The promised Guaraní blog

The Guaraní are an indigenous tribe that live in Argentina and Brazil and were, until recently, fairly untouched by Western Society. Although many members of the tribe were exposed to Western culture in Jesuit missions during the Spanish conquest, a large number of Guaraní lived and hunted in the forest around Iguaçu until the 1930s-1940s, when the Brazilian and Argentine governments declared these lands protected zones and moved the tribes several kilometers away to government designated reservations. Today, the Guaraní live in communities of a few hundred people on either side of the border and maintain a fairly simple lifestyle.

On our free day in Brazil, several of us went with Carlos, Andres, and Mauricio (see the blog on Brazil if you don’t remember who they are) to one of the reservations in Argentina, where we were guided by a Guaraní leader named Ricardo, who showed us their agricultural and trapping methods, and school system (small children are given a basic education and people ages 14-30 are trained in tourism). We also got to buy Guaraní handicrafts, which are largely animals and imitation weapons carved from wood on their land.

Interesting facts:

1.The Guaraní are free to follow their own law on their land, which includes punishing people for crimes according to tradition (usually, a person is enslaved to the family he or she harmed for a period of time determined by the severity of the crime).

2. Guaraní women reach the age of majority at 13 and men at the age of 18.

3. There is little ethnic mixing with the Guaraní because outsiders are not allowed to live with them and tribe members are not allowed to return and live with the tribe if they move away.

4. The Guaraní don’t believe in working (at least in Western style jobs). Before being moved to the reservations, they lived almost entirely off the land, picking fruits and vegetables that grew naturally and hunting animals. Now they plant a little and still hunt, and host curious tourists. But none of them have careers. To be honest, it kind of reminds me of the Garden of Eden…

5. According to my Spanish textbook, Guaraní is one of the most widely spoken native languages in the Americas. Ricardo told us that families speak Guaraní at home and learn Spanish (or Portuguese if they’re in Brazil) during their primary education. So for the first 5 years of their lives or so, they don’t speak any Spanish at all despite living in a Spanish-speaking country.

Visiting the Guaraní and learning a little about their way of life was probably the most interesting thing we did in Brazil. I really enjoyed hearing the children speak and sing in an indigenous language. Way cool.

Why on Earth do I have 10 Argentine stamps in my passport?

I realize that I tend to harp about how being a tourist is lame and how being in big groups is lamer. But to be completely honest, I thoroughly enjoyed our large group (30 people) trip to Brazil. We drove (which sounds horrible) in a double decker tour bus. It was actually amazing because it gave us a base of operations and was remarkably comfortable. For the most part, I had my own seat (although I occasionally shared with Krista or Karen, which was also fine). We could actually lean back and sleep in our seats without crushing the person behind us. There was airconditioning on the bus. Most importantly, our guides/interpreters/whatever else were amazing. Andres and Mauricio (the coolest father-son pair ever) were fun, nice, patient, and accommodating. They even took a bunch of people to a mall in Iguaçu (so that they could stave off boredom) on their night off. Plus, I got to spend a lot of time chillin’ in the hotel, where I shared a room with Holly. Yay for getting to know people better!

Anywho, Brazil was the perfect mix of down time and scheduled activity for me. I had plenty of time to nap and read my 1006 page novel (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, fyi). But we also got to do a lot of exciting things

Horacio Quiroga’s Homestead

The man himself may be dead, but his house still generates a lot of attention. Quiroga was the Edgar Allen Poe of South America. He even built his house and raised his children in the Argentine jungles amongst the wild animals. We spent a small amount of time at his house, looking at old pictures of him and seeing the life of an author that we’ve read in Latin America and the Arts.

Jesuit Ruins

When the Spanish and Portuguese conquered South America, they brought Catholicism with them in the form of missions, which were set up to “civilize” the indigenous people (meaning teach them to think and act like Europeans or, at least, be good servants for their European masters). Despite my cynicism, I have to admit that the Jesuits also did a lot of good in their missions, often saving the people from slave traders and incorporating native traditions into Christianity to make it an understandable religion. They ended up converting a large portion of the population to Christianity. To see the best and worst of this time period, watch the Roberg DeNiro film The Mission. We got to see the ruin of one such mission, which had housing for the people who chose to live there, a hospital, a central kitchen, a library, a church, and a school for the children. It was a really interesting place.

