The area is full of sailing history from Magellan passing through on the first global circumnavigation to Sir Francis Drake, Clipper Ships, Charles Darwin and more.  Sailing is treacherous due to strong winds and currents as well as unpredictable and powerful waves and the occasional iceberg.  After sailing through the Strait of Magellan, Drake's ships were blown south all the way past Cape Horn.  Captain William Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame was able to make only 85 miles in 31 days before turning around and heading over to the Cape of Good Hope instead.  We can attest to the constantly changing weather, especially the wind, which was often gale-force.

The island of Cape Horn is non-descript with a lighthouse and a memorial for lost sailors.  It's named after the Dutch city of Hoorn, having first been mapped by the Dutch in 1616.  Cape Horn is not actually the most southerly point of South America, but marks the northern boundary of the Drake Passage and is where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet.  The lighthouse on the cape is operational and one of those forlorn places still maintained by a lighthouse keeper and his family serving a 12 month stint.

There aren't a lot of photos from Cape Horn since we landed in gale force winds and conditions only deteriorated.  During the zodiac ride from the ship to shore at 6:45am, Marnie & I (hunching over to avoid the wind) were treated to rushing swells of freezing cold water shooting directly into the gap between our jackets and pants on our backsides, which made for quite the morning wake up call!  Once ashore I had the family line up at the base of the memorial to take a picture when a blast of sleet hit the camera (and me) full on.  No picture.  At that point Sam was so miserably cold that he made Marnie take him back to the ship while Finn and I walked over to check out the lighthouse.  At first we thought it was a shame the weather wasn't better, but ultimately we decided it was good to experience in a small way the kind of conditions sailors face.  And this in mid-summer!

We experienced 4 seasons in a 2 hour time span here.  Skies went from blue to gray, light winds increased to gale force and we were hit first by sleet which changed to snow.  By the time we got back into the zodiacs for a return to the ship it was sunny and calm again.  It was a beautiful walk.
The following afternoon we stopped at Aguila Glacier where we walked along the beach, through a forest, around a lagoon and finally to the glacier.  Views back across the sound were stunning.

When not off on an excursion it was pleasant just to watch the spectacular scenery drift by.

The highlight for Finn and Sam was the last stop at Magdalena Island, home to and breeding ground for 70,000 pairs of Magellanic penguins.  It's also home to colonies of terns, gulls and skuas, all of which compete for space and safety.  The gulls and skuas in particular feed off of the penguin eggs and chicks, but they have to eat the chicks soon after birth since they somehow reach adult height and weight within a month.

A slideshow of the birds:

It's January here in South America so the boys are on summer break.  In keeping with our goal of seeing as much as we can while here, we set out on a three week vacation to Patagonia and a little more.  First stop was Ushuaia, Argentina, which claims to be the southern most city (population around 70,000) in the world.  A look at a globe will show that South America extends further south than either Africa or New Zealand.

     The tourist draws here are scenic beauty, natural history and human history.  Our first outing combined all three since it was to the Beagle Channel.  Those with a good memory will recall that the Beagle was the ship Charles Darwin sailed on.  That was on the second voyage of the Beagle, the first being the time that Captain FitzRoy discovered the channel that now bears the name of the ship.  He got a mountain peak named after him that you'll see in another blog.

     A trip here reinforces the respect I have always had for the explorers who sailed into the area in times past.  One thing I heard was that the distance a ship can now travel in 36 hours took Magellan 36 days due to strong winds and lack of sun for navigation.  We were here in summer when the temperature can be moderate, but as the locals say, you can experience all four seasons in a day and it seemed to us that we experienced all four in an hour.  You can see from the pictures that the cloud cover comes and goes and that our attire goes from shirt-sleeve to down--many layers, always being adjusted.  What you can't see is the wind.  The wind all over Patagonia is the strongest, most persistent and most bone-chilling we've ever experienced. 

Birds:  Turns out the area we visited was a great place to see birds.  A few of them in a slideshow,,,

One last look at Ushuaia as we set sail for our next destinations, Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn.

