A Guide to Gift-Giving for Long-Distance Givers

Here in LA, most of us are transplants from elsewhere in the country. My family is in Virginia, and my wife’s is in Missouri and Washington State.  Every January, as the holidays wind down, I hear lots of stories about gift-giving gone awry due to the great distance (physical and psychological) between gifter and giftee.  Of course, the gifts are given with generosity of spirit and magnanimity of soul, but despite good intentions, the process of giving and receiving can often miss the mark and cause more stress.  I hope that I can mitigate some of that stress by compiling a small collection of guidelines for long-distance gift-giving.  Follow these guidelines, and the gift-giving-and-receiving process will be more focused on the spirit of the season and less on the stress of commerce and retail.

• If the recipient will be flying, avoid giving large gifts.  No microwaves, no cases of wine, no bulky sports equipment.  If you want to give something that’s sizable, consider giving them a photograph to open in person. My sister Denise suggests that if you want to give large gifts to travelers far from home, the giver should take responsibility for shipping the gift back to the recipient’s home. Think of the shipping postage as part of the expense of the gift.
• Unless you are absolutely sure of the recipient’s taste and size, make sure you give gifts that the recipient can return in THEIR hometown, not yours.  National chains (Macy’s, Target, etc.) allow you to buy at one store and return at another.  Or, perhaps there are local boutiques in your recipient’s hometown that you can shop via the internet?
• Even if the recipient is visiting you, restrain from buying from local boutique in your hometown. If the gift doesn’t work out, your recipient will need to spend time during their visit returning the gifts instead of spending time with you.
• Are you shipping a gift?  Confirm the shipping address with the recipient.  Many people have different addresses for receiving letters and packages, and if you send packages to a mailbox, they can often end up disappearing.
• Are you buying for children?  Bring the child’s parents into the conversation for great gift ideas.  Says pal Lael:  “Many of us are trying to give our kids the joy and excitement of presents while also balancing it with teaching the "true" meaning of this time. Perhaps you could take the kids on a special holiday outing instead - to see Santa, or ride a train - creating traditions and memories is how we'd like to teach our kids about this season.” Here are two great guides for kids via I Gave Up By Noon and Nourishing Minimalism 
• Make a donation.  It’s a terrific way to give something with meaning for more than just your recipient.  Says friend Katherine: “We're doing that for the adults on my side of the family this year, and we're having a lot of fun choosing a charity that will be personal to each family unit.”
• Give a membership. Meredith says that she and her sister “giving annual memberships or admission tickets to a museum or other local attractions.” It’s a gift that you can personalize and can be enjoyed for a whole year!
• Don’t give crap.  Are you sending your loved one a candy-cane filled with M&Ms?  A bobblehead Santa?  If so, please reconsider.  Nobody likes crap.
• Gift cards, gift certificates, and cash are always welcome, though some think they’re too impersonal.  You can make them less impersonal by buying a gift card for a specific store that’s local to the recipient.  Was there a boutique that you discovered the last time you visited your sister?  Buy her a gift card for that place, and when she calls to thank you for the gift, you can have a nice time remembering your trip.  See!  Much nicer than a boring sweater from Macy’s.

These guidelines are assembled from my experiences as a long-distance giver and receiver, and those of my friends.  If you’ve got any additional guidelines, feel free to comment, and next year, when I repost, I’ll try to include some of them!

The last two days in Romania.

On Tuesday, I took a break from my work to walk through the cemetery here in Cluj.  It sits a few blocks south of the central square in town, on a hillside. It was beautiful, and sad, naturally.  Most of the gravestones had multiple names engraved, indicating either that multiple people were buried there (stacked, like in the Jewish Cemetery in Prague) or just in memoriam. I snapped a lot of photos of gravestones, in search of the oldest ones.

Here's a site from a relatively recent burial. Note the mounds of pine branches. It smelled like Christmas. I imagine it's a holdover from the days when the stench could be overwhelming.

This plot had five spaces for caskets, but it appears that the deceased are buried two deep. The little engraving in the middle of the edifice indicates which people are buried in which positions.

Dripping black paint? Creepy.

A Greco-Roman temple entrance on an Egyptian pyramid. Just covering your bases, I guess.

This is one of the oldest stones I found.

