Fun.          Jungle.       Fun in the Jungle.       Monkeying around.

The Fungle is all this and a little more. It is a complete story telling environment designed for 5 – 10 year old children. Our family has been having fun with the demo version of The Fungle for the past two weeks and we have found a groove that interests us all. Chula – strictly the stories, Mieja – the changing room and popping bubbles, moi(even though I do not fall in the 5-10 years category) – the concept, how the whole environment is presented and how the different components are weaved together.

I could go on and on and tell you how each story is tied together with activities and hence the child gets to re-experience the story in another form……but that will take the fun of exploration away from you and your children right?

You can have fun too:
-Visit The Fungle
-Register as a parent. The demo version allows you to create up to two child profiles.
-Explore using the child profile.
-For more information, click here.

When I heard about The Fungle, as a parent I had a few questions. Narayanan Vaidyanathan, the CEO of Gamaya Inc, was nice to answer these questions for me.

How did The Fungle come about?
We created The Fungle to be a safe, fun & interactive world where kids can learn about the various cultures in the World.

My grandmother is a great storyteller – an endless stream of stories and an amazing amount of patience! Now, as a parent, I appreciate that more than ever! We are too busy & far away from extended family and our kids are stuck to the couch with their game consoles and TV but I wanted my kid to hear all those stories. So we needed a tireless storyteller who can keep todays kids engaged! That’s how The Fungle came about.

Explain more about online safety in The Fungle.
The safety of kids in The Fungle has been very important to us from the start. We ensure the following –

1. We strictly adhere to the COPPA guidelines.  (http://www.coppa.org/)

2. We do not ask for any personally identifiable information about the kids.

3. There is no way for kids to share personal information or pictures with others in The Fungle.

4. Our chat system will be based on pre-made phrases and sentences, so kids (or adults) in the site cannot say anything inappropriate to other users.

5. We understand kids will want to communicate freely with their friends within The Fungle through our internal mailing system (BeeMail) – for this we plan to make parents responsible for picking and approving friends they know in real life, to also be friends in The Fungle. This way, the child has no way to befriend someone their parents don’t know or approve.

6. We don’t have any external links to pages outside The Fungle or advertisements that can lead a child out of our website.

The Fungle does not support advertisements. How does it work?
We felt having advertisements (banners with links to the advertisers website), while a decent source of revenue, is not safe for the age group we are targeting – a kid could click on an ad, be taken out of our site and then they are out in the open web. As a parent, that is a very scary thought! The world you can see and play in now will be our free trial area. Anyone can register for free and play in it with no time restrictions. We will offer expansion packs for parents to buy for their kids. Each expansion pack will contain 5 or so storybooks and access to a new location in the world & some games. We will also offer seasonal expansion packs with stories relevant to the season like Diwali or Christmas or Chinese New Year that parents can buy. Once a parent buys an expansion pack, the child will be able to access it the next time they log in. Pricing of these expansion packs is still being worked out and will vary based on content, but it is likely to be around $7 each. Kids like getting surprise gifts! So we will offer parents special virtual items to purchase and send to their kids in The Fungle. These gifts will be costumes and items for their avatar and will be priced at $1 or less. We believe most parents will prefer to pay something reasonable for safe high quality content and cultural enrichment, rather than a free portal with ads.

There is a fine line between being very interested in something and being obsessed. Does The Fungle have any check points to make sure that the child does not spend too much time playing?
Yes, we have plans to allow a parent to limit the time they can spend in The Fungle. We also have a way for parents to know when their child played last and how much time they spent in The Fungle. We will also remind kids after an hour or so of continuous play to stop playing and take a break.

How much parental support is required to play the game?
A child who can read & comprehend simple english, likely 5 or 6 years and older, will not require any parental support. We have designed the product to be intuitive to young children and have been doing periodic focus tests with kids to ensure new features stay intuitive. Kids younger than 5 will have more fun playing with their parent. We have got feedback from some of our parents that they enjoyed our stories too and reading along with their kids was a nice way to spend some time together!

Please feel free to email/contact me for further clarifications. (feedback@thefungle.com)

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has detailed lesson plans for educators about Holocaust and the reason why children must learn about it. But for me this quote below is reason enough.

“There is only one thing worse than Auschwitz itself….
….and that is if the world forgets there WAS such a place.”
-Henry Appel, Survivor

I strongly believe that young children must not be exposed to meaning less violence like in movies, video games and graphic print media, so why introduce Holocaust to my four year old and six year old?

Well…. media violence is perceived as entertainment. It encourages the child to take a passive role and makes the child indifferent to what is going on. By introducing Holocaust to my children, I am trying to achieve the exact opposite effect – as quoted in USHMM website, ‘ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping in any society’, highlight the seriousness of the being indifferent and finally, speaking against what is unfair.

