Once upon a time – a long, long time ago – there were three best friends: Cami, Tarren, and Sharon. As often happens, they moved to different cities, started families, and pursued careers. Although they didn’t see each other much, they knew they held a special place in each other’s hearts. When Cami’s heart was broken, Tarren and Sharon wanted nothing more than for her to find true love and happiness again.
And then she did!
The three friends reunited the weekend of July 5 for Cami’s wedding to Mark, a kind and funny man who adores Cami, as well as her kids, dog, and extended family. Tarren and Sharon could tell this was the real deal, and their hearts were filled with joy.
Wedding Eve: Cami’s parents hosted a crab dinner. Denison (Cami’s son) tried to teach me how to dismantle a crab, but eventually he gave up teaching and just fed it to me instead. It was fantastic!
High school besties Tarren, Cami, and me, with Quinn (Cami’s daughter)
My “other” parents, Diana and Dwight (Cami’s real parents), who lived next door in Germany and supported me through puberty.
Table at the wedding reception for all of us who attended Mannheim American High School in the 1980s. So fun to see everyone!
The MHS gang: Vince, Katie, Cami, me, Tarren, and Cami’s brothers – Denny and Jason. None of this would have happened without Vince and Katie, who set up an account on match.com for Cami, despite her protestations. Katie screened potential “matches” and convinced Cami to give Mark a chance. One date, and Cami was hooked!
Me, Diana, the bride, and Tarren.
Mark, Quinn, Cami, and Denison. They are lucky kids to get such a great step-dad!
For the second year in a row, we’re not spending the summer in Lake Orion, Michigan. It’s weird. For 10 years, we traveled from wherever we lived at the time – Laos, India, Chile – to meet up with my extended family at our lake house. We poured thousands of dollars into updating and renovating. We lit flares, watched fireworks, and otherwise reveled in the lake culture at the Fourth of July. We sat on the grass while the kids waded, snorkeled, collected little shells, jumped off the dock, and eventually grew big enough to kayak around the island.
Now, life has taken us in a new direction. Our house is on the market. Check it out here.
And we have a new rental property in Florida. Check it out here.
My parents live just a few houses down the road from our Florida house, and my sister Megan and her family moved to Destin, a 6-hour drive away. For a family of nomads, it seems Florida is the reunion destination for now.
We kicked off our “winter break” from school in Chile with a visit to my sister’s house in Destin. My other sister Kate drove from Michigan with her three boys. We saw “Toy Story 4,” had a perfect beach day, set up the bouncy slide, played Quizlet, and reconnected.
After a few days, we all drove to The Villages to meet up with my parents. My brother, Mike, brought his family from Abu Dhabi, where he and Summer teach at the American Community School. Tony and I had planned to stay at our rental house. We hauled in our bags, unpacked a bit, and then got a message from my property manager saying someone had booked the place. I had forgotten to block the dates! So, we repacked, cleaned, and headed to a hotel.
We spent mornings by the hotel pool with all seven kids splashing and playing together. We met up for lunch and dinner and filled the afternoons with hanging out, chatting, watching the wildlife in my parents’ backyard, playing, and bowling. Dancing in the Spanish Springs town square in the evening is always a hoot with these little guys!
Cousins playing Guess Who?Megan taught me how to make DIY beauty products.Poor Buddy. So much love from so many small people.Tony with Jack and Annesley.Goofballs at the bowling alley.
As the school year wraps up, I know to anticipate one thing. Tony is off limits. He will either be (a) writing exams or (b) grading exams. And he is disinclined to give up weekend time when those tasks are looming over him.
Knowing that I know that, he generously threw me a bone at the end of May, before life got too hectic. Imagine my shock when he asked, “Want to take a day trip somewhere, maybe to a winery?” Ummm … OK? He even picked the winery: Santa Rita, less than an hour’s drive from Santiago.
Never mind that Santa Rita is the brand preferred by the homeless man who hangs out at our neighborhood supermarket, chugging wine from a tetrapack. I was just happy to get away!
We took our friends Stella and Ian, and I figured we’d be the only ones there. It was autumn in Chile, after all. Not peak season. Unfortunately, there was a huge group of cackley tourists. Funny how I like to BE the cackley tourist, but I don’t like to be AROUND the cackley tourists.
The tour was pretty standard. Quick introduction to the winery with a peek at the vines. Visit to one of the cellars. View of the bottling area. And then a wine tasting. There was an additional attraction: a cheesy little video with spotlights on mannequins reenacting a key event in the winery’s history.
Stella and I were especially excited to take the pedal bar tour, but unfortunately, our timing was off. We missed the tour, but jumped aboard for a photo.
