The Inca Trail

I made it! The Inca Trail was crazy--after 4 days, I got the sense the the Incas were nothing if not hardcore. It was both great and terrible, as the day to day breakdown will show:

Day 1: 5:45 am Departure from Cusco. "Easy" hike for most of the day through some beautiful Inca ruins in the Sacred Valley. Gain 700 meters by the end of the day, mostly in the last hour and a half of the hike. The porters or "chaskies" (Inca term for messenger) do a great job and produce amazing food for us at lunch and a beautiful camp at the end of the day. Day 1 Evening: Feel sick. No dinner.

Day 2: 5:15 wake up. Get ready for the hardest day of the trek, which includes over 5.5 hours of steep uphill hiking, gaining over 1000 meters of altitude in one morning, and climbing through something ominously called "Dead Woman's Pass." All of the hiking today is either straight up or straight down, and it is a very long day. Day 2 Mid-Morning: See dead woman's pass from far far away. Feel like Dead Woman. Day 2 Later Morning: Last one up Dead Woman's Pass! Collapse at top while LauraK takes "entertaining" photos. Altitude Sickness begins. Day 2 Evening: Guides treat my blisters with "home remedy." Severe Altitude Sickness, no sleep.

Day 3: 6:30 wake up. Coldest camping spot, with temps below freezing. Feel 175 years old, look at least 150. Blister home remedy makes things worse, get told I now have "chasky" feet. This is not a compliment. Sick, so no breakfast. Easier trek today, just 6 hours, most of which is steep STEEP downhill and into a jungle, but the beginning is uphill, and I notice that we are ABOVE the clouds. Not doing so good. Lead guide sends me and the 2nd guide on a shortcut to make camp faster. He fails to mention that while shorter, it is HARDER. Begin to feel feverish during shortcut. Make camp after everyone else, raging fever begins. Day 3 evening: Apparently I passed out.

Day 4: 4 am wake up. 2.5 hour trek to Machu Picchu!!! Feel better after fever breaks. Manage to eat! Yay! Trek in complete darkness, group is told to "walk not too slow, and not too fast." I soldier on to keep up, do not want to get lost in the dark. Misty. Wait....is that....wait....yes! Machu Picchu!! YES!! And it is BEAUTIFUL!! Wow!! Fog (eventually) clears and we take our tour in the sun. While group hares off to do "optional" additional mountain hike, I lay down and try not to die. Day hikers walk past and say "ooh, look at her sleeping...she must be on an all-day hike!" I try not to sarcastically scream "4 DAYS my friend, 4 DAYS!!" But it was worth it. Too bad it will now take us approx 7 hours to get back to Cusco....

Anyway--I've been pretty sick the whole trip, and am only just feeling better today. Laura and I have huge hopes that my appetite will be back and we can have a nice dinner. Regardless, I've learned a lot and am glad I did it. I'll do a high and low points post soon!!

American Airlines: Journey into the Heart of Darkness

1. Friends do not let friends fly American Airlines

I arrived at the airport at 10.30 am thinking that all would be easy. I breeze past the calm and quiet Delta check-in and start looking around for American. Which I discover is hidden behind throngs of angry people. Hordes and masses even. I find LauraK and our descent into despair, AA style, begins.

Highlights:
1. No system for dealing with masses of departing people is in place. Someone said weather caused problems, but no other airlines had lines. The check in people were allowing people to miss their flights
2. A small riot broke out when they called our flight foward (but only a few rows of people). Checkin guy made a mistake when he loudly told angry people from earlier flights thta had they gotten into the airport on time, they would have made their flight
3. Security was called in after aforementioned commment. Tempers flare and things get ugly
4. In high lurker mode, I heard the call to bring people on the 12.10 departure forward. I race back to LauraK, and she sends me into the melee to tr yand break into line ahead of people who have already missed flights and are getting yelled at by AA personnel for wanting to fly. Crazy. WE do not want to be come them.
5. I open up the line barriers, slip in, and try and blend--my years of flying standby pay off!
6. 30 people follow me
7. One of them is LauraK and the guy behind her, who has decided we are a good bet
8. THe crowd starts yelling about people cutting in line
9. We keep a low profile and pray to get checked in. We are international, so cannot do the kiosk
10. Successful checkin! One happy family wiht guy behind us
11. Plane delayed!
12. Plane delayed? Again?
13. Miami...sigh. I hate that airport
14. Gate change
15. Plane delayed because all planes are currently delayed for no apparent reason. Plane delay announcements are the only ones we hear.
16. Plane delayed
17. ANOTHER gate change¿
18. Plane delayed
19. Boarding!
20. Ummm, why are we not moving?
21. BEcause our plane is DELAYED.
22. Arrive in Lima, 5.5 hours late, and definitely bitter

