[Traveling Tale] Ciudad Perdida

Some people were curious, why are you making Colombia your first destination from Paraguay? Lets face it, Colombia doesn´t have the best reputation (although I felt perfectly safe there). One of my friends who lived there for five years lured me to visit with her with the idea of hiking up to Ciudad Perdida (the lost city). A quick search for some pictures convinced me that I could get into this 6 day hike and that the view at the end would be entirely worth it.

Ciudad Perdida is located high up on land that is controlled by the Kogi, one of Colombia´s four main indegenous groups. They strongly believe in protecting the environment and being stewards for their region (living a simple, quiet mostly agricultural life). Access to the area is limited and you can only go up through oneof the five tour companies that operates trips.

We lucked out with our chosen Turcol tour - only six people hiking, four from our group and one other couple. Add in the guide and a cook and we had a total of eight. The trip up was to take three days, and while some days really did require a lot of up, I don´t think we ever hiked more than five hours in one day. Making the whole trip a pretty pleasant experience, especially for a multi-day hike. The three days down went a bit faster, even if it was harder on my joints.

The challenge comes the third day when, after eight river crossings, you leave the river bed and begin climbing up the ancient stone steps laid into the mountain side. They claim its just 1200 of these up to the terraces. What they fail to mention is that those will only take you to the first lower terrace, and there is at least another 500 ahead of you to get to the main terraces. But it is worth it when you step up and see the main terrace ahead of you with a chain of about four more cut into the mountain side beyound. If you can ignore the presence of the military (there to protect the tourists) is seems magical. Calling you to explore and experience a small piece of this ancient communmity that laid stone pathways throughout the Sierra Nevadas. The site is a beautiful location set in the mountains where the mists roll in every evening to enclose you in a smaller world. But no matter what you might get distracted by you will always turn back to the terraces as if to assure yourself they are real and not something you imagined. Even as we started down, wandering past what they think was the quarry and additional smaller terraces, I know that I´ll leave here feeling as if I´ve had contact with a previous civilization. While I might enjoy being back down by the river and the peacefulness there, there is no doubt that the sight of the terraces on the mountaintop will be a lasting one in my memories.

[Traveling Tale] 24 hours in BA

What do you do when you have a 24 hour layover in Buenos Aires? Well, when that means you have to go through immigration, pay the $130 entrance visa and collect your luggage you might as well go into the city. Knowing this was coming (due to flights changing after booking my ticket) I had booked a bed in a hostel and proceeded to lug my two as-heavy-as-allowed suitcases carrying my goodies from the US up two flights of stairs. Happily relinquishing them to the luggage room I ask the front desk for a mapy of the city, mark the location of the hostel and set off to find the closest "sites of interest" marked on the map. This led me to a plaza with the Metropotian Cathedral (a very boxy church) on one side adn to la Casa Rosada, the pink house, at the far end. Now if you´ve seen the movie Evita you´ll recognize this building as being the place where speeches and presentation were made. You can see that it really is a dramatic backdrop. A circular loop takes me past the national congress, some other old buildings and the obelisk. That is enough for round one. Travelling has made me tired and I need a nap!

Awakening refreshed I decide to head a little father afield to one of the places everyone who visits mentions and make my way to Recoleta, the famous cemetery. Oh my. It is about one block large and it absolutely draws me in. I find myself happily taking pictures over the next hour and a half before closing time, drawn by the mix of regular and irregular lines on the above ground masoleums. Fascinated by decorative touches and all the statues of angles and women. A line around one corner tells me I´ve found the burial place of Eva Peron - covered n plaques but not located in a place of prime importance. I still feel as if I´ve encountered a piece of history. With a last lingering glance at this place that has let me escape the city amidst a mix of trnaquility and beauty, I head back to my bed knowing that if I had to have a long layover at least I´ve used it well. Perhaps next time I´ll manage to get more thatn 24 hours in BA.

My Thermos

I figured I needed to post an update about my terere thermos. When I got back from Christmas break it was waiting for me with a friend and I have to say that it turned out to be remarkably close to what I had imagined while putting together my order. The dark brown leather with a purple and a teal butterfly embroided on it (my only complaint is that the two butterflies are so far apart you can’t see them both at the same time). The stitching is a mix of teal and purple. I can delight over the little details that always have to be a part of a thermos with all the extras – a sleeve for my bombillo (straw/strainer) and for the wampa (the cup). Perhaps my favorite though is the wampa itself. Smaller, the design show up well with the butterfly standing out, and yes – it is made out of cow horn. Now I feel like I own my own little part of Paraguayan tradition.

Hinchada

Bam, bam. Rat at at a. The banging on the drums signal the start of another game at Intercolegial. I find the fans to be more fascinating than the games themselves. Never before have I seen this kind of fan support for high school teams just playing in a city tournament. At some games a school manages to fill over half of the bleachers with jumping, screaming students. Have I mentioned they have drums? Chants pour forth out of the group and at times it is hard to think much less hear anything that is going on on the floor. And the referee whistle? Forget it. Even if you could hear it you would still have difficulty distinguishing it from the whistles coming out of the stands. The hinchadas will all be color coordinated (school colors of course), most likely with some sort of face paint. Where I started to get overwhelmed was when they unfurled a flag that took every person to hold up and flutter, a flag that takes more than 10 people to just carry into the stands. These people have it together! Coordinated enough to get the flag over all of the students and often to have matching shirts, this level of planning is impressive. I’m not so amused by the fireworks going off (some even in the gym the final day of play), but it still amazes me the level of commitment they have to cheering. It doesn’t surprise me that it is part of every professional football game here, but for high school sports? It is so hard to describe you probably aren’t getting an accurate picture, so please, just take a look at the videos.

Intercollegial

All my students have been thinking about this past week is Intercollegial – a large sports tournament that occurs across Asuncion. Many of the private schools in the city host their own tournament, all called Intercollegial, ASA just happens to always host the first one. I’m not sure if they are all as big as this one, I doubt that they could be as I don’t think many other schools have the facilities that we have. This particular tournament is over two weekends (oh the joy, that means my students won’t be worth much this week either), has 20 schools competing, and includes 5 different sports (football, volleyball, basketball, futsal and handball). It is no wonder that all of our fields and courts have been pressed into use over the weekend. The tournament itself is not such a surprise to me, particularly when you take into account the Paraguayan love of sports. What has been a surprise is the number of people who turn up to watch the games (the guards estimated about 5,000 per day), the crazy cheering sections schools bring (more on that next week), and the amount of advertising that is on campus. There are booths covering our courtyard area and half of the parking lot, places where you can buy crocs, compete at dance revolution with a blue mascot, play air hockey at the cell phone provider tent, or buy food to snack on. When I was told it was big I never imagined it was going to take over the campus! My goal for the next week is to just try to keep my students somewhat focused until Friday, and then to enjoy watching sports again.