South America trip February 2008 - part 2

South America trip February 2008 - part 2

Friday, February 8

Feeling a bit better today, I got an early and went for a run. As the first time, I guess I must begin to use the altitude. The Spanish class today and Magna took me to the market -- Mercado San Pedro -- afterward.

It was great to see where the real Cuzcenos shop, see how the market works and to see some fruits and other food that we don't get in the states. One of the most interesting is a fruit called Chirimoya. It's probably the most expensive fruit in the market - 5 Soles for one fruit (five Soles is a little less than two dollars). It's a good-sized fruit, probably enough for two people and really delicious. I took a picture, it's hard to describe what it looks like or what it tastes like. The fruit here is just tremendous. Another example are the Papayas - they are as big as watermelons, no kidding.

In the afternoon I went back to the boys home. The first thing I did after playing football for a little while. I kicked the ball around and played one on one for quite a while with one of the guys who is a good little player - probably 8 years old or so. I told him "eres bueno" (you're good) and he responded "claro" (yeah). Hilarious.






The Director asked me to go shopping with Kellie, a teacher who works at school teaching arts and crafts. They need a lot of materials, so I went out to with her to by some. After a long walk up and down Avenue Del sole, we got what we needed and returned to help finish out the computer class. After class we goofed around and took pictures.

A little after 5 p.m., it was time to go, and boy was that hard. Even after a short time with these guys. They were so much fun and so warm and really hard to leave. A lot of them were really funny too. When I was getting ready to go Kellie was walking out the door and several of the boys were encouraging me to date her. Riot. Since they got excited they were talking fast I could understand everything, but I'm pretty sure heard Alex say "hotel". Anyway, I opted not to follow the advice of this particular 9 year old.






















At six o'clock I went to yoga. This is a great place just down the street, and if anyone ever wants to go there let me know and I'll give you the address. We went for two hours, and the instructor's terrific - I did two poses that I've never done before. Yea, long day - I'll be sore tomorrow.

Saturday, February 9

Early morning, about 4am. can't sleep, watching Spaceballs. Dark Helmet is still funny in espanol.

It's amazing how easy it is to slip into this place. I just realized that I haven't thought of my house since I got here. I just remembered that I own a car. Totally forgot about that.

I was thinking some more about the kids and computer class. It was really amazing to see it all in action. The same technology - computers with Windows OS but in spanish, a network in the classroom, connection to the Internet. When they have free time they play video games like Age of Empires. Each of them has the potential to do the same things that I have done, and more. All they need is access to the knowledge and tools.

Sunday, February 10
Uh, not sure what happened today.

Monday, February 11

Early morning flight from Cuzco to Lima. Waited in Lima airport for our afternoon flight to Buenas Aires, not too exciting. Bs As is 2 time zones ahead of Lima and right now actually 3 hours ahead. I haven't researched the reason yet, I presume it's a daylight saving or something like that. But it meant that we were arriving at the hostel at midnight, even though it seemed like 9pm. And the hostel didn't have our reservation, so we ended up riding around in a cab looking for a room, which we eventually found about 1am. Of course, we were hungry and not tired, so Troy and I found a late night pizza place. They love their pizza in Argentina, and this was a great pie.

Tuesday, February 12

Unfortunately we paid for it by getting only 1 1/2 hrs sleep before having to go to the airport. Ugh. Slept on the flight to El Calafate, about 3 hrs in the air.


El Calafate is a town in southern Argentina that is best known for being the access point to the Porito Moreno Glacer, which is a spectacular glacier about 80 km to the West. We actually saw the glacier calve 6 different times - so amazing - each time it created a big wave. I didn't think I would see any, and ended up seeing a bunch. It was like real-time global warming - I don't know if Al Gore was behind this or not, but it was fun to see - and a bit depressing when you think about glaciers like this calving every 10 minutes around the clock.



Wednesdsay, February 13

Drove to Torres del Paine ("Towers" of Paine) - this is about a 6 hour drive that we managed to turn into a 9 hour drive. There was a turn to get to the Chile border crossing, we saw the turn and debated whether it was the right place, but it wasn't clear. We didn't take it, and of course it was. Oops. So we ended up all the way down in Puerto Natales, which added about 3 hrs to the drive. I'd recommend against it.

