National Lampoon's Vacation

Had to use this title again sooner or later. Even though we're now in LA near Venice Beach I'm going to back track to tell you about Arizona.

Generally tourist pictures of the Grand Canyon don't include snow but believe me it snows. When we were there walkers were recommended to wear ice crampons and with good reason. Just after reading about a 24 year old marathon runner who died of heat exhaustion when she under estimated the difficulty of one of the Canyon trails in summer, I almost became a winter casualty when I slipped on an ice patch walking around the rim at Grand View. Luckily I survived to appreciate one of the most famous views in the world.



No matter how many pictures you've seen it still takes your breath away. There's also always something that you didn't expect. For example, as you drive towards the canyon you can see what seems to be a range looming out of the desert almost 40 miles away. Infact it's the northern wall of the canyon which rises 1500 feet higher than the southern wall. Access to the northern rim is completely closed in winter by snow.

Anyway the morning we visited the southern rim it was quite warm and what snow there was was rapidly melting. Pictures will never do it justice but we will post some shortly.

After a couple of hours at the canyon we made our way south to Phoenix and experienced one of the most dramatic changes in climate possible without getting on a plane.

Tempe, Arizona State University and the extraordinary hospitality of our old Bondi neighbours the Smiths, will be the subject of our next post before we get on to the horror of LA freeways.

Deliverance

Last night we were to spend the night in the town of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico. As you might imagine it's the type of place where you pop into the local supermarket to pick up some Jack Daniels and the checkout bag packer spends five minutes telling you what a lousy place it is. It's a town that chose to change its name from Hot Springs in 1950 as part of a publicity stunt for a radio program and despite numerous plebicites has steadfastly refused to change back and is known by locals as T or C.

We chose to take the bag packer's advise and moved on down the road to Elephant Butte. This of course elicited all kinds of jokes about signs informing us that "You are now entering Elephant Butte" and arguments about the correct way to pronounce the name. It's a fairly nice place where the largest lake in New Mexico is located.



Today has been a long day on the road and we've driven through an amazing variety of landscape on the way to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We're really into snow country now and the kids have been very excited, with a lunch time snow fight.



I've never seen, or even imagined, desert snow and it's spectacularly beautiful. This afternoon we drove through the "painted desert" out of which a spectacular mountain range ascends from a flat desert plain that extends to the horizon. You can see it from 100 miles away and then you're suddenly in Flagstaff and you are surrounded by snow and connifer forests. That's where we are now.

Even Cowgirls get the Blues

Unless they're wearing boots like these ... Yes, I know they are pink, but the beauty of cowboy boots is that you don't have to show the fancy top bit.



The major excitement yesterday for the kids was seeing snow, leftover from last week's unusual snowfall. The day itself was bright and sunny and warm, making the snow even more of novelty.



We also visited the MacDonald Observatory, and saw some very big telescopes (Phoebe was disappointed we couldn't look through them), and we also had a solar viewing, which was incredible.

Then we came back to our site and I cooked chile and cornbread for dinner, while Hol & Andrew did a bit of baseball practice. See, we're practically Texans.

Zoolander

Speaking of faux celebrity and all that jazz, it turns out we were on a plane with the Dixie Chicks and Andrew only happened to mention it to me TODAY, FOUR DAYS later. 'Oh yes', he says, 'the three chicks with big hair who the gay flight attendant was really excited about'.

Oh My God. And apparently Brad and Angelina are moving to New Orleans and were quite probably there while we were tootling around.

This is the blog of celebrity misses.

I am writing this exciting celebrity post from Fort Davis, the highest town in Texas, on the night of the SuperBowl. It's just excitement all the way.



Silliness aside, Fort Davis is gorgeous. Today we drove from San Antonio, and decided to take Highway 90 instead of the hideous Interstate 10. It was a good call. Eventually I will put up some photos, but they don't do it justice. Real road movie scenery - I saw turkey buzzards, a road runner, and lots of dead rabbits. Andrew saw elks and some giant sheep things, the names of which we were told but have promptly forgotten. We are on the lookout for cougar, live jackrabbits, deer and funny little black pigs (yeah, so, this is what the locals told us).



