Saturday, November 21, 2015

Mind, Body, Soul - Sacred Valley

It's pretty easy to see how the Sacred Valley got its name. The Urubamba river winds steadily between two terraced mountain ridges that have a palpable yet hard-to-describe energy, similar to the kind that you might feel in old churches or at ancient ruins. The Valley is notable for many reasons - its surpassing beauty, Incan heritage, and crown jewel Machu Picchu, for starters - but it's also a powerfully calming place. 

We spent five days at a yogic retreat in the Valley, under the tutelage of a Peruvian yogi named Chitanya. Needless to say, it was an absolutely incredible experience.  At the moment, though, I'm too exhausted to describe it all in words. For the sake of continuity of the blog, I'm gonna turn it over to my boy Jimmy Friedman, who has given our week a much more comprehensive rundown than I could've.

From Jimmy's entry on the Carpe Diem Blog site: 
https://www.carpediemeducation.org/2015/11/sacred-valley-ecoyoga-retreat/

“Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.”
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
On November 8th, the Sacred Valley, near Cusco, greeted us with an overcast sky, a calm river, and enormous, cultivated mountains on either side of the main road. Uphill, dorms, a cafeteria, and a meditation center (all made of a deep, brown adobe). Boulders and stone pathways decorated the large, open space between the students’ home and the eating area. The air of peace and balance was a significant energetic change from the hustle of Cusco. People came there to work on themselves and to do that alone; we were no exception. We knew upon arrival that the change in lifestyle would yield new wisdom and health.
Our contact at this EcoYoga center was a Peruvian yogi named Chaitanya. He walked up to us with a baseball cap, cargo pants, a hoodie, and a smile indicating profound contentment and a drive to teach. He showed us to our cozy living quarters and told us to “make ourselves ready.” That same evening, we began our humbling yoga regimen.
Each day we woke up at 7:10 to prepare for 45 minutes of meditation and/or chanting, often guided by centering words from Chaitanya and dulcet tones from a Tibetan singing bowl or the poignant breath of a harmonium, a small hand pumped reed organ used in small chapels. After meditation, we carried our yoga mats down the hill, to a spacious, circular practice building that, itself, took the form of a mandala. The classes were lead by Chaitanya half the time and by a disciple of his for the other half. During this time, we enjoyed an hour and a half of arduous poses, including stretches, head stands, and strenuous holds in difficult positions. Some of our favorite classes were the AcroYoga classes (simply translated, acrobatic yoga). These consisted of having one or two partners to achieve an end pose of, for example, balancing your body only on the feet of your supporting partner. Other times, one would be sitting upright with their legs wrapped around the calves of their partner laying on the ground with their legs straight up, giving way to miraculous feelings of lightness and flight. Overall, a mind-expanding experience.
After breathing our way through the early morning, we ate a vegetarian breakfast, followed by an hour of Seva. Seva, the Sanskrit word for service, included picking up trash by the river, cleaning the dining area, helping with dishes, or simply moving boulders to more desirable locations, making the space more beautiful. After Seva, there were two hours of workshop. During this time, Chaitanya taught us about either Vedic Astrology, Yogic philosophy, Pranayama (use and control of the breath), or Chakras (energy centers in the body). All of these subjects intrigued us hugely because it was so far outside of our normal, Western educational paradigm. Each workshop featured not only understanding, but moments in which we would experience exactly what Chaitanya was dictating. For example, the pranayama workshop was principally a breathing exercise to show us how to control the mind with our breath. After said exercise, we all agreed that we shared a pervading peace and calmness from the lesson. We were refreshed to know that we were gaining skills that could be used for years to come.
At 1:00pm, a seated, vegetarian lunch followed the workshop, a time for mindful eating and thankful gestures like washing dishes and cleaning the tables. 2:00 until 2:30 was resting time, followed by another workshop, leading into 4:30 yoga for a total of three hours of physical yoga each day.
Mind clear and body calm, we relished a light dinner prepared with love and great vibes. Next was the nightly Kirtan (a call and response chanting with tablas, a harmonium, and other drums). Weary from a day of spiritual practice, we went to bed around 8:30 each night.
On the 11th, Chaitanya lead us in a departing ceremony in the meditation room. Seated closely in a circle, we chanted in sanskrit around a pot of burning paper and cow chips. Previous to the ceremony, we had written down on peaces of paper one thing we want to take from the retreat, and one thing we wanted to leave behind to be shed from our pre-yoga selves. We symbolically threw the papers in the fire separately and watched them incinerate, giving us a luminous warmth.
In retrospect, I believe we did gain what we wanted to, and shed what we needed to. The 5 days were tough, but gave us new dimensions to live and grow in. Shout out to our homeboy Chaitanya for being an exemplary role model and an inspiration to live a more conscious life. From the Inti group in Cusco, Namaste.

