Meet my new best friend, Pepto

The bathrooms at the field house.


As all travelers must, I did too. I fell sick on Tuesday and stayed back from the field. Luckily (unfortunately?) another one of my peers was also sick, so I had a buddy to stay back with. Somehow I had gotten through this much of my life without taking Pepto or Immodium or Tums, so this week has been experiments in the three. I am feeling much better today and hopefully it all will have passed. I only have one more week in Peru, so my next post will be my last from the country. I forgot my camera in Vitor this weekend, so I don´t have any more recent pictures, though I will probably post more with pictures once I´m back in the States and don´t have to pay for my internet.

We are coming up to the end of our trench as we are preparing to excavate the most exciting features, hopefully some in-situ burials. We have already opened one that has been heavily looted, but much of the human remains are intact.

Today I will try ceviche and do a bit of shopping (and send those postcards like I´ve been meaning to). I´ll be back again with more updates later. :D

PS- One word in Spanish that I´ve comfortably learned while here- galletas...cookies. :D

Ketchup

Hello All !

So it´s been awhile since a real substantial post, so I´ll try and include some details that I left out before. Two weekends ago we had a splendid time in Moquegua where we all climbed Cerro Baul and ate cuy (yum yum guinea pig). Cerro Baul is a ridge on which the Wari elite lived and ruled from in the Moquegua basin. There have been more than 10 field seasons at the site, to varying degrees and results. One of the most interesting aspects of Cerro Baul to me is that it remains an Apu- a sacred place- of the region that local people still pay their respects to in accordance to the agricultural season. These ¨Pagos¨ or ¨payments¨fuse Catholic and local traditions and supply the site with a steady stream of visitors to construct little houses of stones with burning tobacco and fake money payment. There was a pago going on even as our tour of the site blistered on.

Me on top of Cerro Baul.

And, secondly, the other big thing for the past weekends- Cuy. Yes, that´s a whole, deep-fried guinea pig. You can still see the claws and the hair is stuck on in many places still. Overall, it tasted...well...like chicken. But, to me, it just took wayy too much effort to actually get a substantial amount of meat off for it to be worth getting over the strange sensation that you are actively dissecting a pet.

So, that´s it for the past weekends. More recent update to follow.

The Field Season Starts

I only have a short time, so this will be a short post.

In short:
The field season has started at Millo 2, a probable Middle Horizon site in the Vitor Valley. I am working on the Mortuary Team, hoping to find a cemetary. Our accomodations are rustic, no hot water, 3 room house, ect. But the food is quite excellent and I´ve been keeping healthy thus far. The preservation is excellent at the site and in this climate in general; we found the hyoid of one subadult- a tiny bone that almost never survives in the archaeological context. I´ll post pictures soon. :D

I´m not Dead Part III

In Moquegua. Still alive after climbing Cerro Baul and eating guinea pig and buying new memory card. Will update more completely later. Field wonderful. On Mortuary team! No hot water in field. Showers not fun. Ect.

<3!

I'm Not Dead: Part II - using iPod on hotel wireless in moquegua can't write post now