Peru Blog: 6/6 - 7:36 am

We now return to diaries from Peru...

It's been a long couple of days, and I've neglected my writing terribly.

June 4:
Today was a more "normal" sort of day for our vacations. We had to check out of the hotel at 9am, and kill time until our train left Aguas Calientes at 4:45pm (hora Inka, not hora peruana). There was an optional 2nd day up to MP, but we hadn't bought it, we were on our own for the day. AC (calld Pueblo de MP by the locals) is a chill little place that reminds me a lot of Jacó. It's full of pizzerias and hostels, tourist trinket shops (artesanía) and abarrotes [little grocery shops]. Despite the abundance of tourists, locals can be found, too, and at night, they take over the Plaza Central. Adults watch while children run or play soccer or catch.

This town loves a parade. Some religious festival was going on today, and we saw at least four separate parades of girls in traditional costume, men in white masks, and people carrying religious icons and crosses. There are a lot of stray dogs here, which I expected. What surprised me was the number of stray children. Children of 3,4..6,7...years old running around alone, playing with stray dogs or rolling in the street were everywhere, even during the school day (and we saw kids in uniform, so it was a school day).

The restauranteurs and vendors are active and persistent, but I wouldn't say aggressive. They come out to you, 2 or 3 at a time offering menus, coupons, hats, sweaters, water bottle holders...

[At this point I interrupt my narrative about what happened two days ago with some observations on the present...]
[Cusco is interesting in its outlying regions. Homes of adobe sprout right out of the dirt, so it appears that the buildings just sprouted right from the ground.]

...It gets hard to be polite after awhile. I can't fault them for trying to make a living - or for trying to do something to make their establishment stand out from the 471 others just like it. The handicrafts really are pretty much the same. We figure there are probably a few factories (sweat shops?) making all of these "hand made" goods.

Eventually we wandered into the non-tourist areas of the pueblo, which were much more interesting. Pizzerias gave way to an open air market of produce and meat. Excuse me for a moment - gringa moment coming - RAW, UNREFRIGERATED MEAT! EW!


Gringo moment over. And the artesanias gave way abarrotes, soccer fields, schools, and darker skin. Really a very nice little town.


Then we took the train back to Ollantay and a heinous bus ride to Cusco. Eric was nearly sick.