We are so taken with this spot that we have decided to stay another night. As we have a pretty leisurely schedule tomorrow, we may even blog and put up some photos, if any of you people (apart from my mother) would actually read this thing and comment ...

Apollo 13

We're on the road ... Yesterday morning we were picked up from our hotel in Dallas and driven through miles of malls to the RV depot. After much admin (but very nice people indeed), we were finally allowed to drive off in our lovely little (compared to some of the buses that people drive) RV, who we have christened George Washington because it has Washington plates.



Our first day of driving was a bit of a trial by fire - unusual weather (killing several people in Florida), heavy rain on our route, hideous traffic and the added complication of never having driven on the right ... But we made it.

Texas countryside thus far has been dull in the extreme, since we have done nothing but drive along Interstates. But we did get to the Space Centre today and it was incredible. We got to see the command centre for the actual Apollo 13 mission. The kids were ho-hum, while we were awestruck. Especially when the guide told us that they did it all with about 400 kilobytes of computer power.

Tomorrow we head into San Antonio, but the adventure really begins the next day, when we plan to drive to Alpine for some real Wild West landscape. Despite the apparent wilderness, we will apparently have wi-fi at our RV site, so expect to hear from me, especially if I spot some tumbleweed.

PS For those of you who understand about shoes, I am planning to buy cowboy boots in either Texas or New Mexico ... two and a bit months in hiking boots is taking its toll.

The Big Easy

True to form, I am now blogging about New Orleans from Dallas, where we are holed up for one night before collecting our RV.

New Orleans was just as beautiful as I imagined, although still very much recovering from Katrina. The newspaper still had cover stories about Katrina every day we were there, and talking to locals (which is what happens when you get a bus to a shopping area outside of tourist town) gave us a sense of how much the city has suffered. Even downtown there are still a lot of shops closed.

Travelling on a very tight budget as we are, our version of a steamboat trip on the Mississippi was a free ferry ride from one side to the other. Andrew and I amused ourselves greatly by reminiscing about how our own parents would have done just the same thing - always the cheap (preferably free) version of whatever everyone else was doing! The kids just looked at us in puzzlement and asked what the point was. We just wanted to say we'd been on the Mississippi.

We've been generally impressed with the famed Southern hospitality and courtesy - and boy, these people are chatty. People just talk to you when you're on the bus, at a restaurant ... anywhere, in fact. I never thought of Australians as reserved, but we obviously have some English reserve compared to Americans (or Southerners, at least). We met some locals at the Acme Oyster House (no, truly, that's what it's called) and they asked us 'Do y'all think we have accents?' What could we say?!

Anyway, Dallas is not the most thrilling place we've been, but the kids are watching Mythbusters, Andrew is snoozing, and we have wireless internet in our hotel room, so all is good. Future instalments may be even more sporadic - in addition to our natural laziness, I'm not sure how much access we're going to have on the Great RV Journey.

By the way, I overcame that laziness to upload a couple of photos, so please do scroll down and take a look ... I promise to add more once I've had a Jack Daniels ...

Goodbye Mr Chips

Like so much of this blog this title is a little old because Holden and I are sitting in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, New Orleans enjoying free wireless internet. Even so, it did apply three days ago as we said goodbye to the people of Pumarmarca, recieving an emotional sendoff by people those we have come to love over the last two months.

After a somewhat torrid journey lasting 32 hours we had lunch today of gumbo and oyster po boy in a bar on the famous Bourbon Street. We can't quite believe we are here and I think our culture shock is more than if we did not speak English. Our taxi driver from the airport spoke with such a strong Haitian accent that it was easier for Tiff to speak French than attempt communication any other way. Right now we are exhausted, it is 50F and raining, but we are so excited nothing could dampen our spirits.