     Back in March we recounted the arduous and humbling start of the school year which involved forced marches to book sellers, vendors with unfamiliar names (Uno mas uno, Bata, TayLoi, etc), and uniform stores. It seems eons ago that we watched our backpack clad sons standing forlornly in class lines on the courtyard patio surrounded by classmates who they didn’t know and with whom they couldn’t yet converse.  I remember walking away that day and imagining how completely intimidating it would be to be in their shoes. 
      Thanks to their fortitude and years of listening to Patti’s Spanish, they quickly began talking, reading, and writing in Spanish.  During the first week Sam’s classmates placed their hands on their hearts and pledged to support him as he learned a new language.  During recess, the boys were initially reticent, but with teachers’ encouragement Sam joined the futbol (soccer) kids, while Finn played with the cops & robbers (policias y ladrones) and freeze tag (conhelados) crowd.

    Meanwhile, at school, the boys encountered class sizes of 35 children and 140 kids per grade compared to 25 and 50 in California.  Additionally, the boys had eight+ teachers, each covering different subjects (comunicación aka Spanish, English, Science, Math, Art, Religion, Personal Social aka social studies, physical education, computers, tutorial, y projects).  Their teachers (below) rotated into their classrooms throughout the day.

 Mondays kicked off with a formal ceremony in the patio complete with the national anthem and flag salute.  Every other Thursday the students attended mass. Lunch time was also different given the absence of a cafeteria and dining space, the children ate in

     The role of parents was also markedly different than in the U.S.  Early in the school year, there were several informal and formal functions for moms.  I went to an evening gathering at the home of Sam’s class “mother” and met other moms; the conversation flowed in quick Spanish and I listened trying to pick out the main idea and feeling unable to participate verbally so I smiled and nodded, grateful to be included and hopeful that at some point I might be able to speak better Spanish.  There were also moms’ luncheons (from 5:00pm-8:00pm) for each grade held at the Hyatt hotel; 90-100 moms attended these events.  Once again I felt over my head with Spanish and did a lot of listening.  Interestingly, there were no parallel events for dads. At school I offered our services as parent volunteers, who could read or tutor children in English, but our overture was never accepted.  Parental volunteers in the classroom, school, or on fieldtrips are apparently a completely foreign idea.  Parent support was expected in daily signatures on the boys’ journals which alerted us to homework, upcoming events, and teacher messages.  There were also a fair number of obligatory evening parental “charlas” (chats/talks) on a range of topics (e.g. social emotional development, Christian values, etc), as well as two mandatory Saturday retreat days; if one of us did not attend we received a notice reminding us of our parental commitments and asking for an explanation for our absence.  One positive outgrowth of these sessions was increased familiarity with other parents. 

Kermesse (June)
     One of the primary fund raising events for the year was the Kermesse.  When we received notices of this event I had to look up the word and discovered that it means “Catholic religious bazaar.”  The Kermesse was a day-long extravaganza replete with amusement park rides in the quad of the secondary school, a performance stage with bands playing all day long, field activities, and a row of carnival games sponsored by each grade level and staffed by moms.  Our apartment is near the school and we could hear the music blasting until midnight.  The boys loved the carnival games and rides, but eventually the noise (and yes the El Taxi song blaring) got the best of all of us and we headed home.  An impressive fundraising team organized this event and raised the equivalent of $25,000.00 USD.

La Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen con Procesión (July)
     The school’s patroness is the Virgin of Mt. Carmel and she is celebrated in July with a 3-hour parade where her statue atop a flower-strewn float is carried through police blocked streets.  Devotees march along solemnly while a band plays and children throw flower petals and hold decorated torches to illuminate the walk. Unfamiliar with this tradition, we joined the procession early and were among the masses as the virgin made her way through our barrio. Absorbing the swirling and euphoric energy of the faithful, the color, and the high pomp of the gathering, I teared up and found myself thinking, “It is for events like this that we are here.”  Despite being swept up in the fervor, our sons grew hungry and we retreated early, only to discover later that we missed out on the Virgin’s reception party, which culminated with fireworks.  Next year we plan to join the procession late and discover what we missed.

