This feat brought to you by the chewing of many coca leaves…

A week ago today I was climbing the excruciating path up Machu Picchu mountain and today I lay lounging in my hostel bed in Cuzco, with a slight cold, basking in my lazy haze. This is my second weeklong stint in Cuzco now and the days go ticking on by as fast as ever; it’s hard to believe that the week is already almost up!

We left Aguas Calientes early last Thursday morning after scarfing down some free hostel breads, fried egg and tea. After filling up our water bottles and hydration packs, I also filled up my small Nalgene bottle with some coca tea for the road, we strapped on our gear and, cheeks loaded with coca leaves, we started the walk down to the train tracks in the center of town. Having splurged on the train ticket from Santa Teresa we had already decided during the luxurious journey to Aguas Calientes that we would be walking back, no matter how taxing the trek. 

Admittedly, a smarter traveller than I, Alexis had only her big pack weighing in at about 35 or so pounds and a small camelback hydration daypack to carry. For me, the 2.5 hour walk was going to have to be accomplished not only loaded down with my behemoth of a pack strapped to my back, also weighing a little over 30 lbs, but with an additional daypack strapped to my front, weighing in at about the same.
My 60 lb load being my cross to bear for the next 13 km and a painful reminder of my struggle with materialism, wishing for the thousandth time since arriving in Peru that I could go back and repack, knowing what I now knew about traveling around out of a backpack; what is actually necessary versus luxury.
Additionally the small chest strap on my large pack had been dislodged and lost negligent bus handlers somewhere along the way and so I was left to gerry-rig a substitute using one of the bungee cords I brought with me.
I had to stop several times to awkwardly adjust my load before even reaching the tracks, not used to this new life as a pack animal, and would have to adjust several times more during the arduous journey before finding the best system only 2 or so km away from the hydroelectric station. 

If not for this insane burden, the walk itself was quite nice and scenic, occasionally chatting with fellow backpackers who had also chosen the cheap alternative, when I had breath to spare.

Walking along the river on the sun-speckled trail, through darkened, damp train tunnels, the path is relatively flat, constantly crossing over the tracks from left to right and occasionally over precarious, largely spaced wooden track bridges where one misstep would send you into the muddy water below.

Stopping every so often, but never for long lest we loose momentum, to readjust the weight from shoulders to hips to give the other a break and replenish coca leaf cheek pouch supply, we somehow made it there in just about 2.5 hours, 2 hours and 40 minutes to be exact, whereas my handy Lonely Planet guidebook allocates 4 hours for this walk- amateurs. 

At the train station, we grabbed a taxi back to Santa Teresa, where we switched into a ‘collectivo’ van with several others for the ride to Santa Maria, paying only 10 soles for the second leg of the trip as our taxi driver forgot to hassle us for money during the exchange. 

Once in Santa Maria we negotiated for yet another collective van trip back to Cuzco, 20 soles from 25, and continued on with some locals as well as some other foreigners who we had seen along the tracks, having recently finished their respective treks to Machu Picchu. 
The trip went relatively smoothly with some rain slicking the roads as we ascended yet again high into the Peruvian Andes, passing through the small town of Abra Málaga at 4,300 some meters above sea level. 
While en route we saw a member of a mountain bike tour laying in the ditch, most likely having slid off the road from the rain, a fun idea in theory I suppose, but you couldn’t pay me to be on two wheels on those sharp, serpent-like, click-paved mountain roads. 

However, winding up and around the mountain roads in the high mountain cloud forest fog again, not quite as opaque as on my trip to the farm a month earlier but dense nevertheless, we came within inches of our lives ourselves as a truck with large construction cargo came barreling around the sharp corner without so much as blowing his horn for warning of his presence on the road, let alone his lightning pace. 
Thankfully we had a stellar driver how was able to stop the vehicle in an instance, as we all sat in shock, observing the inches that separated us from the cargo truck. After exchanging some angry words with the truck driver, rightfully so, our driver backed up so that the truck could pull up into the shoulder of the road, an incredibly infrequent occurrence, so that we could continue on. 
We all thanked the driver for reacting so well and his safe driving in general thus far as we continued down the mountain, descending again into the Sacred Valley, past Ollyantaytambo and Urubamba, before switchbacking back up toward Cuzco, where we could seek safe, sedentary hostel refuge, hot showers and cheap, delicious eats, a welcome change of pace from life on the farm.

[view of Ollyantaytambo ruins from the collectivo]

Just like this but with a bit more outdoor space.

Getting to Machu Picchu...
We awoke early to pack up our things before breakfast, systematically shoving our belongings back into our canvas homes and awkwardly lumbered down the hill from the dormitory. One last breakfast of runny oatmeal and fresh fruit with coffee before we said our goodbyes and were on our way. Down on the road we didn’t have to wait long before we were able to catch a ride to Quillabamba with a passing bus and climbed aboard. 
Once in town we waited out the rain in a juice bar aptly named La Nonna Maria, where the kindest Peruvian woman made us each a much anticipated fried egg with toast and fresh orange-carrot-beet juice. As I sat there sipping the heavenly combination I couldn’t help thinking she reminded me of my italian godmother back in Philly, there was something about her voice. After talking with her, I found out that she lived in Italy for some 20 years and now goes back to visit a couple months a year. Her warm hospitality seemed to make the rain stop and by the time we left in search of the Santa Teresa bus terminal it had in fact.

Walking across town, we were almost at the terminal (I assume) when a van came bustling down the road in the opposite direction. The driver shouted out to us, ‘Santa Teresa, Santa Teresa.’ Somehow in these small towns so close to major tourist venues the locals always know where your headed, making it incredibly easy to get around. Although Quillabamba is a bigger city, it’s far enough removed that gringos really aren’t so common and I can only imagine how much more strange we look with giant backpacks strapped to ourselves like some kind of kafka-esque insect. It would be about an hour to Santa Maria for 10 soles and then another hour more to Santa Teresa after that for only 5 soles more where we were then confronted with the painful fact that the only way to Aguas Calientes is to take the hydroelectric train or walk. In our last minute decision to see Machu Picchu on the way back from the farm, we hadn’t had much time to research getting there and were rather ill-prepared in that sense. 
The train ride is a breezy 40 or so minutes whereas the walk takes about 2.5 hours on average. For locals the train is only 5 soles, which is more than reasonable, but for tourists the price is an astounding 72 soles. Not having the option to leave our giant backpacks anywhere (as most people travel from Cuzco and simply leave them with the hostel where they stayed) and not feeling confident enough to walk the whole way loaded down we opted for the train even though it would cost us. Another 5 sol cab ride got us to the train station where we purchased our tickets and waited, inhaling a can of pringles and can of Cusqueña Dorado each while doing so. Foolishly we listened to the cab driver who hurried us into his car and didn’t grab food in Santa Teresa where it would have been cheaper; he had said we could get everything we needed at the terminal but failed to mention that it would cost twice as much.