Foz do Iguaçu

We got to see both the Argentine and Brazilian side of this waterfall, which was a lot more exciting than it sounds. Our guide Carlos is a biology major at some Brazilian university (that I can’t remember the name of because Portuguese sounds like gibberish to me). He knew a lot about the forests that we walked through. (The falls are surrounded by protected forest zones on both sides.) Highlights included seeing Capuchin monkeys, a rare woodpecker, and coatis. Surprisingly enough, the two sides were really different. The Argentine side can’t be beat for sure grandeur, with the majority spectacular waterfalls on this side. It’s really lush, green, and wet. The Brazilian side was equally beautiful, though. It didn’t seem to be as much of a waterfall as a series of lagoons that would be a perfect place to do another film adaptation of Peter Pan. There were, of course, waterfalls here too, but they seemed smaller and there was a lot more exposed rock. I can’t do either side justice, so you’ll just have to wait for pictures.

Parque das Aves

The name sounds more German than Portuguese to me, but regardless this was a bird park in Brazil. We wandered up and down paths looking at a bunch of indigenous bird species in cages. Some of the cages (three if I’m remembering correctly) were made for people to walk through. We got to go in a cage with hummingbirds and butterflies, a representation of a swamp, and a cage full of macaws. They also had a boa constrictor in a glass case and a couple of caimans. The most exciting part of it all, though, was making a toucan friend. Karen and I fell way behind the group in the swamp cage and watched this toucan that was really aggressive in approaching people. Finally, we got up the nerve to go up to him. He held on to my finger with his beak (but didn’t bite) and let us pet his beak and back. Much like Kai (my cat, for those of you who don’t know), he did not enjoy having his belly petted. We probably stayed with him for 10 minutes and he was a lot of fun. I wanted to name him Pablo (for no particular reason other than he looked like a Pablo to me) but in the end we decided on Poder (which is the infinitive of the verb meaning “to be able to” or…… “to can”) Get it????? I know. We’re very clever. In the end, we had to leave because our group was in some other part of the park entirely and a woman had come in to the swamp and scared Poder (leading him to bite me and fly away). Que triste.

Paraguay

We spent 3 hours in the busy city Cuidad del Este, which is basically a major shopping center. There are malls galore and shops explode out onto the streets as well. Lots to buy, some stuff is probably illegal. On the positive side, I had amazing fries in the food court at the AmericanShopping mall. Needless to say, 3 hours was enough for me.

Itaipu Dam

Okay, so I’ve got to admit that the best part of this tour was all the dam jokes, initiated by one Dr. Kenneth Cukrowski, I might add. But really, the dam was an interesting tour. Of course, there was all sorts of information about how the company was socially and environmentally active (and no mention of the environmental damage caused by building dams), but I still enjoyed it as a whole. Itaipu Dam is the 4^th largest hydroelectric dam in the world and supplies the majority of the power needs of both Brazil and Paraguay. Plus, we got to see one of the spillways open and even a man-made waterfall is fun to watch. Ken and I thought that they could make a lot of money by letting adventure-seeking tourists ride a tube down the spill-way and parasail off of the edge into the river below. I know I’d do it.

Guaraní Tribe

On our day off, Carlos, Mauricio, and Andres took some of us back into Argentina to visit the Guaraní, an indigenous tribe who lives around the Iguaçu river and has managed to maintain a lot of their traditional way of life. I found them really interesting, so there will be a blog to follow about them later.

Random points of interest
1. There’s a soft drink that’s only found in Brazil called guaraná. I really like it. In fact, I’m bringing some home.
2. We went to a very nice buffet/dinner show one night that featured song and dance from around South America. Among other delicious foods, I ate chicken heart and cebou (think Veggie Tales Silly Songs with Larry). Yummy.
3. Our hotel room had a TV, which allowed me to watch some programming in English. I enjoyed the French channel more.
4. Brazil has real cheddar cheese and puts it on their burgers!!!! That might have been the highlight of my trip.
5. Bee stings hurt just as much in Brazil as they do in the States. :-( I found that one out the hard way.

That's all for today, folks. Hope you enjoy. I'll post again soon. Promise.

Machu Picchu? Check

Okay, for all of you faithful readers of my rarely updated blog, I’ve decided to satisfy your curiosity. Yes, I am in fact still alive. And yes, I have been doing things. A great many things, actually, and yet sometimes it seems like I do nothing at all… But that’s entirely beside the point because this blog is all about my fantastic, one-of-a-kind, entirely-indescribable-by-a-simple-list-of-adjectives SPRING BREAK IN PERU.

The week was jam-packed full of activity, so I’ll give you a quick rundown with some commentary on the way.