Life Is Beautiful

We have returned from the Inca Trail and are enjoying our last few days in Cusco before we make our way to the US.

The four day walk to Machu Picchu must rank as one of the most fantastic experiances of my life. It was also great to share it with Tony, Jen and Austin.

However, please let me put the achievement of our children into context. The four day version of the Inca Trail is 45km of hard walking. In a recent SMH article a ¨celebrity chef" described the second day of the Inca trail as the most difficult achievement of his life. On the second day the trail rises over 1200m to ¨dead woman´s pass" at an altitude of 4200m in a single morning. As Phoebe ascended this section she was singing "Jesus Christ Superstar" while passing adults who were literally in tears of pain. When Phoebe, Holden and Austin reached the pass in good spirits without being carried one inch, fellow walkers waiting at the top in exhaustion burst into spontaneous applause when they saw the kids strolling by. By the end of the walk the kids had become minor celebrities on the trail and we were being approached by strangers wanting to photograph the amazing kids who had walked the trail. All the children walked the whole trail without being carried and without complaint and I am so proud of them.









The trail itself is incredibly beautiful, with the 500 year old cobbled track winding its way through the Andes connecting increasingly impressive Incan ruins. Machu Picchu is almost beyond description in its stunning location, extraordinary engineering and unique religious significance. We also became very used to having an army of porters to spoil us, making camp before we arrived, providing extraordinary meals and waking us with cocoa tea in our tents at the beginning of each day. The only way to camp.

We are all very sad to be leaving Cusco, but are also very busy finishing off our projects in Pumamarca and packing up. Tomorrow we have the closing ceremony for the Pumamarca Olympics and will hand out prizes and gifts to the kids.

Will try to get in another blog before we leave for Lima on Friday.

Working Nine to Five

We´re not really working too hard but we are trying to pack everything in as we leave on Jan 26 for the US and on Wednesday we´re off to Machu Picchu for four days.

Jen, Tony and Austin have arrived and we´ve been having a fabulous time.

This weekend we all went to Pisac and stayed in the Royal Inca Hotel for a night to go shopping at the famous markets and show them the Sacred Valley. The Cusco ¨futbol¨ team Cienciano, which we saw play four weeks ago, just happened to be at the same hotel on a training weekend. Of course sitting alone at the bar Jen and Tiff met the manager.

We´ve all been working quite hard at Pumamarca and after a bit of a marketing campaign the summer school is now going really well. Today Jen, Tony and Austin joined us and we had over 50 kids for our Pumamarca Olympics. At the moment Australia and Italy are neck and neck on 26 points with Indonesia and Canada fighting it out on 18 and 15. Next week we will have finals and presentation of prizes - provided by Jen.

Tiff is also working hard with the adults in the community and ¨talleres¨, which is a workshop to create saleable handicrafts. She´s achieving fantastic things with it but I´d better let her tell you about that.

Sorry this is so short, but we´re really short of time.

Swimming to Cambodia

We have been impossibly slack and impossibly busy and we're now a long way behind on our blog. Sorry...

However, back last year we went on a journey to Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable freshwater lake that also marks the border between Peru and Bolivia.

As is often the case when you are in some Andean backwater between Cusco and Puno, I ran into a former colleague from the City of Sydney travelling through South America on hols. To our delight, Victor and his girlfriend Keturah were on the same lake tour and we really enjoyed their company over the next few days.

To an Australian, Lake Titicaca may as well be the ocean with water stretching to the horizon in many places and only the snow capped mountain ranges of Bolivia reminding you that you are 3800m above sea level. Walking up a hill achieves the same effect.

After a somewhat touristy visit to a floating reed village we spent the night on the island of Amantani. We stayed with a family in this fantastic community and stunning location. An evening of dancing and beer at altitude really sorts you out.

The next day we left early and visited Taquile island ... where single and married men wear special Catelan hats. It was such awesome weather that after lunch I went swimming with some "loco" Canadians. Yes, it was cold.