The train itself is quite nice, the insides of the cars air-conditioned, with plush seats and wooden, folding dining tables, but the brief ride to Aquas Calientes was unimpressive to say the least. Once onboard we quickly realized we did not belong in the windowed beast with tourists who had paid close to a thousand dollars for their treks and would be staying at a fancy, five star hotel on the other end. The ride was short though, rocking gently back and forth as we made our way along the Urubamba river to the ‘Machupicchu pueblo,’ as it’s known. It was nearing dark when we arrived so we found a hostel for the night before walking across town to purchase our MP tickets. The town is touristy to say the least and after being secluded on a farm for a month, it was disorienting seeing so many foreigners, hearing english music playing in just about every shop and having locals constantly approach you, hoping you’ll frequent their establishment. At the municipal building the guard told us they weren’t selling tickets for another hour and a half so we needed to come back later. Walking up the street, a light sprinkling of rain quickly turned into a downpour so we ducked into a nearby restaurant for happy hour, which as far as I can tell is actually just all the time; Several places advertising 4 drinks for the price of one from 3-11 at night and including a small plate of ‘nachos’ or bread. 

A few mojitos later we moseyed back to the ticket office, purchased our tickets for Machu Picchu and Machupicchu mountain (only 12 soles more) for a total of 140 soles, grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to Supertramp hostel for one more drink at the hostel bar before snuggling into our lumpy, 30-sol beds. After splurging on the train we decided we would walk up to the ruins from town instead of spending the 60 or so soles for the roundtrip buses that shuttle up and down the mountain.

We woke up reasonably early the next morning, ate a quick, free breakfast of tea, bread, jam and a fried egg, walked to the store and bought some rations for the day: water, tangelos, granola bars and peanuts (which were shelled, but to our dismay not roasted), and headed out. It was about a half an hour walk, mostly downhill or level, from town along the river to where the trail begins and where the real fun begins. The trail is only a little less than 2km, but in that short distance you ascend 1350m, switchbacking up steep stone-terraced steps to the crowded main gate of Machu Picchu park, traveling a total of 8 km from Aguas Calientes to the park entrance. The vertical climb took another hour and by mid-morning I stood looking at the wondrous, ancient city I had read about in books, learned about in school, yearned to see in the flesh. 

Standing in awe, adrenaline flowing from the climb, I caught my breath and realized that it was all worth it, the expensive train ride, tourist-price restaurants, hostels, 5 sol snickers bars, everything. It looked even more magnificent than I could have imagined and we couldn’t have asks for better weather, sun and blue skies with misty clouds covering the tops of surrounding Andean peaks. One of the reasons we went a little later in the morning was because of the misty cloud coverage that can typically blanket the city early on, especially in the transitional/winter ‘off season.’ Instead of heading straight up to Machupicchu mountain we decided to explore the city a little more and avoid the crowd heading up to the Sun Gate. Avoiding the crowd, as much as is possible at one of the seven wonders of the world, was another reason I thought it best to go a little later in the morning and stay longer as the crowds thin out in the early afternoon and by 3:30-4 it was almost like having the place to ourselves, but I’m getting ahead of myself. After about an hour wandering around the Temple of the Condor, Prison Group and Industrial sector on the eastern side of the ruins, the approaching clouds made it seem like a good idea to get up to the Machupicchu mountain lookout sooner than later to ensure an uninhibited view. 

We made our way through the agricultural terraces and up to the mountain entrance, another steep venture. Just before the gate some people making their way down said that the mountain was closing and all I could think was, ‘no.’ Not in an exclamatory way filled with grief or despair, rather a declaration of refusal; I was getting up that mountain. I sped up my pace bounding from step to step only to see the gate shut, but not locked as some others were leaving. I entered anyway as the guard told me that the mountain was in fact closed. It was five of twelve and they stopped admitting people at 11:00am. It was now coming on 12pm... No. I begged and pleaded with him, I had no idea of the hours for the mountain time. He asked to see my ticket and when I gave it he pointed out the highlighted portion at the top stating arrival between 7-11am but all I could think was, ‘no.’ I had seen the highlighted bit of course, but thought that it applied to the general park entrance, not the mountain. I told him of my misunderstanding, that I had already paid for it, come all this way, that I would run up and come right back down and could he please make an exception. Somehow all my talking worked and he finally gave in, letting us sign in and saying that we would probably only get half way up before needing to turn around because they closed the mountain for good at 2pm and if I ran into a ranger who said to turn around I should do what I’m told. ‘Yes, of course,’ I exclaimed as I took off up the mountain shouting my thanks and thinking that if I ran into a ranger I would try to bribe him with my last granola bar. 

Climbing step after step at an insane pace, I quickly realized why they stopped admitting people to allow enough time to climb up, a steep feat taking about 2 hours. Nevertheless I propelled myself forward, unwilling to be thwarted by my own ignorance. My calves were already exhausted from the Aguas Calientes walk and my back ached from the fall I had taken on the farm just two days before, but I had come this far, I was getting to the top at all costs. About 25 minutes in I started to wonder why I didn’t bring my inhaler, coca leaves, ibuprofen, more water. My pace was slowing and the minutes seemed to tick by faster and faster. Contemplating my progress and the weight of my daypack, albeit minimal, I decided to ditch my pack in some brush along the steps. I grabbed my camera and left everything else: money, water, copy of my passport, granola bar in the pack largely hidden by some weeds and quickly spread some other of the weeds on the step in front to try and make a marker, hoping I’d remember the spot. Unburdened, I began catapulting myself up the steep stone steps, stopping to catch my breath every so often, but quickly reminded of my time limit by the watch on my wrist and the people cautiously traversing down the mountain whom I would occasionally ask how much longer I had until the top. I continued at breakneck pace and after 50 or so minutes I began to wonder if I would in fact be able to conquer the vertical nightmare. As I got higher and higher I saw more and more people descending and slowing down around the corner of a switchback was encouraged by a guy descending who said to keep my pace because the guard had given a warning of closing about 15 minutes ago and the top was only about 15-20 minutes more. 

Without any real concept of whether or not I was making good time, I continued to lurch upward, my stomach starting to cramp, my mouth getting drier, the air getting thinner. Several minutes later I ran into more people saying that the guard had in fact closed the top but I was maybe 5 minutes away. Determined, I staggered onward and upward, half-running even when my boot caught the edge of a stone and I collapsed to the stairs, breaking my fall with my wrist and already bum knee but saving the camera slung around my neck, cradled in my other hand as it hit the step. Reeling from my encounter with the ancient step, I jumped up, adrenaline-fueled, with no time to baby my bruises I persevered and at maybe twenty steps short I saw the guide from above, herding people off of the plateau. He said what I already knew, that it was closed, but I climbed the steps anyway and begged him to just take one quick picture. He shrugged his shoulders, annoyed, as if to say ‘suit yourself,’ while continuing down the steps without so much as a pause. Elated, I stepped up on to the barren plateau, heart racing, muscles aching, hand bleeding and wrapped in sweat-drenched bandana to see the magnificent city below. I made it. I could barely believe it. Knowing I didn’t have much time, it was hard not to get lost in the view and I couldn’t help thinking that everything else before had been leading up to this exact moment. I quickly but carefully explored the mountain top, took a few photos, and then turned around to start my descent down. 

made it.

after never giving up;

what an insane journey.