Considering the epic nature of Holocaust and the age of the target group, one has to tread carefully to achieve the desired goals.

Poppin’s Mom’s review of Brundibar was god sent! To a preschool child it is the story of Aninku and Pepicek, two poor siblings who are trying to defeat the town bully and get some milk for their ailing mother. While the adult is acutely aware that the town bully is Hitler and finds that every line is loaded with deep meaning, my six year old perceived it as a book about bullying and how one must stand up against bullies. My four year old requested the book to be read multiple times for the sheer pleasure of pronouncing the names Aninku and Pepicek. Over the past four months we borrowed the book from the library many times and after multiple readings and some discussions with my six year old, I felt that it was time to introduce the next book.

Terrible Things: An Allegory Of The Holocaust by Eve Bunting, was next in the natural progression. Eve Bunting seems to be inspired by Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous quotation, ‘First they came….’, for Terrible Things is a story in first person by a little rabbit about the forest in which he is living with various other animals. Little rabbit is first to see the ‘terrible things’ – vague shadowy shapes with no specifics. Every time the ‘terrible things’ return, they systematically take away and eradicate one species of animals. The other animals are quite indifferent to what is happening to their friends and one day find themselves being taken away by the terrible things.

Having read this book, I must say that the way the book is presented  – the animals as characters, beautiful pencil illustrations, vagueness of the terrible things which creates the desired amount of terror, is awesome. Eve Bunting effectively addresses how hatred without any basis when combined with indifference can lead to monumental catastrophe. In our house it set the stage for many discussions with my six year old.

I am guessing that we will be content discussing and reading Terrible Things for few more years to come. But the next book I will introduce will be The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco.

The Butterfly by Polacco touched me because it is the personal story of the author’s aunt and grand aunt. Polacco’s aunt Monique is a young child living in Nazi occupied part of France during WWII. One day purely by accident Moniqure finds out that a jewish family is living in the basement of her house and that her mother is part of the underground movement that helps jewish people hide and move out to safety. Monique becomes friends with the little jewish girl Servine, living in her basement. Because Servine spends her day cooped up in the dark basement, Monique finds things from the outside that cheers up Servine. This is how for the girls and to the readers, a butterfly comes to signify freedom from oppression. One night the girls are playing in Monique’s bedroom and are spotted by Monique’s neighbor. Lives are in jeopardy and they have to act quickly to get Servine and her family far away from Nazi soldiers. We later find out that only Servine made it to safety. Polacco is very effective when she talks about how the little girls going to school are terrorized by Nazi soldiers marching on the road but have put up a merry facade in order to not attract any undue attention. Extremely touching book that I will read with my children when they are 7+, because I want the story to sink in proper.

New York Times in its controversial(and hastily concluded in my opinion) article about picture books, raises the question if we as a society are moving away from picture books. All I can say, from my personal experience is that picture books are not just for young children. The print + picture media must be an option while introducing any new subject, irrespective of the target audience. While broaching new and intense subjects like the Holocaust, picture books provide the desired impact without overwhelming the reader. Another excellent example is Morpurgo’s Mozart Question, reviewed by Choxbox, a picture book for all ages. Choxbox says, “the backdrop of the story is, like many of Morpurgo’s books, the Second World War. Though technically it is for a child between ages 8-12, even older folks will enjoy it”

Stay tuned to SaffronTree for more book recommendations.

All the ruckus in the virtual world about one woman’s parenting style, made me think of the sitcoms I used to watch, the sitcom mommies and how they dealt with their kids.

Bewitched, Cheers, The Cosby show, Dharma and Greg, Family Matters, Frasier, Friends, Fresh prince of Bel-Air, Fullhouse, Family Matters The golden girls, I love Lucy, Matlock, Home Improvement, I dream of Jeannie, Seinfeld, Sister Sister….

These were my staple sitcoms during my pre-baby-non-career-woman days. Family Matters was the first sitcom I watched in the US. YaadaYaada having arrived in the US a year earlier than I, was my TV guide. She sang praises on the sitcom about the African American family, the doctor husband, the lawyer wife, their five children. She meant the Cosby Show. I channel surfed and ended up watching Family Matters. It took me a good three episodes to figure out that it was not the Cosby Show! But when I did watch the Cosby Show, the one person who captured my heart, the one and only Claire Huxtable. I knew I wanted to be a mother like her – loving, accommodating but no nonsense, poised and sensible. I am still working on poise people, but doing good over all, if I may say so myself.

