2018-08 BOLIVIA - Uyuni’s Train Graveyard

This was the beginning of a two week vacation in Bolivia, starting with the most amazing 3-day, 4 wheel drive trip through the Altiplano (Spanish for "high plain") with our friends Cris and Chrissy from Sucre Bolivia and Connie from Western Australia.

Outside the former trading post town of Uyuni, established in the 1890s, these British steam trains, that once carried the spoils of mining to far away shipping ports, have been abandoned to rust in the desert since the industry collapsed in the 1940s. 

Well over 100 rail cars and locomotives can be found in the graveyard in different states of decay, some joined to form complete trains. 

The bus arrived at Uyuni 3 hours ahead of time.  

So at 3:30am, and -10 degrees, we were grateful we could warm up at coffee shop.

2018-07 A NEW LIFE IN A NEW LAND BEGINS

A big “HOLA” from Peru.  

Yes, we made it!!  Our two year goal has come to fruition.

It feels good to finally get a chance to write.  It’s 8 weeks today since we left Australia but it feels like at least 6 months.

Sydney Australia Airport farewell from family 

Alex’s mama

Lloyd’s mum

Besides saying farewell to family and close friends, we actually had an easy exit out of Sydney Airport.  Our two fears were:  

1) managing with our 4 x 23kg bags, plus carry ons each; and 

2) Paying for our 4 excess bags (allowed 2 x 23kg each). We purchased tickets that used two airlines, which unknowingly to us, makes excess luggage more expensive.  

Thankfully family helped us transport the luggage to and through the airport so no problems there.

4 bags each

Next to pay for the excess luggage.  We headed to the Sales counter and were told to first check-in and come back.  We asked how much it should be for the four extra bags and were told $800.00.  That was great news as we were expecting to pay $1,200.00!!  On checking in our luggage, the ticket that was issued, listed the 8 pieces but it didn't show a price.  The Qantas lady assisting us looked puzzled and surprised but said:  "Well, just go with it!"  In other words, you haven’t been charged so you don’t have to pay anything.  What a blessing!!

20 or so hours later and we are on the ground in Lima Perú

Much appreciated hospitality at Ken and Christine’s home

... and Hillary’s home,

... and at our Peru Bethel home 

On arriving in Lima we spent a week running around with our lawyer (Ysabel, also a sister) to Perú Interpol, a Public Notary and to Perú Migrations.  We engaged Ysabel to help us with our application for residency.   She was well worth the money spent.  With the language and finding our way around a big city, it would have been extremely difficult without her.

After a week of being interviewed, fingerprinted and completing documents, we flew to Cusco, our new home.  Ysabel said not to expect to hear anything from the Migrations office for 4 or 5 months.  Interesting, Immigration is experiencing a greatly increased work load due to the many desperate Venezuelan’s fleeing their country.  The offices can’t handle the influx of people so they have extended their “offices” to include a processing area in an underground car park!

Miraflores Migrations office, literally a chilly underground car park 

What a huge surprise when Lloyd got his residency approval after only 2 1/2 weeks!  Ysabel had not experienced this before.  In fact, she said that she has many applications from earlier months that she is still waiting on.  What a blessing from Jehovah!  

Thank you Ysabel 

The approval meant a trip back to Lima to pick up Lloyd’s Carne de Extranjeria (Card of the Foreigner).  It means Lloyd can reside in Peru indefinitely. On this same trip we started my application as a dependent of Lloyd’s.  Ysabel said that this should take between 1 - 2 months.  Once again, what a great surprise when one week later We heard that my application for residency was approved!!  Another blessing!  

Every finger and thumb inked at Interpol. . . Icky!

Flying to our new home high in the Andean mountains.  Interestingly the first half of the flight is at a lower altitude than the destination. Cusco is 3,400 m or 11,150 feet altitude. 

Just arrived, our dear friends Sandi and Duane who have helped us so much throughout the process 

Our first 2 or 3 weeks in Cusco were busy getting things for our empty unit.  In Peru, unfurnished really means unfurnished.  No oven, fridge, washing machine, cupboards, drawers, curtains, mirrors etc.  We were often out on foot and taxi for 9-12 hours per day searching the local shops, smugglers markets (infamous for their pickpockets) and western style supermarkets.  We tried to buy as much locally, made furniture as possible and we are happy with the results.