Santa Rita may not be my favorite wine, but I love living in a country with a wine culture. How cool is it that we can just pop over to a winery for the day? So many wineries, so little time …
I have recently embarked on the “journey to zero waste,” which I’ve discovered is no small feat. I have many excellent mentors in my school community, who have come together in a group called “Global Ripple.” On May 18, a few of us met in a Nido science classroom for a workshop on making eco-friendly products for the home: laundry soap, cleaners, and beeswax covers for containers.
IngredientsCoop sawing soap.Ali stirring, stirring, stirring.Our teacherSarah gets a bunsen burner … much faster!My finished product!Stella irons her beeswax cloth.The Gibbs family: eco warriors!
I actually went home and made two more beeswax covers, which we now use instead of foil. Yay me!
In addition to my quest to reduce our household waste, I remain committed to vegetarianism. Since Tony – who has been the boss of the kitchen for our whole married life – is most definitely NOT interested in giving up meat, I have been forced to learn some cooking skills. I’m not going to lie. I don’t love cooking. I suck at chopping. I can’t deviate from a recipe without panicking. I get so frustrated when I can’t find the ingredients I need in Chile, and I don’t know how to make substitutions. So, clearly, I have a long way to go.
After making eco-friendly household products in the morning, I headed to a friend’s house in the afternoon for an Indian cooking class. Renu guided a group of ladies in whipping up a legit collection of delicious dishes. I mostly sipped wine and watched, although I did grate a lemon at one point. Everything seemed a little too complicated for me to ever reproduce on my own. However, in the next couple weeks, I actually made paneer (first try bombed, second try was a winner), chickpea masala, cucumber raita, and kachumba (marinated onion salad). Pretty dang proud of myself.
fresh ingredientsspices for garam masalabusy, busy, busyDinner time!
On June 2, another friend, Samantha, offered a bread-making class. We learned how to make a basic dough, and she provided some sourdough starter with the steps for keeping it alive. I tried to make sourdough bread at home, but it was less like bread and more like a tree stump. However, I succeeded with some mouth-watering dinner rolls. Is there anything better than hot, fresh bread with butter and honey?
Look what we made!Mmmm … perfecto.Taking it all seriously, as always.
Just one week into our second semester of the school year, I was ready for a break. Fortunately, another teacher, Tiffany, had organized a yoga retreat at the coast for the weekend. Double bonus: It was my birthday!
My actual birthday – Friday, Feb. 22 – was fabulous with a special lunch prepared by my EAL teaching team and the best cake of my life.
After school, I hopped in my car with two friends and took off for Canal Om, a seaside resort near the town of Los Vilos.
The location was stunning, even if the facilities were a bit neglected. Our meals were served by an eccentric female chef, who was possibly a bit obsessed with how each dish positively impacted our bodies. “Legumes are great for your period,” she said. What does that even mean?
Anyway, we ate, drank, soaked (in hot and coooold water), strolled around the gorgeous hills, practiced yoga, meditated, got reiki, and laughed. Just what I needed to kick off the semester.
Look at this place!
View from the restaurant steps
Seaside reiki
Very cold pool
Hot tub
Quiet time
Yoga studio
I skipped one yoga class to sit at the top of the hill and meditate with the Calm app on my phone. The beach is my happy place.
When you know you’re leaving Chile at the end of the school year and you have two brand-new knees, what can you do with a long weekend? That was the dilemma facing my friend, Nancy, who had a double knee replacement in January. She is moving to Prague in August, but she wanted to experience one more part of Chile before shipping out, and I wanted one more fun vacation together before saying good-bye. Bonus: Her daughter, Daisy, was coming to visit! We knew these guys during our India days, where Tony was Daisy’s English teacher for 9th and 10th grades.
Still… finding a fun outing in a country that mainly markets itself as an outdoor wonderland is no small feat for someone who only recently started going down stairs again. Nancy settled on Puerto Varas.
A quiet city in southern Chile’s Lake District, Puerto Varas is a hub for travelers who enjoy trekking, kayaking, and rafting. As for us, we spent the weekend strolling, snapping silly selfies, sipping coffee, and appreciating the beauty around us.
On our first full day, I woke early and wandered around town a bit. I found a travel agency and booked us a tour for the following day. After Nancy and Daisy met up with me at Café Mawen, I had already experienced this delicious coffee and a fabulous breakfast. We spent quite a bit of time at this cozy café overlooking Lake Llanquihue.
