SF show quote: "...we are both patriots.'

First day of camp gone off without too much of a hitch. Had nine of my CITs, the last one comes tomorrow. One of them really didn't want to be there at all but we'll see what we can do to make her life less miserable at camp.

In the meantime, a little wisdom from one of the great sf writers;

By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human
beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions
or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled ‘good’ or
‘bad’. But secondly–and this is much more important–I mean
the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing
it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of
advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with
patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any
definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction
between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved.
By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular
way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no
wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive,
both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is
inseparable from the desire for power.

Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell

Enjoy the week everybody. It's the summer. 90's with high humidity tomorrow.

The waiting game

Sitting here, waiting
Need a ride, so I can work
Wakanda begins.

C.I.T.'s reign supreme!

So's I'm back in the town of beans, and I've been working up a bit of a storm. The afterschool program stuff is winding down, and camp is revving up to go. I've got some ideas and a general outline of what I want to do with my CITs now, and I've made some good contacts at other camps with whom to swap info and compare notes. For those of you who don't know or are confused I'm the CIT Program Director now. This morning we were actually on site at camp getting some more work down there and things are looking good. We even got suprise visitors! People we hadn't seen in a long time which was cool. We're in good shape there over all. If only the damn Tee-Pee would show up.

Then there's the paper side of it and that's almost a walking nightmare. It's also the reason I haven't made it home before ten every night this week until today. I don't mind, not at all. I could use the money, I've got stuff that needs getting done, and if I'm able to help out someone else (namely my boss, not my brother but his boss) that's a good thing too. It should be a good summer though, most of the crew we have are very dedicated and almost everyone is a returning Wakanda veteran. There's 'Hollywood' who I think I might deck before the summer ends, and a girl I find abrasive as all hell... let's call her 'Nails' for these purposes, but other than that I think the staff is awesome. And the boss is on our side since she understands that Wakanda is the greatest place ever to exist.

It helps that she fully supports the anti camp rotary fervor we're kicking up.

Now... I say I might hit Hollywood, but other people tell me he's almost a different person up at camp and that he's a lot better. For now though just about everything about him ticks me the hell off. His nickname is Hollywood for gods sake! That says a lot about him actually. If I don't kill him, I'm at least going to grind his glasses and blackberry under my heel.

Wait, this is the first night I've had a bit of free time at all. Why the hell am I inside?!? On that note! Bye!

Now let's see if I can track someone down...

Condors are very, very big birds.

I saw very large birds today while standing at the lip of a very big hole in the ground. And also had both cúy and alpaca in the same meal. I had to pick out little tiny claws from the guinea pig, which is pretty good but insanely bony.

What else can I even talk about? Let's see. I'm in Arequipa waiting for our bus to leave. It's an overnighter, but it gives new meaning to the term. I'm going to make sure I have some pictures of it, but it's a double decker with seats that fold into beds or something. Some of the other buses I've taken here have had what I call 'ride attendants' to serve you as on a plane. Usually it's pretty comfortable even if the dvd skips like crazy from the road.

If only greyhound was like that...

I suppose I should mention that avocados here are huge, and delicious, and as ubiquitous as apples are in New England. They're everywhere, and cheap, and so very very good. Christian's going to be jealous of this. What else for food... there's the pisco sours, the local famous brandy stuff that I think is pretty good and Chip detests, and Inca Cola.

Ah Inca Cola... it's this crazy nuclear-yellow color and tastes like a fruity hybrid somewhere between bubblegum and rootbeer. And that's about the only way to describe it. It's the locally produced and favorite soft drink though and my goal is definately to bring some home. At the very least to prove how unnervingly yellow the stuff is. And if you think I didn't do a very good job of describing its taste then when I get back, YOU can taste it and then tell me. It almost defies description. It's so yellow it almost glows. The one tee-shirt I nabbed was an Inca Cola one, as I'm fond of the strange eldritch elixer. Expect to see it if I see you.

I'm very bored right now. I think I'll go play scrabble with the family or something. I've already finished a few books on this trip (thank god for the hostel book exchange) in down time and I'm going to probably finish another one on this trip. Let´s see, I finished 'A Canticle for Leibowitz', and moved on to a novel called 'Alas, Babylon' by Pat Frank. I wouldn't much recommend it, it was a quick read and follows the trials and tribulations of a group of people caught in central Florida in a basically all clear zone during and after nuclear war between the USSR and the States. It was written sometime after the Korean War and before the Vietnam War got underway, so a lot of the assumptions and talks center around that. If you like what if scenarios and Swiss Family Robinson type stuff then go for it. I'll say this for it, it killed some time.

After that I found a Philip K. Dick story 'Inter-galactic Pot Healer', which was welcome to say the least after 'Alas, Babylon'. Better writing, more interesting, and well, it's Dick so it was good. Look, it's been a long day (up at 5am to see the Condors) and my brain's not trying all that hard to provide you my very bored reader with proper and exciting exposition about things in the recent past. Short story is;

Canticle was pretty good.
Alas, Babylon was readable.
Pot Healer was a fun one.
My next book is the Bourne Supremacy.

For those of you scoffing at my next 'selection' let it be known that it won out over the likes of 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People', a plethora of Danielle Steele and lesser known romantic novelists, and the '2007 Visitors guide to New York City'. I think there was a Tom Clancy novel in there as well but I tend to glaze over those and move on without paying attention so I can't be sure. I think I made the right choice.

I can't think of things to write and yet we've done a lot here. We're approaching the 1,000 picture mark so you'll get to see a lot of Peru and Bolivia.

OH! I´ve been meaning to respond to the Comment left on one of my entries for a while but commenting from here hasn't been working so let me say something here.

Whoever it may be who blogged.