I passed the guard and a few others before running in to Alexis who was still working her way up. I told her the top was now closed but the view where she had made it was really more or less the same and so we stood to soak it in a little longer. I could have stood there all day and just marveled in its glory, but alas, we had a deadline. About half the way down I tried to pay hyper attention to the pathway so as not to miss where I had stashed my pack and I was relieved to finally come across the weeds I had left on the step. We continued down to the gate, passing others along the way, and signed out with 10 minutes to spare. I thanked the guard again for letting us up and couldn’t help but flash him a self-satisfied grin of accomplishment. Thoroughly parched and out of water, we walked over to the terraces west of the site where we sat and ate our granola bars and tangelos in an effort to hydrate ourselves and drank the little bit of anis/coca tea I had brought along in a mesmerized daze. You’re not supposed to eat in the park, it’s true, but we of course took our trash with us and didn’t leave any kind of impact from the snack. 

[view of Huayna Picchu from Macchupicchu mountain]

Feeling slightly revitalized we walked back down into the city center to check out what we had skipped earlier. It was about 3 in the afternoon and the crowds had thinned out substantially making it an opportune time to walk around and snap up some photos. Additionally, they had just started letting the llamas out to graze and as we explored we encountered them munching on grass or flopping their itchy ears around in vain efforts to ward off the flies. Having seen just about all we could see and feeling both thoroughly dehydrated and sunburnt, we headed toward the exit as the guards from the site began whistling to warn tourists of the park’s soon closure and corralling them toward the southern side of the site’s exit. Back on the agricultural terraces, we were not quite at the exit gate when we thought a few local Peruvians asked us to take their picture. As I went to take the camera, the girl corrected me to say that they wanted a photo with the two of us. We were unsure why and slightly delirious from the dehydration but obliged nevertheless and before we knew it we had a swarm around us, more and more joining in the photos, requesting photos of various combinations of them and us; it was a good 10 minutes before we finally freed ourselves from the random photo shoot and headed out. At the gate we were stopped once more by one of the girls for one final photo before we began our zigzagged descent back to Aguas Calientes. Raindrops began to fall from the sky and splattered the slippery stone steps and so we traversed with care and stopped every so often to catch last glimpses of the stone structures above before they were finally out of site. The sun was setting on Machu Picchu and the rain in the distance created a vibrant pair of rainbow arcs between the surrounding mountains before the rain picked up and clouds obscured the mountain tops. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

'No matter what happens now

You shouldn't be afraid

Because I know today has been

The most perfect day I've ever seen.'

Travel recap from a month back

Getting to the farm....

Not being able to pry myself from the warmth of my hostel bed and with a slight hangover from only three beers the night before, I got a late start as I hadn’t even yet delicately shoved everything back in their respective places. Leaving this hostel in Cusco was more than bittersweet as I had just gotten to know some people who were also volunteering there and would be stickingg around a little while longer; I even contemplated blowing off the farm a few more days…or altogether. 

Not knowing the exact bus schedule to Quillabamba, the town I needed to reach, I debated the possibility as I poured myself some of the free, weak coffee and ate at a somewhat leisurely paces. After breakfast I inquired as to where the Quillabamba terminal was from the front desk worker, this morning Sergio, and was informed that it was a quick taxi ride and that buses and vans ran all day but that the smaller vans were a faster, preferred trip, albeit slightly more costly. I said some goodbyes, saddled myself up with my bags before grabbing a cab outside who brought me to the terminal across town where I was dismayed to see that the next bus wasn’t until 1:15 in the afternoon. It was just about 9 in the morning and the last bus had left at 8. I bought the 15 sole ticket for the afternoon bus anyway and began my wait. Leaving my big backpack with the bus company I left the terminal to walk around. 

A woman on the street tried to offer me a trip to Quillabamba in a shared sedan which I wouldn’t realize until later was the better option that Sergio was talking about and I had intended to take, but when I checked in with the bus company they told me the trip would take 6 hours, more or less direct, but that turned out to be anything but the case. Meanwhile the vans, I’m told, take only about 5 or so hours. Rereading my email instructions from Sabine at the farm that I had conveniently copied onto my phone for reference, I realized I had somewhat unintentionally opted for the cheaper, longer option of (15-20 sole, 7-8 hour trip) over the slightly more expensive (30 or so soles for 5 hours). Had I caught one of the early morning buses this realization would not have been as much of a concern, but seeing as we didn’t actually shove off from the terminal until 1:45 meant I wasn’t going to get to the small mountain town until after nightfall and from there I still needed to catch a shared car to continue traveling about another hour north to my final destination. I worried that by the time I arrived in Quillabamba it would be too late to continue on and that I would have to stay the night and continue on in the morning. 

Well, what was done was done, so I stopped in a store to buy some pens as mine had run out of ink or simply decided not to go on writing my story and stepped in to a small lunch place a few blocks from the terminal for the best 4 sole ‘menu’ I’ve had. I can’t even imagine getting a sandwich for $1.50 USD in the states, let alone a two course soup and entree lunch meal typically offered with sweetened tea, lemonade or corn-based ‘refresco’ depending on the place. Fully sated, I walked back to the terminal, checked my big pack down below with the other awkwardly large luggage and climbed on board where I found a native, traditional-looking abuela in my window seat I had specifically made a point of requesting. In my broken spanish, I asked her move, making for an awkward 4.5 hour trip (she got off in an earlier town) so that, as the only gringa on the bus, I could hide away in the sanctuary of my window seat. 

As it happens,  my seat was situated directly above the exhaust pipe from which greasy, black fumes bellowed up regularly, but I refused to let them dictate whether I should close my window or not. I left it open to enjoy the cool mountain air, every so often obscured by the toxic smoke. An old man sat behind me stood regularly during the trip gripping my seat back and occasionally my head…an annoyance to say the least, but all I could think of was the David Sedaris story of his compulsory need to touch other people’s heads and laugh to myself. Sitting on the bus in a pool of all these realizations and having no real knowledge of the place I was heading, that acrid taste of fear and inadequacy began to creep up my throat, stomached only by the somewhat fresh air billowing in my window and the beautiful scenery beyond. Winding up and up into the mountains, we encountered an all-encompassing white fog that blanketed the road and seemed to swallow the bus whole. Unencumbered by this inconvenience, our drunken bus driver continued at a reckless pace and I closed my eyes, unable to acknowledge the direct drop of the now invisible roadside, but of whose presence I was still painfully aware.

The direct trip turned out to be less than direct, the intoxicated bus driver making random stops all along the way to talk to or pick up friends, delaying the late-started trip even more. After several hours had passed I inquired as to where we were, how many stops were left to Quillabamba ( as there are no announcements of towns/stops/etc and the barely legible signs in the day were becoming obsolete in the night’s darkness, but when asked, the young guy working the bus, who took our tickets after about 2 hours in, said simply ‘not yet.’ Thanks a heap, kid. The locals have no need for signs and even in the dark just instinctively know when to disembark at passing towns or sometimes at seemingly random bends in the road. 

Luckily when we reached a closer town of Santa Maria a kind woman across the isle notified me, thinking it was my stop. I thanked her but told her I was continuing on and was reminded how grateful I am for the ‘good samaritans’ I meet along the way during my travels. An older man from across the isle chimed in as well but unfortunately, with a wad of coca leaves pocketed in the cavity of his cheek the size of a golf ball, his speech was barely understandable and I struggled to make even a small exchange with him before cowardly turning my attention back to the star speckled abyss outside the window, not because there was anything incredible to look at out there or that I see at all but because I wanted to appear preoccupied with something else and therefore not seem rude. From what I understood, he basically affirmed that no, we were not yet in Quillabamba and that it was at a lower elevation than the town in which we currently were. 