William’s First Communion (September 26th)
     During the first week of school Finn’s homeroom teacher shared with us that the focus of the year in his religion class would be his first communion.  Finn relished these preparations and took seriously various ceremonies and studies leading up to the big day.  On the day of his first communion as we were leaving the house, Finn said, “This is probably the most important day of my life so far.” Reflecting on this rite of passage, he shared, “It was a beautiful day – afterwards I felt like a new person drained of my problems and starting fresh.”  As parents, it pleased us to see him so engaged and so invested.

William’s First 5K Race (September 27th)
     Steve and Finn ran in a community 5K race to benefit the people of Chumbivilcas Province outside of Cusco.

The Olympics (Last week of school)
    The school year ended with an Olympic themed competition and the school split into colors (red, green, yellow, and blue) with each associated with a symbol from the school’s crest - stars (happiness), sword (justice/leadership), crown (loyalty), and mountain (strength).  The Olympics featured a variety of challenges, including: basketball, running, an obstacle course, soccer, tug of war, and relay races. Finn likened the excitement to Maya Lin’s jogathon spread out over several days. The week launched with a parade where team mascots like Elmo, Mike from monsters Inc. Big Bird, Cookie monster, and Oscar made appearances and students brought posters, balloons, pompoms and other celebratory props to show their team spirit. 

Ceremonia de Laureles Carmelitas (December 16th)
     In December we received a letter from Padre Adolfo informing us that Sam would receive recognition for embodying the values of Carmelitas, specifically the strength and perseverance symbolized in the image of the montaña displayed on the school’s crest.  The ceremony was full of high pomp and symbolism and witnessed by a packed house that included teachers and families. Pairs of students holding hands (a secondary student matched with a younger student) marched into the auditorium in groups led by banner carriers displaying the symbols of the mountain, crown, stars, and sword.

The final day of school (December 11th) spoke volumes of how our boys had become fully integrated into their school.  William actually cried in disappointment that he wouldn’t be seeing his friends for three months and Sam rolled around the patio on his scooter high-fiving his buddies and other friends like the janitor and security guards.  One of the key values of Carmelitas is fraternidad and we have been told that once you become a member of the Carmelitas family, you are forever a member.  We are surely glad to count ourselves among their family.

We did see plenty, even if we didn't see the golden backed tanager.  The first couple of days were spent in a cloud forest which is different from what I expected.  Cloud forests are tropical forests that prominently feature a layer of dense fog at the canopy level.  They are generally found in tropical forests near mountain ranges since the landscape creates an ideal climate for low hanging fog.  The result is a gathering of trees that constantly have a heavy mist around the treetops at all times.

Cloud forests have their own unique ecosystems. The heavy fog both filters the sunlight and provides the underlying foliage with a source of moisture.  The environment is especially conducive  to mosses and ferns, and tends to be humid and boggy.  Every square inch is covered with lichen, fungus, mosses, ferns or some other kind of plant life.
While the vistas were grand, it was important to pay attention to the small things.  Following are three slide shows of such small things.

FLORA

AND HUMANS
We've finally graduated to eating at truck stop restaurants like Bosque de Neblina, where they actually serve up a great fried trout.  I was fascinated by the alcalde building (alcade being Spanish for mayor).  I wondered if it's really Mayor Padre Charles' office or a joke.

Coming soon:  Surf's up south of Lima...

We stayed in a hotel a few kilometers south of Tumbes.  Not a wealthy area by any means but the people seem to get by.

We went on a couple of excursions during the week.  One was to Acapulco for whale watching, the other to Puerto Pizarro to the crocodile rescue center and mangroves.  Puerto Pizarro has the added distinction of being the location of Pizarro's landing on his way to his momentous meeting with Atahualpa.
ACAPULCO

There really isn't much to Acapulco except a few houses, some stores of various sorts and the fishing pier.  Lots of fishing here and the catch is still good. 

PUERTO PIZARRO
Puerto Pizarro is much more of a tourist draw than Acapulco.  People come to see the mangroves, the crocodiles and to eat seafood, including the famous, at least in Peru, black scallop.

The Tumbes River crocodile is endangered due to hunting for meat and leather and habitat destruction for agriculture.  This facility has a breeding program that returns crocodiles into the wild.  Sam and Finn found it quite interesting while I found myself thankful I could see them here instead of meeting one on a swim.

