Peru

My Last Peruvian Post

This is a hybrid post. Half consists of pieces taken out of my last Kiva Fellows blog. And the other half from my final musings and future plans (I won´t be blogging for at least a month). Feel free to cry now.

Click above to read the full post “Last July, I sat in Kiva headquarters listening to speaker after speaker desperately trying to get a grasp on what life as a Kiva fellow would be like. Despite all my “international” experience, I don´t think anything could have prepared me for the adventure that was to come.  Personally, I set out to discover how microfinance worked, IF it worked, and how it impacted the lives of the people it touched, but I really had no idea what lay ahead of me.

My two Kiva fellowships have allowed me to work with four separate institutions: FAPE and ASDIR in Guatemala and Arariwa and Manuela Ramos in Peru.  I have been able to meet and talk with hundreds of borrowers posting new loans and doing loan updates…

On the flip side, I have had a chance to surf in four new countries, to climb four volcanoes (including Concepción in Nicaragua with some other Kiva Fellows!), and hike the Inca Trail.  On the down side, I have been robbed once and assaulted another time, but I wouldn´t trade my two Kiva fellowships in Guatemala City and Cusco for the world.

And as I see my second (and final) Kiva fellowship come to a close, I have been asking myself what I have learned from the last eight months in the field… My second reflection on microfinance is that the most effective microcredit programs that I have witnessed combine education and training programs with the loans that they offer.  I personally perceive education programs highlighting business management, budgeting, family, nutrition, or health allow the borrowers to develop not only economically, but in all aspects of their life.  Which is the positive impact that all of us wish to see.”

As far as the future, I have a road trip through Patagonia planned with Devin Dvorak (starting on Feb 14th!). Coming back to the states, I’m heading up to Portland for a week, and after trying to find a job in Los Angeles.

My experiences with Kiva in Central and South America have truly been an adventure, one that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Thanks for all your prayers, support, and for reading my blog! I promise to blog when I’m back in the states about my exploits!

The Cusco Restaurant Guide

The most common questions I get from travelers arriving in Cusco involve where to go for coffee or a drink or a bit to eat.  Although I would not claim to know all or even most of the restaurants in Cusco, I definitely have some favorites! (look at my travel map for restaurant locations)

For Breakfast or Snack:

The Meeting Place: Delicious Waffles, Quality Bacon, Juices, Pastries and the best coffee in town.  All profits go to local orphanages and ministry projects. Can life get any better? I submit that it can not (Brian Regan) On the San Blas Plaza.

El Buen Pastor: Decent coffee, but absolutely spectacular pastries. I´m talking chocolate croissants, peach and apple filled baked goods fresh out of the oven, and delicious donuts. On Cuesta San Blas.

La Bondiet: My favorite coffee shop in town.  Mouthwatering cakes, cones filled with dulce de leche, small brownies, great smoothies, classy atmosphere, and great coffee! Located a block off the Plaza de Armas on Plateros and on the small plaza next to the Plaza de Armas.

Lunch:

Be brave and head to the markets. I personally find the San Pedro market a little dirty, but recommend heading to Garcilaso and the Wanchaq market for a bite to eat (walk away from Garcilaso until you get to the food stalls in the building).  Ask for Sr. Jamie and try his Lomo Saltado or Arroz a la Cubana (S./7 and S./3) and try a juice from one of the ladies opposite his stall!

Jack´s: alternatively, try the lonely guide / rough guide favorite at the bottom of Cuesta San Blas for big and late breakfasts (El grande), gourment sandwhiches, and soups like Tuscan vegetable or pumpkin that make your mouth water (my Mom went 3 times in 9 days! That says something for the quality of their food).

Olas Bravas: Ceviche is excusively a lunch food, and Olas Bravas on Mariscal Gamara near the start of Av. La Cultura does it well. Try the Jalea, the Lomo Saltado con Tacu Tacu, and the Ceviche Mixto (warning, huge portions).

Dinner:

I think I could eat at a different restaurant every night in Cusco and still have thousands to try.  Some of my highlights have been fusion cuisines near the town center.

Cicciolina: Located a block off the Plaza de Armas on Truinfo (second floor).  Absolutely incredible tapas, wine list, and the best Pisco sour that I have had in Cusco.  (U.S. prices and reservations suggested in high season).

Two Nations: An Australian / Peruvian fusion restaurant a few blocks off the plaza that has a giant burger, good soups, and solid Peruvian cuisine.  Walls decorated by happy diners.

