Peru

As always, life has been extremely generous since I've last written. Visits to NYC, Ann Arbor, Chicago, San Fran and LA have allowed me to catch up with many of you in person, which has been great. A ridiculously mild winter in Boston also allowed for much personal exploration over the past few months. Externally, from comedy shows and food tours to spending time over coffees and dinners with new Cambridge friends as well as those who just graduated, it continues to be amazing how time flies, but it has been such a fantastic experience for me to have formed such deep relationships with people I've met only 9 months ago. Internally, through a powerful 4-day Art of Living course which has allowed me to expand in my practice of self-awareness and meditation, first catalyzed by free Monday night Qigong sessions at MIT, and the wonderful 10-minute-meditation-for-10-days iphone/android app, Headspace. I can discuss each of these experiences at great length (ask me more in person, or when you reply to this), but in sum its provided me with a wonderful start to dive levels deeper into getting to know myself - from understanding the complex factors that go into my daily decision making, to the bullshit that i feed myself (we all do, to some extent) on a regular basis. It can be a scary journey at times, but has also been a particularly rewarding one. To be fair, the fear dissipates rapidly knowing that I have someone like you to call a friend, and count on to provide me with your honest perspective on any given seemingly random topic. One of the realizations that I've had is that being aware and honest about my limitations has really been quite liberating - acceptance makes it much easier to ask for help, or take measures to improve in that area, rather than expend energy trying to convince myself that it isn't a big deal, 'not my fault' things don't go so well, or mainly that there are some things I should work on. I could go on for awhile, but this stuff is better explored more personally - I wonder if you've had any similar/comparable experiences of late? Care to share? :)

Sandboarding down those dunes!

On to the lighter travelogue which you may have gotten accustomed to, I finally got a chance to visit a continent which had eluded me thus far - South America. Spending 2 weeks (an extended spring break) backpacking across Peru on my own allowed for several adventures, as well as meeting some fascinating people. Starting the weekend off in Lima was great - a capital city with good restaurants, and access to beaches (and beach clubs) which I fully took advantage of. On Monday morning, the real adventure begun. Armed with my Machu Pichu train ticket for Friday and barely rough idea on how to get from one side of the country to the other by land, I hit up the bus terminal to catch the first available 4-hour drive to Ica, a town South-East of Lima and home to famed Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the desert. Fate put me next to a Canadian 25-year old couple (Cou and Drew) on this pleasant 4 hr commute, who turned out to be pretty chill (we ended up sharing a hostel room in Huacachina) and were taking the year of 2012 off from life to travel around the world. Once at Huacachina, we wasted no time in negotiating a hostel room right on the lake, and proceeded for a few hours of sand buggying (roller coaster-ish ride up and down the sand dunes in a buggy) and sand boarding (sliding down sand dunes face first on a snowboard) down increasingly steep slopes. Standing atop one of these dunes allowed us to marvel at our surroundings - even one ingredient (sand) varied the landscape constantly, - fortunately we were provided goggles for the ride so the constantly readjusting sand particles didn't insert themselves into our eyes. After that adventure, we cooled down with a nearby 'winery tour' (15 min tour, 45 min grape stomping + shaman ceremony to be grateful for the harvest and pray for next season, 2 hr all-you-can-drink wine and Pisco). Of course, the afterparty for this winery tour happened to be at our hostel, which is where I met my companions for the next leg of my journey, 3 Argentinian girls who were also on the 17-hour cross-country bus ride to Cusco the following day. 

Ollantaytambo, the Sacred Valley

Expecting an adventure, Peru didn't disappoint. 12 hours into this journey, our bus halted, seemingly inexplicably. 2 hours later, at 7am, I got out to investigate. A 10 minute walk past 20 other tour buses showed me why - a waist-high landslide ~300m long and spanning the width of the road ruled out any chances of any of our buses making it across anytime soon, not to mention there being absolutely no sign of progress of the landslide being cleared. I thought quickly - if we waited to act, it could easily be days before we made it to Cusco. Instead, we followed the lead of some intelligent farmers who were utilizing the flexibility of minibus drivers. Like them (along with my 3 new friends, 4 other youngsters decided on the same course of action as us: a Colombian couple, a Portugese volunteer teacher and a native Peruvian), we gathered our luggage and carried it across the mud-and-rocky stretch, where we were able to convince a minivan driver to take us to the next town to catch a connecting bus. After a few more minor roadblocks, we finally made it to Cusco, 26 hours after leaving Ica.

Cusco is a wonderful city. Not only did it have a great use of space - multiple piazzas, each with attractive business options, churches and government buildings on 3 of its 4 sides are a prime example of this - but there was a vibrancy that was present at any hour of the day or night. I spent a day visiting Ollantaytambo (the Sacred Valley) and other sites, but the real highlight was Machu Picchu on Friday. 

The plaza at Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu itself is amazing – the intricacy of construction of the entire site over 500 years ago still belies comprehension, and the fact that so many of the structures are still made up of original material (97% of the sun temple is made up of original rocks!) despite earthquakes, natural erosion potential and other concerns astounds me. Part of the intrigue is that no one fully agrees on what this UNESCO World Heritage site was actually built for (it was abandoned by the Incas during the Spanish Conquest before completion), theories range from a religious site, to a prison, or even an agricultural testing station.

A view of Machu Picchu (left side) from the sun gate

For me, the next stop was as important as marveling at Machu Picchu close up: a 1 hr trek to the sun gate allowed a gorgeous view of Machu Picchu from above, and spending time reflecting on how small it seemed, yet fitting so naturally within the broader natural Peruvian landscape was simultaneously a peaceful and cathartic experience. Such a prime example of how man made structures can blend with nature, beyond just co-existing and even ubiquitous destruction of our surroundings, gives me hope for the future.

I capped off spring break by flying back to Lima (phew, no more landslides) for the weekend, where I got to check out Old Lima aka downtown, home of the original Pisco Sour drink. Spent an exploratory night in Panama, then finally made it back to Boston.

This summer, I have a fantastic opportunity to explore bits of another continent I’ve been wanting to spend time in: Africa. I’ve been in Addis Ababa for over a month, and am spending a total of 11 weeks working with TechnoServe, a non-profit focused on figuring out and implementing business solutions to poverty. I’m working on scaling up business support to agricultural cooperatives, and developing a plan to expand this across Ethiopia. Aside from spending weekends exploring more UNESCO World Heritage sites (I went to Lalibela and Axum last weekend), I also get to do field trips to other parts of East Africa (I’m spending this weekend in Nairobi).