Our Lives are all Trips!

Check it!
A recent Santa Fe find.

Judith Fein and Ellen Barone run yourlifeisatrip.com, which features a massive collection of high quality travel narrative. This is concise (1000 word max) travel writing that takes you around the globe and across the street and, in Austin's case, into a wintry Virginia. 

Thanks for a great find, Austin!

And meanwhile, dear readers, stay tuned.

My life is a trip, too, even though I can't remember the last time I left the land of enchantment.

And so my short essay on Pune, Peru will be available on the site by March 26!

Wishing all a happy spring.

Love, Kate

Ayacucho

Dear ones, 

Just wanted to share a few images from the Ayacucho province. Today I visited the Wari ruins, which were only discovered in 2008 (despite occupying 22 roadside kilometers). They haven't been well-restored, but the landscape was incredible - really dry, because it's winter, and the hills are covered in cacti. Which the people eat here! I also went farther north to Quinua, which is a beautiful, tiny village built of whitewashed adobe buildings with terra-cotta roofs. A lovely time! Miss you all.

These are the friends I made at the Wari Ruins museum. See the mummy behind them? No one ever smiles in pictures here. 

And this was taken right above Quinua, where the battle of Ayacucho took place. The huge white obelisk commemorates that event.

And I took this in Quinua proper; most of the houses have these mini-houses stuck on the crux of the roof...very adorable.

Hi! Wish you were here with me. Besitos.

Driving Through

And, because I've spent countless hours on buses in the last week or so, here is a series I like to call "Peru's Many Faces, As Seen From the Window of a Bus." Hopefully these will reveal to you how dynamic the landscape is here, and how sharply it can change. It's beautiful and raw, often achingly poor but forever shifting.

Love, Kate

It's desert all the way down the coast, from Piura to Lima:

Then mountains and adobe pueblos from Lima to Huancayo:

And these are for my pa:

Then it's farms and floodplains and cacti and distant mountains into Huancayo:

And, interspersed, there was much standing around in remote and beautiful rest stops.

Missing you all, and loving Peru. Besitos!

Seeing Lima

To my devoted following:

Here are a couple of photos from gray, gray Lima. The dreary photos don't reflect what a nice, fresh time I had there, but they do show the coast and some of the Park of Love's mosaics (yes, there's a Park of Love, complete with lots of little snippets of love poems and a huge statue of two people doing it). And, I've added a few tidbits from the Miraflores Park. That's one thing Lima's got going for it - lots and lots of parks, divided by roads way too wide, perhaps, for the number of cars, and apartment buildings way too gray for how freaking dark the sky always was, and how close it felt.

So, here you have it: Lima in Winter.

Love, Kate

See? There's a procession.

Lima Pride!

Some images from Lima's Pride Parade, held yesterday! In typical Latin American fashion, it started much later than anticipated, and apparently no drivers had been forewarned. Thus, traffic was held up for miles and miles, but no one seemed super cranky about it. I bet one or two thousand people participated in the parade, mostly youth, but everyone was definitely represented. Anyway, Pride is a beautiful thing, here in Lima just like anywhere else in the world. Enjoy!   

Peru

Yesterday I caught a 5 AM shared jeep to Loja. I rode ten hours from Loja to Piura, Peru, then fifteen hours through the night, across the desert, to Lima. I made a friend. I drank two 2 liter jugs of water. I've eaten raisins, green beans, and a package of cookies. I'm in Lima now, and I am alive. More to come. Miss you all- love, Kate