Hello, Mr. President!

Hello dear readers! I've been back in Copacabana for a little over a week now and its been great to settle back in to "normal", everyday, Bolivian life, as well as have a few adventures!



The coolest thing that has happened since I last wrote (besides of course my scintillating work in the lab was the chance to hear and see Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, speak! They are in the process of building a small airport here near Copacabana to increase internal tourism (they are big on promoting tourism between the major centers in Bolivia here since they are not too crazy about Europeans or Americans) and Evo came to initiate the land and give a short speech about continued improvements in the area. It was really neat because there weren't that many people there (probably about 1000) and we were able to get pretty close to the stage! After the ceremonies, (which involved lots of flower necklaces for Evo, the VP Garcia, Cocorico the Governor of La Paz, and other officials as well as an interlude of dancing and traditional music) we were actually able to meet the VP, who was left somewhat to the wolves (the masses aka us) while Evo was hustled off back to his helicopter. Which he flies himself by the way. How are you gonna upstage that, Obama??

We went to La Paz this Sunday to watch the Entrada 16 de Julio. This is a huge dance/parade/event that I participated in last year, in the group Chacaltaya which is one of 54. Chacaltaya is the biggest, with over 2000 dancers, and I had fun watching what I been a part of last year. Monday is the second day of the event, parading/dancing followed by lots of drinking, and the students and I were invited to join. It was way less stressful than last year and a lot of fun to be recognized and remembered by other women who danced last year too-- although they were all asking why I hadn't danced this year! Maybe next year I can afford it again...


We have another big festival coming up this weekend-- Kollasuyu, the small town on the peninsula that we dance for and at which we always have an enjoyable, if cold, time. Besides that, a daytrip to Tiwanaku, and the Fair of Copacabana in the first week of August, I just have a lot of lab work left to do! Its good there's not too much left going on since I only have 3 more weeks!

Archaeology abounds!

Well, two exciting weeks in Cusco have passed and its time to head back to Copacabana for the remainder of the summer! How did I spend these two weeks since I last posted? So glad you asked...

I've walked about a million miles in search of archaeological sites (both in pursuit of tourism and academic purposes), supervised the digging of a few test pits at an Inka site, listened to 7 hours of papers in Spanish about Andean bioarchaeology and forensics, successfully navigated to and from some small towns via the 'collectivo' travel system, taken a few naps, fought (and lost) with some cacti, watched Italy bomb the EuroCup championship, drank my fair share of pisco sours, played tour guide for some Inka sites around town, and efficiently neglected the internet!

Last week (the 25th-31st), I was lucky enough to crash with another archaeologist here in Cusco at night. During the days, I had a variety of exciting adventures! Monday, I spent hiking around the Lucre basin with an archaeologist friend in search of potential dissertation sites for him. It was really fun, although exhausting and I had a few harsh encounters with some vicious cacti. But ultimately, it was really neat to just explore the countryside a little bit. I even learned to identify some ceramics! I went to a bioarch conference on Tuesday that was happening here in town-- and understood just about everything that they talked about! It was a good vocabulary lesson as well as really interesting reports on mummies, violence, health, and mortuary practices from around the Cusco region. Wednesday, I was supposed to head to Ollantaytambo and analyze some skeletons excavated by Sergio's nephew, Jorge, but my trip was delayed by his being out of town! Kylie was supernice and let me stay with her another few nights, and I played around town a little bit, taking in some Eurocup games and enjoying the nice weather. Thursday, I went to help Kylie excavate at her site, which was nice to get some more excavation experience! A long day but we found some cool stuff and got to play in the dirt, so I was happy! Finally, on Friday, I made it out to Ollantaytambo (where there are some really cool archaeological sites too--more on that to come!) and quickly looked over the bones (only one person, but buried with cool antlers!). Jorge also had me look at some dog bones, for any evidence that could be disease. Definitely not an expert in that but I think I did okay! It was cool to be at his house/lab because he has EIGHT dogs, six of which are of the Andean hairless variety. They are really ridiculous looking creatures. (evidence http://paxarcana.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/peruvian_hairless_dog.jpg)

Saturday I finally moved out of Kylie's house, and into a hostal where Brian joined me for some vacation and tourist fun! We spent the last 5 days doing all the tourist classics around Cusco-- the big sites above the city from the Inka occupation, museums in the city of art- both Spanish influenced and prehispanic- and artifacts, taking day trips to some of the surrounding areas-- and enjoying the tourist food selection (deLICIOUS falafel!)!

I'm heading back to Copacabana tonight on an overnight bus. The main benefit of this is not missing any daytime to travel, ease of sleep to speed up the trip, and not having to change buses in Puno! Should be back in Bolivia by 9am tomorrow morning, back to the daily grind of dissertation data collection. Yay!!

Only one more month here this summer. How is 2012 more than half over already??

Oh Look, the Herd is On the Move Again, Sire

Okay! So here I am, in Cusco, Peru, capital of the Inka empire and biggest tourist draw in Peru. I arrived last Sunday and spent the week until Huaro, the small town about 45 minutes away from the city. Conditions were pretty rustic out there-- we rented one room in a house for sleeping, eating, and lab work, with a separate bathroom downstairs-- but it was a good week of work and kind of refreshing to be away from it all! I was working on the skeletons excavated from a Wari (pre-inka empire/state cultural group) site in the valley and it was pretty interesting. Nice to have some comparison to my skeletal samples in Bolivia!

The neighboring town of Urcos (5minutes drive, 20-30minutes walk) is slightly bigger and the capital of the province and it had a big party one night celebrating its founding. We went and drank some beer in the town square with one of Maeve's Huaro friends and it was fun to see everyone dressed up, drinking, and dancing. There were two bands, the first of which was a classic South American pop group-- a full band and then 1 girl and 4 guys whose entire job seemed to be looking good and doing coordinated dance moves. For some reason, this really really amuses me and I mostly just stared at the band and laughed whenever they did a group spin, or, my favorite, a bunny hop/humping type maneuver.

