Saluting our country in a cornfield: Happy Third of July!

Okay, so the Inti Raymi drama and dancers were cool, festival of Chokakillka out of this world, and random days off from school much appreciated. But my new favorite holiday is the Third of July.

Because the people of Ollantaytambo aren´t too concerned with some stupid American holiday, there were unavoidable conflicts tomorrow and we decided the Declaration of Independence could have just as easily been signed on the third and threw a party tonight.

It´s weird, having been in Peru for about five weeks now, what reminds you of America. We made a wish list of things that would make our fiesta legitimate, and people tried their best to make it happen here.

Some ideas turned out better than others. The marshmallows for s´mores from Urubumba were tough in a way marshmallows just should not be, the cheese was not cheddar, and instead of apple pie there was apple crumble. There were no pickles to be found.

But overall it was a success, and the Peruvian influence wasn´t all for the worse. There was an obscene amount of guacamole, and no shortage of potatoes or corn. There were more woven scarves than patriotic attire, and while there wasn´t a single American flag in sight, there was red and blue jello. People had to improvise.

There were real hamburgers with buns, watermelon, potato salad, coleslaw, and s´mores roasted over an oil drum. There were even hushpuppies, courtesy of Jacob, who did the South proud with his cooking.

 There was non-Peruvian music coming through the speakers, and we sat in the concrete courtyard as though on a picnic. Someone drew a Twister board on pieces of paper and I called out ¨red food on blue¨to my heart´s content. We set off ¨fireworks,¨otherwise known as gunpowder tied to a broomstick,  in a cornfield outside Ollanta, and someone put the Star-Spangled Banner on repeat on iPod speakers.

Toasting the United States against the backdrop of the Andes in the moonlight, it was  a salute to our beloved home country and what it represents, as well as an appreciation for everything Peru and its people have given us.

God knows our country isn´t perfect, but I´ve come to realize that for the most part, we have it pretty good in America. The average American child has far more opportunities avaiting him than the average Peruvian does, although these advantages do come with responsibilities. To global awareness, cultural understanding, and some degree of humility, for starters. 

I´m starting to think that you have to leave the United States to begin to understand what it means to be American.

I was 10,000 miles from the nation´s capital, but toniight´s celebration in a cornfield in Peru was the most fitting tribute to our independence that I could imagine. Even if it was a day early. So happy Third of July, everyone. Tomorrow you better appreciate your civil liberties and cheddar cheese.

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Why Peru makes no sense

The electricity just came back on in the Sacred Valley. It´s been out since we woke up this morning, which meant no internet, no electric showers, no lights. All of which is okay. In fact, we didn´t notice until after lunch today.

When we realized that there was no power, Kelsey asked why the electricity would be shut off. Jarrard and I just looked at her in a kind of disbelief. The question is, why does anything that happens here happen at all? Things making sense is more the exception to the rule in Peru.

The water in Jarrard´s house is frequently shut off in the mornings, meaning no showerfor Mr. Model of Cleanliness. No one seems to think to fill buckets at night to prepare for this daily occurrence which has no explanation.

On Tuesday the transportation workers in the area went on strike, or ¨parro,¨ protesting high gasoline prices. No one could leave town to go to work or school. One elementary school in town was closed for the day. Ours stayed open.

There are holidays and festivals and teacher´s professional days when school is closed. But there´s no central calendar. The only way to find out if there´s school is to show up and knock on the door.

The municipality of Ollantaytambo has decided to rip up the cobblestones of the main Plaza and replace them with new ones. They dug large holes in the center of town, and then carted in dirt for festivals and as needed.

 People eat quinoa and papaya juice. Enough said.

Jarrard´s family butchered a pig, or chancho, and it hung from the ceiling in their living room for a few days.  

So we´ve learned to be flexible and adapt to whatever Peru throws at us. Any time things get frustrating, I look up and see the Andes soaring up around town and the 500 year-old Inca ruins peering down at me. All of these oddities are what make Peru quirky and interesting, and Jarrard said the chancho produced some of the best pork he´s ever had. And we have a gas shower. Party!

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Here Comes the Sun

I´m of the belief that you should only get up before 6 am for one of three reasons: medical emergency, natural disaster, or pure insanity. I guess that would make this morning the third option, but it was the closest I´ve ever come to understanding why anyone would want to be an early-riser.

We got up at 3:15 this morning. Yes, that would be a good 165 minutes before 6 a.m., meaning that on the crazy scale, we were high up there. We met in the Plaza at 4 a.m. to hike halfway up a nearby mountain to see the sun rise over Ollanta on the southern hemistphere´s winter solstice.

Someone on the trip pointed out that most of us have seen plenty of sunsets in our lives, but most people haven´t seen too many sunrises. This one was pretty spectacular. It might even beat out the ones I saw on my hiking trip in Wyoming last summer.

