Michael Niemann's blog

On Carnival

2012-02-28T11:46:00.002-08:00

You couldn’t walk anywhere without getting hit by a drive-bywater balloon or have a bucket dumped on you from a balcony. On the last days before lent each yearthe entire continent of South America erupts into the worlds largest party:Carnival. In Bolivia (as well asmost of South America) Carnival is far bigger than Christmas or any otherholiday. In Cochabamba the entirecity morphs into the battleground for the biggest water fight I’ve everseen.

OnSunday we had a cook out with my extended host family although it didn’t takelong for the family meal to turn into an all out water fight with buckets ofwater and hoses. Everyone participated from the little kids to the greatgrandparents! After a while thewater fight died down into conversation and dancing but the occasional waterbucket was dumped down someone’s back.

My host Family

Water Fight

Dancing

My host mom Lucy with Lauren and I

OnMonday and Tuesday, however, the whole city got involved. Walking down the street, you had abetter chance of getting soaked than in sea world’s splash zone. Avenida America, the main drag throughthe north of the city, became a battleground with people on the sidewalkswaging war against the people in the cars. Families drove down the street drive by water-gunning,pickup trucks carrying water balloon militias, and even fire trucks with thefire hose artillery drove down Avenida America and fired on the infantry on thesidewalk armed with water balloons and water guns. Ladies armed in plastic ponchos sold water balloons to bothsides, frantically filing them up to stay up with demand.

Thebest part of the whole ordeal was 1) everyone participated from little kids tograndparents and everyone in between and 2) everyone was verygood-natured. If you nailedsomeone in the back of the head with a water balloon they wouldn’t get mad;they would only turn around, throw one back, and give you a thumbs up. In one sidewalk skirmish I dropped mykeys in the action and one of my assailants ran over a block to return them.

Thefollowing Saturday, the entire city shut down for the parade. And Bolivia takes parades seriously;the parade lasted for 24 hours over a distance of over 4 miles. The parade groups were anything buthastily thrown together; on the contrary the “fraternidads” practice all yearfor the Carnival Parades. Thecostumes are unbelievably colorful and elaborate garnished with everything frombells to sequins to giant taco suits.

Trying on a Giant Taco Suit

On Being Robbed at Gunpoint

2012-02-28T10:33:00.001-08:00

You don’t think all that clearly when you’ve had a gunshoved in your temple, or at least I didn’t. One moment I was walking down the street in a group of abouteight people and the next I had my back against the wall with a gun to myhead. The muggers took everythingexcept my keys: 200 Bolivianos (about $30), my cheap cell phone, and mywallet. Fortunately, the onlything in my wallet was a copy of my passport: no IDs or credit cards.

Ultimately,everyone was okay and no one in the group lost anything important, only cashand small items. I don’t agreewith their method of obtaining it, but I’m sure they needed the money more thanI do. This event just serves as areminder that you can never let your guard down even if you’re in a well-litarea in a sizeable group because none of that matters when the muggers have guns andyou don’t.

Cochabamba, Bolivia: First Impressions

2012-02-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

Bolivia certainly takes its cakes seriously: Like coffeeshops in New York, there are bakeries with beautiful cakes underneath the glasson every corner in Cochabamba. Asa lifetime lover of sugar and delicious foods that are bad for me, the cakeswere hard not to notice as my mom and I spent our first day in Cochabambawalking around the downtown area. The exquisite chocolate flakes and the glistening icing kept from meonly by a thin layer of glass and refrigerated air called my name until Ibought my first piece of happiness on a plate.

The site director for the Amizadeprogram was giving us a brief tour of downtown and we bought me a Bolivian cellphone and visited a guitar shop; known for its handmade in Bolivia classicalguitars. It was difficult not tonotice how cheap everything is in Bolivia. Even the most expensive, masterfully handmade guitar madefrom the finest woods was only 3,500 Bolivianos or a little over $500 US. A taxi to anywhere in town is nevermore than a $1. A meal for two atthe finest restaurants including dessert, drinks, and sides is no more than 70Bs or about $10 US, however, a perfectly satisfying meal for two can easily behad for less than a $2 US. WhileI’m talking about food, it isn’t just the cakes that are delicious: Cochabambais known as the place to eat in Bolivia and it certainly lives up to itsreputation. Everything fromtraditional foods like anticucho (cow heart), guinea pigs, pique machhu (steak,sausage, other meats, and vegetables) to exotic foods like sheep testicles and cow tongue (which are both delicious by the way) to Italian food and fried chicken (and Bolivians LOVEfried chicken; there is practically a fried chicken place on every block) isdelicious.