Later that day, after the cemetery and a bowl of warming soup, E and I headed down to the theatre to see our show open. The performance was good, but not great. Everyone in the company was a little thrown by the audience on Saturday night, and I think that there was more than a little bit of milking going on.  But still, it was a good show, and afterwards, E and I joined some of the company members for some pizza and beer to celebrate. One of the clowns, Catalin, joined us for the dinner. He and I went running together last week along the river in Cluj, and he suggested that we run, or if the rain let up, we go for a bike ride. A bike ride sounded more interesting to me. Cata said we'd ride about 20km (12.5 miles).  Sounded good to me.

When we met this morning, the rain was gone, the roads were dry, and it was a beautiful day. We hopped on some mountain bikes and rode into the Transylvanian mountains. It didn't take us long to get out of town, and once we did, Cata ducked us onto a mountain trail. The trail was not particularly fun - very muddy, and a little treacherous for me (a novice mountain biker). We didn't last long on the trail before he popped us out onto a road where we could ride without mud. We trekked up the mountain road, on pavement, gravel, dirt paths, etc. Up some fairly steep inclines. We rode through deep forest with sun-dappled trails. The last part of the incline was so steep that I fogged up my sunglasses by exhaling. We popped out onto a grassy hillside area, about 1200 meters above town, south, looking over some beautiful mountains. The air was cool and crisp. 

Cata took us around, past the observatory used by the local universities, up some more hillsides, before we got back on a road and began our descent. And what a descent! I was in the highest gear, pumping madly, and still wasn't adding much energy to what gravity was providing. We sped down the road, around corners, in and out of shadow and light. It took us a fraction of the time to get down as it did to get up. 

Here's the map of our return journey. The ride up was a shorter distance (we cut the corner where the distance/time marker is), but I think it was about 30 miles all told. My legs are a wreck.

Now, it's Wednesday evening, and E and I are about to head out for our last meal in Romania. Tomorrow, we get up super-early to catch our flight. I can't wait to go home!

"These are the nuts of my Communist youth"

Yesterday, on our day off, E and I took a drive with A, our excellent guitarist, into the mountains of Transylvania.  Cluj is situated in the Transylvanian foothills, so it's not much of a drive to get out of town and into the countryside. A has been super generous with her time, and she offered to take us on a drive. We started in Cluj and headed west, towards a hillside town called Belis.

We made a few wrong turns, but soon we were on the right path, a narrow two-lane road into the mountains. We passed by a few lakes that were connected by a series of dams.  The mountains are old and smooth, like the Appalachians.  The houses were either Germanic or Communistically brutal. The weather was beautiful.

We tried to find a spot where E could go swimming, but most of the roads were high on the mountainside and the paths down to the shore were all private property. We found one public sunbathing area, and E was tempted to go in, but while debating the cold water, the tunnel on the other shore started spitting out water, creating an eddy in the cove that none of us wanted to deal with.

We drove further up into the mountains, through a mountain town called Marisel that had lots of livestock and hay bales.

When we finally got to Belis, it was a bit of a disappointment. The town was virtually nothing, and we didn't even stop.  The journey was much more interesting, so we stayed in the car. The sun hitting the mist in the woods was beautiful, and the mountains in the distance looked like the Blue Ridge Mountains back home.  But with lakes.

Once we passed through Belis we continued north, heading back to the main road.

Between Belis and Huedin, A pulled us over to show us how to pick green nuts off of a roadside tree. She said that she did this all the time when she was younger. We stopped to pick some nuts, and then in Huedin, we stopped for a coffee. While we were at the coffeeshop, A went across the street to get a knife to cut the nuts open with. She came back with other things to eat, and we had a good time munching on nuts, Romania chocolates, and a Communist-era version of Fruit Loops, which seem to be made out of barley and food dye. As we ate, A told us about her childhood in Communist Romania. 

We got back into Cluj as the sun was setting, and we settled in for the night.  Just one week until the show opens!

And, as a bonus, here's a photo of Cicicu, one of the actors in the company, wearing a terrific terrible English shirt.  It just reminded me how much I'm looking forward to getting back to S and Los Ageles.

A day off and a wedding

Today was our first day off since we've been here in Cluj. The week ended on a solid note, though it definitely had its ups and downs. We were briefly replaced with the need to replace our musician, which sent ripples of discomfort throughout all of us, but we were able to get that sorted out. Then, I had to go back to the drawing board, adding some music to some of the songs I had written. Plus, we had a number of absences in the cast this week, making it a little difficult to rehearse cohesively.

Thankfully, things seem to be going well. The show is in decent shape, and we're looking towards a much needed couple of days off.