Back in Puno a dispute with our hotel ended up costing us dearly. When we refused one of the reception staff a bribe to use the shower before our overnight bus ride back to Cusco we ended up homeless for several hours. This didn't seem too much of a problem as some friendly aussies let Tiff use their shower and we had a fabulous dinner with Victor and Keturah. Our problems started when we decided to get ourselves to the bus station rather than get a transfer from the hotel. Before we knew it our luxury first class bus had transformed into a local bus, complete with sacks full of potatoes, chickens and a smell that can't really be described. It was a difficult night, but we survived and we are stronger, especially our auto immune systems.

The Polar Express

Christmas came and went and we didn’t convert to Catholicism (although Phoebe remains a little up in the air on that front).

There was a huge market on the Plaza De Armas in Cusco on Christmas Eve and we exhausted ourselves buying fireworks and didn’t make it back for Christmas mass. Even so, we did have a tour of the cathedral on boxing day and it is amazing. The ability of the Catholics to adapt local religions to their own – at least until they reach a critical mass after which they simply massacre non believers – is truly astounding. The cathedral contains many wonderful artworks dating from the 16th century, but one of the most impressive is a 17th century adaptation of the Last Supper. Not only is the direct gaze of Judas truly frightening, but the disciples are hoeing into local fair, including a very distinctive guinea pig in the middle of the table. There is also an amazing 16th century choir stall, which took over a decade to carve. In addition to 40 something male and 30 something female saints it also contains quite unCatholic miniature images of a topless female at each choir stall. It is none other than “Pachamama” the pre Inca pregnant image of mother earth that has been worshipped in the Andes for thousands of years.

Christmas day itself was fairly traditional. We were joined by everyone from Peru’s Challenge for ham, turkey, champagne and fireworks. I’d definitely like to add the latter to an Aussie Christmas. There is something very jolly about blowing things up.

We did miss everyone at home though and I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year.

We have since been to Lake Titicaca, swam in the highest navigable freshwater lake in the world and experienced the true horror of an overnight local bus from Puno. But that will have to wait for another blog.

Fever Pitch

On Friday Andrew braved torrential rain and inadequate Spanish to buy us tickets for the soccer Grand Final last night – Cusco (Cienciano) v Lima Alliance. We got there late, as we had been waiting for El Presidente and VP of Peru’s Challenge to call us and arrange where to meet (we had bought them tickets as requested). They never did bother.

We got there to find our gate closed, and joined the rush to the next gate around. For a few minutes we didn’t think we’d get in, and we certainly didn’t think we’d get much of a view. But we found a great spot behind the goal (also behind a row of riot squad police enclosing the more rabid Lima fans), and the game was fantastic. Cusco scored the only goal towards the end of the first half, and the celebrations were incredible. The photo is a blurry mess, but you get the idea. And the kids got Cusco jerseys, so they were happy.

It was a wonderful experience, even the spatter of rain and hail at half time. When the rain came, everyone donned their colourful plastic ponchos, and the stadium looked like it was lined with fairy bread. The rain cleared for the second half, and only started belting down again just as we’d finally got ourselves a cab …

Now I am off to the markets to buy fruit and veg for tomorrow. Later we will go into the Plaza de Armas for the Christmas Fair and we are even planning to go to Mass, like the dedicated Catholics we are ...

Bad Santa

Feliz Navidad. For those of you who have remarked on Andrew’s likeness to Billy Bob Thornton, here is a photo.

We have had lots of Christmas festivities up at Pumamarca, with our trusty driver Benjamin playing Papa Noel, and Holden and Phoebe being Christmas elves.

The nativity scene with the live donkey was a highlight!

It’s now Christmas Eve here, which is when the real party happens here. At home it is the early hours of Christmas morning, so Happy Christmas to all. We would love to call people, but Peru’s Challenge neglected to pay the house phone bill, so we can’t make calls out, even with prepaid phone cards. We’re not ignoring you … But you can ring us, so please do (we are 16 hours behind and the number is lower down the blog).