So here is a fun survey. Choose from the list ( Claire Huxtable, Jill Taylor, Rosanne and Mrs.Beaver ) your favorite. It will be open till Jan 24, 4.00AM PST. Have a good one folks.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Edited to add: Reults of survey here.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yesterday was Chula and Mieja’s first day taking swim lessons. I posted in the school’s parent yahoo groups, made couple of phone calls and registered them in a highly recommended swim school. They have classes once a week for 30 min. So I was fully aware that the money spent is for them to monkey around in water, which they did and had lots of fun. Well, I can dream that they freestyle across the Suez canal after these ten, once a week, thirty min classes, but again it will be just a dream.

Now I have to mention that of my M.A.N.Y pet peeves, one that will rank number one is my obsession towards maintaining a schedule and the other one that will be in the top ten is public water facilities.

My schedule goes like this:

– Swim class at 5.30PM = We have to leave home at 5.00PM.
-Leave home at 5.00PM = we must be ready dressed + kids’ back packs packed + their after swim snack ready + boots on + jackets on + customary potty round etc done by 4.55PM.
-Back pack ready at 4.55PM = start packing back pack at 4.30PM.
-They need to have a substantial snack before swim and it must be at least 90 min before the swim. So biggish snack/light early dinner at 4.00PM.
-Eat at 4.00PM = dinner, snack all done by 2.00PM. So I can go pick them up at 3.00PM. (Now if some one points out to me that we live exactly 1.8 miles away from school and it takes exactly 6 minutes one way even if all the four traffic lights are on, I will have to ask you to shut up and refer you to my pet peeve # 1. It has to be like this only.)
-I can hear the clock ticking, every second passes with an ominous thud, I am moving at warp speed, but the rest of family is not. So I feel this enormous pressure of carrying every one through my schedule in order to achieve the deliverable. Working on that folks…. might take a life time though.

Now to my next pet peeve about public water facilities. My most traumatic life experience so far, is that I had to dip in sea at Rameshwaram in order to ward off the ill effect of some planet in my husband’s birth chart. I consider it atrocious that I had to do it with him just because we are married. The very fact that I was forced to do it, created many ill effects for the husband that were not in his birth chart. Pity-huh?!

I see in water, things that no one can possibly see with their normal eye. I imagine one person swallowing water and coughing it out and their germs coming to me/my children crawling in slow motion with Jaws music playing inside my head.  The funny thing is that I am not your typical Purell worshipper. Water just seems to enhance my out of the box thinking.

So after the swim class, I washed, dried, dressed, blow dried the girls’ hair once at the pool side. Brought them home, dumped them directly in to the tub, shampooed their hair, scrubbed the top layer of skin off, rinse, repeat, ditto at home. Then the usual smahan after hair bath, churanam to clear sinus, blow dry their hair, moisturize etc etc ritual followed. Of course, I have a target bed time, so all this scrubbing activities have to be reverse engineered and timed accordingly. You all get a fair idea of how things roll right?

By 8.00PM, I was a wreck. I felt like eating murukku….. chewing the crispy, fried, oily snack seems to be the perfect solution to get rid of all that stress. Unfortunately there was no murukku at home and so the husband was collateral damage to the process of de-stressing.

The bigger point to all this is……. (yes, however pointless all this seems there is a point peeps) taking the children to an activity that I am not comfortable in is ‘this’ hard for me. I usually stick to my comfort zone of art, dance and dabble a little bit in music. The rest is like pulling a huge stone uphill by tying it to my hair. So hats off to the parents, Chinese and others, who are very sure about their choices for their kids and go through the hassle of taking them to various classes and putting in the grueling hours of practice and such. Amy Chua might call me lazy, but it is like that only. I just want to choose my battles.

PS: My opinion about Amy Chua’s article:
I didn’t like the stereotyping. For example, Asian kids play video games, do sleep overs and have extra curricular activities that Amy Chua may not approve of. She just translated what she did at home to all Asians.

I admire her guts for telling out in the open what she believes in.

I agree that Asian parents have high expectations on their children, while some non-Asian parents might be afraid to have any kind of expectations on their children. It is not wrong to have expectations.

I also agree that children need to be presented the same activity many many times before they master it and are very comfortable in it. But every parent does ‘the presentation’ in different ways. Not all Asian parents yell and go on a war path.

God give me strength to not call my children garbage, however testing their behavior is.

Whatever you do, do it with conviction. Example, the worst will be a ‘typical’ Asian parent parenting the ‘typical’ western way and expecting the result of ‘typical’ Asian parenting and vice versa.

Some time in the past two years, in my Language and Literacy Development in Young Children class, the prof passed a Caldecott honor book and asked us to read it.