Shockingly, our luggage made it. WE however, only had a few hours before departure to Cusco. I am in Cusco!! 5th continent, acheived!!

2 days here to acclimate, and then we hit the trail. Laura and I are nothing if not hardcore.**

**Definitions of ´hardcore´ may vary
***Shout out to Mike Obalde and Jason Maga for great camping tips and also providing knives (Mike) and a compass (Mike) and the advice to drink lots of water (Jason). If it all goes wrong, I am looking at you two!!

Intermission continued....

Me at the end of the world

Bristol/Clevedon Beach
Queen Mary's Rose Garden

Sarah and I at 3 City Garden Row, Islington. Our old address. It was much sketchier than we remembered!!

Intermission.....

India: Which fruits have you never seen before?

India: Sarita and I feeling the silk do-rag

India: Geetika and I after a hard day of pictionary

London: Severine and I in London when she dropped me off
London: Sarah and I--tea at the Savoy!!! I'm still full 3 days later....

Home now after a looong flight that included an unscheduled stop in Philadelphia (thank you weather over Dulles coupled with low fuel) but eventually I made it home and slept for 10 hours straight. Now, a week to regroup before I head out again. I do seem to have a yen to play children's games...just NOT pictionary. Any takers?

The UK: Our Best Friend

....No matter what Canada says. So, the morning after landing from Bangalore my friend Severine took me rock climbing in Bristol! Only in the UK will you find a rock gym that used to be a church. Despite my poor form, protestations of jet-lag and malaria, and time wasted trash-talking, I did make it up the wall a bunch of times, and even managed to do a wall race. My time was the slowest, but I feel good about finding the ceiling nonetheless. Sev showed me a GREAT time in Bristol--we had a huge amount of fun. Special thanks to her for a great cup of tea, driving me back to London, and just generally being awesome!!

Now I'm in London with one Sarah Plotkin Paul, and we are revisiting our old haunts from back in the day--when we were but two young girls bartending our way around the city for a summer! Somehow we've managed to have high tea every day that we've been here (most recently at the Savoy), see "Dirty Dancing: The Musical!" and just generally enjoy London. We found our old apartment and the sketchy pub above which we lived, and it has been WONDERFUL.

I leave London today for home--where I'm hoping that my parents will be at the airport. I'll be in VA for just under a week, and then off to Peru!

3 continents down, 2 to go!

The Other Side of India

This is a picture of one of the slums in Bangalore. Migrant construction workers live here, without electricity or running water. Usually both parents work, so their children run the house, cook, and take care of all domestic duties. These are also some of the same children who come to MJ for a few minutes when/if they have the time. Without a place like MJ, they don't really have the option to be kids--most of the time they function like small grown ups.

In the background to the right you can see some of the buildings that they have built. They usually pitch tent cities right next to the construction site that they are currently working on. Most construction workers are actually female, as they are considered both cheaper, and more reliable.

I was lucky in my visit to India because I was in a fairly protected bubble, living with the upper class. But I was also lucky to get to see both sides of the story, and spend time with children who have so little, and yet seem so content.

Regardless, it was an eye opening experience. I am so glad I went.

Save Tall Dave! (India!)

More India Photos

The MJ kids during the youth summit

Sridhar's Street
The famed traffic
Me and many many mangos!
The kids I worked with after the youth summit

I'm in Bristol now but I will be posting more India pics before I leave the UK!