The Incas designed Ollantaytambo so that on the solstice, the sun would cut between the mountains to illuminate the outer edges of a ¨pyramid¨ on the ground, actually an optical illusion created with the construction of the stone walls between fields and homes in the town.

I was expecting an instant illumination of the pyramid, a la Indiana Jones. I think I also expected the sun to unlock a hidden tomb or make pigs fly. So in this sense it was disappointing. But it was the most magnificent sunrise I´ve ever seen, and from a beautiful vantage point. Plus the Incan roads did illuminate in a fairly impressive way, considering they were built over 500 years ago by people who lacked the wheel or written word.

We arrived at our vantage point a little before 5 a.m., and didn´t leave until 9 a.m. By this point most of the other people who had crowded the area at sunrise had left, and we had the space all to ourselves. There were some Peruvians performing a ritual sun worship, complete with flutes and dancing, which surely added some ambiance. As did our wheel of cheese from Cusco, which was quite tasty.

We want to go back up for another sunrise so Jarrard can do a timelapse of the gorgeous snow-peaked Mount Veronica. Maybe we can arrage for another wheel of cheese and flute player. That might just make the early start slightly less insane.

Kelsey and me with our new friends. It was mighty early.

Three amigos before the sun rose. Mount Veronica in the backround.

This shaft of light emerged from between the mountains to illuminate the pyramid.

There were a ton of people watching with us.

Watching the sun rise.

We were excited to see the sun. And warm up.

Greeting the sun.

Kelsey and me with our new friend. We were rocking the hats.

Hanging out. Meditating. You know.

   

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Bienvenidos a Cusco

Today we went to Cusco, leaving Ollanta for the first time since we arrived three weeks ago. Originally the plan was to buy our entrance tickets to Machu Pichu today at the ticket office in Cusco, but we discovered you can only buy them three days in advance. We´re going in July, so no luck there. But we decided to go anyway.

We left in the morning, taking a collectivo, or basically a taxi, to Cusco. It was about a beautiful 90 minute drive through the Urubumba valley and up through farmland and mountains to Cusco, which at 10,800 feet sits a good 1,000 feet higher than Ollanta.

We arrived around ten at the Plaza de Armas. The festival of Inti Raymi, which celebrates the winter solstice and the sun god Inti, is happening next Wednesday. It´s arguably one of Cusco´s biggest festivals of the year, and the partying had already started this weekend. We saw all sorts of crazy parades, and apparently there were fireworks tonight in the Plaza. Peruvians take their festivals seriously.

Parade through the streets, complete with llamas.

 

I deftly tore the map of Cusco in two right as we arrived. Nice.

Me and Kelsey in the Plaza.

Me and Jarrard in the Plaza.

We first headed to the Mercado deSan Pedro, which is a huge tented market a few blocks from the Plaza. It was awesome. Inside were stations selling fruits, vegetables, meat, trinkets, fabric, clothing, cooking utensils, and everything else it is possible to sell in a stall.

We saw some weird stuff. Several animals in the process of being cut up, the butchers wieldingsaws with impressive skill. A disembodied cow nose sitting on a platter. Crazy vegetables that none of us could identify, loaves of bread bigger than my face, piles of fish staring at you with their squiggly eyes, and more wheels of cheese than in the Bethesda Whole Foods. It was a foodie´s heaven.

Flower stall at the mercado.

 

Piles and piles of kalmata olives! Heaven!

 

Squash.

 

This not-so-little piggie went to market...

 

Checking out the crazy produce.

One thing I´ve discovered here is the art to bargaining. There are people all over the streets of the city and in the market trying to sell you things, and all of them are willing to make a deal. It makes buying things so much more fun when you get fifty percent knocked off the price. Then you convert the price from soles to dollars and realize you just purchased your new necklace, scarf, whatever, for the price of a soda in the U.S. Sweet.

 It´s really shocking how cheap everything. I paid for a 90 minute taxi ride to Cusco and back, a huge lunch in a nice restaurant, admission to a fifteenth century church, and a ton of gifts for myself and family members. It was maybe $70 for the entire day. I anticipate serious sticker shock upon returning to the U.S.

I can´t reveal too many of the cool things I bought, because some of our readers may be future beneficiaries of these gifts. But one thing I´m definitely keeping for myself are my ceramic chanchos, or pigs. For 9 soles, or about 3 dollars each, I got two ceramic pigs, ten inches high and twelve inches long. I am in love with them.

Me and the chanchos!

