortex to destruction, drivin by the very thing that needs to be annihilated, and can't see that it's either self or life that will soon die. I hope he makes it. I wish that I could make him see. But I can't. It will take more than I can do to open his eyes so that he is able to see, and only He who made Stephan can do that. There is no "secret;" the Truth is all around us, even as you read this post. Open your eyes and you will see it too!
Stephan knew everything about Peru. Well, he has been here 4 months (and speaks no Spanish) and knows only 2 spots -- both night clubs in Miraflores. We then went to sit under the yellow umbrella to sip some liquid refreshment and people watch while Stephan delivered a non-stop monologue. Been everywhere and done everything in his 55 years, but clueless about life. He confessed to me how he despises his life, disillusioned, burned-out, nothing left to live for.
I remember feeling that way in Ecuador in 1973 -- age 31. This is the end of the hippie trail. And people are still treading that trail.
I did make a few cryptic comments during the monologue without effect. I know what Stephan needs to do now, but he can't be told. He got where he is without listening, why start now?
I read the book of Ecclesiastes and found my way back to my Father. Stephan is still a lost soul -- very, very lost as I was. My Father is patiently waiting for him to come home but, like many of us, Stephan is too proud to ask for directions.
A ghost from life past, he demonstrated for me what I would have been like had I continued on the hippie trail another 24 years. Even though I took a new route in 1973 I was still searching for meaning, and in many ways still as confused and as filled with self-loathing as Stephan. Until I began this latest journey last August.
For most of my life I assumed that there is a secret to life and that everyone knew it but me. In October (after my wife asked me to leave) I discovered that I have known the secret all along, and everyone else is still looking. The vexing part is that I cannot just let people in on it. I thought that the secret was how to construct a successful self and relate to other selves. Everyone else has always seemed to know how to do this but me. But I was wrong. The secret is the destruction of the self so that I have become my Father's son. Does that make any sense to you? Unlikely.
So Stephan plummets down the hippie vortex to destruction, drivin by the very thing that needs to be annihilated, and can't see that it's either self or life that will soon die. I hope he makes it. I wish that I could make him see. But I can't. It will take more than I can do to open his eyes so that he is able to see, and only He who made Stephan can do that. There is no "secret;" the Truth is all around us, even as you read this post. Open your eyes and you will see it too!
Friday, January 9, 2009
The buying of the tickets
We're going to Pucallpa and Cuzco soon. The bus is $50 and takes 24 hours. So we went to a little family owned travel agency down the street David recommended. Mom, two daughters, one husband and a baby. We bought our tickets -- $75 on a plane, 1 hour. On the internet the pucallpa ticket was $900 rt, here in Lima $150. Hmmmmmm.
They don't take credit cards and appeared never to have seen a travellers check before, so I had to go to the bank to get cash. They wouldn't accept my british debit card, so I tried the travellers checks. After producing passport and drivers licence they still wouldn't cash them because I signed the checks without my middle initial, which was on my ID. Now it used to be that you just countersign with the same signature and you get your money. Not at this bank! So the only way I could get the cash was with a cash advance on my credit card. Which still took a half hour, while the agent daughter, husband and bebe waited in the car. But we got the tickets!
Leaving for Pucallpa Monday at 4:30AM, back to Lima on 17th, then off to Cuzco on the 20th returning on 25th, and back to Kentucky on the 28th. I was hoping to go to Quito, but that's for another time.
They don't take credit cards and appeared never to have seen a travellers check before, so I had to go to the bank to get cash. They wouldn't accept my british debit card, so I tried the travellers checks. After producing passport and drivers licence they still wouldn't cash them because I signed the checks without my middle initial, which was on my ID. Now it used to be that you just countersign with the same signature and you get your money. Not at this bank! So the only way I could get the cash was with a cash advance on my credit card. Which still took a half hour, while the agent daughter, husband and bebe waited in the car. But we got the tickets!
Leaving for Pucallpa Monday at 4:30AM, back to Lima on 17th, then off to Cuzco on the 20th returning on 25th, and back to Kentucky on the 28th. I was hoping to go to Quito, but that's for another time.
