Post #1 May 2 In an apartment on the upper floor of an ancient stone building outside Lucca, Italy

Post #1 May 2 In an apartment on the upper floor of an ancient stone building outside Lucca, Italy

I’ve been many places in the world, but not Italy—until now. Joanne and I arrived in Pisa yesterday afternoon from Denver, three stops on three different airplanes with no sleep along the way. We stepped out of the Pisa international airport into the gray drizzle, took the shuttle to the car rental place, and in less than 15 minutes we were driving in our miniature midnight blue Fiat.

Before we left home and for $20 we bought a used Garmin Nuvi GPS for cars on Facebook Marketplace. We had also purchased a Garmin SD card loaded with maps of Italy. Once inside the car I pressed the card in the slot on the side of the unit, plugged it into the cigarette lighter, typed in the address, and held my breath. In no time the screen came alive with a map and a female voice with a British accent (we named her Katherine, Kate for short) told us to “Proceed to the highlighted route”. Amazing! I giggled as I began following the map and directions. Kate was taking us on a route that differed from the directions given us by our soon to be hosts, Donatella and Claudio and being read by Joanne, who became more and more anxious the closer and closer we got to our destination.

A word of explanation is in order. By her own admission Joanne has absolutely no sense of direction, to the point that when she says go left, she “knows” you should go right. Fair enough, but she’s also absolutely certain of her wrongness (or is it rightness?). And you should know she has read this before it was posted.

We crossed over a road that was mentioned in the written directions and Joanne insisted we turn. I was driving and decided to follow Kate’s map and instructions instead. Two turns later with Joanne insisting we were on the wrong road I relented, retraced our steps, turned on the road mentioned in the written directions, stopped and asked for directions, and then proceeded on to Il Pasco, our home for the next two weeks. (When I later looked at a printed map, I discovered that before we turned around on the route Kate had us take, we were no more than a kilometer away from Il Pasco but coming from the other direction.)  

Getting out of the car at the top of the driveway, Donatella and Claudio greeted us with warm embraces and Italian air kisses on both cheeks. That’s the way it really is in Italy. They of course could speak more than passable English vs our non-existent Italian. They are very warm and gracious, and while we needed their help and directions, and appreciated all the time spent with us, what we wanted more than anything was a place to lay our heads before they crashed on the kitchen table

Post #1

I’m in Taksindu, Nepal, as a participant in a three-day medical clinic at the local monastery. The clinic, a repeat of one done a year ago, is the brainchild of my friend Karma Sherpa and Gary Botstein of Atlanta, Georgia. Karma had led Gary on a trek in 1999 and following the Spring, 2015 earthquakes, Karma got in touch with Gary to see if he could organize a medical clinic for the following fall. Together, the two men made it happen.

Like last year, this clinic combines US doctors and nurses with their counterparts from Nepal. Some medicines, supplies, and equipment were brought from the States, but the bulk were procured in Kathmandu and portered up to the monastery. Unlike last year, a US dentist and two hygienists (one from the States and one from Nepal), have joined the group. Lay people like me have been a part of both clinics. We perform such functions as working with nurses as pharmacy assistants and as guides shepherding patients from admittance to doctors, to the dentist, to the pharmacy.

My job is to remove earwax from patients’ ear canals.

I wear hearing aids which, as foreign objects in my ear canals, produce earwax which has to be removed periodically. As a result of that I’ve come to appreciate the benefit of those removals. They dramatically improve the quality of hearing. Before I left home I had a half day training in earwax removal from my audiologist and another audiologist friend of hers. Additionally, I watched countless YouTube videos of the procedure.

Using the curette to remove earwax

By the end of the clinic on the third day and I’d performed 20-25 procedures. (And no, I did not puncture any eardrums). Working on adults is relatively easy, but kids are different. I primarily perform a mechanical removal, which means I use a wire loop curette as the removal tool. From my own experience I know the procedure can produce some mild discomfort. Adults tolerated the procedure with relative ease, but the kids teared up in very short order. Their crying was almost more than I could stand.

