Friday 23 July 2010

And so she became a British citizen!!

The party is on at Buckingham Palace! The reason? A big fat welcome to Dr. Alice - who by the way, happens to be our older daughter, as a citizen to the kingdom! LOL... I know it was not quite like that, but that is how a mother sees it, ha ha ha.

How cool the way life gears the various situations it presents to us..., back in 2002, when it was time for her to choose where to go for college, she didn't choose to go to the UK because of my side of her roots, but eventually ended up enjoying being there and as for my parents, they were excited to see her wondering around the same grounds our ancestors once did. Back a few generations ago, an adventurous member of the House of Windsor went to Brazil, fell in love, had kids, who had more kids eventually getting to myself and a generation later, to Alice, making us cousins of her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth!!

On Wednesday, voila, she became a British citizen!
The gentleman on the left is the mayor of Bristol, the city where she lives and the gentleman on the right is the representative of the Queen.

God bless you Darling, enjoy your bi-nationality and have loads of fun with the new doors that have opened to you!

Sunday 18 July 2010

Time to go back home

So, here we are, ten days later and it's time to go back home. Out time here was absolutely fabulous, full of all sorts of feelings like, cozy revivals, exhaustion, frustration, unexpected business meetings in Lima, loads of learning, beautiful weather, wonderful colonial hotels... all that topped with much fun, satisfaction and of course, excellent Pisco Sours.

I thoroughly enjoyed going back to the hotel Alice and I stayed 15 years ago, seeing some of the restaurants we went to, clicking a couple of pictures right at the same spot we did then. Cusco has grown significantly. The city now has close to 1 million people which is a third of what the whole country of Panama has.... funny how we get used to some things, no? HK, my last place of residence, has its 7.5 million people and I was comfortable then. Now, living in a much smaller Country I quickly got used to less people zanzing around me and now here in Cusco it was a bit of a "wow" seeing so many people zanzing up and down. May be because I have seen it much smaller 15 years ago and because streets are still original, therefore narrow, the 1 million people look like 5 million!

The lack of air, or should I say lack of bigger lungs, was seriously felt by both of us. Drinking water would have been a big help, but the fact that we were always on the move shooting, with trillion equipments on our back and quite a few layers of cloth due to winter temperatures, I decided that searching for bathrooms around town and ruins was not going to happen. Thus low intake of water. For Joel it was even worse, because he had to go to an unexpected meeting in Lima and had to go back in the middle of the week, leaving Machu Picchu behind. Lima is on the sea level, so this back and forth of sea level and high altitude didn't help him at all... ha ha ha that is the price we both oldies,pay, for not being fit.

The whole 10 days were filled with learning after learning of photo taking. Camera settings were checked and changed almost from photo to photo. In spite of early hours shooting, therefore in theory smooth light, shooting picture was hard as high altitude + sun (in this part of the world it hasn’t many obstacles, like buildings) equals to a scenery fully loaded, full of light that majestically light your day. Experiencing it was marvelous and magical, but shooting it was terribly difficult. We even had to send an email to a photographer friend in HK and ask for some advice. Thank you CN.

This part of the world is visited by tourists from absolutely all over. One thing I thought it was interesting was that although all languages are spoken here in all their different accents, tourists spoke to other tourists in Spanish. This comments goes specially to Americans. Is the USA really becoming a bilingual Country?

Defining what and how this awe-inspiring set of 10 days meant to me would be a bit long and philosophical, so I won’t bore you. Revivals, learning, tightening a new friendship, mis-happenings, experiencing the places and all the rest of it was AWESOME! Many thanks with loads of gratitude goes to Paul TCB, our Cusceño friend who put it al together in a very “Kodak Spot” sort of way. He knew where and at what time to be in the right places,

And for last, if you have been in this part of the world or will be sometime in the future, let me know your feelings towards the funny sensation that the tip of the plane wings’ is a bit TOO close to the Andes as you land in Cusco, ok?

Saturday 10 July 2010

Pinch me pinch me...

Hello readers

Pinch me pinch me... I just can not believe it!! Guess where I am writing to you from? Any suggestions? Which continent? Which Country? Which city? Which historical treasure? Doing what? And… reviving which delicious memories?