1. Emily is 8. She's in very good physical condition. I stopped her from hyper-ventilating because she was starting to panic. She was fine. We were just you know, really really freaking high up where it's difficult to breath when you're hiking up. The air was just very thin and she did a lot better than some of the adults on the Inca Trail. Try explaining to an eight year old how to control her breathing, really do it. I'd like to hear how you faired. Again. She was fine and it was once, and early on and she was more scared than anything.

We had the lightest packs possible. We had two changes of clothes (for three days), 2+ liters of water each (Emily did not carry anything on the trail, and we were required 2 liters minimum), a towel, and that's it. What are you talking about? It was long and arduous, but worth it at the end. We weren't sleeping in tents and we were in the cloud forest not the rainforest.

Anyways. Hi, who are you anyways? Do you have a name?

Home on Monday. Like 3 days to go now.

Hi, bye

So the computer I'm on is still running Windows 98 as it's OS. It's stepping into the way back machine or something. I actually just looked at the clustermaps and it seems the only place showing up is Arequipa (where I am now, surrounded by big, big volcanos). There's a bunch of new ones from what looks like Santiago, Chilé and parts of Argentina. Gotta run to the deepest canyon in the world now. Bye.

Out of Bolivia safe and sound

So! I´ve been trying to blog with some kind of frequency, but of late the connections have been too slow to let me even log in without timing out. Then again I was in Bolivia, a substantially poorer country than Peru. Well, we're back in Puno, Peru and just had another lunch in the form of a 'menú'. Now we're in an internet cafe (obviously since I could type this) killing time until our bus leaves for Arequipa (five hour ride), where hopefully I get to see the deepest canyon in the world. The place is also apparently surrounded by vocanos, so this should be fun! Especially since we're dropping about a mile in altitude... now that we've just about fully adjusted to it of course.

Yesterday we hiked Isla del Sol (after a very sloooooowwwww ferry ride over) which according to legend was the birthplace of the first Inca, and before that the place that gave birth to just about everything in the world. It was neat. Dry. Very dry. And a very long walk. Somehow it seemed be mostly uphill as well, and with the complete lack of tree cover (not many trees at that altitude anyways)it was dry, cold, and sunny. The sun was incredibly strong since we were so high up, but it was too cold to not wear long sleeves. That probably saved me from some serious sunburn though so I suppose it's a wash.

Bolivian T.V. Talk about a propganda conduit for the government. Just about every hour had about fifteen minutes devoted to saying good things about the President. I mean they could have made even Bill-O and Fox noise blush. Sometimes you have to see the other side to appreciate just how important some things are. And yes of course, as anywhere, The Simpsons are on at all and random hours of the day. Los Simpsons! My favorite parts are when they read anything written on a sign (or Bart's chalkboard in the opening sequence) aloud in spanish over whatevers going on in the show.

I'm not sure what else I've forgotten to blog about. There was the long bus trip from Cusco to Puno a while back (about ten hours with the stops to visit some tourist things) in which we saw some interesting things. We've also all been pretty sick (Emily's actually been pretty much fine though) but I'm feeling a hell of a lot better than I was even a few days ago, and Chip was never all that bad. Mom though had a rough time of it for a while. And no this has nothing to do with altitude, these are the cold old fashion viral and bacterial sicknesses. All kinds of fun.

It seems like the local 'protest' is over now completely. By protest it was kind of an almost earth day event though. People were parading with bands and such to stop polution with signs demanding greater protections for Lake Titicaca which they (and rightly so from my point of view) see as their and their city's future.

The trout here is freakin' tasty. The Alpaca delicious. And guinea pigs aren't just pets anymore. Roast 'cuy' being a local delicacy. It just goes to prove again that cuter means more delicious. I've got to try and remember to get a picture of it...

That's all for now. I'm going to have a fairly steep bill so I've got to run now. Bye from Peru!

Internets are slowwwwwww here.

I'm going to keep this brief since the webs are really slow here. We are kind of in the middle of the Andes out by the middle of almost nowhere so I'm happy to have access at all though.
He'res what's happened the last couple of days,

Day trip to hike ruins in Pisaq and Ollantaytambo.
Hiked the Inca trail to Machu Pichu.
(here I learned a new loathing for stairs)
Went back to Machu Picchu to watch the sunrise, and hike up Waynapichu.
(here the loathing was reaffirmed).
Went to some natural mineral hotsprings and a museum.
And slept. A lot. In between hikes.

This medicine sucks. The worst stuffs over but I still get this really freakin' weird tingly feeling in my fingertips, face, and feet sometimes. The Inca trail is really something different. Hiking it you get a two guides one person to lead from the front and one to follow at the rear and then the rest of you. For people such as myself and family, living at basically sea level, you learn fast that you just can't seem to breath.

I had to stop Emily from hyperventilating fairly early on actually. We were hiking with a group obviously and this thing ends up forcing bonds on people. Justin/Justino our guide called us a family and we definitely bonded as such. The Chambers from Tennessee had a bit of an easier time of it with much lighter packs and having lived on a plateau and whatnot, but we all suffered pretty much together. Andrea and Chris were the closest people to my age on the trip, but what was more surprising was that their grandparents did the trail. Yeah they were in the back with 'Happy Eric' (the guy was always freakin' smiling) as the rear guide for most of the time but they made it.

This thing made people in pretty damn good shape stop for breathers, swear out loud at steps and have to help each other up steps and these octagenarians actually MADE IT THROUGH. It was impressive. So was Machu Picchu. It was so worth the climb and we made some good friends on the way. But when was the last time I was asleep before 8:30? After that trek I was.

The Incas must have had the lung capacity of a humpback whale and legs like tree trunks because everything they built, EVERYTHING, is just so high.

Time to catch the train for Cusco however, and from there on to Puno, Copacabana, and Lake Titicaka.