Before

... and after 

Our street

As was the case in July 2017,  I had no reaction to the altitude (3,400 meters above sea level) and Lloyd has coped much better with it this time.  He is still adjusting but feeling better every week.  Altitude also affects cooking and I have had to make adjustments with ingredients, proportions, temperature and timing.  The air pressure is lower, so foods take longer to cook.  Water boils at a lower temperature, so foods prepared with water (such as pastas and soups) take longer.  Altitude especially effects baking.  Cakes and biscuits rise more easily, and lose moisture faster.  

Canned vegetables are practically non-existent here.  I particularly wanted a variety of beans.  So I purchased dried beans instead.  I didn’t realise how hard it is to hydrate them at high altitude.  Even after soaking the Red Kidney beans for over 12 hours and cooking the Minestrone for 5 hours the beans didn’t cook properly and I got food poisoning.  In my research, I discovered that kidney beans release a toxin, that can be fatal, if not cooked properly.  No wonder I felt so sick.  Surprisingly Lloyd was not affected so badly.  I have tried to cook with them again, but still could not get them soft enough to risk eating.  We will have to buy a pressure cooker.

A couple of weeks back was our first offical meeting with our Congregation Mirador.  The Peru Service Department left it up to us to decided between two Congregations.  So we spent a few weeks in both.  Although they have similar needs, there were a number of factors that led to our decision.  Primarily it came down to the fact that that there are a few native English speakers in Mirador that will make it easier as we learn the language, and particularly for Lloyd as an elder.

Our new congregation 

Our new territory. Up and up and up! 

We are looking forward to having an established routine.  As they say here ‘poco a poco,’ ‘little by little’ we will get there.  We are aiming for the start of the new service year.  We are so happy that we got ahead with our Pioneer time so that we need to get 75 hours for the two remaining months.  That means we can concentrate on  establishing a work schedule in July and in August we are planning a vacation.  Our first one in years.  Yes, we came to Peru last July and had a few days ‘off’ but overall that was an investigation trip.  We were on high alert.  Could we live here?  Could we live there? Is moving possible?  What visa should we get?  So not relaxing in the holiday sense.  We didn’t even go to Machu Picchu!!  Ha, ha.

Back to the work situation.  We both stopped our Aussie jobs over 2 months ago.  Lloyd has some online drafting work with a friends from Australia (all former Bethelites) and he is now busy catching up with deadlines.  After buying a fridge, washing machine, oven, lounge etc, etc, it’s great he has work already.  Soon I will look into teaching English online.

We are so thankful to Jehovah for caring for all our needs.

Our new life in a new land has begun

Take care

Alexnlloyd

2018-06 “SO, WHY PERU?”

If you have read any of our blogs you will know that most of our previous travel was related to our Bethel assignment. We loved our Bethel life. We were part of the Australia (now Australasia) Branch since January 1990 (and 1987 for me, Lloyd) and we truly loved our life.  However, as part of the organisations adjustments, when Bethel’s around the world were reduced in late 2015, early 2016, we were among the many who were reassigned to the field. 

So, what to do?  Well, the short answer is we moved to Peru to serve where the need is greater. But I’ll let Alexandra explain WHY PERU?

We often get asked:  “Why Peru?”  So we thought it was worthy of our first blog since our move.  Here is a review of our decision making process.

From the moment we found out we were leaving Bethel our goal was to pioneer in a land with a greater need.  On that same day we scoured the yearbook and compiled facts and figures in a spreadsheet.  We had a two year plan.  It allowed us to fulfil our SKE assignment (which we did straight from Bethel) with our congregation, Penshurst in Sydney.  It would also give us time to save money and importantly, time to be with both of our fathers who were terminally ill.  (Sadly, Lloyd’s father died a month after we left Bethel and my father 6 months later.)

The main thing we did to come to our decision, was (1) pray, pray and pray every day.  We supplicated Jehovah to help us.  (2) Along with searching the Yearbook statistics, we (3) read Watchtower articles.  (4) We talked to many ‘Need Greater’s’.  (5) We did not pursing a ‘lead’ that dried up.  In other words, when people promised information but they didn’t get back to us, we took that as a method of elimination.  (6) Visa’s were another big consideration.  How difficult is it to get in any particular country?  How successful were others?  How expensive would it be?  Next, (7) we considered our own needs. Our place of choice had to be: 

A. Relatively cheap.

B. Relatively safe.

C. Not hot and humid all year long.  (Climate ruled out a lot of developing lands.)

Six months later, out of the blue, we received a WhatsApp message from friends pioneering in Swaziland, Africa.  They asked if we would like to look after their studies (and dog) when they return to work in Australia for two months. How exciting! Swaziland seemed to tick all of the boxes.  Was this Jehovah’s answer?  For about 2 months we thought so.  