BOCAPAN
Bocapan is another fishing town a few kilometers south of Tumbes and happens to have a nice Casa Andina hotel where we stayed for the week.  We have found that tourists from outside of Peru tend to stay a day in Lima, go to Macchu Pichu and then go home.  Most of the places seen in the blog are Peruvian tourist destinations and this was no exception.  We met two families from Lima, one from a school against which Sam played basketball and another with kids at the same school the boys go to.

It was quite a nice hotel with a giant swimming pool the boys enjoyed immensely.  Sam really liked swimming up to sit on the underwater stool and order his daily Fanta and tequenos.  We appreciated the bungalows with the boys upstairs and Marnie and me downstairs.  Very quiet, relaxing place that gave us a week's refuge from Lima and school.  In addition to the pool, the hotel had beach front property.  Ocean water was a comfortable 75 degrees with a nice shore break for boogie boarding and empty stretches in both directions for relaxing walks.

 BIRDS
Peru continues to be a delight in the birding department and Tumbes was no exception.  Slideshow follows:

THANKSGIVING
We post this blog almost halfway through our South America adventure and a week before many Americans celebrate Thanksgiving.  As we reflect on the bounty we have received this year in terms of new experiences, new friends, and new vistas, we are humbled and grateful. We thank you -- our readers -- for sharing the journey with us. 

     Paracas is the first place we went to in Peru outside of Lima on one of our earlier visits.  We all loved the place but I wasn't sure whether this was because it is, indeed, a great place or if I was just relieved to finally see something of Peru besides Lima.  When my sister brought her grandson for a visit in September we decided to take a trip down to check the area out a second time.
     Paracas is a four hour drive south from Lima.  The road is mostly bleak--long stretches of dry wasteland punctuated occasionally by a greenbelt courtesy of a river flowing down from the Andes.  As seems true everywhere in Peru, supply some water and something will be grown.  Nearing Paracas the desert changes, the bleakness turning into a stark beauty.  The area has several attractions for the traveler.

THE NATURE PRESERVE

     One of the most interesting things to me about the area is that nothing grows, not even cactus.  First, there is the lack of water, it almost never rains here.  Then, the ground is composed of marine sediment, the consistency of concrete, that has been uplifted by geologic forces with a veneer of fine sand.  So, even if there were water, no roots could penetrate the marine sediment.  The road in the picture is surfaced with salt, something that can only be done where there is no rain.

In spite of being a desert the temperature is quite moderate year round because of the proximity of the cold Humboldt Current of the Pacific Ocean.   The meeting of the desert and the ocean makes for some beautiful contrasts. 

SAND DUNES
On another day we hired a local with a giant dune buggy to take a look at the expanse of dunes nearby.  As well as enjoying the austere beauty of the place, the boys got to take advantage of sand boarding and take a dip in a real oasis.  The rivers coming out of the Andes have deposited a lot of underground water that finds its way to the surface here and there.

THE MARINE SANCTUARY
The scarcity of life in the desert is in sharp contrast to the life in the sea.  The cold Humboldt Current is teeming with life making Peru one of the world's largest producers of fish.  Paracas is a fishing town and lying offshore are the famous Guano Islands (referred to in previous blog entries and described well in the book 1493).  We weren't able to adequately capture a photo of the vast number of birds living on these islands.  There are basically only 4 species of birds here, the guanay cormorant, Peruvian booby, Inca Tern and a few Humboldt penguins along with plenty of sea lions.  Only 4 species but the first three listed are here by the tens of thousands.  On the day we were there the water was so full of tiny crabs that it appeared to be red, plenty of food for the birds.

THE BIRDS
There are more species of birds in Peru than in all of North America including Canada and Mexico.  I've come to enjoy seeing how many I can capture on film.  Following is a slideshow of what I shot in Paracas.

THE HOTEL
The hotel in Paracas is the boys' favorite.  It has a huge pool that only gradually gets deeper, perfect for playing football and a smaller one for general play.

And so the sun sets on another adventure and we give thanks for the bounty of it all.