We decided to catch the public bus to Frutillar and hopped off just across from the town’s gorgeous Teatro del Lago (Theater of the Lake). The theater plays host to an annual festival of classical music and features rich musical and educational programming. According to the theater’s website,
The facade of the building is wood on bakelite, in an artistic and colorful work typical of the area (and also includes) a copper ceiling, a key product of Chilean mining. The entire building has an architectural concept that incorporates energy efficiency in harmony with the environment, as it has thermal and acoustic insulation on its facade and windows.
The building itself is gorgeous, but combine that with the lakefront and the iconic Osorno Volcano in the background. Pretty special.
I swear, all the dogs in this neck of the woods are healthy, happy, and friendly. And we petted nearly every one.
We missed some of the highlights of this little community, which is known for its German roots, but we walked along the lake, enjoyed the tranquility, and snacked on some ubiquitous kuchen.
Feeling pretty smug about our mastery of public transportation, we hopped on a bus back to Puerto Varas. After awhile, the driver looked back and asked us where we were going. “Puerto Varas,” Nancy answered. He immediately slammed on the brakes and ditched us on the side of the highway. We had missed our stop. We had actually missed the whole town. How can that even happen? After waiting for traffic to ease up, we dashed across the road (well, Nancy didn’t really dash) to catch a bus going the other way. The one that arrived was full, so the driver told Nancy to sit on the little ledge between the two front seats, facing backward. It was like the seat of shame.
Back in town, we visited this little Easter market and then hung out at a rooftop restaurant.
The next morning, we climbed aboard a tour bus. The tour description said:
A fascinating trip sailing on the emerald waters of the stunning Todos los Santos Lake, surrounded by volcanos and lush forests. We will visit the Petrohué Waterfalls and Peulla, a small ecological village hidden among the majestic Andes Mountain Range in Chilean Patagonia. There are a variety of activities available such as canopying, horse riding, hiking and our very own “El Encanto” excursion, as well as others depending on the time of year.
Our guide asked me if I wanted an excursion. I gestured to Nancy, who showed the scars on her knees, and I said, “She can’t really do any of those things.” He said, “Well, how about you?” Sigh…
The Saltos del Petrohué (Petrohué Waterfalls) were impressive with turquoise water blasting down a chute from the Petrohué River to the Todos los Santos Lake. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to linger.
Back on the bus for just another kilometer and we disembarked again to board our boat.
I took a gajillion photos, but they are all variations of this. Natural beauty, and more natural beauty. Mountains, volcanos, glaciers, forests, and the stunning lake.
We docked at the village of Peulla, where our options were “eat lunch at the hotel restaurant OR eat lunch at the hotel bar.” A shuttle took us to the hotel, and there was literally nothing else there. Decent food, nice view, a few too many drinks, and … back to the boat!
You know what you get when you mix Nancy and me with a pitcher of sangrias and a boat? Photo shoot! Daisy was a somewhat reluctant participant.
Another hysterical highlight of our day (and not just because of the sangria) was the English translation of the tour, which played on the bus. The poor guy clearly wasn’t a fluent English speaker, and he was obviously reading a poorly written script. We couldn’t figure out what he meant by the “funghi plume of ash” caused by a volcanic eruption until Tony later mentioned “a mushroom cloud.” Oh man, we were dying.
Once we returned to Puerto Varas, Nancy’s knees were shot. We got her back to the house, and then Daisy and I wandered to the casino. It was her first visit to a casino (not counting Las Vegas when she was 10) and her first michelada, a mix of beer, lime juice, and spices. She didn’t love it. The casino was pretty quiet. Note to self: It’s probably not the biggest attraction on Good Friday in a Catholic country. Anyway, we lost about $5 on the slot machines before heading home.
For our last day in Puerto Varas, we got a slow start with a leisurely breakfast at Café Mawen. We decided to take a stroll along the waterfront to a quirky art museum. Alas, it was closed. So, we continued walking to find another museum, which was also closed.
We fooled around on some exercise equipment, which was surprisingly fun but disappointingly not much of a workout.
By that point, Nancy needed a break, so we stopped for coffee at what turned out to be an indoor kiddie park. My nightmare! Still, there was only one child having a play, so it wasn’t too bad.
We caught an uber back to town for lunch. Another great view.
Lots of urban art in this little city.
Maybe we didn’t get the full backpacker experience of southern Chile, but we definitely got a taste of the region’s natural beauty, commitment to the arts, and warmth of the people.
Possibly the greatest perk to being a teacher is summer break. It’s an opportunity to rest and reenergize after a long, busy semester. If the break is overbooked, disappointing, or otherwise not restful, a teacher could struggle to face the first day of school.