I felt bad because I could tell from the minute he got on the bus back in Cusco he was interested in conversing more, but it was impossible. At 7:20 we stopped again suddenly right in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere. I looked out the window to see the driver and his less than helpful friend from earlier poking around the tire well with a flashlight. I didn’t know whether to hope that it was something more serious that would require us all to be stuck together late at night (so that I wouldn’t have to wander in to town alone) or to think that this was just my luck to have bus trouble delay my trip further. I heard them shout some things back and forth though I couldn’t make out just what they were saying, as other cars and trucks blew past on the sliver of road we left unoccupied, unconcerned with our dilemma. One of them dug through one of the luggage compartments below and came up with some wire with which I have no idea what they did, but before I knew it, the big bellied driver propelled himself back in the cab and we took off as rapidly as we had stopped in the first place.
If the trip had been rough before the jumpy bus ride only worsened after their gerri rigged fix and I found my stomach churning as I literally bouncing out of my seat. Usually my stomach manages to hold its own pretty well and so far I hadn’t had any issue on my other buses so far, but this particular driver’s skills left a lot to be desired to say the least and when combined with the up and down altitude changes and back and forth of the snaking turns in the road, I struggled to keep my cool. I think Peruvians must have some of the strongest stomachs out there to put up with such trips regularly. As we turned another winding corner I saw the glowing city lights of Quillabamba come in to view below. Looking out the window I caught a glimpse of the milky way above and found a certain reassurance in its sighting, the last time being a little over a year ago in the good old Belizean jungle. It’s vibrant greens and blues often visible from the desolate old logging road in the archaeology conservation of Belize obscured by the light pollution below.

We finally arrived at the bus terminal around 8 where got my bag and used the bathroom facilities there, at a 50 centimos (cents) charge- 20 of which were for the TP offered and not feeling like digging for mine I figured it was worth the fraction of a US nickel. It was late, but I was determined to get to the farm that night instead of having to stay in the foreign city. I grabbed a moto taxi to the carpool terminal to Quellouno where my taxi driver dropped me with one of the last vans making a run for the night, I had just made it. Starving, I checked with the driver to see if I had time to go get food since he was waiting for more paying passengers to fill up his car and make his trip worthwhile. Most of the stalls in the terminal had closed down for the night but one said they still had the meat option so I sat down and was served a slightly warmed, rubbery ‘steak’ with cold, stale rice. Unable to stomach it I paid the 4 soles and left in search of another option.

Two blocks away from the terminal I found my only other option, some beef hearts grilled on a skewer, a typical street food in Peru, not exactly what I was hungry for at the time but it would do. At this point I would have killed for a simple street-cart empanada, but I ordered the beef hearts to go, paid the 3 soles for them and hurried back. At the terminal the van was now full of passengers waiting for me since my search for food had taken a bit longer than intended. In the car I scarfed down the tender, cooked to order beef hearts with spicy peanut sauce and boiled potato that was neither warm nor cold. Still feeling slightly nauseas from the trip, I washed them down with some tropical fruit flavored ‘Sporade’ sport drink.

We headed out about 9 with our van full of mixed destination passengers and I hoped that it wouldn’t take quite the whole hour to arrive at the farm as I was sure that everyone would already be asleep for the night and didn’t want to start out being a late night inconvenience. About 45 minutes passed and it was pitch black when the driver summed me on the side of the road where I searched for my headlamp and wandered off into the wilderness.

Not long after I started up the hill, I came upon a fork in the path where I had to chose which to take. At first I went right but after several steps second guessed it and decided to go back and go left which ended up to be the wrong way. I stumbled upon another farm down this route where I startled the family living there, surrounding by barking, biting dogs. A man told me that Sachahuares was up the hill and that I should ‘follow the PVC’ to get there. 20 or so minutes walking uphill, loaded down with with my giant pack loaded on my back and my daypack attached to my front I wondered if I would ever reach it or if I should simply sleep in my sleeping bag on the leaf-covered ground and wait until morning.
When I finally arrived up at the farm I was greeted by several more barking, biting dogs, a gaggle of hissing geese and even some angered chickens who raised a royal raucous in honor of my appearance. I labored toward the building, which I would later find out was the kitchen, with my load and began to knock and call out. I wandered around the building toward another structure, still calling out when Kieram, the eldest of the 3 young boys emerged from his room, flashlight in hand and led me along the path, even further up the hill, to my sweaty dismay, to the volunteer dormitory. The other volunteers lay in the comfort of their mosquito nets reading as I burst in to the cabaña and dumped down my cargo, barely able to catch my breath. After all my worries and all the excitement I had made it once again.

On the road again…

“And so, the coin was thrown in the air, turning many times, landing sometimes heads and other times tails.” - Ernesto Che Guevara.

In thinking how to recount my week in Lima, already the week before last, it’s difficult to know where to even start so I’ll just go back to the beginning. I hadn’t planned to stay more than a few nights before heading on but since I negotiated for a free week’s stay at the hostel if I worked the bar a few nights I decided a couple more days to rest and plan couldn’t hurt. In truth I didn’t do much of either as I ended up befriending several other travelers among the ever changing hostel gaggle. My first night on bar duty, Tuesday, I started chatting with a lovely young couple, he from England and she Scotland, a frenchwoman by way of Germany, an Englishman, a Canadian and a Californian, the last of which whom had become something of a staple at the hostel as he’d been staying there in exchange for language lessons since unfortunately being mugged of his passport and bank cards. 

The next morning some of us reconnected at breakfast and decided to all walk down to Miraflores together as I recommended they see the ruins there and I was itching to try my luck at surfing in the Peruvian pacific. Back in the room, I met another newly arrived bunkmate, also from England, whom I convinced to come along on the journey and even though she had just flown in that morning she was up for the adventure. The best thing about hostels is you never know who you’re going to meet or where it’s going to lead and I couldn’t have been happier that I extended the invite because after a night of fruitless recruiting I finally had a surfing buddy. 

Even though Miraflores is a neighborhood within Lima proper, it’s a solid hour/hour and a half walk but it buildings all become a blur when you’re walking and talking with newfound friends. We moseyed on down like a gringo parade, escorted the others to the ruins and then parted ways. Quite different from Philly’s grid layout, Lima is a hot mess of ever-changing roads and disorienting avenues that are even harder to navigate when you’re lost in conversation. Needless to say Sanchia and I got a bit turned around on our way to the beach originally but managed to get ourselves back on track. Once at the coast though we encountered another obstacle of getting down to sea level from the 500 or so meter coastal cliff drop and since the normal walkway was under construction we found the detour and continued down. 

Once at the bottom we were immediately greeted by Manuel and Josef, the guys at the first tent on the rocky beach. We agreed on a price, slipped into some wetsuits, grabbed our boards and headed out. The beach was completely without sand and was instead littered with gorgeous, rounded stones of varying sizes, colors and patterns. The water was bitingly cold or simply “refreshing” as Manuel put it and after a few tries of my ever-problematic lower back spasming I was finally able to work through the pain, stand up and even ride a few waves. Gnarly. After the surf, Sanchia and I walked down to Barranco, another Lima neighborhood just south of Miraflores that also borders the coast and found a restaurant: a bit of fried calamari for me, spaghetti and sauce for her and pilsners for us both. Lost in scintillating conversation and good food the two and a half hours I had before having to return to work the hostel bar suddenly transformed into 15 minutes. On the street we decided to grab a taxi back for only 10 soles, making it back by the skin of my teeth!

