Spring break in Bay Area

The kids' calendars aligned for spring break, so we decided to spend it in the SFO Bay area. We have been planning to visit the Bay Area for a long time. S and I have such fond memories from our time there many years ago (and this blog was born there!)

Our agenda was comprised of meeting lots and lots of friends, cousins, and relatives and eating some amazing meals along the way. Managed a couple of hikes as well, one in Fremont and a couple in Sausalito and San Jose. They reminded us of why we'd fallen in love with this area in the first place. We spent a day showing the kids around SFO - Golden Gate Bridge, Ghirardelli Square, Pier 39,  Fisherman's wharf, Salesforce Tower etc. 

Sweet beginnings

My parents celebrated their golden anniversary in January and I organized a week-long vacation in Sri Lanka for the three of us. I left for Chennai in mid-January and spent two and a half weeks in Chennai, Bangalore, and Sri Lanka. With my penchant for cramming my schedule, my few days in India were hectic, but I'm glad I did cram my calendar because I got to meet so many friends and family and spend quality time with all of them. Such opportunities for connection, especially when you live abroad, are few and far between, and I cherish them all the more for that. 

Our road trip in Sri Lanka covered Dambulla, Trincomalee, Kandy, Colombo, and Galle (in that order). I relished spending 1:1 time with my folks. Time is the most valuable currency; once lost, never to be regained. I think we'll all look back on our week in Sri Lanka with a lot of fondness and I am really glad that I was able to execute this plan successfully. 

I met a friend in Bangalore who loves Sri Lanka too. She pressed on me a book called "This Divided Island" by Samanth Subramanian which I was engrossed in during the long flight back home. It's a nonfiction account of the civil war in Sri Lanka told through the tragic stories of the innumerable victims. It really opened my eyes to all the trauma that is still being carried around by Sinhalese and Tamils alike, under the veneer of normalcy and hospitality which is all that we experienced during our time there. 

I spent a couple of days in Bangalore at the office and some changes are in the offing on the work front as well. Since I have been back home, I have been deliberating on my next (professional) steps and discussing them with S. In the meantime, I restarted my weekly Zumba class and also began volunteering as an ESOL teacher again (once a week for 2 hours). Summer plans are being made ...lots of travel this year as well. 2024 is shaping up to be another eventful year.

Summer 2021- it's almost over!

This summer has been a lot busier than anticipated. We renewed the lease on our house, and we are here for another two years. 

In July, we drove to Cleveland, Ohio, for a short vacation. Met an old friend of S's from high school. On his suggestion, went to a place called Put -in-bay which is an island in the middle of Lake Erie. It was a 2-hour drive from Cleveland to the place from where we had to catch a 20-minute ferry to the island.  From the dock, we took a bus to get to the downtown area. The town of Put-in-Bay is small and quaint and entirely dependent on tourist traffic. The kids were able to go parasailing for the very first time. Who would've thought that a cold dreary city like Cleveland would afford that opportunity?!!!! They had a blast that day - parasailing over the lake on a perfect-temperature sunny day, wading and swimming in the cool waters, playing ball near the beach.....Y pointed out that it was the first time she and her dad had been able to go swimming since March 2020.

Overall, I was very impressed with Cleveland. It has a small but nice national park, a couple of good universities, a nice museum and arts district, and Lake Erie (one of the great lakes). We were blessed with very sunny bright weather most of the days so I guess we saw the city at its best. 

Back home, one of my besties visited for the weekend, her family in tow, and the next weekend, we drove to North Carolina to meet her and tour UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University. In a few days, we are off to Columbus, Ohio where Ads is playing in a tournament and where I will meet yet another friend from high school whom I haven't seen in years. In between, we have middle school orientation for Y, and I have been prepping to make sure we have clothes and supplies for back-to-school. Before we know it, the summer vacation will be over. 

Ads recently received his very first paycheck which was quite thrilling for me :) More on that, coming up soon!

Peru and our first foray into South America - Part 2

Part 1 of the Peruvian adventure is here.

Back from Machu Picchu, it was back to Cuzco and onward to our next adventure, in the Amazon rainforest.

Imagine flying to an airport called Puerto Moldonado. It's nothing but a large, asbestos-roofed shack and the minute you step out of the building, you just know you are in the tropics. The air is warm and sticky. It is a sea of green all around. The bus you are asked to get on in painted with bright toucans, jaguars and caimans :) 

The bus took us to the Rio Madre de Dios, which flows across Peru and Bolivia and is a sub-tributary of the Amazon. This river looks pretty powerful and impressive so I immediately wondered what the mighty Amazon would look like!

The journey had just begun. We were on a motorboat for 2 hours, in the middle of the Madre de Dios with lush and impenetrable green on both banks. The odd fishing boat was the only sign of any human habitation. Later I discovered that the rainforest occupied 60% of Peruvian land area and held only 5% of its population (no surprise there).

Our lodge was a large one and stuffed to the gills with European guests. It didn't have phones, mobile signal (there was a radio set for emergencies) and electricity would be available from 5-10 pm every night. There was limited electricity at other times, powered by solar panels. Three square meals a day in the communal dining room were fresh, local and delicious. We thought we would relax in the lodge after our busy schedule in the Andes, but that was not to be. Between long and short hikes and caiman-spotting excursions, there was barely time to snatch a few moments here and there to lie on a hammock and read.

One of the hikes was exhausting, the air still and stultifying, thick with humidity so that in minutes we were soaked with perspiration, our sunscreen and insect repellent-coated skins taking on an additional sheen of sweat :) The sun beat down on us so that we would be relieved whenever we were able to move into a patch of shade. We didn't see as much wildlife as we expected to, although always there was the slightly menacing sense of something breathing and observing us from behind all the thick foliage. Maybe it was just my overactive imagination!

