The Proud Idiot

...aaand she's back! And older! And wiser (well, sort of)!

2009-01-11T01:24:00.000-08:00

Does writing in your blog every four months really constitute blogging? Anyway, just wanted to share the good news that Berrrale turns 31 today!!!! That's 15th of Tevet according to the Hebrew calendar, for those of you who are confused (and thank you for all the happy birthday wishes from December 24th).

I will post a picture of my birthday cake as soon as I make one. :))

In case you're thinking: "She must be one of those embittered souls who refuses to have a party cause she thinks she's old", let me set the record straight-I had every intention of having an even bigger and nicer party than the one last year (tho not sure if I can top that one content wise) coupled with a small slide show of the pictures from my trip, but alas, it wasn't meant to be... Firstly I couldn't find that projector. Then, there was the fact that I can never put together some bamba and bisli and have a simple party, so clearly it was going to turn into a whole baking project, which my funds right now don't allow. And then the war began and the thought of having a big happy party just didn't seem to fit...

In the meantime-this is just a quick post to let you know you are all on my mind. I had the most wonderful year of my life at 30-so much happiness, so much growth, please God by all of you. Thank you all for being in my life through the good and the bad!

Summer Time

2008-09-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

The picture you see above was taken in the most surreal place I visited in my travels: Rurrenabaque, or Rurre for short. In my anxiety to get out of Bolivia soon, I had briefly considered leaving this place out of my itinerary, but boy am I glad I didn't listen to my inner idiot!

After leaving Chaim and Rikki to enjoy their next high altitude, freezing trek, the girls and I flew from La Paz to Rurre. Rurrenabaque is Bolivia's gateway to the Amazon. Before moving on to the jungle though, I should begin with all the surreal surrounding this little town. First, the 30 minute ride on a tiny plane which carries 19 people and lands on a stretch of green field that may as well be someone's back garden.

Then, the realization that we have come to summer! After weeks of layers upon layers of warm clothing, fleeces, blankets, woolen socks, suddenly the sun is not only bright, but also hot! I mean flip flop weather, people. When I decided to leave Israel for a few months, I had secretly been happy to be doing it over the intolerably hot summer months. As time went on however, I found myself wishing for a bit of warmth. Well, I got that and more in Rurrenabaque...

We had been told that we could find the Beit Chabad at a hostel called El Lobo ("the wolf" in Spanish, named after the Israeli owner of the hotel, whose name Zeev means wolf in Hebrew) so there we went, backpacks on our back, sweating under the sun. See the picture of the Rebbe on the wall? Anyway, when we finally got there, we were a little upset to find out the Beit Chabbad had just moved, but we decided to stay anyway. Now here's another little bit of surreal for you:

That's the inside of a room at the hostel. Half finished, with no paint on the walls. And yes, that is a gap you see between the walls and the ceiling. The room had an arched window as a 4th wall, only there was no glass, essentially making it a well aired 3 wall room. The same went for all the rooms in the hostel. We suspect they ran out of money at some point during the construction process and decided to leave it as is and pretend it's an artistic choice. :) No complaints though, the extra air was definitely appreciated with all the heat. Besides, we had a great view from our window/wall:

We had some choices to make re. our visit in Rurre, but first we took some time to sit lazily in our beds and watch the view. An amazing feeling of calm and beauty filled me and I knew this would be one of the favorite places in my trip.

This little resort town is where all the jungle and pampas tours leave from. Before leaving Israel, I was determined to go into the jungle, but I didn't know which one of these tours I should take. During our stay in Cusco we met a lot of people who had been in Rurre and we got a clearer picture of what the tours comprise: the jungle tour is typically an unstructured excursion into the jungle where you get to sleep in makeshift bamboo tents, learn to carve yourself rings from a tree bark and generally walk around the forest to get a feel of the place and pretend you are on Survivor. Without overly generalising, this type of tour seemed to interest males more than females. The pampas, on the other hand, is what the Israelis called a "kindergarten", ie a 3-day tour on a motor canoe where you get to see a lot of animals and relax.

Rikki had always expressed more interest in the jungle, but she wasn't there and I was hesitant. I did want to get a feel of the jungle, but then again our brief "jungle" walk on the way to Macchu Picchu had been rather icky, what with all the humidity, and I had sort of already done the "pick the fruit right off the tree" thing. I also found that I was quite enjoying the vacation feel of this place. So I decided to go the relaxing route and signed up for a pampas tour with the girls (and 5 other Israelis. of course.)

The tour started off with a 3 hour ride on a bumpy gravel road (what else) to the start of the canoe ride. We stopped along the way and continued adding to our repertoire of surreal with this funny looking creature:

anybody who knows what it is, feel free to share. All I know is that he stood in his corner , without moving, for quite a while and posed while everybody snapped photos of him. Our guide warned us that he's been known to attack people, so we stood a fair distance away from him, but he seemed so at home with all the tourists arfound him. The other, much more conventional animal we saw was this parrot, who was no less sociable than the funny creature:

Two animals and we hadn't even started our tour... Next up-crocodiles, monkeys and much more!

La Paz, La Paz, La Paz

2008-08-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

This post isn't actually at all about La Paz, although the picture above is. The thing is it happens to be where I spent most of my time in Bolivia and it's also the central point for pretty much going everywhere. Bolivia is not one of the most developed countries in the world so it helps to be in a central place which is well connected to many remote corners of the country.

Since I wanted to make my stay in Bolivia brief, I decided to get going pretty soon after I arrived in La Paz. Rikki & I set out for Sorata, the hiking capital of Bolivia, with another friend we had met earlier in Cusco. I was told that this was a place not to be missed, so like a good girl I made sure to put it in my itinerary. The road there had some really great views of mountains

and that was pretty much the only redeeming quality of the hot and bumpy ride, at the end of which I had a most unsettled stomach. Welcome to travelling in Bolivia. The roads are horrible, the buses packed and uncomfortable. The smells are nauseating, the hygiene nonexistant. Why did I come here again?

But I exaggerate. I had much worse times in La Paz than in Sorata. :)) We arrived late and made hiking plans for the following day. Rikki opted to go for a high-altitude 3 day hike with our friend Chaim while I only had 1 day to spare, so I got myself a private guide. That night we went to the Bayit Hayehudi which we had heard wonderful things about. I can only add to the praise. This wonderful young couple, with their 2 adorable kids, live amonst all the greenery seen above and have the warmest house in Bolivia. And I'm not just referring to their fireplace. :)

What is that bowl by the fireplace, you say? Well I'm glad you asked. It was a little sad to leave Rikki behind since it meant that we would separate for over a week this time. So I decided to be nice and made the two of them some bread for their hiking trip as a parting gift. I know, so selfless of me. :P It was so exciting to touch dough again after almost 2 months of being away from a kitchen!!

I had scared my guide about not being able to climb so he had told me our hike would take about 4 hours. Somehow I managed to breathe however and we did the whole thing in 2.5 hours instead. On our way down we even ran into Rikki & Chaim who had just begun climbing up. Since I still had a whole day ahead of me, I decided to go ahead and do another hike, this time on my own.

The hike was supposed to be straightforward enough. Which didn't prevent me from getting lost. Twice. In my defense, all I was doing was following the signs, which is what the guide had told me to do. The path started off on the dirt road and at some point veered off into the mountains. Then the signs ended and it was kind of assumed that one would follow the path, which looked clear enough. Except it wasn't. I eventually came to the edge of a steep hill with moss on it and the only way to pass it was by holding on to the wet, mushy thing since the path was impossibly narrow and muddy. I was happy to have passed it since I assumed it would be the only time I would need to do it. However, a few minutes later the path kind of ended and the only way forward was by walking over a 2 meter long, thick pipe that connected the 2 sides and was suspended above a steep cliff. While I was standing there, contemplating (not too keenly) whether I should attempt the acrobatics across, I noticed that there was a fire on the other side of the path.

I took this as a sign that I should head back and reluctantly turned around. Over the mossy patch again and straight ahead. Except I wasn't getting nearer the road. So I had to backtrack once more until I finally found the path back and moved ahead really quickly since I had been lost now for about 2 hours and I was worried I wouldn't be able to make it to the last bus to La Paz. I'm assuming that this was the path when the trail was originally created, but over time it changed and no one bothered to change the signs. Bolivia... At any rate, I made it to the road and hoped against hope that I would find a cab coming in my direction. Quite miraculously a cab appeared just when I needed it and the family in it were nice enough to give me a ride back to the city.

The ride back to La Paz was thankfully much easier this time and I was lucky enough to listen to a comedy show that was all about making fun of the Argentinians. My Spanish wasn't yet advanced enough to understand it all, but the people on the bus seemed to enjoy it tremendously. For my part, I was glad to be spared the horrendous cumbia music that is generally blasted on Peruvian and Bolivian buses. Seriously, some people should be banned from making music.

Back On The Road Again

2008-08-13T15:47:00.001-07:00

After saying goodbye to Cusco, we hit the road again, though a little apprehensively, towards Bolivia. It is possible that I was the only apprehensive one though. I had come to South America expecting to meet warm, bubbly people, like my Latin American acquaintances back in Israel. I had instead encountered what people told me was the ¨real¨ South America, ie the indigenous people and culture. No doubt I saw some amazing places and met the odd sweet person like my Spanish teacher, but I was still longing to be in a place where I could have normal conversations with people on the street. Bolivia sounded quite the opposite and I decided that I would not stay there for too long. What I didn´t know then was that one doesn´t control one´s vacation in Bolivia, it´s quite the other way around. You will understand this better when I write about my experiences in later posts.

What you see above is one of the most touristy things I did while in South America. The picture is that of a ¨floating islands¨ located on Lake Titicaca at the border of Peru and Bolivia. These are a group of man made islands off the coast of Puno where everything is made out of reeds. A lot of people told us it was a big hoax, claiming the people we would meet on the islands actually don´t live there, but travel back and forth between the mainland and the islands. We opted to go because we thought it would be interesting to see anyway. As our (very weird) guide explained to us on the way there, people who live on the islands indeed make a living from the tourism surrounding the islands, but they do actually live there as well. It´s up to you to choose whom to believe.

