Away in Ocongate

(That title is clever because it rhymes if you pronounce everything correctly. It's Oh-con-gah-tay. See? I'm cross lingually witty.)

I'm spending the next two weeks an hour away from Andhuaylillas in a small town called Ocongate (MAP). Theresa and I will be teaching English at an academic summer camp. It gives me a chance to see an even more rural part of the Andes. But it also serves as a kind of warm-up for the school year. Although it isn't clear exactly what Theresa and I will be doing at the school this year, it will probably involve teaching in some capacity. By spending two weeks teaching in Ocongate, I will face the first day of school with some experience under my belt. It won't be much experience, but it's something. At least the first day of school won't be my first day in a Peruvian classroom. I'll let you know how Ocongate goes.

Andahuaylillas is just to the left of Urcos. Ocongat is down the road to the right. Cusco is North of both, so this map is sort of flipped on its side from how we usually view maps. Source

In the meantime...I've learned something very exciting (to me, at least). I now know how to queue up posts! So even though I'll be gone for two weeks, there will still be new posts with photos to see and things to read. I've decided that this is a good chance to dive into Incan history.

My information for the series on the Incas comes almost exclusively from two books:

•         Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time by Mark Adams. This book is primarily a travelogue. Adams is a huge fan of Hiram Bingham and decides to follow his footsteps and hike around the Andes to see Incan ruins. Not only is he very funny, he is also well informed, and slowly spells out the history of the Incas from their origin myth until the defeat of Tupac Amaru I in 1572. 

•       1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Colombus by Charles C. Mann. I haven't actually read this book. I only read chapter 3, In the Land of Four Quarters, which focuses on the Incas' demise and the factors that contributed to it. Minn is interested in the Americas in general, so the Incas are just part of the story he is trying to tell with his book. But the chapter was highly useful, and had plenty of information that Adam's book did not.

I hope you find this series of posts informative and interesting. The imprint of the Incas is obvious here. We pass some ruins every time we go to Cusco. As I've said before, I see each post as a “window” into my life here. Thankfully I'm not caught between the Spanish invaders and the Incan imperialists, but I'm living in a place where their stories, much like the stories of English colonists in Jamestown and Plymouth are for the US, are something of an origin story for the wider culture.

As always, feedback is welcomed and encouraged.