Even this adult monk didn't like the irrigation method

When needed, I switched to the water irrigation method and achieved some success, but after several attempts the kids’ ears were still impacted from the accumulation of so much wax. When I’ve had that procedure done on me, I’ve felt the pressure from the water being squirted from the syringe into my ear, but no pain whatsoever. After a squirt or two, kids’ eyes shut tight and tears began flowing down cheeks. I really wanted to help them to be able to hear better, but I chose not to go on. I did what I could do, but I felt remorse over this white man from America causing pain to these precious little ones.

There is a “medic” who has some medical training who lives in Taksindu and was member of our team. He provides some basic medical care to the villagers in many villages in the area. His name is Buddha, he speaks English, and helped me out with translation for some of my patients. At his request I taught him what I know about earwax removal and he in turn did some procedures himself. I told him about the YouTube videos, which he intends to watch. He already had all the necessary removal tools in his bag, so going forward he will be able to add the removal skill and service to his repertoire.   

Blog Post #12 Lake Titicaca—Homestay on Amantani Island

Following our visit to the Uros people living on the floating islands, we made our way to Amantani Island, one of rock and harsh living conditions. The island is named from Kantuta, the country’s national flower, which grows in abundance there.   

Victoria and Florentino

Victoria and her three guests. Yes, we're all standing on the same flat surface.

Several of the locals, who were waiting to take us back to their family homes, greeted us at the dock. A couple from Holland and I were paired off with our host and “mama” for the next 24 hours, Victoria, 73. Following Victoria (who could not be more than 4’ 6”) who bounded up the steep slope without effort, I huffed and puffed my way up in the 12,500 feet altitude to the family home. Victoria introduced us to her husband, Florentino, 78, who showed us to our rooms for the night.

Bedroom area

The house is really a little compound. The bedrooms are set off to one side in a U shaped design, up on the second floor where bougainvillea hung from the wrap-around balcony. My room was primitive, with no heat, but plenty of blankets kept me warm that night. The kitchen and dining room are housed in a second building about 25 feet away from the bedroom building, and in between is the bathroom building. That consists of a porcelain toilet and sink, but no running water. To flush, I used a bucket of water from the spigot just outside the toilet room.

Kitchen and dining room

Florentino served us a lunch of Victoria’s homemade quinoa soup to which she’d added potatoes and other vegetables they had grown. All the inhabitants of this island are vegetarians. They raise sheep and alpacas, the only four legged animals on the island, for their wool only. They are expert weavers. I’m told they do slaughter and eat the meat from animals a few times a year on festival occasions. Mostly, they work the terraced hillsides by hand, growing crops such as wheat, quinoa, potatoes, and other vegetables.  

Locals are constantly spinning or knitting, even while they are walking.

There are no roads, motor vehicles, wifi, or other such things. Electricity is minimal. The few hundred indigenous families all speak the Quecha language, which rendered even my rudimentary Spanish meaningless. The island has two mountain peaks, Pachatata (father earth) and Pachamama (mother earth), with ancient Inca and Tiwanaku ruins on top of both. Several of our larger group climbed to the top of Pachatata, but, having some problems with the altitude, I chose to stay behind in the village square.

That night the locals held a dance party for us. They dressed us up in local costumes and taught the local steps.  My altitude sickness symptoms kept me away from the celebration, but after a good and long sleep that night I was in much better shape the next morning.

After breakfast of a type of pancakes, we said our goodbyes and took a boat ride to Taquile Island, another place populated with yet another group of indigenous people, the Taquilenos, who also speak Quechua. They produce fine handwoven textiles and clothing which are regarded as among the highest quality handicrafts in the country. The culture calls for only men, beginning at age 8, to do all the knitting, while the women do the dying and spinning of the wool into yarn.

His sash says he's married. Note the coca pouch hanging on his right side. 

Perhaps most interesting are the colorful clothes they wear. To the point of obsession to the sensibilities to this westerner, marital status is all important and is openly reflected in the outfits they wear. The belt sash worn by every person, young and old, male and female, denotes marital status or availability for marital status. Custom dictates that availability begins at age 18. Everyone is expected to get married and once they are, there is no such thing as divorce. Courtship is usually 18-24 months long and once married there is a trial period during which one or the other can walk away from the relationship if things are not working out. Otherwise, the marriage lasts a lifetime.

