Breach of Consistency

I love travel. I love new experiences. I love new flavors. But sometimes you want a taste of home. I remember when we were traveling with our children over a decade ago. We were in Marrakech, Morocco. And I wanted brownies. I told Alrica I wanted brownies and maybe we would have to go back the states just so I could have brownies. Fortunately, we found brownies made right there in Marrakech, so a trans-oceanic trip wasn't necessary.

Luckily there are certain foods which are global. You find them everywhere. For example, Coca-Cola. Everywhere has Coca-Cola. The problem is this: it doesn't always taste the same. In some places, including Brazil, it is very much like the Coke in the USA. Except some of these places use sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. But in many countries, including Peru and Thailand, even Coca-Cola which is labeled as Original or Regular also has a subtitle: Less Sugar. It isn't sugar-free. It isn't Coke Zero. But it has less sugar (and presumably some amount of artificial sweetener) than the Coke I am used to.

KFC is perhaps not global, but close. There are KFC restaurants in more countries than any other single restaurant franchise. Now we don't always eat KFC just because it's there. But when we do, it is nice to think you are getting the exact same eleven herbs and spices. When we were in Ecuador a couple years ago, we found Ecuadorian food pretty bland. I even talked about this in a post called The Mixed Stomach. And I ate several meals at KFC because the chicken had flavor! The exact flavor I remembered. Now, we have had KFC in some other places where the chicken, though good, was not the same original recipe. Maybe it only had eight of the herbs and spices, I don't know. But it wasn't the colonel's magical eleven.

Nutella is pretty much everywhere. I can't say for sure if it is the same flavor, because it is usually so expensive it just isn't worth it to buy. Often there are local knockoff brands. Sometimes they are good, other times it is like eating cake frosting.

But there has been one product I could count on. You can always find it. It always tastes exactly like it is supposed to taste. I speak of Oreos.

Not Nova Receita. NOOOO!

That is, until today. Today I opened a pack of Oreos that I bought here in Brazil and tasted one. And it's different. It's not bad, but it's not as good. So then I looked at the package. Up in the top left it tells me it's a new recipe. What?! Why would you ever need a new recipe for Oreos? Oreos are great and the value of that greatness is that they are great everywhere you go. Why mess with that?

I'm not even talking about the constant ferris wheel of limited edition flavors. I'm talking about regular old original Oreos. No! Don't take that away from me. I am hoping that this is a Brazil only thing and when I get somewhere else, the Oreos will be the recipe I remember.

I guess one final question: Why are almost all of the globally available foods bad for you?

Water, Water, and Water Closets

We happen to be here in Florianopolis, Brazil at a perfect time for whale watching. The Southern Right Whale is something of a commuter, though with animals we say migration rather than commute. I wonder if it is because they are animals and not humans, or because they do it annually and we commute closer to daily. Either way, sometimes the whales are close enough that you can see them from shore. And one of the best places on this island to look for them is Morro das Pedras.

Morro das Pedras is many things, including an abduction by aliens point!

Yesterday, we had a little adventure and our first stop was Morro das Pedras. In Portuguese this translates as Hill of Stones. While it was a sunny and calm day, which are favorable conditions for seeing the whales near shore, it still had a lot of wave action going on. That isn't as positive an indicator. There could still be whales, but they are likely to be further out from the land.

Doing the wave

We brought our binoculars, and we looked and looked. Perhaps we even saw a whale, I think we did. But I can't swear to it. What we did see was an area far from shore where there were many birds circling. In addition, there was a whale watching boat near that location. With the naked eye, you couldn't make out much more. It was even difficult to see the boat. But with the binoculars, the boat and the birds could be seen. And we did see what appeared to be a dark object emerge from the water for a moment. Very likely, it was a whale. But we didn't see enough of the object to positively identify it. There was no distinctive whale tail. There was no distinctive whale fin. There was no distinctive outburst of water from a whale blowhole. The external evidence indicated whale, but the evidence coming up for the water was inconclusive.