It was the story of the seven blind mice. The mice encounter something next to their pond and try figuring out what the object is. On Monday the red mouse touches a part of the object and says that it is nothing but a giant column of enormous girth. On Tuesday the next colored mouse touches a part of the object and says that it is just a fan. Monday through Saturday, the different colored mice touch only one part of the object and come to different conclusions. Finally on Sunday, the white mouse runs from one end of the object to the other end, pieces together the entire information and declares that the object in fact is an elephant.

This is a story we have all heard growing up. I love the moral behind the story, ‘by looking at just a part of the bigger picture, you distort the whole picture’. The reason this particular book was discussed in class is because the book was a controversial book and many classrooms do not use it.

Any guesses why? Well… I advice you to sit down while I give you the reason, because the mouse that comes out on Sunday and solves the riddle is a ‘white’ mouse. If you read between the lines, ignore the moral of the story, focus on a singular detail and decide based on one snippet of the whole big picture…. the books claims that white is superior to other colors, which can be further extended to people with white skin are superior. Ironic indeed.

Well, this unfortunately is not the only example. The most recent person caught in controversy is Mark Twain. You ain’t free even if you are dead Mr.Twain. The future will come back to get you.  Just be thankful that it is not a Terminator coming back in time, but just a publishing company deciding to replace the word ‘nigger’ with the word ‘slave’.

The bigger questions are:

What exactly are people trying to accomplish here?

Does Mark Twain’s use of the word nigger make him a racist?

Should one look at the bigger picture, namely the story of friendship between Huck and Jim and the period the story was set in, or should be bogged down by just one word and shun away from the book?

If one word defines a book, the author, what about the fate of books like ‘To kill a mocking bird’, that have the same offensive word?

A book is the intellectual property of its author. In many ways, it the author’s baby. Can some one, without the author’s permission, decide to change the book, even if it is just one word?

By replacing one word, by rewriting old literature, can history be rewritten too?

Doesn’t the new generation deserve the actual history?  Or do we give them a politically correct, glossed over version because it is easy for us to deal with demons from past history, because it removes a certain level of awkwardness in our current social life?

What do you think peeps?

Picture courtesy Amazon.com. Cross posted at Saffron Tree.

18 months is truly a milestone for children. That is when power struggles start and children learn by pushing their limits. Even at this young age, there are a few things the children have the ultimate control (and know that they have control, that is the fun part – eh?!) over the adult. The holy trinity are food, sleep and potty conditioning. These three can literally drive a fully grown adult to verge of insanity.

Let us focus on sleep. LITTLE HOOT is a children’s book that deals with bed time trouble. Tonnes of books, both parenting and children’s books, have been written on this topic. So what is new about LITTLE HOOT?

Children will find it absolutely absurd and funny. For the adults, it teaches that every parent is struggling with some kind of an issue, you are not alone, so take a chill pill.

Amy Krouse, always manages to find a different angle to pitch her story. In LITTLE PEA, she talks about food battles through a protagonist who likes to eat spinach for dessert and hates candy. In LITTLE HOOT she addresses bedtime struggles through LITTLE HOOT, an owlet who likes to go to bed at a decent hour. Staying up late is an absolute no-no for him. But his parents who want to instill in him ‘good owl values’, try keeping him up well past the time he wants to hit the bed. Oh! the ideas these two come up with…. a laugh riot for children as well as adults.

Jen Corace’s minimalistic ink and water color illustrations ups the cuteness factor of this charming story.

Some books on the same topic we enjoyed at home are I don’t want to go to bed, Llama Llama Red Pajama

If there is one thing all my friends, relatives, colleagues and acquaintances know about me, it is that I fast every friday. Rain or shine, even when I am traveling, I fast without fail. Yet, I am not a religious person in the way my mother or my mother-in-law are. Lighting the lamp and offering prayers on a daily basis are not my strongest forte.

I started the fast on March 5th, 2004. At this age and stage, I have already started to classify all events, except for the girls’ birthday, by month and year, because the brain is becoming throughly incapable of remembering dates. Last year, I forgot R’s birthday and my birthday because I have already blurred over the date and have filed it in my head as ‘sometime in Oct’ and ‘sometime in Nov’. But I remember March 5th, 2004! Is it because one always remembers the days their life changed for ever?

The funny thing about days that change your life is that, many a times they are so irrelevant and hardly seem monumental when it is actually happening. In fact some time in middle of April 2004, I had to look up the calendar and think back to narrow the date to March 5th. Even then it did not seem so big. Over an extended period of time, one grows, develops associations and the before you know it something irrelevant has already been coined as ‘life changing’.