Today, E and I were invited to the wedding of two of the members of the company. Both Dragos and Romina were in 'War of the Clowns' two years ago. Dragos is in the current show, but Romina couldn't make the commitment (she's got a baby on the way). Dragos was out for much of the week getting prepared for the wedding, and E and I were both delighted to join them on their special day.

The wedding wasn't actually a wedding. The civil ceremony happened three days ago, so today was just the reception & celebration. We traveled up a hill outside of Cluj to the Grand Hotel Italia, which was built a few years ago by an Italian developer with, according to the folks I talked to, mob ties. It's a huge building, with white marble and big open spaces. There were six different weddings happening at the same time while we were there.  A fancy joint.

The reception was lovely. As people wandered in, they were escorted to their tables (our tables were assigned, but our seats were not) and given a plate of appetizers (meats, cheeses, eggplant, caviar, bread).  E and I sat in the middle of a four table section that seemed to have been given over to the theatre.  As we ate and visited with some of the company members, the room filled, and the wedding party arrived.  D & R entered, raised a glass for the first toast, and then smashed the glasses in a box of rocks.  Then, we all sat down for the first course: ham-wrapped fish with rice. Yummy!

Soon, the music started. The music was a combination of American standards ('Fly Me To The Moon'), opera arias (some of the guests are company members with the opera company in town), and a handful of Romanian folk songs. I was hoping for more national flare, but as one of the other guests explained to me, filling the playlist with Romanian folk tunes is a great way to drive all of the young people away.

After the fish course, there was some dancing, mostly to American pop & rock.  E and I both had to escape the very loud room (89 dB, A-weighted) to the outside for a bit of quiet. Then, the main course: turkey and scalloped potatoes.  Then, more dancing:

As the night went on, the party kept going. Children were running around the dance floor and the lobby, a small fireworks display went off on the front steps (sponsored by one of the other wedding parties), I did a little dancing, and E spent some time talking to the son of one of the company members who wants to be a director when he grows up.

At around 9pm, we decided to call it quits.  The party, we were told, would go on another four hours or so, but we were both pooped, and I had work to do. We hopped a cab back into town.

Congratulations Romina & Dragos! Many wonderful years are ahead of you!

Morning in Romania

I'm back in Cluj Romania after a long journey. On Sunday in LA, after S and I went to a baby shower (which was made terrificer because this was the first where we were thinking about our own parasite), she shuttled me to LAX. I met E, my director and traveling cohort, at LAX, where we had a drink and boarded the flight to Munich. 5.30pm liftoff, 1.30pm touchdown.  I watched movies (Kramer v. Kramer, Chariots of Fire, The Maltese Falcon), and slept about four hours.

We had about eight hours of layover in Munich, so we checked our carryons at the airport and took the train into town. We went to Marienplatz, a big public square, full of people and shopping. I dug the button accordion players (who must've been 7' tall), and we wandered into a few churches.

For lunch, we found a little beer hall and did our best to order without asking for the English menu. I saw a couple of word roots and ordered what I thought was going to be grilled sausage. Nope. What came out was a sort of German antipasto, with slices of sausages, cured meats, hard cheeses, soft cheeses, radishes, pickle cucumbers, greens, butter, and brown bread. It was terrific - a nice size to share, and we got to try a bunch of different things. Also, good German beer.

We continued to wander Marienplatz until it was time to head back to the airport for our flight. Getting all the way to Cluj was easy, and Mihai (the artistic director) and Delia (a generally awesome staffer) were at the airport to meet us. They took us to our apartment, which is above one of the nicer restaurants in town, and we started to unwind.  Eli tested each bed twice to see which he preferred. I'm using the loft space.  It's a nice place, with plenty of room.

When we finally crashed, I got about four hours of sleep again. I thought about going for a run to jumpstart my body, but decided to wait one more day to let my body clock adjust some more.  (knock on wood), I'm feeling pretty jet-lag free.  Tired, yes, but not jet-lagged.  I'm going to bed at appropriate times and waking up at appropriate times. Cross fingers for continued sleeping success.

It's 8.40am now, and C will be here soon to have a chat about the visual designs before we head to the theatre for the first rehearsal.

Peru: Some Closing Thoughts

Now that our trip to Peru is winding down, here are some thoughts about our two weeks here, in the order in which they come to my head.