Working the bar in Lima was basically like hanging out and drinking with my newfound hostel mates, only I was getting free accommodations for pouring the drinks as well as consuming them. Not a bad gig as I said before, but dangerous in that I ended up drinking more than I probably would have otherwise. After shutting down the bar that night, we all went out for more drinks and ended up at a Peruvian karaoke bar in Lince, located between central Lima and Miraflores, where we sand and danced with some older Peruvian ladies who were very serious about their karaoke. It was an absolute blast, but unfortunately for me the later it got, the more stuffed up my nose became and I could feel an unavoidable illness coming on. 

Nevertheless, we closed down the karaoke bar and ventured across the street to a casino where we had just one beer more and collectively played a few rounds of roulette, or rather where the two irishmen Dara and John played a few rounds while the rest of the lot drunkenly observed. By the time we started back toward the hostel it was about six in the morning and the sun was just beginning to breach the horizon. Needless to say, I awoke only three or so hours later to an utterly debilitating cold, the contracted bug compounded by my stupidity and want to partake in the shenanigans of the previous evening. I would be stuck in bed more or less for two days before reviving, unfortunately not in time for the “splurge” reservations the jolly Californian cicerone and fellow foodie, Patrick, and I had made for a restaurant in Miraflores owned by world-renowned Le Cordon Bleu chef Gastón Acurio.

However we still managed to get our fill of Peruvian delicacies the next day, my last day in Lima, at Mistura, an epic food festival held annually in on of Lima’s coastal districts. There we exchanged our already colorful soles for even more colorful festival monopoly money and perused the many tents featuring every type of Peruvian cuisine imaginable. Lima is known for it’s culinary scene throughout South America and the festival eats were no exception. I split some ceviche, quinoa veggie burger, chicken gyro with Pat and Alex, one of two english gals that replaced some of the others who had moved on. The ceviche here is mush more simple than that of the decadent interpretations found in Philly, served in a simple citrus-fish cure with sliced red onions, herbs, a slice of sweet potato, toasted corn nuts and cooked corn, the tender lump cuts of fish are something to behold. The peruvian yellow corn (as there are a variety of kinds) is also like none found in the states- large, thick and starchy is no surprise that it’s a dietary staple here. Certainly a world of difference compared to the New Jersey sweet corn I’d usually be chowing down on all summer. 

Walking around we were able to also sample a variety of meats where we thought we had unintentionally had our first bit of alpaca, which turned out to be tapir, an incredibly stringy, gamey eat. At the festival was also “Beer World” with a small exhibition of beer equipment, steins, and old labels/ads. Inside was a large stage with a an enthusiastic emcee sporting a blue sequined blazer and quite a mullet, surrounded by pop up bars of various brews, mostly the popular labels of Cuzqueña, Pilsen, San Juan and a rare few local Peruvian craft brews. 

As the festival began to wind down, we left beer world to explore the food market a bit more where we sampled coffees and chocolates before all six of us piled into a taxi, doubled up on laps and limbs, back to the hostel. The night was still young though and once back at the hostel, five of us decided we weren’t done yet and headed south, ending up at our infamous karaoke bar from the other night where we loaded up the machine with songs, ordered a few pitchers of cheap lager and got down to business. We carried on in ridiculous, drunken tones while my still-ill voice strained to keep the melody, finishing with an epic group rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody joined by a group of local guys. Afterward the group parted ways and Pat, Alex and I grabbed a ‘combi’ bus back north to the hostel where, this time, I was snuggly in bed by a much more reasonable hour of 3 am. Not a bad note to leave Lima on.

I’m going back to where I started…

I find myself back in Peru’s dreary, fog-engulfed capital city after just under two weeks in the central highland town of Pichanaki and can’t help still feeling bewildered by the experience, but I’m getting ahead of myself, let me rewind and recount some events to catch you up on my time in this little coffee town. My journey really began two weekends ago when I walked down to the neighborhood of La Victoria within Lima to purchase my bus ticket. What should have been about an hour’s walk along a main artery through Lima turned out to be an adventure in and of itself as I took a turn too early and ended up lost among the poorly marked streets of some construction supply district full of dust-covered men hauling around large pipes, glass panes and other things who stopped in their tracks to see a befuddled gringa walking down the street.

Taking wrong turn after wrong turn I finally stopped and worked up the courage to ask for directions from a nice enough looking security man who ended up not quite knowing where I was trying to go but pointed me in a direction anyhow. I walked around the corner and asked a saw a young couple approaching so I asked them for help. They walked with me a while and then told me to wait on the corner where we had ended up, that the bus stopped there and that was where I could get on. Good enough advice, except that they were talking about a small ‘colectivo’ bus and I was looking to buy a ticket in advance for a larger and I hoped safer bus. I walked some more, asked some more to no a avail until I finally found a cab driver who knew more or less what I was looking for. We agreed on a price that I knew was too expensive but I was tired of feeling painfully lost and didn’t feel like negotiating so I got in and off we went. Once on the road he got to making small talk and asked all the cab driver questions: Where was I from? Why was I in Peru? Did I like it? How did it compare to my city? And finally, did I have a boyfriend or was I looking for one?

Once at the bus station I purchased my ticket and sat for a minute to let my thoughts settle and drink some of my safe, hostel-boiled water from my grimy bottle before forcing myself back up on my aching legs to head back to the center of town. I had told myself that if I walked there I would consider rewarding my efforts with a bus ride back, but seeing as I blew money on a cab already, I decided to hoof it back as well. In truth I didn’t mind the walk and aside from the pollution and constant glares and catcalls, it offered an interesting view of the city. I was lucky enough to stumble on some great graffiti pieces along the way as an added bonus which I snapped and filed away on my camera phone. I had brought my camera for the walk but decided against whipping it out in such unsavory neighborhoods where I already stood out like white cotton in a purple cotton field. 

Two evenings later I stood outside my hostel in the typical crisp, mist-filled Lima night air with my giant pack, daypack and ukulele to hail a cab to the bus. A dinky, dent-covered car with flaking red paint pulled over and the man behind the wheel asked where I was going. 

When I told him he seemed unsure but some clarification led me to believe we’d find our way there. He ended up being the nicest, most sincere cab driver I had found yet, but unfortunately I did not understand when he gave his name the first time or the second and felt ashamed to ask for it a third. Instead I heartily shook his hand and thanked him repeatedly every time he told me to take care. Inside the station I waited with my bags in a heap while other Peruvians trickled in to wait as well. A short while later a monstrous double decker bus, the likes of a giant caterpillar, pulled in, we boarded and departed. For 40 soles or about 15USD the reclining, cushioned seats were quite nice albeit this thisclose to one another. Eleven hours of overnight winding, veering and swerving along mountain roads later we arrived in Pichanaki, a trip that I was told would take closer to seven hours but who’s counting. I was glad to be in and out of sleep for much of the drive and unable to see just how eerily close to the edges of roads we were in the dark, but as the sun rose in the morning it was nice to see the never-ending mountainous lumps that multiplied in the distance and river valley below. 