Los Perros: Two blocks off the plaza. And makes this list because it is the home of one of the most delicious burgers I have had (and one of the largest) with great potato skins, and other sides.

Some shout outs: Paddy´s (corner on the plaza, good quesadillas and wings), Real McCoy (for some real British cuisine on Plateros), and Numa Raysi (Triunfo for some real good, real authentic Peruvian cuisine!)

Shocking and Mouth-Watering (A Food Post)

I have been severly lacking in food posts lately.  Especially considering that Peru is know for gastronomy and its unique fusion cuisines.  And especially because Peru has an array of foods that we, as Americans, wouldn´t dream of eating.  Here´s a few highlights:

Cuy: I don´t think a Peruvian food post could escape without mentioning the family pet that ends up on Peruvian´s plates as a delicacy on holidays.  Also more commonly referred to as guinea pig.

Before....
And After!

Besides the unusual presentation, it wasn´t half bad. A little greasy, and difficult to eat around all its little bones, but when it’s stuffed with herbs, served on a bed of noodles with a rocotto relleno (stuffed pepper), it was definitely edible. Just close your eyes and take a bite!

The other “unique” food served in Peru is alpaca.  Alpaca steaks are low in cholesterol, slightly gamey (think along the lines of venison but to a lesser extent), and generally free of excess fat.  My Dad mentioned the similarity in taste to an excellent pork chop and that´s a pretty good description too!

Good Morning Alpacas

As I previously mentioned, fusion cuisines are pervasive here in Cusco highlighting everything from French/Peruvian or Australian/Peruvian to Chinese/Peruvian.  One of my favorite fusions we encountered last weekend in Aguas Calientes after seeing Machu Picchu at Indio Feliz, a French/Peruvian restaurant.  For about $15, you started out with a soup or salad (such as the Avocado / Mango salad or Bacon and Egg Quiche below), main course (such as my Dad´s pineapple chicken or my Mom´s Mango trout), and finished with a dessert. Delicious.

A Bacon and Egg Quiche, Fresh Baked Bread with a Cusqueña at Indio Feliz in Aguas Calientes
The Avocado and Mango Salad at Indio Feliz

Finally, let´s top it all off with some dessert.  The Barack Obama Chocolate cake from a bakery in Lucre.. mmm

The Barack Cake in Lucre

Hiking the Inca Trail

Everyone says go to Machu Picchu in June and July. When it is dry. And warm. But for me, I say that is ridiculous, and both times I have visited Machu Picchu have been in the final weeks of January at the height of the rainy season.  This second visit included hiking the Inca Trail with my parents who were visiting Cusco for the week.  Results> fog, rain, rock solid calves, and a sense of accomplishment.

The Inca Trail is 42 km of work. Although there are numerous porters carrying your tents, food, and everything to make backpacking seem less like actually backpacking, you still carry your sleeping bags, mats, and clothes.  After months of research (and searching), I settled on going with Cusco Explorers for $250 which is… the upside to hiking it in the rainy season.  Less tourists, less money.

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The first day is a 11km walk up the valley over a relativity flat trail. The second day is where it gets intense. You start at 2900m and go over a pass at 4200m (dead woman’s pass) before dropping down to 3800m over 12km.  The result? Coming into camp with my legs violently shaking.  The third day is longer, 16km, with stops to some ruins along the way before getting into a campsite 6km away from Machu Picchu complete with hot showers and a restaurant.  This doesn’t feel like backpacking.

Unfortunately, there had been a landslide on the last leg of the trail, so we had to hike down to Aguas Calientes and arrive to Machu Picchu (not via the Sun Gate) wet, tired, happy, accomplished.

As our guide said, the trail is challenging, unforgettable, and eunich (wait thats not right, he meant unique). The experience of a lifetime and the chance to check yet another thing off my bucket list.

In Transit

Sometimes it feels like my life is in transit. I wonder in those moments if life is a sum of the places you are waiting to go, or if the key to life is enjoying the journey and the mundane, endless hours in the terminals of… wherever.

And as it turns out… It is. If you don’t enjoy the process of getting there, you will miss out on those perfect sunsets, the people you met along the way, and when you get to your destination, you will only be thinking about how much you hated getting there.

All of these thoughts are summed up in my latest trip down south to do a borrower verification with our field partner, Manuela Ramos.  It started out last weekend when I took a trip to Arequipa to see American movies (yes they have a theater), to see Mt. Misti rising up from the town, and to read in the shade of every park I could find.  From there, I took another bus to Puno passing the high mountains and flamingos and deserts and lakes.