I don't know where Davi is (other than being 1903 km from Morro das Pedras) but Marte at the bottom is the distance to Mars.

From Morro das Pedras, we walked to a nature preservation area around one of the lakes internal to the island. This one was called Lagoa do Peri. (The sign above tells me it was 1.2 km from where we started.) I mentioned in a previous post about my walk to Lagoa Pequena also called Lagoinha Pequena, the little lake or little lagoon. As you might guess, this one, Lagoa do Peri, was a lot bigger. And here we did see a whale! Well... You are thinking, "Erich, how did you see a whale in a lake." Okay, it wasn't in the lake, and it wasn't exactly a whale. See below.

Small for a whale

I do recognize this doesn't really count. If it did count, then we saw a monkey too.

Big for a monkey

We hiked a good amount around the lake. We saw a lot of birds. I was unable to get good pictures of the ones in the trees. I did manage to get some of the shorebirds though.

We saw this one hunting

There is a feather tuft on the back of its head

There were some interesting trees going for that sexy hourglass figure. I don't know what kinds of trees they were, but I assume this is part of their nature.

Is it a tree wearing a corset?

To completely change topics (though still related by water) I want to consider bathrooms. Alrica and I visit many places and live in different homes while we are in them. And we've had some lovely domiciles. But sometimes you don't quite know what you are going to get. Even pictures only tell you part of the story. To explain, I thought I would tell you some of the varied features of our bathroom here and in our last place in Lima.

Lagoa do Peri

Size of Shower: In both places, we had pretty small showers. This one is like a cubicle with a shower head. Lima wasn't much bigger. This can pose some challenges. For me, there is great difficulty in washing my feet. Or more specifically, in rinsing them. I can get the soap to the feet, but getting my feet into the spray is nearly impossible. There just isn't enough room to move my body out of the way. Alrica tells me that shaving her legs in this little box is even more difficult. Not being a leg shaver myself, I cannot verify that through personal experience. But I can imagine it. I'm sure she's right.

Water Temperature: In Lima, we had this crazy water heater. It was one that heats the water right when you need it. But it had this habit of running for a variable number of minutes, between maybe 2 and 10, and then shutting off. I believe that once in our time there, Alrica reported getting through an entire shower without losing hot water. But usually you'd be all soapy or shampooy (why is soapy a word and shampooy isn't?) and that's when it would transition to bitter cold. Here in Florianopolis, the shower stays hot for an entire shower. But the shower is the only place in the house you can get hot water. The sinks, entirely cold water. Even the kitchen sink doesn't have hot water. (What's more, the water pressure in the kitchen sink is so low, it takes a long time to rinse a pot.)

Sink Plugs: These are just not a thing. In both Lima and Florianopolis, there is no way to plug the sink so the water stays in it. Mostly that's not a big deal, but I like a basin of hot water when I shave. So my solution is a bowl. I heat water, here I use an electric kettle, in Lima it was a teapot on the stove, and then pour that hot water into a bowl which is sitting in the sink. It isn't perfect, but it works.

Toilet Paper Disposal: Florianopolis is a place where you can't flush the toilet paper. This isn't the first time we've encountered that. We've seen it in a few places. You could flush it in Lima, but you can't here. So there is a small garbage can right under the toilet paper holder and you throw the used paper away. This means we take out the garbage. Frequently.

I am trying to give my readers more of a feel of what day to day life looks like in our adventure. Did you need any of this information? Certainly not. But now that you have it, admit it, you feel richer for knowing.

Labor of Independence

Today, in my home country, is Labor Day. Much of the world celebrates Labor Day on May 1, but in the United States it is the first Monday of September. Here in Brazil, it is not Labor Day. But it is a holiday. It's Independence Day.

A little bit too cold for me to go swimming, but good for the mural woman. With three eyes. That are fish.