Oh, and the border crossing. That was a blast. So it goes like this - you drive up and there is a sign saying to park. So you pull over and park and go into this little house where there are 3 lines. Even if you speak spanish it's not obvious where to go since they're not numbered but eventually I pieced it together talking to people there. First the national police, then the immigration, then the customs agent. The process takes about 45 min. Whew. Get in the car, and off we go!

Then in 1/2 mile, you drive up and there is a sign saying to park. So you pull over and park and go into this little house where there are 3 lines. Even if you speak spanish it's not obvious where to go since they're not numbered but eventually... you get the point. First the national police, then the immigration, then the customs agent. Oh, then this time the customs agent goes through the car and takes your fruit.

The first one was for Argentina, the second for Chile. Not sure why they can't put them together. Same deal on the way back.

It was rainy as we drove into Torres del Paine, and couldn't see anything coming into the park. There is a charge to get into the park, which you have to pay in Chilean Pesos. Of course we didn't have Chilean Pesos, since there was no where to change money on the road in. Of course they were nice enough to offer to change Dollars or Argentinian Pesos. Of course, the exchange rate wasn't quite the same... nice racket. Hours away from anywhere, you sort of have to go with it. I'm a little tired.

Got to refugio ("refuge", a cabin like a hostel in the mountains) late and went to bed.

Thursday, February 14

It cleared up today, warm & sunny. Hiked to the towers in the morning and got up to the top about 1pm - WOW! This is so spectacular. The towers were in clouds at first, then they started to clear. Every few minutes it looked different. And after a bit, they were mostly clear. A lot of people don't get this view, even after several trips. I got really lucky. I wish I had more time here.







Friday, February 15

Took a short hike in the morning on the way back and did a 1/2 hour trail run with the pack. That felt great. It was a beautiful morning, even saw a rainbow. Then drove back to Calafate - even took the right route this time.








Saturday, February 16

Flew back to B.A. I stayed in Palermo - fun neighborhood with a lot of activity - restaurants, bars, etc. Spent the weekend walking the city. B.A. is pretty much what you hear, a city that feels like a bit of Europe in South America.

Sunday, February 17

Got tickets to the futbol (soccer) game at night. I'm excited, haven't seen a proper futbol game - outside the US. It's different, the game is just not as important in the US - crowds aren't as big or wild, level of play isn't as high, although that's changing. And this is the Boca Juniors, one of the top teams in South America and the biggest in B.A.

No beer or water, but plenty of spit & urine. Excellent. Suffice to say that you should avoid sitting in the seats below the visitors section if you to one of these games...



















Monday, February 18
More walking the city - spent a lot of the afternoon in Recoletta, nice hood. This is where more of the nice high rises and fancier places are.

Flight out at night, and long journey home. Lots of sleep and reading on the plane. Can't wait to come back again...

South America journal - Feb 2008

South America trip February 2008 - part 1


"I just remembered that I own a car. Totally forgot about that..."

























Friday, February 1
Well, the trip started out on an interesting note... I got to the airport in Denver at 4:30 in the morning to check in for my 6:40 flight to Chicago and found out that it had been canceled. I was informed that I was lucky I got there early so that I can get on a 6 a.m. flight that they created to leave 40 minutes before the one that they cancelled. Lucky me. Of course, it didn't take off until 7:30.

I got to Chicago, got off the plane and shock... my Chicago - Toronto flight had been canceled. Two flights canceled in one morning. So after are several hours of trying to find different routes to get from Chicago to Lima on a mileage points ticket (not the easiest thing to do), I finally talked to a flight attendant (who lives in Peru, coincidentally), who was nice enough to take me to a customer service person, who spent about two hours figuring it all out. (side note: they couldn't get it fixed within the confines of my mileage award ticket, so the United agent actually bought me a ticket on Delta to get me out the next day - a really impressive instance of United customer service, which they aren't always great at).

The moral of the story is don't ever connect through Chicago.

Since I was in Chicago for the night, I went to visit my grandmother. I didn't see her very often so that was a nice surprise. I picked up dinner from her favorite restaurant -- Hackney's. We watched Wheel of Fortune.

So we got through dinner, and the usual grilling about my love life or lack thereof... and I decided to get out my laptop and show her some techie stuff.

The highlight of the night was when I showed her Google Earth. At first, she wasn't sure what she was looking at, because she still thinks that my computer is a typewriter. So I zoomed in on Peru, her house, my house, and after a while she started to understand that you looking at an interactive satellite view. At the same time, however, there happened to be a travel show on TV about South America. So I was showing her Google Earth on South America, and on the television there is a travel Channel show about South America, and she got horribly confused. For someone 92 years old to whom all of this stuff is fairly mystical, that had to be a very confusing thing. I can understand why because even I got a little bit confused.