However, after taking over a Metro shift from a couple who served in Tanzania, we decided to widen our field again.  We were aware that not only is Siswati (language of Swaziland), a difficult language, but it is also only spoken by less than 2 million people.  Of course, they need the truth too.  We applaud our friends pioneering there.  But it got us thinking for us personally, although we want this move to be long term, (that is, as long as circumstances with our family, our health and finances permit), if we ever had to come back to Australia, would we ever use Siswati again?  We have never come across anyone from Swaziland.  Whereas Swahili spoken in Tanzania, is also spoken in many other countries, by more than 50 million people.  Mostly these are hot, humid climates, but some highland areas in Tanzania could be suitable.  And there would be opportunity to use it in Australia.

So we opened our minds up to other possibilities again.  It would make sense to go to Asia as it is so close to Australia.  A lot of places are hot but, but there are possibilities such as Nepal.  We were also still considering Swaziland and Arusha in Tanzania.  And then we looked more closely to the Andes in South America.  Equador and Peru seemed the ’easiest’ places to get visas.  (We must say at this point that our contacts in Equador, connected us with a couple in Peru.  They were, and still are, an invaluable source of enthusiasm, encouragement and information.)

So we came up with the short list of Peru, Equador, Tanzania, Swaziland, Nepal and another large Asian country.  

Next, (8) as the brothers suggest, we wrote to the six Branches via Australia Branch.  Well, actually, it ended up being only four as at the last minute we removed the two Asian countries from our list.  (For various reasons after much prayer.)

The letter was sent in January and we set a deadline of March 15, 2017 to make a decision as we wanted visit the country in the same service year.   The result?  Peru Branch wrote back within a week.  Great letter, recommending 9 cities or towns as places of need.  They also wrote that if none of these were suitable for us they have more options.  The second week, we received a beautiful, personal letter from Equador Branch.  They listed two relatively isolated congregations.

We kept praying for Africa to write but we never received anything. . . So the decision was made easy. . . Peru!  Of course, we could have written back to Equador and asked for more options or we could have written again to Africa, but we decided to take the original letters as Jehovah’s answer.

Finally, (9) we visited Peru to “scout out the land”, as recommended in our publications.  We checked out a few places and chose Cusco.  There is a need in Cusco, maybe not as great as other areas,  but we too have needs and we felt that Cusco would be the best place for us personally to start our new life in Latin American.

It’s interesting how we initially thought we would move to Asia, our hearts were in Africa but we feel that after much prayer, deliberation and research we believe that Jehovah was telling us that South America was better for us

So here we are.  Just over two years after leaving Bethel. 

There it is. The background to our new life in a new land.  But of course, this is just the beginning. Who knows what will happen next?  

To be continued. . . 

Peru 2017-Post 24. One Day and One Incident in Santiago, Chile

Monday July 24

Having flown out of Lima after 12pm and landed in Santiago 4 hours later we were pretty tired.  Once out of the airport we caught a bus into the city. It was cold and still very dark at around 6:30 am.  So what to do with a 20 hour layover in a foreign city?  

 

Our usual routine in South America is to go to the Plaza De Armas and so we did. More trees than we have seen in any Peruvian Plaza. 

 

To be honest our South America experience is very limited but one thing that seems to be a very strong theme is an obsession with macho military hero statues.  As the plaque shows, this is the conquistador Pedro de Validivia.  He was sent by Conquistador Francisco Pizarro on a long journey from Cusco, Peru.  Validivia summoned the chiefs of the area to a parliament, where he explained his intention to found a city on behalf of the King Carlos I of Spain, which would be the capital of his governorship.  On 12 February 1541, Valdivia officially founded the city of Santiago del Nuevo Extremo, Santiago of New Extremadura. The result? 

 

476 years later, Santiago is large cosmopolitan city that, if you didn't know you were in South America, you would think you were somewhere in Western Europe.  The city has a downtown of 19th-century neoclassical architecture and winding side-streets, dotted by art deco, neo-gothic, and other styles. 

 

This is a Brother that we happens to meet doing street witnessing. 

 

The Mercado Central de Santiago with its cast-iron roof and supporting structure was opened in 1872. 

 

Fish market. 

 

The fast flowing Mapocho River flows from the Andes mountains onto the west and divides the capital in two. The city is home to a great deal of artists including a great many graffiti artists. 

 

The 1910 Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts. Sadly the walls of which which have become the canvas for low skilled graffiti artists. 

 

Sculptor Fernando Botero voluptuous bronze Horse. 

 

Parque Forestal. 

 

The famous Chilean sandwich for lunch. 