The answers to the above questions are as follows:
- South America
- Peru
- Cuzco & Macchu Picchu
- Inca Culture
- for a photographic workshop
- a memorable trip with Alice 15 years ago

It all happened so fast, so last minute that I keep pinching myself to make sure it's really happening. By the end of today, I guess I'll all bruised, due to all the many pinching, ha ha ha.

Our Peruvian friend P, who also lives in Panama City, is not only from Peru as well as from Cuzco!! What a CV of life... just imagine... from all the million cities in this world of ours, being from Cuzco is so wow... your whereabouts around the city can't help but be surrounded by a colonial Spanish city settled right on top (literally) of Inca ruins... so involved in mystery... so marvelous!

Anyway, let me not deviate and get back to us here in Cuzco and Macchu Picchu. So, as I was saying, P is from here and is also a photography lover. Putting one and one together what do you get? A photographic workshop here! He invited the two of us, put together an itinerary, organized the train up to Macchu Picchu, suggested a specific hotel chain for us to choose the one we preferred, to which Joel did the cozy job of choosing the most boutique of the chain and voila, here we are.

The workshop will only start on Tuesday, but Joel and I came a bit early for the weekend, because one, Joel has never been here before and two, Cuzco sits nothing less than 3,300 meters (10,800 ft) above sea level... ouch Joel and I are more towards the oldie side of life rather than the younger side of things, therefore lack of air has been abundant.

We already knew this was going to happen, because it happens to everyone who comes from sea level, so they have coca leaf tea everywhere for tourist to drink freely.

Revivals are dangerous, I think. More often than not, we go for revivals, whatever type of revivals it might be and it's only normal that we take expectations with us and most usually, expectations are not fulfilled, right? But this time, this is not happening. It’s all working out just as planned! Oba!

Alice and I were here in Cuzco and Macchu Picchu 15 years ago and that was an absolutely remarkable trip. She was a W O N D E R F U L traveling companion, enjoyed all the ruins, asked her questions, chewed coca leaf with that naughty look as someone who was doing something wrong, how gorgeous, I remember well her eyes kind of asking me if it were ok to chew coca leaf to help with altitude sickness, how cute!

Anyway, Alice was not only all the above as well as a savior. Can you believe that back in 1995, after clicking my second or third photo here, my camera gave up on me and completely stopped working?? That was so not in the script of our trip! Then Alice, who had saved money to buy herself a camera in the US (our next stop), offered to buy it here in Cuzco. Poor thing... Cuzco is internationally well known for many things in life, but surely not as a camera buying paradise. At the time, we didn’t have many options and ended up getting one that worked very well. Those pictures are till this day comfortably sitting in our albums, showing evidences of the great time we had together and the camera sitting in my small camera museum. Thank you Mumu (her nickname)!

Monday 5 July 2010

Our 1st Panama City anniversary

Boarding the plane in Mexico City was easy... I was so so so light, feeling so well, so peaceful with my soul... what a great week of my life that was. I had a good and comfortable feeling of mission accomplished. There were no regrets, no "ifs" no "I wished it had been different" ... there was nothing like that, just a huge satisfaction of being there and having learned a tiny bit from the historians guides I had hired. A huge "thank you" goes to Joel for not only making this trip possible as well as for understanding my passion, not being an obstacle but rather a bridge for me to achieve it. Another big thank you goes to Alice who not only has managed not to get bored (or at least didn't show me she was bored, ha ha ha) every time I spoke about this dream of mine which was older than her own existence, as well as participating with me on my thrills about this trip. Amen.

On another totally different note, yesterday Joel and I celebrated 1 full year of Panama City, a.k.a. "PTY". I know it's quite a cliché to say things such as "where has the year gone"?" or "time flew by and I didn't see it" or "I didn't see where time went", but that is more or less my feeling right now. May be because it was a year PACKED with many different feelings, emotions, sensations, obstacles, dramas and all the rest of it... wow... so much has happened since we, meaning Joel, Myself and darling Carlota (our dog), 8 suitcases plus a huge dog crate, landed here and now, a year later, life is so settled, we both have a reasonable routine, Carlota unfortunately is no longer with us, my Spanish is not there yet but is getting there, we have a good circle of friends, we have an excellent church, we bought a property... so all in all, in spite of the settling in dramas, life is great and we are not only thankful but also loving being here, amen!