Into the Abyss ... the bottom of the Colca Canyon

Countryside Near Arequipa: The city of Arequipa was great, and there was a lot to do outside of town as well. One weekend we went with Lula, our hostess, to visit her family’s ranch in a town called Siguas, a very non-tourisy destination about an hour from Arequipa.

The landscape near Siguas is astonishing. The area is a complete desert, but all along the river valleys there are lush green farms with cows grazing and alfalfa growing. Lula grew up helping with chores on her family's farm until she reached middle school when she moved to Arequipa. At that time, the town only had a primary school, so her parents sent her to live with her aunt in Arequipa while she attended school. She ended up staying there to complete her education. She later met Max and moved with him to different countries around the world, such as Germany, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Serbia. It was amazing to think of what different world she's experienced in her lifetime.

Here's a picture of one of Lula's closest family members (and Chad's new buddy), her dog Picolito :)

The Colca Canyon (deeper than the Grand Canyon!) Our last weekend in Arequipa, we went on an excursion to one of the area’s most famous tourist destinations… Colca Canyon. Many tour companies organize tours to visit the towns of the canyon and hikes to the bottom of the canyon, but we, always money-conscious and up for an adventure, decided to take the trip on our own.

As it turns out, we had a sort of tour guide. Sabina, the housekeeper for Max and Lula, is from a small village in the canyon called Maca. Her 19 year old daughter Lizeth volunteered to go with us. We took a four hour bus to Maca. Getting off the bus, we visited with the locals:

Chad's thought at this moment, "Hey llama, watch that mouth. If you spit on me ... !"

We knew that big head of Chad's was good for something!

Just kidding! A couple of people in town take advantage of the flow of tourists to make a bit of money showing off their well-trained animals.

Here's a picture of Lizeth and Kari relaxing outside of her grandparents' house:

Lizeth’s grandparents still live in the town, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to meet them because they were out working on their land. They raise chickens and pigs and grow corn and alfalfa on their plots. We walked with Lizeth to one of the plots to see if we could find her grandparents. It was about a one and a half hour walk to their field, which is a really long way for one to walk after harvesting the fields!! Here's us walking to the fields:

Along the way, we were fascinated by the alpacas and mules and also by the irrigation of the fields, which are terraced. The terracing system dates all of the way back to the Incan times and is still very much in practice. There’s a water reservoir at the top of the hill. When someone wants to water their crops they have to go to the top to open the water flow, and it flows down the hill and through the beds to water the plants. When they don’t want any more water, they block the flow by building up mud or by using a rock. There’s no such thing as commercial farming around here!

After spending the day in Maca, we took the evening bus to Cabanaconde. We spent the night in a hostel there, and Lizeth met us in the morning for our hike down into the canyon. It was actually the first time to the bottom of the Canyon for Lizeth as well.

The canyon is approximately 1200 meters down from Cabanaconde, and believe us, the trail is LONG and winding. When we started, we couldn't even see the bottom of the canyon:

It slowly came into view:


Then we could see more:

The canyon is very much a desert with lots of cacti. A side note about the cacti—there are small little insects that feed off them. These parasites are harvested because the liquid that comes out of them when they’re smashed is used to make ink. Who knew?!

Finally, after 2 hours, we made it to the bottom of the canyon - to an OASIS!

The floor of the valley is like landing on another planet. It’s very green and lush with plants and even palm trees, and also there are a couple of hostels with pools and snack bars perfect for a dip and a drink. Both of these were very refreshing after the hot and sweaty descent into the canyon.

After our legs were rested and we were refreshed, we had to do the inevitable… hike back out of the canyon!!! Lizeth and Kari were obviously very excited about this:

Here's the climb out of the canyon that loomed overhead: Hiking up 1200 meters (almost 4000 feet) took quite a bit more strength and persistence than the way down. After a hot and sweaty three and a half hours we reached Cabanaconde in time for some roasted chicken and a huge bottle of water. Ahhh! We made it (but were in no shape for a photo ;))

The next morning we woke up and took an early bus to Cruz del Condor (Cross of the Condor). Every morning the condors leave their nests in the canyon walls to go find food. We, the good tourists, were there and ready with camera in hand. A tremendous sense of awe and tranquility take over when seeing these huge (up to four feet wingspan) graceful birds gliding on the breezes of the canyon. Here's us awaiting:




We took the next bus to the town of Chivay for some relaxation and consolation for our sore legs from the previous day's incredible feat. A perfect reward was the town's healing volcanic hot springs.

