Leaving Lima

Hello again,

Here's hoping that this computer is friendlier to me than the last...I've got stories to tell.

The flight to Lima was really nice - Lan Peru knows how to treat their customers. We were served actual meals (2 of them!) on the 8 1/2 hour flight, and there was in-seat video for every passenger with a choice of 25 movies, several tv shows, several games, maps of our position and other things that I didn't have time to explore. Each person can choose to watch or do whatever they want, whenever they want. It was great! We arrived in Lima at about midnight, navigated the sea of people and bags and boxes and luggage in the customs area, and emerged into a cool Lima night by about 1am. Andreas, the other CSUC student travelling with me, has family here and three of them were waiting to greet him at the airport. So nice! There was also a car from the hostal waiting and our trip into town was smooth. There has been a surge of casino construction since I was last here. One place even had a Las Vegas style giant Statue of Liberty out front. It was ridiculous!

The hostal itself was very modest, but interesting because it is used primarily by adventure travellers (cavers, kayakers, and mountaineers). People from 76 countries have stayed there, and have left behind quite a nice library. They were full and had booked Andreas, my professor (P. Willey) and myself all in the same room, which wasn't exactly what we expected, but worked out fine. I claimed a top bunk and was grateful to have remembered to pack good pajamas!

Yesterday we had breakfast at the hostal (Nescafe, juice, bread and jam) and then headed out to visit an archaeological site just three blocks away. It was built by the Lima culture in 400AD, and is a huge pyramid of adobe bricks (pyramid in the Andes style - stepped and tall but not pointy on top). The bricks were arranged in layers, with a row of vertically positioned bricks with space between each topped with a "frosting" of clay. Additioinal layers are placed on top, resulting in an incredibly stable structue for earthquakes and the passage of time.

After the huaca (sacred site), we returned to the hostal and met up with the caving team. Steve, Scott and Roc are all from the US and have extensive experience caving in Peru, Mexico, the US, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and I'm sure several other places. We're in good hands. We all had lunch together, and then several of us headed over to the Museo Larco.

The Museo Larco is an amazing museum here in Lima. The textiles blew my mind. They have a piece there with a threadcount of 398 per inch, all made of thread created on a drop spindle and woven by hand. Incredible! There were several other pieces there of amazing complexity - so cool. They also have collections of stone carvings, ornamental metal work in gold and silver, and ceramics. It's the ceramics that really steal the show. The collection includes something like 50,000 pieces (really), which represent almost all of the early cultures of Peru, but particularly focus on the Moche. The Moche lived on the north coast between about 300 and 800AD and used ceramics to represent basically everything in their lives. They sculpted animals, plants, foods, portraits of people, depictions of people at work, at play, and in intimate situations as well. The museum includes an 'erotic' gallery with a whole collection of sexually themed pottery, as well as a vast repository of work sorted by theme (entire shelves of pots that look like corn, like bats, like people with illnesses, like people without illnesses, it goes on and on).

So, after thoroughly blowing our minds at the museum, we retunred to the hostal and then had dinner. Today we're about to board a bus which will take 20 hours or more and by tomorrow morning we should be in Chachapoyas. The latest weather report looks like lots of rain there, but we're hoping for the best. I'll update you when we arrive.

I hope everyone is well at home. I'm having a great time here. I love Peru!

Karen