Looks like it is back to work after a nice relaxing Spring Break! Last Thursday we finished excavating at Cerro La Virgen, and had a week off. Break started off on a high note. To celebrate our freedom, we went to Sabes, the gringo bar where the bartenders know our usuals: the Madonna play list and the pool balls and cues. After actually winning two games of pool, and not once knocking the cue ball off of the table and into the parking lot, which often occurs, Sean and I convinced the owner of the Tequenos Place to open up so we could eat tequenos burgers. The next morning was not as joyous, as I awoke to Patrick informing us that there had been a major earthquake in Japan and that tsunamis were heading towards multiple coastlines, including our own. As a result, we dined in Trujillo, a town further inland, to get away during the ETA of the tsunami. Luckily, all that happened was that tide came up significantly higher on the beach than usual. Everyone is safe and accounted for, although after weeks of sifting through piles of rocks in the hot sun, I cannot speak for the sanity of the collective group.
I spent the days recovering from the intense field work, reading on the beach and working on my tan. However, there were a few exciting excursions worth noting. I went sand boarding towards the end of break. For those who don’t know what this fun activity entails, it is simple. There is a wooden plank, which looked akin to a snowboard, with straps for your feet. You climb with your board to the top of a large sand dune, strap yourself in and try to slide down the hill. Although I could not stay upright for too much time, I was decent, and wiping out didn’t hurt as we were on soft sand. In fact, the most difficult part of sand boarding, apart from trying to keep my balance speeding down a steep slope on a wooden plank, was the climb to the top of the sand dunes. The tour agency gave us 4 hours, but we ended not being able to continue for the entire time as we all were quite winded after trekking up the dunes 5 or 6 times. It was definitely a blast, even though our instructor got eaten by sand sharks.
Over the week off, I also got to hang out with Robby and Mateo, the sons of the family who maintain order in the house we are all living in. Robby took me to La Maiseria in Trujillo, a massive market with everything you could possibly need, and quite a bit that you don’t ever want to see. Rows of shoes and clothes, toys, books, school supplies, toiletries, electronics, all in a massive open air market. There were bootleg DVD’s such as “Ninja Americano 1-5” the “Jesus Christ 5 en 1 Collecion” and the “Steven Segal More-Movies-Than-You-Wanted-To-Know-Existed Pack.” For some reason, I chose not to purchase any. Amongst the food vendors were various shaman suppliers and craft sellers. Here you can buy rosaries, incense, crucifixes, and various herbs and plants for medicinal purposes, at least that is what I assume. The only plant I actually recognized was the famous San Pedro cactus, used for a number of reasons, including the traditional shaman-concocted hallucinogenic substance. Robbie got me to buy the two of us a tasty beverage, which I was unable to identify, and an empanada. The food and drink were both quite delicious, and very inexpensive. In fact the ride to and from the market was more money than the actual nourishment consumed.
After our few days off, lab started up. With lab work, you have a 2 hour shift a day, 11-1 or 2-4. I usually take the 2-4 time slot, as anyone who knows me will admit that I am not a morning person. Also, with the NCAA tourney, we have had some great games going on lately. Luckily, our supervisors let us pull games up and listen to the commentary or listen to the Harry Potter books on tape while we work. In this case, work entails sorting through all of the juicy finds from Cerro La Virgen, First we dug, collected samples, sifted through massive amounts of cultural materials, separated them into piles such as ceramics, lithics, beads, bones, organic remains, coprolites, carbonized remains, etc., and then bagged it all. Now we are going through the bags of collected materials to see what all we actually have. This is tedious work, but extremely relaxing, and it gives you the chance to hold ancient Chimu ceramics, bones, shells, and the likes. At this stage, we also see where we have messed up, often finding rim sherds and decorated sherds in the body sherds bag, shells in the coprolites, and other such mistakes which cause Jen and Brian to shake their heads and sigh exasperatedly. Now we have about 3 more weeks left of lab work before our 2 weeks of travel to Cuzco and some other sites. Well, guess I better go keep up my constant obsessing over my bracket now. Hope everyone is doing well, and…GO HEELS!