Before we left town, we also visited the cemetery. A cemetery on vacation? Yes. It was Day of the Dead, November 1st, which is day when people throughout Latin America commemorate the lives of their deceased family members by visiting their graves. Day of the Dead corresponds to the Catholic All Saint's Day and is the mixture of the indigenous religion with the Catholic traditions. Families all visit the graveyard together and have a picnic there. They bring the favorite food and drinks of their loved ones to the cemetery and they decorate their graves. It’s an interesting sight with balloons, crepe paper, food and even bands playing lively music. I took a couple of photos and made a short video.

These are called "Coronas" or crowns to decorate the graves of loved ones

Celebrating the dead from Chad Carson on Vimeo.

Kari's Magical World of English Teaching

At the outset of our trip to Peru, we knew that Chad was going to be taking Spanish classes, but I wasn´t sure what I was going to do. I wanted to volunteer using my Spanish but not sure in what capacity. My second day in town, I found an organization called Traveller Not Tourist. It was created by a young couple from England and Peru who wanted to help the many people living in poverty in Peru. Since tourism is such a big industry in Arequipa, they decided to give people in the community more options for their future by teaching them English. In 2008 they built a free English school in Flora Tristan, which is a low income community located about 1 hour outside of Arequipa by bus.

My new volunteer position with Traveller Not Tourist (TNT) was to teach English to kids aged 9 to 14. I was very hesitant to accept because I had absolutely no experience working with kids. However, one of the reasons I like to travel is to challenge myself to grow in new ways, and I knew this would definitely be an opportunity for growing and stretching myself.

Here's a picture of me outside of the school:

My routine was pretty much the same every day during my stay in Arequipa. I met a couple of the other volunteers for lunch and then took a local bus to Flora Tristan at 1:30. Taking the public buses was usually an adventure-- they were always super packed since it was lunchtime (people go home for lunch) and one time I lost count at fifty people on a bus about half the size of US school or city buses! We usually arrived around 2:30 which gave us time to clean and prepare for class.

Classes were from 3:30 to 4:30. The students were fun and always greeted us with "Hola, Teacher!" This school is free and open to anyone in the community who wants to learn English. Since it's optional, all of the students actually want to be there, which was a welcome change from some of my students back home. There are currently four different classes at the school- one with three to five year olds, another with students aged 6 to 8, mine with students aged 9 to 14 and another with older students from ages 15 and up (the oldest student was about 30 years old). The school has been growing over the last year with the construction of a new building and also an increase in the number of volunteers.

After class we all (students and teachers) headed to the "cancha" for soccer, volleyball, jumprope or other games we made up. Here's playtime at the cancha one day a day when there were very few students there.
As the sun set each evening we headed for the bus. The sunsets were beautiful:

We took the bus back home around 6:00. Here's a picture of us headed for the bus as the sun set:
It was always a pretty sight to walk to the bus as the light of the setting sun reflected on Volcano Misti. In this picture you can see a bit of the town. It's very dusty since there's no pavement and also there's no running water to the houses. People go to the public water spigots once a week (when the water flows) and fill up big drums of water for the week. I have such a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of not having water at home.

In spite of the poverty there, kids are kids. It was entertaining to be at the school. Teaching at the school really kept me on my toes. There wasn't a syllabus and there was no book. In addition, attendance wasn't regular... some days there were fourteen students and others there were three. Oh, and many days there were new beginner students sitting next to their friends who'd been taking classes since March. It was challenging, that's for sure, and I never knew what to expect.

As I mentioned, the school has grown significantly over the last year with the completion of this building, so they've never had to address curriculum or competency levels, which was not easy for me and the other volunteers who didn't know where to start when we arrived. We took it upon ourselves to write a new handbook for new volunteers with the history of the school and a description of each class. Aside from all of its difficulties, it was fun every day to go to the school to see who would be there and what would happen.

I had a couple of favorite students (yes, the rumors are true - teachers do have favorites sometimes!): Janella, Maria Isabel and Carlos. Janella's first day was during my second week at the school. She was really shy in class but tried hard to learn. Maria Isabel's a really kind girl and an attentive student. Carlos loves to laugh and loved to shout out the answers first in class.


Here's Maria Isabel:

This is Marta, one of my other favorite students. Her first day was my third. She's really, really sweet and was eager to learn English. We had lots of fun together working on her pronunciation.

