I've been posting on dropping my wife's ashes on these nostalgic Tuesdays. Here are three photos of her: as a baby, graduation from Hilo High School and our wedding.
Continuing today, I realized I had miscounted, for I left you two weeks ago with Pearl's Ashes #24 at the foot of a statue of what looks like her at the Jindaiji Biological Park outside of Tokyo. Part of this problem is that I have also written a book (which has not yet been published) with chapters. For example, on 22March2017 I posted on Chapter 12: Rio de Janeiro.
As you have surely noted, I'm not exactly suffering on my quest to drop Pearl's Ashes. Who's paying for all this? I'm using her savings. On 3 October 2011 I activated a monumental around the world trip, to quote:
Today I begin my final ash scattering journey. I'll be stopping through Bangkok, Tokyo, Zurich, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, Sao Paulo, Rio, Buenos Aires, Lima, Cuzco, Machu Picchu, Las Vegas, Reno, and San Francisco.
I called this global journey PaGA, for Pat's Grand Adventure. About mid-trip, I flew from London to San Paulo, where I had lunch at Mani. Here is Chef Helena Rizzo's version of Japanese fugu, which includes pequi, a supposedly dangerous fruit.
Then, eventually, I made it to Machu Picchu, where I almost got into legal trouble.
- Machu Picchu is one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, and is an Inca site high in the Andes mountains.
- To quote
Of course, I'm doing this (world travels) to toss Pearl's ashes at sites she wanted to visit, but did not, mostly because I was reluctant. Thus, I suffered through Yellow Fever and a few other shots, plus malaria protocols and spider bites to undertake this effort.
- The Sun Temple is in the right foreground.
- I laid Pearl's Ashes at three spots. Entrance, #26.
- The second, #27, in the only area with a wide variety of flowers, plus a coca plant.
Notice that large crack? An unarmed large warrior was guarding it. When I thought he wasn't watching, I dropped one of Pearl's Ashes gelcap into a crack. A minute later, now holding a large long bo staff, he began peering down the crack. He was about to question me, but at the same time, my tour group showed up, so I was able to avoid him, and as unobtrusively as possible, swiftly made a beeline for the entrance (it was about a 15 minute fast-walk away). In my mind was a headline indicating, American professor arrested for defacing the Machu Picchu Sundial. I was able to leave the premises, and found our bus, which was close by. A couple of others were sitting, so I slouched in a seat so I couldn't be seen from the outside. I escaped from Machu Picchu, my only possible incident during the 50 or so ash tossings.
There is a second story about Machu Picchu having to do with Yale Professor Hiram Bingham III. He was born in 1875 to a prominent Hawaii family, which founded Tiffany & Company.
- He was the westerner who discovered Machu Picchu in 1911.
- Wrote an article that year in National Geographic, and the New York Times called it the greatest archaeological discovery of the age. Bingham became a worldwide sensation.
Brought back as many as 40,000 artifacts to Yale, all "legally" exported from Peru.- In 1920 Peru asked Yale to return the objects, and the university did send back items brought in by Bingham from his third and final expedition.
- In those days, museums ignored any threats.
- In the 2000s, attitudes shifted towards repatriation of these artifacts, especially to Greece and Italy, who themselves were getting pressure from Egypt and other Middle East countries.
- Negotiation between Peru and Yale began in 2003, and Peru sued Yale in 2006.
In 2010, Peruvian President Alan Garcia reached out to then President Barack Obama, who must have convinced Yale to return everything, the solution in 2011 being for Yale and Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco to partner in the creation of a museum and research center in Peru.- All artifacts were return in shipments into 2012, financed by Yale.
- So it took a century to work this all out.
Was elected governor of Connecticut in 1925, for only occupied that seat for one day, as decided to represent that state in the U.S. Senate, and was there until 1933.- Historian Christopher Heaney published in 2010, Cradle of Gold: The Story of Hiram Bingham, A Real-Life Indiana Jones.
- His exploits inspired the founding of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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