We haven’t talked much about what would traditionally be called “education” so I thought I would do a quick post on the subject. In a nutshell, things are going very well. In terms of her education, this will be a GREAT year for Jette.
An old windmill in the middle of the city
The bike trip down the Rhine provided a perfect context and structure for a detailed, experiential look at European history and culture. Following the river on bikes meant that we really experienced the lands we passed through. Hills, valleys, plains, fields, forests, wind, and sea. Endless fields of corn, tiny hamlets, big cities – we saw, heard, felt, and even smelled it all. Just as importantly, we experienced the subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences from place to place. We saw cultures change with landscape, and patterns of human settlement and development defined by geography. The river is the perfect vehicle for understanding human settlement patterns. Rivers are, after all, the cradle of human culture. Every hour of every day provided opportunities for us to explore that story. In the end, Jette wrote her own Story of the Rhine. Of course she did a good amount of math, art and science along the way too. Travel is one of the best teachers, particularly when you are focused on the endless learning opportunities it presents.
Jette with her notebook and some of her books.
As we transitioned from our European bicycle trip to our Asian adventure, we’ve added more “book work.” We’re not following any particular curriculum, we’ve created our own. It’s an odd approach that mixes elements of unschooling, Montessori, and classical education (think trivium – grammar, logic, rhetoric).
With the latter, we’ve found that The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer is a great resource. We’ve also been using her The Story of the World texts and teaching guides. Jette is currently on Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor. By the end of the trip she should have completed Volume 2:The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance and Volume 3: Early Modern Times, which will have given her a survey of world history from ancient times to today. I’m a firm believer in the importance of the study of History. All things are interrelated, and History is the “great conversation” that puts it all in perspective (connections anyone?). As part of this work, she is writing a summary of each chapter and a brief biographical sketch of each key historical figure. There is also map work. All of these things go into her binder, so by the end of the trip she will have a survey of world history, penned in her own hand, complete with maps, illustrations, and key biographies. Pretty cool. She’s also doing related reading beyond the main text. For example, as part of her ancient history studies, she read the Mary Pope Osborne version of Homer’s Odyssey, Tales from the Odyssey.
In the Montessori philosophy, Jette is in the Second Plane of Development, where among other things, abstract thinking and reasoning really begins. In the classical model this is the Logic stage. Along these lines, Jette recently completed two books of logic problems and has just started to study formal logic with the text Traditional Logic I. It is fairly advanced, so we’ll see if it proves to be accessible to her.
On the Math front, she’s almost finished with the math workbooks her school so kindly provided, and has been diligently working her way through 5th Grade math on Khan Academy (KA is awesome!).
She been doing some additional writing and even a bit of Shakespeare memorization.
While not necessarily of the “book” variety, our travels are unimaginably rich with learning experiences. Right now we are sitting in a little cafe in the historic district of Penang, a UNESCO World Heritage site rich with history and cultural flavor. We see, smell, taste and hear the intersection of British Colonial, Indian, Malay, Chinese and indigenous cultures every day. Today the Thaipusam festival is in full swing and Chinese New Year is just around the corner. We ordered breakfast speaking in Bahasa Malaysia (“Minta satu ayam, tiga roti cani, dua teh tarik. Terima kasih”) On Tuesday we head to Sumatra, where we will see first hand the source of the smoky haze that choked us and chased us out of Singapore. We might even get a peek at the rainforest before it vanishes and the orangutan before they are extinct.
We are learning a lot.
It has been a good year so far and we are thankful.
A couple of weeks ago, Grandma joined us in Mexico City. We had a fun week exploring the city together, and we ate way too much! I think we wore her out with all the walking, but hopefully she enjoyed it as much as we did.
Grandma came armed with treats from home:
Treats from home
We had only been in Mexico City a few days before she arrived, but we had already identified a few favorite places. So the first thing we did was take her to a yummy fish taco joint. Grandma enjoyed the ceviche and shrimp tacos, but didn’t want her picture taken. The identities of the innocent are protected in this photo:
Enjoying fish tacos and ceviche
After a yummy lunch we hopped in an Uber and headed over to the Polanco neighborhood for dessert. Polanco is a well-to-do neighborhood in central Mexico City. As Wikipedia describes it:
Polanco is one of the most famous and most exclusive districts in Mexico City. The neighborhood is notable because of its cultural diversity and has been historically preferred by the descendants of Spanish, Ashkenazi Jewish, Lebanese, among others. Some of the wealthiest families in Mexico and Latin America have homes in Polanco, and a very long list of politicians, celebrities, artists and businessmen call the area home.
The neighborhood is also populated with expensive offices, restaurants, museums, luxurious stores and shopping malls. Its Avenida Presidente Masaryk is the highest-priced street and the one with the most upscale boutiques in Latin America. It is compared by some to Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive or New York City’s Fifth Avenue.
The climate of Mexico City is such that it is always nice outside, and like much of the city, Polanco is full of great restaurants and cafes with sidewalk seating. We started our tour of the neighborhood with dessert at Le Pain Quotidien. Yum.
Dessert at Le Pain Quotidien
After dessert, we bought some lychees at a local fruit stand, then walked around the neighborhood a bit.
Lychees
Walking in Polanco
Typical upscale restaurant with sidewalk seating.
We took a stroll through Lincoln Park. It is a long, narrow park bordered by beautiful old buildings, many of which are now exclusive shops and restaurants. Polanco is very much about conspicuous consumption, and here you’ll see many Porsches, Mercedes, and Bentleys being valet parked.
Lincoln Park
A stroll through the park
One of the restaurants facing the park
Another restaurant facing the park
Honoring a couple of great authors.
At the corner of Charles Dickens and Edgar Allen Poe we stopped to peek in the window of a shop that sells beautiful geodes, fossils, petrified wood, and other natural items as objects of home decor. Beautiful but expensive!
MineraliA
While we were there, a woman passed by. She was walking her fashionable chihuahua and wearing an outfit and jewelry that probably cost six figures. She was shadowed by a secret-service-like armed security guard.
I’m highlighting the wealth and luxury of the neighborhood and Mexico City in general because I think that many people who have never visited have the mistaken notion that Mexico City is a giant, chaotic slum. This is not at all true. It is a huge and diverse place.
First, let’s talk about size. With an estimated population of 22 million people , Mexico City is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere.
To help put that in perspective, that means that more people live in the Mexico City metro area than in Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, District of Columbia and Vermont combined!