This is an amazing occurrence to my mind. Without intending to do so, we have now been present for Independence Day in three countries in a row. We were in Colombia during their Independence Day, then in Lima for the Peruvian Independence Day, and now, again without knowing when it was, we happen to be here for Brazilian Independence Day.

The Google Doodle for the USA today - Labor Day

Brazilian independence is interesting, quite different from most of the other countries in South America. It harkens back to the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s. When Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula, the royal family of Portugal had no desire to be captured or killed. While they still sent armies to fight, the royals themselves fled to their colony, Brazil. They set up a capital city in Rio de Janiero and gave Brazil something it had never had before: a royal court. This was also the only time in history that a city in South America was the capital of a European nation/empire.

The Google Doodle for Brazil today - Independence Day

Eventually Napoleon was defeated, but it had been a costly war. Portugal had debts to pay. What's more, new political movements not as enthralled with monarchy were springing up in Portugal. When your monarch is across the ocean, you feel more emboldened to say that maybe you should do without said monarch. So the king and queen had to return to Lisbon to consolidate their power. They left their 23 year old son, Dom Pedro, behind to serve as viceroy and rule over Brazil for them. Portugal used the natural resources of Brazil to help pay their debts. They also exported many finished European goods to the Brazilians as another source of income.

Looks like a huge hamster wheel, but there is meat going around being cooked by the heat at bottom right.

The trouble was the royal court of Brazil didn't love this. Plus, there were pro-independence movements springing up in Brazil. Some wanted full independence. Others wanted semi-independence in which Brazil had autonomy, but still a connection to the government of Lisbon. Their idea was to be ruled by a Portuguese prince, and they had one at hand.

Do you think these two individuals are from different species? Like is one an orc perhaps?

It was a troubling situation for Dom Pedro, worried about coups and overthrows or political machinations. Brazil started to act up. Portugal didn't like it. The king commanded his son to return to Portugal and threatened to send the military to keep the Brazilians in line. Dom Pedro had a choice to make.

He left Rio de Janiero, but not to go back to Portugal. Instead he headed south and went to São Paolo. Here, on September 7, 1922 he declared Brazil's independence from Portugal. He turned on his family.

Mosaic with mirrors on the light pole

Much like with the United States, declaring independence and being fully independent were not one and the same. There were some military skirmishes between Brazil and Portugal, but surpringly few. The British mediated the dispute and put a lot of pressure on Portugal to agree to letting its colony be independent. Dom Pedro was named Emperor of Brazil just over a month after his declaration of independence. But Portugal didn't accept the independence until three years after it was declared. And unlike most other countries in South America, independent Brazil was initially established as a monarchy. It didn't become a republic until 1889.

That's gotta be Doctor Doom or a Doctor Doom wannabe, right?

Back to the present, the last couple of days have been somewhat cold here. We're in the southern hemisphere and this is winter. It's not like the winters of Iowa where I grew up, no finger-numbing cold, no blowing snow. But it has been struggling to reach the sixties (in Fahrenheit.) That wouldn't be such a big deal, but the houses here are not built to keep out cold. There's no insulation, plenty of places for drafts to get it, and exterior walls made more of less of just wood. So it has been quite cold indoors.

Sleeping is okay, because we have put a lot of blankets on the bed. But getting up in the morning is a huge effort of will. I don't want to leave the warm bed and have to step out into the cold air. But I always do, because there is one thing you can't resist. Alrica and I have a saying: Bladders always win.

A view across the Little Lagoon

Yesterday, I took at walk to Lagoa Pequena, or the Little Lagoon. The island has several lagoons, little interior lakes. They come in a variety of sizes and the one closest to where we live is the smallest, hence its name.

Same lagoon, facing a different direction

Along the way I saw some very interesting murals and other art. I went past an area that has many restaurants and shops, seems to be set up for tourists. It's not a widely built up tourist area, but trending that way. As I said before, this is winter, so not tourist season. But there were certainly some around.

