Retail Therapy - Peruano Style

Over the last week or so in Cusco I've done quite a bit of shopping in the real world, not tourist land!

Sorry if that sounds a bit snobbish! Me, I'm not a tourist, I well I am but not one of those only here for 10 days tourists, I've been here ages!! after my time in the north of Peru, which is much less touristy than the south, my return to Cusco was a bit of a shock, for example in the area that I stayed for the first few days there are no Peruvian restaurants at all, i.e. those that Peruvians eat in, only those that cater for tourists. However, we decided to stay in an apartment for this final month and so looked for somewhere to live for the month. We've landed on our feet it being low season now and negotiated a good rate (the equivalent of 9 pounds a night) for a double room and private bathroom with a big kitchen and dining area. In theory it's shared, but in practice I don't expect we'll see anyone else very often. There are over 10 apartments in the complex and there's only one other resident! The apartment is in real Cusco, just behind the central market and of course now I need to cook, hence the retail experience.

Yesterday we went to the market for the first time and it was great fun. I wonder if supermarkets could learn something from it. The fun came from either
a) all the interaction with people rather than shelves
b) having lots of time
c) the diversity of food on display and the desire to see it all

The central market is huge and just like the supermarkets at home has big signs to show you where all the sections are - fruit, meat, vegetables, flowers, dry goods. The differences are many. Each stand has a stall holder and if it's a woman she often has a pre school child, the good news is her neighbours will step in to hold or watch the child if necessary (so a good child care environment!!). To know the price you need to ask and if you want you can try and haggle, sometimes it works, sometimes not. The fruit and vegetables can be bought ripe or unripe - ripe is perfect, the avacado has to be eaten to be believed. Every exchange is an opportunity for pleasantries and banter. I recommend it and I hate food shopping at home!

Buying meat is not for the faint hearted. No plastic in sight here and if you faint at the sight of blood you're in trouble. "How would you like your chicken madam? Whole, half or quarters...." When I got the half chicken home I found that included in the price was the heart, liver and kidneys still attached. I showed true stoicism and did not rush screaming from the room but merely asked if there was a Peruvian dish that these could be used for. The answer was no not really because the hearts are a bit small. Fried heart is a delicacy here.

I've also been down to another market which sells everything (and I mean everything) other than food. Piracy is alive and well and it would be a brand marketeer's nightmare seeing their brand ripped off and copied....However, realistically almost no one in this economy can afford real branded goods (possibly real Nike shorts 90 soles, fake ones 15 soles, not a hard choice to make if you're taking home 200 soles a week). Again lots of interaction with people and lots of choice. Perhaps there's something about dealing with the person who's living it is, which means you generally get more interest and more help than from some of our great shop staff! Anyway enough moralising and just a thought that when I get home I'm going to try and find some markets because I think I will miss the!

Galapagos Photos

What do sealions dream of?












A pensive blue footed booby

Peru revisited

Wow, over a week has passed since I returned from the Galapagos and already that feels like an age ago. Last Thursday I flew back from Quito to Lima as I'm going back to language school starting next Monday for another month. It's been good coming back to Peru. For some reason I found Ecuador hard work, my fault I think not the country's but being back in Peru is nice and familiar, I can use the currency without thinking about it, I understand the odd ways that some things work and just generally find it easy to be here. After three months here, it was difficult to be somewhere else new and be motivated to work hard to get on with the country. Some time I'll have to go back and give Ecuador another go and focus on the wildlife because I think that is what really stands out about it, not just the Galapagos but whale watching on the coast, birds in the cloud forest and lots of rain forest.

When I finished language school the first time at the end of July I had accomplished what I originally wanted to do, i.e. be able to have a conversation with someone, but my ambition had changed. I wanted to be able to talk more fluently. After a couple of months travelling, I have forgotten some of the grammar that I was taught but have a bigger vocabularly and more than ever I want to improve. At the moment I'm stuck at the self correcting stage, i.e. I say something, realise it's wrong and correct it, which makes my conversation a bit stilted to say the least! I decided to ask work to extend my sabbatical by a month and they kindly said yes. I felt it was better to return to the same school as I really enjoyed it and knew the teachers, although I'm concerned that I'm going to be scolded for bad habits I've picked up in the interim!!