In this giant city there are areas of great poverty, areas of great wealth, and a whole lot in between. One of the most striking things to us how quiet and relaxed the city is. For a city of this size it is almost shocking how many quiet tree-lined streets there are, how little traffic there is, and how calm and relaxed everything seems to be. For the most part, life on the streets seems to move at a relaxed pace.
So back to some of the highlights of Grandma’ visit…
We went to the Papalote Museo del Nino, a science museum for kids. We saw a couple of 3D IMAX films – one of the National Parks of the US, and another on our galaxy. We played with puzzles and mazes and had a generally good time (and some OK tacos for lunch).
Museum entrance
Four-sided maze
Rubik’s Cube and maze
Where to go next…
When you are the first one in the theater you can do handstands!
Ready for IMAX launch!
3-D fun
Line segment
Lunch
Balance maze
Science lab on buoyancy
Bubbles
In a bubble
The next morning we walked a few blocks South and caught the Turibus – the big double-decker tourist bus – for a tour of the city.
Walking past Buna 42
Walking through the park
A mural in Roma Norte
On the Turibus – the weather was cool, but the sun was intense!
Snapping photos like tourists. Oh, wait, we are tourists!
We stopped at a little organic cafe and Jette had pancakes for lunch!
We also visited the Frida Kahlo Museum, which is the house/compound (known as Casa Azul) that she and her husband Diego Rivera lived in. Both Frida and Diego were artists, and like many of the “intellectuals” of the era, communists. They befriended and entertained the Marxist revolutionary, terrorist, and mass murderer Leon Trotsky during his exile in Mexico City. Their friendship ended when Trotsky was assassinated with an ice pick by a fellow communist of the Stalinist flavor. Nice folks.
The museum doesn’t allow photography (too bourgeois) so we can’t show you much of what we saw there.
Frida Kahlo Museum
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Wait, is that really them?!
After the museum, we walked over to a neighborhood market for a little local color and flavor…
The following day we relaxed in the park at the Plaza Rio de Janeiro where Jette enjoyed playing with the dogs. Dogs are very popular pets in Mexico City, and the Plaza Rio de Janeiro is a popular place for owners and professional dog walkers to bring them. One thing we’ve noticed is that the dogs here are very well trained. I think they are the best behaved dogs anywhere we’ve ever been. And people here love dogs. That’s for sure!
Dog walkers
New friend
We also went to the San Angel Inn for lunch. The San Angel Inn is a popular and very posh restaurant housed in beautiful colonial building that dates back to the 17th century and was once a monastery.
Enjoying some soup at the San Angel Inn.
We took a stroll through the Chapultepec Park (Bosque de Chapultepec), and made the long walk up to the Chapultepec Castle on top of the hill (It is a long walk – you’re a trooper Grandma!).
Strolling through the park
Feeding the squirrels
In the shady forest of the park.
El Sargento a 500 year old tree that was killed in 1979, presumably by pollution and lack of water.
Park transportation. Regrettably not going our way!
The name Chapultepec stems from the Nahuatl word chapoltepēc which means “at the grasshopper’s hill”. It is located in the middle of Chapultepec Park in Mexico City at a height of 2,325 meters (7,628 ft) above sea level. The site of the hill was a sacred place for Aztecs, and the buildings atop it have served several purposes during its history, including that of Military Academy, Imperial residence, Presidential home, observatory, and presently, the National Museum of History.
Castle cartwheel
Stairs and murals
Murals in the castle/museum
Detail of mural
When everyone was looking the other way, we snuck in a cartwheel.
The sneaky cartwheel
The museum highlights the history of Mexico, beginning with the early Mesoamerican peoples who first populated what is now Mexico.
Two statues
Skulls of sacrificial victims.
Complete with holes for convenient display on tzompantli (wooden skull racks). The early Mesoamericans had quite a sense for interior decorating. “OMG! You should totally see my new Pottery Barn rug! It’s just darling and goes so well with my tzompantli!”
There was a section of the museum that covered the Secession of Texas and the subsequent Mexican-American War.
A canon similar to that from the Battle of Gonzales. Jette’s great-great-great-great grandfather John Moore led the Texans in this first battle of the Texas Revolution.
The museum’s explanation of the Secession of Texas.
As you might expect, the museum gives a slightly different version of history. Here is a rough translation of the text i the photo above. Note that although the Title is Texas Secession 1836, the text describe details from both the Texas Revolution and the subsequent Mexican-American War:
Perhaps the most unfortunate in the first years of independent Mexico event was the loss of Texas. Several players participated in this drama: Mexicans born in Texas; settlers, who had received legal concession in Texas and accepted in part the Mexican law; Texans rebels, many of them newcomers to the region, eager to separate Texas de Coahuila and Mexico, and foreign volunteers, mercenaries from 22 states of the American Union, hooked by agents of the rebels in canteens and New York establishments, Tennessee, Kentucky or New Orleans. It were the “Gray Volunteers”, whose flag was taken at El Alamo.
1853 had accumulated about 80 US claims against Mexico whose payment reached millions of dollars. Pressured by the north country, Mexico had to yield 76.845 km in La Mesilla so Americans could build projected to unite the east and west of the country railway. La Mesilla was the only territory being sold to the United States, as the others were transferred in 1848 as war booty.
While that is no doubt that American expansionism had the U.S. and Mexico on a collision course, this exhibit grossly oversimplified and misrepresented the factors that led to the Texas Revolution. There is no mention of the fact that Santa Anna had recently seized power in Mexico, dismantled the government, trashed the Constitution, and established himself as an all-powerful dictator. The Texas settlers had taken an oath to Spain and later to independent Mexico. They were Mexican citizens. They had taken that oath based on the promises of government, promises which were now being broken. Their call to revolution was to defend their Constitution – THE MEXICAN CONSTITUTION and to fight tyranny.
In the text above Texans are characterized as scofflaws and mercenaries. Remember that the anglo settlers were there at the invitation of Spain and Mexico and were intended to solve the Comanche problem by creating a human buffer between the Comanches, who swept in from the North, and the more settle areas of Mexico to the South. For hundreds of years, the expansion of Spanish missions into Texas had failed. Most of the region was a sparsely settled “no man’s land.” Comanche war bands would regularly swoop down from the plains and attack, stealing horses and decimating the few settlements that existed. The Spanish and Mexicans had proven totally ineffective at fighting the Comanches, and in 1821 General Arredondo approved the idea of creating a buffer of loyalist anglo settlers, and a charter was granted to Moses Austin, Stephen F. Austin’s father. Moses died almost immediately but Stephen brought in the first group of settlers, who swore oaths to Spain and became Spanish/Mexican citizens.