On March 5th, 2004, the friday I started the fast, to me, all was lost. The only request I had for the higher power I was calling out to was to help me find happiness. In some way, may be the time was right or may be because I stopped fighting or may be all I had was faith, it worked and I did find happiness.

The quest to bear a child was over. But I held on to the fast determined that I will stop fasting after I have a second one. Three years and two children later, I was still fasting and told myself that I will finish the fast when the children turn five…. or may be fifty five…. That is when the warning came from an unexpected source.

My amma, though we have different perspectives on many things, asked me, ‘What are you trying to do? Holding God on a bind? Is it a retainer of some sort? What are you demanding her to do? Fasts must have an ending, that way you stayed focused.When something goes on for indefinite period of time, it gets diluted and loses meaning’. That is when I realized how painful the Friday fasts have become for me. I was irritable, always craving for food, demanded special attention from R – because I was doing this sacrifice for his children, I wanted him to put me on a pedestal at least every Friday. Plus many get togethers, pot lucks at work, fancy lunches at work, corporate evenings out A.L.L happen on Fridays and obviously I haven’t been a part of it. As my amma pointed out there were days I accidentally did something that was not be a part of the fast. Those days I was not just miserable, I was in terror. I imagined that it was a sign that something was to go wrong with my children. Fear without any basis is probably the worst torture that the mind can come up with. I decided to reevaluate my fast.

I felt what had started as a quest for hope had changed direction so much that it was back firing. This was around the time Tharini recommended Eat, Pray, Love to me. Certain experiences Gilbert wrote about deeply resonated with me.

What did I do by fasting?

I was asking, like Elizabeth Gilbert would say, the universe for something.

Did I get it?

Yes.

When I started the fast, did I truly believe that the only thing that would bring me true happiness is to become a mother?

Yes.

So essentially I was asking for something and I got it. In fact I got more than what I asked for and I got it at the right time. I have a good thing going. May be I must celebrate that instead of being terrified by the future. After a lot of thought, I decided I must continue fasting every Friday, but not as a preventive mechanism, but as a celebration.

Today, as I tell any one who enquires, I fast because it is my thanks giving. As life goes on, there are new demands, expectations and disappointments. In this process I can possibly get thankless and greedy. Every Friday brings me back to reality, it grounds me to the very basic of my being, teaches me to be truly thankful, never to lose hope – no matter how tough things seem to be and to focus on what is truly important.

More TravelPeru posts.

Day 8: Sand Surfing

We flew out of Arequipa to Lima. We were on a tight time schedule so settled for a drive through of Lima. Our guide pointed out the important landmarks in Lima. The current campaign that is popular in Lima is the anti-Pizarro movement. The conquistador’s statue has been removed from the city center and placed at a park behind the Government Palace.

On our drive to Huacachina, what do we see?! In every color, autoriskshaws from Hamara Bajaj 🙂

We drove 200 miles in 6- 7 hours to reach Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of a desert. A sand buggy was waiting for us. It was an adrenaline pumping roller coaster like ride up and down the sand dunes. We stopped at some sand dunes that were 50 – 100 meters tall and surfed down the dunes lying tummy down on the surf board. The kids piggy backed down with us and requested for faster, taller dunes! Sand surfing rocks.

We took a trip to the supermarket to pick up some chips, water and yogurt for dinner. I was expecting to see a small store and what do I find?! A huge monstrosity of a shopping mall that can give any Walmart superstore run for its money. People were flocking to it like there is no tomorrow. Whether they can afford it? Do these people really need 300 varieties of shampoo that are sold at such a huge over head? Are people’s incomes going to come up to match the rising cost of living? Is this growth? If so is it sustainable? Peru seems to be caught up in the same bubble that exists in all developing countries.

Day 9: Nazca Lines

The next day we departed early to catch our 12 seater plane over the Nazca lines. Nazca culture is dated at 400AD – 650AD. In the desert, etched on the ground are these lines that range from simple straight lines to closed shapes to figures such as humming bird, tree, whale etc. What these lines signify and why they were made still remains a mystery. The geoglyphs are enormous, some the size of a football field! So the Nazca culture must have had some kind of scaling model and technique to construct these figures. Remember, they didn’t have a script!

The children heard the, ‘We are going to take a small plane to see the Nazca lines’ prep talk so much that they were wondering among themselves, ‘Why just lions in Nazca? What happened to the other animals? Are the Nazca lions better than the African lions?’