Pique Machu: A traditional Bolivian Dish

Cochabamba is a modern city that isfar from primitive; there is excellent healthcare, and a 3G network faster thanin the US (I can skype consistently on it; in fact most people who haveinternet use the 3G network because it’s faster and cheaper than what they canget in their homes). However, Bolivia is the poorest country in South Americaand also has by far the highest population of indigenous people and this isobvious everywhere you look. Whilemany people dress similar to we do in the US there are a large number of peoplewearing the traditional clothing. Many of them sit on the sidewalk and sell agricultural products (by theway, the avacados along with most fruits are huge and delicious; fresh from theAmazon basin only a few hours drive away). There are a lot of beggars with children, which is reallysad. Clean water is readilyavailable to people who can pay for it, but for those who can’t it is harder tocome by.

Photo courtesy of Lauren

My first several days here inCochabamba I three times went to La Cancha, one of the largest open-air markets inthe world. The market is basicallywhole city blocks of vendors packed on top of each other selling literallyanything you can think of from cleaning supplies to books to pirated movies tofruits and grains of every variety (Bolivia and the surrounding countries havean incredible biodiversity including thousands of kinds of potatoes) to rawmeat (even in the market cakes are refrigerated but raw meat never is). You can wander around in the market forhours never repeating territory and never knowing quite where you are. Although the locals claim there is somekind of organization to La Cancha, I certainly didn’t figure out as the guyselling human hair and dried baby alpacas was right next to the shoerepairman who was right next to the guy selling cell phones and TVs.

Photo courtesy of Lauren

Dried Baby Alpacas: Photo courtesy of Lauren

The Raw Meat Section at La Cancha: Photo courtesy of Lauren

Fruit fresh from the Amazon

Human Hair on the right

The complete and total disregardfor copyright laws is amusing. Presumably pirated or smuggled Hollywood movies and popular musiccomplete with packaging like you would buy it with in the US are readilyavailable on every corner, from classics to new releases. Paying more than 10 Bs or $1.50 for amovie would be absurd. Copyrightedbooks from textbooks to novels can be copied and bound in any copy shop forless than 50 Bs or about $7.50. While legally obtained books are available, for many people theseimported products are just too expensive and the only way they can afford toread or study in school is to copy books in the copy shops. Like china town, designer purses anddesigner jeans are readily available for cheap and you can choose a brand nameto be sewn on (a lot of US clothing companies use Bolivian labor to manufacturetheir products). There are anumber of restaurants that are obvious rip-offs of US chain restaurants aswell.

Driving is complete and utterchaos, but I think that deserves a blog post in itself so keep checking back J.

Cochabamba is famous for its year-roundpleasant climate. Cochabamba onaverage gets less than 18 inches of rain a year (comparable to notoriously dryTuscon, Arizona) and my first week here was blue skies and sunny. We are now getting record rainstormslike Cochabamba has never seen before, but its still light compared to what wesee in Morgantown nearly weekly.
Bolivians are very politically involved. Seemingly a result of a corrupt government that won't get anything done without protests and strikes. More on this in another blog post.

Men discussing politics in the Plaza Principal

The Plaza Principal: The Main Plaza in Cochabamba

Puno, Peru

2012-02-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

We don’t know for sure how long the Uros people have beenliving on floating, artificial islands on lake Titicaca, but we do know theypre-date the inca civilization which rose in 1450. The Uros people have built 54 floating islands out of thetotora reed, which they also use to eat, to build their homes, and constructtheir boats. Every 15 days theyadd a new layer of the reed to compensate for the reeds decaying off the bottomand after about 20 years they have to start over and build a new island.

LakeTiticaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at an elevation of nearly4000 m above sea level. It isnestled in the Andes mountains on the border of Peru and Bolivia.