 

The incident

Feeling overwhelming tired after a nonstop month in Peru and literally only a few hours sleep on an overnight plane, we acquiesced to the idea of one of those hop-on-hop-off city tour tourists buses. So off we went in the open top bus to see some parts of the city that we could never reach in a day on foot. It was during one of the hop off stops, when we were standing on the footpath waiting for the tourist bus and looking a bit too much like tourists, that the incident occurred. 

It all happened rather quickly. As she wiped her neck, Alexandra said, "What was that, I think a bird pooed on me". I looked at her back and sure enough, her beautiful green coat was spattered with dark, brown bird droppings. As I started to attempt to clean them off with my handkerchief, a kindly concerned man came to our aid with a tissue. He ushered us away from the kerb to the side of a building.  Alexandra was rightly disturbed by the mess on her back, hat and hair.  "Is it bird or bat?" she asked the helper. Of course his English was as bad as our Spanish so no definitive answer came. He sort of pointed to the trees that had long twisted seed pods but no sign of living creatures. He then indicated that I too had had been hit and set about helping to remove my shoulder bag and backpack. He placed them carefully on the ground against the wall behind Alexandra and himself.  Then he put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around as if to clean my back. He even gestured for me to remove my coat.  At that moment two other men, passers by, appeared right beside us, making sweeping pointing gestures to the sky or nearby trees as if to say "look up at the bird that got you".  I could see no birds. My instinct kicked in.  Somthing is not right.  I spun around to see the hand of yet another person reaching down behind Alexandra and grasping the strap of my shoulder bag, and then whoever he was was, was off down the path with my bag. Instinctively I pursued him, grabbed my bag back and then shoved him away as hard as I could.  Completly out of character I assure you but I was angry, shocked and just beginning to realise what was going on. I looked back quickly to Alexandra, I dashed back to confirm that we had not lost the back pack. "The pointers" had disappeared into the crowd. The "kindly stranger" who had been "assisting" us, himself began to shuffle off down the sidewalk. As he did I realised that he too was part of the scam and so I shouted "THEIF, THEIF"! with all my might.  He didn't run. Neither had the snatcher or the pointers.  They didn't want to attract attention. They were too professional. They merely calmly walked away and merged into the the people and architecture. Some people on the sidewalk looked and stared at me for shouting but no one really did much. We couldn't do much. We stood there, quickly checking that we had all three of our bags, checking our pockets for wallets, passports and cameras. Everything seemed to be in order. But we were in shock. It all happened so quickly. 

Going over in our minds we put together what had just happened.  We had been the victims of a professional gang of thieves and by chance or instinct, we had escaped, just by the skin of our teeth.  As we had stood in a known tourist location with backpacks and bags waiting for a tourist bus with tourist bus tour brochures in hand, we were an obvious target. There were no birds or bats. Someone, probably another individual had passed and squirted a substance on us. Some sort of sticky food based substance that resembled bird poo.  The "helper" approached and ushered us across the sidewalk to the wall where we would feel safe. He then proceeded to convince me to remove my bags, placed them "safely" against the wall. He then endeavoured to turn me around to clean my back.  Then the "pointers" arrived to enlarge on the bird/bat theory and complete the distraction.  At that moment, the "snatcher" slithers in from who knows where, bent down and tried to grab the bags. Had our instincts not been telling us that somthing was wrong, we would have lost our bags and even worse, possibly our money passports. 

It was a most unsettling experience.  For the rest of the day we looked at everybody that approached us on the street with suspicion.  A horrible feeling. At the same time, we went away feeling good that we had reacted in the nick of time. We had realised what was happening and avoided the consequences.  

We got on the next tourist bus and continued our city tour. 

 

Colonial architecture of the Metropolitan Cathedral. 

 

Palacio de La Moneda is the seat of the President of the Repubic of Chile.  On this day there appeared to be several protests going on in the city.  

But no one was getting in here. 

 

The Neptune Terrace, in the Santa Lucia Hill. 

 

 

Art Deco apartment building. 

 

Finally we headed up the Cerro San Cristóbal lookout, a big hill in the middle of the city from which we could almost see through the smog, The Gran Torre Santiago  (Great Santiago Tower), the tallest building in Latina America.

 

 

 

 

And what South American city would be complete without an enormous Jesus or Virgin Mary image (or statue) on top of a hill?

 

Santiago old and new. 

Despite the afore mentioned "incident" we did enjoy our day in Santiago. 

 

And so our South American trip had come to an end.  All that remained was the 19 hour flight home... 

Until next time, 

Lloydnalex