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In the first two days in Puno, I had traveled all over Juliaca and beyond, and down to the Bolivian border near Yunguyo.  Which added up to waking up before sunrise, and getting back hours after the sunset over Lake Titicaca.  Unfortunately, one very elusive borrower had taken off to Moquegua (another part of Peru). And if I couldn’t find her, I had to visit another 10 new borrowers.  With parents arriving on Monday, I choose (reluctantly and not enjoying the journey) the 7 hour trip for a 15 minute interview.

I was back in the morning, and headed out to the spectacular islands on Lake Titicaca. First to the famous floating islands Los Uros which I visited three years before, and then to spend a night on Amantani and a morning on Taquile.  I ended my stay with a cannonball in the freezing cold lake (did I mention that the lake is 3810m high??).

70 plus hours on buses, trucks, vans, boats. Exhausted. But happy. Remembering that traveling, meeting people, the journey, is why I did this in the first place.

Starting the New Year with a Bang

Well, my New Year´s Resolution to one-up 2010 has been going well so far.  I spent the second doing downhill mountain biking in Picol, near San Jeronimo, Cusco.  We took a cab 800m up to the mountain and flew down steep trails on bikes.  My ride was going fantasically until my brake started sticking… The result being this:

This past weekend, I settled on trying to sneak into Sacsayhuaman and White Water Rafting.  Not to bad eh? I spent Saturday morning walking around the small villages surrounding Sacsayhuaman and climbing rocks until I got into the main section of these spectacular ruins.

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Then yesterday, we headed up to Huambutio to go white water rafting on a III+ river with a coworker´s husband.  After two hours on the river / rapids, I was exhausted from paddling, but more excited to do it again on a IV river the next time!

Rethinking… Charity

January last year, I sat down in Tom Shadyac´s class at Pepperdine after my friends couldn´t stop raving about the film producer / philosopher who showed up year after year to impart some wisdom to us college kids.  The first class he told us a story (excuse my paraphasing) about a pair of glasses.  This was a special pair of glasses, because you could read 10x as fast.

Imagine! How much knowledge you would gain, how much smarter and better off the world would be because of it.  As the product got more popular, more and more people started using the glasses, and a few people ended up dying, but think about it! You could read 10x faster and there was only a .001% chance of getting injured by the glases.  The wider the glasses spread, more people were killed, but the sacrifice seemed worth the knowledge gained through the glasses. At the end of the story, he said… seems a little ridiculous right? But, I just told  you the story of the car. The trade off millions of lives for an increase in speed.

He went on to say that the class would be about rethinking things (this particular class was by far my favorite of college) … about putting a new perspective on things that seem “good” and “normal”.

So, right now I´m rethinking charity. I imagining the parable of the Good Samaritan and remembering the 10 people in destitute poverty begging for coins on my route to work.  And how I am of those that merely pass by.  And I find most Christians saying the same, “They will just spend it on booze and drugs” as an excuse not to give or help?

I wonder, are we called to give discriminately? And should I be giving to those in need because they need it? That´s is why I was in love with microfinance at first, it seemed like the solution to this. I KNEW that the money was enabling the poor to have a better life and I knew that the money wasn´t creating a downward cycle of expectations.  (Based on the assumption that the more people in poverty receive without doing anything, the more they rely on “aid” instead of their own efforts).

But I´m no longer sure that microfinance, alone, is the solution (I still fully believe in how Kiva connects individuals to individuals through lending). I think escaping poverty takes time. I think microfinance can play a role. BUT I know that it is microfinance coupled with EDUCATION and PERSONAL ATTENTION that will make the difference. (The negatives of pushing loan products without either of these is apparent in India as a wave of suicides broke out from microloan overindebtedness).

This doesn´t mean that all microfinance and charity is bad.  Yes, it needs to be regulated and monitored. Yes, it needs to be administered with care for the individual and coupled with education. I perpetually encourage and support people who are “doing their part” however small because of my own belief that changing at least one person´s life is better than changing none at all.  Rethinking microfinance means rethinking how we give.  So maybe we should help those that we encounter every day… knowing full well who our money is helping.

What do you guys think is the solution? What should charity be… and how should we give?

2010 Year in Review

I usually don´t have new year´s resolutions, but the last few years, it has been a generic “make this year better than the last”.  Whether that be traveling to 15 countries or graduating from college or working for Kiva, this year has been both un-forgettable and equally hard to top. Here are some highlights!