A welcoming committee greeted us as we came on to one of the islands. They had a little demonstration showing how the islands are built. The large blackish mass at the bottom is what keeps the islands floating and is dried reeds. They replenish the upper level of reeds every few months. It was a very weird sensation walking on it, I almost felt like my feet would sink through.

The Uros, as the people on the islands are called, originally built the islands for defensive purposes. They use these boats (above) made of reeds to travel around. We took a ride across and were impressed with how sturdy they were. It all became clear a few weeks later when we met another fellow traveller who told us the boats were actually made of rubber.

We were offered some reeds to eat which I actually found quite refreshing. There are now about 40 of these islands left in Titicaca, some of which house only 1-2 families. Not all the islands have all the amenities, things like school for the younger children are located on one of the larger islands where there are 10 families or so. Although the Uros population living on the islands (there are many more of them living on the mainland) is only a few hundred people, they end up polluting the lake with all their waste since there's no proper sewage system in place.

Overall I found it fascinating and I'm glad I went, even though the cheesy singing of English and Hebrew songs by the locals made it a little uncomfortable at the end. I think what some people don't understand in these touristy places is that the place is interesting enough on its own so there's really no need to humiliate themselves to make it more likeable.

At any rate, the visit to the islands took only a few hours and after a short bus ride we made it to the border with Bolivia. We spent the night in Copacabana on the side of Bolivia which had a fantastic sunset.

The picture, taken from inside the bus, really doesn't do it justice. The next day we headed to Isla Del Sol, a few hours off the coast. We got off the boat at one end of the island and hiked about 2.5 hours to the other end. It was the most stunning place I had seen so far. The combination of the sun and the mountains and the sea reminded me a little bit of Capetown.

It's very difficult to capture panoramic beauty and I feel like none of my pictures from this area really do a good job. At some point during the trail, the gorgeous view extends to both sides, blue and serene and I felt like opening my arms wide so I could hug it all in one giant embrace.

What really made it awesome I think was the addition of the snow on top of the mountains in the distance, but I stupidly only took very few pictures of it.

So far I liked what I was seeing of Bolivia...

Inti Raymi and other festivities

2008-08-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

So we spent 2.5 weeks in Cusco, studying, trekking, eating and meeting a ton of Israelis. As I mentioned before, most everybody falls in love with Cusco and ends up staying there for a while. The Beit Chabad probably hosts one of the largest numbers of people in South America. This is also why Cusco becomes a meeting point of all the ¨waves¨ in South America. A word about waves...

In Israeli backpacker jargon, there are 2 main ¨galim¨ (waves) travelling in South America. The southbound one (gal hayored) and the northbound one (gal haoleh). We would fall under the southbound wave since we started out in Peru and made our way south to Bolivia and then Argentina. The waves roughly move on at the same speed so that once you meet someone from a specific wave, you assume the others can´t be too long in joining him. In addition to these main waves, there are those amusing ones that people make up themselves-gal hamitakeiv (the delayed wave) for those who keep getting stuck in a place, gal hamebulbal (the confused wave) for those who change their direction in the middle etc. etc.

At some point during our stay in Cusco, we met a lot of northbound Israelis who brought back appalling reports of Bolivia: the people are rude and not so bright, it´s very dirty, everything gets delayed, cholas pee on the street, everyone gets salmonella etc. etc. all of which made me very unenthusiastic to move on south. In fact, there was a point when I seriously considered leaving Cusco before Inti Raymi and flying out to Argentina. In the end, slightly reluctantly, I stayed and made it to Bolivia. We discovered there was some truth to the reports we heard, but I also had some wonderful experiences there so I can´t say I regretted going. But again, getting ahead of myself. Back to Peru.

What you see above is the official flag of Cusco which is prominently displayed everywhere in the city. Gay pride parades were not on the agenda, but there were plenty of other colorful events going on during our stay. For example, Cusco Day. Which you would expect to last, well, a day. But why waste such a precious festivity opportunity in 24 hours only when you can have Cusco Day for a whole week??? And so it was that while I was running around between Beit Chabad and my Spanish classes, I would see different age groups parading around the city every day for a full week. They started off with the kindergarten children, which I unfortunately missed and moved on until university students. Since there´s a lot of Inti Raymi pictures to go through, I´ll only post one picture from these festivities.

All these dancing people made it very difficult to move around in the city, not the least because one couldn´t help stopping to watch them. We soon discovered though that all this was nothing compared to the biggest of them all, the incredible tourist magnet, the festival of the sun: Inti Raymi. For one thing, it was ridiculously crowded which allowed one to freely take pictures of the cholas (which I had promised you would be forthcoming). Here´s a typical cholah, with her bundle on her back. Do try and ignore the cell phone.

That hat hanging behind her conceals a baby. They have a special method to wrap up the baby and swing it around to their backs which is a scary, scary sight to the uninitiated tourist. I kept expecting to see a baby fly off during the process or slip from its little trap afterwards, but I guess they know what they´re doing. This is how they feed them:

The cholas typically have 2 braids of long hair hanging behind their back:

though not all tye them together. The other predominantly chola feature is their gigantic skirts, but you will have to wait until I write up Bolivia for a picture of that. On to Inti Raymi...

The festivities started off in the main square of Cusco-Plaza de Armas. The plaza was packed with people on the sides, behind police barriers. There were a lot of different parader groups in different colors, as well as an almost naked group. The last parader to pass us portrayed, we think, the sun god.

Then it was time for everyone to climb Sacsayhuaman, a nearby hill with Inka Ruins, in order to watch the rest of the festivities from the side. One has to pay an exorbitant amount to sit around the main stage so most backpackers and locals opt to climb the hills surrounding the spectacle. Maybe this will give you an idea of the number of people:

There were plenty of street vendors along the way, selling anything from memorabilia to street food. We decided to try freshly squeezed cane juice,

but were not too impressed with it. The other ¨delicacy¨ on sale, everywhere, was the guinea pig. The sight of it is enough to make any carnivore consider vegetarianism.

It was quite a challenge to find a spot on top of the hills with a good view. Some people took to the trees.

Our view was mainly obscured and we didn`t understand anything of what was going on. In fact, I think the same went for all the Peruvians around us since at some point something happened which drew much more attention than the festivities. There was a lot of police around the event, trying to keep people away from getting too close to the spectacle. Specifically, the hill directly opposite from us was blocked. At some point, an excursion of a few people managed to break the police cordon and ran ahead. The police promptly brought them back and attention was returned to the festivities. A few minutes later though, a new group made an attempt and suceeded, opening the way for many others to rush in. Here´s how the hill looked after this assault:

and only a few seconds later:

and after the last stages of the conquest:

while back at the festivities, this is what was going on:

It was definitely an interesting experience although I doubt I would have thought it worth waiting the 2.5 weeks if I hadn´t done other things in the meantime. At any rate, we were ready to move on and so said goodbye to Cusco that very night. On to Bolivia in the next post.

Those Inkas Sure Were Very Fit

2008-08-03T17:34:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen-meet the coca! It´s actually quite unacceptable for me to be mentioning this plant for the first time after so many posts about South America. The coca leaves are everywhere. And, according to the locals, capable of almost everything. Helping adjustment to altitudes, alleviating headaches, stomach aches, helping digestion, you name it. There´s nothing this little plant isn´t good for. There´s some cocaine in coca which has caused controversies in the past and caused the Bolivian and Peruvian governments to spearhead campaigns with the slogan ¨Coca is not cocaine¨. It´s also rumored to be an ingredient of coca cola, which would help explain a lot of things. At any rate, Peruvians stick it in your face at every opportunity and expect you to like it. I consumed large amounts of coca tea during my hikes and not only was I not thrilled with the taste, I also saw no beneficial effects. But then again, I´m capable of consuming large amounts of caffeine and going straight to sleep so maybe I´m just weird.

At any rate, this is only one of the many plants we saw on our hike to Macchu Picchu. But I´m getting ahead of myself. A few words are needed re. treks to Macchu Picchu. In the last few years, the official Inka trail has become so wildly popular that the Peruvian government has decided to limit the number of people allowed on it. I had actually tried to get us on it, but 3 months of advance booking didn´t cut it either. So we decided to go instead on one of the ¨alternative¨ trails that tour agencies have come up with. Rikki & Omrit were interested in one called Salkantay, named after the nearby snow capped mountain of the same name. The high altitudes involved were the main deterrent for me. So Maya and I opted for another one called ¨the Inka Jungle¨ trail, which went through jungle like territory and joined the Inka trail at another point. The first day of this trek is actually on mountain bikes, but since neither Maya and I knew how to ride bikes, we decided to walk on the road where everyone else was biking.

We were told that it would be all sunny and warm during the hike and there was no need to bring our raincoats. Worse comes to worst, the idiotic man in the office said, you can buy a poncho for very cheap, they sell it along the way... Of course, 15 minutes into the walk it started pouring and continued for hours. No ponchos to be found anywhere. We were in a jungly area, so it was hot and sticky and rainy all at once. Not pleasant. We were not happy when we finally made it to the first stop. And to think we could have avoided it all if we hadn´t been told a blatant lie. The one thing that lifted my spirits was this little boy scurrying around the village-what is a blond eyed, European looking kid like this doing in a remote part of Peru???

We also managed to find ¨ponchos¨ here, which are basically colorful garbage bags with a hole in the middle for your head. Anyway, our second day of walking was slightly more interesting, with large trees and a lot of plants along the way. We discovered on this day that our party was full of energizer bunnies. All very young Europeans and all of them running ahead at full speed. There was some climbing involved, but it wasn´t too difficult. Maya had some stomach trouble which meant that I had the wonderful opportunity to walk in the middle-in front of Maya and behind the energizer bunnies-which allowed me to enjoy the beautiful scenery by myself.