Here is how T.R. Fehrenbach, one of the preeminent scholars of Texas history, describes some of the key events that lead to the Texas Revolution:
Then, in April 1834, Santa Anna took over the government at the capital. Gómez Farías was ousted for the last time. But this was a new Santa Anna, who now thought he knew the heart of Mexico. He repudiated liberalism publicly and dissolved the republican Congress. He dismissed all cabinet ministers but one, and by decree, abolished all local legislatures and ayuntamientos in the nation. The laws confining the clergy were declared void. This was a new Napoleon, indeed. Lorenzo de Zavala fled to Texas. A new and subservient Congress one by one legalized all Santa Anna’s acts. Finally, in October 1835, the Constitution of 1824 was officially voided. Something identical to the old Spanish system of government replaced it. Mexico was declared a centralist state, in which the President and the national Congress held absolute powers. But this was only official recognition of what had already taken place, in 1834— Santa Anna already appointed every governor and official in the land. He was king, and more than a king, since he owed responsibility neither to the people nor God.
There is much evidence that the mass of the population, although they did not approve of every whim of the General, breathed easier under the old system than under a federal republic no one could make work, and which only a few imported intellectuals understood. The people of Zacatecas, a state where liberalism had a strong hold, revolted when the regional militias were reduced in favor of the standing army. Santa Anna’s regulars defeated and destroyed a Zacatecan force of 5,000. Then, as he had learned in his days with Arredondo, Santa Anna disdained to be burdened with prisoners and permitted his troops to rape and plunder the state capital. Word of these events reached Texas, but very little of what was happening was understood. Santa Anna still had a good reputation. Much progress had been made during 1833– 34, and the compromising party was now ascendant. The hint of trouble crossed the Rio Grande only in April 1835, when Santa Anna sent an army to reduce Coahuila.
The first bloodshed came for the same reason the shots heard ’round the world were fired at Lexington. Mexican policy was now to seize arms and military stores in Texan hands before real trouble started, and in doing so among a population of this kind, they started it. When Cós took ship from the Rio Bravo to sail to the Texas coast, and from there to march to Béxar, Colonel Ugartechea at San Antonio sent a file of cavalrymen riding south to Gonzales. Green DeWitt’s colony had been issued a small brass cannon, a six-pounder, for defense against Indians some years before.
Andrew Ponton, the Gonzales alcalde, received the order for the surrender of the gun, signed by the political chief at San Antonio. Ponton stalled for time, supported by the citizens. He demanded an order from the political chief of the Department of the Brazos before releasing it. The noncommissioned officer in charge of the Mexican cavalry left his men camped at Gonzales and rode back to Béxar for further instructions. Meanwhile, Ponton buried the cannon, and sent runners to the surrounding area for armed assistance. Messengers reached Bastrop and the plantation of J. H. Moore [Jette’s great-great-great-great grandfather], on the Colorado.
Now, the eighteen men in Gonzales able and willing to fight organized, removed all boats from the Guadalupe River, and hid the ferry in a bayou north of town. The next step was to capture the handful of Mexican soldiers waiting near the town. This was done— but one man got away, and rode hallooing back to Béxar.
On October 1, 1835, Captain Francisco Castañeda arrived from San Antonio with something less than two hundred men. Ugartechea intended a show of force. Casteñeda, blocked by the Guadalupe, demanded the ferry be restored, and the cannon handed over. There was some parleying, a demonstration by the Mexican cavalry near the town, and considerable yelling and taunting by the Texans, who were now steadily being reinforced by a swarm of armed men filtering from the backwoods into town. During this Mexican stand-off, Castañeda’s troopers took no action except to strip a watermelon patch.
Now, John Moore, the big man of the neighborhood, arrived and was elected colonel. Moore decided to attack the Mexicans at daylight. The buried cannon was unearthed and mounted on a wagon. A blacksmith shop busily forged some ammunition— iron scraps and lengths of chain. Some inspired soul made a flag: two yards of white cloth, painted with a cannon and the words come and take it.
Before the dawn, in the morning fog of October 2, Moore’s militia went out to find the Mexicans. They blundered into the Mexican pickets, but in the dark and fog there could be no war. Everyone drew back and waited until daybreak.
Daylight showed both forces drawn up on an open prairie. The Gonzales cannon fired, without doing any damage, and Castañeda immediately requested a parley. He asked why he was being attacked.
Colonel Moore explained that the Captain had demanded a cannon given to the Texans for “the defense of themselves and the constitution and the laws of the country,” while he, Castañeda, “was acting under the orders of the tyrant Santa Anna, who had broken and trampled underfoot all the state and federal constitutions of Mexico, except that of Texas,” which last the Texans were prepared to defend.
Castañeda answered that “he was himself a republican, as were two-thirds of the Mexican nation, but he was a professional officer of the government,” and while that government had indeed undergone certain surprising changes, it was the government, and the people of Texas were bound to submit to it. Castañeda further stated that he was not here to cause a war; if he was refused the cannon, his orders were simply to take up a position nearby and await further instruction.
Moore then suggested to the Captain, if he was a republican, he should join the revolution against tyranny by surrendering his command, which might then fight in the common cause. Captain Castañeda replied stiffly that he would obey his orders. At this, Moore returned to his own lines and ordered the Texans to open fire. There was a brief skirmish, and the Mexican force immediately abandoned the field and rode toward San Antonio. There is no question who fired first in the Texas Revolution.
By now, the word was out that there was shooting at Gonzales; hundreds of men from the Colorado and beyond were pouring in. Calls for a stand went out signed by prominent planters, such as Bryant, Archer, and McNeel. At Brazoria, William H. Wharton distributed a broadside, which began:
Freemen of Texas TO ARMS!!! TO ARMS!!! Now’s the day, and now’s the hour!
Communication after communication went out. Most were inflammatory, some repeated gaudy rumors, but all took up the constitutional question. A number were printed in Spanish, for the Mexican population, which was traditionally Republican in Texas. Three hundred men gathered at San Felipe, then went on to Gonzales.