This is Pilar. She was the most consistant student and has been going to the school since March. Let her tell you something about herself...

Pilar from Chad Carson on Vimeo.

Here are a couple of my other students- Daisy was new to the school like me and regularly came to class ready to learn. Carlos is kneeling. Oscar (on my right) has developmental issues and can't write, but he was always the first one to arrive each day and greet us with a smile and ask, "How are you?"

After two weeks of having to write out the alphabet every time we had to spell something, I was inspired to paint the alphabet on the wall of the classroom with a couple of my students. When I left it wasn't quite completed but that's where the new volunteers take over.

The volunteers are always changing at the school. I worked with an awesome group who was super friendly. It was so fun to get to know people from all over the world with similar interests (traveling and volunteering). Dani and Victoria are from Australia. Marisa and Maia are from Holland. Julia's from Scotland, and later Kath came from England and Jim and Karen came from the US. The number of volunteers at the school varied all of the time. A couple of days after I got there Marisa and Maia left, and a couple of days before I left group of six new volunteers arrived to take over for those of us who were leaving.

Here's Dani, Victoria, me and Julia taking a break from volleyball and soccer on the cancha. It was cool to work together on a worthwhile project. Also, they had been traveling a bunch before volunteering in Arequipa... Dani in Buenos Aires and Bolivia, Victoria in Uruguay, and Julia in British Columbia. It was great to hear about their experiences and get advice. They were all continuing on with their travels after volunteering, and hopefully in future travels we can meet up again someday.

Here's Jim, my teaching buddy from Baltimore in front of our classroom. We taught our class together, which was awesome having someone to help with the group when the class was large.

Here's Karen (from NYC) in front of the really pretty mural that other volunteers painted. It was at the end of the day so you can see the beautiful view of the sun setting on the mountains.

One day the students picked some flowers for us, even for teacher Jim.

All in all, I really enjoyed my volunteering experience in Arequipa. It didn't turn out to be what I was expecting- good practice using and improving my Spanish. I spoke mostly English since I was teaching English to my students and the other volunteers didn't speak much Spanish. I did, however, get to use my teaching background to develop a criteria to place new students in the class fitting for their level. I also improved as a teacher since I had to come up with new games and activities for young students. More than anything, though, I overcame my anxiety of working with children. Most importantly, in this entire process I grew as a person.

Chad's Spanish Lessons & Penny Pinching

One of the big focuses of the trip for me (Chad) was to become more fluent in Spanish. I would know I’m doing better when I could carry on 30 minute or longer complex conversations with Kari and with native Spanish speakers.


So far my very basic Spanish at the dinner table with Kari hadn’t gotten past the equivalent of “The food tastes good … The napkin is white … Kari, you are pretty.” While these might be nice coming out of the mouth of a 4 year old, Kari was getting a little bored with it (and it wasn’t fun for me either). Needless to say I needed to improve fast.

To accomplish this goal we planned a long period of time in one place – Arequipa, Peru – where I could intensively study Spanish four hours daily, five days per week. (more details below on my Spanish lessons).

Penny Pinching: Aside from the Spanish class, being in Peru for a long time was beneficial for another reason that I love – prices are CHEAP. I’ll use this post to give you some ideas on comparative expenses during our trip. Of course prices change from town to town even within a country, but this will give you the general picture.

Taxi across town: US: $7.00 Spain: $10.00 Peru: $1.25



Regular Lunch: US: $7.50 Spain: $12.00 Peru: $2.00



Double Room at
a decent hostel: US: $50.00 Spain: $65.00 Peru: $20.00



Cost per hour for
One-One Spanish
class with a
qualified,native
speaker: US: $30.00 Spain: $25.00 Peru: $6.00



A big piece of rich,
mouth-watering,
chocolate cake
(what? this is
an imporant staple!) US: $6.00 Spain: $8.00 Peru: $1.00

The most stunning statistic for me was that we were able to stay in a wonderful home with an upper-middle class family in Arequipa, Peru, including breakfast, with a stunning panoramic view of the city and mountains for ... DRUM ROLL PLEASE:

just under $19.00 per night!

Examples like these will blow your mind and demonstrate the power of exchange rate and cost of living differences between countries. While I'm not ready to make a permanent move, the cost differences are compelling for more trips to developing countries like Peru.