Both men and women chew coca leaves (as did I) much like people might chew tobacco. The juice produced is swallowed for medicinal purposes—the active ingredients help in adjusting to high altitudes. Part of the male costume includes a waist-side pouch filled with coca leaves. They do not shake hands with one another. Instead they each take some coca leaves from their pouches and exchange them with one another.       

Blog Post #11 Lake Titicaca—Floating Island

At an elevation of 12,507 feet, Lake Titicaca boasts being the highest navigable waterway in the world. It’s also the largest lake in all of South America. I booked a two-day, one-night tour on the lake.

From a passenger boat made for 20 or so passengers, we made our way to our first stop, one of the 42 “floating” islands on the lake. The Uros people, their total numbers of about 2,000 with only a few hundred living on the islands, have the most unusual way of living I’ve ever seen.

House on island with solar panel

The area of the lake just off the shores of Puno is home to vast beds of totora reeds growing in its shallow waters. Four or five families will find an area of especially shallow water and with a saw, cut several two-foot cube root masses, trim the reeds away, and replant them, side by side, in an even shallower area. Those root mass cubes are then tied together in multiple plots, anchored to the lake bed with ropes, then forming the base of an island large enough for the families to call home.

The floor of the island with our guide and native Oros woman

As they are building this foundation, the workers will simultaneously lay down shocks of the nine foot reeds aligned in one direction, followed by shocks in the opposing, perpendicular direction. That process is repeated until, after continuous work for about a year, they have created their island, “floating” about two feet above the water’s surface. The reeds rot over time and the islanders are constantly having to add more and more layers to maintain a dry and safe island floor.

Interior of family home. Notice the reed mattress for the bed

                                                            House's mechanical system

Next they will harvest more reeds which they use build their houses and other structures, such as a toilet (located on its own separate island) and a lookout platform.

Morning's catch laid out to dry

When Alberto Fujimori was president he visited the islands, and became impressed with the way of living of the Uros people and later provided multiple solar panels, light bulbs, wire, receptacles, and conduit so that every family has a home outfitted with enough electricity to provide electric light and run radios and televisions.

Cooking is done outside over a ceramic stove with a contained fire inside. To guard against the fire breaking out on the reed floor, the stove is place on a slab of slate. Elementary, middle and high school education is provided a boat ride away on a neighboring island.

Uros woman displaying her weavings for sale. 

The reed is the backbone of their existence, providing construction material for the island, all structures, boats, and as a food staple. The bottom 8-10 inches of the reed is white, and when an outer layer is peeled away, what remains is the edible inside “banana” portion. These island people are fishermen and the fish they catch are added to the bananas to make up the bulk of their diet.

One of several boats built and owned by one of the villager families

And, they are boat builders extraordinaire. They use the reeds to fashion wide bottom catamaran type vessels with dramatic upward curves in both the bows and sterns. I sat on a platform built in the center and reached by a ladder when we were given a ride. The boat is propelled by oars and because of its low draft, seemingly little energy is needed by the two oarsmen/women to move the boat in whatever way they needed.

An island home to 4-5 families

To me it is a strange and bizarre way of life. To them it was just the way things are. With primitive means of existence, little in the way of space to roam, and entertainment virtually nonexistent I know I could not survive there. Yet, it is just one of the countless ways we as humans adapt, survive, and thrive. 

Blog Post #10 Machu Picchu

The Incas built the working sanctuary around 1450 but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. (Some believe that ‘abandonment’ came about from widespread death through small pox carried by the Spaniards.) Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in 1911. Legend has it the Incas, wishing to keep the sanctuary hidden from the conquistadors, deliberately destroyed the trail leading from the Sacred Valley to the site. 