In San Antonio, Colonel Ugartechea received the report of Captain Castañeda grimly. Cós was now at Goliad, having landed earlier at Cópano Bay, and Ugartechea knew he would soon be reinforced by the Commandant General’s army. But he made an attempt to stop the fighting before it got worse. He sent a letter to Stephen F. Austin, appealing to this influential citizen to avoid an irreparable break.
Ugartechea asked for peace, but on the already stated terms: surrender of the cannon, and the proscribed citizens. He also promised something he patently could not deliver: there would be no garrisoning of troops if the colonists subsided. He professed friendship for Austin and the Texans, and asserted he would behave towards them as a gentleman, even though they had not behaved well toward Mexicans. But if the colonists did not submit, he would act militarily, and the dignity of the Mexican nation would be upheld.
This letter was significant, because it showed clearly the attitude of the vast majority of Mexican officials toward the Anglo-Americans, and especially those, like Ugartechea, who were genuinely friendly. Ugartechea himself, and almost every Mexican officer, in recent years had at some time or another taken up arms against one or another Mexican regime, in the name of some constitution. But this was a pastime reserved for ethnic Mexicans. Any attempt at resistance by Anglo-Texans, even though they were full-fledged citizens under the law, was instinctively regarded as a North American plot or an insult to the nation. This of course was an attitude toward alien immigrants peculiar neither to Mexicans nor to that time and place, but it infuriated even the peace party in Texas.
OK, so enough about Texas history. Since it is part of our family history it is too easy to get carried away!
The museum and its grounds are beautiful, and the site on the top of the hill affords excellent views of the city.
Beautiful facade and grounds.
Here’s the photo Mila snapped above
The Three Stooges
Looking across the park to the city beyond.
What is it with kids on leashes?! We see a lot of this around here.
After the museum we took a long walk down the hill, and caught an Uber to nearby Polanco for an early dinner.
Back in Polanco
Tortilla soup
Cheesy something…
The next day we went to Teotihuacan – a MASSIVE pyramid complex just outside Mexico City. Here’s how Wikipedia describes it:
The city is thought to have been established around 100 BC, with major monuments continuously under construction until about 250 AD. The city may have lasted until sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries AD, but its major monuments were sacked and systematically burned around 550 AD.
Teotihuacan began as a new religious center in the Mexican Highlands around the first century AD. This city came to be the largest and most populated center in the New World. Teotihuacan was even home to multi-floor apartment compounds built to accommodate this large population. The term Teotihuacan (or Teotihuacano) is also used for the whole civilization and cultural complex associated with the site.
Although it is a subject of debate whether Teotihuacan was the center of a state empire, its influence throughout Mesoamerica is well documented; evidence of Teotihuacano presence can be seen at numerous sites in Veracruz and the Maya region. The later Aztecs saw these magnificent ruins and claimed a common ancestry with the Teotihuacanos, modifying and adopting aspects of their culture. The ethnicity of the inhabitants of Teotihuacan is also a subject of debate. Possible candidates are the Nahua, Otomi, or Totonac ethnic groups. Scholars have also suggested that Teotihuacan was a multi-ethnic state.
The Teotihuacan complex was too big for Grandma to navigate. The distance from the entrance to the Temple of the Sun was 2km! So, she found a bench and waited for us while we did some quick exploration. The sheer scale of the place was amazing and it was interesting to see a type of construction that was very, very different than the structures we had seen in Peru. Even though it was once the largest city in the Americas, there is still very little understood about the pyramids and the culture that built them.
Teotihuacan
Walking down the Avenue of the Dead.
Look at these plants!
Teotihuacan explorers
At the bus station, on our way back.
Enjoying Mexico City with Grandma.
The week with Grandma went by so quickly. We must have been having fun.
Thanks Grandma!
The ride in the collectivo from Cusco to Ollantaytambo was just shy of two hours. As you might expect, the views were fantastic. We were driving across a high plateau of rolling hills, tucked in among the snowcapped peaks of the Andes. It is agricultural land, so there were endless fields of wheat, potatoes, quinoa, and other crops.
The high farmlands
A dusty existence
The road to Ollantaytambo
Peeking down on one of the towns along the way
The van ride had Mila miserable with motion sickness; I know she was greatly relieved when we rolled into the main square of Ollantaytambo and piled out of the van.
Unloading in the main square
The main square in Ollantaytambo
Jette in the main square
A good portion of the town is made of of stone buildings connected by a network of narrow cobblestone streets too narrow for cars. The town and many of the buildings in it date back to Inca times. Over the years, much of it has been reconstructed and reconfigured, but there are many elements that are original. Here’s how wikipedia describes the layout of the town:
The main settlement at Ollantaytambo has an orthogonal layout with four longitudinal streets crossed by seven parallel streets. At the center of this grid, the Incas built a large plaza that may have been up to four blocks large; it was open to the east and surrounded by halls and other town blocks on its other three sides. All blocks on the southern half of the town were built to the same design; each comprised two kancha, walled compounds with four one-room buildings around a central courtyard. Buildings in the northern half are more varied in design; however, most are in such a bad condition that their original plan is hard to establish.
Ollantaytambo dates from the late 15th century and has some of the oldest continuously occupied dwellings in South America. Its layout and buildings have been altered to different degrees by later constructions, for instance, on the southern edge of the town an Inca esplanade with the original entrance to the town was rebuilt as a Plaza de Armas surrounded by colonial and republican buildings. The plaza at the center of the town also disappeared as several buildings were built over it in colonial times.
Typical buildings and street in Ollantaytambo
The street leading to our guesthouse
From the main square, we started the short walk uphill along the cobblestone streets with our luggage. Mila was moving slowly, a bit wobbly from the residual motion sickness, which a nice local man happened to notice. He offered to carry one of our bags for us, declining to accept payment, but we insisted and he finally accepted a nice tip.
Casa de Wow
Our room
View from the kitchen window
The guesthouse was on the edge of the old Inca settlement and faced the Inca terraces and structures carved into the adjacent mountainside. The views were fantastic.
The view from in front of our guesthouse
Our street
Mila decided to stay at the hostel to recuperate, while Jette and I went out to find some food.
A nice lunch of soup
One of the really cool things in Ollantaytambo is the elaborate and robust water system that runs through both the town and the ruins on the mountainside above. Even after hundreds of years it is still functional.
You can see much more about the history of Ollantaytambo here. One cool thing that we didn’t know about at the time, and therefore didn’t notice while we were there, is the giant face carved into the mountainside above town:
Mila tried to take it easy by resting and going to bed early. Thankfully, she woke up early the next morning feeling like herself. We were all up early as this was the day we were headed to Machu Picchu.
