It’s rare that I read entire books of poetry, but that’s only because I’m not normally compelled by people in the Peruvian jungle to do so. That was all it took for me to read Trilce by César Vallejo and to tediously retype the following, from 1919: X Prístina y última piedra de infundada ventura, acaba [...]
All posts in category Peru
Trilce, me encante
Posted by melaniejoya on October 24, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/196/
15 Octubre
After Anna left, I used the little map I drew to go to the Monasterio de San Francisco–my sense of direction and tough solo travel persona returned to me immediately. The church is Moorish style with more saint statues, lavish and glorious in their holy dioramas, but not as far as I can tell influenced [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on October 15, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/15-octubre/
14 Octubre
The best thing about staying in Lima Centro is eating at Rovegno, an Italian bakery/deli, where the food looks like this: …and the sort of graffiti that really is indicative of civic pride. We took the bus to Miraflores in the late afternoon and got to see the gray ocean. In Miraflores style, we [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on October 14, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/14/14-octubre/
13 Octubre
I love you, Puerto Maldonado! You are a little like Texas.
Posted by melaniejoya on October 13, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/13-octubre/
12 Octubre
Early in the morning, we stood in a wooden house and watched macaws, parrots, and parakeets, most of them bright green and some of them blue, lick the clay of the collpita. The macaw who lives at the lodge as a pet and the birds we saw today are clearly intelligent and I invented anthropomorphized [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on October 12, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/12-octubre/
11 Octubre
I woke up around 3 this morning to a rain forest thunderstorm–heavy, booming thunder, lightning whenever I opened my eyes, and torrential rain that our palm-leaf ceiling kept out of the room. It made me so happy and I kept moving through sleep and wakefulness. The first time this happened was in Okoboji when I [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on October 11, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/11-octubre/
10 Octubre
At night we go tarantula huntin’. Females live in nests dug a meter into the earth. Their young live with them for their first year. The females live 40 years, but the males only live to be around 7 because the female kills her mate after he impregnates her with baby spiders. If you skitter [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on October 10, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/10-octubre/
9 Octubre
For a long time, I had been looking forward to the hour-and-a-half-long boat ride up Rio Tambopata to Inotawa Lodge, the place we are staying in the rain forest aka jungle aka selva (the Spanish word that seems to mean both “jungle” and “rain forest”). They picked us up at the tiny airport and drove [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on October 9, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/9-octubre/
8 Octubre
We took a 6am bus to Machu Picchu and Felix gave the tour. I was so incredibly happy to be there–the ruins are stunning and charismatic. An estimated 85% remains of the original structure, largely because the Spanish never found it (as speculation goes). Nevertheless, the fleeing Incas burned it when they left for Vilcabamba [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on October 8, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/8-octubre/
7 Octubre
At a nice hotel in Aguas Calientes after an hour-and-a-half train ride from Ollantaytambo during which the golden mountains turned into jungle mountains. The train followed a fast river to get here. I listened to music from home and felt oddly close to old boss Phil because he sent a beautiful e-mail to the box [...]
Posted by melaniejoya on October 7, 2007
http://motionlessbirds.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/7-octubre/
My novella, City in the River, City in the Forest, available from Hag's Head Press
Incident at Love Canal, with Christine Shea!