We are supposed to be hosting Christmas lunch here, but as our kitchen has flooded for the last two nights, things are in doubt.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

When we first arrived in Cusco, I saw a flyer for the Sacred Valley with a small typo, rendering it the Scared Valley. Indeed. As many of you may know, I have a serious aversion to heights. Even more so to climbing two-foot wide stone steps carved out of a cliffside with a sheer drop of around three hundred feet to one side, in the rain. They are circled in red on the photo. (The other photo shows what awaits you when you’ve made it to the top of the steps.) But I managed, and by the time we had reached the bottom, I was feeling positively elated. I thought I might be on the way to curing my phobia.

Then, as we were driving down the mountain, I looked up. There was a bus in the lower car park, with the whole of its back end, bar the wheels, jutting over the cliffside, just hanging over a drop of a couple of hundred feet. I think that’s what did it. That night I had nightmares about heights. I’m not cured.

Cliff Hanger

Two days touring the Sacred Valley of the Incas earlier this week was an incredible experience.

It´s a cultivated patchwork valley through which the Urubamba river snakes; kilometre-high mountains stretch up on either side.

It´s not hard to see why the Incas considered this valley sacred. Everything grows, everything is beautiful.

There are Inca ruins throughout this whole region and many are in what seems impossibly remote - and high - locations. Our exploration of one such ruin near Pisac became quite an ordeal when hail, spectacular exposure to potential cliff falls and Phoebe completing the walk in her pyjamas, turned a two hour walk into an adventure. In the end it was all fantastic.

The more I learn about the Incas the more they fascinate me. The amazing success and sheer difference of their culture points to what might have been a very different path for the world. As it was they were defeated by Mammon in the form of the Spanish, and in time Mammon became the culture of the world. What might have been ...

My Life as a Dog

Not much happening here, as per Andrew´s post. So I might take this opportunity to blog about something that I find strangely interesting in Cusco. The dogs. Truly. And you all know how I am not exactly a dog person. (Pepe, are you reading this?)

There are many many dogs, especially in our barrio, Larapa. Unlike in Asia, where dogs are generally a variation on the starving dingo theme, the dogs here are incredibly varied. On our block alone we have dogs that look like huskies, boxers, terriers, german shepherds ... you name it, it exists. Then, of course, are the true mutants, the things that look like dogs crossed with cuy (guinea pig) or llama. I will post some photos when I can be bothered with the hassle of uploading.

A lot of the dogs seem to be pets, but even the strays don´t look too bad, although some could do with a haircut.

The only time we don´t like them is when they set up a chorus of barking up and down the hill, in the wee small hours. Unfortunately that´s just about every night.

We will blog again if and when something interesting happens. Or I may even reveal photos of my mural-in-progress, which currently features a strange possum and a koala. The Pumamarca kids were convinced that there had to be another word for koala because to them it sounds like it´s Spanish, and they were expecting something difficult for them to pronounce!

Hasta luego.

Singing In The Rain

Well, we´ve had a few computer problems and now we´re having weather problems.

Today our horse riding expedition was cancelled for the second time as we woke up to the first morning of rain since our arrival. It was cancelled the first time because our hosts stayed in Lima when one of them became ill and had to go to ¨hospital¨. Kids were quite disappointed, but it has given us time to do some Chrissie shopping.

Tiff has started painting a mural on one of the walls of the school in Pumamarca and I helped put up basketball hoops. This involved mixing cement which made me feel quite manly. One thing that didn´t make me feel manly was the way the welding machine was run by getting a ladder and connecting it directly to the wires on the main power pole. I couldn´t watch this particular operation.

On Monday we are off on an overnight expedition to the Sacred Valley which we are really looking forward to. Especially since our hotel is reported to have hot showers.

The only other resident in the Peru´s Challenge house at the moment is a doctor from Victoria called Elizabeth. For better or worse she gets to spend Christmas with us. (Luckily she seems quite patient) If you do wish to phone us our local number is, (270 412), but you will have to find the code for Peru and Cusco, because I don´t have it at the moment.