First day in Lima
Looking for accomodations at 1:30am escorted by a clueless taxi driver we found "full" (technical Spanish word for "no vacancies") places, $150 a night hotels, and finally when our driver figured out what we really wanted, Hostel Melody that rents rooms by the hour $12 for 10 hours). Which was good cause we only wanted a little sleep. (By the hour? and I could hear them cleaning rooms in the early morning.)
We had lambs head soup with lamb foot and tripes for breakfast in the market. I think my beard attracts people wanting to know who we were and why. The first conversations with Peruvians (my age) were as if I'd never left. The same topics -- how "tranquillo" life is here and how crazy in the US. People who seem content living in "poverty and squalor" astonished at why Americans live the way they do. Later on we med a woman who returned to Peru after 15 years in Boca Raton with family, bought an apartment and a slightly upscale restaurant in Miraflores where we had lunch ($2). They just couldn't stomach the USA and all its craziness any more. Her Husband and 2 boys (born in the US) were running the business. They all seemed so relieved and happy to be here rather than there. So are we!
We took a cab over to David Weber's place --it's an organization that teaches linguistics and literacy to Peruvians in cooperation with a local university. There are apartments for the students and families while they are here for the five month course. Nearly brand new and very posh, in Surco the newest upscale neighborhood of Lima. Very nice, peaceful, safe and secure. And only $10 a day!
JJ banged his head violently as we boarded our first collectivo and made for Miraflores, the place where backpackers used to congregate in Lima. We were looking to network, but didn't hook up with anyone. It still seems like I never left this place, sitting in a park where I used to sit watching latino life pass by before me. How could I have ever keft this place? Oh yeah, Wycliffe Bible Translators sent me home. I am "incompatible." Much of that incompatibility was that I prefer latino culture to the uptight American culture of the missionaries, and was building my own house off the mission base. I'm more incompatible with Amerika than ever before! It's wonderful to be here again.
We just hung out in Miraflores for the afternoon, taking in the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of Peru. JJ had a contact with the Canadian American expatriates society which was meeting at the Bar Ayawaska that evening, but as I am not much for cold contacts I let him go to that one. It turns out that the Bar Ayawaska is obscenely plush. He paid $6.50 for one drink and left. I'm so glad I didn't go.
We had lambs head soup with lamb foot and tripes for breakfast in the market. I think my beard attracts people wanting to know who we were and why. The first conversations with Peruvians (my age) were as if I'd never left. The same topics -- how "tranquillo" life is here and how crazy in the US. People who seem content living in "poverty and squalor" astonished at why Americans live the way they do. Later on we med a woman who returned to Peru after 15 years in Boca Raton with family, bought an apartment and a slightly upscale restaurant in Miraflores where we had lunch ($2). They just couldn't stomach the USA and all its craziness any more. Her Husband and 2 boys (born in the US) were running the business. They all seemed so relieved and happy to be here rather than there. So are we!
We took a cab over to David Weber's place --it's an organization that teaches linguistics and literacy to Peruvians in cooperation with a local university. There are apartments for the students and families while they are here for the five month course. Nearly brand new and very posh, in Surco the newest upscale neighborhood of Lima. Very nice, peaceful, safe and secure. And only $10 a day!
JJ banged his head violently as we boarded our first collectivo and made for Miraflores, the place where backpackers used to congregate in Lima. We were looking to network, but didn't hook up with anyone. It still seems like I never left this place, sitting in a park where I used to sit watching latino life pass by before me. How could I have ever keft this place? Oh yeah, Wycliffe Bible Translators sent me home. I am "incompatible." Much of that incompatibility was that I prefer latino culture to the uptight American culture of the missionaries, and was building my own house off the mission base. I'm more incompatible with Amerika than ever before! It's wonderful to be here again.
We just hung out in Miraflores for the afternoon, taking in the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of Peru. JJ had a contact with the Canadian American expatriates society which was meeting at the Bar Ayawaska that evening, but as I am not much for cold contacts I let him go to that one. It turns out that the Bar Ayawaska is obscenely plush. He paid $6.50 for one drink and left. I'm so glad I didn't go.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Airport
Waiting in a nearly deserted Bluegrass Airport at 5:5oam for our flight to Washington DC. I didn't see any politicians yet, but then I don't suppose they join the early birds. The eee seems to work ok just sitting here. Especially after its Ale8 bath last week. The space bar is still sticking, though.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
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