• Traveling on a trip like this, in a country without an easy-to-navigate tourism infrastructure, S and I both felt that we needed a travel agent to handle the details of our trip. We found Roberto at Peru Inside Out, and he and his support was exceptional! When we landed in Lima, the driver handed us a cellphone that we used on occasion to check in with him, but usually, things ran smoothly. Drivers met us at the hotels, airports, and train stations. We had knowledgeable guides on our trips (Nancy in Lima, Roberto himself in Arequipa, Omar in Colca/Chivay, Janet in Cusco/Sacred Valley, Augustine in Machu Picchu, Dino in the jungle), and the details of the trips (hotel reservations, train and plane tickets, etc.) were all taken care of. We definitely splurged on this trip, but if you want to go to Peru, check out Peru Inside Out (and I hear they're expanding into Ecuador too!).
• I'm very glad that most of our tours were private. The one time we spent stuck on a large bus (for Inti Raymi) was awful.
• Speaking of Inti Raymi, don't buy the ticket to the big show. It's not worth it. Just wander the town and go to the two free events in Cusco proper.
• Cities we liked: Lima, Arequipa, Cusco.
• Cities we didn't like: Puno
• Hotels we loved: Casa Andina in Arequipa, Colca Lodge, Tambo de Inka in Urubamba, Inkaterra in Machu Picchu Pueblo, Hacienda Concepcion near Puerto Maldonado.
• Hotels we didn't like: Tierra Viva in Puno (but the staff was great)
• The star-rating of hotels seem to be relative to what the city has to offer. Tierra Viva was a four-star, but it was by far the worst property we stayed at.  Colca Lodge was a four-star, but it was on par with the five-stars in the Sacred Valley. Do your research!
• In general, all of the staff at the hotels, airlines, etc., were all excellent. Most spoke English, and if not, they indulged my pigeon Spanish.
• We spent way too many days traveling. There was one time we spent three nights in one place. The rest of the time, we were in the same hotel for one or two nights. That was a mistake.
• Also, we planned too many things. We actually had very little time where we were able to laze about. The few times we did, it was often because we were on a train for 10 hours, or something like that.
• Do not discount the altitude issues when traveling in Peru. It's there, and it's real.
• S found some clothing made by Ex Officio that was specifically treated to ward off bugs. We both bought some, and I treated some of my other clothing with a spray to do the same thing. It worked fantastically. We both came back from the Amazon jungle with nary a bug bite.

If we were going to come to Peru again, I think this might be a smarter itinerary:

• Three nights in Lima
• Three or four nights in Cusco
• Four or five nights in the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu
• Three nights in the jungle

Peru: Day 15: Inti Raymi

When S and I started organizing this trip, we discovered that 24 June was when Cusco celebrated Inti Raymi, or the festival of the sun. Why it wasn't on the solstice, we didn't know, but we bought tickets to see the ancient Incan celebration.

What a mistake.

The day started off with an 8am meeting at the hotel lobby to walk to the first of three sites for the festival. The first site was just a few blocks from our hotel. It was a packed sidewalk overlooking a sunken garden. We crowded in with thousands of our closest friends, each one clambering for a better view. Finally, at 9, the event started. Some music played, and about 200 Peruvians, clad in different Peruvian costumes, paraded in. Then, there was some prayer, and the 200 Peruvians danced out. The whole thing took about 45 minutes, most of which was watching the costumed dancers file in and out. All while being crushed. Lame.

S left after this first event. The crowds and altitude were too much. I should've joined her.

We then filed to the Plaza de Armas, where again we crammed together to watch a 45-minute ceremony, most of which was the filing in and out. It was almost exactly the same, but at least this time I was able to take some photos:

Then, we followed our tour guide (this was one of the few times this trip where we joined a larger group) to the travel agency, where we waited for 45 minutes before boarding a bus for the trip up the hill to the last location. On the bus trip up, the guide explained that the entire ceremony used to take place in the Plaza de Armas, but that the main event was moved up to the hillside so that the city could make money selling tickets to tourists. This made me uncomfortable, but if me buying an expensive ticket made for a good show and a boon to the local economy, I guess I could live with that.

Famous last words.

The hillside ceremony was only slightly better than the previous sections. For one, I had an actual seat. For two, there was an agenda that was more than just filing in and out. But that was where the improvements ended. There was still a long period of time filing in and out. There were still the same two songs I had been hearing all day (both in an AABB pattern, with influences from American Indian and Chinese music), there were still the same dances, only now they were interspersed with long monologuing in Quechua, the ancient Incan language. I took a bunch of photos:

And then, about 70 minutes in, I packed up my stuff and left.

I couldn't find the tour group leader to say goodbye, but I assume he didn't miss me too much. I walked down the hill into town, found my way back to the hotel, and spent the afternoon wandering around town. S and I met up for dinner, and now we're back in the hotel, relaxing before heading to bed for an early morning. We need to be packed and ready to go by 6am for our ride to the airport. Looking forward to a long flight and sleeing in our own bed tomorrow night!

