Behind again, but finally, Peru

In June, I found myself back in Peru. Yes, three international trips this spring after not much work travel for the last few years. But I'm not complaining! I'd rather spend a day in the field than a day in the office.

This trip was media production for the upcoming exhibition on the Inka Road, which we'll open next June. We had a fairly small team (curator, media manager, two producers (one bilingual), one 3D specialist joining us later, and an educator also joining a bit later, plus two consultants, one for only a few days). And me -- in charge of logistics, some translation, and purchasing of handling objects and obtaining cultural information for the activity centers, programming staff, and merchandisers. We were late in planning and unsure of many details, but knew we had a lot to do. I headed out a day in advance of the media team, to Lima, to meet the curator and the consultants.

 Miami Airport always has something going on. Folks could show their World Cup spirit by playing one of these games. Or, they could buy merchandise at the kiosks. Pretty nifty, actually.

In Lima, we were doing a talk for a bilingual school for the Embassy. I was excited to do it in Spanish. Unfortunately, at the end, they asked us to do it in English. So that left me, although two of the others could have done a bit. It was fun, but a bit tricky -- all the slides were in Spanish, my notes were in Spanish, and then I hit some kind of auto-advance on the remote, so suddenly not only did I have to mentally re-translate everything, I kept losing my place. Ah well, good experience.

But before then we spent the morning museum-ing, and visiting some pre-Columbian collections. First was an incredible museum, and one I'd love to return to and really spend some time: the Museo Larco. It has an incredibly stunning collection, and the neighborhood of Pueblo Libre was charming as well. I have to go back!

 How nice that I find owls everywhere. Although this led to an interesting discussion -- I said "búho," the word I know for owl; my colleagues said "lechuza." While they are all owls in English, they are not in Spanish! Apparently there are also "cárabos." Who knew? I love language.

 Detail of an incredible intricate tunic. Such spectacular weaving.

 A khipu, or a knotted string that the Inka used to keep track of information such as population, harvest production, or goods storage. These are pretty remarkable.

 Detail of feathers from a shawl. Every time I see something like this I catch my breath; both from the beauty of the garment and the skill required to make it, as well as from the question, "How many birds does this represent?"

There were some beautiful pots and ceramics as well. One thing I really liked was the pictographic display below them and on the walls of the imagery that is painted on the pots, especially when they are round and you can't see the whole thing. 

We also went to the National Museum, for a quick visit, although a longer visit than I had there last year. After the museums and lunch, we went to the Embassy event, then had the evening free. I spent some time with our consultants, then crashed. I will say that while Lima still isn't my favorite city, I enjoyed it a lot more than I did last year. I think that had to do with where I stayed, that we had much less driving in the city, and the addition of our consultants who are great people. So, a good start to what promised to be a long and complicated trip.