By the way, I can get email again, but only very occasionally. It seems I can´t receive email in internet cafes for some reason and have to go to the PC office.

Chao

Mr Holland´s Opus

Sorry we haven´t blogged for a while, but technology is not treating us well. I have no email and my last blog simply disappeared before I could save it. I won´t repeat it, but it was all about rafting down the Inca Sacred Valley. I´ll try to post some photos as they probably tell the story better than words.

We´ve just finished our first week of work at the school and while we are working quite hard, it is extremely rewarding. After a few disastrous classes, I think I´m getting into the swing of it and it is a great feeling when you see the kids get something. Last night I taught an English class for teenagers - thankfully with some help from Jane and Jared - and it really worked. Even though they are normal teenagers and play up a bit they are so grateful. There is no poverty in Australia the equivalent of that in Pumamatra, but they are proud and resourceful people with a very strong sense of community.

Peru´s Challenge volunteers have achieved great things in Pumamarca and, through the school, are helping a new generation access opportunities they could never have hoped for in the past. The village has only just been connected to electricity, but its children will be able to speak Spanish, read and write. Until Peru´s Challenge became involved many of Pumamarca´s kids had never even visited Cusco which is less than 10 km away.

It´s not all work though and this morning Hol, Phoebe and I went to town to visit an Inca Museum. It is also a public holiday and a parade of saints was passing through the Plaza De Armas. Incredible colour.

On Sunday we are going to watch Cusco ¨futbol¨ team play, which should be an experience. They are one of the top sides in Peru and only lost in the final last year. (Danny, Hol has been playing with the Pumamarca kids and holding his own - not so his dad, but that is another story)

I´m out of time. And hopefully this won´t disappear before it is posted.

School of Rock

Okay, actually school of adobe, but I´ve been sucked into Andrew´s film title blog name protocol ...

We saw the school for the first time yesterday, so here are a couple of photos which really don´t show it well - I will take more. It is really incredible, especially when you know that a year ago it was only one derelict building - there are now four classes, a kitchen and another building underway, plus an adobe brick wall around the whole of the school grounds. And they are about to start a kitchen garden! Imagine my excitement ...

I will also be putting a link to our Flickr account in the blog so that those of you who REALLY care can look at all our photos. Unfortunately uploading takes forever as we have to do them one by one in an internet cafe.

Today Andrew and Hol are white water rafting in the Sacred Valley and poor Phoebe is standing patiently by as I do tedious computer stuff.

Andrew and the kids had their first Spanish lessons yesterday - Hol is doing especially well. I can understand about 80 per cent, but look forward to starting lessons next week so I can actually starting TALKING.

Who is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe?

The guinea pig lunch is still settling and I am here to report that it´s kind of like a very bony rabbit, but I will let Tiff give you a far better description. It was tasty and the local potatoes were also fabulous.

Yesterday after our trip into Cusco proper, Holden and I went on a little adventure to the village where we will be working. We were shown around the local community Inca ruins and once again I am lost for words describing how wonderful it was. We have a picture of Holden on a real sacrificial stone and he disappeared into a cave, partly built by the Incas, with one of our fellow volunteers. Thankfully they couldn´t get too far because legend has it that it goes all the way back to Cusco.

Tomorrow Tiff and I will take our first classes at the school. Tiff has also been put in charge of the parents group (and she thought she´d escaped the P&C) and I will also be writing the newsletter and working on the website and ¨sponsorship¨Hmmm.

It was great to see Jane (Peru´s Challenge founder) for the first time in years and I´m looking forward to working with her again.

Great to read the comments and although I´m not with the kids right now, I´m sure they will be very excited when they get to read the OG comments tomorrow. They have both been writing post cards this morning.

Until tomorrow.

ps. If anyone is logging onto our home computer on my login, please don´t. It downloads my email and I can´t get them remotely. Cheers