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Beats Greyhound Hands Down

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Cruz Del Sur (Southern Cross) Is One of Peru’s Premier Bus Lines

Cruz Del Sur (Southern Cross) Is One of Peru’s Premier Bus Lines

For some reason I cannot quite fathom, Martine likes to go to Sacramento via Greyhound. (Perhaps it’s because the airport is many miles north of the city.) Today I was doing some research on returning to Lima from Cusco. Originally, I planned to fly; but then I realized that I would not only have to pony up for the flight, but also I’d have to book a hotel for the night. Then I looked at Cruz Del Sur’s website, and my eyes popped out.

I had some good feelings about South American buses from my experiences in Argentina, but some of the the long-distance Peruvian lines look really good. Probably the best of the bunch are Cruz Del Sur, Ormeño (which has a 6,002 mile route—the longest in the world—between Caracas, Venezuela and Buenos Aires, Argentina), and Oltursa. Many have what are called Executivo or Cama services, which include seats that recline from 160-180º, plus a lot of other extras. The Crucero Suite service includes these, plus meals (included in the price), stewards/stewardesses, entertainment with personal headphones and screens, two restrooms per bus, air conditioning and heating, reading lamps, a kit including blanket and pillow, and bingo. Check out this Cruz Del Sur website in English and compare it to the increasingly trashy public transportation services on offer in the United States.

Of course, nothing is perfect in this world. In the summer of 2013, a Cruz Del Sur bus full of American, European, and Asian tourists was held up outside of Ayacucho by eight armed bandits in the middle of the night. They pulled the bus off the road and proceeded to rob the passengers of over $50,000 in cash and personal goods. You can read the story in Peru This Week. Ayacucho is a dangerous place that served as the center of the Sendero Luminoso (“Shining Path”) guerrilla insurgency in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Peru is a deceptively large country: From Cusco to Lima is a 21-22 hour bus ride with a single stop on the way. I kind of hope it isn’t Ayacucho.

 

Getting Off Our High Horse

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Miniature Mare and Her Foal

Miniature Mare and Her Foal

While we were in Solvang last week, Martine made a request to visit the Quicksilver Ranch, where miniature horses are raised for sale. Huell Howser had done one of his famous “California’s Gold” episodes about the place.) We chose a good time to go because all the mares and their foals that were between six and eight weeks old were herded into a pen, from where they had their hooves cut back and their manes trimmed. According to one of the ranch hands, all the foals had already been sold and were being taken care of until they were old enough to be separated from their very protective mothers.

Wherever the foals went, the mares followed closely, as in the above photograph. Although signs were posted all over the fence warning of what could happen if someone tried to pet the horses (their fingers could be chomped), Martine couldn’t resist petting the foals on the back, as in the photo below.

Martine Petting Foal

Martine Petting Foal

In fact, Martine was so intent on looking at all the little horses that, after two and a half hours, I finally convinced her to leave the ranch without sneaking one or more of them away with her. (After all, I had planned to visit the Book Loft, which always had a few titles that beckoned to me.)

I wondered what kind of people bought the little colts. According to the hands, they were scattered all over Southern California. Although I didn’t say, I had the feeling that most of them went to the spoiled rotten kids of super-rich families. I can’t imagine the horses liking that very much. I am sure that they would love having Martine to play with them and take care of them, but I’m afraid that a horse wouldn’t go well with our two-bedroom apartment in West Los Angeles. Maybe, when we buy ourselves a ranch….

In the Land of the Bakery Vikings

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Martine, Bloodthirsty Viking, and Me

Martine, Bloodthirsty Viking, and Me in Solvang

As I mentioned in my last post, Martine and I left town last Thursday for my niece Hilary’s wedding in Paso Robles. There will be plenty of wedding photos later, but we let my brother Dan’s neighbor Dennis take all the wedding pics: By the time I was ready (I was the officiant), the lighting was starting to go. Whenever we visit my brother in Paso, we usually like to break our trip in Solvang, a hundred plus year old Danish colony in Santa Barbara County. The town is crawling with bakeries (see the cookie tubs in the window to Martine’s left in the above photo. It also has a great bookstore called the Solvang Book Loft, where I bought two Gabriel Garcia Marquez novels. For Martine, it is also the site of the Quicksilver Ranch, where miniature horses are raised for sale.

In the next week or so, I’ll show you some of the pictures I took of the miniature horses and their colts. They were incredibly cute—and they let Martine pet them (even though she wasn’t supposed to!).