At some point our guide picked up a fruit which the locals use as a natural dye and painted everyone´s faces with it. Everyone, that is, but me. Should I be worried that even random Peruvian tour guides are scared of me? The truth is that the guide soon proved to be extremely sleazy so my conscience is clear. He kept making up excuses (¨but this is how we say hello in Peru¨) to touch and/or give us kisses and we were pretty disgusted with him.

Thankfully the scenery was much more pleasant. For my part, I really enjoyed being able to eat fruits we picked up straight from trees along the way. Oranges, sabras, tangerines, papayas (ugh!), avocados...

We also saw some gorgeous butterflies along the way-as much as I tried to run after them, they proved too elusive to capture on camera, so here´s another colorful creature for you:

In stark contrast to the beauty of the 2nd day, we spent the morning of our 3rd day walking on boring railroad tracks which brought us to Aguas Calientes, probably one of the most touristy towns in the world. The walk itself was uncomfortable and uninteresting and we had to keep stepping aside to allow the trains to pass.

Once in Aguas Calientes, Maya & I were put in a room together and before we knew it, everybody had left the hostel. We found out later that we had walked the railroad tracks due to a change in plans, requested by the energizer bunnies, who wanted to save time so they could climb another hill. Nobody bothered to consult us. I think they were concerned that we couldn´t handle the climb. Nobody consulted us for that either. The problem is that at this point, we had grown completely tired of our sleazy and incompetent tour guide and couldn´t even be bothered to complain.

So it was in that very negative light that we decided to skip climbing the thousands of Inka steps to Macchu Picchu and opted instead to take the bus to the top of the mountain. Honestly, we just wanted to get the whole hike over with and make it back to Cusco before Shabbat. Which was not as easy as you might think. But, first, a picture of the ruins:

I´m sorry to report that I belong to the group of people who are not wowed by them. Before anyone can go ahead and repeat the mantra that it would have been a completely different experience if I had climbed the stairs, I would like to remind you that I had little interest in Inkas before getting there. The only reason I went to Macchu Picchu was because I felt it would be stupid to make it to Peru and not see one of the wonders of the world. I don´t see why climbing thousands of stairs at 5 am in the morning should make a difference.

It is not clear what the purpose of Macchu Picchu was. Some claim that it was a spiritual center, which is also the theory that the guides´ explanations center around. The guides were very anxious to point out that Hiram Bingham, the man who supposedly ¨discovered¨ the ruins, was not the first person to find this site. Apparently there were some Peruvian families living there long before. They also talked a lot about the artifacts that Bingham removed from the site, about which they are very bitter. And rightly so I think. We have many cases of removed artifacts from Turkey-a problem accounted for, I believe, by the fact that original archaelogists were ¨westerners¨ who took advantage of the loose conservation laws in place in the less developed places of the world.

We had an unpleasant surprise on the way back from Macchu Picchu. We had requested to get earlier train tickets in order to be able to make it to Cusco by Shabbat and somehow they had mucked up Maya´s ticket. After a few very stressful hours, we finally managed to get on the train and were very happy to leave Macchu Picchu and our guide behind. At any rate, I leave you with one of the few pictures I have from Aguas Calientes. Quite wondrous, isn´t she?

Beautiful Cusco

2008-07-31T07:10:00.001-07:00

First of all, thank you for the nice comments (off the blog) about my last entry. Just want to point out that I am doing really well now. I am currently in Buenos Aires, Argentina and loving it. My activities consist of eating, shopping and going to wild rock concerts (ok, just the one, amazing, concert). And I haven´t cried or looked back since Cusco.

What to write about Cusco. It´s the prettiest place in Peru. Even the locals think so. It´s nestled in between mountains and it´s got-obviously-cobblestone streets and just an overall adorableness about it. Ever since we started our trip, we had heard about people getting ¨stuck¨ there for weeks and loving it. Here´s what I saw when I would step out of my hostel:

It´s got really cool gothic architecture, like this cathedral in the main square:

It happens to be the main point from which all the Macchu Picchu trips leave from and also a central place with a lot of activities like rafting, horse riding, trekking, paragliding etc. It´s very touristy and definitely not cheap, but it´s so cute that you just go ahead and slip into total tourist mode without blinking an eye. Here´s a picture of what the Israelis called ¨simtat hametsikim¨

inspired by all the tour agents that attack you like bees when you enter the street. We spent quite a lot of time there. The only reason it´s so empty is because the picture was taken on a Sunday. Obviously Cusco is full of Israelis and if it isn´t the Hebrew you constantly hear on the street that gives it away, there´s a ton of little notes like this all over the place to remind you:

So once again, I felt the pull and push of being Israeli. There was something very cozy and comforting about knowing that so many of ¨ours¨ were there and also something a little suffocating. What with my crying/introspection theme at the time, it seemed like a good idea to stay in a separate hostel which was not full of Israelis, so I picked this cute place which was literally just around the corner from where Rikki was staying.

So what did we do with our time in Cusco? We had decided that we would stay there until Inti Raymi which happens to be the biggest festival celebrated in Cusco, a pagan homage to the sun. It´s not that anyone really worships the sun anymore, but I guess they just kept the tradition up for the tourists. At any rate, that meant that we had about 2.5 weeks to fill with activities. But first we had a Shabbat + Shavuot combo to get through. So that´s how we started our 2.5 week love affair with Beit Chabbad Cusco:

The Beit Chabad was 5 minutes from our hostels and had a wonderful little restaurant in it. That´s kosher food on demand, people. Shnitzels, stir fry, chips-it was heaven! We even had fried fish for Shavuot! I think we cumulatively spent more time there than we did anywhere else on our trip. :)

The other great thing about Cusco was reuniting with our friends Maya and Omrit from Santa Cruz. We got along so well that at some point we even ¨swapped¨ our travel partners! Omrit and Rikki really wanted to do a rafting trip and a really cold hike to Macchu Picchu whereas Maya and I decided to go for a more tropical trek to Macchu Picchu and a kabbalah course.

Yep, you read that right. I did a kabbalah course. If Madonna is doing it, then why can´t I, right? :P You will not get a review of the course from me here since it was after all in a Beit Chabad and so had a heavy dose of their ideology mixed in with the mysticism. All I will say is that I am glad I could take a break from all the running around and put in some spirituality into my vacation. Plus, I got this wonderful shot of the Rabbi.

The other thing I did with my time was a Spanish course! Finally, after years of longing to learn this language, I did a proper, one on one course for 20 hours. It was intense. Because of all the time constraints (Shabbats, Sundays, Shavuot, various Cusco festivals) I only had 5 days in which to do it so I was doing 4 to 6 hours a day and oh my God, did I love it!!! I think I could spend my entire life learning languages. It is so fascinating. I found a really cute, informal language school and had 2 AMAZING teachers there.

OK, so remember how I mentioned that I was looking for bubbly South Americans? So here they were! Or was rather. Dora, on the left, is Peruvian whereas Eva is Spanish. Most of my time was spent with Dora who just cracked me up. She was super sweet and funny, telling me on our first lesson how she has never loved any of her boyfriends (TMI!) and later on expounding on how she responds to men on the street who try to flirt with her (you don´t want to know). The first time I met her she gave me a kiss and was all smiles. That´s the warmth I´m talking about people!! Ironically she is from Lima. She told me how Peruvians are divided into costeños (from coastal towns), selbaticos (from the jungle) and serranos (from the mountains) and how every group dislikes the others. She´s only 36 and she founded the language school 4 years ago with a friend and she said she had been treated with a lot of prejudice from Cusqueños (people from Cusco).

So all it took for me to finally warm up to Peruvians was one contact with one single person. This is what I had been lacking previously, but couldn´t pinpoint. I really enjoyed travelling with Rikki, who in her own right is really hilarious, but the problem with travelling with other people is that it makes it so much easier to stick to the crowd you know and stay away from these kind of interactions. In retrospect, I am glad I had all these sides to my trip (I´m currently all alone in Buenos Aires). I had a LOT of fun with Rikki and the girls, I really enjoyed spending time with South Americans like Dora and I am also very much enjoying my own company these days. As usual, God has been very generous with me.

With Eva I had about 5 hours of studying, but she was extremely sweet and professional. In our first lesson I discovered that she had, check this out, gotten divorced a mere 2 days before me and was going through pretty much the same kind of processes that I was! We spent about 3 hours chatting and I don´t know where time flew. At the end of the lesson she showed me the list of the vocabulary we had used during our discussion and also a list from a lesson with someone else. It was amazing to see how much that little sheet described about who I have become (the words that featured were: self confidence, process, gratitude, liberation, growth etc.).

So Cusco was where I took a vacation from my vacation. Not that I wasn´t running around like crazy-from an early breakfast to Spanish class to Kabbalah class to lunch to Spanish class to the internet to dinner to my room for homework and learning from subtitles on television (one of the main sources of my vocabulary!) . You know me, the movement keeps me alive.

Next post will be about Macchu Picchu hopefully and then on to the border with Bolivia...

Reflections

2008-07-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

So, where were we? Aaah yes, the lovely trip from Arequipa to Cusco. Strange as it will sound, the reason why the trip was lovely is because I cried for a large portion of it. I suppose that requires some explanation. :)

If you´ll remember, it was around this time that I seriously started thinking about why I had come here and how I would like to spend the rest of my time in South America. Sometimes we do things with the full knowledge of the reasons that led us there and sometimes we have a strong feeling that something is required and only later do we discover the specific details. With me these kind of feelings are very common. It´s almost as if my body/subconscious/soul, whatever you want to call it, knows exactly what I need when I need it. When I ignore it, I usually end up paying for it at some point in the future. And so when I left Israel, I was fully aware that I needed to get away, but it was not entirely clear to me why and what I exactly needed. As is often the case, the journey itself was what led me to discover the answers.

Before I left Israel, a combination of very needful people/events/occupations in my life left me feeling very depleted and I seriously needed a ¨refill¨. I also went through a long and arduous process whereby I began to discover a lot of things about myself, a rebirth if you will. Now I am very appreciative of my friends and family and cannot thank them enough for the support and assistance I received during the difficult times in my life. Having said that, sometimes a person really needs to be alone to be able to pull himself together and regroup. So I chose to take myself out of my familiar settings in order to be able to disconnect completely and to ¨connect the dots¨ so to speak.