“Puno is a quiet, safe city,” wewere told by our tour guide. Ofcourse after being woken up no later than 4:30 AM by multiple marching bandsand fireworks I can only agree with the latter based on my experience. We happened to have stumbled upon thefirst night of the Virgen de la Candelaria celebration: one of the largestfestivals in South America. Thenext night we went out and joined in the festivities. Hundreds of bands paraded around the streets with thousandsof costumed dancers dancing to their band. We later found out that communities from all over the regionorganized groups of over a 1000 people to compete in the music and dancecompetition which is part of the festival. Our tour guide the next day explained that her community(about 2 hours from Puno) had over 150 musicians and 1000 dancers that hadpracticed for months in preparation for the festival. Some groups had brass bands, while others had drums andzamponas (panpipes) only: All the groups were costume coordinated, wellorganized, and enthusiastic dancers.

Thesafety precautions taken with the fireworks, or rather the lack there of, was ashow in itself. Giant fireworkswere set off in the middle of the huge crowd and occasionally and errantfirework would send the crowd running. Sparks showered the crowd in the bleachers with giant fountain likefireworks set off above the crowd. The fireworks and the marching bands continued pretty much allnight. Of course, this was onlythe first day of 18 days of celebration.

Ihave since left Peru and I am now at the La Paz airport in Bolivia to fly toCochabamba.

El Camino Inka

2012-01-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

Squealsof burning rubber and a little of my own terror echoed through my eardrums asmy bus barreled down a one lane, switch-backing, guardrail-less mountain roadinto the sacred valley of the Inca’s not far from Cusco, Peru. At thetime I was sure my blog would never be updated again due to my fiery death atthe bottom of sheer cliff deep in the Andes mountains (excuse my hyperbole). However, Pachamama (the Inca equivalent of mother earth) must have takenpity on me (as Montezuma had already taken quite an extensive revenge on me)and I survived the bus ride. Once we got there the sacred valley reallyturned out to be quite incredible. The mountains towered around us indramatic cliffs and thousand foot waterfalls falling into the lush greenvalley, much like Yosemite valley in the US. Our tour guide turned out tobe quite a character. He taught me how to play the zampoña (panpipes) anddescribed how he had learned English (he was very fluent) despite never havinggone to school or traveled abroad. I hope to use a few of his tips.

Ofcourse the main event in the Cusco region for us was hiking el camino inka (theinca trail). In this corner of the world there are two seasons: the dryseason and the rainy season. Because this is the rainy season, this wasthe first four day backpacking trip I have ever brought 4 raincoats (2gore-tex, 1 cheap plastic, and a disposable plastic poncho). Of course,it also turned out to be the first four day backpacking trip I have ever beenon where I needed five; it rained all four days and the water conquered theraincoats one at a time, high tech gore-tex and disposable alike. I havenever been more wet (showers and pools excluded), nor has most of my stuff. Despite the rain, the hike was an absolutely incredible experience. Breathtaking views were nearly continuous and at least half of the top 10waterfalls I have ever seen crashed down the mountains. Flowers of everyimaginable variety entertained my camera and I for all four days.
It was more than the views that took our breath away, however, as we climbedextremely steep steps for days at a time to elevations of more than 4200 meters(nearly 14,000 feet). Ultimately, my mother and I both survived and madeit to Machu Picchu. Despite the extremely remote location, as far asbackpacking goes, this was about as posh as it gets; we were served 4 coursemeals complete with a dining tent, tents were carried and set up by porters,and we were greeted each morning in our tents with coca tea. The others inour group were very friendly; they were great company helped me with my Spanishquite a bit (Thank you Evan, Alex, Thomas, Melisa, Gabriela, and Tamara). Mierdo de vaca was a favorite pre dinner card game. After the hike we celebrated withroasted guinea pig, a local delicacy.