We got back to Los Angeles this afternoon. Our feeling was one of relief, because after we left Solvang, the temperature shot up to over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and stayed that way until we approached our coastal area, where the temperature is twenty-five degrees cooler.

 

 

 

 

Wedding Break

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Vineyards Around Paso Robles

Vineyards Around Paso Robles

I will be away from my computer for a few days while I attend the wedding of my niece Hilary in Paso Robles, where my brother Dan lives. The ceremony will be held at a B&B in nearby Templeton. Martine and I will also be spending some time at Solvang and Coalinga.My next post will probably come on Monday afternoon or evening.

How I Survived 7 Years with the Penguins

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The Former Saint Henry Church and Elementary School

The Former Saint Henry Church and Elementary School

To begin with, I have a terrible admission to make: I never finished First Grade. As my birthday is in January, I started kindergarten at Cleveland’s Harvey Rice Elementary School on East 116th Street in January 1950. I was not a huge success, as I did not speak a word of English. Mrs. Idell sent me home with a note pinned to my shirt that said, “What language is this child speaking?” Duh! She was teaching kids in a Hungarian neighborhood, so she should have guessed. But in 1950, people didn’t think that way.

Halfway through First Grade, my parents moved to the suburbs in what was then called the Lee-Harvard area. After half a year of First Grade at Harvey Rice, I started in immediately with Second Grade at the newly opened Saint Henry School on Harvard Avenue. Please don’t tell the authorities at the Cleveland School District that I didn’t complete First Grade, or they might come looking for me and make me sit for six months at one of those tiny school desks in which my adult posture would become stunted.

Dominican Sisters

Dominican Sisters (a.k.a. Penguins)

For the next seven years, I was a prisoner of a mixture of Dominican nuns (whom we referred to as penguins because of the color of their habits) and lay teachers. They included:

  1. Sister Francis Martin (Second Grade). She pulled my ears and called me Cabbagehead.
  2. Sister Marjorie (Third Grade). She was not a full sister yet, just a postulant; but she was rather cute as I recall.
  3. Mrs. McCaffery (Fourth Grade). A nice, warm-hearted Irish woman.
  4. Miss Cunningham (Fifth Grade). Something of a cold fish, looked vaguely like Tippi Hedren.
  5. Mrs. Joyce (Sixth Grade). Friendly and knowledgeable.
  6. Sister Beatrice (Seventh Grade). In her eighties, but with no diminution of her abilities.
  7. Sister Rose Thomas (Eighth Grade). A short martinet, but very capable.

I started Saint Henry with a rudimentary knowledge of English and ended up something of a whiz kid—with a specialty in English. In my younger years, I took a lot of guff because of my foreignness, so I deliberately set about becoming something of a specialist in the language. I could still diagram a sentence. (Do they do that any more?)

 

Peru, Here I Come …

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I Am Flying LAN Down to Lima

I Am Flying LAN Down to Lima

… but not just yet.

Yesterday evening I book my flight to Peru via Kayak. I got a nice nonstop from LAX to Lima (LIM) on LAN Airlines. Formerly LAN Chile, it is now part of the Latam Group, after having merged with TAM of Brazil—a South American aviation giant. And yet, while airlines in the United States are cutting back on service, LAN provides meals on real plates with real cutlery and free wine. Would I fly a U.S. airline out of the country? Uh, no.

When Martine and I took LAN to Buenos Aires in 2011, we enjoyed our flight as much as possible considering how long we were in the air. The LAX to Buenos Aires run is just about one of the farthest trips one can take in the Western Hemisphere. We both felt that the airline was well managed, especially as compared to Argentina’s own national airlines, Aerolineas Argentinas, which once landed us at the wrong airport—not bothering to tell us until we were in the air. That cost us a $60 cab ride from Ezeiza, as opposed to nearby Aeroparque.