Saturday February 2
Flew from Chicago to Atlanta, sat at Hartsfield Airport for 5 hrs, flew to Lima. Uneventful - nice.

Sunday, February 3
Sunday was beach day. After a long flight my reward was to go to la playa in Miraflores. My goal was to surf, but there aren't really any surf shops near the beach - strange. And I couldn't find a locker either. And since the airline still had my bag, I didn't have my board shorts or anything else. So surfing wasn't in the cards, but still a great day at the beach.

I went out to watch the Super Bowl, and of course there were only a few places that show it. The first place called Corner Bar in the Miraflores neighborhood looked good, but it was full and I couldn't get in. So my backup plan was the Marriott. They had a game on, but what an oddball collection of people. It was a lot of Giants fans are found myself rooting for the patriots who, of course lost. My second Super Bowl in a row outside the country.

Monday, February 4.

I originally put this part in a Sunday, because the two days just ran together, but I guess it's actually Monday.

Left the hostel at midnight to get to the airport before 1 a.m.. So that I can hopefully find my bag coming in on the flight from Atlanta. At this point I was giving it about a 20% chance, but I had to get out there and try since my flight was leaving at 5:30 a.m. it just meant getting to the airport a few hours earlier. And miracle of miracles the bag showed up. I slept for about an hour in the airport Chapel with my head on that backpack, making sure it was not going anywhere. I can tell you when I checked in at 4 a.m. and was not happy to give my backpack back to an airline, but I didn't have a choice, so try again.

Anywho... finally got to Cuzco at 7 a.m. and my bag showed up as well. I think the trip karma is starting to change. Jim (President of Globalteer) met me at the airport, and we went into Cuzco. After getting settled in the hotel, we met for coffee to do orientation for the program. And I can say I was a bit nervous. I really didn't know what to expect - I was excited and glad to be there and really looking forward... but didn't know what to expect. It turns out that there is a computer class at both the boys and girls orphanages on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I was hoping to be able to do something like that was happy to hear that.

In 3 p.m. we went out to the boys home (called Hogar (home) de Menores "Maria Salome Ferro") where 60 boys live in old house, donated by a family over a hundred years ago. So they have a nice building but lack of funds to maintain and buy books by sheets chairs etc. I helped the teacher, a college student named Elmer. We took the kids through basic lessons about how to use the computer configuring Windows those types of things. Of course they're all experts already at videogames. I think highlight of the class lies when I showed them Google Earth. It was already downloaded, so someone had seen it before, but the kids in his class didn't seem to have. We spent time looking at satellite views of Cuzco and Lima, and then I asked them if they wanted to see where I live. So we typed in Denver and flew up to the United States and onto Denver and they were all thrilled to see a city in the states, to see the roof of my house and the Rocky Mountains. That was fun.

Then I met with the director of the home, whose name is Janette. She seems like a wonderful (and I'm guessing tough) woman and she immediately gave me an assignment. So I have homework. She wants a software application to track the health of the kids -- information like height and weight -- on monthly basis. It was funny, she immediately brought this up, almost as soon as I sat down. I talked to her at some length to find out where requirements were and told her that I would work on it. I spent time on the flight down learning Ruby on Rails, and I think that will be a good tool for this app.

Tuesday, February 5.

Got some exercise in the morning, then headed down to the library with Judith, the other volunteer. This is a neat program started by an American woman from New York/Boulder, who wanted to provide a place for kids to go when they're not in school, where they can read and study. I read through a book about dinosaurs to one of the kids there. And of course found out that he reads Spanish, much better than I do. That was a bit humbling.

The afternoon I got my Spanish lesson. It was three hours, which is a bit long, but my instructor named Magda a lot of fun and actually really enjoyed the lesson. Today was mostly review, and tomorrow we'll start getting into the past tense and some other new things. I alternate between feeling like my Spanish is really improving every day that I'm here, and feeling that my Spanish is really horrible and it's frustrating when I try to talk to people. There are a lot of Spanish-language schools in Cuzco, a lot of people live here to study Spanish, and many of them volunteer as well. My school is called Maximo Nivel, and it's a big school on Avenida Del Sol. So far it's been really good.

