Fresh impressions from a journey

Because first impressions are like a drunk man's last words: the most honest and transparent.

As with moving this blog back to its old address, another one of those famous cycles of life and travelling has closed for me, because I'm now in Arequipa, exactly 4 years after I first came to Peru. No surprise that I'm thinking back to that time and reflecting on it, because flashbacks of all the different types of situations I've lived here, how they've taught me and what my life looked like before as a deskmonkey in London... Safe to say I wouldn't change anything that has happened!

Highs and lows have been as prominent here as they are in Peru's landscape, tremendous mountains to climb, plateaus to trudge along, precipices to fall into and fight my way out of... and after living through the different landscapes of situations, all of those have become part of my soul, and I've learnt to love them all for what they are. And people, loving them with all their droughts and floods, earthquakes and all, especially that one special person whose changes in season both bore and surprise you, but never cease to captivate..

As I'm sure I've said before, for me one of the best things about travelling is learning about the place you're usually in, because all the new impressions are automatically compared to your current situation, and if your machine's in tune, that means you'll make a mental note of how you feel about the differences. The last few times I've gone anywhere outside the area of Cusco (now: Arequipa, February: Lima, Last year: Europe) those emotions have been very similar: I'm just fine where I am, but this one thingy over here in this place is inspiring and will be absorbed into my daily life.

My biggest travel plans for the time being are focused on making that pilgrimage capoeira journey to Brasil, finally after some epic procrastination and random shuffling in the priorities deck. It's defo on the cards now, I'm thinking about 4-6 weeks, around October, November, December.. depending on how saving goes. Who know what I'll take back to Urubamba with me from the bouncy, smily Brazilian way of life apart from a bikini I'll only be able to use as floss in Peru?

And the drunk lady says, before she passes out with a serene smile: "syou know, this hish the besht I've felt in a looooong, long time..."

And then I moved back home...

no, no, no, not to Europe, I only digitally moved back to this blog!
After a long time idle at www.elisemundo.co.nr , this year is a year of facing truths for me, and this is the simplest of all of them: I'm not in the right place to design a new page each time I want to write something. And I want to share more often than 3 times a year, so here I am, back at my original address.

Seriously though, this year seems to be about recognising the strength of everything, from my own strength to the strength of Mother Earth, who has been shaking up our area of the world quite a bit, floods in Cusco and the Sacred Valley, also Urubamba where I live, and the big earthquake in Chile. How did we humans ever get so arrogant, lose touch so much with the earth, to get angry when our tiny building fall over when she sneezes...

On a more personal level, which is what I can more readily have an affect on... I visited my family and friends in Europe last year for 3 months, after having been in Peru for 3 years straight, and I can still feel the difference that visit has had on my life. Being there, was tough, because I didn't quite feel I was fitting in (apart from in my capoeira group in London, that was home), but I also wasn't a stranger to it. For the most part I felt like I was looking at everything from above and laughing at the differences with my current life in Peru.
But the lasting effects were a massive boost to my confidence, and it was like I was given a pair of glasses that made everything clear: I am so lucky to live where I live, love what I do, and (as a preparation for this year) I slowly started to realise "everything is possible". Seeing possibilities rather than difficulties.

So, coming back with that energy in August 2009, the English language and cultural centre (El Arte Sano http://www.languagecultureperu.com) has been doing excellent, great team of teachers and we actually got round to doing some more cultural activities, mostly in December last year.

This sums up the update from the last blog entry till now, next time I'll dish you up some more detailed and interesting ruminations about what goes on in my mind living in between these beautiful and wondrous mountains!

My blog has moved home!
Please visit http://www.elisemundo.co.nr for updated entries and a whole new design.

Hugs,

Elise

Cusco – New ideas and jungle reflections

Our first stint in the jungle is over, a few days ago we made the 21-hour busjourney from the wet lowlands of the Amazon jungle into the traditional heart of Peru, the high and dry Cusco. Maku, our 4-month old (cat), during this journey taught me what it must be like to travel with a small child, he slept in or crept around our laps virtually the whole trip, so we couldn´t just fall asleep without thinking. Luckily we drugged him with valium so he did more sleeping than meowing and attempting to escape!