Longer walk than I thought. I passed the moon along the way.

Walking home again was so much colder than walking to the lagoon. I think that's because going there, the wind was at my back. Coming home it was intently directing itself at my face.

But I made it home! So I am here to day to celebrate Labor Day. Or Independence Day. Or Independent Labor Day. I don't know which. Happy Fill in the Blank Day to all of you!

Back to the Atlantic

Monday was a travel day. These are never our favorite days. And this one was a bit long because we had two flights, each over 3 hours. Neither individual flight was too long, but by the time you get to the airport three hours early, fly, have a layover, and fly again, it feels like you've been doing a lot more than you have. Our first flight took us from Lima, Peru to Santiago, Chile. Our layover was only two hours, so not too bad. We don't count Chile as a country we've been in. Our general rule is that if you don't leave the airport, it doesn't count. We'll check out Chile later.

Our second flight took us from Santiago, Chile to Florianopolis, Brazil. We crossed South America from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. Florianopolis is on an island which is just off the mainland in southeastern Brazil. The island is called Ilha de Santa Catarina, or Island of Saint Catherine. Florianopolis is the biggest city on the island, on the west side, facing mainland Brazil. We are actually living in a smaller town called Campeche which is on the east side of the island, the side that faces the Atlantic Ocean.

That is the Ilha do Campeche across the water

We took a walk from our place to the beach. It's about 20 minutes walk, not bad at all. Personally, I'm not a huge beach, but this beach is lovely. It is very fine sand and well packed so easy to walk on. You can see an island called Ilha do Campeche right across from you and beyond that you can see out to the ocean. This island is a tourism spot, but this is the end of winter. We are way out of season. There were other people at the beach, but not too many. We sat in the shade, walked along the water with our feet bare, and just relaxed. The sounds of the ocean are very soothing. Plus we saw a group of sandpipers digging for food. Also, after a big wave came up on shore we would see mole crabs. They aren't true crabs, but they look like itty bitty white crabs. They dig under the sand and catch prey in the waves. When they get displaced, you can watch them sink back down into the sand as they dig their way back.

Can you imagine the sound of the waves?

Brazilians, unlike the citizens of many of the other countries in South America, speak Portuguese, not Spanish. I really know next to no Portuguese words, but I am learning. Knowing some Spanish can be very helpful and also very misleading.

There are a lot of similarities. For example, in both languages "carne" means meat (usually beef) and "sal" means salt. Other words are very similar, with only slight changes. As an example, in Spanish the words for "with" and "without" are "con" and "sin" respectively. In Portuguese those words are "com" and "sim". Or the words for "sugar" are "azúcar" in Spanish and "açúcar" in Portuguese.

Then there are the surprising words which are nothing alike. In a lot of Romance languages, the word for "chicken" is similar to the English word poultry. In Spanish it is "pollo". In French it is "poulet". But in Portuguese the word is "frango". "Strawberry" is another surprising difference. In Spanish it is "fresa", but in Portuguese it is "morango".

We aren't having any problems just because of the differences. Certainly we are better off here knowing none of the language than we were, for example, in Taiwan. Here, at least, they use the same alphabet. So we have some idea how to pronounce things.

One other big change from Lima to Florianopolis is rain. Lima is on the edge of a desert. It is very green near the ocean, but that is mainly due to coastal fog or rivers that come down from the Andes. The entire time we were in Lima, I never even touched my umbrella. In Florianopolis, it was raining when we arrived, rained that entire night, and partway into the next day. Looking out my window now, the clouds are getting thick. It is going to rain anytime now.

My own senses had to adjust. When we arrived, everything felt damp. The sheets on the bed felt damp when I touched them. The sofa felt damp. None of these things were actually damp, but my skin seemed to need a day to adjust to being in a place where the air isn't entirely dry. I don't remember ever experiencing that before. Now, I'm not having that sensation anymore. I think it really did go away in less than 24 hours for me.