We returned to Cusco yesterday, checked email, and then went out to another archaeological site on the other side of town, where two of Maeve's archaeologist friends are excavating. A really cool location-- great view of the valley and towering snowcapped peaks in the distance-- and the site was cool too- Wari, Late Intermediate and Inka occupations. There was also a cave up above that used to have burials in it (and probably still does under the collected rubble) that I climbed into. No one wants to excavated it currently because they are afraid of earthquakes and collapse but I think it would be great! (I'm also crazy though so that helps!)

Today is Inti Raymi, so the entire city of Cusco will be partying until... forever, haha. I'm going to witness the madness with a few archaeologist friends and then I think we are going watch some EuroCup games!

Raindrops keep falling on my head

But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning! Its been rainy here in the lake basin which is totally strange since it is the dry season. It generally is cloudy/rainy until around noon, then clears up for the rest of the day. Stasia says that this is the weather pattern during the rainy season, but that was supposed to end  in March. Climate change, anyone?

I've been busy in the lab this week, trying to confirm data on one of the collections that we are going to return to the community where it was excavated from. Part of that deal will include permissions to revisit the collection in the future, if we need to collect more data or newer technology comes about, so its not the last time I could look at these bones. But it does feel kind of final and awesome to think that this is it, this is the dissertation data!

Copacabana remains more or less unchanged, although this year I have located the post office (previously unopen) and 2 ATMs! Additionally, I'm able to steal the wifi from a neighboring hostel on my computer so I can check my email very regularly, at least until I go to Cusco. Welcome to the 1st World!

The trip to Cusco begins on Sunday with a 10-11hr bus ride from Copacabana. The other graduate student I am working with there will be meeting me at the bus station and then we go to Huaro, a town about 45minutes north of Cusco where her site and collections are. I'm not sure what the accommodations there will be like yet, but it will be a great adventure!

Until next time!

Potatoes and Sunshine

So, I've made it back to Copacabana! I arrived in La Paz, Bolivia at 5:15 Tuesday morning. Normally we take a few days to acclimate to the altitude in La Paz (3500m) before heading to Copacabana (3900m) to ease the huge transition up, but this year I arrived a few days after the other students from CMU so we headed up to the altiplano that same day. Only after buying all of the supplies we'd need for a few weeks which included fruit, bread, TP, and of course lots of potatoes! Once we finally headed out on the road to Copacabana, it was already 1pm and I was exhausted! The trip was relatively uneventful but gorgeous as always.

Once we got close to Copacabana, we learned that there was a surprise party being thrown for Sergio and Stasia in the neighboring town of Ch'isi (also a town that has a really awesome archaeological site where some of my dissertation skeletal collection comes from). Sergio and Stasia are going to be the "padrinos" or godparents of the town's high school graduation this year in December so they were regaling them with lots of flowers, food, and beer, followed by lots of dancing! It was really cool although somewhat extreme for my poor unadjusted self! I got really out of breath super fast while dancing and felt some chest tightness like never before. Kind of cool (especially since nothing bad happened, haha)!

Since then we have been reuniting with lots of people and also doing a bit of travelling- to Ch'isi again and then down to the (relative) lowlands of Sorata (2500m). Nice and warm down there although with bugs that bite worse than mosquitoes! We had a lot of fun scrambling around a friend's farm picking delicious fruit (grenadillas! yum!) and feasting. We got back to Copacabana last night and have a good week's work ahead out of us, which is good because I leave for Cusco a week from tomorrow! Eeps! This summer is already going so fast!

Third Time's the Charm!

Hello, dear readers!

I'm heading south once again, for another summer in Bolivia! The original plan had been to stay for 4-6 months and complete all of my dissertation research but funding got limited, visas were complicated, life intervened. So I'll be there for 2 months (June 4-August 6) instead, making it work!

This summer will be a ton of fun, for more reasons than the usual research, wedding, and parade adventures, because I get to do some extra travelling! I am going to Cusco, Peru, for 3 weeks-- 2 weeks to do some outside research and 1 week to vacation! For those who are unfamiliar with Cusco, here's the rundown of why this is exciting-- Cusco is the Inka capital of the Andes and an amazing city for a bunch of reasons. 1, its architecture is mostly based on Inka stonework, which has survived the centuries of earthquakes much better than Spanish and modern construction. (The Inka were South America's largest empire from 100 years prior to Spanish contact when a catastrophic combination of events (death of their king due to smallpox brought by Europeans, civil war over succession, fragmented colonies, conquered groups eager to rebel etc) lead to their eventual takeover by the Spanish.) So wandering around in Cusco is a huge treat alone. Going along with this, it has some amazing archaeological sites associated with the Inka- a huge fort called Saqsayhuaman (pronounced like sexy woman, see photo), the main Inka temple the Qorikancha, and access to the Sacred Valley, the main area where all the Inka nobility lived. So a week of exploring here definitely won't be enough but it'll be packed with excitement!

Copacabana will still be my homebase for the summer while I continue my own research. This is the first summer I'll be going down with my approved dissertation project in hand so the data collection will be fast, furious, and focused. No more 2 hour work days followed by 6 hour break for me! :) The house I stay in has undergone some renovation since last summer-- the construction of a glass sun porch on the roof! It promises to be nice and toasty during the day, with amazing  views of the town and lake. I'm psyched to spend some evening hours there, going through data and writing articles!

Anyway. Keep an eye on this blog for updates and interesting things if you want!