Peru Trip

Posted: 22 November 2017 | Author: bootehBeeta | Filed under: Peru Trip | Tags: Andes, Cusco, Inca, Machu_Picchu, Peru, travel | Leave a comment

For the first two weeks of October, my husband and I had a blast visiting Andes and remains of the ancient Inca civilization in and around Cusco, Peru: Stunning landscapes, magical lush valleys and foggy mountains, mind blowing stone work and engineering, delicious fresh food, colourful handicrafts, soothing music and of course a lot of history! A history almost too painful to hear of Spanish colonization demolishing the Inca Empire, looting their treasures, enslaving them and brutally suppressing resistance movements up to the 18th century!

Cusco, once Incas’ capital, has half a million population today and according to one of our tour guides 80% of the city’s economy depends on tourism. This includes not only food, lodging, entertainment, heritage businesses small and large, but also native women who make a living by knitting sweaters and hats out of Alpaca wool, and by dressing up in colorful clothes along with their Alpacas and baby goats to take pictures with tourists. Read the rest of this entry »

Dubai, a vertical mosaic

Posted: 3 January 2015 | Author: bootehBeeta | Filed under: Dubai, a vertical mosaic | Tags: Dubai, a vertical mosaic, travel | Leave a comment

Please check out my 8-minute video clip ,with sound and music, of this amazing city on Youtube, made originally for Radio Koocheh, Afsaneh_Khaneh

Rugag bread in the making

Posted: 23 December 2014 | Author: bootehBeeta | Filed under: Rugag bread in the making | Tags: Arabic, Laar, pan-bread, taveh, travel | Leave a comment

About three decades ago, I spent ten days in a small town in the Fars province, called Laar. I was visiting my eldest sister, who was living there temporarily to teach English to high school students. The tall, talkative old landlady who had rented one room in her big house to my sister was called Madar-e Fazlollah.

She made me an unforgettably unique and delicious breakfast from an egg and some bread she baked on a small taveh–a flat, sometimes slightly curved, round iron griddle. By the time my sister left for work each morning, Madar-e Fazlollah had already made her quick and sloppy run of daily sweeping around the house. She then settled on a short stool in front of a stand-alone oil burner, topped by her taveh, in the middle of her large, walled yard under a four-story-tall palm tree. Read the rest of this entry »