2016

A lot happened in the world at large in 2016, and quite a bit of it was bad news.

To review the bad news is easy, and the headlines are full of the negatives and the deaths.

For this post, I will try to mine the news for the positives, sometimes the positives within the bad news.

My first point in this vein, is the news from France.  It was repeatedly hit with terrorist attacks, which is horrible, but the reaction of the government was humane and decent.  In a world where the refugees and immigrants would be singled out to blame, France looked at the facts and reacted to the facts, rather than the emotions.  They refused to close their borders out of fear, and instead looked for other solutions.  I do not know if they will find them, but the government has so far stuck to blaming the individuals responsible rather than the ideological groups.

While the headlines often insist that Christians and Moslems hate each other, vast numbers held hands and protected each other from extremism.  Circles of Christians protected mosques and praying Molsems, and vice versa.  It gives one great hope for the future.

Canada made me proud when it welcomed Syrian refugees, and the fact that the Canadian government is now having problems processing the sheer number of Canadians who want to sponsor Syrian refugee families is something to be extremely proud of.  The number that Canada has thus far taken in is a mere drop in the bucket, but a start is a start, no matter how small.

There are many other countries that are doing all they can to alleve the difficulties of the refugees forced upon them, but it is a strain on already thin resources in that part of the world.  The over all response of the UN has only shown once again how ineffective it is.

But in the middle of all this, the strain we can all feel, the tensions between countries seem to be at a fever pitch and the possibility of global conflict seems to be edging on the near horizon, the fact is that fewer conflicts are currently going on than in most recent history.  Fewer children are dying.  Fewer people are living in poverty.

More people than ever are being educated.  Not just numbers of people, but the percentage of literate people continues to rise.

We appear to be on the cusp of eliminating malaria, yellow fever and dengue fever, by gene engineering.  Instead of eliminating the mosquitoes, as nice as that idea is, we appear to be able to alter them to wipe out their ability to carry the diseases instead.  The lab trials on malaria have been done and look positive, almost unbelievably positive.  If the tests are correct malaria could be wiped out before the end of the decade, with yellow fever and dengue quickly following.

What humans are doing to our own environment in terms of pollution and climate change, whether on a micro or macro scale has become a global problem.  We could well be on the way to the collapse of the ecosphere, but at the same time, we are understanding more and more about the life around us.  That ability to understand how things are working at a micro cosmic level may very well hold the solution to balancing the human dynamic within ecology as a whole.

Who knows what the next year or two will bring and the news headlines seem to scream despair and tragedy await us all.  But at the same time there are breakthroughs in energy and science that seem to give hope.

Our society is still very much dependent on oil, but alternatives seem to be ever closer to allowing us to maintain our energy addiction, while changing it from oil to other sources.  I do hope that change happens soon.

Comments are welcome.

Ollantaytambo

The last town in Peru that the Spanish conquered.  It both is and was a stop on the trail to Machu Picchu.  The Inca started to work on the town and fortifications in the early 1400's and were still working on the place when the Spaniards rolled through and forced a change of government.

The place still has a lot of the bones of the Inca layout, with a large number of walls intact in the town as well as the underlying web of water channels, many of which are underground.  I did not take any pictures in the town, but did walk through and I can state that there are very few places where you cannot hear the rush of swift moving water.

The historic site climbs up the side of a mountain and the Spanish must have been extremely happy that the Inca had no firearms.  The place was not designed to withstand cannon, but the steep grades and limited approaches would have made storming it without firearms very intimidating.

Even after getting up the terraces, there was still a lot of steep going, and that was also where the real fortification started.

In addition to the the following trail leading East-ish along the mountain overlooked the two main approaches, complete with a small redoubt designed to allow spear throwers decent protection while giving them a commanding place to harass invaders from the side and slightly higher.

The main flaw from a military perspective of the fortification was the lack of reliable water.









The base of the mountain shows how the Inca venerated the basis of all life  The temples are dedicated to the sun, water and earth, with echoes as well of past present and future.

The following picture has a shaped rock face on it, with five projections allowing to track the movement of the sun and the shadows cast by four of the projections detail the arrival of the equinoxes and solstices.  The lone knob on the left has it's shadow touch the long ledge below at noon.

The faces of the lower mountain show the quarry marks, along with partially finished stone.

Also packed into this area were a number of places for showers, where one would kneel in the pool and duck one's head into the stream.  Some of these showers were for ritual cleaning before entering the temples, but some were also for day to day use.  One was specially constructed by the local regional governor to impress and help woo a princess, thus it is named the princess's shower.

Both questions and comments are welcome.

Christmas Away.