Theultimate destination of the hike was the lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu,we visited a number of Inca sites along the way. The Incas (or rather theQuechuas, only the king was the Inca, the people were the Quechuas) were very accomplished;they built huge cities out of huge, perfectly carved stones (some weighing morethan a few tons) by hand and without slave labor. There were threepillars of Inca society. The first is to help others; if I am building myhouse today you help me and I will help you build yours tomorrow. Thesecond is social work; when building a temple of a city everyone pitches in. The third is to pay taxes; this is where is gets interesting. Theypaid taxes by leaving home and doing work for a certain amount of time; eitherbuilding a trail, guardhouse, etc. The Inca (the king) had farmland thatwas worked as part of the tax system and if someone was injured paying theirtaxes they would be provided with food from the Kings supply. Essentiallythe Inca’s were a socialist society.

The beginning

Luxury Backpacking

Dead Woman's Pass: 4200m

The group

Me at an Inca Site

Machu Picchu

Roasted guinea pig

Ultimately,the Inca civilization fell when the Spanish conquistadors ravaged their societywith disease and superior weaponry destroying much of their architect (andreused many of the foundations because of their high quality). TheSpanish never found Machu Picchu, in fact it wasn’t discovered until 1911because of its remote location. Appropriately however, when the King andQueen of Spain visited Machu Picchu in the 1980’s the central rock in the mainplaza was moved in order to land the helicopter and was broken in the process.

Las Ilsas Galopagos, Ecuador

2012-01-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

When I was in elementary school Idid a report on the Galapagos tortoise: Giant reptiles reminiscent of thedinosaurs teetering on the edge of extinction. Ever since then I have wanted to come to the GalapagosIslands: the aspiring biologists equivalent of Disney world for kids orYosemite for climbers; a Mecca of biology in action. It was in the Galapagos Islands that Charles Darwindeveloped and tested his theory on evolution and it’s easy to see why. The Galapagos Islands are one of (ifnot the) most biodiverse regions in the entire world! Birds and reptiles especially are everywhere and since untilrelatively recently the Galapagos Islands have been left mostly undisturbed byhumans the animals are curious and fearless. 98% of the Islands are a protected national park with only 2%of the islands inhabited by humans.

Myfirst impression of the Galapagos Islands was the fauna. Baltra Island, a military base andwhere the airstrip is located, was covered with cactus like something out ofthe southwest United States. Ihadn’t expected that; I had expected green and lush landscapes. After taking a ferry to Santa CruzIsland the green and lush landscapes greeted me; first the red mangroves in thebeach and then thousands of trees and plants in the higher ground with bloomingflowers of every shade imaginable everywhere. Within half an hour we arrived at a dairy farm in thehighlands. As we drove in wespotted giant tortoises everywhere! They were chilling out with the cows,lumbering down the road, and resting in the grass. We hiked for about an hour through the jungle-like highlandstaking pictures of the first hundred tortoises that easily outweighed me by 100pounds. I never thought I wouldsee so many wild giant tortoises that I would not feel the need to take apicture of all of them: it was quite an experience. Later, at our visit to the Charles Darwin research center wewould learn that despite seeing so many they are actually very threatened as aspecies. Pirates and other sailorshunted the tortoises nearly to extinction because they can survive for manymonths without food or water providing the pirates at sea with fresh meat whenthey needed it. In more recentyears, however, it has been the species introduced by humans that have done thereal damage. While adult tortoisesdon’t have much to fear because of their thick shells, the goats and dogs digup and eat the eggs so far too few survive to adulthood. As a result many of the islands havebreeding centers where they collect the eggs of wild tortoises and keep them inenclosed habitats until they are ready to be reintroduced to the wild.

Iate dinner at an open-air café a bit off the main street. The owners spoke no English. I was proud of myself for figuring outhow to ask what was on the hamburger especial but unfortunately I didn’tunderstand the answer so I ordered it to find out. We are staying in hotel red booby named after the bird thatis endemic to the island.