In Chile, our “summer break” comes in December, and we return to school in February. Tomorrow, to be exact (Feb. 12). Unfortunately for us, this break was a big fail in a lot of ways. I realize it will be hard to garner sympathy when we just wrapped up seven weeks off work, spent time with family, did some sight-seeing in Chicago for a few days, and got to see “Hamilton.” But trust me, it was disappointing.
We kicked off the break with a week at my sister Megan’s house near Destin, FL. My other sister Kate drove down from Michigan with her three boys, and my parents made the trek from their central Florida home. Day after day, we laughed till our faces hurt. The kids presented skits, and we had a “white elephant” gift exchange on Christmas Eve. We played many rounds of Quiplash (which led to a ban on answers that included “poop” or “fart”). Christmas day was a blast with our traditional Nerf war and cinnamon buns, excited kids, and beach time. There may have been a few pranks (mom’s Italian pitcher wrapped up as a gift for Megan, fake tattoos of my dad’s signature…). We also packed in a visit to a state park and a dolphin-watching cruise during our visit.
At the end of the week, Tony flew to Michigan and I spent another week in Florida, in The Villages. I wanted to hang out with my parents and check on my rental property. I sat with my dad at chemotherapy every day, ran errands, visited with my renters (who were former neighbors of my parents in Michigan), chatted with my mom, and watched the wildlife in the backyard pond.
For New Year’s Eve, we enjoyed a fancy dinner and music at Katie Belle’s in the Spanish Springs town square. This year’s celebration wrapped up at 10:30 p.m. (unlike the last time we did this, when the champagne toast took place at 6:30 p.m.).
On Jan. 6, I flew to Michigan to meet up with Tony. We had to make some tough decisions. We had purchased our lake house in 2009 when my parents lived in Michigan, and we enjoyed many wonderful summers with friends and family swimming, kayaking, paddleboarding, and picnicking at Lake Orion. Now, my parents live in Florida, and we work in South America, where summers are winters and winters are summers. Our long “summer break” no longer takes place when my nephews and nieces have their summer break. I knew there was no hope of luring everyone to Michigan during our summer break, which is North American winter. Heck, I didn’t even want to be there!
So … what to do with that house? Instead of making a decision, we drove to Chicago for a few days.
A couple hours into our drive, we got smacked with a blizzard.
That slowed us down a bit, but eventually we reached Chicago’s funky Wicker Park neighborhood and our fabulous art-deco hotel, The Robey. I felt pretty proud of myself for using the SpotHero app to find a cheap-ish parking spot right next to the hotel. Weirdly, there was no snow in Chicago … yet.
That night, we enjoyed cocktails in The Up Room, our hotel’s 13th-floor rooftop lounge. Almost froze my face off to get this shot.
Wicker Park is chock full of hipster cafés and restaurants, but we especially loved Sultan’s Market, just a few steps from the hotel. Who knew you could eat like this for 7 bucks in Chicago?!
Tony and I mastered Chicago’s public transportation. We walked, bused, and zipped around town on “the L.”
The Field Museum blew our minds. We spent a whole day there and could have used more time. Some highlights … One spectacular exhibit walked us through the earth’s 4.6-billion-year timeline, including the present ice age. Another highlight was the fossil skeleton of SUE, a 40-foot-long and 90-percent-complete Tyrannosaurus rex. Displayed in a reproduction of a Late Cretaceous forest, SUE came to life through a wonderful digital presentation detailing its physical characteristics and its role in scientific research. We also walked through the “Underground Adventure,” which “shrinks” visitors to 1/100th of their actual size for encounters with life in the soil beneath our feet. Having visited both Egypt and Peru, I was especially interested in an exhibit that compared the mummification practices in the two ancient civilizations. We also watched a 4-D movie about Egypt. What a fantastic museum!
My obsession with beluga whales brought us to Shedd Aquarium. We went to the show, which is way more educational and less exploitative than I remember from past visits to aquariums!
At the Art Institute, we definitely felt the benefit of traveling during the low season. There was no jostling through the crowd. We just meandered and paused at will, taking time to marvel at some of the world’s most iconic artworks.
Our last night in Chicago, we went to The Second City. Here’s the website’s description of the show: “Unseen forces have assessed the data to create the perfect comedy content for all humans! Algorithm Nation or The Static Quo takes no prisoners (well, maybe just a few prisoners) during this frenetic, ultra-current, fall-down funny ride that focuses its sights on hyper-violence, astrological love connections, being woke, pyramid schemes, Facebook soldiers, Black Twitter, morning TV and a whole lot more. Consider this show to be the kind of escape room you’ll never want to escape from…ever.”