Every house in Ollanta and the surrounding area has a pair of these guys on their roof. I´m not sure what their significance is, but I´m going to find out. Kelsey and Jarrard thought I was nuts for buying them, and I probably am. I have no idea how I´m flying home with them. But the chanchos and I have now bonded, so there´s no turning back. Lily, hope you don´t mind some ceramic pigs in our room next year…

After making a bunch of purchases at the mercado, including a huge wheel of cheese for Jarrard, some earrings for Kelsey, and presents for various friends and family, we headed through the city to the Iglesia de San Blas, the oldest church in Cusco and site of one of the most beautiful wood-carvings in the Americas.

It was a long walk there, skirting around the parade route and heading up a steep hill to where the  Iglesia  sits on a hill at the edge of the city. But it was worth it. Not only was admission only 7.50 soles, or about $2.50, it was empty, refreshingly chilly, absent of tourists, and breathtakingly beautiful. The three of us had the sanctuary all to ourselves for an hour, and audio tours in English were free.

The church itself was a pretty plain, whitewashed building, but the alter at the front is a monolithic structure gilded entirely in gold and full of  statues of saints, angels, animals, and Peruvian foods and plants. But San Blas is famous for the pulpit, supposedly carved by a leper entirely out of a huge ceder tree trunk. It was the most intricate wood-carving I´ve ever seen, and looked to rival some of the similar European structures from my art history textbook this year. Jarrard snuck some prohibited pictures, and we spent way longer than we´d anticipated in San Blas. Best $2.50 I´ve ever spent.

We then headed for lunch at the outskirts of Cusco. Jarrard´s Spanish teacher, Christina, suggested this restaurant specifically, so we hopped in a taxi and hoped for the best. The guy took us to what seemed like a sketchy remote construction site, but once we walked down the street a little we found Las Machitas. And boy are we glad we did.

I finally got to taste ceviche, which I´ve been dying to try since the word appeared on my seventh grade Spanish vocabulary sheet. I also got paella, fried yucca, a mix of shellfish, and chicha morada, a popular non-alcoholic fruit juice made from black corn. Kelsey got trucha, or trout, and Jarrard had a tasty pile of fried shellfish. It was divine. And our total bill was only 75 soles, or $25.

We were the only gringos in the place and definitely got some strange looks, but the bathroom had toilet paper and it was the best seafood I´ve ever had. We made a pact to return before flying out of Cusco in July.

Jarrard and me at lunch.

 

Arguing over dollars to sols conversions.

After lunch we wandered around the mercado and the Plaza before rounding up a convi to take us home. As the car wound its way through the mountains, we watched the sun set over the Andes and had a dance party to Peruvian pop music in the backseat. Pretty much the perfect day.

Prehistoric museum in Cusco.

Tall people are not meant for Peruvian doors.

On one of the blocked-off streets in downtown.

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It´s Like a Snow Day

Kelsey and I have discovered that one of our host mother´s favorite pastimes is talking about festivals.

When conversation at a meal gets slow, all we have to do is ask her something about Cusco and festivals and she´s off. No need to even make the sentence grammatical.

She can go on for hours discussing the ¨mucho gente¨who flock to the cities for seemingly endless celebrations, the dancers, the typical food, the religious ceremonies. And she can rattle off dates of upcoming fiestas like nobody´s business.

The four-day festival honoring Choquekillka right when we arrived was clearly the big one. We were surprised by the festival last weekend with the bullfights. But when our host mom told us yesterday that there was no school today because of a festival in Cusco, we started to wonder how anyone gets anything done here.

In the first ten business days we´ve been here, children have only been required to attend school for six of those, and most will only attend five. Granted, we gather that June is a big month for these kinds of things. And we were psyched for a ¨snow day¨of sorts. But really.

So instead of heading off to school this morning, we headed to the kitchen after breakfast to help prepare a traditional Peruvian meal, or plato tipico.

One thing I´ve learned in my two weeks in Peru is that there are certain universal principles that apply to family life, no matter where you are.

You don´t need to speak Spanish to see the humor when the family discovers half-way through lunch that they´ve forgotten about granny sitting in the garden, or recognize the complete exhaustion of a young mother up with a screaming baby.

And today I found that cooking can transcend the cultural divide as well. When I was handed a knife and a huge bunch of scallions to slice, I felt right at home. Slice some tomatoes? No problem. Mash potatoes? Sure. Crack eggs? You got it.

We spent about three hours in the kitchen helping our host mom and sisters-in-law with the cooking, as we listened to the Peruvian radio, which switched back and forth between the news and Peruvian pop songs. It was a crack-up to hear rapid Spanish with occasion references to ¨OBAMA.¨

Kelsey and I most contributed to the creation of ¨tortillas,¨which I can only describe as a deep-fried cross between potato latkes and fluffy pancakes, infused with scallions. They were awesome. And I was very proud when the family complimented me on my chopping skills.

Chopping scallions in the kitchen, muy bien.