 The Train Ride 
     In keeping with our quest to see as much of Peru as possible in two years and be a good host to Marnie's niece Madee (who spent 5 weeks of her summer with us), we used the boys' July vacation to do a little sight-seeing.  I'd read about a train ride, billed as the second highest in the world, that ascends from Lima to Huancayo so off we went.  Everyone's impression was that it was a LONG ride stretching from the 12 hours advertised into 14.  The distance of the trip is 346 kilometers and passes 69 tunnels, 58 bridges and 6 switchbacks (just like the ones on hiking trails, used to gain altitude).  The high point of the trip, literally, is Galera at 15,658 feet above sea level.  Quite a few people ended up suffering from altitude sickness, but none of our brave crew.
    It's one thing to fly over the Andes and quite another to walk or take a train ride through them.  Two attributes of the Andes have predominated for me.  First, the chain is huge--4,300 miles long, 120-430 miles wide with an average height of 13,000 feet and a maximum of 22,841.  Second is the diversity of mountainscapes that change constantly, often from one contiguous peak to the next.  It is the dry season but the western slopes in Peru never really see any rain at any time of the year.  The eastern slopes, on the other hand,  are lush and receive large amounts of rain.  And so it goes, constant changes in the scenery moving past the window.

Huancayo
    Our friend Eddy travels to Huancayo for business.  When we told him we were going there on vacation he laughed heartily and asked why.  Basically, he thought there was no there there.  The answer was that is where the train goes, there was no other choice.  Upon arrival we fairly quickly understood what he meant.  Huancayo lies in the Maronon River Valley, a productive agriculture area that is relatively close to Lima so there is a guaranteed market for anything produced.  The best comparison that comes to mind is Fresno (or maybe Bakersfield) to San Francisco or Los Angeles and how many of you have chosen to vacation in Fresno or Bakersfield lately? We did spend a couple of days here and came to appreciate the place after all--not much going on, but nice people and a good plaza to sit in and watch the world pass by.

The Horseback Ride
    The highlight of the trip was definitely the horseback ride up to the Nevado de Huaytapallana.  Every time I see another nevado (snow covered peak or glacier) it's better than the last and I don't know how many more times that can happen.  The horses were first rate:  handsome, well trained and well cared for.  The caballero who provided the horses waxed eloquent on the beauty, serenity and contentment of his life with the horses and the mountains.  Finn was ecstatic since he had been told his horse would be led and then found out he was in control.  I was impressed since this was a real trail ride, not just along a dirt road, going up and down slopes that were quite steep and in and out of the creek.
     After viewing the nevado we worked our way back down through mountains of great beauty where herds of llama, sheep and horses co-mingled, past encampments of herders,  finally to come face to face with a group of llama at the end of the ride.  I assure you the camera captured only a small fraction of the beauty and serenity of the area.

Happy Trails to you...

We went down the Amazon river to get to the Tahuayo Lodge.  The ride was 3 hours. One of our favorite hang out spots at the lodge ended up being the entry deck where we liked to watch for birds. 

We also went on boat rides and looked for birds there too. The birds were amazing; my favorite was the slate colored hawk.

     Some of the other things we did were: hiking, zip-lining, insect and animal spotting, and feeding monkeys. One of the monkeys named Chepa, the second biggest, hopped down on the ground and stole all the bananas.  Dorila, the biggest monkey, was in the black market being sold for a pet, but someone bought him and gave him to the sanctuary. Kobe and Chepa were pets in a family with two kids and two parents; they decided not to keep them and put them in the sanctuary too. Now people from the lodge come and feed them.

     I had the pleasure last month of taking some time to myself for a couple of days in Cusco and then on to Cachoro  for a "trek" (backpacking without the backpack) to Choquequirao, an Inca site.  It was my first chance to get into a Quechua speaking community to see what life is like in an agricultural area in the Andes.
At first glance Cachoro looks pretty bleak.

     But after spending some time there, it actually looks like a pretty good place to live.  It's a beautiful setting with the Nevado Padreyoc in the background.  The main occupation is subsistence agriculture, the plots are small and worked mostly by hand and animal (I saw only one tractor at work in the area, probably shared/rented out) and the land seems productive. 