January. I´ll bring this full circle. Last New Year I spent in Frankfurt, Germany with Sandra Nymphius lighting off bottle rockets. A subsequent trip to the glorious dutch nation of Holland to visit Shamir, eat herring, and see Amsterdam make January 2010 equally unforgettable.

February-March. Columbia with Devin Dvorak. This whorlwind tour of Medellin, Cartagena, Santa Teresa, and Bogota involved a lot of beach side eating, mojitos, salsa dancing, and monkey chasing.  Never forget that day in Cartagena eating Ceviche… And back at Pepperdine for Songfest! Half the time I think I hated doing the practices, but at the end (and KTD´s almost win), I wouldn´t trade it for the world.

April. Wine tasting for my birthday. Getting the Kiva Fellowship. Graduating from college. My favorite month / memories of 2010…

May-June. Cruising the Mediterranean with Princess Cruises with the parents. Highlights: seeing Venice, quads in Mykonos, the spice market in Istanbul, Florence, Rome, and going back to Barcelona (easily one of my favorite cities in the world).  Road tripping up to San Luis Obispo with Hallie. The 24 hour drive out to Houston for Andy and Trudy Smith´s wedding.

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July-August. Kiva Training. Visiting with the cousins in San Francisco. Moving to Guatemala City to start my fellowship. Getting robbed on Roosevelt in Guatemala City (not a highlight but definitely memorable).  Moving to Aldea Nimasac in Guatemala. Visiting Lago Atitlán.

September-October. Kiva Vacation in Nicaragua (one of my favorite vacations of all time). Kiva Vacation in El Salvador. Surfing. Visiting with Devin Dvorak in Costa Rica. Seeing the Kite Festival in Sumpango.

November-December. Visiting the U.S. My weekend in San Diego. Moving to Cusco, Peru. Finding the meeting place. The near miss with a Machete Robbery. Having Marc Capule come visit. Exploring the Incan Culture and Ruins. Christmas with Peruvians and brunch in San Jeronimo.

A Christmas Story (Cusco Traditions)

What do you do when you are abroad for the Holidays? Here´s what I did….

Making Kids Smile.  On both the 23rd and the 24th, I contributed  (first with my coworkers and then with my church) to buying small presents, candies, cookies, juices and then handing them out on Bélen Pampa and in San Blas.  The idea is that whole families from surrounding villages always to Cusco over Christmas to sell pine branches, moss, and other greenery to make the Nativity sets.  They sleep on the street or plaza with their kids in the freezing cold and rain.  Kids with mild frostbite and mud on their cheeks.

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I remember Christmas when I was 5 years old. And thought that maybe, somehow, if I could give these kids a little of the joy that I have had over the holidays, it could make theirs a little brighter.  But, in the end, you never know.  Countless kids left without presents, making the two days of handing out presents seem like a drop in the bucket.

Arariwa Christmas Party. The 23rd, all the workers from all branches of Arariwa got together for a night of food, drink, and a lot of dancing.  The party was held over at Arariwa Promoción, and within the first ten minutes, I realization that I was out of my league as far as the dancing was concerned.  Men would line up to dance with the women and begin flailing their arms and rapidly stomping their feet.  It was a mix between off-beat salsa and a traditional campensino dance.  All in all, a fun night!

Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, I didn´t bring my camera to Christmas Eve or Day, but hopefully some friends will post pictures on Facebook soon! Christmas Eve is characterized by waiting up till midnight here in Peru, to 1) put baby Jesus in the Nativity 2) to pray and toast minature glasses of champagne 3) to light off fireworks from the roof 4) to eat a small meal, have hot chocolate and paneton (pretty sure it is more directly translated fruitcake).  I got to join a coworker, Andy, and her family that night.

Christmas. I spent the morning with some American missionaires eating brunch and watching Elf, and then the afternoon (after it rained) with Andy´s family eating turkey and drinking wine until the early evening where I crashed in my house for a good 12 hour Christmas sleep.

The Cusco Christmas Market

Tradition. Good Catholics bring baby Jesus to mass on the 26th and place him on the altar for the entire service.  And in Cusco, you visit at least seven Nativity scenes in churches across the city tossing coins in the wishing wells in each of the Nativities for good luck in the new year. 5 down (Plaza de Armas, Cathedral, San Francisco, La Merced, and Santo Domingo), 2 to go!