Apart from the obvious climate change, what also hits you in the face is the change of culture between Cusco and Puerto. Puerto Maldonado is a town that has only really grown over the last 25 years, and its inhabitants are from all over Peru, some from Japan, along with handfuls of natives of the area, which means it has no real feel of history or definite culture. Everyone here seems to be escaping where they´re from; people from other parts of Peru forget their customs, and (formerly) indigenous cultures just want to have their Nike´s and internet along with the rest, but Puerto doesn´t offer a good alternative of culture for anyone to escape to.
Cusco however, as soon as we got into the mountains, you not only see the indigenous culture in the features, dress and customs of the locals, but you can feel it in the air. This area is really special, not only since its ancient traditions are unchanged in many communities outside the city, but the modern cuscueñians are also one of the friendliest and most welcoming I´ve come across in Peru so far.
Plans roughly are to stay here for a week or so doing more advertising for Helard´s dads apartments (the famous www.cuscoproperties.com , please have a look if I haven´t spammed you with it yet) and then going to Arequipa to do Christmas with his parents.

5 months in the jungle – what did we get from it?
Most importantly, a lot more respect for mother nature, and not just because of our first encounter with Mrs Ayahuasca, but simply walking in the jungle seeing the unending array of plants and animals she harnesses, and learning about the medicinal uses of so many different plants. This also brings home how important the Amazon is if humanity wants the flora, fauna and ourselves to stay on for a bit longer on this earth, and how it´s looking less and less likely. Funnily enough this doesn´t motivate me to set up (another) save the rainforest NGO, as it probably would have done before in my charity days, it just makes me want to enjoy nature as it lasts and just ensure personally I pollute as little as possible. The multinational monsters are too strong, and the amounts of people too little to be able to get anywhere at the moment, but in a few years´ time, out of pure necessity, this will change, so I might stick a finger out then. Also, from another point of view, Peru is fed up with the thousands of foreign dubious NGO´s marching through Peru, leaving a trail of inappropriate and unresearched projects, and more and more obvious signs that a lot of the money they raise abroad goes into the western employees´pockets, living the good life back at home, or right here in the sunshine.

So apart from more lovin´ and respec´ for da Pachamama, I loved teaching English at an alternative primary-secondary school, Potsiwa, my first try at teaching, which has always been something I thought I would enjoy doing. And enjoy it I did, since their approach is a lot more child-centred and matches my ideas about teaching.
A nice extra is their affiliation with a capoeira group over the border in Brazil, Cordao de Ouro, where we made friends with the mestre, Xandao and some of his students, and got some good classes in.

as the river flows, so does life

The view along the river Madre de Dios

Another tropical rainstorm, another hour doing webdesign, another day translating to German tourists, another day fascinated by a random leaf.. it might sound repetitive, but actually life is getting more interesting every day, although I might not be doing the "big things" differently every day, I´m learning how to do the "small things" different, and in the long term this makes you develop a lot more than doing new "big things", but in the same way you´ve always done them.

I´m quietly but steadily carrying on with the webdesign, teaching at Potsiwa, and have now twice acted as translator into German for groups of tourists in different lodges along the river here in Puerto. The last thing I thought I´d be doing in Peru, improving my German! But life is full of such surprises...

Drop me a comment to let me know what is up in Europe (or elsewhere), at elisemundo@gmail.com and I will eventually respond... love to hear how (you feel) life is treating you there!
Abrazazos - Elise Feliz

and what a welcome from the Amazon!