The bus emptied us out on the side of the main road and the man unloading cargo dumped my pack in a pile of grease from a street vendor when I handed him my stub. Thankfully in Pichanaki I was met by the farm host, Juan Carlos, and his daughter perched on the back of his motorcycle, who had me shove my bags into a small motor taxi and drove what ended up being only a few blocks to the apartment that I could have easily walked to but for 1 sole, I didn’t mind the ride. My left knee was still reeling from all the various crunched up ways I had positioned myself on the bus in a failed effort to find a comfortable position. I was grateful for not having to find a public phone to contact him and also slightly saddened that my recently memorized phrases for the imaginary phone conversation would now drift away into the periphery of my mind’s language department, unused.

At the apartment I had barely set my bags down before I was thrown a smelly polo shirt with the word ‘Enamorate,’ or ‘fall in love,’ splashed across the back and told we needed to leave right away to meet the coffee judges in the main plaza for a ride to the farm. You see, I arrived just as the annual coffee festival was kicking off and the judges were going to the farm to evaluate it and there was strength in smelly black polo numbers. So I quickly changed and walked to the plaza with two girls from Belgium who had been working there for a month to catch our ride. Once we got there we were told by a mutual acquaintance to wait for them at the tourism booth so we went over and waited. We waited and waited and I couldn’t help but feel annoyed at all the things I could have been doing while we did so like shower, have a small bite to eat or take a light nap as the sleep on the bus was anything but restoring. Finally someone came over and told us to follow him to another location where we waited another hour or so before the judges pulled up to the stoplight in a pickup truck and told us to hurry get in the truck bed as the light changed. 

The drive to the farm was about an hour long trek along incredibly curvy uphill, downhill, rough, trench filled ‘roads’ that strained even the 4wheel drive. Juan Carlos met us at the farm with some of his family members to show us the various coffee plants, processing area, compost and main house where we drank the most naturally sweet, fresh squeezed orange juice and ate plantain marmalade filled crepes, followed by coffee, naturally. After some more explanation about the farm we all loaded back in the truck and on motorbikes to go down to a cascade nearby. The paths became muddier and more difficult as we went down so much so that we had to fill in giant sink hole ditches with sticks and other found objects in order to cross, but the chillingly refreshing waterfall at the end was definitely worth it.   

The days and week following were spent, not on the farm, but in town at the apartment stressfully running around trying to prepare our products for the coffee festival. There wasn’t a day where I woke up knowing what lay ahead or was expected of me and it seemed every time I managed to pry a plan out of Juan Carlos, it inevitably changed before coming to fruition so I gave up on trying and tried to go along with the chaos as best I could. Most of my time in Pichanaki was spent being dragged around to hang out with Juan’s friends and peddling coffee infused baked goods instead of working on a farm as I had thought I would which led to my decision to leave early. For as little work as I did, the experience was utterly exhausting. I’m not necessarily one for planning myself, I bought a one-way ticket to another country with a very loose, ever changing game plan, but in this case some organization and order would have made a world of a difference. 

More than anything though my decision to leave was fueled by an overly confident Juan Carlos trying to make awkward and inappropriate advances with me; the south american machismo mentality is very much alive and well or more appropriately put, there are assholes everywhere and the first WWOOF farm I picked just happened to be run by one. Which is not to say that I didn’t also have some enjoyable times in Pichanaki, there were definitely some gems in there and some amazing people, but as often as I would find myself savoring a sugary sweet moment his actions would replace my bliss with the sharp, unsavory taste of fear that has a way of lingering far longer than any honeyed happiness. 

So I find myself back in Lima to plot my next moves after a brief excursion to the little highland coffee capital and couldn’t have been happier to be greeted by the bleak, all-encompassing, fog-filled sky and the comfort of my hostel home. I’ll check in with more stories and future plans but for now I’m due to tend bar here at the hostel in exchange for my stay ;)

If you’re in the central Lima area stop by for a refreshing pisco sour haha… 

Cheers! and as always, a healthy sense of adventure!

Things I take for granted...

1. Refridgeration
2. Cold beverages
3. Salad
4. Clean, drinkable water
5. Craft beer
6. Metropolitan access to 743 different types of cuisine (mostly meaning pho)
7. Errmagerrrd tho phoooo
8. Not being a human pincushion for piercing needle-like mosquitos
9. Toilet paper
10. Peanut butter and pickles (both separately and together)
11. Electricity
12. High speed internet
13. Clean feet
14. More cold beverages

5232 miles and counting…

It's 1579 miles from Philly to San Juan, 1032 from San Juan to Miami, 2621 from Miami to Lima. I arrived in Lima at 4:20 in the morning on Monday, I know this because the flight attendant announced it overhead as I stared blankly and tired out the window to the black tarmac. I looked at my phone, now disconnected and useless for calls, good only to listen to music or play around on unnecessary apps. It says 5:20 still so I change the time. I find my watch in my bag and change the time on that too.  We deplane and at the immigration station the officer is outwardly surprised when he asks how long I’ll be staying and I tell him I don’t know, about 3 months maybe. How long is followed by why, why meaning what on earth could I do in Peru for so long. I stutter and say that I will be volunteering on farms in the mountains and sight-seeing also. He stamps a light grey mark into my passport atop the dark grey mountains on the page, my evidence of acceptance into the country barely legible and writes me a visa for 120 days. I am elated by these extra days and think to myself that whoever designed the current US passport pages to have images all over them is a moron. 

Before the baggage claim I stop to change currencies from dollars to soles and in several steps more I will find out that I could have gotten a slightly better deal. It is my first defeat of naiveté in Peru and surely not my last. The battered and worn baggage claim belt loops round and round and I see my orange behemoth of a pack, my sleeping bag dangling from it’s side. When boarding the first plane in Puerto Rico I had seen the sleeping bag already loosed from its straps and did not have high hopes it would survive the journey, but here it was, secured only by its drawcord and a carabiner I thankfully attached as added precaution. My first small success, hopefully not to be the last either! It is actually 5:20 then by the time I finish the immigration/baggage process and find a vacant corner of the airport in which to curl up in with my bags. I had slept on the plane but was constantly in and out from the coffee I foolishly drank during my late night Miami layover. After nodding off for a while, I awoke shivering on the floor from chilled Peruvian air and delved into the labyrinth of my pack to find my fleece. I enveloped myself in it and waited for the warmth of my body to trap itself within while thinking about how many layers I was now wearing. It’s mid August and I have on long pants, wool socks, boots, a hoodie, hat, scarf and now a fleece. Something about it all seemed so wrong but felt oh so right. A welcome relief, in truth, after 2 months in the blistering Caribbean sun. Bundled up in my temporary nook I read through my Lonely Planet guidebook and found on one of the maps the hostel where I would first be staying. I nodded off a little more and then looked over some practical spanish phrases, trying to get into the mindset of speaking, listening, thinking in another language, a language of which I do not hold a very strong command. It is necessary and useful but mostly it is an excuse. I am killing time until a more reasonable hour of venturing out into the real world, having to leave my safe, comfortable airport womb. Working up the courage to step out the doors I have been staring at since arriving to take that first polluted breath. The grey-white fog outside seems indifferent as to whether I join it or not and mocks me with its lack of opinion. By now it’s 8:30 and the conditions are beginning to seem prime, but still I hesitate. Check-in at the hostel isn’t until 3 and the idea of being stuck with my giant pack in downtown Lima is terrifying. Mustering up whatever courage I have and running through imaginary spanish conversations in my mind, I decide to go for it; cut the cord. 