Flight above Nazca lines is not for the weak hearted/stomach(ed). The whole ride is approximately 15 – 20 min long and you reach 3200 feet in the first five minutes. As is the flight coined a new definition for ‘bumpy’. To add to this, they tilt the flight 15 – 20 degrees side ways on both side to make sure that the people get a good view of the lines. Before you board the plane, they weigh you and make you sit in a way that the weight is well balanced inside the plane. Unfortunately Chula has to sit by herself on a single seat. She was scared, but managed quite well. Of the 12 people in the plane, two youngest children fell asleep, one adult gave up and closed her eyes, one adult threw up, one about to throw up and the others barely managed. I found that sniffing Purell helped. But I had to sniff so much Purell to not throw up, that I was wobbly from all the alcohol that went to my head! Next to Machu Pichu, Nazca was a fantasy of mine and I am quite happy that I could do this.

After the first few figures, R gave up taking pictures and settled for keeping his stomach together. The astronaut in picture below is taken from an elevation of 3000 feet and is approximately 100 feet long. So you get the idea of the size of these things!

On our ride back to Lima we stopped at Chauchilla to see the excavated tombs. There are around 12 tombs and if you have seen one, you have seen it all. On a scale of 1 – 10, 10 being the best, I would rate it at 3. May be with interesting history and facts it can be a 4.5, but that is about it.

Lunch break was at a winery at Chincha. We were given a personalized tour of the Pisco making at this winery. They still make Pisco the old fashioned way – four women dance on about three tonnes of grapes the whole night 🙂

From this point onwards it was a race against time for us to make it back to Lima in time to catch our flight.

Misc

If you have children 8 years or younger in your group, check child rates. Though it is not specified, they are charged a different rate for bus/train/entrance tickets.

They have clean restrooms in most public places. You have to pay to use the restrooms. Pick up toilet paper where you pay. There are no toilet papers inside many public restrooms.

All the women in Peru seem to know Sharukh Khan.

In Machu Pichu my friend totally terrified our guide by asking, ‘Did they shoot the Indian movie here?’ The poor guy quickly replied, ‘No, no, no. No shooting. No Indians.’

The most common term used by Peruvian people – ‘No problem-no’.

I was pleased as punch that I was able to observe my special friday fasts in Peru too. It made me realize that if mentally prepared, all the fuel my body needs is two bananas, one avacado and a bottle of water over a 12 hour period of time.

If you don’t mind alcohol, try the Pisco sour with the raw eggs. R tried it with and without eggs and declared that with eggs is mucho delicioso.

I salivated over the super size corn they have. Finally tasted some and wasn’t that impressed.

When you go to small restaurants and if you are a big group, remember that they go out and purchase ingredients only after you order. Fresh food, but it takes a couple of hours.

Papas a.k.a potatoes. A member of our group gave specific verbal and non verbal instructions to cook the potatoes with onions, picante and voila potato curry that went well with our chapathis.

Italian food is quite popular, especially Fettucine and  pesto. But they kill you with the cheese over dose.

So folks, if any one is going to Peru, drop a line and I would be more than happy to chat. Ta! Happy new year and all that.

More TravelPeru posts.

From Cusco we took a overnight bus to Arequipa. The bus was top of the line with seats that incline to 135 degrees, temperature controlled, food service, restrooms etc. But I will not do it again.

Cruz Del Sur bus reservations can be done online. Bigger groups be aware that one can make only five reservations at a time. Two of us did the reservations for our group of ten and forgot to get the print outs for the second group. The thing is, their software is set up to search by the booking reservation number. We had our reservations, we had passports to prove our ID, but they couldn’t look up our names in the roster. Add the language barrier and time constraint, the situation was explosive. The lady checking the reservations wanted us to go to a browsing center and get our reservation number. It was 7.45PM, the moon was out, a new city and our bus leaves in 15 min. We had the good sense to refuse to do any such thing. Finally the lady offered to come with us to a browsing center. YaadaYaada and I jumped in a taxi with her and went to a browsing center. Problem solved? No. One realizes how spoiled one tends to be with the high speed internet and stuff like that! We type mail.yahoo.com and literally stared at the screen for what seemed like eternity for the sign in screen to appear. Meanwhile the rest of the group waiting at the bus station was wondering where we disappeared. 10 min for our bus to leave, finally we pulled out the reservation number and the lady who came with us called the bus station to start the boarding. But the rest of the group refused to step in to the bus till they see that Yaadayaada and I have landed in the bus station! Aren’t we all cute?! All drama aside we boarded the bus and traveled through the Andes to get in to Arequipa. Though we were sleeping the altitude was bothersome and I had to fight the urge to throw up.

Day 5: Arequipa

Arequipa is the second biggest town in Peru. Spanish colonists constructed most of the buildings with a white colored volcanic rock called the sillar and hence the name ‘white city’.

The plaza de armas or the city center is typical of the Spanish colonial period.