The Amazon jungle is massive, majestic and utterly fascinating. Full of things (flora and fauna) that can bite, sting, cut and kill, it is also full of things that can heal and restore, as our guide demonstrated to us time and again. 

I was so glad that we saw two very different sides of Peru on this vacation, from the sublime and lofty Andes to the splendid Amazon. There remains much more to explore in this beautiful country, and hopefully we go back some day. 

Peru and our first foray into South America- Part 1

If Costa Rica and Peru are even a little bit representative of Latin America, I see a long love affair looming! So colourful, geographically diverse, beautiful and friendly! We choose Peru for our first South American foray for the simple reason that it doesn't require a visa for Indian citizens so long as you have a US or Schengen visa. Also, we wanted to see what the big fuss around Machu Picchu, was all about.

Now Peru, like most big countries, is a 10-15 day trip. I know people fly in to see Cusco and Machu Picchu (MP) and fly out, but that's a bit like seeing Delhi and Agra and pretending that's all there is to India. A nice taster and appetizer, but not the whole meal! The kids had the week off for spring break, and with the weekend on either side, we would have 9 days. Given the time taken to travel (with flights and layovers, we were losing a day on each side), I decided to pull them out from school for 2 days so that we would have 9 days in-country.

As it turned out, both kids went down with the flu one after another just the week before our departure and ended up missing the entire week of school. It was exhausting running up and down the stairs and to the doctor and pharmacy, dealing with fever, cold, pain and vomit for 2 kids, maniacally disinfecting all common surfaces and areas and praying that S and I don't catch the flu. Fortunately, since the kids had had their flu shots in the fall, this infection was not as bad as it could have been, and they were recovered well in time for our trip.

We flew to Lima on Copa Airlines via Panama city. We left at 10 am EST and reached Lima at 7.30 pm CST (Peru just being an hour behind DC time). Annoyingly, after such a long flight, we couldn't find our pickup/driver and after waiting for 30 minutes, decided to take an airport taxi to our hotel in Lima, where we had dinner and called it a night.

The next day, dawned bright and sunny. I had planned a self-guided walk along the cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean, and that occupied a couple of hours after breakfast. It was supposed to be a longish walk, but we had to cut it short because of the heat. I had packed for fall weather, with full sleeved tops and pants, and the warm weather caught me unawares. Poor Y kept asking me - "Why didn't you pack SUMMER clothes? I am so hot!!!"

The ocean views were pretty, and the parks were clean and crowded with fitness enthusiasts (it was nice to see a large group of women boxers).

The cliff path with a view of the Miraflores lighthouse

Relaxing at the "Love Park" 

After a quick lunch at a pizzeria where they served us with amazing veg pizza, we were off to a walking city tour led by Urban Adventures. We were the only people on the tour so it became a private walking tour. Our guide Paola led us through a food market, where we got to see and taste many of Peru's distinctive fruits and vegetables.

Chrimoya, a sweet and fleshy fruit

Granadilla, from the passion fruit family

Walking through the market 

A stop for gelato!

I had the lucuma gelato, which was a bit like tutti frooti and very yummy 

Some of the other Peruvian favourites, were toasted and salted corn (yummy!) and Inka Kola..and of course, the national drink, Pisco sour (alcohol content between 38% and 48% so definitely not my thing).

A crowded bus drive brought us to the Plaza de Armas, the main square in Lima, filled with gorgeous buildings- the Presidential Palace, the Basilica of San Pedro, the Archbishop's Palace etc.

We had a hard time getting back to the hotel. Apparently, Friday night traffic is not a problem only in Bangalore! It took ages to find a cab and we got caught in an epic traffic jam before being dropped at our hotel, settling in for an early night before our flight to Cusco the next morning.

Cusco (or Cuzco, Qusqu being the Quechua spelling) was the capital of the Incan kingdom for about 3 centuries until the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century. A gorgeous city with the ubiquitous Plaza de Armas, it took our breath away, quite literally (as it's the same altitude as Leh, around 3400 m above sea level!). 
Very few of the original Incan or pre-Incan buildings remain as the Spanish invaders razed everything to the ground. The pre-colonial buildings that remain are in ruins, some partly restored, a mute and sad testament to the ingenuity and technology of the Andean kingdoms that were native to the Sacred Valley (or Valle Sagrada). 

The kids and I missed the city tour as Y and I got a touch of altitude sickness and we stayed put at our hotel drinking copious amounts of coca leaves tea and staying hydrated. But we were fine the next day, which was good because the next 72 hours were super hectic as we whizzed through the Sacred Valley, covering Pisaq, Ollayantaytambo, Chinchero, and Machu Picchu, marvelling at the Anden civilization's mastery of astronomy, architecture, engineering, agricultural techniques and of course the sophisticated art and craft forms.  

I didn't quite know what to expect at Machu Picchu. You know the feeling when you've seen a place and read about it innumerable times? One is always anxious whether the real thing will live up to its promise. When we climbed up to the caretaker's hut, I almost let out a gasp. There it was! The "classic" pic of Machu Picchu, seen countless times in magazines and travel blogs. If possible, even more stunning in reality (though S went back the next morning and brought back more outstanding photos of the citadel in the mist and rain). 

But I go too fast. The train ride to Aguas Calientes (the base to pick up buses for Machu Picchu) is itself beautiful. The panoramic windows of the train allow for mostly unrestricted views, over a landscape of gushing water and high mountains, green (in April) with foliage.

The rest, contd in Part 2.