No big arms for me!

Finally, look how cylindrical this Brazilian hydrant is!

Coyote vs Odysseus

Last night, I did something I rarely do: I went to see a movie in the cinema on its opening weekend.

This picture has nothing to do with this post. I just wonder what happened to the "I".

In truth, seeing a movie in the actual cinema is reasonably rare for us, and it very much depends on where we are. If I am going to see a movie, I want to see it in English with the voices of the original actors. That means it has to be subtitled in the native tongue rather than dubbed. In some parts of the world you don't have as many English language movies, and if you do, they are almost all dubbed.

Here in Peru, it is possible to see subtitled movies. So this is a good place to go see them. In fact, we have seen two movies in two different theaters during our time in Lima.

The first of these we did not see during its opening weekend. We saw The Odyssey. I'm not here to write reviews, I will just say this. It was okay. It wasn't great, though I appreciated a lot of the visual storytelling. The more or less horrible dialogue offset the visuals, leaving a mediocre movie, in my opinion. But I want to talk about an oddity of the theater.

For The Odyssey, we went to the nearest movie theater to where we living. I noticed at one point, in one of the very warlike, exciting scenes, the sound of distant booms, and the whole screen wiggled like it was shot during an earthquake. At first I thought this was a visual effect that Nolan was using. But then it happened again in a very calm and peaceful scene. That didn't make sense. Why the soft distant boom? Why would the screen shake during this scene?

That's when I realized the subtitles (in Spanish) were also shaking. And those would have been added post-production. So this wasn't an effect Nolan wanted. This was a problem of the theater. I concluded that when one of the neighboring films had loud booming action scenes, the sound system must shake the projector up in the projector room. This wiggling wasn't a visual chosen by the director. It was a design flaw in the theater.

The film we saw last night was Coyote vs Acme and we did go during its opening weekend. That is just not normal for me. But there were two major reasons I wanted specifically to see it during opening weekend.

You might guess that one of them was to desperately avoid spoilers. Good guess, but no. Living as we do, the chance of spoilers is very small (unless I specifically go online looking for spoilers.)

The first reason is that we are about to move from Lima, Peru to Florianopolis, Brazil. There are far fewer cinemas in Florianopolis, so it would be that much harder to see a movie and be sure I could find it subtitled rather than dubbed. In other words: timing.

The second reason was specific to this movie, to Coyote vs Acme. There is a controversy surrounding it. As you've probably heard, the movie was filmed, editing, and finished years ago. Then Warner Brothers decided that rather than release it, they were going to stick it in a vault and take a $30 million tax writer-off. (The movie had cost $70 million to make.) This was incredibly unfair to all the artists involved in the making of the movie. (This wasn't even the first time Warner Brothers did this. They had already shelved a completed movie, Batgirl.)

It was thanks to a huge campaign by fans and the artists involved that Warner Brothers said they were willing to sell the movie to another distributor. Some offers were rejected. But finally an independent distributor called Ketchup Entertainment bought the movie from Warner Brothers for $50 million. It is thanks to this that the movie is finally getting released, about three years late.

This plays at two levels, because Coyote vs Acme is about the "little guy" (Coyote) up against the big heartless corporation (Acme). And that's what we had going on off camera. The little guys were the artists, the big heartless corporation was Time-Warner.

I'm hoping that the opening weekend numbers are great. I hope they show the Time-Warner executives that they were idiots and send the message that unilaterally deciding to quash a piece of art for a tax write-off, while legal, is still a terrible thing to do. I can't make those opening weekend numbers be great. But I can contribute to them in one way, by paying to see the movie during its opening weekend. So I did. (I paid for two tickets. Alrica saw it too. Double the middle fingers to "the man"!)

We had to go to a different theater this time. The one nearest us was only showing the dubbed version of the movie. This theater had no issues with shaking projectors.