Bon voyage, Peru! It's been (mostly) great!

 

Peru: Day 14: Back to Cusco

We got up this morning, ate our breakfast, said goodbye to the birds and Dino, and hopped a boat back to Puerto Maldonado to catch our flight to Cusco.

We got back to Cusco, got an upgrade to our room, unpacked a bit, and set out to wander the town. Cusco is getting ready to celebrate Inti Raymi tomorrow, or the festival of the winter solstice. Today, the Plaza de Armas was packed with revelers and paraders. It was hard to tell with my limited Spanish, but it sounds like each of the towns around Cusco out together their own dance/music demonstration.

S and I had burgers for lunch, a little taste of home. Then, we toured the local Inca temple,

wandered Plaza San Bras, the bohemian district, and did a little gift shopping.

S got pooped, she turned in early while I visited a bar that specialized in artisanal Pisco. The manager talked me through five different kinds of Pisco, how it is made, and how the different varieties differ. I managed to hold my own with my knowledge of spirits in general, but I definitely learned a great deal about this grape spirit. I may have bought a few bottles and made some friends with some guys from the Bay Area.

Back to the room to take care of some flight nonsense and get some sleep. Tomorrow is another early morning!

 

 

Peru: Day 13: Relaxing in the Amazon

This morning I woke to the sound of a bird that I've been trying to record for a few days. I crept out of bed, grabbed my recorder, and got some good samples. I had woken earlier than I had intended, so with my extra time I walked away from the cabanas to do some more recording. There are some amazing animal sounds around here, but any recording close to the riverbank is marred by the sound of motorboats putting up and down the river. Short of a hike three miles inland, there's not much doing to get rid of that sound. Bernie Krauss would have a lot to say about it.

The rest of D's group left this morning, so S and I had D to ourselves. We started the day off with a trip to a local farm. The farmers were in Puerto Maldonado for the weekend markets, so we wandered through ourselves. Most of the farm is agricultural, but they do grow some chickens for meat. Here's the house where the family lives:

As D took us around the farm, he told us a lot about farming in the Amazon. For example, there are papaya trees AND mamaya trees. The papaya trees have more fruit, but smaller in size. The mamaya has bigger fruit, but fewer of them. Also, after a banana tree fruits twice, it gets hacked off mid-trunk, and a new plant sprouts from the trunk We saw papaya, banana, lemon, lime, oranges, corn, cauliflower, cabbage, squash, cilantro, fake cilantro, basil, star fruit, coconut, and avocado. Here's a lemon -it's much larger than ours in the USA (about the size of a grapefruit):

S and D tromp through the fields

Also, D showed is this fruit whose name we can't remember (nina, or noni, or nani...):

After walking the grounds, we came back to the farmhouse and D hacked up a coconut, which he presented to S:

Then, a short boat ride back to the lodge and a chance to take a siesta before lunch (where I drank the coconut).

In the late afternoon, we met up with D one last time for a paddle around the lagoon here at the lodge. We saw lots of birds and insects, but only one fish (which was in a heron's mouth):

Then, back to the lodge, where we left D with a nice tip (he said he would share it with the others), and another break before we do the night cruise again.

After the cruise was one last dinner, which featured a spectacular dessert: roasted plátanos with clove, cinnamon, and vanilla, in a butter-rum sauce. Whoa. On the way back to the cabana, we stopped for a quick photo of the upstairs of the lodge. All of the buildings here are open to the air (but with screens) - there are very few solid walls.

Tomorrow, we depart our jungle habitat, bound again for Cusco, our final stop of this trip!

 

 

Peru: Day 12: Lake Sandoval and more!

Wake up was supposed to be at 5am, but most of the lodges woke up at 4.30 to a woman's voice screaming 'Oh my God!' The screaming was not followed by the sounds of growling or ripping flesh, so I didn't get too worried. I got out of bed, put on my clothes in the dark, and made my way to the dining lodge for breakfast. Sleepy-eyed people trickled in, but none admitted to being the one who screamed. Which makes sense, I guess. If I were the one who screamed, I'd deny it too.

