Packing...

The purpose of this post is just to give everyone something to follow the link to. I've never blogged before. This is kind of an interesting experience for me, but good practice since all of my students are going to have to start blogging in September and I have to at least have some experience before I drag them all into it.

The days are ticking down very quickly and I'm definitely starting to get a little nervous. I leave on Sunday, very early. Dan has to drive me up to Burlington for a 6am flight. I would feel bad if I hadn't had to drive into Burlington to pick him up at 1:20 on a school night when he returned from Kolkata.

I am almost packed...well, maybe less than almost packed. I have everything laid out on the table in the spare room but it has yet to make it into my pack. Six weeks is a strange period of time, not enough to really stay there, but too long for all of the annoying little travel sized versions of things. I have lots of little piles at the moment.

I have been reading up on as many Peruvian things as I can. These are the things I have learned so far:

1. The Shining Path guerillas are in the way opposite end of the country, as are most of the drug traffickers.

2. Malaria is a danger only in the rainforests. I will be too high up to worry about that.

3. The Incas were horrible imperialists and their empire only lasted a little over a century. They were also not the first major civilization to develop urban centers and take over territories run by the smaller tribes. That honor went to the Wari, who lasted until around 1100. Pizarro destroyed the Incas--I remember that from 8th grade history with Mr. Reisch. He never mentioned the Wari, though.

4. Peru gained independence through the Libertador, Simon Bolivar (again, thank you Mr. Reisch--the only other thing I remember from 8th grade Social Studies is that if you wrote "Simon Bolivar" as the founding father of a country in South America, you were usually right) and Jose de San Martin. They declared independence in 1821 but actually won it militarily in 1824.

5. The political situation is not especially pretty. The current President, Alan Garcia, had a somewhat dubious reign of power in the late 80s but was defeated by Alberto Fujimori in 1990 due to excessive corruption, economic disaster, and some human rights violations. Fujimori was not much of an improvement, and ended up fleeing the country with even more corruption charges. Garcia ran again and lost to a guy named Toledo, then ran again and won in a run-off election. Fortunately, I'll be well away in the mountains, far removed from politics. In fact, I am very much looking forward to seeing no newspapers, magazines, etc. for a while. I've kind of had enough of Paris Hilton's jail experience and W's incompetence.


So...as far as my trip. I will be arriving in Cuzco (elevation 11,000 ft) on Monday morning. I plan on hydrating excessively before then, which is the main preventative thing I remember from talking to kids about altitude sickness out in California. I was fine out there, but we hiked up to 11,000 ft. That's where I'm starting. Yikes. I'll probably be winded for a good month. I will be staying in Ollantaytambo, which is the site of one of Pizarro's few defeats, and working at a preschool called Media Luna. Ollantaytambo is supposed to be built around most of its original architecture and has massive ruins all around. I'm pretty excited.

My biggest fears at the moment...altitude sickness and coral snakes. Apparently they do live up that high. Ugh. Thanks to a story mom told me once about a coral snake in someone's swimming pool, I have a life-long fear of them. Yuck.

I'm bringing big hiking boots.