I don't want to give any spoilers, but I do want to share an interesting note about the subtitles. At one point in the movie, a character is communicating in Morse code. Another person is translating it letter by letter. The subtitles were also translating it letter by letter, except it wasn't the same letters. Let me explain what I mean: The first letter was "A". So the character on screen said "A". But the subtitles wrote "V". The next letter was "R" and the character said "R". But the subtitles wrote "A". What's going on? The subtitles were giving letter by letter what the ultimate phrase was going to be in Spanish. In English, the first word of the phrase was "Are", but in Spanish the first word of the phrase was "Vas". So when you make subtitles, you have to make a choice. Do you translate exactly what is being said, or do you translate it into the ultimate phrase that it is going to be. Obviously, in this case, they chose the latter, which I agree makes more sense.

I guess the final question you might wonder is this: Did we enjoy the movie? Yes we did. Quite a bit more so than the The Odyssey, but that wasn't a real high bar to clear. We didn't even need any Acme rocket skates or pogo shoes.

The Mystery of the Candelabra

On a two day trip, Alrica and I uncovered a mystery. Well, that may be overstating it. The mystery's been around for awhile. It was just new to us.

I speak of El Candelabro de Paracas (The Candelabra of Paracas.) You can see it below. But I am getting a bit ahead of myself, because we had adventures on our way to Paracas before we learned about the Candelabra.

El Candelabro de Paracas. The mystery is not what it represents (though I'm not sure that is certain either.)

We set out early in the morning, heading south out of Lima. Our first stop was longer than intended. We hit a place called Mirasur, really a nice roadside attraction where you could get filled bread and juice. We tried the breads, there were five varieties: Cheese, Ham and Cheese, Olive, Chocolate, and Manjar Blanco. Manjar blanco is a kind of caramel, similar to arequipa in Colombia, or dulce de leche in Mexico. I'm sure they all have their differences, though I'm not sure my palate noticed said differences.

Alrica feeding corn to horses

In addition to the breads, this stop had animals you could see and even feed: horses, a burro, alpacas, and goats. And there was a garden with a variety of plants and flowers, many with labels. It wasn't a bad stop, but it wasn't super exciting either. And we got to stay extra time. The company who ran the buses and tours, Peru Hop, had another bus break down. Not our bus, it was fine. And they needed that fine bus to get a group who was stranded. In return, we got to be stranded for awhile until another bus reached us. I'm not sure if that other bus also came from Lima or not. But it came.

The burro, which is a donkey

This wasn't a big deal. We probably spent an hour at a stop for which 20 minutes would have sufficed. But it was a pleasant temperature. Alrica and I only had backpacks, I'm sure it was a bit more annoying for the other guests who had real suitcases or roller bags. But everyone seemed to stay in a good mood about it.

The front arches of the Casa Hacienda San Jose

When our new bus rolled away, we headed to Casa Hacienda San José. Today, it is a hotel. But originally, it was the main house of a plantation. It was built in the 1750s, including a church which still holds Sunday services to this day. (We were there on a Tuesday, so no services, but we got to go inside. The church has a beautiful dark wood altar piece in the back.)

This altarpiece also dates from the middle of the 1700s

The hacienda is full of interesting antiques, has a large beautiful garden, and has a wide porch that goes around the entire house.

Antique typewriter meant for a WIDE piece of paper

Like many a plantation, Hacienda San José ran thanks to slave labor. Slavery was legal when Peru was a Spanish colony. When San Martin declared independence, he didn't abolish slavery entirely. He said that anyone born thereafter was free, even if born to a slave woman. But those who were already slaves remained slaves. It wasn't until the next president of Peru, Ramón Castilla, that slavery was abolished entirely, in 1854. (That's 11 years before it was abolished in the United States and it was one more year after that before Native American slavery was abolished in the US.)