I grab a taxi outside the airport and my lovely driver Abel chats me up as we drive onward. About a half an hour later we pull up in front of an historic facade with a red, gated entrance; my home for the next few days. Abel overcharges me and helps me take the lightest bag out of his van before giving me his card and going off on his way. I look up at the hostel entrance as locals move hectically all around me. I am here. I am really doing this. Someone from within buzzes me in and I lumber up the stairway to the desk where that same someone is kind enough to let me check-in early. After being shown to my modest accommodations in a room with four bunk beds I slump my bags onto the floor and collapse onto the bed. I hadn’t done anything particularly exerting that morning, it wasn’t even noon and yet I was already exhausted. Deciding I would explore after a nap, I dozed off into a dreamless sleep but awoke to a bitter fear emanating out from within the deepest, darkest depths of my abdominal cavity, consuming me and leaving an acidic taste in my mouth. I lay there unable to make myself get up; this is it. I am here. I am really doing this. I am all alone in the world, in a foreign country, with foreign people whose language I barely speak. I fall asleep again, refusing to confront my fears, only to awake later to the same unsavory taste. I have found a new mother in the hostel, to let go of her hand is unthinkable. Confronting myself in the mirror, I brush my teeth and tell myself that everything is fine. My mouth is minty fresh now, but the fear is still there, unavoidable, inescapable, only conquered by doing exactly that which frightens me most, but it is approaching sunset and I dare not venture too far. I leave the hostel and get a bite to eat from a street vendor: boiled egg and potato for 2 soles or about 75 cents. I sit on a stoop across from the Lima Museum of Art and eat the starchy goodness in an accomplished bliss while Peruvians gawk as they pass. The acrid taste of before is gone. This is it. I am here. I am really doing this! 

Days old post...

Playing catch up, this post is from a few days ago...

Today was a hot one! It was a very sunny morning with a heat index 102 degrees and the afternoon winds that usually help cool things off were nowhere to be found today. I drank all 3 of my liters of water before lunch when that amount of water usually lasts me all day, yikes! Despite the heat, we accomplished a lot today and I’m feeling pretty good about that. 

We opened a third unit, Unit 5, in the middle of an established structure near the main house and will hopefully be able to discern what the building’s purpose was from this season’s excavations. The previous archaeologist who worked on the site left poor reports of his findings and may have been off in his assessment of the structure as a kitchen/slave barracks, so it will be very interesting to see what we find! Based on a previous investigation of the structure’s wall profiles we are inclined to think that it may have been some kind of workshop as quite a bit of iron and glass slag, a stony waste matter separated from metals during the smelting or refining of ore, were found. However we are also finding a good deal of ceramic sherds, bones, sea shells, fish scales and even the fragment of a kitchen knife so as of now it’s still a conundrum.

We’ve only been in the field for about three weeks now although it seems like much longer. My hands are finally starting to callous over previous blisters and get used to the daily beating. What we archaeologists lovingly call ‘trowel hand,’ or something of a decrepit claw, is in full effect for my right hand and getting there for my left. Being an archaeologist is like aging prematurely…all your joints ache and lock up from all the crouching, crunching and manipulating yourself into these small earthen torture chambers otherwise known as excavations. We keep joking that we won’t know if any of us catch this newly hyped mosquito-born pathogen Chikungunya, of which a main symptom is arthritis-like joint pain, because our poor joints are already abused on a daily basis. Thankfully the mosquitos here aren't that plentiful and the ones I have seen/been bitten by so far haven’t been the crazy Asian tiger mosquito that hosts the disease so there shouldn’t be much cause for worry…. I hope! 

In setting up the new unit we had to pull back the tarp that had been protecting the structure to find three giant, albeit harmless, toads and a well-established, very harmful fire ant colony! The new unit is not too far off from the ants and I feel it is only a matter of time before an incident occurs. I am getting pretty good at avoiding the little buggers though and after being covered with black bitey ants in Belize last summer, and I mean literally having ants IN my pants and shirt...basically all over, all I have to say is, ‘bring it!’ 

A photo of the ant colony near Unit 5

I mean just look at that stinger....yikes!!

It seems the more I travel, the more insane insects and diseases I encounter (so far the majority of them in Belize) and there’s usually an adjustment period where I think, ‘Why the fuck do these things even exist?!’ but then I have to admit that they're fascinating creatures. I can’t say the project volunteers agree with me though, haha. Usually when I start rambling about this crazy bug or that deadly disease they just look at me like I’m crazy for ever wanting to work in Belize in the first place let alone go back for more. Well, I must be a masochist because given the opportunity I just can’t stay away!

Hacienda history in a nutshell...

I suppose before I go on talking about Unit this and Unit that, it might be good to give a brief summary of what this project is and why we’re digging here to put us in context, eh?

An acquaintance of mine from Temple University is doing her dissertation project at Hacienda La Esperanza, an historic sugar plantation located in Manatí, PR and is conducting both archaeological and ethnographic research in order to discern the social importance of class and race relations on the plantation during it’s heyday. The Hacienda is a 2,265-acre estate located in the fertile valley of the Río Grande de Manatí, about 35 miles west of San Juan Bautista, Puerto Rico’s capital city. It is bounded to the north by the Atlantic Ocean; to the west by the river; and to the east and south by haystack hills that are part of the Karst Region of Puerto Rico running eastward from Carolina to Aguadilla on the north-westernmost tip of the Island.

At its peak production, over 150 slaves worked the estate. It was their blood, sweat and tears in the fields that was the driving force behind the sugar industry boom and yet so much of their history has gone unnoticed. Some excavations and interviews were done in December so this season we are continuing to build upon that foundation of information.

Compared to other colonies, Puerto Rico was relatively late in importing enslaved Africans for plantation work. The Hacienda La Esperanza, however, once had one of the largest enslaved populations on the island. Founded in the 1830s by Fernando Fernández, a wealthy Spanish merchant and military man, la Esperanza was one of the most prosperous and mechanically advanced plantations of its time. It wasn’t until after Fernández’ death that the plantation really flourished and his son, José Ramón, joined with Philadelphian George C. Latimer to form Latimer & Fernández Co. Together became one of the most influential merchant firms in PR and by the 1860s José Ramón, named the Marqués de la Esperanza, was one of the wealthiest men not only on the island but in the entire Spanish Caribbean. 

With the abolition of slavery, however, production vastly dropped at Esperanza as it did on plantations elsewhere in 1873. José Ramón did what he could to make up for lost slave labor by mechanizing the Hacienda and installing a rare West Point Foundry steam engine sugar mill, but racked up considerable debt in doing so. Then after José Ramón’s death the plantation went bankrupt and was sold. The new owners could not recover from the financial devastation and by 1889 the sugar cane was gone completely, the property already transformed into a cattle ranch.

Plantation owners during the 19th century greatly impacted the social structure of the plantation’s cultural ecosystem by managing enslaved people’s space and behavior. 

Unfortunately many of the original structures on the plantation such as the slave barracks have not withstood time. Through excavation and analysis we hope to ascertain where the barracks were and gain more insight as to just how these socially differentiated spaces and management of goods and behaviors by plantation owners affected the enslaved people’s culture, identity and general way of life.  It is an interesting project because while there are some written records accounting for enslaved populations during this time, such as the Slave Census of 1870, there are still large gaps in understanding what their lives were like. 