The basilica is framed by the volcano El Misti and looks impressive. The two other volcanoes in the region are Chachani and Pichu Pichu. The locals believe that El Misti is the husband and Chachani and Pichu Pichu are the wives.

Some from our group took the full loop bus tour that included the city and country tour. The rest of the group, read my friend and moi, popped paracetamol and slept off the sickness.

The bus tour is typical open roof top bus with a guide. Entrance to places like Santa Catalina monastery, Arequipa founder’s mansion,  Sabandia mill need to be purchased separately and are not included in the bus tour ticket price.

Day 6: Colca Canyon

We took a two day, one night bus trip to the Colca Canyon. Once you reach the outskirts of Arequipa, we saw, what was described by our tour guide as, ‘No running water-no? So people have this black tanks-no? A truck-no, fills it with water once a week’ and we all went, ‘Ada- namma SINTEX tank-no?! Same in India too-no?! We know all about the water trucks and no running water.’

It was dry dry dry that my nose was bleeding in and out of Colca.

We spotted lots of Vicuna in the wild. Very graceful, doe-eyed, petite creatures. Apparently baby vicunia fur is the most expensive and a jacket made of baby vicuna fur costs about $3000.

Colca Canyon is twice as deep as Grand Canyon, but not as dramatic as Grand Canyon because the slope is gradual. Though dry, dusty and arid  the Incans built agriculture terraces through out the canyon. The bottom half of the terraces were irrigated by the Colca river and the terraces at top half were watered by the glaciers that existed long time ago.

Peru is still very much an agriculture based society. Copper mining is also big.

There are more than 3000 types f documented varieties of potatoes cultivated in Peru.

Through out the lower walls of the canyon, dug out in the rock face are little caves or colcas where the produce was stored before being traded. How the Incans and pre-Incans reached these colcas which are only a few feet above the river, on almost vertical rock faces with huge loads of produce on their back is a wonder.

The natives in the Colca canyon still live the old fashion way. In and out of the canyon is by foot only.

In Colca, we stayed almost in the middle of no where is this beautiful lodge cabin with beautiful hammocks in open space. The children loved the hammock.

YaadaYaada, her husband and R went for a three hour hike across the canyon, got a close glimpse of the colcas. I was told that they crossed a old rickety rope bridge, so old and fragile that the guide said only one person on the bridge at a time. I turned green with envy and cursed my sickness. On this hike they also visited hot springs.

Day 7: Condor watching and back to Arequipa.
We left early in the morning to watch condors. Andean condors are the world’s largest flying birds. End of Nov is not the best time for condor watching because it is nesting time for the condors. We were dropped off at the Condor cross over look. We waited for almost 90 min with no condor in sight. Finally one, almost bored looking condor appeared, glided up and down, sat down for 10 min and posed for the pictures and flew away. My guess is that was sent by the condor mommies who figured that the noisy humans will never leave without watching at least one condor.

The rest of the day was spent in driving back to Arequipa. It takes 6 hours one way from Arequipa to Colca canyon. The road only reminded me of the Thanksgiving song my girls sing.

This old road is hard and bumpy
Aren’t turkeys are wild and jumpy
Driver, driver not so jerky
Or you will make us lose our turkey.

Only replace turkeys with throw up!

We were in Arequipa and still had a good couple of hours of day light and I wanted to catch at least a small bit of the city. So YaadaYaada, her husband and I took a taxi to see Santa Catalina monastery and Juanita museum. Singing songs from Sound of music in my head, we reached the Santa Catalina monastery, but it was closed. Bummer. But we did the Juanita(Ice Maiden) museum and I enjoyed it. No cameras allowed in the museum. They have a small collection of well organized exhibits and the guide was very knowledgeable.

Juanita was a young girl of 13 or 14 offered by the Incans as a sacrifice to appease their gods. The museum contains collection of objects from 5 different human sacrifices and the guide explained the significance of each object. It offers a good insight in to how the Incans kept statistics, maps, data etc. One amazing detail – the Incans preserved the umbilical cord of the baby in chincha(corn alcohol), because they believed that the umbilical cord has high medicinal properties. When the child falls sick, they gave the child a small portion of the chincha. That is cord blood ans stem cell theory for you folks.

While we were out the other two husbands, mine and the other friend’s cooked dinner for us in the hotel’s kitchen. Simple Maggie noodles, but the hotel staff were super kicked about the men cooking. The minute we got back from sightseeing they burst out to tell us with pride and joy about the men cooking in the kitchen 🙂

Day 8,9 follows and we are all done.

More TravelPeru posts.

Day 3: Machu Pichu

To reach Machu Pichu from Cusco there are 2 options – by foot or by train.