One of the present day entrances to the tunnels

Sometime after slavery ended, one of the features of the plantation was lost. There were tunnels running under the house all the way down to the port, 17 kilometers away. But they had been forgotten. Then, in 2007, there was a powerful earthquake in the region that damaged many parts of the house. The tunnels were rediscovered in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Descent into the slave tunnels

These tunnels, which also date from the mid 18th century, were, as you might expect, a way to smuggle slaves from the port to the house. But not because slavery was illegal. It was perfectly legal. But it was also taxable. Plantation owners paid taxes on every slave they owned. The tunnels were a way for the owners of the hacienda to get slaves without paying the government the taxes due on them. I suppose if you aren't bothered about owning other humans, the moral outrage of stiffing the government isn't going to prick your conscience either. We got to walk a bit in the tunnels, though less than one kilometer, nowhere close to the full 17.

Though the big crop of the plantation was cotton, this machine is for grinding corn.

Casa Hacienda San José is in the Chincha region. This was and still is the center of the Afro-Peruvian culture of the country.

So many birds and so much guano

After the Hacienda, we went on to the town of Paracas. Paracas is not only the name of the town, but also of the region. The town of Paracas is the gateway to the Paracas National Reserve. And a people group that lived in this area over two millennia ago are called the Paracas. The word "paracas" itself comes from the quechua language and means "sand storm." Apparently sand storms are incredibly common in the region. Happily, we did not experience any.

A Humboldt penguin

Paracas, the town, is a little beach town. And August, here in the southern hemisphere, is the winter. So this is very obviously not the tourism season for them. All the blocks near the beach are built to house restaurants, bars, mini-markets, hostels, and hotels. But a large percentage of these weren't operating while we were there.

A family of Humboldt penguins

We enjoyed excellent seafood, slept in a nice hotel, but one which had a rooster as a near neighbor, and took a moonlight walk on the town's none-too-large beach. It was a nice town, and I imagine that in their summer it is bursting with people, music, and alcohol.

The sea lion must be bird watching with little red crabs beneath

The next morning we walked to the pier. Here we took a boat out to the Islas Ballestas. I'll get to those in just a moment, because this is when we finally reach our mystery. Along the way to the islands, we passed El Candelabro, which is carved into the ground. I'm not sure what is represents. Is it corn? Or a cactus? That's a little mystery. Here's the middle mystery: When was it made and by whom?

The family that lays around together...

Most people believe El Candelabro was carved into the ground by the Paracas people, possibly up to 2500 years ago. But no one is sure of that. Another suggestions is that this was carved by the Nazca people, part of the Nazca lines. That leads to some questions though. The Candelabra is several hundred kilometers north of all the other Nazca lines. Why would there be one up here, in a region far from all the others. Some people believe it was made by the armies of San Martin when he landed in Paracas to fight for Peru's independence in 1852. So here is the bigger mystery to my mind: How could we not know even which millennium saw these lines appear?

Apparently there is no written record of anyone having seen the Candelabra until after Peru's Independence. How could it have been there for 2000 years and either no one noticed it, or no one thought it was interesting enough to write about? That leads to another question: Could it really have lasted for over 2000 years? It would appear the answer is yes. Whoever carved this into the rock did so on the north side of the hill and the winds almost all come from the south. So this is super well protected. Plus this area almost never gets rain. Like once every few decades. So the water isn't eroding it. And the ground there is compacted with salt which apparently makes it very sturdy and hard.

I'm amazed that no scientist has a method of dating it. Also, I look at two possibilities: One) It was made well before the 1850s, but the why did no one ever make note of something so interesting? Or two) It wasn't made until the 1850s, but why would an army make it and not have any written records pertaining to them making it?

The red sands of Playa Roja

Continuing past the Candelabra, we reached the Islas Ballestas. Sometimes these are called the poor man's Galapagos. We saw lots of life here, including sea lions, crabs, Peruvian boobies, Peruvian pelicans, and Humboldt penguins. On the way to the islands we saw a whale breach, possibly a humpback whale, though we never got to see its tail to be sure. We also saw plenty of dolphins. It was amazing to see so many animals (and so much guano) contained in a small region.