I have gone through a lot in the last few years and it has not been easy. I lost a lot of things along the way and gained even more. The survivor in me chose to take the lead in this process, so I have mostly been in good spirits and have moved on with my life, without stopping too much to dwell on the losses. So the truth of the matter is that I needed some time to mourn. And I needed to do it alone.

A very good friend of mine gave me an amazing book before I left Israel called ¨Eat, Pray, Love¨. It was written by Elizabeth Gilbert, a divorced woman in her 30s who decides to take a year off her life in order to rediscover who she is (sound familiar?) It was mind boggling to see just how similar some of our experiences were. There were times when I felt she was taking the words right out of my mouth. At some point in the book, she describes sitting on her own and remembering, one by one, all the negative experiences she went through in order to put them behind her. For some reason I was reminded of this during my trip from Arequipa to Cusco. It sounded like a little bit of hocus pocus, but strangely it also made sense. I had heard once, and experienced countless times before, that the easiest way to deal with pain is by going through it. So I decided to give it a try.

I relaxed in my chair and let scenes run before my eyes, uncomfortable situations I got myself in, places I cried my eyes out, instances I was hurt, instances I let myself be hurt, the anger, the pain, the humiliation, the frustrations, anything and everything I could think of. And I cried. Let me tell you, it´s not very easy to cry discreetly when you´re travelling with someone else. Thankfully Rikki fell asleep at some point so that made life easier. :) And I let the sadness wash over me. And I enjoyed the crying and the sadness. I enjoyed it because I was not the same person anymore who had gone through all that. Because I had chosen to accept the past and grow from it. Because I could give the sadness the space it needed and not let it consume me. And I laughed and I cried all together because it was all behind me and I was happy. That was my catharsis and it was the beginning of the final chapter (I hope!) of my healing.

So then I knew what I had to do. I had not come here to live someone else´s dream. Someone in a Beit Chabad once quipped that the theme in South America is ¨it´s my vacation and I will do exactly what everyone else is doing¨. Well, my vacation was an internal one and I needed to do whatever I felt would facilitate that process. So I was not going to spend my time running from attraction to attraction or seeing countless Inca ruins, however much that might shock people.

With that mindset I arrived in Cusco. And promptly signed up for a very popular trip to Macchu Picchu. :P

Well, OK, not exactly. But you´ll hear more about that in my next post. Which I promise will include more photos, if not less gab. :)

To Trek or Not To Trek

2008-07-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

So, the Nazca lines... They are basically these huge formations in the sand, apparently created by humans, that can only be perceived from the sky. There are hundreds of them spread over 500 square km. of the Nazca desert, some are simple lines and others are more elaborate, like birds, spiders etc. Apparently it barely ever rains in Nazca so the figures have kept their shape for over 1,000 years. Nobody knows who made them and why, but there are plenty of theories that base their presence on a multitude of purposes, ranging from agricultural to religious. It is possible to look at the lines from the ground, but I think it requires a lot of imagination to perceive them properly.

We decided to dish the extra cash and took a flight, which was most definitely worth it. Before getting on, we were handed a little map of the 15 or so designs that the flight focuses on. Lonely Planet and some other tourists we met claimed that it would not be wise to have breakfast before the flight and indeed, the pilots did push our stomachs´ limit by turning the small plane sharply in all sorts of directions to get the best sight of the designs. It´s not very easy to discern the figures from the photos I took (I blame the pilot :P) , but here´s a relatively clear one of a condor:

Once we were done with Nazca, our next destination was Arequipa. We were a little wary of going there, what with the Israeli girl who had recently been murdered in the city, but we made sure not to do anything silly and hoped for the best. I found Arequipa to be very cute. But then again, give me some cobblestone and narrow streets and I might even find Lima to be cute. :P I mean, look at this, isn´t it adorable?

We arrived in Arequipa thinking we were going to trek the Colca Canyon, which is what people generally do there. After we went to a few tour agencies, we got all excited about the 2 volcanes by Arequipa which we were told we could climb. It was only the 5th or so agency that thought to ask us how long we had been in Arequipa and declared that we were not acclimitized to the height and there was no way we could climb those mountains. So back to Canyon Colca it was. We decided to spend the rest of the day walking towards a lookout point from which the mountains were visible. And what should we come across on our little journey, but even smaller and cuter cobble stone streets:

and, of course, some sort of celebration in the street. Because a day without celebration is a day wasted in Peru: The next day we set out early for our hike to the colca canyon. When I say early, I mean 2 am. So, yeah, not quite morning. Because you see, it´s very important to get early to a point called the Cruz del Condor, where you watch the sunrise and wait for the condors to show up.

Never mind that it takes the condors about 3 hours to appear and you have turned to a block of ice by that point. Never mind that the condors don´t even come near you and rather blend in with the canyon when you try to take a picture. And never mind that the actual trek is quite warm so that you have to schlep all the warm clothes you brought for the duration of the whole hike. The scenery was beautiful:

so I have nothing negative to say about that. The problem, once again, was my breathing. The first day of the hike is going down into the canyon and the second day is climbing back up, a distance of approximately 1,000 meters. I had an extremely rough time on the second day, owing in part to some digestive issues I had along the way. Mainly though, I think it was the climbing that did it. A wonderful Australian guy kept me company at the back of the line, together we made our way to the top slowly and he kept encouraging me along the way. This trek was the straw that broke the camel´s back though. I really suffered and did not get any satisfaction from my hiking. I barely looked at the view and was way more concerned with keeping people waiting than I was about enjoying myself. And I couldn´t breathe and had to stop every few minutes.

So there it was then. I decided, with a very heavy heart, that I couldn´t do any more of these kind of treks. I may not have formulated my exact expectations from my vacation at that moment, but I definitely knew that I hadn´t come here to suffer. Some people like a physical challenge for the challenge and are even extremely happy at the end of it to have made it to the peak. Not me. I don´t derive any satisfaction from having gotten there, all I feel is relief. If the ¨reward¨ at the end doesn´t make it ¨worth it¨, then all I´m doing is torturing myself. And I really don´t need that in my life. I decided that the last ¨climbing¨ trek I would do would be Macchu Picchu and then I would look for flatter hikes.

Can you tell which one of these is the donkey and which one the donkey lady? :P

After leaving the Colca Canyon, I had the most wonderful bus ride to Cusco, but more on that in the next post...

The Trek Not Taken

2008-07-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

The story of our trip to Huaraz won´t be complete without a mention of Huayhuash, ¨the other trek¨. Well, that´s not exactly a fair description of Huayhuash. It´s supposed to be the ¨2nd best trek in the world¨, though not quite clear by whose rating. :) Since we were yet at the beginning of the trip and I was much more gung ho about trekking, I was interested in doing it for a while, but there were a bunch of problems with it: It was a more difficult trail than ours, lasted 8 days and supposedly got much colder. We could have maybe gotten around Shabbat by stopping in the middle of the trail, but we also had Shavuot to think about.

All my hesitations disappeared however, after I did Santa Cruz. I love to breathe and I wanted it to stay that way. This difficulty of breathing at high altitudes was not a problem I had foreseen and it messed up my plans of hiking the breadth and width of South America. As those of you who have hiked with me will know, I am generally all the way at the front of the trail, complaining about those lagging behind. So this was a humbling experience to say the least.

It was roughly around this time that I started thinking seriously about why I was here to begin with. Yes, I love nature and hiking and yes, a little challenge killed no one. On the other hand, I came here to enjoy myself, and God knows I´m not one to run away from challenges, but I really, truly, do like to breathe. So I decided that Huayhuash was out and we set on the road back to Lima. The stunning picture above is from a friend who actually did take the challenge.

Once back in Lima, we were appalled once again by its ugliness. :P I mean, we went to see the ocean and even that was gray and boring and ugly. We did, however, do one thing there which was a lot of fun. They had an amazing display of fountains in one of the parks, supplemented by sound and light shows and we spent a good few hours gawking at them. Rikki jumped into some of the fountains with all the other children and I had a great time watching her get wet. Don´t judge me, ít´s winter here. Besides, somebody had to stay outside and take photos, right?

We were told by a few different people not to take the direct route from Lima to Cusco so we decided to run through various cities along the coast in order to make it there by Shabbat.

First destination: Ica. An oasis in every sense of the word. From the bleak and cold skies of Lima we were transported to summer for a few hours, without so much as a warning. Yes, I knew we were going to a place with sand dunes, but somewhere in my head I hadn´t associated that with heat. I´m talking palm trees, people.

I´m talking about a blazing sun, a small body of water surrounded by trees, in the middle of the desert.

Rikki pretty much hit the sand dunes directly with a sandboard. See that little dot on top of the sand dune? Yep, that´s her.

I had no interest in burning myself and/or breaking my bones, so I decided to follow the example of these wise dogs...

...and proceeded to lie down in the sand and watch the view for a full 2 hours, all the while listening to radio PA-NA-ME-RI-CA-NA! I caught a lot of slang in those 2 hours and finally felt like I was in South America. Bubbly radio presenters, adorable Spanish, lively Latin American beat-that´s what I´m talking about! It was a piece of heaven.

The next stop on our itinerary was Pisco-the poor man´s Galapagos islands. I must say I was a little underwhelmed by it, considering it was freezing cold and all we got to see were some ugly sea lions:

also a lot of different kinds of birds. Booooriiiing. NEXT!

On the same day that we visited the island, we also managed to catch one of the very last flights over the Nazca lines. The lines were cool, but the plane was cooler! It was a 4 person plane, probably the closest thing to a private jet that I´ll ever fly in! The view was superb:

In true tourist fashion, they gave us a little map of what we should expect to see-the various shapes according to how they are arranged on the ground. I just realized as I was writing these lines that I haven´t given an explanation of the Nazca lines. That´s what happens when half of Israel is travelling with you and you get the feeling nothing you do is original and so, obviously everybody should know what all these places are!