Friday, November 13, 2015

Exploratory Chilling - Southern Highlands



Our week in Arequipa sold us on Peru pretty easily.  Aside from Jimmy, Ryan and TJ, whose inconvenient location necessitated a 45-minute commute to and from the Spanish school, the majority of us took a quick liking to the new country - 5000-meter snow-covered warts and all. 

This was especially good news because our next week was libre: We had six days to plan and follow our own schedule, operating within a given budget and landing us in the city of Cusco by the end. Within those parameters, we were free to discuss and decide our own week and our own fate. Yes.

The money, of course, proved to be our most limiting factor.  Seventy bucks can get a person a long way in South America, but it wasn't quite enough to realize some of our wilder fantisies. For example, it discounted the possibility of a quick jaunt to the Galápagos - believe me, we tried like hell to make that one work - and then anything further away (like Patagonia or the Caribbean) just  kind of fizzled away by default. But we were more than happy to hang out in Peru, and Arequipa's location in the Southern Highlands gave us tons of options that were relatively close at hand.

So on Sunday morning Lucas and I hit the Festivál de Comida one more time, met up with the rest of the Carpe Gentlemen's Club, and piled into a bus that had at one time been bright purple but was now faded and patched with duct tape. Economy is key. Though the bus squirmed in protest all the while, the three-hour drive was a cool experience for most of us; we traversed a painted desert, between twelve and fifteen thousand feet above sea level, and witnessed an alien landscape and an evening sky that probably don't have equals anywhere else on this planet.  I just wish the windows would have been clearer.

We arrived in the town of Chivay as the evening fell and the cold rolled in, like it always does when it gets dark and you're three miles above the flipping ocean. I still can't get over that.

Chivay is a charming, historical place where the indigenous culture has blended uncompromisingly with 21st-century tourism.  Women walk to and fro in enormous, brightly-colored hats and dresses, running an energetic open-air market and bumping elbows with adventurous gringos.  Most of Chivay's visitors are out to see the nearby Cañon del Colca, and we were no exception; the Cañon is the second-deepest in the world, bested only by a smaller and less-magnificent neighbor (the Cotahuasi to the north, and it's twice as deep as the Grand Canyon at it's deepest.  We spent a day hanging out in Chivay's cobblestone streets and exploring the Incan ruins to the East, and then decided that the canyon would be better explored from a different town, Cabanaconde, a quick 30 minute drive down the rim. 

After arriving in Cabanaconde on the morning of Day 3, we packed our bags and prepared for one of South America's most insane hikes.  Our descent - about a mile, vertically, I think - wound down an arduous series of dusty switchbacks, finally concluding at a weird little settlement known as The Oasis. An incongruous gem of palm trees and swimming pools located on the floor of this plunging, jagged, dusty crevasse, it's wholly unique (albeit a little touristy) and it's equal parts attractive and absurd. There's a restaurant at the bottom, with accompanying cabins; all supplies (and some visitors) are hauled down by mule. Lindsay actually had to enlist one for the evening ascent, which was doubly difficult on account of the plunging temperatures and the lack of ambient oxygen.

The next morning, Morning 4, our stay in Cabanaconde was brought to a close by another long bus ride - less bumpy this time, but just as scenic - to the city of Puno. We had read that our destination is a sprawling dump full of smog and illicit activity; we justified our visit on account of it's neighbor, Lake Titikaka, which is officially the world's most fun-to-say geographical feature.  It's also Earth's highest navigable body of water, and, according to legend, the birthplace of the sun. 