Lucky we liked the tortillas though, because I wasn´t so excited about fish eggs, seaweed, salted beef jerky, or my cuy, which still had a little clawed foot attached. Maybe it was because I´d seen the little animals swimming in marinade in a bowl on the kitchen counter earlier, or that our host mom was gnawing away on a cuy head, complete with teeth. But my usually hearty appetite was dulled a bit. Maybe next time?

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Festival Videos

Here are two videos Kelsey took of the festivals. The first video is our reaction to dancing during the festival of  Choquekillka the weekend we got here. The second video shows the bullfight from Sunday afternoon. Click on the links to view them on Vimeo!

Festival Video Diary from Eliza Kern on Vimeo.

Grab the Bull By the Horns from Eliza Kern on Vimeo.

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Grabbing the Bull by the Horns

If one of the goals of this summer is to challenge ourselves and confront our fears, then we more than succeeded today.

We started with basket weaving. Some people had cancelled their lesson with a master basket weaver at the last minute, and the three of us and Jacob had the chance to fill in. Want to learn to weave a basket this morning? Sure, why not.

First of all, shoutout to Pancho. Pancho is an expert basket weaver who spent four hours with us as we struggled to create objects remotely resembling baskets. He only lost his patience a few times, and just shook his head when we repeatedly mangled our creations. Pancho was the man.

I wouldn´t say we expected it to be easy, but when we saw a pile of straw twigs and realized we had to turn them into a basket, it kind of hit us that it could take a while. There were many steps to the process, and most of us failed at least once at every step. Jarrard had some particular difficulty, and kept breaking his twigs, which was a big no-no. Pancho would frequently look over at Jarrard´s basket and say very tersely ¨No. Es mal.¨ Eventually they made up. Pancho said his basket was a ¨new model.¨

We got twiggy stuff all over us and our baskets certainly did not turn into anything one would purchase. But it was a fun and relaxing way to spend the morning. And Jacob and Jarrard´s host families thought the boys had bought the baskets. Oddly enough.

Jarrard weaves, I hang out, as Pancho looks on skeptically.

 

The baskets make good hats too.

Pancho was nice enough to pose with us and our finished products. Note his Obama hat.

Halfway done.

Pancho helps us get started.

Jacob is sad his basket isn´t working out.

So after facing our creative fears in the morning, we faced a different kind of challenge in the afternoon. People have been telling us practically since we got here about the ¨pelear del torros,¨ or bullfights, happening this Sunday.

There´s a bullfighting ring in the town with raised seating around the perimeter, so we innocently assumed that they would hold the fight there. Our host family told us it wasn´t gory, so we were prepared for a lazy afternoon of watching a few bulls run around the ring.

Wrong. So very, very wrong.

You know how in Spain, with the Running of the Bulls, people ridicule the idiots who run around on the ground with the bulls? This is what the entire town of Ollanta did today. Run around with bulls. Of course we joined in.

They converted an entire soccer field at the edge of town into the center of the action, and tied up the approximately fifteen or twenty bulls to a stone wall encircling the field. Most people stood a safe distance away on top of the wall. But where´s the fun in that?

We decided to head down to the field where the fights were taking place and join the less timid specators encircling the fight. Very brave, or stupid, men led the bulls to the center of the field where they would begin to fight. We learned today that the difference between brave and stupid is very slight.

The animals themselves were awe-inspiring. At least 1,800 lbs each, they looked about as mean and stupid as it´s possible for an animal to be. They were quite simply massive. And were screaming with rage pretty much the entire time.

Trainers and local boys whipped and kicked the bulls to make them angry, and then set them loose on each other in the field. After locking horns for a few minutes, the bull to retreat first was deemed the loser.

The real reason people were entertained by this multi-hour event was that after fighting each other, the bulls would charge out of the ring towards the people standing around the edges, releasing some pent-up anger.

We decided that since we were with so many Peruvian women and children and babies maybe 50 feet from the bulls, there would be solidarity in numbers. Every time a bull rushed towards people, everyone would scream and scatter, picking up babies and beer bottles as they ran.

It was maybe the most dangerous and ridiculous thing I´ve ever seen. And by far the most exciting.

Jarrard kept telling us that the way to make the bull not charge at you was to wave your hands and look really big. Let me tell you, when the bull came near us, the last thing I planned to do was stand still and wave my arms.

When one did charge near us, Kelsey and I just ran with the crowd. Jarrard somehow ended up in a ditch and claimed he waved his hands and encouraged the bull to turn away. He did take many pictures of the sky to prove it.

The animals usually made it to the edge of the field before being apprehended. When the trainers finally caught hold of the animals, they would approach them slowly before quickly grabbing them by the horns. As I said, the difference between stupid and brave is slim.

Big animal.

Fighting.

The fighting area from a safer distance.

Leading the unhappy bull to the ring.

People watching from a safe distance above, and a few of the bulls tied up below.

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