So more on the Nazca lines in the next post...

As Close As I´ll Get To Snow

2008-07-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

OK folks, I am determined to finish posting about Santa Cruz, so brace yourselves. Just to give you some perspective-I´m currently in La Paz, Bolivia and planning to move to Argentina next week. I got stuck here for reasons I will explain, at this rate, by oh, I don´t know, October?? I am behind by about 7 weeks!!! I guess I only have my own babbling mouth to blame...

The above picture was taken quite a while before we got to the pass. So that you can see how close we got, ie how high we climbed, here´s a picture of the snow capped mountains from near the pass:

We only went down a few hundred meters to the camp site that night, so I was freezing by nightfall and that is when I understood I had sorely underestimated the weather conditions. My sleeping bag, while very light and compact, was nowhere near warm enough for this kind of cold. My teeth were chattering the whole night and I barely managed to sleep 2 hours. Rikki, on the other hand, was quite cozy:

Heee, I´m mean. That night, I think, was when I decided not to go on more treks at such high altitudes. I can't breathe during the trek, I can't sleep at night, do I really want to get any nearer to snow capped mountains?? More on this dilemma in another post.

Now that I think about it, this trek was chock full of drama, quite fittingly for South America. As we were approaching our camp site the 2nd night, we heard about an accident that had taken place quite near Santa Cruz. Apparently a French ( I think) couple were trying to climb a mountain called Alpamayo (at an altitude of 5,947 m.) on their own when the guy had fallen and died. Luckily, the reports were inaccurate and the next day we got news that he had *only* broken his ribs. Still scary. I can´t exactly remember which of my pictures is that of the Alpamayo, so I´m putting a random picture here instead which I think is very cool and deserves to appear on the blog:

In my opinion, the 3rd day of the trek was the most beautiful, mostly because there was a lot of water involved. Also, it didn´t hurt that we were walking downhill and could actually breathe and enjoy the scenery, which looked something like this:

This was also the day when we got in close contact with some donkeys on our lunch break:

They just kind of came and surrounded us and refused to leave, it was quite surreal. But I have one more drama to tell from our trek, one which we keep remembering to this day. Our camp site for the 3rd night was smack next to a stream of water, which was ridiculously loud.

I was wondering just how I was going to sleep with that roaring sound when we realized that one of our party was missing. Maya, who had been travelling with Pinto up until the 3rd day, had decided at some point that she wanted to walk and gotten off. The only problem is that she hadn't made it to the camp site and we didn't know whether she had fallen behind or missed the camp completely and kept on walking. I was convinced she had missed the site because I myself had almost gone past it without noticing, but everybody else thought this was unlikely. So Chagai decided to walk back from the camp, in the hopes of finding her. He came back a while later, saying that he had walked until the last spot we had stopped at and not seen her. In the meantime, someone else walking on the trail passed us by and told us he had seen someone who fit Maya's description go by. By this time, it was nightfall and we were starting to get worried.

It would soon be really dark and it was a really scary thought for a girl to be walking alone at night in the middle of the mountains. The truth is that the end point of the trek was at a village 2 hours from our campsite and Juan told us that the donkey bearer's brother lived there. So he decided to take Pinto, Maya's sleeping bag and a flashlight in the hopes of finding her there. We gathered in the big tent, which was generally the warmest place in the camp because of all the cooking, and continued waiting nervously. On the one hand we were scared, but on the other I think we were hoping for the best so we started playing silly games to pass the time.

Looks easy, right? It isn't. Don't try it at home, kids!

Well obviously Maya's story ends well-Juan found her at the village as we had hoped and we found out that she had actually had quite a nice time there. She had realised at some point that she had missed the camp site, but hoped to reach the village before nightfall. When she got there she found a little boy with whom she sent a note to us to let us know she was ok. The family in the village took her in and were very generous to her, she was even serenaded with a harp before going to sleep.

So that brings us to the end of our very eventful first trek. Next post-our whirlwind week going through Ica, Pisco, Nazca and Arequipa by the coast. Until then...

Santa Cruz, part 2

2008-07-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

Before moving on to the nitty gritty details of the trek, I should introduce to you 2 more of our party in Santa Cruz: Juan and Pinto. Juan was our wonderful guide, who also doubled as my first Spanish teacher in Peru. He spent the first day of our trek helping me learn past tense and very patiently correcting my mistakes. It was a very welcome lesson as it was getting really difficult to explain myself when everything seemed to happen in the present tense. Would you believe he's only 36 years old???? There's something in this continent which seems to age people very rapidly, I can't remember the number of women I saw who look like they are 200 years old. Case in point:

Rikki thinks it's the sun. She probably has a point. I mean we are traveling here in "winter" and despite the cold, which will only get worse as we progress in the trek, it's almost always been sunny. So much so in fact that the locals in the villages use solar power to dry their laundry:

Yes, Peruvians are indeed very resourceful. See here another product of Peruvian creativity:

Why throw away perfectly decent shoe soles when you can just recycle them to attach a wooden gate in the middle of nowhere????

But I digress... Where was I? Oh yes, Pinto. As you might have figured out by now, he's a horse. :)

We discovered very early on in the trek that Maya and Omrit had only arrived in Huaraz the day before our trek. Altitude problems are very individual so while Omrit was happily ploughing along on the trail (she's an energizer bunny anyway), Maya had breathing problems from the first half hour of our walk. Chagai and Roni were super sweet, offering to carry her bags and waiting for her when she needed to rest. Seeing as the hard part of the trek was still before us, Maya requested a horse that night and that is how Pinto joined us. After spending many hours together, Maya and Pinto had formed a very special bond by the end of the trek.

The only other event worth mentioning on our first day was the rain which seemed to come out of nowhere in the afternoon and lasted for a good 2 hours so that by the time we made it to our camp, we were all soaking wet. Or rather some of us were. I had on a wonderful raincoat from the other SA which meant that not a single drop of rain made it inside. Oh Cape Union Mart, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

It was the second day of the trek that registered the highest ascent. Very early on in the walk we could see the snow capped mountains in the distance:

We had, as Juan described it, a 1.5-2 hours of 30% ascent, then a 1.5/2 hours of 45% ascent and then a 1.5-2 hours of 60% ascent. Everybody seemed to have a different pace so we were kind of all scattered along the trail. This suited me just fine since I quite like to be on my own when I walk so I can soak up the view to my heart's content. I just kept taking breaks to make sure I could still see the person behind me. Which cannot be said of those in front of me.

When we made it to the 60% ascent, I had slowed down considerably as I could hardly breathe. So at some point I couldn't see anybody in front of me and the people behind me seemed to be going even slower than me so they were also out of sight. All this would have been fine if the trail up the ascent were clear. At some point however, the dirth path had disappeared and there were huge rocks which made it very unclear to see a path. Soon I came to a point where there were very steep mountains in front of me and the only way to get to them was to climb the rocks with my bare hands at said 60% slope.

I yelled out at the people in the front. No answer. I yelled out at the people in the back. No answer. I tried to see if I could spot other hiker groups. Absolutely no one. Trying not to panic, I started climbing the rocks. I could easily have slipped and fallen. I could easily have broken a bone. It's a miracle I didn't, especially considering I am capable of slipping and falling on absolutely flat surfaces. It took about 20 minutes until I finally spotted some people in the distance. A 20 year worth of 20 minutes! I made my way towards them, in the hopes that they were indeed on the correct path. Once I had made it there, I yelled out at Rikki in the back: "Rikki, where are you?". The answer came: "In Santa Cruz". Yeah, Rikki's funny like that.

Once I made it to the path, I also saw the guys in the front who seemed like little dots up in the distance. They seemed to have made it to the top a long time ago and directed me towards them. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally made it to our pass of 4,750 meters and I have the picture to prove it!!

So much for today. Hope to wrap this up in the next post. Bye for now!

My First Trek In Peru

2008-06-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

There is a good reason why I didn´t update my blog for so long. About a week ago, I wrote a long long post which the computer gods didn´t want me to publish. After spending hours touching up the entry, everything suddenly disappeared and couldn´t be recovered. I have been running from place to place ever since. I am actually, quite ridiculously, more than a month behind at this point. So I will try and summarize Santa Cruz as much as possible.

After having done the Lagoon 69 trek, it was time to move on to a more serious trek that lasted 4 days. This was our first experience out in the mountains and it sure was memorable. For starters, there was a lot of logistics to take care of. Since we would be walking in high altitudes for 4 days straight, we could only carry a certain amount of stuff with us, the rest would have to go on donkeys brought along specifically for that purpose. Since the poor donkeys can only carry so much, each person was allowed to bring along about half a large backpack, which meant that we had to empty out both our bags and repack them so that we ended up with one to go on the trek and another to be left behind. Here´s a picture of said poor donkey:

For an observant Jew, however, the logistics don`t end here. I am, of course, referring to food. Our first task was trying to haggle with Carlos, our cheeky travel agent, to get down the price because we would be bringing our own food. A pause here to tell you about Carlos, who is quite a character. We did pretty much everything in Huaraz through him (for the sole reason that we were too lazy to go looking for another agent) and were ready to strangle him by the end of our stay there. It turns out he overcharged us for some things and was especially annoying with the food for Santa Cruz. He kept telling us he couldn´t reduce the price because ¨You know, I buy potatoes for group, I buy kilo, you don´t eat, I can´t buy half potato¨accompanied by a lot of funny hand gestures... So we went on the trip thinking we could use the potatoes and whatever other vegetables we could take from them. So there we were, the first night of camping, trying to get our share of the food, when the guide told us that he was told there were 5 people cooking for themselves and therefore he had brought less food than normal. CAAAAARLOOOOOOSS!!!! Sigh... A month later, now that we have calmed down from the incident, we always remember him for clapping his hands every time he saw us and saying ¨Hola, chicas¨ (hello, girls) and making really funny, Jim Carreyesque mimics with his eyes and mouth.