The first two units we dug this season were located where the project director thought the barracks might have been based on an old 20th century map of the property and ground penetrating radar (GPR) done prior to excavations (within the red rectangles on the topographic map below).

The shaded figure in the lower right corner is the main house.

From what we can tell so far those units did not yield any evidence of occupation, but in examining the artifacts from Unit 4 we may learn some things. Next we will be opening units within structure ruins, known as Feature C, from which we hope to learn the building’s use and whether it was a kitchen or a workshop. Depending on how these excavations go, we hope to have time for one more unit and crack at finding the barracks.

The Fideicomiso de Conservación de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Conservation Trust) has restored some of the remaining structures of the plantation including the main house and the sugar drying house and offers tours to the public.  

The main house before and after restoration.

(Above) The original blood mill, powered by animals or slaves, which required people to manually place the cane into the rollers in order to press out the juice. All too often, hands or arms would accidentally (sometimes purposefully, for punishment) be crushed between the wooden rollers (hence the name).

Good links to peruse for my fellow nerds and history buffs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ramon_Fern%C3%A1ndez  

http://www.fideicomiso.org/hacienda-la-esperanza-eng/

Days go by...

It feels so weird to be on a dig on an island and yet be completely connected via internet access and even working phone service. I can’t quite seem to get used to this setup. The past four summers I’ve worked on projects in other countries where I have had occasional internet access but it was not something I could really rely on to stay connected. I keep thinking, ‘I need to post entries! I need to post pictures!’ and, in fact I have such a backlog of photos and raw entries I very well could have posted more already without editing. I’m finding it hard to find the motivation to do anything after a full day in the field/sun and I’ll admit much of the energy I have left I use to go for a run or swim. On a typical day we leave the apartment in Vega Baja around 6-6:15 to get to the Hacienda in Manatí and are usually set up and ready to work by 7-7:15. Then it’s an 8 hour workday, we start packing up around 4:00, are on the road back to the apartment at 4:30 and usually get there around 5:00 or so. Add on an hour in the morning for breakfast, packing lunch and getting ready and your looking at a pretty solid, exhausting 12 hour day!

So Monday, June 30 was the first day of excavations at La Esperanza and it was a wash-out even though it’s been mostly dry since getting here two weeks ago. We got the first two units set-up and opened the first levels for each, meaning we removed the grass/vegetation mat on top of the soil and got all the walls squared off. The weather is calling for rain and thunderstorms the next few days, but hopefully they are just passing clouds. The winds here can be really strong along the coast which help to push storm clouds along or push them south to miss us altogether, but the weather changes so frequently on these coastal plains that it’s hard to keep up! Since then, we’ve about finished these two units and have started washing and processing the associated artifacts. The unit we were hoping to find a floor/foundation in, Unit 2E, turned out to be what looks like debris from a collapsed floor from further east and slightly uphill from the unit. It didn’t yield too many exciting artifacts, just crumbling mortar, brick and other construction materials. In Unit 4 we did have some pretty great finds before the soil started becoming more culturally sterile. There are two coins that look like the kind the Spanish issued for Puerto Rico, though they do not appear to be made of silver as they should be, a marble, a silver spoon, part of a perfume bottle, a crystal bead, a variety of buttons, and what appears to be a token or perhaps a game piece. This week we’ll be wrapping up these two units, start two more, and continuing to process the things we’ve found. 

Goodbye mosquitos, hello fire ants!!….

Ok, so here’s a recap of my second week on the island. This first week on the job in Vega Baja has been something of a whirlwind between starting the excavations in Manatí and dealing with obstacles at the apartment like the fridge dying right after we stocked up on cheap/bulk frozen fruits and veggies and my brand new laptop having issues booting up. Ay ay ay! >_<

As for the field, things are slow going so far. We are running a bit behind schedule for several reasons so hopefully next week we can pick up the pace. For starters, they’ve been having issues with water at the plantation so we are not able to water-sieve our soil samples and now have quite a backlog of them to process. Right now we have two 1x1 meter units open, Unit 4 and Unit 2E. We are finding tons of material in Unit 4 like ceramic and wooden buttons, animal teeth, a metal key, spoon and ceramic sherds, glass sherds, pieces of brick, mortar, etc by the bucketload, which is both awesome and frustrating (the more artifacts found, the slower the digging goes). 

Unit 2E 

Unit 2E at a later level, further down

This dig is definitely a change of pace from the pre-Colombian projects I’ve worked on in the past. It’s a very interesting projects but a lot less exhilarating to find chunks of brick as opposed to flint-knapped lithic stone tools haha. Unit 2E doesn’t have much cultural material aside from brick, though an intact porcelain button was found yesterday! The soil in Unit 2E has been a royal pain due to compression from sandbags used to prevent flooding of Unit 2 during the last excavation season; we had to start out with a pick axe and shovels in order to bust through it. Did I mention the wind has been relentless?! We’ve already gone through two canopies, one of which we brought to the field brand new and it broke in a day. Every day we have to figure out new ways to jerry rig them to withstand these gusts fueled by what must be the powers of Aura, Lelantos and Perses combined!

I will say, the mosquitoes here are not so bad and I’m sure the insane wind helps with that a bit, so that’s a plus. However, there is one thing the plantation is covered with: ants! FIRE ants to be exact and man do they pack a nasty little itchy punch when they sting you!! The most frustrating part about their bites is that they can spread if you scratch them open and they do not respond to bug repellent. Needless to say I have already acquired quite a few and am one very itchy archaeologist, but I guess that’s just the nature of the trade. And at least they’re the only real insect threat I have to worry about here, whereas in Belize you are have to be on constant alert for dangerous creepers and crawlers! 

It’s easy to become focused on the negative with so many things going wrong but for now I’ll count my blessings.

And so it begins…

Well it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted and I’ve skipped an entire adventure (last summer in Belize) in the process, but now I’m back and blogging with a vengeance! This time I’m writing from Puerto Rico, where I will be working for the next month and a half. For the next six weeks I’ll be staying in the town of Vega Baja along the northern coast of PR. The project is on an historic sugar plantation within the conservation of Hacienda La Esperanza, Manati, Puerto Rico, where we will be investigating Plantation owner/slave relations through archaeological excavations. The apartment is in a complex located right on the beach with beach access although the coast in this area is rocky and not the most inviting (ie. spiky spiky sea urchins.) Not to worry though as the apartment complex has two pools from which to choose! I have to say, the conditions here rival those of the dig I worked on in Cuba, Colombia, only this time not all of my expenses are covered by grants. Still, I’m not complaining! The news is saying that this summer is already hotter than usual and that temperatures are expected to break records this summer so those pools are definitely going to be a sweet relief after long workdays in the sun. Part of the problem is that  there is a cloud of sand/dust being brought over from the Sahara which results in dry, hot spells and impacts the air quality exasperating allergies and making it hard to breathe. The humid heat is already so oppressive it’s difficult to be motivated and productive, which might be the biggest challenge this summer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saharan_Air_Layer). Several times I have sat down with the intention of writing posts and just haven’t had the energy! The Saharan dust clouds pass over PR periodically, typically in the summer, but I have read that the weather in Puerto Rico is changing a lot in general from an Equatorial climate to that of a tropical monsoon category so we’ll see what this summer brings! I had thought we might have internet at the apartment but it comes and goes so I will do my best to be consistent with posts and updates. 

-KmF.