Christmas.

It means a lot to me.

Not the religious aspect, for I no longer consider myself christian, but the rounds of getting together with friends and family. Really that is the heart of the holiday for me. Gift giving is nice, gift receiving is nice, but now I would rather have a heartfelt hug and a great conversation about what is happening in life with those around me.

When I decided to travel away from Canada during the winter, I knew I would be missing it a lot, but I still have and cherish the memories I do have of those times shared with friends and family.

The older I get the more the memories of gifts and what I did or did not get fade away and the memories fondly remembered are the laughs giggles, occasional tear. And sometimes laughing until there were tears.

Playing in the snow.

Fogged up glasses, warm greetings and great meals served by wondrous cooks in happy homes.

The smell of a fresh cut pine tree.

Helping mom cook the Boxingday Chinese Smorg.

And very special to me was the fact that after mom and dad retired and moved out to the farm, dad got horses, trained them for harness and gave countless people, young old and in between hay rides and sleigh rides.

The sound of the brass bells ringing in key ( honest, he searched through many a bin for the right bells ) the crisp air sucked deep into lungs, the feel of everyone packed onto the hay wagon or that one other person beside you on the sleigh.

Snow was not always deep, but on those years that it was, a lot of playful pushing overboard happened in getting people off the hay wagon and into the deep snow. Usually helped along by dad with a slap of the reins or a fast turn.

Of all the songs and carols at Christmas that echo through at this time of year, the one that is the most evocative for me is the simple song about dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh, because that is the heart of those times at the farm, mom helping us root through the closet for warm clothes while dad harnessed the horses. That special scent of leather and horse, mixed with cold fresh air. Wind in your face and harness bells and squeaking snow.

Everyone glowed when coming in from the cold, and as often as not mom would have hot chocolate and hot dogs for all. We always said thank you to mom and dad. And I know the words were never enough for the warmth of the feelings they brought forth, but then they did not do it for the words. They did it for the sound of our laughter, the smiles on our faces and the strength of the bonds formed during those times.

To all of those I shared those rides with, Merry Christmas.

And to all those I wish had been there, I hope that in reading this in some small way, you have been dragged along for a ride with me.

To each and every one of you reading this, Merry Christmas.

Machu Picchu, Condor Altar.

The pictures I have of the shrine / altar of the Condor are not great.  It is too hard to seperate the background from the foreground.  I would also have loved to take a few from the preist's position between the wings.  I think having someone standing on the spot between the wings would lend both perspective and connection to the photos.

I really do not have much to say about the space, other than to agree with the ancients that the wing shape does evoke thoughts of birds, air and the peace found in the echo of that shape in stone.

The first shot, you can clearly see the platform area between the wings, but the angle is wrong to really catch the shape.

I really enjoy the whole experience of Machu Picchu, the isolation from the modern world, the expanse of stone, the size and sheer volume of work that went into creating the city and the planning and forethought that makes the whole place fit into its surroundings.

I have mentioned before that to me the Inca were very fine in the use of stone, but more than that because they worked in stone, they planned things out.  The layout of the city was not by happenstance, not an organic growth, but one that grew on a careful pattern established quite early.

Agua Caliente Peru

The tiny tourist driven town of Agua Caliente has changed since I visited about two years ago.  It is still cramped, too many people crammed into a very small valley under continual threat of seismic instability.  In terms of what will happen if there is an earthquake, disaster does not begin to describe the outcome.

On the other hand the locals all go about life with a lot of energy, and most of them appear to be happy in their tourist sector jobs.  The other thing to notice is that the divide between the tourist side and the local side has blurred even more, making for a better experience for me.

Another change is the statues now showing up on the tourist side.  I have not given a thorough look on the local side to see if there are some on that side as well, but here is a sample of the pieces I noticed.  Almost all of these pieces appear to have been carved in place.

 

Machu Picchu the return visit.

So, I wanted to return to Machu Picchu, and my major excuse was to go back with a better camera.

The second time around, the trip was easier in that I knew what I was getting into and the run around getting both entrance and bus tickets was easy.

The climb was a little harder as I am not in as good condition as I was in last time.  I avoided going up to the gatehouse, and started from about 4 stories lower down.

So, in no particular order, a load of pictures from one of the most photographed places in the world.

You can see three distinct styles in this one picture.  In the foreground, carefully formed stone with no mortar, on top of the wall in the middle, roughly shaped stone with mortar, and in the distant background, megalithic stone with no mortar.

Taken from above, this shows the water channels with catchment basins, used in the domestic side of Machu Picchu.

Next post will have a few pictures of the altar of the Condor.