Anyway, back to the trek. We started off our trip on a collectivo which was stuffed ridiculously. We are talking 25 people in a 12 person minibus people. Sorry, that´s 25 people and a kitten.

We kept joking the whole way that the lady was probably taking the kitten home to feed it so she can eat it herself one day (as you will read very soon, we were the most PC people during this trip). When people slowly started piling out at the end of our collectivo ride , we also noticed a little boy who must have been squeezed somewhere amongst cholas (typical Andean looking women, to be addressed in more detail in a later post).

We were pleasantly surprised to meet some really nice Israeli people on the trek, one of whom happened to be a Sochnut shaliach in Jerusalem and 2 of whom we coincidentally met up with again a few weeks later.

Let´s give them names, shall we? Besides the two of us, the gang consisted of Chagai (the shaliach, standing on the right), Roni (his friend, standing at the left), Maya and Omrit. All but Roni were religious, hence the 5 people cooking for themselves.

Apart from us, there were only 2 other people on the trek, one American and one French guy. Being very mature, the boys had given them nicknames by the end of our first night-Shmulik and Benji. Obviously only used amongst ourselves to gossip about them. Yeah, so Israeli-it´s rude, but it´s also quite hilarious...

The first sight from the trek is that of another lagoon. Many of those around as I mentioned in my earlier post. Here´s a close up:

And a further picture:

Well, I´m being kicked out of yet another Internet cafe, so Santa Cruz will after all be spread over a few posts. Hasta luego! (until later)

The Kosher Eyes

2008-06-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

As much as I would love to blog about the next item on our itinerary after lagoon 69-after all I`m still about 2 weeks behind-I quite enjoyed writing random observations in my last entry, so I think I`ll do a bit more of that and hopefully give you more of an idea of how this vacation is going.

The above creature, as I assume you will already have figured out, is a pig. I can almost hear you asking ¨what is it doing on this blog which only features kosher food??¨ Well, to that I would reply: ¨He is alive¨. :P The more important and interesting question here is why I took his picture. Well, it turns out I`m a really holy person and I wanted to share that with you.

Peru is a large country. As such, one spends a lot of time on the roads. A journey of 5 hours is considered short, which to the Turk in me is not such a wonder, but my Israeli identity and my Israeli travelling partner find this quite remarkable. Actually long journeys are a whole other issue that deserve another post, so I will try to get back to the pigs for now. When one travels around little villages near Huaraz and when one sits near the window of the bus, one apparently notices many of these animals along the way. The same cannot be said of the person sitting in the aisle. To be more specific-we spent a good 3-4 days on the roads, repeating the same scenario: Rikki would see a pig, get all excited and try to get me to see it as well. I would keep missing it. That is when we decided that I must have kosher eyes, the kind that blocks out unkosher animals... Sadly though, my kosher eyes proved to be only temporary and eventually I saw one and had to document it to mark the event...

Once my eyes were opened, there was no stopping them. I even saw a whole roasted pig in a market once, alongside chickens dangling upside down on ropes and huge, stinky blocks of cheese. Unfortunately I have no pictures of these lovely sights, for reasons I will disclose in a few more sentences. You see, in our endless searches for fruit and vegetables, someone at some point was kind enough to mention to us that every city in Peru has a market where one can easily find fresh produce! We promptly made our way to the market in Huaraz when we obtained this information. While we did indeed find what we had been looking for, that day also happened to be Shabbat so we could only look at the produce and sigh. It pains me to record here that just as we left the market, Rikki pointed out to me an upside down turtle that had been carved on the inside. :( We had heard of locals eating guinea pigs, but poor, cute little turtles??? I was not happy. After that day, somehow or other it always happened that we would arrive at the market just as it was about to close down, with only some miserable looking potatoes and corn left for sale, so no squeamish market photos for you. I can just hear your disappointed sighs. :P

We spent a few days in Huaraz astonished with the popularity of the Orthodox Union before we finally asked a cab driver what the sign stood for and it turns out it´s a sports team of some sort... Oh well, no kosher guinea pigs for us then. :P The truth is that we really are astonished by the stretch of the OU into this part of the world. We`ve found anything from Pringles, Philadelphia cream cheese to Schulz brand pretzels with the ubiquitous OU sign. Oh and that reminds me-whoever told me that I would lose weight on this trip clearly did not share my weakness for chocolates... Or try the new almond flavored Snickers... Yum.

We have a saying in Turkish ¨It´s a festival every day for the crazy¨. Not sure what the folks in Huaraz would say to that, considering that EVERY SINGLE DAY that we were there, there was some other celebration in the city. In the beginning I got all excited and started snapping photos, by the end of our stay it was all I could do not to roll my eyes when I saw another parade. The funny thing is, I´m not even sure what they were celebrating. Something to do with education one day. Something to do with a historic figure. I lost track after a while. Don´t make the mistake, though, of thinking that Peruvians are these exciting, jovial people (this is a point I´m dying to dwell on, but it will have to wait a few more posts).

This picture is here to help me express my frustration over why there aren´t more ¨people pictures¨ on my camera. It`s extremely difficult to snap a picture of a person who is looking directly into your eyes, unless you have managed to establish some sort of connection with them and you can get their approval. With our whirlwind itinerary, which, again, will be the subject of another post, it´s been almost impossible to establish such connections. Children are relatively easier to deal with in that sense. This cutie was just wandering around the streets of Huaraz one evening when we were agency shopping. Which brings me to....

Carlos, ¨our man in Huaraz¨! Note the feeling of movement in this picture, an effect produced by taking the photograph in the diagonal, a trick I learned at the photography workshop I attended right before I left Israel, courtesy of Mosaic (thanks guys!!). You will hear more about Carlos, hopefully, in my next entry. Until then...

Light Unto The Nations

2008-06-02T19:53:00.000-07:00

Yeah, not so much. We´ve been having a real dilemma with our identity here. Nothing to do with antisemitism. More like, are we proud to be one of the thousands of our countrymen occupying all of South America and getting reactions of ¨Oooh, Israelis, shalom shalom, sababa. jerusalen? haifa? petach tikvah?¨ Did we really travel so far from our little country to be covered on all sides by Israelis, to the point that we long to hear some English being spoken? On the one hand, there´s great value to the familiarity, the convenience of the information exchange. On the other hand, there´s the recurring feeling of walking along the same path that millions before us have walked on and not really feeling like we´re having an authentic vacation. I would say this is the biggest challenge of my vacation in Peru so far. Yes, all the planning and organizing and logistics is tedious, but it´s so much more exhausting trying to enjoy the vacation without feeling so touristy. With the time restrictions and destinations planned on our itinerary, it seems almost impossible to escape the crowds, so I guess we´ll have to get used to not being very original...

The above picture (yes, those are lamas and not horses) is near the ¨Bayit Hayehudi¨ where we had our first Shabbat. We met a whole bunch of really nice Israelis there, religious and secular. We had a lovely experience, not to mention really nice food. A tiny teeny piece of home away from home.

While we`re on the subject of food-I forgot to mention in my last post the first ¨food crisis¨ we had on our trip to Chavin. We had bought 6 eggs the night before and boiled 3 of them for the trip. Rikki put them in the fridge and I took them out in the morning. Well, what happens when the right hand doesn`t speak to the left? Yesss, we sat down for our lunch and lo and behold I had brought along the raw eggs instead of the cooked! Not wanting to starve, we ordered a salad at the restaurant everyone else was eating at, I said, very explicitly ¨only cucumbers and tomatoes, nothing else please¨and we received on our plates 3 pieces of tomatoes and cucumbers each, together with boiled potatoes, corn and some other stuff I can`t remember...

Kosher food, as expected, has been a constant challenge. Rikki, bless her, keeps surprising me every day by producing another piece of food from Israel, hidden deep in the recesses of her backpack, which seems to be bottomless. So far she took out: couscous, ptitim, chocolates, oatmeal bars, candy, cabanos and cans of tuna... We`re constantly scavenging for vegetables, which don`t seem to be a staple around here. I must mention though that the lemons, while tiny, are very good!!

After Shabbat, we went on a 1 day hike to a place called Lagoon 69. Apparently there are many lagoons in this area of Peru and they have numbered them and this one happens to be the 69th one. We were told this was a relatively easy hike so we decided to do it on our own and headed out at a relatively early hour on the Sunday. Not entirely surprisingly, we met an Israeli couple along the way to the hike and ended up doing the whole thing together.

The scenery was gorgeous, with pretty waterfalls along the way:

and funny looking plants:

It wasn`t long before we started walking towards a snow capped mountain:

This is where things started getting tricky. Suddenly our lungs decided they were not going to make this easy for us... For about the 3 hours that we climbed towards the lagoon, the amount of oxygen in our bodies seemed to be constantly depleted. We kept stopping every 5 minutes to rest and soon the scenery just became a big blur for me at some point. Our friends, who seemed to have no such problems, made it to the top relatively quickly and assured us that this was due to our being in high areas for the first time. A few breathless and highly uncomfortable treks later, I am forced to conclude that while the amount of time spent in a high area is important, some people just seem to deal with heights better and I`m not one of them. But more on that in a later post.

After the gruelling climb up, I couldn´t believe my eyes when I saw the first drop of water in the distance. Look carefully and you will see it:

Here`s a closer picture of the lagoon-note our friends who had been sitting there and waiting for us for the better part of an hour :)

We spent a fair amount of time throwing rocks in the water and had a lot of fun, the 10 year olds that we are... Then I came up with the idea of throwing sand with little rocks in it. And yes, the wind did happen to blow in the wrong direction and the sand did happen to get into our friends`eyes at some point. But isn´t this beautiful sight worth it?

Yeah, travelling miles away to the other end of the world did not take the idiot out of me. :)

Next post-our 4 day Santa Cruz trek-and that will bring us to the end of our 1st week in Peru...

You Take My Breath Away....