I can´t believe it´s really been 2 months ago that I wrote the last time... and at the same time I can believe it very easily, because so many things have happened here "in the lungs of the world".
We´ve been in Puerto for about 2 months now, and have lots of ups and downs, that I would love to describe in detail, but it would be too much. Twice in the last 2 months, to offload and afterwards upload, I wrote a long document on my laptop, but both times it was eaten by a virus (the same virus both time, what persistent cockroach-like resistance that digital worm had!) before I had a chance to publish it in elisemundo. More and more I´m seeing with my own eyes that things happen for a definite reason, so this worm must have been part of that process, and the time wasn´t right for me to write about Puerto yet. I hope this time it makes it online, because I feel the last few weeks have brought important changes, and the time is right to share them now.

We made it to Brazil in a slightly roundabout way because of bureaucracy complications, sneaking through Brazil to get to Bolivia at the right hour, to get Helard´s yellow fever certificate changed. The part of Brazil we´ve seen, Rio Branco, was way different than I´d imagined Brazil from my knowledgebank of capoeira friends, films and general reputation, and it surprised me how much richer it was in comparison to Peru. Very interesting to see the difference, which has made me understand Peru better more than it has made me understand Brazil better...!
But, mission accomplished, berimbau bought, new capoeira friends made, who 2 weeks later came to Puerto for a capoeira event with an alternative school that I´m working at. Yup, I´m trying out something that had been playing in my head for a while as a possibility: teaching. I also had a short stint at a regular English institute, which was cool, and much easier that with the littl´uns, but I had to set my priorities straight, and I realised that what I really wanted to focus on was developing my webdesign, and with all so much teaching it was too much.

So that´s what I´m doing now, webdesign and with 2 mornings of the week with the crazy small lot, and helping Helard with his videos. At the moment we´re making a tv commercial for the English institute in which I will feature as a gringa touring Puerto Maldonado. Life cannot possibly be the same afterwards!

Apart from the usual worky stuff, I should really be focusing on telling you about how amazing the Amazon is, although I´m not even quite allowed to say I know the Amazon, because the furthest along the river I´ve been is 1 hour, to nearby Monkey Island.
But what I´ve seen so far is really amazing.. the region Puerto Maldonado is in has more or less the highest biodiversity on earth, and I´ve seen so many amazing creatures, with mostly being in town, not even deeper in the jungle itself. Insects, monkeys, snakes, birds, lizards, caimans... and then there are the amazing plants, flowers and trees, of dazzling sizes, shapes and colours.
Mother earth is treating us well here, and being so much closer in touch with her, you can´t help but increase your awe and respect.
Salud a la pachamama!

Puerto Maldonado is awaiting..

The view from Larapa where we are in Cusco:

Three months in the land of marvels, as Peruvians proudly call it, and even after this relatively short time, I think I agree with them. Coming back from the centre of Cusco in our usual combi, I couldn’t help but notice the difference with how I am feeling being here now, compared to the first few weeks. Getting accustomed to something new is usually a very gradual process, so much so that you don’t notice changes for a long time, until you have a specific moment of clarity where you make out the changes.
Living here, you are a lot more in touch with basic provisions and the earth in general, in different ways: it’s not uncommon to have water cuts, for up to 10 hours a day; there is no gas network, your gas to cook with comes from a container underneath the hob, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but if you run out of gas at night when it’s cold and you’re dying for a cuppa tea, it hurts!; here in Cusco there is no hot shower, so it’s back to heating water and crouching over a plastic tub; mining is a considerable stream of income (even though many foreign companies completely rip off Peru in terms of pricing), and agriculture is also a lot more noticeable, even in Arequipa, a big city, you sometimes have to wait patiently for the cows to cross. Also, there are many families living with very little money, which means they for them basic provisions have a lot more value than for us spoilt westerners.
Other ways people are more in touch with earth is in the spiritual sense, generations have been living and still do to date, working the land, and have great respect for nature. There are many shamans here offering sessions with natural drugs, which mostly serve to feel more as one with nature. The old tradition of offering the first drop of a drink to Pachamama (the Quechua word for mother earth), is being carried on by Peruvian youth until today.

We´re now only days away from going to Puerto Maldonado in the jungle, where there is a job waiting for me, along with the mosquitoes.