Boarding the morning train to Aguas Calientes
Most visitors to Machu Picchu take the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, the town at the foot of Machu Picchu. From Aguas Calientes there are busses that shuttle people up and down the mountain. The train trip from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes is a very short 24 miles. The shuttle busses up the mountain to the entrance of Machu Picchu take about a 35 minutes on slow, winding roads. The transportation is monopolized and very expensive. The short train ride, the shuttle bus, and admission to Machu Picchu cost more than $600 USD for the three of us! Visiting Machu Picchu was by far the most expensive one-day sight we’ve seen in our months of travels.
Many people go to Aguas Calientes the day before they visit Machu Picchu so that they can be at Machu Picchu for sunrise. We opted not to do this for two reasons. First, we figured most people would do this and that morning would be the most crowded time to be there. Second, the mornings had been foggy and we assumed our day at Machu Picchu would be no exception. No point in being there for sunrise if you can’t see anything! Our plan was to leave Ollantaytambo early in the morning, spend the day at Machu Picchu and return to Ollantaytambo that same evening. That’s what we did and it worked out very well.
Morning fog and clouds as we arrive in Aguas Calientes
Statue of Pachacutec in Aguas Calientes
We walked from the train station to the shuttle bus stop
Aguas Calientes
Aguas Calientes is a tourist dive. It is just a bunch of simple hotels, restaurants and shops catering to the 2,500 tourists that visit Machu Picchu each day. We’re really glad we just passed quickly through and didn’t spend the night. From the train station we walked to the shuttle bus stop and got in line. Before long, one of the shuttle busses took us up the mountain and into the clouds.
Foggy, rainy entrance to Machu Picchu
Everything was shrouded in foggy clouds and a misty rain was falling. We entered Machu Picchu and made our way up the foggy paths to the Sun Gate. The Sun Gate is thought to have been the main entrance to Machu Picchu in Inca times and would have served as a gate and checkpoint. It is a good bit above the main Machu Picchu complex and though some guides suggest that the hike up and back takes 3-4 hours, we did it comfortably in about two.
A foggy path
Cloudy with a chance of llamaballs
Up the Sun Gate trail
Exploring some nooks and crannies along the trail
Pretty flowers at the trail’s edge
At a bend in the trail
At the Sun Gate
Sun Gate – note the classic Inca building techniques of small stones stacked with mortar.
Sun Gate handstand
Clouds obscure Machu Picchu
When we got to the Sun Gate, clouds still obscured everything below and the Machu Picchu complex was not visible. The clouds were moving quickly though, and after only a few minutes there was a brief moment when the clouds broke and we had a good view of the main Machu Picchu complex. The wide angle camera on my phone didn’t capture much. To the eye, we could see the main complex peeking out of the clouds below.
The clouds part long enough for a quick photo
We relaxed at the top for a bit, then headed back down the trail to the main complex. It was a pretty quick hike down the trail, and as we descended, the clouds really began to clear.
Terraces along the trail
As we got down close to the main complex, the fog and clouds had cleared and visibility was good.
Terraced fields
Approaching the main complex – again note the classic Inca construction technique of walls built with small stones and filled with mortar.
While there were a only a handful of people who had hiked up to the Sun Gate, the main complex area was full of tourists. As we got closer, we got the classic view of Machu Picchu that gives a sense of how, amazingly, it is perched on a mountain top. To me,this placement is the thing that makes it so incredible.
Carved out of a mountain top
A llama lover at Machu Picchu
Tourists snapping photos with Machu Picchu in the background
Another view as we get closer
A nice man took three photos of us, all of them with his finger over the lens. Maybe we need a selfie-stick!
Making our way down into the main complex
Machu Picchu inspired Jette to do the splits
Must be the thin mountain air
Peek-a-boo
Integrating a massive stone outcropping. Note the mortar filled walls.
Mila and Jette with terraces in the background
Standing in front of the amazing terraces
Jette and me at Machu Picchu
The whole area is full of rock and boulders – lots of building material
Huge wall
As we explored Machu Picchu, one of the most striking things was the different building techniques used. The most common technique used small stones stacked into walls using mortar. Often these walls appear to have been built hollow, and filled with mortar too. A second technique used large stones, roughly cut, and stacked dry, without mortar. Smaller stones were used to fill in gaps, as in the photo above. The most impressive technique used large or very large stones, precisely shaped, and stacked with great precision, using no mortar, as in the photo below.
Look at the size of these stones and the precision of assembly.
Huge, precisely shaped stones, perfectly joined without mortar.
Even the edges are beveled.
Only a few of the structures in Machu Picchu use this technique and show this level of precision. Most of the structures are built with small, roughly shaped stones and mortar:
Typical structures at Machu Picchu, using small stones set with mortar.
The difference in building techniques is striking and incongruent. It seems difficult to imagine that all of these structures were built by the same people, at the same time. As we mentioned in a previous post, one alternative theory is that the large, precise structures were built by an unknown culture long before the Inca arrived on the scene, and that, years later, the Inca discovered these and built around them. I don’t know enough to accept or reject this hypothesis, but I can see how common sense might lead to this conclusion. The construction techniques and craftsmanship are strikingly different, and suggest the use of very different technologies.
Consider the fact that the Inca had only Bronze-Age technology. They had no wheeled vehicles, and had only stone, wood, copper and bronze tools, all of which are softer than the stone used in construction. How in the world could they have quarried these huge stones, moved them to the building sites, cut them so precisely, and lifted them into place? There seems to be much speculation, disagreement, and debate about this.
Above and below. Were these built by the same people at the same time?
Another example of contrasting building techniques.
Here’s a video that gives you a view of the central buildings built with the large, precisely cut and placed stones, as well as the more common buildings built with the small stones and mortar.
Some of the most amazing structures at Machu Picchu are almost invisible. Apparently, the Inca engineered excellent foundations and drainage systems, which are hidden below the ground. NOVA has an interview with an engineer who investigated this.
Jette the animal lover had lots of fun with the llamas and alpacas at the site. Most of them were pretty tame and if you held up a tuft of grass, they would eat from your hand. Towards the end of the day we took a break on the porch of one of the reconstructed structures while Jette joined the llama herd.