2008-06-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

OK fine, it´s a lame title, but seriously, Huaraz literally takes your breath away at a neat 3,090 meters above sea level. You´ve occasionally witnessed the little ear popping phenomenon on a flight and you´ve climbed a few little mountains. You´ve read about altitude sickness in travel books and scoffed at all the apparent exaggeration. Then, just to be on the safe side, you´ve dished out the money for the little pills, all the while thinking you probably won´t need them since you´re pretty invincible. It´s time to come down to earth when you suddenly land somewhere so high and even going up 15 steps to your hostel room leaves you panting.

It took us about 2 days to overcome the nausea, headache and zombie feeling after arriving at Huaraz. This is a little city in the north of Peru which sits at the bottom of a gorgeous part of the Andes. The snow capped mountain range on one side of the valley is called the Cordillera Blanca and the range on the other side Cordillera Negra, ie the black mountain range, named thus due to the lack of snow on the mountain peaks. Huaraz itself isn´t particularly charming, but the multitude of treks and trips around it more than make up for this.

Deciding to play it safe on the first day, we pick a ¨cultural¨ trip, namely a visit to the archeological ruins of Chavin. It starts off with a visit to one of the many beautiful lagoons in this mountainous area, called Querococha. It`s literally right by the highway, as can be seen in the picture. Tourists beware-authentic Peruvian women clad in traditional clothes are ready to have their pictures taken with you for a fee, the little lamb in their arms making this opportunity all the more irresistible!

Seriously, does anybody ever buy this ridiculously obvious ploy?? And what a boring job that must be-stand on the side of the road and pounce on unsuspecting tourists the minute they step out of the bus. This is only the first of many other depressing jobs we will encounter during our trip. One cute moment of the visit to the lagoon was the following attempt to join our group right before we left:

I promise, no one staged that one!

The ruins at Chavin are apparently remnants of a temple from Pre Inka times. I found it difficult to understand the guide and she had appalling English so I didn´t retain too much information from the trip. Apparenly it was a very important place for its time and dignitaries from all over came annually to offer offerings and participate at other religious ceremonies. One interesting mystery proved to be not too mysterious after all-there were ridiculously high stairs leading to some underground tunnels and sleeping quarters, but the doors leading to them were so short that even I had to kneel to get in. I was beginning to imagine some very weirdly proportioned ancient people when the guide pointed out that the doors were made only recently, for visitors to the site.

I was a lot more interested in the little village by the ruins-the nearest we`ve come to seeing authentic Peru so far:

Seeing as it was right before Shabbat and we were still a little dizzy, we decided to leave all hiking related activities to the following week. After a brief few hours of resistance I gave in to ¨peer¨ pressure and signed up for a wall climbing trip on Friday. Here is a picture of me looking all cool:

It does not reflect my feelings for the whole experience!! It was a breeze going down the wall, but I had a really rough time climbing it back up. Granted it was not particularly high and the guide was standing at the bottom holding the security rope, but that didn´t mean that I suddenly grew an extra few inches, which is all I needed. You see, there ARE places among the rocks where you are supposed to place your hands and feet, but what about short people who cannot reach these little nooks without completely overexerting themselves??? My arms were killing me by the time I made it halfway up and at some point it even felt like I couldn´t finish the climb cause I just couldn´t reach the next nook and kept falling back to the previous one when I tried. Way to go on a vacation to take a break from hard work!

Thinking I had no other choice (since we have to go back to Huaraz from the top of the wall where we came from, right? right???) I somehow made it to the top, when the guide at the bottom of the wall declared ¨OK, I´m pulling you down¨! What???? Turns out we were supposed to climb up and down the wall until we get bored and get back to Huaraz from the BOTTOM of the wall. So, really, there was no need to finish the climb... The day wasn´t completely wihout its merits though. I managed to have a whole conversation in Spanish with our guide Luis while Rikki (the tall and experienced, grrr) had her turn. He told me about his jealous Swiss girlfriend who left him to go back home and about how difficult it is for a guide to find love. He waxed poetic about the power of the heart and complained bitterly about tourists not keeping up on their promise to write to him. Oh I was happy to listen to him, anything to pass the time so my arms could rest... Needless to say, my 2nd attempt to climb was much less enthusiastic. :)

One last picture before I end this post-not sure which trip this is from, but it`s cool-the image formed by the mountains is like the map of Peru, or so the Peruvians like to believe...

Lima to Huaraz

2008-05-29T14:50:00.000-07:00

Has it already been a week in this country? Or should I say has it only been a week? At once it seems like I just got here and also like I´ve been here forever. The concept of time loses all meaning here. Which is just what I needed from my trip...

The above picture is really the only interesting thing I could find in Lima. Yeah, not the most exciting city. Traffic in the big cities are controlled by the police in major intersections. Pedestrians seem like an after thought-no traffic lights for them and the police completely ignores them. You just kind of have to watch the traffic and jump out on the street when you see an opportunity.

I´m travelling with an Israeli girl named Rikki and as she doesn´t speak any Spanish, I´ve become the translator with my pigeon Spanish. I must say though, the first day in Peru made me really proud of myself. It turns out I can understand a whole lot of Spanish and speak enough to get by. Within a few hours of landing I figured out that ¨cuadras¨ are blocks and the address Av. San Juan 2576 means that the place you are looking for is in the 25th block. It may not be much of an achievement if you´re used to this kind of city planning, but I´m not, so let me enjoy my little achievement please. Thank you.

We managed somehow to walk all around Lima and even got on a little ´collectivo´ which is sort of a minibus they stuff as much as they can. More on that when I write about Huaraz and the north. The first collectivo (above) we got on was quite an experience as the guy who hangs out the door and yells the destination to people waiting outside (the picture should be quite familiar to the Turks among you) took quite a fancy to us. He kept muttering all sorts of praises and salacious remarks in Spanish, most of which I didn´t get (probably better that way) and told us when we got off ¨Goodbye babies¨. It was quite hilarious.

Long story short, 1 day after we got to Lima, we made our way to Huaraz, which is the central location in the north where all the beautiful treks are run from. I was a little shocked to see this at the bus terminal:

Horrible picture, but if you look closely you will see the book ¨El Castillo Blanco¨, ie the White Castle, by Orhan Pamuk, the recent Nobel prize winner for literature. Who would have thought...

Having thus been shocked, we got on our 8 hour bus drive to Huaraz which was quite interesting. Vendors kept getting on, selling all sorts of stuff, like blocks of cheese, pastries, corn on the cob (they´re giant and they´re called choclitos, we have to buy some and cook for ourselves) empanadas etc. They would get on and only get off at the next stop. The toilets didn´t work, the movie shown was ridiculously loud, but the scenery was just beautiful. We drove through giant walls of sand on both sides of the bus.

Well I´m being thrown out of the Internet cafe, so will have to continue another time...

Go East...

2008-05-21T20:55:00.001-07:00

I know I know... Long time no blog. And so much did happen in that time. Travels to South Africa, Pesach, Yom Haatzmaut... So much to write about and so little time. I should really pick up my story where I left off, but as I sit here in some dark room in a hostel in Huaraz, Peru, all I can think of is the time I am spending in South America and how, if I don´t record it right now, my rapidly disappearing brain cells won´t allow me to do it later. So, with your permission, I will skip over South Africa for the time being-however difficult that will be for me (and certain South Africans among you)-and come back to it at a later date.

Before we set on the road though-I should say a few words about the above picture. This was a really yummy cake that was made for me before I left, by my sister, ever the thoughtful. She wanted to make sure I knew where home is, you see. And so I made sure to eat the¨"E" of the cake... Along with the yummy raspberry and pastry cream filling of course...

On to the trip... At the airport in Israel was a display of a whole series of posters commissioned by the state for the Independence Days of yesteryear. It´s really a cute little exhibit, showing what was on people´s minds at different ages of our nation. I wish I had had more time to look at it. Here´s to hoping they display these somewhere more easily accessible for everyone to see.

I got to Peru after a series of gruelling flights. The first leg, to New York, was at midnight and having slept about 3 hours the previous night, I was thoroughly convinced that I could fall asleep. But the flight gods had different plans... Not one minute of sleep on said flight. I happened to sit next to an Israeli girl who was also flying out to Peru, which in itself isn´t very shocking as far as coincidences go. What was a little eery was that we had the exact same pair of trekking boots on and she also couldn´t sleep a minute of the flight. Anyway. Got off the plane at 4:30 am. Zombie mode. I had 10 hours until my connecting flight so I decided to make it to downtown Manhattan.

It was about 6 am when I got into the city and there were people out and about everywhere. People IN SUITS, WALKING TO WORK, AT 6 AM!!! Do they have nothing better to do with their lives, one would like to know. Apparently some people believe in being a productive member of society. Huh.

After spending some time in the city with a friend, I made it back to Newark and met my travel partner Rikki to fly out to Lima, Peru. By this point I had been awake consecutively for 41 hours. That flight took 7 hours. I actually managed to sleep some of it, but it still took me 2 more days until I adjusted to a normal sleeping pattern. And once I did, we missed no time to mess it up again! We travelled 8 hours this morning on a bus from Lima to come to an amazing part of Peru where the Andes can be seen in all their glory. It is very high here (a whopping 3,090 m.) and we are having a little bit of a problem adjusting. Some dizziness, some nausea and a lot of exhaustion. So as much as I´d love to write about Lima and our trip to Huaraz, I really must go and see about that sleeping pattern... So I leave you now with a teaser picture of the Cordilleras Blanca ("white mountain range") and hope to blog again real soon.

Livin' La Vida Loca...

2008-03-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So lest you think I've been idle all this time-here are some pictures from my trip in Istanbul.

I've been partying,

mingling with some wild creatures,

and burning the house down in my spare time!

In short-it's been wild! :P I'm off to South Africa in a few hours. A more serious post to follow at some point...

Turkisms galore...

2008-03-09T06:57:00.001-07:00

I haven't managed to blog as much as I wanted-I've been trying to get in as much quality time as possible in Turkey. My time is divided between seeing the people I've missed and soaking up the beauty of Istanbul. So for now I decided to give here a list of the quintessentially Turkish experiences I can't get enough of. First and foremost is obviously the Bosphorous. :)

Then there's my absolute favorite in Istanbul winters-the roasted chestnuts:

and while we're on the subject of street vendors-there's a ridiculous amount of hazelnuts in Istanbul and the government has been trying to promote them like crazy. Booths like the one below have become commonplace in the last few years. Not sure why, I guess there's a surplus? They are so yummy, send them to Israel!!!!

