The Great Outdoors

[Siggie]

The Great Outdoors

Below is from another thread, but didn't fit that topic. Because I think a few people have outdoor hobbies, I thought maybe a general thread was justified. There's a thread about outdoor sports specifically here: http://forum.hyeclub.com/showthread....ting-fishing-)

Wow, Machu Picchu. Hope to see some pictures of that posted.

My photos as a set may seriously suck. I'm leaving my dslr at home and taking a rangefinder instead and only a 35mm and a 50mm lens. Who knows what I'm gonna end up with... I'll share if they're not too awful.

The trek was hard but rewarding and the photos didn't turn out too bad. Here are a few...

[Haykakan]

Re: The Great Outdoors

Not sure why you felt you needed to start a new thread since we have the outdoors thread already but i am glad you shared these beautiful pics. Looks like its about to storm in that last pic.

[Siggie]

Re: The Great Outdoors

Not sure why you felt you needed to start a new thread since we have the outdoors thread already but i am glad you shared these beautiful pics. Looks like its about to storm in that last pic.

Thanks. It was almost always on the verge of storming. I think it rained every night.

You had created that thread for outdoor sports, so I didn't want to presume you'd be okay to expand it to all outdoor pursuits. If it's all the same to you, I don't mind merging.

[Haykakan]

Re: The Great Outdoors

No i don't mind at all - i kind of get lonely in there lol. I think it is sad that people are loosing interest in the outdoors. It works great for me since i have less competition but it is sad watching so many people lose the link with nature. How was the food there?

[Siggie]

Re: The Great Outdoors

No i don't mind at all - i kind of get lonely in there lol. I think it is sad that people are loosing interest in the outdoors. It works great for me since i have less competition but it is sad watching so many people lose the link with nature. How was the food there?

I like the seclusion that comes without the crowding, but when people don't use the parks and trails that also means funds are diverted to other things and bad decisions made on the assumption that no one will notice/care.

The food was okay. Cusco is like the gateway city to Machu Picchu so it's touristy enough to have a wide variety of restaurants to appeal to the mix of tourists. There was a lot of Italian and pizza in general. McDonalds and Starbucks of course. They had Japanese, Indian (Korma Sutra - name still cracks me up), Arabic (Shawerma!), etc.

The Peruvian stuff was good too. Just meats, lots of barbeque, and either rice, quinoa, or starchy veggies (e.g. potatoes, corn, etc.). Plenty of seafood. Of course, they eat alpaca, cuy (guinea pig), llamma. They tried to incorporate these in fusion dishes too. Like alpaca curry and pizzas. In one method they cook food in a pit covered in banana leaves, topped with hot rocks, and buried under mound of dirt and that was pretty cool to see done. It was a lot faster than I thought. The food was done in like 30 minutes.

Coca tea is the stuff; I'd love to drink that every morning instead of coffee. I didn't feel any noticeable buzz beyond the alertness from a strong coffee/espresso with it though. They make some sweet drink out of purple corn that was yum. We didn't try any of the corn beer, chicha, because we were told it would land us in the hospital with a host of unfriendly bacteria for sure because of the conditions under which it's fermented. Now Pisco! Excellent. I loved the pisco sours.

The fruits and veggies there were enormous too. Avocados were the size of melons, corn kernels the size of US quarters, etc.

[Haykakan]

Re: The Great Outdoors

That sounds pretty cool Siggie. Cooking underground is done in Armenia to it is called tonir and is a good way of baking lavash and cooking some other meats. How long was the flight to get there and where there any stopovers?

[Siggie]

Re: The Great Outdoors

That sounds pretty cool Siggie. Cooking underground is done in Armenia to it is called tonir and is a good way of baking lavash and cooking some other meats. How long was the flight to get there and where there any stopovers?

No, no this wasn't like a tonir.
You've got to connect in Lima at the very least before Cusco, but it's possible to get direct from LA to Lima and that's about 13 hours I think. I had a stop in Tx before Lima though because it wasn't gonna get me to Cusco any earlier (only 2 flights a day from Lima to Cusco) and it was $1000 per more to go direct from LAX to Lima.

[Siggie]

Re: The Great Outdoors

Both are radiant cooking with stone/clay, but a tonir is more permanent/set "oven" lined in clay, but this is literally a hole in the ground covered with rocks and dirt...

[bell-the-cat]

Re: The Great Outdoors

Cooking underground is done in Armenia to it is called tonir and is a good way of baking lavash and cooking some other meats.

But not done anymore in Nakhchivan - if this report is to be believed.

FOREIGN MUSIC BANNED IN NAKHIJEVAN
Panorama.am
18:36 21/02/2014 >> SOCIETY

Nakhijevan radio channels have got a rather strange ban, the
Azerbaijani news portal "Haqqin.az" reports.

According to information, the Nakhijevan TV and Radio broadcasts
Committee has banned foreign music broadcast. Now exclusively
Azerbaijani music sounds on Nakhijevan radio.

"The ban includes also such genres as rock, rap, including the
Azerbaijani language, and which is most surprising Turkish songs as
well," writes the portal.

The head of the Nakhijevan Autonomy Vasif Talibov, who was included
in the list of the world's "predators of press" by the organization
of "Reporters without Borders", is known for a number of extravagant
bans. Thus, on November 2013 he banned giving foreign names to trade
centers in Nakhijevan. In August Vasif Talibov forbade the women
serving in governmental offices to wear nylon pantyhose.

In August Talibov ordered to close all Internet cafes. Besides that,
all possible places where people gather, like cafes, teahouses and
hairdressing salons, are closed too. It is also forbidden to walk
on the streets in groups, have evening walks, hang laundry on the
balcony, bake bread in tonirs (a hole in a ground made for baking
bread - Ed.) as well as mark feasts.

In September 2012 Talibov arbitrarily banned abortions in Nakhijevan
Autonomy.

[Haykakan]

Re: The Great Outdoors

Boy i have never seen a winter like this before. We got another huge amount of snowfall today-work canceled, classes canceled. I took my truck to the lake to see what the roads were like there and got stuck. I had to walk back in two feet of snow across the frozen lake while 30 mph winds at 14 degrees were blowing in my face and i just had a sweatshirt on. I cant get my truck out and tow trucks wont even go in there. For the first time in a loong time i am looking forward to spring.