At 6am, we met at the Eco lodge, swapped out our shoes for rubber boots, and hopped in the boat for a short trip downstream to the Lake Sandoval trailhead. Our lodge sits in a buffer zone between 'regular use' areas of the jungle and 'research only' areas of the jungle, and the lake sits just inside the 'research only' area. It was a muddy 3km hike from the river bank to the lake, but we took our time. Dino was our guide, and he showed us lots of wildlife along the way:

Our muddy trail

Once we reached the lake, we hopped in a rowboat to tool along the bank, spying turtles, cayman, birds, butterflies, bats, and river otters!

After the hike, we returned to the lodges, and I took a shower before lunch. After lunch and a siesta, we boarded the boats again to go a little further downstream to a canopy walk that our resort put together with an NGO and some academic institutions. We climbed about 150 feet in the air and walked through the treetops on a series of swinging canopies. Most of the life and energy in the rain forest happens high above the ground, and we got a chance to see it first hand. Despite being up high and in the thick of foliage, we didn't see many animals. D explained later that this was because there are so many noisy groups of tourists (including lots of school groups) coming through, the animals have learned to steer clear.

After the canopy walk, we had a short break, just enough time to get a Pisco Sour at the hotel bar. Then, as soon as the sun set, we gathered again for our finals excursion of the day, a night hike for critters and insects. Dino took S, Jim, Linda, and I on a walk of the grounds, stopping on occasion to see tiger spiders, tarantulas, and other insects.

Tomorrow, J and L are leaving, so we have D all to ourselves. S and I met with him to make a plan for tomorrow, and when that was done, we headed to the lodge for dinner.

At dinner, we dined with Julie and Grace, two women from the Bay Area in CA, who had hiked the Inca Trail and were now having a few days of r&r before returning home. G went to Drake U, and two of her cousins went to Grinnell. We had a good time sharing Peru stories and talking about life back in the states. Dinner tonight was tasty - I had a kale quiche and a baked fish (complemented by two Pisco sours, complements of our waiter from last night, who felt bad about some poor service). Another nice meal!

All of our new friends here are leaving tomorrow, so S and I are headed to sleep to get some rest before our day with D. Hasta mañana!

 

 

Peru: Day 11: Off to the Amazon

By the time this posts, we'll be back in Cusco after our internet-free trip to the Amazon jungle, but I'll continue to write at the end of each day.

Today we got up and checked out of our hotel in Cusco for the short trip to the airport. We're off to the Amazon jungle via a city called Puerto Maldonado. PM is one of the largest jungle cities in Peru, but it's dwarfed by all of the other places we've seen. Our flight out of a Cusco was delayed about 90 minutes, but the 40-minute flight to PM meant that we didn't lose the day with the delay.

We landed in PM, picked up our luggage, and met the shuttle drivers from the Hacienda Concepcion, our home for the next three nights. They drove us to their facility 100 m outside of the airport, where we wandered a butterfly sanctuary while they checked our passports and such. Once everything was confirmed, we drove through PM to the docks on the river. PM is nothing to write home about. Its main industries are mining, lumber, and tourism, and the main feature is that the intercontinental highway runs straight through town.

At the docks, we boarded two motorboats and headed down the Madre de Dios river past where it merges with the Tambopata river. PM was 85 and muggy, but the ride down the river was cool and breezy.

We got to the resort dock (really just some hard mud steps created as the river receded during the dry season), had lunch, and settled in to our cabana. We befriended Linda and Jim, another couple from LA, and we lunched together and shared adventure stories about our Peru trips. After settling in for a bit, we all reconvened at the nature lodge for a welcome talk by Gabriel and Dino. Each day has about three different nature adventures that we can take part in, and G and D talked about today's events, both of which we took part in.

The first was a 60-minute long nature walk through the grounds with one of the guides. Dino led our group, pointing out flora and fauna as we progressed. Here are some things I learned:

• Some palm trees can walk.
• Monkeys are territorial.
• This area of the Amazon has no history of malaria (so I stopped taking my malaria meds).
• Dino always carries his machete.

Dino

After we got back for the walk, we had a bit of time to finish unpacking and wander the grounds at dusk.

Once the sun set, we gathered back at the Eco lodge to take a nighttime boat cruise in search of nocturnal animals. We found a number of caimans and a few roosting birds.

After the cruise, a nice dinner in the hotel. The service was a little confused (5 waiters couldn't handle 20 tables), but the food was excellent.

Now, we're back in our cabana for the night. Each of the cabanas has a bed, a hammock, a chair, a loveseat, and bathroom facilities. There is very little power, and what power there is is regulated: the electricity is shut off for about 8 hours per day. It's chilly at night, and the jungle is alive with insects and bats. Tomorrow: birds and monkeys!