Letters from Lisa

Here’s my crazy Russian tortoise, Lucky Jr….

During Christine’s shower, and actually throughout the summer, Lucky had been scrambling at the walls of her tiny glass tank, repeatedly banging her head against the glass because she didn’t realize she couldn’t get out that way. I became more and more worried about her and finally got her this current setup - which I think is working out pretty well. But old habits die hard; here you see her trying to scale the wall.

And here’s her greatest trick - climbing up on top of the little tunnel we got her. My mother saw her doing it and removed the tunnel earlier in the day, and when I got home from work, I put it back in to see if she’d try again. Sure enough, within 10 minutes she was back up there. I think we ought to rename her Sasha, after my former student who is an extreme rollerblader.

In this one she’s going through the tunnel as it was intended. She’ll only go through the tunnel to get TO the food and water - when leaving that area she insists on going around the tunnel.

Now she’s emerged on the other side where the food is waiting.

I’m going to bring her into school next week, right before the kids start coming. (We officially start Wednesday.) There’s no reason to leave her there alone over Labor Day weekend - and besides she really entertains my parents, who are starting to treat her like the grandchild they don’t have yet!

One might conclude that I no longer have anything interesting to say, now that I’m (temporarily) done posting photos of South America travels and have not posted here about anything else. I won’t offer any excuses or any judgments, other than that I’m trying to get back into a normal routine and simultaneously enjoy all of the things about home that I missed when I was away.

For example, my bathtub. I have always appreciated it, but it compares especially favorably to the bathrooms I encountered on my trip (and yes, the bathtub alone is larger than my entire bathroom on board my Galapagos boat). I don’t need to wear flipflops to take a shower, and I don’t have to worry about the water being laden with unfamiliar bacteria that might make me sick. And sorry to be gross for a moment, but I can actually flush toilet paper down the toilet here. That was an aspect of visiting South America that I won’t much miss.

Other things I am now appreciating: periodicals and books in my native language, safe public transportation (no need to constantly hop in and out of taxis), decent coffee, internet access that I can use in my pajamas, and the ability to walk out of doors without enveloping myself in a cloud of DEET first.

Yes, it is time I wrote a chronicle of my trip. Probably won’t happen this weekend (I’m giving Christine’s wedding shower) but I’m optimistic about the next.

Oh, and here’s one obligatory photo - me with an enormous kapok tree in Ecuador:

Click on the picture to go to my Sacha Lodge album!

The photos are sorted by island of origin. If you’re interested in sea lions, or birds, or crabs, you can pick just about any island - but if you want giant tortoises, try Santa Cruz.

The Galapagos Photos Home Page

I can’t claim to have flown any great distances or switched dozens of time zones after my visit to South America. I was, at the most, two hours behind East Coast time, and my total flying time in my six weeks of traveling added up to less than the flight time it took me to get from New York to Sydney last year. (Waiting in the airports… that’s another story.) So I won’t say I am jet lagged, exactly. My fatigue stems from another source.

I arrived home on Monday evening, scattering myself and my belongings all over the apartment, and now, Saturday, I’m still feeling pretty scattered. I’m fairly organized at work (I went back Tuesday) but here I’m in a bit of disarray. Of course it’s the good kind - souvenirs cluttering the dining room table, late postcards to be mailed, photos to be sorted, piled up magazines and newspaper to be read - but it can have the effect of making one want to take a bath and an early bedtime and ignore it all.

I’ve decided to tackle the photos first, as you might have surmised from recent posts. I’ve been posting and captioning my Galapagos photos all morning. I just got back my printed photos from the developer, but they were mostly inferior to my digital photos, so I won’t have too many to scan. I really think this may be the end of my film-buying. I may need a few waterproof cameras here and there, but my digital - old as it is - performed so admirably, and with so many hundreds of perfectly serviceable photos, I can’t imagine the need to go back to film.

A lot of people, particularly in the Galapagos, have amazing cameras. I was quite jealous. Some of them promised to send me photos - I’m hoping they do. When my finances have recovered a bit, I think I would like to upgrade my own camera - something with a better zoom.

I have other items on my agenda, of course. There’s a bridal shower to organize, a musical to write, a sweater to knit… It’s shaping up to be a busy August.

Pisac Festival of Virgen del Carmen
This is a yearly festival held in villages throughout the Andes, but Pisac is one of the major centers. We had gone to see the ruins the same day and were tired and just about ready to go home - but even our driver wanted to stop and watch the procession. It was pretty cool, I just wish I had a video camera.

Moray
Moray is a lesser known, and much less-visited, Inca site. It happens to be one of my favorites, almost rivaling Machu Picchu (almost). The concentric circles have inspired some wild theories about aliens and energy portholes, but one reasonable theory is that they took advantage of a natural formation in the mountains and made terraces for agricultural experimentation. You may not be able to tell from the photos, but the bottom layers of the terraces are still in agricultural use today.

Camelid Co-Op
This was a stop in the Sacred Valley on the way to Machu Picchu. They keep the animals (it’s a bit of a petting zoo as well as instructional site) and encourage the people to continue their traditional dyeing and weaving techniques. I was rather hoping they’d sell raw materials there (I have never met a yarn store I couldn’t shop in) but they only had finished products.

Here’s a collection, almost complete, of photos from the excavation of Ccotocotuyoc, a Wari site about 45 minutes outside of Cusco, in the Huaro Valley.

A few highlights:

View of the site from a nearby mountain.

Here I am, getting our little unit ready to be photographed. The white sign gives all the important details. The white thing around my neck is a dust mask - very much needed by the way.

This is my absolute favorite thing. We dug it up ourselves! It’s a perfect little pot that fits into the palm of your hand.

We had a LOT of bones in our unit - most not as easily identifiable as in this particular photo.

This is Ccoto, the puppy who became pretty much the mascot of the site. (His name cames from the name of the site - a ccoto is a pile of stones.) At least he was, until he jumped right into our unit on top of all the bones.

This is Guapo, an adorable but very skinny dog who adopted the researchers as his people. He technically has owners, but I would have taken him home if I’d been able. So sweet!

Go see the rest - particularly if you like human anatomy.

… I’m back.

Oh, fine. If that isn’t satisfactory, then here.

More soon. Promise.

In the meantime, I’ve been up since 3:30 am. So, goodnight.

Pausing to catch my breath in between my various travels…

I arrived back in Quito late this afternoon - a bit later than I intended - from my weeklong cruise in the Galapagos Islands. I won´t begin to summarize 8 fantastic days in one little entry, especially when there are hundreds of photos I have to sort through that would eventually accompany such an entry. But suffice it to say that I am thoroughly satisfied with the experience, and despite some seasickness, I would recommend this sort of trip to anyone who is serious about wildlife. You can´t get this close to animals even in most zoos. It was truly incredible.

Tomorrow morning after breakfast I am off to the Ecuadorian rainforest, staying at Sacha Lodge. It is supposed to be beautiful and offer more closeup experiences with wildlife. I´ll post all about it probably when I get home, which will be August 14th. Until then I probably won´t have regular internet access or sufficient time. But it´s all in the pipeline, I promise.

cheers!