Fourteen of us left Montevideo for a series of airplane rides that would eventually take us to Peru. The group of intrepid travelers included me (of course), the Cukrowskis, Sarah Boyd, Colter Lane, Mark Foster, Mallory Kornegay, Alan Barr, Logan Braaten, Kelsey Nikolaus, Branson Blackburn, and Nick Perkins. The trip there had two major highlights:

1. We were picked up from Casa ACU in black Mercedes Benz’s driven by men in black suites and dark sunglasses who drove very fast and talked on walky-talkies. Why the special cars? According to Sandra (Casa ACU’s Montevideo expert), they had bigger trunks than normal taxis and weren’t much more expensive…. All in all, it was very exciting and I felt like a VIP.

Note: You might want to ask one of the Cukrowskis (or me) about their driver. He was an interesting fellow indeed.

2. The airline was overbooked and so the Cukrowskis took them up on a voucher offer and arrived in Peru a day later then the rest of us. Not really exciting or anything, but it did give us a few confusing moments at the airport when everyone was trying to figure out what was going on. We flew from Montevideo to Sangtiago, Chile and then to Lima, Peru.

Mark, Colter, Sarah B. and I spent day two of spring break wandering around Peru together. After collapsing in our hostel (called Samay Wasi, in case you care) the night before, we got to a fairly early start the next morning (I actually got up at 8…..). We went to the city center where we saw a park, catacombs, a Franciscan monastery, the cathedral, and an art museum that contained only works by Peruvian artists. We also got to dine at Chili’s that night, which was horribly exciting because it was the first truly American food any of us had had all semester. (Even McDonalds has a distinctly Uruguayan flair in Montevideo). Mark and I were also really excited to go to Starbucks and get Grande White Chocolate Mocha Frappuchinos, which we sorely miss.

The next morning we went to the Lima airport (which had Dr. Pepper, to the excitement and surprise of the group) and flew to Cuzco. Just so you know, Cuzco is a breathtaking city, both literally and figuratively. Almost as soon as you step off the plane, you’re offered coca leaves, teas, and candies to relieve altitude sickness. I managed to avoid that, but I must admit that walking around the city was hard; I had to stop quite a bit to catch my breath. While I’ll be the first to admit that I’m out of shape, even Colter (who climbs mountains for fun) had a little trouble breathing. In addition to the literally breathtaking elements, Cuzco is an absolutely beautiful city. The mountain air is crisp and clean and our hostel was pretty high up, giving us a wonderful view of the city and surrounding mountains and making it possible to enjoy some awe-inspiring sunsets. Cuzco was also an exciting city of firsts. Here’s a list of some of the things I discovered there:

1. Incan stonemasons were geniuses. Their walls are built by cutting stones to fight together perfectly so that they don’t have to use any sort of mortar.
2. Tea made from coca leaves (yes, coca meaning raw ingredient of cocaine) is really good
3. Incan Kola (made by the Coke company and only available in Peru) is a weird yellow color but still tastes good.
4. Cuy (also known as guinea pig) is a disgusting dish
5. Alpaca is a surprisingly tasty dish
6. Peru has something like 1000 different types of potatoes
7. I have absolutely no desire to bungee jump (even after watching 6 people in our group do it just outside of Cuzco)
8. White water rafting is actually a lot of fun (especially on a river called the Orubamba)
9. Speaking French is an effective way to deter aggressive Peruvian sales-people in plazas
10. Early to bed, early(er than usual) to rise actually works for me in the mountains. 10:30 seems obscenely late in Cuzco.

Karen and I decided after our first day in Cuzco that we would be perfectly happy with our spring break even if we never went to Machu Picchu. Fortunately, we didn’t have to test that statement because we spent the middle of the week in Machu Picchu/Aguas Calientes (the village in the “valley” beneath Machu Picchu and its immediate neighbors). Machu Picchu was everything I had ever dreamed of: an ancient, mysterious Incan site in remarkably good condition on a beautiful mountain. The tour of Machu Picchu was a lot of fun, despite the lack of answers. According to our guide, there are a number of theories as to the nature of Machu Picchu. My favorite is that it was an Incan university. It has terraces for agricultural studies, temples for religious studies, astronomical observatories, “dorms”, enough stonework to train any aspiring engineer, and remnants of counting cords which were used by, among other groups, scholars to convey information in a society that had no written language. If you want to know more, I’d be happy to share with you, but I think this is enough info for the entry. Anywho, my point was that I really enjoyed the ruins. I have the pictures to prove it. :D Aguas Calientes was also a lot of fun; I especially enjoyed the craft fair that’s right outside the train station (with the intention of trapping tourists in a maze of pretties).

All in all, it was the most amazing spring break I’ve ever had, despite the fact that I had to spend it with people.