Mysecond day in the islands we traveled to the largest of the islands, Isabella,which is mostly uninhabited by humans and about a two hour boat ride from SantaCruz. As our boat pulled up to thedock, numerous bright red and blue crabs skittered away. On the dock three sea lions and aniguana were resting in the shade of the red mangroves. Sea lions are quite friendly and verymuch like dogs: they want to play all the time! (More about that later). There are 4 species of iguanas endemicto the islands (which means they live no where else in the world), three ofwhich are land iguanas and one of which is the marine iguana; which is the onlyiguana in the world that gets its food in the water. The marine iguanas were everywhere!! On rocks, the dock, thebeaches… I probably saw a thousand marine iguanas in the last four days. We saw blue footed boobies andGalapagos penguins, two other species endemic to the islands. We saw flamingos, white tipped sharks,sea turtles, manta rays, and many other birds. After all that we went snorkeling. We saw fish in every different color and every differentsize. My mom and I also found twostingrays as big as I am! I tried to get a picture of me with them butunderwater photography is harder than it looks.

Blue footed Booby

Galapagos Penguins and an Iguana

A White tipped Shark

Sea Turtle!

Crab

Marine Iguana

Eagle Rays

Flamingos

Sting ray bigger than me

Sting ray bigger than me: Underwater photography is harder than it looks

Thethird day in the islands we hiked 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) out to Tortugabay: a beautiful beach just like you would see in the movies. After spending the morning swimming andharassing iguanas with our cameras we took a boat tour of the bay. The highlight of the trip so far wassnorkeling at La Loberia that afternoon. As soon as we got in the water the sea lions lounging on the rocksdecided they wanted to play. Ispent the next hour swimming with sea lions darting around me, chasing me,grabbing onto my foot, flipping over me, and coming up to me and looking me inthe eyes. I’ve always thoughtswimming with the dolphins or the sea lions at sea world looked amazing butthis was in the wild and it was certainly one of the most memorable moments inmy life.

Wespent the rest of the afternoon as Las Grietas (in English cracks orcrevices). It was a naturalswimming hole about 200 feet long and 25 feet wide; with either side lined withcliffs about 40 feet high. Ijumped about 10 times before we had to leave!

Our guide: Edilberto

Thenext day we took another 2-hour boat ride to Floreana Island, which is almostcompletely uninhabited and home to more tortoises, birds, some awesomegeological features. All of theislands were formed by volcanoes and are relatively new geologicallyspeaking. Air pockets in thehardened lava collapsed to form caves, craters, and crevices all over theplace. Of course we snorkeled evenmore and saw more awesome fish, another giant stingray, another sea turtle, andsome penguins. Although Floreanais a good place to see hammerhead sharks, we unfortunately didn’t see any.

Sea lion hanging out by the pool

Red Mangroves and an Iguana

Iguana tracks

Dolphins

Another Sting Ray

Ourfinal day in the Islands we visited a family owned coffee and sugar cane farm wherethey produce sugar, coffee, and moonshine for the local market. They showed us the processes and wesampled the products. It was likeit was 100 years behind. They hadjust gotten electricity to run the machines to crush the sugar cane and all theprocessing was done by hand.

Other notes:

-Conservation is taken seriously in Ecuador: there are farmore recycle bins than trashcans.

-Driving is definitely third world: traffic signs are justsuggestions, our bus precariously passed other cars on one lane roads, roadswere sometimes more rocks than gravel, we road on top of a bus for one tour (noseats, just a luggage rack), we had to stop several times for tortoisescrossing the road.

-Most public bathrooms are BYOTP (bring your own toiletpaper) and some are BYOTS (bring your own toilet seat).

-Most businesses are family businesses; our bus driver hadhis wife and kids on the bus, the coffee farm was a whole family affair, thesalt mine was run by a family, most shops are run by a family with the wholefamily helping. Child labor lawsare apparently not present.

-I made a few friends from Argentina and Switzerland on ourtours. Emilio (from Argentina)stayed at the same hotel as we did and he helped me with my Spanish each night.

-Probably less than 10% of the tourists at the GalapagosIslands were from the US (at least on our tours), which is surprising sinceit’s such a unique and exotic location (and perfect tropical vacationdestination) only 3 hours from Miami.

-It’s almost embarrassing how many Spanish speakersunderstand and speak English; far more than English speakers that speakSpanish. Also there doesn’t seem tobe the same animosity towards foreigners that there is in some places in the US;on the contrary most locals were more than happy to help you in English or Spanish.