We had front-row seats, which I half-feared and half-hoped meant that we would be part of the show. Not only were we part of the show, I OPENED the show! After a simulated mass shooting, one of the “victims” crawled across the stage and handed me a piece of paper and a microphone. “Stand up and read it,” he gasped. So I did. It was full of hilarious – albeit crass – commentary on the impending performance, including one word I had never heard before. (It’s too gross to include on this family-friendly blog. Ha!) Anyway, I’m basically famous now. So cool!
The most stupendous experience of our week and, in fact, the whole reason we went to Chicago was to see the hip-hop musical sensation, “Hamilton.” I was more than a little excited.
Look how close we were!
Before the show started, I managed to contain my enthusiasm. That didn’t last long. As soon as I heard the opening notes, I got chills and started grinning. I kept catching myself sitting on the edge of my seat, mouth agape, eyes wide. Occasionally the people in the next row would turn back and look at me because I was singing out loud. I knew the songs by heart, but I couldn’t have anticipated how much the live show would affect me. Goosebumps. Tears. Overwhelming emotions. I almost can’t even write about it without getting the shakes.
By the time we left Chicago, it was transformed into a Winter Wonderland, aka Sharon’s Version of Hell.
Back in Michigan, the Polar Vortex was wreaking havoc. Heaps of snow, icy winds, and temperatures that dipped as low as -30ºF one night. Ice hockey players skated around the lake, and I even saw a guy ice fishing.
Neighbors playing hockey.My sister Kate and her boys.A polar vortex rainbow … er, snowbow.
That was amusing for about five minutes. We knew we had to make a decision about our house, and I’m not gonna lie, this weather made that tough decision a little easier.
We decided to sell.
With somewhat heavy hearts, we sorted through 10 years of stuff that had collected at our lake house. Closets full of outdated clothes (we kept the same summer wardrobe here year after year). Thirteen life jackets with sizes ranging from newborn to adult XXL. Bins of old books and broken toys. Unwanted furniture and tools. A drawer full of chargers and random cords. Two children’s kayaks, outgrown by all the nephews and nieces. The list goes on.
After hauling many loads to The Salvation Army thrift shop, selling a few things, giving a LOT away on Craig’s List, and loading up our neighbor’s van with freebies, we packed up the rest and put it in storage. Then we cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned.
Here are the “after” shots.
Living room/kitchen.
Living room/kitchen.
Kitchen.
View from kitchen into living room.
Laundry room.
Dining room.
Hall from living room to master bedroom (with pocket door to the basement).
Hall closets.
Master bedroom.
Huge master bedroom closet.
Built-in office space in the master bedroom.
Master bath.
Guest bedroom.
Guest bedroom.
New flooring in guest bath.
Basement utility room.
Basement.
Basement storage space.
Our realtor plans to put our house on the market in March. Interested?
After escaping from blustery Michigan, I spent another week in Florida with my parents while Tony flew straight back to Chile to welcome his sisters. Liz had visited us in India, but this was Angela’s first trip out of the country. Tony played tour guide for a few days, taking his sisters to the hot spots in and around the Santiago.
When I returned to Chile, I joined them for a day trip into the Andes Mountains. We drove to Valle Nevado, a ski resort about two hours from our apartment. As we drove higher, the hairpin curves got tighter and steeper. At the top, giant condors soared overhead.
We ate lunch at the restaurant and then rode the chairlift up for the view.
A couple days later, Tony took Liz and Angela to the airport and sent them home to North American winter. And just like that, our “summer break” was over.
Unlike some of our friends and colleagues, we didn’t hang out at a Brazilian beach or shop for handicrafts in Mexico City. We didn’t hike in Patagonia or ski in Japan. We didn’t snorkel in the Galapagos Islands or traipse around Australia.
I had planned to study Spanish and practice yoga every day, but days slipped by without my cracking a book or rolling out my mat. I thought I would spend lots of time with my sister and her kids in Michigan, but once we decided to sell the house, we spent every waking moment working to get it ready. I found myself crabby and resentful over spending such a cherished holiday doing such mundane things.
Then I felt guilty for feeling crabby. We’re so lucky, aren’t we? To live abroad and have so many wonderful opportunities?
Then I felt crabby again. Of course we’re fortunate, but that doesn’t make it any easier to return to the demanding work of teaching young children without the rest and regeneration that usually comes with a long break.
So, here we are, back at school. You know what that means? Time to get away for a weekend!
From Ollantaytambo, we drove back to Cusco, stopping at several attractions along the way.