Llamas (and alpacas?) grazing on the terraces
Porch
Hungry llama
Hanging out with new friends
After 7 or 8 hours of exploring Machu Picchu, we took the shuttle bus back down to Aguas Calientes. We were hungry, and we had some time to kill before the train back to Ollantaytambo, so we had dinner at one of the many tourist dives in town.
Back in Aguas Calientes
OMG! I love roodles! They’re totally my favorite!
Some interesting choices
I was really tempted by “Guinea Pig the furnace” but in the end settled for some chips and guacamole.
We often try to avoid really touristy places and given the costs and hassles associated with Machu Picchu, we seriously considered skipping it. In the end we were glad that we went. The setting in the mountains is truly spectacular. The ruins are too, but if they were plopped down in the middle of a big, flat field somewhere they would be much less so. As they are, it is a magical place.
06/05/2106 EDIT – Just found these photos and wanted to share them:
The flight from Lima to Cusco was quick – only about an hour – but the views were amazing. Even with an aisle seat I caught some amazing glimpses of the snow capped Andes. Beautiful! Cusco is so high in the Andes that when we landed it seemed like we barely had to descend.
On the ground in Cusco
Cusco sits in the mountains at more than 11,000 feet above sea level. Altitude sickness is an issue for many people above 8,000 feet, and it can be quite serious. From the moment the plane depressurized Mila and I could “feel” the altitude. For me the sensation was that of pressure in my head, especially behind my eyes, and a slight sense of being short of breath. I constantly felt like I needed to take a deep breath. The symptoms weren’t too bad, but definitely noticeable. Mila said that it felt like her head was in a vice, getting squeezed at the temples. Jette didn’t feel it at all. Ah, to be young!
We caught a taxi from the airport to our hotel in the old, touristy part of the city. The hotel was a quirky little place, but fine for our needs and we met some nice fellow travellers there each day at breakfast.
Our hotel
A slightly creepy welcome
We only come alive at night!
We were welcomed with cups of hot coca tea, a popular local drink which they say is good for relieving the symptoms of altitude sickness. It tasted like a smokey green tea, and was pleasant enough, though for me at least, it seemed to have no effect on my symptoms.
Coca tea is made by steeping the leaves of the coca plant in hot water. Coca tea is not to be confused with cocoa tea, also popular in Peru. Cocoa tea is made from the shell or husk of the cocoa bean – the same bean from which chocolate is made!
Speaking of coca, here’s a little bit of trivia. The original recipe for Coca-Cola included cocaine, a drug made from the chemical processing of coca leaves.
What most people don’t know is that Coca-Cola is still made with coca leaves. In fact, in 1922 when cocaine was outlawed in the United States and the import of coca leaves outlawed, the Coca-Cola Corporation was given a special exemption, allowing them and only them to legally import coca! Currently, this is done through their partner, the Stepan company. Wikipedia describes their coca operations:
The plant is the only commercial entity in the USA authorized by the Drug Enforcement Administration to import coca leaves, which come primarily from Peru. Approximately 100 metric tons of dried coca leaf are imported each year. The cocaine-free leaves are sold to The Coca Cola Company, while the cocaine is sold to Mallinckrodt, a pharmaceutical firm, for medicinal purposes.
Aside from tea, there are many coca products – from ointments to snacks – that are popular in Peru.
Coca snacks
With our tea cups empty and our bags safely stashed in our room, we ventured out to explore Cusco and find some dinner. In the old part of the city there are lots of narrow cobblestone streets.
Narrow sidewalks and endless traffic in Cusco.
Walking down some of them was really unpleasant as some of the sidewalks were so narrow that when you encountered someone coming the opposite direction there was not enough room to pass each other without stepping off the sidewalk or ducking into a doorway. Normally such narrow streets and sidewalks are cute and quaint. But in this instance there was so much traffic, so many cars, that it was was very unpleasant. Drivers whizzed by, often driving way too fast for the conditions. Every taxi that passed blasted its horn, hoping for a fare. It was loud and, as we would discover, dangerous.
As we were walking down one very narrow street, a driver came so close to the curb that his side mirror came into the sidewalk area, and smashed into me. Luckily it was a newer car with “folding” mirrors, so it simply bruised me a bit as the impact flipped his mirror back. Of course the driver didn’t even slow down. Welcome to Peru.
In the end, we found a nice dinner at quiet little restaurant.
Lomo Saltado – a popular Peruvian beef dish. There are more than 2,000 varieties of potatoes in Peru, so you never know what color your french fries might be!
Cusco was the political and religious capital of the Inca Empire. For a very short period from about 1400 to 1534 the Incas assembled a massive kingdom that stretched along the West coast of S. America from Colombia to Chile. At that time, it was the largest empire in the world. It was short-lived because the Spanish conquistadores arrived in the 1520’s and over the next 30 years decimated the population with fighting, enslavement and disease. In some parts of the Inca Empire only about 1 in 60 people survived. Very difficult times for the indigenous people.
After fishing and mining, tourism is the third largest industry in Peru, and modern day Cusco is a very touristy city. It gets about 2 million visitors each year. In the old part of the city it seems as if there is nothing but shops, hotels, touts and street vendors catering to tourists. We’d heard so many people rave about Cusco that we were expecting something, well, different. We wanted to like Cusco, but we just couldn’t. In fact it may have been one of the only places we’ve been that made us downright grumpy. Despite the fact that Cusco didn’t win our hearts, we still found lots of things to like. The setting is beautiful, there is lots of charming architecture, and the town is obviously rich with history.
Standing in front of Iglesia San Pedro, near the San Pedro Market in Cusco
Picarones near the market in Cusco
Bucket o’ dough (happens to include pumpkin and sweet potato puree)
Cusco had Jette climbing the walls!
Schoolgirls walking past the mercado
Old colonial architecture
Much to Jette’s dismay, guinea pig was on almost every menu.
When the Spanish arrived, they demolished many Inca buildings and used the stones to build churches and other colonial structures of their own. In Cusco you can see both old Inca structures and Spanish ones. One of the amazing things about many of the older Inca structures is the stonework. There are some truly massive stones assembled with amazingly precise joinery and without the use of mortar. Like the pyramids of Egypt, one really has to wonder how they were able to do it with the tools and technology of the time.
While mainstream archaeology attributes much of this work to the Incas, there are a number of people well outside the mainstream who theorize that many of these walls and structures were built as long as 15,000 years ago by an unidentified, pre-Inca culture using “lost ancient high technology.”