Viefrom train on the way to Machu Picchu image

According to the stories told by my guides and with enhanced details from Wikipedia, I learned Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca sanctuary/city situated on a mountain ridge 7,970 feet above sea level. It is located near the Sacred Valley, 50 miles northwest of Cusco. Its name means mountain with a broad base that ends in sharp, or “old” peaks. Most believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate, or a “Camp David”, for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472).

From the top

It’s possible to trek for four days along the original Inca trail to Machu Pichhu and that’s what I originally had planned back in January. Regretfully, that trek requires the purchase of a ticket from a pool of first-come-first-served applicants and the trek is booked as much as a year in advance. I took the train. It was a lovely, soul satisfying trip along the Urabamba River as it wound its way downstream in a froth of roiling whitewater.

Up the farming terraces, ancient stone structures with new thatched roofs

It had been my plan when I arrived late morning in Agua Calliente*, the tiny village at the base of Machu Picchu, to spend the day in town and go up to the sanctuary on the next day. I was literally too excited for that. So, I bought my ticket and hopped on the bus for the ascent.

Steps carved from  existing stone

The trail at the top just beyond the entrance presented two options, one down and the other up to the Inka Bridge. To get out of the crush of people going down, I chose up to the Inca Bridge and was not disappointed. Taking the final steps from multiple switchbacks on the side of a mountain, I came to that iconic vantage place I’d seen a thousand times displaying the entire village down below and before me. I let out “God” in an unintended, audible reflexive gasp. No other word comes close to what I saw, and no other word is adequate. It’s that majestic, magical, mystical, and reverent.

Vista from Machu Picchu

A nearby woman heard my one word, smiled, and nodded agreement. I stood there for several minutes trying my best to understand what I was seeing, and combining that with just doing nothing, paying my respects to the wonder of it all.     

View up from farming terraces

For several hours I slowly and in silence walked the grounds of this sanctuary and with occasional delicate touch, ran my fingers across the stones here and there. I tried to pull from my imagination the civilization that conceived of this and then brought it to life. To imagine this paradise before it was carved out of a mountain ridge, then to plan in laying it out, to apply the inconceivable math, engineering, and agricultural skills, and of course to then actually perform all the hard work with only bronze tools to make it a reality—all that is evident everywhere I looked, along with what I imagined as a pastoral life of those who lived here. Divine Inspiration is a phrase that came to mind time after time.

*(Agua Calliente literally means “Hot Water”, and indeed hot springs are there. The town is also known as Machu Picchu Pueblo.)

Blog Post #9 Observations and Leftover Scraps of Stuff-Cusco

Nothing screams “American” quite as much as the shrieking baseball caps worn backwards on the heads of young men walking the streets of Cusco. These guys haven’t a clue as to how ridiculous they look, standing out like swollen thumbs just hit by a phalanx of giant hammers.

There are over 3,800 varieties of potatoes grown in Peru, with more than 600 available for purchase in the markets.

Men wear leather shoes, requiring an industry of shoe shiners manning stationary and mobile shoe shine stands.

I never felt unsafe.

Prices start about 70-80% of what I would pay at home, and then go down from there.

The police were plentiful and everywhere for all celebrations, including military types carrying assault rifles for the 24^th celebration in the main square. I was later told that show of force was because the president of Peru was among the dignitaries.

Shopkeepers scrub the sidewalk outside their shops every morning, yet a short distance away bags of garbage are left out for days until someone disposes of them.

Dogs roam the streets with abandon, but posed no danger to me or others.

I ate street food one time, a tamale, but only after a guide I trusted suggested I do so. It was delicious and I did not get sick.

Peru has a seemingly endless variety of fruits to enjoy, many of them from the tropical jungle. Corina, one of the school’s owners, held a “las frutas” night for us where we sampled over 20 varieties of fruit indigenous to Peru. To my palate some were delectable hits, others tolerable, with a small number landing in the one-small-taste-is-enough-for-a-lifetime category.

Las Frutas Night

As a group, the students and Koen went out for dinner for each of the three Tuesday nights I was in Cusco and once on a Saturday for lunch. I chose Alpaca steak, pizza, and enchiladas for each of the three nights, with all being fabulous meals. The Saturday lunch was one of Ceviche, raw fish marinated in lime juice and served with a mixture of slivered raw onions and tomatoes. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in a foreign country.