Trains go all the way up to Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Machu Pichu. From Aguas Calientes it is a 15 minute bus ride to the ruins.

You can take a train from Cusco or from Sacred Valley(Ollantay), which is kind of mid way point between Cusco and Aguas Calientes.

Cusco to Ollantay can be done by bus, train or private taxi. But Ollantay to Aguas Calientes is by train or foot only.

Hiram Bingam is the most expensive train and Backpacker is the least. We took Vistadome, simply because that is the earliest train out of Cusco, and it is the second expensive to Hiram Bingam. We were told that scenic experience wise there isn’t much difference between the trains. In the luxury trains they provide food and ambience.

Perurail.com lists the different train options, schedule and online reservations. Research fine print to understand the baggage limit and restrictions. They have a 11 pound restriction on the Vistadome, but one never knows about it till they pay and print the ticket or, as in our case, till we actually landed on the train station with our 7 small suitcases+ 4 big suitcases + 6 backpacks and misc. The train staff were shocked but were nice enough to fit our bags in to another kaboose.

They serve breakfast on Vistadome, but if you are vegetarian, carry basic butter/jam/cheese sandwiches.

The train ride is very scenic. The Urubamba river flows with you throughout the train ride. Colorful adobe houses with thatched/mud tile roofs, vast stretch of agriculture land, farmers tilling the land with old fashion plow and cows, graffiti on the house walls, it was typical rural India to me. Keep an eye out for the beautiful snow covered peaks that look down on you. Snow covered peaks this close to the equators was a surreal experience for me. Logic says that it is not the latitude, but the altitude, but ever time I saw snow, I couldn’t help but be awestruck.

By foot – Hike starts from Sacred Valley. Only 500 permits issued for a day. The classic Inca trail is walking 42 km over 4 days. The challenge is not the distance or the bags you will be carrying, for you will have porters to carry bags, pitch camps and cook food, but the challenge is to stay consistent at that altitude. Alternately you can do the 2 day hike walking 13 km on the first day and visiting Machu Pichu on day two. Remember that the Inca trail is one way and the only way out of Machu Pichu/Aguas Calientes is by train, you cannot hike back.

Every 10-15 min a bus departs from Aguas Calientes to Machu Pichu. You have to pick up Machu Pichu entrance tickets at Aguas Calientes. Carry water and a power bar inside. It takes 4 hours to see Machu Pichu fully. Be ready to climb numerous flights of steps. Guides are available right outside the entrance.

Machu Pichu – Location, climate, clouds, history, expectation….all this combined and makes it a  truly mystic location. MP was a resort for royalty. When the Spaniyards came, the selected few moved here with all their riches. The idea was to isolate themselves to persevere till they won over the Spaniyards. So they severed all communication with the rest of the world. But after the Incan empire fell, the exodus happened. It is said that the people left with all important artifacts to the town of Vilcabamba.

Coming from a Spanish occupied town (Cusco), one can spot the difference in city planning. Unlike the European style where there is a city center with a church and everything radiating from that center, Incan cities are planned as sectors – upper agricultural, lower agricultural, sacred sector, residence for nobility, residence for common people, gathering places and so on.  Leaving you with some pictures, because one cannot do justice to the site in one post.

Aguas Calientes means hot water. There are hot springs in the city. Pack you bathing suits if you plan on visiting one.

Day 4: Train to Sacred Valley, Ollantaytambo, local markets.

Ollantaytambo – Though plundered and modified by the Spanish, this truly is an impressive fortress. Sitting in the lush and fertile Scared Valley, this ruin is a must see. It takes anywhere bewteen 2-3 hours to see this ruins. One understands how the Incans were not only master masons but also experts in constructing waterways, aqua ducts and irrigation channels. A simple example – all water is tapped from under ground springs, but the inlet and outlet are not a straight line. The outlet from the underground source and the outlet through which the water flows out is offset by a few inches in such a way that water gushes out, circles around a few times before it flows out, thus creating a centrifuge to filter the floating impurities. Picture here.

During the golden period of the Incas, Ollantay served as a trading outpost. People from all around Cusco bought their wares and bartered it here. The fortress has numerous granaries high in the rock face. The altitude and dry air preserves the stored vegetables and grains.

By design or by nature the rock face contains shapes. Tell me what you can see 🙂

There is a cool surgery table constructed on a rock, outlet to drain blood, niche where the body fits with the head at an elevation et al.

Local Markets: We stopped at the Pisac local market and Cusco artisan center before we had a nail biting, action packed episode at the Cruz Del Sur bus station. Stay tuned.

To read YaadaYaada’s version read this and this.