-If at all possible you have to come to the GalapagosIslands sometime in your life! It is absolutely amazing; exotic animals,beautiful scenery, friendly people, excellent seafood, perfect tropical beaches…

-Ecuador uses the US dollar but they also have their ownbills. If you spend $10 and paywith a $20 you might get $5 US back and $5 in Ecuador’s cash.

-Locals gathered every night downtown to play soccer andvolleyball; It was a lot of fun to watch.

Spanglish in Italy: En route to South America

2012-01-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

“Aqui, Aqui” I shouted to my teammate, a local Italian aboutmy age who gave me a brisk pass just a step out of my reach. The tattered soccer ball flew past meand slammed into a door on the edge of the square. I ran over to retrieve the ball but instead spent the next 5minutes cowering in fear as a large Italian woman lectured me in Italian. Although I didn’t understand a word shesaid, I definitely got the message: she was not happy that our game hadextended to her doorstep.

Iwas in middle school and my family was spending the week in an apartment in Veniceand I had joined a pick up game of “futbol” in the square outside theapartment. Although I didn’t speaka word of Italian and they didn’t speak a word of English we managed tocommunicate with simple Spanish words and grunts; more of the latter. It was this experience that inspired meto learn a new language and this goal was a major influence in me deciding tostudy abroad.

Iam writing this from the Miami International Airport; two and a half hours frommy flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador. Iam traveling with my mom for 3 weeks before the Amizade program begins inCochabamba, Bolivia. We will spenda week in the Galapagos Islands, then a week in Peru hiking the Inca trail fromCusco to Machu Pichu. We will thenfly to Puno where we will see Lake Titicaca: the highest navigable lake in theworld, on the border between Peru and Bolivia. I will then travel by bus to La Paz and by air to Cochabambawhere I will spend the semester! Check back for updates and photos!

The Ant Effect

2012-01-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

If you have ever had the pleasure(or the pain if you happen to be tall) of sitting in the window seat of anairplane you have experienced the “ant effect”; the phenomenon of people andcars appearing to be ants scurrying around on model roads and in and out of toybuildings. Everything appears tobe so small and insignificant. Butfrom the ground it is the jumbo jet that is a mere dot zipping across the skydwarfed by an infinite void limited only by our finite frame of reference. The pure scale of the earth is incredible.

A few months ago I had theopportunity to travel to the Grand canyon for the first time. Despite warnings from the park serviceand concern from my family I decided to hike from the south rim to the riverand back in a day via the south Kaibab trail. I started at the trailhead at 7 am carrying 6 liters ofwater, some energy bars, a headlamp, and a jacket. I hike-jogged down to the river, a distance of 7 miles, inabout an hour stopping to snap photos along the way of the dramatic canyonwalls and convoluted landscape carved by water over millions of years. I continued on a few more miles to thebright angel campground to refill my water and started back up meeting my dadabout a mile outside the inner gorge. Together we hiked again down into the inner gorge so he could satisfyhis needs as a geologist to see the great unconformities, which to theuntrained eye are pretty cool looking but to the geologist tells a fascinatinghistory of the rock. We stoppedand ate lunch about halfway down the inner gorge.

When you look at the grand canyonfrom the rim it is spectacular, dramatic, incredible, (insert cliché adjectivethat cannot come close to describing the panorama), but its only once you getdown into the canyon that you really get a sense of the scale. The canyon is 10 miles across as thecrow flies, 25 miles by trail, and about a mile deep. From the rim the inner gorge looks small and ratherundramatic, dwarfed by the massive canyon. But once you get into the inner gorge you realize it isnearly 1000 feet deep (bigger than the new river gorge) bisected by the roaringColorado River; tame rapids from the rim become standing waves from inside thecanyon. It’s hard to comprehendthe pure massiveness of the canyon when even 1000 foot deep gorges and majorrivers succumb to the ant effect from the rim.

The Grand Canyon from the south rim: look for the inner gorge.

The South Kaibab Trail: Everything you can see in the picture is the inner Gorge.

The great nonconformities.

Me in the yellow shirt in the upper right hand corner.

We hiked out of the canyon wellbefore afternoon set in trekking for about 20 miles total. The dramatic change in perspective andmind blowing scenery just in a morning’s hike inspired the travel urge insideme. South America here I come.