First, we visited the Salinas de Maras, evaporation pools for mining salt high above the river valley. About 5,000 small pools line the hillsides like a haphazard patchwork quilt. Maintained by a cooperative of local families, the pools fill with spring-fed water that evaporates in the hot, dry sunshine. Workers gently scrape the salt from the sides and bottom of the pool and pile it in baskets to drain. Then they dam up the pool to fill again.
Salt ponds are more commonly found on coastal plains, filled with seawater from the incoming tide. The ones in Peru are at an altitude of 3,000 metres. It’s a long way to the ocean, but it wasn’t always so; this impressive mountain range was once part the sea floor.
The movement of tectonic plates pushed the seabed up to form the Andes. The sea salt was locked into the rocks and filters out through the Qoripujio spring.
The Incas (early 13th century to 1572) are credited with many of Peru’s striking constructions, but these ponds were created during the Chanapata Culture (AD200 to AD900).
Berlin kept sticking her fingers in the spring to suck off the salty water, and I have to admit I nibbled on a few chunks of salt.
Seeing these people working in the pools gave me a new appreciation for artisan salt. The process hasn’t changed much in more than 1,000 years.
Our next stop in the Sacred Valley was Moray. Archaeologists speculate that the terraced concentric circles may have been used as an agricultural research laboratory. According to Atlas Obscura:
Studies have shown that many of the terraces contain soil that must have been imported from other parts of the region. The temperature at the top of the pits varies from that at the bottom by as much as 15ºC, creating a series of micro-climates that — not coincidentally — match many of the varied conditions across the Incan empire, leading to the conclusion that the rings were used as a test bed to see what crops could grow where.
We had planned to visit the town of Chinchero, but we were getting tired and hungry. We decided to skip it. Our driver noted that an Andean crafts market in the Chinchero District was on the way to Cusco. Did we want to stop there? Yes, please!
This friendly guy greeted us at the market.
Stella’s daughter, Mane, poses for a pano.
Inside, we found a collection of tables operated by families who have passed down their skills for generations. A friendly lady in stunning Andean clothing demonstrated the process of washing alpaca wool, spinning it into yarn, and dyeing it with natural pigments.
She also explained that a special red hue came from the cochineal, a parasitic insect. She smashed a dried cochineal between her fingers, releasing a bright red stain that she spread on her lips for long-lasting color. “You can even kiss your boyfriend!” she said. “It won’t come off!” Stella also applied a little bug-based lip stain.
I’m a sucker for textiles, and I enjoyed chatting with the families about their weaving techniques and symbolism in the finished pieces.
Tony and I bought a table runner from a husband and wife weaving team, and before we could stop them, they had placed the runner around my shoulders and put their own hats on our heads so we could pose for a photo.
Back in Cusco, we hung out at a café beside the Plaza de Armas for awhile. Berlin wanted a taste of michelada, a blend of beer, lime, salt, hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce. That girl is such a drama queen.
That evening, Peter babysat while the rest of us enjoyed a night on the town. We found many interesting galleries and shops lining the narrow cobblestone alleys.
Our absolutely dreamy dinner at Cicciolina was the perfect ending to this Peruvian vacation, where we found fantastic food at every stop. I’m cracking up in this photo because the waiter was nearly sitting in another diner’s lap to get the shot. You can see him reflected in the mirror behind us. Hysterical!
The next morning, we flew back to Santiago, but not before customs agents flagged Ian and Peter for additional screening. Stella thought the metal skewers Peter had brought from the States might have looked suspicious, but in fact, the 12 boxes of macaroni and cheese he had brought for his grand-daughter smacked of drug smuggling. Agents busted open one of the boxes and tested the cheesy powder before finally releasing the men for the trip home.
After regrouping outside the Machu Picchu historic site, we were all ready to take a bus back down the mountain, when Ian lost his dad.
The line for the buses snaked out of sight, so Ian and Stella took the girls to the café to get a snack, but Peter was nowhere to be found. I searched for awhile in vain while Tony held my place in line. Eventually, he turned up, after enjoying a cocktail in the swanky Hiram Bingham Hotel.
We all retrieved our luggage from our hilltop hotel and met at the train station for the short journey to Ollantaytambo.
I love arriving at a destination in the dark and then waking up in the morning to see where you are. That’s what happened here.
In the mid-15th century, Ollantaytambo was conquered by Inca Emperor Pachacuti, who rebuilt the town to serve as his personal estate. Laid out in a grid with narrow crisscrossing cobblestone roads, the village remains much as it was at that time.
