thai

there is a great thai restuarant in huaraz! can you believe it? tomorrow i return to the site, dr premitting. my lungs are congested again, yuck. thanks god for elise and ebay! i am able to replace the jackets i destroyed here, oops. i forgot to tell katrina my rite of passage at the new site was pot sherds. yuck and double yuck. cn classify ceramics with my eyes closed. how can you tell from a tiny little sherd what a vessel looked like. don't think you can but who am i? trepinations and culturally modified craniums! YAY!

PIA Wanduy

I have pheumonia and it sucks! The new site is beautiful, two of the tallest mountains in the Blancas are in our back yard. Huascaran is actually the tallest mountain in the Andes 6778 meters! Wanduy is the other, it's actually the mountain we are studying. Kevin and Alex are wonderful and very professional. Actually everybody involved is great, th girls are very friendly. i had to come back to Huaraz to get my laptop and see a doctor . who happend to tell me I have Phuemonia and have to take 3 things including Dexamethasone.... I'll be happy to get back tomorrow, hopefully. I'll stay in the lodge nearby and then move back into the house when I am well. Here some pictures. i miss Napoleon and Bam Bam!

gottwalds!

i walk into a camping/ climbing store in huaraz and saw caroline and her dad. i think they were as socked as i was. it was nice to see a face from the horseshow world. they are here to climb near where i start excavating with the columbians tomorrow so maybe i will see them again. yep it off to freeze in a tent for the next 10 days!

green cranium and butterfly vertebrae

I have been working with a group from university de los andes, bogota, columbia on a set of remains from the chavin culture. they are a little known culture, especially from a skeletal and funerary aspect from long before the inka, moche, wari, etc. the remains contain alot of subadults, infants and fetuses. lots of pathologies too. here some pictures

mountain dew!

I found mountain dew at a grocery store today. first time i've seen it since i've been here. $2 a can though, oh well it was worth it. I gave Miguel, 10, my camera today. The excitement on his face was unforgettable. He took pictures all day. The ones posted are his. I promised him I would make him a dvd of all the photos he took and that he could use my camera again. Tomorrow Cristhain, Nelson, Yuan and I are going to a remote site above their village with a large number of chullpas. It has never been excavated, village secret. I'm lucky the villagers like and trust me...... miguel is the boy in the top picture! he'd be very proud to know his picture was on the internet!

bam bam

Bam Bam was first and second in his classes at fairfield! Marshall is really happy with him and I am too. it's amazing what good training does. I have been spending my days at Wilkahuain. Today Juan and I hiked from Wilkahuain to Monterrey! I was about 7km. Good practice for the lake, which takes an entire day to get there and then another day to get back. Should be fun. The people here are so kind, there is an elderly lady at Wilkahuain, about 102, that the entire village makes sure she has food. She can still walk and do her chores, it's amazing. The villagers say she is over 200 but i think they are full of it. They are teaching me Spanish and Quechua. I'm slowly catching on. Tomorrow I am going to Chavin finally!

somber

today i flew from lima with the friends and family of the 3 americans who died in a climbing accident last year. they came to place a memorial plaque at site of their deaths. both families lost their children. very sad. our flight was delayed by 3 hours because we could only take 12 kilos of lugage each. one of my bags went with their stuff on a bus and hopefully i will see it tomorrow. this really is an adventure