      The people who did all of the work so we could walk with our daypacks and shoot photos consisted of a family of 4 brothers.  They were born at mile 17 in a Quechua speaking hamlet (40 people in its heyday, all related) still owned by the family and run as a campground by the mother of the clan.  Only one brother still lives full time on the land, everyone else has found it necessary to find employment in Cachoro, Cusco or elsewhere.  The boys grew up making the trek to town and back once a week to attend school, boarding in town during the week.  The guide, Juan Carlos, now speaks Quechua, Spanish, English and some Portuguese. 
     There is a very productive garden at 9700 feet with fruit trees that provides quite a diversity of foodstuff plus chickens, pigs, and guinea pigs to provide protein.  We spent the second night there after the big ascent before heading to the ruins the following morning.

     CHOQUEQUIRAO:  Peru is blessed and cursed by a plethora of archaeological sites.  Caral dates from 2600 BC and is the oldest civilization in the western hemisphere.  From Caral through the Inca, one civilization after another built on and enlarged the advances made by the previous.  As a result, Peru has sites from one end to the other without the funds to explore and develop them.  Choquequirao is one of those sites.  It is a few hard and beautiful days walk from Machu Picchu. (If any of you are interested in making the trek next summer, let me know.) Some of the area has been cleared and quite a bit of study done but things are now at a standstill. 
     In the first photo in the following slideshow, you will see some terraces down the side of the mountain.  These terraces at one point ascended to the summit interspersed with housing and workshops which still exist under the brush.  The terraces then descended down the other side of the mountain--the site is incredibly extensive but no longer being cleared.  Like Machu Picchu, there is a lot left to know about Choquequirao.  The stonework is not nearly as good as other Inca structures leading some to surmise that it was built in a hurry.  It was also not found by the Spanish and no one knows why it was deserted.  A unique feature among all of the Inca sites uncovered so far are llama images embedded in the terrace walls.

     The Andes are a huge chain of mountains which change quickly in many ways.  Much of the chain is drab and dry, other parts lush and many parts are incredibly beautiful.  The following slideshow and subsequent blogs will expand on this idea.

I met one of Cristian’s llamas at the ruins; it’s name was Asua.  It liked to lick faces and spit.

     We took a couple of hikes.  The first one was when we went to a hot spring swimming pool (which ended up being closed when we arrived).  Along the way we saw people working in the fields and women washing clothes in the canal that ran near their homes. We were close to a mountain range called Nevado Huascaran.  It is the second highest mountain range in South America. The second hike was when we visited a lake called Llaca where we got to eat fresh ice from a glacier.  On the way back to the taxi we saw wildlife like viscacha, a long-tailed rabbit like animal.

On our last day, my mom dressed up like a local and so did I.  The sack around my neck is normally placed on a llama’s back.  After the fashion show, we went to a field. We ended up filling the llama bag with seeds to plant while one person plowed with two bulls.  Everybody except Sam got to try plowing with the bulls. My mom got dragged across and out of the field by the bulls and I was afraid she was going to hit a tree.  I was more successful.  All you had to do was hold on and lift the metal plow out of the ground when you wanted to turn. 

     When I was done with my turn at plowing, we built a pachamanca, which is an earthen and stone oven.  The first step was building a dome of rocks with space inside for twigs and leaves to burn so that the rocks would heat.  Once the rocks were very hot, we collapsed the dome and put potatoes, fava beans, corn, and tamales over the rocks.  Then, we piled on leafy branches, a tarp, and finally dirt and let it roast for 30 minutes.  Unfortunately, I don’t like potatoes, beans, or corn so I ate granola bars instead.
     Our last activity was adobe brick making.  First, Cristian’s dad added water to a pile of loose dirt.  Then, Sam and I stomped around in it with bare feet.  The mud felt cold and rocky on my feet.  Then we added straw and stomped some more.  We did this process about three times.  Then, we used an open wooden box as a mold and poured the mud in.  You stepped in the mold and then you slapped it like you were playing the drums.  The last step was to lift the mold up.  Sometimes the mud stuck to the sides making it hard to pull up.  I learned that the advantage of adobe is that: the material is cheap and easy to get, its preparation doesn’t require machines, it effectively insulates from temperatures and sound, it doesn’t burn easily or get attacked by insects, and finally it's a breathable material.  We only made 10 bricks, but it takes 300 for a small house.  One person working hard could make 100 bricks in a day.

When it came to leave, I wanted to stay.