On a negative note for Americans, because the dollar is so weak relative to the Euro, Europe is super-expensive now. Just consider that back in 2002 1 Euro was equal to 1 U.S. Dollar. Recently 1 Euro was equal to 1.50 dollars! This means that in only 7 years you've had to come up with a lot more dollars to buy something sold in Euros.

This issue was a big reason we decided to spend so much more time in South America than Europe. As we found out, South America had even more good things in store than just cheaper prices.

Spanish Class: My Spanish class experience in Peru has turned out to be the better than I could have imagined. The one-one class was perfect for me because I had to focus daily on my learning challenges and deficiences. In a big class, for example, you may spend a week going over things that are easy for you just because the other students need to cover it (and vice versa).

The classes were a bit uncomfortable and exhausting at times because you can't hide when you're the only student. It's just me talking and doing exercises with the teachers for hours. As is usually the case, when I'm stretched and challenged I'm forced to grow. My spanish improved immensely.



Here are some pictures from my school time:

(left to right: my teachers Pedro & Gain Carlo, Chad, director Lula)



Final lunch with other students and teachers

Class time with one of my teachers - Susan

Old colonial courtyard, peaceful setting for my daily classes

While I still do not consider myself fluent, I think I am proficient - meaning I can communicate all of the everyday functions like ordering food, taking a taxi, asking for help, etc. with confidence. I can also now carry on deeper conversations, ask locals about politics, and explain to an older gentleman on a park bench what my home is like and how it's different from here. (the harder part was understanding his Spanish when he only had 2 teeth, but I got by fine:))

Rotary Club Visit: With the confidence earned from these classes, I was able to have some other fun experiences in Arequipa - like visiting a local Rotary club (I'm a member back in Clemson). Here are some pictures of me with the very interesting and better dressed gentlemen from the Selva Verde Club. Gustavo, on the far right, sort of adopted me while there and we are now friends. He is a local engineer, and amazingly enough he has a daughter who is a doctor and is married to a native of Atlanta (my home area), where she now lives.

Next post - trip to the Colca Canyon - deeper than the Grand Canyon!

On top of the world in Arequipa Peru

We arrived to Arequipa in the morning after a very (surprisingly) comfortable 15 hour bus ride from Lima. The seats of the first class Cruz del Sur bus were fully extended and felt like we were on our sofa back home (but even more comfortable) with dinner served and also movies played.

We took a taxi to meet our hosts for the next four weeks, Max and Lula, who are also the directors of the language school where Chad was to study. Chad contacted them a week prior to our arrival in Peru, and he arranged for 4 hours of one-on-one Spanish classes a day for him and for accomodations for the two of us. When Max and Lula responded that they'd have the rooftop suite ready for us we thought they were joking, but when we arrived, WOW! It was really comfortable with our own room, bathroom and extra room.

The terrace just outside our door had amazing views of the volcanos Misti and Chachani. Here's a short clip by Chad:

Rooftop terrace view of Arequipa from Chad Carson on Vimeo.

We ate breakfast at home every morning. It was always delicious. Every day Sabina (the housekeeper) prepared a delicious and healthy breakfast to get the day started. We had 5 kinds of different fresh fruits-- papaya, pineapple, watermelon, mango, apple, plum, banana, chirimoya, strawberry- with toasted bread and tea every day. They were acompanied by scrambled eggs, an omlette surprise (as Max likes to call it) or granola and yogurt. Ah, my mouth waters just thinking of it.

Also, breakfast was made sweeter each day with a wonderful view of the volcanos. Every morning we watched workers harvest crops, cows graze, and sheep jump the fences in the fields below.

Our apartment was a pleasant 30 minute walk to downtown which was where Chad's school is located. The walk was always nice since the daytime temperature was around 80 degrees and sunny every day. Here's a view just after leaving the apartment on the way to school:

In the center of Arequipa is the Plaza de Armas, and as any proper central square in Latin America, the Cathedral takes main stage.

The plaza is quite beautiful. Chad spent hours on one of the benches talking (in SPANISH) to an older gentleman from Arequipa who had spent years working in the United States.

One day we took a bus tour of Arequipa to get oriented to the city. Here's a picture of us at the arches in the Plaza de Yanahuara with Misti behind us.

It is said that the name Arequipa comes from the Quechuan phrase (one of the native languages still spoken extensively in Peru) "Ari, quepay," ("yes, stay") which the fourth Sapa Inca said upon seeing the beautiful city. We followed his advise, and yes, stayed.