People still live in the original one-room homes in small walled compounds with a central courtyard. We popped in to one of the homes, where tour guides had brought visitors for a glimpse of “real” life. A couple beds were pushed up against the wall, and scores of guinea pigs ran loose, dashing under the beds to avoid the tourists’ clunky hiking boots. We assumed this painting depicted the homeowners.
Stella’s girls posed with the home’s inhabitants. After sampling quite a few guinea pigs during our trip, Stella morbidly portrayed the likely fate of those little tourist attractions.
Hanging out in the village, we watched people going about their regular business dressed in colorful Andean clothing.
This lady had a lamb in her backpack.
Some locals know a good thing when they see it, so they approach tourists for a few soles in exchange for a photo. These little guys sang for us while we ate dinner.
Of course, the real draw of Ollantaytambo is its ruins. Tony and I toured the site with a guide named Julissa. She explained that Emperor Pachacuti started construction of a massive temple on the steep hill called Cerro Bandolista. The stones came from the Chachiqata quarry across the 1,000-foot deep valley.
This “Wall of the Six Monoliths” was part of the unfinished sun temple. Each stone weighs up to 100 tons. How did they move these from the quarry? How did they cut the stones so perfectly? Nobody knows.
In addition to the temple, the site features agricultural terraces climbing up the mountainsides. Farmers grew potatoes, quinoa, corn, flowers, and medicinal plants.
In the Smithsonian article, “Farming Like the Incas,” archaeologist Ann Kendall describes the engineering genius of terracing:
The terraces leveled the planting area, but they also had several unexpected advantages, Kendall discovered. The stone retaining walls heat up during the day and slowly release that heat to the soil as temperatures plunge at night, keeping sensitive plant roots warm during the sometimes frosty nights and expanding the growing season. And the terraces are extremely efficient at conserving scarce water from rain or irrigation canals, says Kendall. “We’ve excavated terraces, for example, six months after they’ve been irrigated, and they’re still damp inside. So if you have drought, they’re the best possible mechanism.” If the soil weren’t mixed with gravel, points out Kendall, “when it rained the water would log inside, and the soil would expand and it would push out the wall.” Kendall says that the Incan terraces are even today probably the most sophisticated in the world, as they build on knowledge developed over about 11,000 years of farming in the region.
Our guide, Julissa, also showed us Incan storehouses designed for optimal air circulation. Grain was dumped in the top and collected at the bottom.
Our tour continued through a funerary sector and down to a series of canals and fountains, evidence of the ancient irrigation system.
Emperor Pachacuti mysteriously abandoned construction of his temple, but the hill served another important role after the arrival of Spanish conquistadors. In the Battle of Ollantaytambo, the head of the Inca resistance, Manco Inca, led about 30,000 men to fend off an attack by an expedition of Spaniards under the command of Hernando Pizarro. Standing at the top of the hill, looking over the valley, I wondered how Manco Inca felt about the inequity of his plight. His band of conscripted farmers, armed with machetes and other rudimentary weapons, faced soldiers who had the advantages of armor, horses, and guns.
If, like me, you want to spend hours learning more about this stuff, here’s one interesting summary about the Spanish conquest of Peru on the Heritage History website.
I still felt a little stupid for not getting a guide at Machu Picchu, but touring the Ollantaytambo ruins with Julissa made up for it.
All that walking and talking in the hot sun meant only one thing. Time for a beer break.
The ruins of Machu Picchu cling to the hills above the Urubamba River. Two mountain peaks feature ticketed hikes for a bird’s eye view of the famous Inca citadel. We chose to climb Montaña Machu Picchu, billed as taller but easier to summit than Huaynu Picchu. Much to Stella’s chagrin, our ticket time was 7 a.m. Ian agreed to meet us at the park with his dad and the kids around 9.
Tony and I had a vision of being the first ones in the park, so we dragged Stella down, down, down to the bus stop at 5:15 a.m. only to find the line stretching back up, up, up the hill.
The night sky gradually gave way to dawn, dashing my hopes of a Machu Picchu sunrise photo. Buses came and went, and finally we boarded one for the 30-minute ride up the winding narrow road to the historic ruins.
I had been dreaming of a guided tour since we booked this trip. I couldn’t wait to hear the stories and ask my questions. I immediately latched on to a guide at the entrance, and she told us she had two other English speakers ready to go. Fortunately, I remembered we had tickets for the mountain hike. “You need to do that first then,” the guide said. “You need to go now!”
She was right. We followed the signs to the Montaña entrance and waited in yet another line for about 15 minutes. We got a quick glimpse of the ruins before fog rolled in, which made us a little grumpy and concerned that we wouldn’t get to see the panoramic view spotlighted on every postcard.