With this we are entering the realm of “aliens built the pyramids” – very alternative theories – but kind of fun! We watched a few of these videos and read a bit about this. While we can’t say that we fully embrace the theories, they did provide a really fun framework for looking at the structures we visited. And we saw a lot of old structures in Peru! After hours, days, and weeks of looking at site after site it can be very easy to glaze over and see them all as just another pile of Incan stones! Adding a little dash of “conspiracy theory” and approaching it like an archeological mystery to be solved made it more fun and engaging.
What if the mainstream archeologists are wrong? Could there have been a culture of megalithic builders here long before the Inca? What evidence can we find? What techniques were used in the construction of this?
These kinds of questions had us analyzing building techniques, gathering evidence, and testing theories rather than just wandering through and saying, “Hey look, another Inca stone wall…”
Late one afternoon, we took a taxi to Saqsaywaman, the Incan ruins in the hills above the city. The price of admission was much higher than we expected. We had read that the admission was about $3 USD each, but the cheapest option for foreigners turned out to be $74 USD for the three of us. For foreigners, prices are much higher and instead of being able to buy a ticket to enter the site, you can only purchase the expensive “Boleto Turistico” a one day pass to a handful of different sites, or the “Boleto General” an even more expensive ten-day pass to 16 sites. We weren’t planning to visit many of the sites on the list, so we debated whether it was worth it for that price. Ultimately we decided that we were here, so we might as well do it. As it turned out, we didn’t have enough cash on hand and they didn’t take credit cards!
So, unable to enter, decided to walk along the adjacent road and peek at the ruins through the fence and hedge they have planted to block the view. As we walked, we spotted a footpath that led up an adjacent hill. Up we went and were rewarded with a very nice view of the ruins. We could only see them from a distance, but the view was good and the vantage point gave us a very good sense of the overall layout of the site. We were content.
The site of Saqsaywaman above Cusco
The massive stones of Saqsaywaman.
After taking things in from our hillside viewpoint, we walked back down to Cusco. Along the way a local dog adopted Jette. It walked with us for about an hour, all the way down the mountain and back into town.
Jette’s new friend
Looking across the valley at Cusco.
Buddies on their way into town.
We stopped at a shop to buy the dog a treat, but while we were inside she left! Jette got to feed the other dogs we met on our way back to the hotel.
The collectivo to Ollantaytambo.
The next day, we caught a collectivo to the old Inca town of Ollantaytambo. Ollantaytambo would be our base for exploring Machu Picchu and the surrounding area. But that’s the next blog post!
Another flashback to about a month ago, where we pick up the tale of our travels. We had arrived in Cali, Colombia where a new credit card was awaiting us. We picked it up, spent one night in Cali, the hopped on the plane to Lima, Peru…
On arrival, we checked into our awesome Airbnb apartment. While we typically skip a lot of the really touristy things in the cities we visit, we decided that a open-top bus tour of Lima would be fun and a good way to begin to get a sense of the city and how it is laid out. So, we took an Uber to Larcomar, a beautiful, upscale shopping center built into a cliff on the edge of the Miraflores neighborhood. In addition to being a beautiful spot with great shopping and dining, this is where you can catch the tour bus. Here’s a video that sets the general scene. The round glass towers on the right side at the end of the video are part of Larcomar. You can’t see most of it as it is built into the cliffs below.
Did you know that Lima had beaches and surfing? I didn’t!
Anyway, the bus tour was pretty good. At least it gave us a peek at the old, downtown neighborhoods of Lima, and a very good taste of the crazy Lima traffic. We stopped and had short walking tours of a couple historic plazas, popular neighborhoods, and some creepy catacombs.
Bus tour of Lima
Giant ant sculpture in Barranco park
Going through downtown Lima
Tour group in the plaza
Grand colonial architecture
Policeman boots us from the plaza in anticipation of protests.
Cartwheel above the catacombs
Mila snuck a photo in the catacombs. Naughty! They estimate that there are 30,000 people buried in the catacombs. Talk about creepy…
The bus sat in traffic for about an hour and made it back to Larcomar about the time the sun was going down.
View from Larcomar
Like Bogota and Medellin, the climate in Lima is near perfect. You don’t need air conditioning or heat. The sun is warm and intense, but it is cool in the shade. The average daily highs and lows vary only about 10 degrees and rarely get below 60 or above 80 any time of year. Amazing.
Oddly, it is a desert, in the mountains, on the ocean. This makes for a very distinctive climate. In addition to the perfect temperatures, it is very dry in terms of precipitation, but fog is common. In fact the city has been blanketed with fog almost every morning we’ve been here.
The negative is the air quality. The air pollution is horrible. This is a city of 10 million people and what seems like 100 million cars, trucks and busses belching smoke. Yuck. Fog and smog, smog, smog.
Culture in LIma, and Peru in general, was very different than Colombia. People were friendly, but less so than in Colombia. People were not nearly as polite. In Colombia when you said, “Gracias” people would always respond, “Con gusto!” with a smile. That didn’t happen much at all in Peru. Little things like how place settings were laid out in restaurants, even simple restaurants, made Colombia feel more refined.
Simple things like walking down the sidewalk or trying to cross the street in Peru were hilariously maddening. Clearly the Peruvian sense of personal space, courtesy, and right-of-way are very different than our own.
Walking on a sidewalk or in a shopping mall, you can fully expect that other people will walk right into you or shove their way between you if you are walking with someone. As you are walking, people will step out of doorways right into you. Groups will spread out across the whole sidewalk and force you into the street. Sidewalks and staircases were constantly blocked by groups of people chatting, looking at their phones, or simply taking up space. People would congregate at the top and bottom of escalators. On a couple of occasions, adults physically shoved Jette aside or cut in front of her in lines at shops and in Cusco a man pushed her off the sidewalk and into the street. He’s very, very lucky that I didn’t see this and only learned about it from Jette after the fact.
On an airplane, we had a woman shove her way between Jette and me as we were exiting the plane. She shoved me multiple times, and tried to push past me. Impossible in the narrow, crowded aisle. When she couldn’t push past me, she began to push up against me continuously, as if she was trying to push me and everyone in front of me off the plane! I turned around and told her in no uncertain terms, “DO NOT TOUCH ME!” It had little effect, and ultimately the point of my umbrella sent the message effectively and she backed off.