When you're keeping kosher outside of Israel, you resort to eating a lot of salads in restaurants. Foreigners who have come to Istanbul with me can't quite get over the elaborate presentation of even the simplest dishes here:

Back at home the tea pot is the queen of the kitchen, perpetually seated its prime location on top of the stove:

and best of all-the juiciest lemons are here!! Just to put things in perspective-we used the whole bowl below on Friday and I was even sent out to buy more!

Wherever I go I can't seem to get away from food, can I??

Berrrale On The Go

2008-03-05T14:03:00.000-08:00

That's right, I've left the homeland for a little get away. Well, not SO little actually. I am currently in Turkey visiting my family and friends and a week from now I plan to be in South Africa! Yay!!! I've wanted to visit Cape Town for many years now and finally I had a wonderful opportunity that I couldn't pass up on. I plan to be there for a few weeks and I am bursting with excitement! (or as we say in Turkish: "My insides don't fit my insides"!)

Of course, me being me, I already have a few baking projects lined up in both countries. Should be fun :)

Say what you will, it is always difficult for me to leave Israel. I feel like a little part of me gets left behind. However frustrated I get with it, it's still my home and I feel a tremendous connection to it. In fact, I feel horrible leaving it at such a bad time, what with all the rockets falling. I love how when there is a war or disturbance going on, Israelis who are travelling abroad flock back to it. We live in a huge pressure cooker, but it's our pressure cooker dammit and we will get in there!

My flight from Tel Aviv was quite uneventful. Unless of course you count the cab driver breaking the handle on my very heavy suitcase... Of course in true Israeli fashion he claimed that I had broken it-never mind that before he touched it, it was working just fine. It was not fun schlepping a 24 kg. suitcase up 2 flights of stairs, I'll tell you that much. Poor little me.

Then there was the security guy at the airport who ran my backpack through the machine twice because apparently mezuzot are a great security risk! Yes, I was asked whether it was indeed mezuzot they saw on their screen after which they let me go. Not quite sure what to make of that.

The other thing I always get a kick out of when I fly abroad is that I get to go to the VIP lounge, courtesy of my old company and their great deals... It gives me so much pleasure to still benefit from these little perks! This is what it looks like:

On the flight itself I really enjoyed the take off and landing cause we were flying at night and I love to watch the city with its flickering lights from the window. It's one of those beautiful sights you just can't capture on camera.

But by far the most amusing part of the trip was my conversation with a Turkish police officer at passport control, it is so bizarre I have to write it out:

Her: So, how does it feel to be married to a foreigner (I'm guessing she didn't notice the name change after the divorce)?

Me: I don't know, I haven't been married to a non foreigner so I can't compare (I really said that!).

Her: Oh, so you're saying there's compatibility (??? don't you love how people pretend to listen to you while they're busy making up their own theories?).

Me: I'd say that as long as they're decent, it doesn't matter where they are from.

Her: Aaaah.

And with that I got my stamp of approval to get into Turkey.

Stay tuned...

Walking The Land

2008-03-01T13:20:00.000-08:00

I spent 22 years of my life in a big city, never knowing how much I adored hiking. It didn't help that I lived in a country blessed with an abundance of beauty, excursions in nature was just not high on the list of things to do in Istanbul. I guess because there was so much to be done in the city that it was not a necessity to wander away? It took me coming to tiny little Israel to find out just how much I loved being outdoors. Things may have changed since I left, but I still don't think that Turks have an appreciation of the land like Israelis do. In fact, I find Turks fail to appreciate and properly utilize many of their country's resources, but that's a subject for another post...

These days I try to go on a hike at any opportunity I get. It's such an exhilirating feeling to walk in nature, a real treat for the senses. I have trouble deciding which one I love more sometimes, hiking or baking. All I know is that I refused to give up on either of them last week even though I was feeling a little under the weather, thus ending up spending the last 4 days all couped up in bed. 2 hours of sleep a night cause I was all stuffed up. Hey I have to earn that idiot badge somehow, right?

I joined a group of Anglos to hike in one of the most beautiful spots around Jerusalem called Wadi Qelt. The flowers were in bloom and we had a short, but very pleasurable walk. Here is a picture of the wadi from a distance:

It was after the rains so there was quite a lot of water in the wadi and the random pools along the way:

At some point we came across a mother and baby goat, with some in our group claiming the baby had just been born:

Afterwards we saw a few more goats coming towards us:

And before we knew it we were surrounded by a whole herd passing us by on our right and left.

We came ridiculously close to them as evidenced by this picture:

I was half expecting one of them to turn around and grab my camera to prevent me from intruding on their privacy! Thankfully we managed to move on and we then saw something that made my heart skip a beat:

Yes!!!! That's right!!! It's the adorable, wonderful, one and only-turtle!!!! Or tortoise if you want to be precise. Of course I had to stop and talk to the cute creature and make sure he was ok (he was). I would have taken him home but it's illegal in Israel to keep turtles as pets. Apparently their place is in the wild. So I took millions of pictures instead. :) To be honest, I could have stopped hiking at that point. I had gotten all I wanted (and more!) from my day out. But alas, that was not to be. We had a little more ground to cover:

Just so you can see how clear the water was:

No travel post is complete without a cultural touch-here's someone in our group who decided to make Turkish coffee during one of our 5 minute breaks. I myself am not a fan and would never dream of shlepping a burner for coffee alone, but I admire the people who do. Kudos for making it (almost) the proper way!

A Year In The Life Of Berrrale

2008-02-28T11:48:00.001-08:00

Wow. I cannot believe so much time has elapsed since the last PWT (Professional Women's Theater) women's talent competition. At the time I was not exactly in a happy place, but somehow still managed to get out a good performance. It was the first time in my life singing in front of an audience and I must say it was really nerve wrecking. I actually dug around a bit and found a copy of one of my recordings from the semi-finals. I had a sore throat and kept gulping through the recording, but it's not too horrible. At the expense of completely embarrassing myself, here it is: Adio Querida. It is a typically melodramatic ballad in Ladino-the singer is a woman who is pained and heartbroken by her lover. I can't say the lyrics applied to me, but I did identify with the melancholy of the song back then. My other song was in Hebrew, titled "Life Is So Beautiful" so I thought they balanced each other out. I didn't end up making it to the finals, both because of my stage presence (or lack thereof!) and the fact that I don't actually write songs of my own-which was one of the most important criteria-but it was a really uplifting experience for me to even participate. Well, a year has elapsed and they are having a new season, so if you happen to be in Jerusalem and want to check it out-just read the details on their flyer and enjoy the talent.

It's All In The Filling

2008-02-27T01:29:00.001-08:00

Oh bad lighting, how I detest thee!

I was told by a few people recently that the entries on my blog have not been juicy enough, where's the gossip they say. The truth of the matter is that cooking and baking really is what has been occupying most of my time lately. With work out of the way, I have even more time than before to go and pick the best and freshest ingredients, choose the recipes from my "culinary experiments" file (I kid you not, the list exists, sorted by categories like sweet/savory, cheesecakes, cookies, meat etc. which once made receive a "grade") and jump into my kitchen to make them. Such came together the cooking/baking night last week-except there were 2 of us.

We picked out our menu based on 2 criteria-we wanted to make it dairy and preferably dishes that are best served immediately. I will spare you the recipes this time since we pretty much followed already existing ones from other blogs, but here are the pictures.

the mushroom soup in the making

handmade regular and whole wheat ravioli dough resting

a ricotta cheese filling went in the regular dough

and a butternut squash and sweet potato filling in the whole wheat

and of course, to top it off, hot chocolate cake with its own chocolate sauce at the bottom

We had a great time and the food was very yummy indeed if I may say so myself. Well at least Shugi seemed to be enjoying himself:

The next entry will have nothing to do with food I promise (I think)!

Why, an apple pie of course!

2008-02-26T00:29:00.000-08:00

and not just any apple pie, the best one I have ever tasted in my life!!!!!! Creamy and scrumptious, I could eat the whole thing on my own. It's actually in a bit of an identity crisis. Is it a pie? Is it a tart? Is it a crumble? Well, it's a bit of all.

1) The crust belongs to a tart (my absolute favorite tart dough):

Sweet Tart Dough

from Dorie Greenspan’s amazing book “Baking: From My Home to Yours”

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

1/4 tsp salt 1 stick plus 1 tbsp (9 tbsp) unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

1 large egg yolk (and now you know where the egg white for those macarons came from!)

Pulse flour, sugar and salt in a food processor. Add butter and pulse a couple of times. Stir in the yolk and pulse again until the dough forms clumps and curds. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and very lightly and sparingly, knead just to incorporate dry ingredients.

Butter a 9-inch tart pan. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Preheat the oven to 375 F (190C) degrees. Freeze crust at least 30 minutes before baking, this will enable you to bake without weights. Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and press it, buttered side down, on the dough. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and let cool.

2) The filling is that of a pie, adapted from a great blog -the only changes I made were to use 4 apples and 1 cup of Tofutti cream cheese instead of the mascarpone and sour cream;

3) and finally the top is a made up oatmeal crumble whose ingredients I happened to have on hand and, you guessed it, was trying use up. I would recommend using the streusel in the link above, I am sure it comes out just as yummy if not more.

You may have noticed the use of Tofutti cream cheese in the last recipes. I've found it to be a great parve (non dairy) alternative for yogurt, sour cream etc. It is quite tasty when baked, with none of the after taste I usually associate with soy/tofu based products. In fact, I've even made excellent parve "cheesecake"s with it. Soy protein has a way of holding batter together, which I discovered when I baked vegan brownies once. I wonder if the cheesecake would work with egg beaters-then it may be possible to make a vegan cheesecake too! That sounds a little like kosher shrimps, doesn't it? Have a great day...