We spent all of Day 5 on the water, hopping from island to island in a rented boat and reveling in the novelty of it all.  Lake Titikaka? The one we've all been making jokes about since fourth grade? It was almost too much.  The Islas de Uros, manmade islands which are composed entirely of lake-borne reeds and have been maintained by their indigenous inhabitants for centuries? No way. Taquile, a Mediterranean isle with Mediterranean scenery that looks like it was picked up and plopped down on a different continent? Come on. The fact all of this is perched around two miles above sea level - that my house is located something like 35 football fields straight down? Ridiculous.

We bedded down on a night bus and woke up in Cusco, our final destination, with little to do other than recharge and explore.  Cusco is a big, beautiful, Spanish Colonial tourist haven situated on the edge of the Sacred Valley, and it's probably one of my favorite stops on the trip thus far.

Maybe. I don't know. It's pretty hard to pick favorites.

(None of these pictures are mine. I can't find a computer that'll cooperate with my camera.)


Oasis
From the bus windows










Uros

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Crossing the Line - Quito/Arequipa

We left the Intag Watershed with a pretty simple itenerary: Head back to Quito, check into Community Hostel, hit the laundromat, eat ludicrous amounts of brownies, and fall asleep watching movies on the wall projector.

Community is an exceptionally comfortable hostel with delicious meals, friendly (English-speaking) staff, and a welcoming vibe. It was the first place we stayed after arriving in Ecuador back in September, and most of the group considers it a kind of home-away-from-home. We were happy to pay it one last visit to close out our time in Ecuador, and we stayed pretty faithful to our schedule.

Before dawn on the third morning we called some of Ecuador's most spirited cab drivers and burnt rubber all the way to Quito International. Our day consisted of one flight to Lima and another to Arequipa, with a visit to McDonald's (God bless America) in between. We arrived in Arequipa well-rested but unsure of what to expect; though Peru is Ecuador's neighbor, it's an altogether different place.  Supposedly it's also more dangerous. One of our leaders, Lindsay, has lived there for six years and has no shortage of stories to tell.  We were excited, but we'd mentally prepared ourselves for a distinct change of pace.

If we had any fears about the transition, they weren't confirmed.  We all love Peru.  Most of the group would probably agree that our week in Arequipa was one of the best of the trip so far; we were in a beautiful place, experiencing Peruvian life through an incredibly full schedule. We enrolled for the week as students in a local Spanish school, taking classes for half of each day while spending the other half hanging out with kids at a nearby orphanage. Our host families were amazing, too, with comfortable homes, good food, and even hot water.

Our schedule kept us busy - I've never learned so much Spanish so fast, nor pretended to be a horse so often - but I can't think of a better way to have spent our first week in Peru. This country is absurdly gorgeous, with near-perfect weather at this time of year, and it seems like day-to-day experiences are even better just because of the quality of the air. Visiting sunny Arequipa just to gawk at the snow-capped mountains and sip maté de coca would all have been great even without awesome stuff to do from sunup to sundown.  Our teachers in the Spanish school were second to none, and the 3-4 hours of daily class seemed to go by like lightening.  We also had a blast at the orphanage. Aside from some light yardwork and some chicken coup assembly, our only job was to play with the squad each afternoon - to give some piggyback rides, spend some time on the swing set, and pop some volleyballs over the language barrier.  It was a good gig, and we were pretty sad to leave on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday we rounded off the week at Arequipa's annual Festival de Comida, where heaping platters of delicious local fare are dished out at Peru's typical dirt-cheap prices.  The city's evident passion for food kind of reminded me of America, although delecacies like chicha morada and picarones are probably hard to come by in the States. Picarones. Oh man. Four handmade honey-soaked donuts, flash-baked to perfection right in front of your eyes and supplemented with a side of quinoa ice cream - for less than three dollars? I like your style, Peru, and I think we're all pretty hungry for more.  Hope you keep it all up for the next month or so.

Arequipa / Either I took this picture, or I can't find a computer that can upload my photos