Drivers in Peru are among the worst we’ve seen anywhere in the world. In many countries, road “rules” are taken as mere suggestions. This is certainly true in Peru. Lane markings, traffic signals, and stop signs mean nothing. The design of the traffic infrastructure is almost identical to the US. The road look the same. Same lane markings, same crosswalks, same everything. It is just the behavior that is different. There is absolutely no accommodation made or right-of-way given for pedestrians. Most drivers will not yield for pedestrians crossing the street in a marked crosswalk. I did a Google search for “pedestrians in peru” and of the first results was an abstract from a medical journal:
Reducing pedestrian deaths and injuries due to road traffic injuries in Peru: interventions that can work
Pedestrians in Peru are the victims of the greatest proportion of road traffic fatalities in the world. In 2009, pedestrians were involved in 27% of road traffic incidents in Peru. This is a significant public health problem in Peru and it has important economic effects as well…
Beyond the massive numbers of pedestrians maimed and killed by negligent drivers, the traffic congestion is horrible. In Lima major intersections were blocked with huge jams of honking drivers, all ignoring any notions of lanes or right-of-way. Roundabouts that would function smoothly anywhere else in the world were constantly jammed in Lima. I’d say it was worse than Indonesia or India. It was almost like watching America’s Funniest Home Videos – you could just see the consequences of bad decisions happening everywhere you looked.
Traffic police. This has to be one of the biggest jokes in Peru. There are traffic police everywhere. They are standing at every major intersection dressed in their fancy costumes, often with white patent leather holsters and goofy little helmets. Sometimes they have little orange wands which they wiggle back and forth, regardless of what traffic is doing. On the highways in Lima, there is typically one of these guys/gals standing on the side of the road at every exit and overpass. They don’t ever seem to do anything other than stand next to their motorcycles and look at their phones. On one occasion we passed a disabled vehicle. On another, a crash scene. In both cases there were traffic police just standing at their posts by the highway exit or overpass, not helping in any way, just surfing facebook on their phones and collecting a salary. The Peruvian National Police force employs 140,000 and is notoriously corrupt (second only to the judicial system). Many of the traffic police are now women, because there is a popular notion that women are less likely to be corrupt.
Car alarms. The car alarm is the Peruvian national anthem. It is played at all hours of the day and night, everywhere you go. You would think that Peruvians are very patriotic since it is played 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but they always seem to ignore it.
All of these gripes aside, we enjoyed Lima. Jette enjoyed cooking in the apartment kitchen, but we also enjoyed so great meals out. The apartment was close to Pasteleria San Antonio, a very popular bakery and cafe where we enjoyed some delicious salads. We made multiple trips to La Lucha, a super yummy sandwich shop with great sandwiches, frites, and chocolate shakes.
Salads make me smile
Yummy La Lucha
Classic combo of chicharron, camote, and salsa criolla.
Sorry Philly, you lose to these guys.
The bread they use is really good.
Delicious fries
Jette was excited to find bubble tea.
Lunch in old downtown Lima
Beyond the delicious lunches, we had fun exploring Lima. We went down to the beach, caught a nighttime fountain show, and generally just enjoyed slowing down and being in one place for a while.
Local color
Mila getting her shoes fixed
JFK Park is full of cats.
Miraflores park on the top of the cliff.
The path down to the beach
The cliff from which the paragliders take off.
Classic surf van. Lots of old VWs here.
Handstand on the rocky beach.
Ready for the show.
Fountain hugs.
Fountain gymnastics.
In terms of her studies, Jette finished her last math workbook. Yay!
DONE!
She’s almost finished with the second of the three Story of the World books. Each book is designed to provide material for a full school year, but Jette’s goal is to finish all three this year. We’ve sent the physical workbooks home, so she is no longer doing the map work. She’s reading, writing a complete summary of each chapter, and we’re discussing it. She’s doing fantastic.
After a week or so enjoying Lima, we boarded a flight to the mountain town of Cusco, the jumping off point for Machu Picchu…
After a great couple of weeks exploring Peru – Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, etc. – we’re back in Lima. As we slow down for a few days I thought I’d get a quick and easy blog post up. More detailed posts about our recent adventures are in the works and coming soon!
Counterfeit currency is everywhere here and I thought it would be fun to show you one of the counterfeit bills we’ve received and how to identify them.
We haven’t been checking notes we receive very closely, so we got suckered! We received this counterfeit 20 Sole note somewhere along the way, either as change from a purchase, or possibly from an ATM. Since the counterfeit notes can be purchased for 25% of face value, the crooked businesses that buy them and pass them off to unsuspecting tourists as change have quite a high profit margin – if they don’t get caught! We first realized that we had a counterfeit when we tried to buy lunch and the shop rejected the note. Bummer!
Here’s another video about a counterfeiting “bust” in Lima:
Have you ever been sitting in a movie theater on the 4th floor of a giant shopping mall and felt the whole building shake? We hadn’t either, until tonight!
We went to the 6:20 feature of The Jungle Book at the Victoria Mall in Pereira, Colombia. About 30 minutes into the movie we felt the whole building shake. It was a weird sliding motion, not too extreme, but enough to really feel. At first I think we all thought it was an effect or trick of the senses from the 3D movie. When we realized that the whole building was moving, we got up and headed straight for the emergency exit.
About a quarter of the theater had the same idea, but people were so casual about the whole thing it was weird and frightening. They were moving very, very slowly, many of them just standing around in the stairwell and blocking the exits. As we were making our way out of the theater the lights came on. No one was panicked and people didn’t even seem to be talking about it. There were no announcements and no visible security or direction from staff. We got out of the theater and into the main part of the mall. There it was as if nothing had happened. Nonetheless, we got down to the ground level as quickly as we could and went outside, straight to the middle of a large plaza on one side of the mall. We wanted to be somewhere safe if another, stronger shock hit and buildings collapsed.
No one else seemed the least bit concerned, or seemed to be doing anything at all. Apparently we were overreacting by local standards. Hey, better safe than sorry as far as I’m concerned! How could we know if that was it or just a small tremor kicking off a much bigger series of shocks?!
Once again, our superfriend Anita gave us instant access to global quake data!
Apparently what we felt were shocks from a 7.8 earthquake centered in Ecuador. The news is currently reporting 28 dead there and a tsunami warning. This is what it looked like in Ecuador:
We’re getting ready for bed, and while it seems highly unlikely that we’ll have a dangerous quake here, we have an exit plan worked out should we be surprised with another set of tremors overnight. Sweet dreams!
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