How do I feel about my upcoming trip three months from now? Let’s ask Herbie the Magical llama:

Cool

Cool

 

It Was Ever Thus

Agora

Agora

But as for merchants, their holdings are increased by false oaths, and the art of becoming rich is to show contempt toward the gods, and they sail to every city, doing this evil, lying, deceiving, and misleading. And whoever knows how to do this best will come away richest.—Libanius (4th Century A.D.), Progymnasmata: Comparationes

Mexican Bus Ride

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Still from Luis Buñuel’s Mexican Bus Ride (Subida Al Cielo, 1952)

Still from Luis Buñuel’s Mexican Bus Ride (Subida Al Cielo, 1952)

For various reasons, I am inordinately fond of the films that Luis Buñuel made in Mexico between 1946 and 1965. Since then, he has perhaps made greater films, but remember there is a big difference between fondness and admiration. Because these films were made in Mexico, where perhaps not enough money was budgeted for each production, the director had to use his ingenuity to make the films his own. And when he succeeded most, the results were wonderfully human and surreal. The films from this period that I liked the most are, in order of production:

  1. Los olvidados (1950). In the U.S. variously titled The Forgotten and The Young and the Damned.
  2. Susana (1951). In English: The Devil and the Flesh.
  3. Subida al cielo (1952). In English: Mexican Bus Ride and Ascent to Heaven (the literal translation of the Spanish title).
  4. El (1953), In English: This Strange Passion and Torments.
  5. La Ilusión viaja en tranvía (1954), In English: Illusion Travels by Streetcar.
  6. Abismos de pasíon (Cumbres borrascosas) (1954), In English: Wuthering Heights.
  7. The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954).
  8. Ensayo de un crimen (1955). In English: The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz.
  9. Nazarín (1959).
  10. El ángel exterminador (1962). In English: The Exterminating Angel.

Of these, the most admirable are the last two, just as the director was ready to step onto the world stage. But the ones I would like to watch over and over again are Mexican Bus Ride and Illusion Travels by Streetcar.

Mexican Poster for Mexican Bus Ride

Mexican Poster for Mexican Bus Ride

In the first film, a young man travels from a coastal village to a large market town on a long bus ride during which one passenger dies, another gives birth, and he himself is seduced by the lusciously ripe Lilia Prado (see photo above). Somehow all works out well, almost magically in fact. I have seen this film half a dozen times and am still not close to getting tired of it.

Illusion Travels by Streetcar involves—and tell me this is not unique—a hijacking of a streetcar in which a disconsolate streetcar driver who hijacks a streetcar, takes it on a route of his own devising while offering free rides to a motley crew of passengers who join him on his route.

Both films are hilarious and loving. It is obvious that Buñuel had considerable feeling for the people of Mexico, which shows through again and again.

 

Sillustani

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Ancient Aymara Burial Towers

Ancient Aymara Burial Towers

This fall, when I travel to Peru, one of the places I hope to visit is Sillustani, near the shores of Lake Titicaca roughly between Juliaca and Puno. When I arrive in Puno by bus from Arequipa, I will have a couple of days to adjust to the 12,500-foot (3,810 meters) altitude around the lake. On one of those days, I hope to take a half day tour to visit the chullpas at Sillustani. These are Aymara burial towers, presumably for noble families, of the pre-Inca Aymara people who lived here.

One of the things I am beginning to learn is that Peru consists of many more pre-Columbian peoples than just the Incas. Before 1400, the Incas were a relatively small tribe who created a large empire, largely due to Pachacuti, a.k.a. Yupanqui, whose reign rapidly spread north to Ecuador and south to Chile.

Below are two local indigenous women photographed at Sillustani:

Two Aymara or Quechua Women

Two Aymara or Quechua Women Working on Their Handicrafts

Notice the spindles in their hands. From what I understand, both men and women spend much of their spare time creating the textiles for which the area is famous.

Uh Oh! More Bad News!

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The Spiral M31 (Andromeda) Galaxy With Our Moon in the Foreground

The Spiral M31 (Andromeda) Galaxy With Our Moon in the Foreground

As if we didn’t already have enough troubles, the Andromeda (M31) Galaxy is set to collide with our Milky Way Galaxy. But then, as I am told, there’s no point in crying over spilt Milky Way.

According to CBS News, two neutron stars in M31 just collided. By “just,” of course, we mean two million years ago—which is more than 400 times longer than when Ken Ham thought the universe was created. It took that long for the light of the collision to reach our telescopes. The CBS News website has a neat animation of what the collision with our galaxy could look like.

In case you’re upset about this adversely affecting your weekend plans, let me assure you that the event is between two and four million years in the future:

But there is nothing to worry about, [Astronomer Dennis Overbye] noted, because long before that, the Earth will have entered the solar system’s “hot zone” and become too hostile to sustain human life, so no one [that we could recognize, in any case] will be around to experience the collision.

By then Ken Ham will have been resolved into the two or three molecules that make up his brain.