So it's back to Cusco, starting on Monday next week for 4 weeks. I met a friend in Lima and we travelled down to Arequipa in the interim. I visited here two years ago and hadn't originally intended to come back but I'm glad I did. It's a very pretty city, white stone with palm trees in the Plaza de Armas, gorgeous colonnades and cathedral and fantastic weather. It tends to be around the mid 20s here most of the time in the dry season with bright blue skies and views of snow capped mountains from all round the town. The last two days we spent on a trip to the Colca Canyon. The main reason for going there is to see condors flying close up and we certainly did. At one point I counted 9 in the sky at the same time, soaring with little effort on the thermals out of the canyon off to the altiplano (high plain) to look for food. But the thing that I enjoyed the most on this trip was the walk we did in the afternoon round the pueblo we were staying in. Just two of us and the guide and it was incredibly tranquil. It's a very beautiful valley with lots of terraces for agriculture, deep river gorges, high snowy mountains and volcanoes and spectacular views. We were walking towards the end of the day and met lots of people coming home from the fields, either bringing their animals home from pasture or from ploughing. The bullock is the main ploughing machine here and they amble along in pairs with the farmer following carrying his wooden plough over his shoulder.

Tonight it's another long bus journey, around 14 hours and no doubt some "interesting" films to look forward to! It's amazing that it's ok to show a bus full of people including children lots of violence but never anything resembling sex! I'm looking forward to being in Cusco again and in one place for a month, not having to repack every two days.

The Enchanted Isles

It's one of the names that the Galapagos are given locally and they fully deserve it. I don't know where to begin in telling you how wonderful it was. As a start perhaps if I say that you are told to go no closer than 1.5m or 4 feet to the wildlife, but it's ok if they voluntarily come closer than that to you, as examples I have:
- a video clip of a sealion moving down the beach between members of our group
- photographs of pelicans diving into the sea to fish, landing mere inches from the heads of people snorkelling (they were incredibly accurate and never hit anyone)
- photographs of a penguin catching fish as he swooped underneath me and lots of turtles tranquilly sculling past

It is just amazing how unafraid all the animals are. One day we were looking at giant tortoises and a vermilion flycatcher came and sat on a branch nearby. I took a photo from about 3 metres away in case he flew off but I have some much closer than that because he basically held his own photo call with us no more than 1.5m away and when we moved to look at another tortoise, he came too! We quite often had to change where we were landing because some sealions had decided that the steps put in for tourists were a good place to sleep and a good place to get into the sea from.

Our boat was incredibly comfortable and the crew couldn't do enough for us, it was a bit like being royalty! We had our feet hosed down every time we came back aboard, as every effort is taken not to transfer any material, even sand, between islands. Dry towels were provided to wrap yourself in as you got out of the water after snorkelling and once back on the boat the chef and his mate would appear on deck with hot drinks and snacks. It was very luxurious. Due to our original boat having engine trouble we were upgraded to the Sagitta and the 11 of us had the run of the ship (she's normally for 16). The only difficulty sometimes was finding each other as we had a dining room, a bar, a library and the after deck saloon to sit in!

Our guide was called Fausto Rodriguez, if you´re thinking of going to the Galapagos I'd recommend him. He works for a number of companies but also leads his own tours, www.beautyexpeditions.com. He really made the trip for us with great information and always giving us a realistic assessment of what we might see. The pessimistic side of my nature used to think well perhaps when he'd tell us we'd be snorkelling with turtles or seeing giant tortoises, but he was right every time!

My favourite moment? Too hard to say but I can say that my shortlist of favourite things to watch would be:
- frigate birds following the boat, I watched them for hours, they fly effortlessly and with amazing grace
- penguins catching sardines
- turtles gliding
- eagle rays "flying" under water
- dolphins playing in the bow wave of the boat
- sealions surfing the waves off Floreana (I'm not kidding, they behave just like surfers and they're not fishing, it's for fun)

And besides all that we had beautiful sunsets, incredible geology and the most laid back mellow time. It has been the most expensive thing I've done on this trip but I wouldn't have missed it for the world, it has been a unique experience and I'd encourage everyone to save up and go.

The scariest moment of the trip so far

It wasn't the downhill minibus ride from the pass near Huascaran at break neck speed with sharp, sharp curves

It wasn't the bus journey from the Ecudorian border to Zumba

It wasn't even the taxi journey in Quito last night from the bus station to the hostal (although I did think I was going to die)

It was the moment in Cuenca, two days ago, when the hairdresser took the wrapping off my head and it looked like she'd bleached my hair peroxide blonde! Fortunately it was only highlights and not my whole head but I sat there in disbelief as she towel dried it and my hair got lighter and lighter. However, she then put more stuff on it and turned it a sort of ash blonde. My assumption post hairdresser is that to get her regular customers' hair blonde she has to bleach it first, since they all have dark brown or black hair, not strictly necessary with mine but I didn't know to ask, since I've never seen a hairdresser do that before.

Then she cut my fringe (which was my original reason for entering a hairdressers) and despite my best efforts to stop her she cut it too short! Still at least in a couple of weeks it will be the right length again....

So I guess the moral of this story is either:
a) don't go to the hairdresser when you're abroad
b) interrogate the hairdresser before you let them touch your head!

Still by the time I get home at the end of October it should be nicely long again!!