I went to dinner with Jim Elliot, who runs Globalteer and Judith, another volunteer. I found a little place called Las Cupulas close to the Plaza de Armas. I only mention it because it has a great courtyard in the back and aren't really that many places to eat outside in the city, which is surprising because the weather here is really nice almost all year round. After that we went to Nick's, which is a good ex-pat bar just a block or two off of the Plaza. Tuesday is Quiz night which is a good time, I recommend it. It was also nice enough to put CNN on the TV even though he's British. So I got to catch up with Super Tuesday.

Wednesday, February 6.

I spent a bit of time working on a web application for Janette at the orphanage. Just enough so that I could show her a mockup. I helped Elmer teach the computer class at the girls home this afternoon, which was a lot of fun. I'm always bothered by how few girls go into math and science and engineering, so great to see this group of girls getting comfortable on the computer, especially a group that doesn't have the same advantages that most people in the States and other places have. Oh and I learned some new Spanish words. "Inalambrico" means wireless, and "cable" means cable. "mouse" is mouse - or sometimes "raton". Got to love technology words, so much easier to translate...

After that, I headed back over to the boys home to meet Janette and show her my design. She seemed pleased, but I think I'm not quite on to what she's looking for. She's definitely a tough nut. I got her promise to bring me more requirements on Friday. I stayed later to hang out the boys. We had a good time playing on the parallel bars and seeing who could do the most pull ups. Those kids are a riot.

And tonight I worked a bit more on his application, and got an initial version working, which was fun. I don't get to do any hands-on coding at work, so it's nice to have a project. I won't finish it this week, but I'll finish it at home, and then e-mail link to Janette and Tom are so that they can test it out. Then I'll send it to Elmer so that he can install it. It really is a small world. Hopefully this will be something useful for them and who knows maybe it will be useful for others to...

By the way, I'm dictating this whole journal on Dragon, a voice to text program. It works pretty well. And I can talk more naturally than when I'm actually typing, which is nice. And hopefully it will keep my hands and wrists from falling apart. But I'm still training at and having to fix quite a few errors. I'm sure you'll see some come throooo (just kidding).

Thursday, February 7

Today is "Paro" which essentially means stop. It's a work stoppage in protest of the government's attempt to privatize national treasures like Machu Picchu. I talked to my Spanish teacher about this after her thoughts, and it is interesting to hear her response. Essentially, the government is looking privatize national parks including Macchu Picchu so that hotels and other amenities can be built, and people in Cuzco feel like most of this money goes to Lima. So, because of that and because they don't want to happen. They are protesting and striking. It was very interesting to see democracy in action in Peru we'll see what happens.



At the end of the day I decided to walk up the hill into some of the neighborhoods and get out of the tourist area man these hills are steep. Most people were inside because, at 4:30 a football game started between Cuzco and Montevideo Uruguay. This was the championship game for a minor cup so everyone was inside watching. Anyway it was fun to walk around some of the real neighborhoods.



Watched The Matrix. Pretty much the only TV I've watched this week has been American movies in espanol. Good mindless way to practice. And you get good quotes like hearing Keanu Reeves say "no hay cuchara" (there is no spoon). Priceless.

Engineers Without Borders

I had a very interesting meeting yesterday with Dr. Bernard Amadei at the University of Colorado (my alma mater). Dr. Amadei founded an organization called Engineers without Borders in the year 2000. after watching a girl in a small village, carry water from the river back to her village and realizing that this daily job kept her from going to school. Dr. Amadei recognized the need for basic civil engineering projects in developing world.

Dr. Amadei says that their priorities are water, water and water. It's remarkable how many people in this world don't have safe clean drinking water. In fact most people don't.

But any other projects as well. Building bridges and roads clean burning solutions for energy is a great program and they have done some really amazing work.in addition, Dr. Amadei started a program at the University called engineering in developing communities. Engineering students in this program. Learn how to apply your skills specifically for developing communities which have different needs than those in the industrialized world. In a recent project, students learn how to compress paper, sawdust and other combustibles into long burning briquettes. Something that can be used in the house from what was litter.

Their biggest need, as you might imagine, is funding. Government organizations like the EPA tend to want to invest in things that are directly related to saving lives rather than research and raised over $1 million in about nine years. It's an impressive amount, but the program has grown over 50% a year. So current projects remain underfunded and students admitted into the EDC program are often not able to attend.

It's amazing the great stuff that people are out there doing...