India Is AWESOME!

The Facilitation Team prior to kicking off the AI Youth Leadership Summit. Chitra, Sarita, Keshore and Sridhar. This was taken on my third day!

And then Sridhar and Sarita after spending two weeks with me...

:)

A very VERY special thanks to Sridhar for helping make this trip a possibility, answering all of my random/crazy questions. Taking me out for some of the best food of all time, and just generally being an amazing host!

I'm a Science Project!

India, Day 42,000:

Scene: MJ Learning Center
Time: Circle Time

Me: (Slowly spacing out b/c some things are being discussed in Kannada, and I can't follow. I suddenly feel a soft poke on my arm. I turn in time to see the little girl next to me reach out and poke me again.) "?"

Girl: "White. Your skin is real?"

Me: "Ummm...yes." (Wave hand around as I respond)

Girl: "Ohhh!!" (Grabs my hand and points at vein. Gestures eagerly at her friend and begins excited conversation in Kannada--the upshot: they can't believe that my veins are 1. Blue and 2. Visible through my skin!)

Me: "See--both hands!"

Girls: "Ohhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

After the skin excitement I took the kids out to play "Red Light/Green Light" in my best effort to reach back to my own childhood. Following some serious Red Light, the kids gathered around to continue the discussion on how white I am, which lead to a debate on what color I turn when I exercise/blush etc: pink or red. Vigorous discussion sparked with expansive hand gestures all around. Suddenly, one of the boys launched himself at me and pinched both of my cheeks REALLY hard. A chorus of "oohhhhs" resulted with a clean settlement: I turn pink. The boy, with an articulate "See, I was right" gesture walked off--point proven.

I cracked up.

My time in Bangalore is almost over and it has been great, wonderful, amazing and powerful. Is that enough adjectives? It's late and I can't tell anymore. So much has happened that I can't even try and capture it, but I feel an overwhelming need to share. High points included Sridhar creating a "spice scale" to rate the spice level in all the food (I was allowed 2 and under, and after a malaria pill incident left me feeling "slightly off" I was reduced to a 0, with Chitra bending over backwards to make me my own dishes with less spice), learning how to cut a mango and tell if it is ripe by smell (there will be a picture of this soon), mango mania involving over 100 types of mango, surviving at least 5 "Dashes of Death" (crossing the street, usually with Sarita prepping me, holding my hand and shouting "Run!" at the appropriate time), swimming under the stars, having the kids tell me that "I will miss you Auntie" (term of respect) on my last day, being everyone's favorite pictionary partner, doing great session designs and Appreciative Inquiry work, and just being in India. India = awesome. Special thanks to Sridhar, Chitra and Sarita for hosting me, keeping me healthy, and showing me a beautiful culture and an amazing time. Also, for wearing the do-rags (there will be pics on this too!) and connecting with their inner Harley Davidson.

It's late at night and I need to be at the airport by 4:30 am so I will close this post here, though I feel like there is so much more to say. Anyway, hopefully the pictures (when I can get my computer on the net) will speak for themselves. Next post will probably be from either Bristol or London UK. Crazy plans are in the works!!

***One day I promise to write a post when I'm not jet lagged/tired/confused/hopped up on sugar

My Gene Pool...

Special thanks to Mom and Dad for giving me a Stomach of STEEL. So far, illness 0, Me 1.

USA Fruit Failures

India, Day 10:

I've completely shocked Sridhar's Mother (heretofore "Grandma S").

I hate to admit it, but I now must come out in the open....until yesterday, I had never seen a pomegranate.

A resounding silence occurred after this information was released. As a result, I am now in possession of a fruit chart used to help children so that I can identify all of the other fruits that America has failed me on. New fruit count: 7, including Papaya, Pomegranate, Custard Apple, Chickoo, Loquat, Muskmelon, 4 types of Mangos (only 130 more to try! Also, best fruit EVER) and Malta. There are more that I am forgetting, but I have my work cut out for me. The great fruit search has begun!!