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??