Eventually, we reached the entrance to the mountain hike, showed our passports, signed in to a huge registration ledger, and began the trek.
We had a little giggle at this sign. “All are stairs. 2670 stairs.” It’s like they were asking, “Are you sure you want to do this? Do you REALLY understand that ALL are STAIRS?” Tony kept repeating, “All are stairs!” as we climbed up all the freakin’ stairs. And it’s not like the Incas put much effort into building this staircase with equal-sized steps, or maybe the stones have eroded in the last 500 years. The uneven surfaces, combined with sheer drop-offs and breath-sucking altitude, created quite a challenge for three out-of-shape travelers. That said, Stella reached the top about 10 minutes ahead of Tony and me. She said she used speed skating arm movements to create momentum and got in a rhythm.
For some perspective, here are some of the steps we climbed.
Our early start paid off. While there were other hikers on the trail, we rarely encountered each other on the trip up in the cool morning air. We were among the first 20 or so people to reach the summit after about an hour and a half on the Incan StairMaster.
My fantasy of a zip line back down the mountain didn’t materialize. We had to hike down the way we came up, which turned out to be much, much harder on our knees and exhausted quads. At one point, Stella said, “I can only step down with my left leg! It’s like my right leg is attached to someone else.”
We also had to flatten ourselves against the hillside repeatedly to make space for passing climbers. Several doubled over, panting, “Is it much further?” I felt a bit sorry for them, hiking up in the blazing sunshine, but it felt good to say, “Oh yeah, you still have an hour to go!”
Our roundtrip hike took about three hours, so Stella missed her 9 a.m. meeting time with Ian. Fortunately, he had found the entrance to our mountain hike and wrote her a note in the registration ledger, which she saw while signing out. What a smart guy!
Oh, I failed to mention that every book and every blog we had read about visiting Machu Picchu warned emphatically, “You can NOT bring any food or water into the park!” So we didn’t, and we nearly died. By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain, we were dehydrated and exhausted. Visitors who climb one of the mountains are allowed to leave the park and re-enter once. That gave us the opportunity to gulp down some water at the park’s café. Craving both salt and sugar, I also slammed a Sprite and ate a bag of Doritos. (By the way, we saw scads of tourists with bottles of water inside the park. Dang it.)
After our rest, we re-entered the park, and Stella took off to find her family. By then, I knew I didn’t have the stamina for a tour. Tony and I wandered around the ruins, listening in occasionally to other people’s guides. By the time we had followed the marked paths through most of the site, the afternoon tour groups were flooding in. Seemed like a good time to get out of there.
During our travels, I read the book Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step and a Time, by Mark Adams. Both hilarious and enlightening, the book offered fascinating glimpses into the Inca Empire and the generations of researchers who have tried to understand it. The author details his re-creation of the journey that led to Machu Picchu’s “discovery” by controversial Yale University professor Hiram Bingham in 1911. Bingham thought he had found the legendary Vilcabamba, “the lost city of the Incas,” where the last Incan rulers ultimately lost their battle with the Spanish conquistadores in 1572. (In fact, Vilcabamba is now believed to be located at the ruins of Espíritu Pampa, which was also discovered but dismissed by Bingham. American explorer Gene Savoy led the excavation of that site and found it to be much bigger than Machu Picchu.)
I’ve been sitting here, typing and deleting, typing and deleting, typing and deleting as I try to describe Machu Picchu. It feels impossible to capture it … the glory of its sacred valley, the mystery of its purpose, the interconnectedness of its construction with celestial symbolism, the genius of its architecture, the whimsy of its llamas grazing on ancient terraces, the shadows cast by its holy mountains. Occasionally while walking through the site, I found myself alone. Tony would wander off during a break in the rolling waves of tourists. And I could turn in a slow circle, imagining life as it was when up to 1,000 elite Incans came here for a little luxury get-away (that’s one theory, anyway), never bothered by invading Europeans. Must have been pretty special.
Woo hoo! A break in the fog.
How did the Incas carve these stones with no steel tools?
Terraces for farming withstood heavy rains and featured brilliant drainage systems.
As we discovered in the rainforest of Costa Rica, Tony’s superpower is spotting wildlife. He did it again at Machu Picchu. It looked like a rabbit-squirrel hybrid, but we think it was a chinchilla.
Enjoying the view.
I could have sat here, staring at this all day, if only 90 million people weren’t about to stampede over me.
Tony appreciating our parting shot.
This short National Geographic video offers a nice description of Machu Picchu.