Zoomed in view of the sand color

After the boat returned us to shore, we headed into the Paracas National Reserve. Here we saw Playa Roja which means Red Beach. Why is the sand red? The explanation given is that the area was underwater and volcanic. But that doesn't seem to me to fully explain it. Why was the beach red, but the land on which we were allowed to stand was yellow? Wasn't it also underwater and just as close to volcanoes? I never got a satisfactory answer.

We stopped for lunch near the city of Ica. Here I had a dish specific to the Ica region called carapulcra. It is a red potato stew. Mine was served with green spaghetti and a piece of chicken. The stew was good, the chicken and spaghetti were just okay.

After lunch we went to Huacachina. This is an itty bitty village, but it is built on an oasis. So there is a desert full of sand dunes, and there is this small oasis. All around the oasis are the restaurants, bars, and hotels. Plus there are businesses full of desert treks.

Colorful dune buggies

We headed out into the desert on dune buggies. (We weren't the drivers, merely passengers.) This was like living Super Mario Kart. Well, no banana peels or turtle shells, but up and down and sharp turns.

There's Alrica preparing for her downhill run

We also got to go sandboarding. It's basically sledding, but on the sand instead of on the snow. On a big dune, we got going very fast!

And we saw the sun set over the dunes.

Goodbye Sun

After that it was just the trip back to Lima. I slept, so clearly the trip tuckered me out.

So Much Independence

Last week I posted about Independence Day in Colombia. Today, well, it's Independence Day. Again. At least for me.

Today's Google Doodle (if you are in Peru, which I am.)

You see, we flew from Medellín, Colombia to Lima, Peru this past weekend. And today, eight days after Colombia's Independence Day is Peru's Independence Day.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why Independence Day in any country is the day that it is? I have. Like, the United States just celebrated 250 years. But that's only correct from one way of looking at independence. It was 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But the USA was still under British rule. It would take a couple more years to decisively win the war and be truly independent.

So what counts as independence? In Colombia, they chose July 20 because of a flowerpot. Okay, the flowerpot is more an excuse. What happened is that in 1810, lots of the people of the region were unhappy with Spain. Spain had supported the Americans in the American revolution, but denied any idea of independence for its own new world colonies. The criollos were white people, those of Spanish heritage, who were born in the New World. They didn't have the same rights as people born in Spain. They were the revolutionaries, not the native South Americans who had even less freedom or consideration from the government.

The criollos went to a well-known merchant in Bogotá named José González Llorente and asked to borrow a decorative flowerpot. They expected him to refuse. They expected him to be indignant. They expected him to be insulting. And he did not disappoint. The argument that followed was heated and apparently, incendiary. This had been the criollos plan all along. They used this as the spark to ignite the indignation of criollos throughout Bogotá into action. And it worked. It led to a revolt that same day, July 20, 1810, which was the start of what would be the successful revolution.

You know, one independence day is hardly enough though. In Colombia they celebrate two of them, July 20 for the flowerpot incident and August 7. This one commemorates their victory over Spain nine years after the flowerpot incident, on August 7, 1819.

Peru's Independence Day, celebrated on July 28, is more similar to that of the United States. It is a day that independence was declared, even though it hadn't yet been won. A military leader named José de San Martín had brought a liberation army up from Chile. He and his troops made it to Lima and on July 28, 1821 he stood in the Plaza Mayor and declared that Peru was now independent of Spain. After that, there followed three and a half more years of fighting. And to really pull it off, San Martín needed help from the armies of Simón Bólivar and Antonio José de Sucre. But they did eventually win.

That's the Plaza Mayor and the statue of the man on the horse is San Martin

On Sunday we saw a parade going down our street to celebrate. I don't know what all is in store for us today, but there might be fireworks. We will see.

The parade. There is netting on our balcony, so I had to take pictures through that

Happy Independence Day! Again!