Ceviche!

People giggle when they read my first name and love to make jokes about Donald Trump.

Only the very rich eat at the local McDonald’s. The food is much more expensive than what the general populace can afford.

Blog Post #8 Winter Solstice in Cusco

Winter Solstice celebrations seem to have no end in Cusco. Either that, or Cuscans love to party for any reason, and the solstice provides the best reason for parades, music, dancing in the street, ceremonial reenactments, great food, fireworks, a light show, and plenty of beer. Both are true.

For the entire three weeks I lived in Cusco, not a day went by without some form of celebration by the locals in the main square, Plaza de Armas. Following the daily parades of costumed young students dancing the streets that I reported on in a prior post, next were middle and high school aged students performing the same as their younger counterparts, but in larger groups dancing more elaborate moves to the music of larger bands. Then groups of adult men and women dressed in elaborate costumes with masks performed acted out melodramas of evil versus good. The ancient Incas fought with and, predictably, lost to the conquistadors, while a more modern dictator intimidated the locals only to end with his comeuppance.

Bride in her Convertible

Extended Family of Dancers








Self-Made Man











                                                                                                                                                                                               Best Costume of All
On the Saturday before the solstice things really took off. The morning was greeted with an enormous parade of gigantic floats that lasted until noon. Themes of the floats went from the sculpture “Self-Made Man”, to fierce monsters, to a giant bride dressed in white riding along in her red and white convertible. Then more bands, dancers and groups of dignitaries marching along in their dark grey suits, covered over with colorful ponchos. Men wore sombreros while the women a variety of traditional Peruvian hats.

That night a rock band performed on a temporary stage erected on the steps of Catedral del Cusco while throngs began to fill the adjacent streets of the square. The music went on while the space surrounding my group of fellow students became packed with others enjoying the good time. The fireworks display finally got underway and it was spectacular. The evening was capped off with a dazzling show of flashing lights of many colors, illuminating the buildings surrounding the square. Accompanying music enhanced it all as I, mouth agape, grasped to take it all in.

The parades of dancers, musicians, marching dignitaries, and the workers of a multitude of businesses continued to occur daily until June 24, the first and most important day of the Incan calendar. That was the day when the Incans prayed
to their Sun God to come back, to bring longer, warmer days of sunshine and rain which pachemama will use to produce crops that will sustain them throughout the balance of the year.

The elaborate ceremony of ancient days was reenacted that day. It started in a sacred area of ruins Cusco which was so jammed with people I could see none of it. Then followed a procession of dancers, musicians, guards, and warriors leading the queen and king sitting on their litters being carried by twenty or more porters through the city streets to the main square. There the king walked up the red carpeted steps of a temporary throne-like structure, greeted and addressed the surrounding crowd. Quechua, language of the Incas is spoken by the king, a limiting factor in the pool of men from which the King-of-the-day reenactor is chosen.  

The queen on her litter carried by 18 porters

The procession left the square and made its way up out of the city to a place of Incan ruins where, in the afternoon, more ceremonial ritual took place. That ritual used to include animal sacrifice, but the actual killing is no longer included. Only guests holding a ticket costing the equivalent of $130 is necessary to purchase to see this final ceremony. I opted out and instead joined fellow students, faculty, and owners of Mundo Antigua for our own picnic celebration on a hill half a mile away from the main event. This is an area of peat type soil which is dug up and mounded in an arched hive formation with an opening on one side. Potatoes are buried in the ground beneath the hive and a fire is started in the hive-oven, burning the peat above and roasting the potatoes below.

Peat Beehive Fire With Potatoes Roasting Below

Koen and Corina, owners of the school, provided precooked dinners with a choice of whole fish or a quarter of a chicken, along with the fresh out of the ground potatoes. It was a delicious meal and by midafternoon the accumulation of three weeks of celebration had worn me down and I called “Uncle”. Besides all my fellow students insisted on speaking Spanish.