Langwitches Travel

Peru is an amazing country. It has been almost two months since I have returned and the experience is still alive. We arrived in Lima from San Jose  and barely had time to get used to Peru, when we boarded a plane again to fly Southeast to Cusco.

We were picked up by a driver at the airport and driven about one hour Urubamba in the Sacred Valley. On our way we stopped by a local weaving community.

We were starting to worry, since the altitude started to give us some problems. We decided to spend the afternoon resting in our cabin at Kuychi Rumi.

Urubamba Valley

The following Monday we took a 5 am train to Machu Picchu, City in the Clouds. Amazing…

Back in Cusco, we only had a few hours to explore the city in the rain. Cusco is a city I would love to return one day to spend more time wandering the narrow streets. Casa San Blad was a perfect little hotel only 2 blocks from the Plaza de Armas.

Pisac Mercado: I could have spent days wondering around looking at all the colorful textiles, carpets bags and wall hangings.

We stopped at a Llama, Vicuna, Alpaca and Guanaco farm. Don’t they look similar to their camel cousins in Egypt?

Peruvian people are simply BEAUTIFUL.

We took a day long bus ride all the way to Puno at the shores of Lago Titicaca.

View of our hotel room in Puno. We had a hard time breating at over 3600 meters of altitude.

One of the highlights was out visit to the Floating Islands on lake Titicaca. This little Uro girl posed for me, while we were floating by on our boat.

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The day continuted with a visit to the Tequile island.

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Costa Rica has been a long time dream travel destiny for me. It was simply incredible to see all the animals,  plants and sheer beauty of the landscape of this country. Incredible the view of the volcano Arenal that we woke up to… Incredible to waterfalls of La Paz… incredible the fruits we tasted… incredible to crocodile safari, when a young 18 year old risks his life every day for tourists…incredible the rain and the cloudforest… CRAZYNESS in going on a zipline… incredible all the photos that I took and I can’t decide which ones are my favorite ones. I just hope that these images serve as a reminder for the INCREDIBLE feast of the eyes I was privileged in seeing.

Colibri- Hummingbird- Picaflor at La Paz Waterfall Gardens

Poas Volcano

Volcano Arenal

A short stop at the side of the road: Fresas con crema- Que rico!!!

On the way to Quepos, we stopped for a crocodile “safari” We had an amazing opportunity to see much wild life. We even heard Macaws, although did not see them. The feeding of a crocodile was unbelievable.

The Pacific Ocean at the entrance of Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio

Monteverde, cloudforest, right before it turned it a rain forest. We got completely wet, while running over hanging bridges and through forest paths.

We did not take any pictures on our zipline ride though the Arenal area. I don’t know what I was thinking when I signed up for the ride!! One of those things that you do once in your life and are glad that you can live to tell about it.

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Off to Costa Rica Adventure

Originally uploaded by langwitches

I am waiting in Miami to take off for San Jose, Costa Rica. I am
traveling with my colleague Terry P as part of another Global Studies
trip. We are blogging for our students about Jose the travel bears
adventure on www.sjeds.com/blog/latinamerica

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photo.jpg

Originally uploaded by langwitches

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Feria de Mataderos is not your typical tourist (upper scale) market as you would find in San Telmo or Recoleta. In Mataderos, which is in the Western part of Buenos Aires, is where the typical Argentinean might go on the weekend.

Arts & Crafts, leather, ceramics, shoes, hand knitted swesters, marmelade, cheeses, bread, salamis, home made chocolate, regional goods and so much more.

Music and people dancing in the street.

We had a great Choripan (Bread with a Chorizo/Bratwurst) as a snack that were being offered on every street corner.

Typical Empanadas

In the afternoon sand is distributed on one of the streets, and Gauchos start the “Sortija” run with their horses. They will gallop at maximum velocity down the street, lined with the spectators on both sides. In their hand they hold a tiny stick that they are to put through a small ring that is suspended from an arch. The crowd goes wild, when they pull the ring off.

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What a beautiful day! We went to the Mercado de los Frutos, by taking the Tren de la Costa from Olivos to Tigre. In Tigre, where the Parana Delta lies.On the weekend you will find the famous “Mercado de los Frutos“, the market of the fruits. Fruits that came from the delta. Grass, bamboo, wood, etc.

Of course they are also the Arts and Craft stands with leather goods, earrings, necklaces, and other nick nacks.

We took a catamaran and went for a tour of 1 1/2 hours ride around the delta and were rewarded with a beautiful sunset.

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Theater Diary of Anne Frank

Originally uploaded by langwitches
There is a small theater, Teatro Regina,  on the second floor of this building on Santa Fe. Just a few blocks away from 9 de Julio. We had reserved tickets over the phone and picked them up one hour before the play started.

It was the opening night for “El diario de Anne Frank”. The girls both had read the book and Leah even read the play version and watched the play as a movie in school about a month ago. So, they were familiar with the story of Anne Frank.

In about 1 1/2 hours (no intermission) the 10 actors wowed us and pulled us into the story. Although I have read the diary  (the first time when I was 11 years old) many times, seen plays, watched movies, read other accounts of Anner Frank  from her father or Miep , I once again hoped that the families hiding in the attick would make it safely through the war. I hoped that they would be the lucky ones and Anne would fulfill all her dreams and hopes that she so eloquently wrote about in her diary.

It was a very small theater. The set could not have been wider than 15 meters. We sat in the third row..in the middle… No one, but one lonely person in the first row, was sitting in front of us. The girl, portraying Anne Frank, sat several times, pretty much directly in front of us, for a monologue. It is amazing how much we are used to staring at a TV, movie or computer screen.Safe…knowing that we are not part of it… I had to remind myself that she was looking at US, while she was talking. She was seeing our faces and reactions!

Very powerful.

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There is an old market located in Belgrano: Juramento/Ciudad de la Paz

I remember going to this market when I first came to Argentina. It is very sad to see so many empty areas in the market.
One elderly lady arrived at the vegetable stand. The owner hurried to get her a chair, so she could sit down to choose her vegetables.

Enjoy the walk around cheeses, meat, vegetables and more…

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The weather has turned for the worst. It has started raining and has not stopped yet. We were getting soaking wet while accompanying my mother to an appointment downtown. We were walking along Santa Fe, when we stumbled into a used bookstore.

“Wow”  was the only word that came to mind. The owner explained to me that the bookstore has been open for 60 years and that the small rooms were holding over 125,000 books.

The smell of books…

There was a ladder on each wall and a iron tracks on the ceiling, were the ladder could ride along. The girls immediately made a connection to the first Harry Potter movie and the store, where Harry purchases his first wand.

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