Here We Go

Today is another holiday in Peru. I think it is the Pope's Day, so we are not going to placement.

Funny side note story--When Logan and I were talking to a teacher about this on Friday, she told us it was "Dia del Papa." We asked her about Fathers' Day, but then we realized that had already passed. Then, we asked her if it was the "Day of the Potato" (because papa means potato too)...thinking that there are a lot of potatoes in Peru, so it could be possible. She said no. Finally, Logan remembered that Papa also means Pope. When we realized what had happened, we all laughed really hard.

Anyway, it was nice to eat breakfast slowly and enjoy a second cup of tea. I spoke with Ann, a woman who is from Scotland but lives in California and is in the importing and exporting business. I discussed the business opportunity for exporting my new favorite chocolate treats from Peru to the States. She helped Elizabeth and me formulate our plan of attack.

We headed down to the plaza about 10 am to watch a procession. We weren't exactly sure what kind, but assumed it was something religious to do with Pope's Day. Upon our arrival to the little plaza closest to our house, there were no signs of a procession. Thus, we decided on a trip further into town to the big plaza. I wanted to stock up on Kiwilocos (my new favorite chocolate treat), so we went to the grocery store. I bought 10 packs, and would have bought more but didn't want to clean the store out.

The doors of the big cathedral were open, which I have yet to see in all of my trips to the plaza, so I insisted we go in. The pews were filled with students in their school uniforms which look slightly military-esque. Lining the full pews were students standing holding various school flags. There were hundreds of small triangular flags around the nave. The priest was speaking in Spanish and we quietly walked around to the right side of the church. I looked at the huge gold altars to various saints along the wall. Two women were praying and pleading in front of one of the saints. I wondered what was happening in their lives. We stood respectfully for a few minutes and looked around at the cathedral and the ceremony. After we were satisfied, we walked back to the small plaza. I was happy to have finally seen the inside of the cathedral.

We arrived back at the small plaza just in time. The small church there had its doors open too and we peeked inside. Mass was going on and we saw a huge white altar/shrine for St. Peter and St. Paul. There were lights and flowers all over the big white rectangular box. There was also a ceviche festival going on in the plaza. Lime green and blue tents were set up all over the plaza and several stands were full of people clambering to get some ceviche. It definitely looked good, but I wasn't about to risk trying any. Delicious, I'm sure, but raw fish in rural Peru didn't sound like the best idea.

Soon about 10 men started carrying the gigantic altar out of the church and I was amazed they could even lift it. Little figures of Peter and Paul rode proudly on top. Five men made up a brass band and played some slow music as they followed behind the procession.

After a busy morning of sight seeing, we walked back to the house for lunch. A few hours of laying out in the warm sun made for a lovely afternoon.

About 4:45pm, I and about 5 other girls set out for the gym. We were going to aerobics and I was hoping it would be as exciting as spinning had been last week. And it was!! Aerobics in Peru is my new favorite thing!

Power Gym was the place and we paid our two soles (60 cents). The aerobics room was an enormous room, probably big enough to hold a basketball court in both directions and the ceiling was at least 20 feet up. The walls were covered with mirrors and there was big cement platform at the front of the room that was as high as my shoulders. I got the feeling that this place could turn into a night club later because there was a long winding bar on one side of the room. We each found a spot facing the platform and put our old red aerobics steps in front of us. The instructor was an average looking Peruvian woman with a gray and orange tank top and matching orange tights. She took her place on the platform and started leading us in some stretches. She moved slowly through the stretches and added a dancer´s touch so I felt we were doing more interpretive dance than we were stretching. My muscles were cold so the stretching didn´t do that much good.

Just as I thought we were warming up slowly, she turned on some really fast music and all of the sudden broke into the fastest grapevine I have ever seen...and I have been to a lot of aerobics classes over the years. I mean this came out of nowhere and I did not think it was humanly possible to keep up (come to find out this will be the theme for the class). I was worried I was going to pull something in the first two minutes into the class. I did my best to keep up and looked around at the other girls--they were struggling as much as I was-- and we could hardly contain our laughter and kept exchanging looks that said, "here we go." The rest of the class followed this same trend.

The dance remix of We Will Rock You came on next, but it was THE CHIPMUNKS SINGING IT!! Oh, wow! For the first fifteen minutes of the class at least, we could hardly workout because we were laughing so hard. We continued to do a variety of moves that proved to be impossible to keep up with...but we tried hard. My years of aerobics, kick boxing, and hip hop dance (well, actually only 8 classes of hip hop) training aided a little. Squat down, shimmy up, squat down, shimmy up, faster, faster. We were pouring with sweat.

The instructor kept yelling at us to keep up. We were breathing hard and trying to keep moving. She would show us a move a few times, then take a break to come down off her platform to walk around the room, so of course she was having no trouble with this workout. It seemed impossible for her to believe we couldn´t keep moving at warp speed...which we could have, had we taken as many breaks as she did. At one point she walked by me and yelled, ¨mas rapido¨(faster) like I was the laziest person in the world. Elizabeth later describe the instructor as looking at us with ¨hateful eyes,¨ and I laughed because that is exactly what it was.

One of the most impossible moves she showed us (which is quite a title considering how many difficult moves she had) was the "crossing her foot over the step" move. Standing on one side of the box, crossing one foot over it, touching the ground on the other side and back. Sounds easy right? No. Try doing this after 45 minutes of this tiring class at a speed that wouldn´t have even been possible at the start of the class or ever really.

Oh, but this was a good workout and so fun. Yelling and cheers came from various girls in our group at many moments of this class. I am not sure the other Peruvians appreciated it (nor the instructor), but we sure did. Though, it looked like the Peruvian women were having just as tough time (if not tougher) keeping up, which vainly made me feel better.

Toward the end of the class (what I thought would be the cool down, but proved not to be) another familiar song came on. It was the dance remix of Stand by Me. We did a twisting motion and all had lots of fun singing along. I could hear Elizabeth´s voice behind me belting out the words and my laughter spurred me on. There were some slower moves--which is what led me to believe this was the cool down--but then Peruvian Superwoman would kick it into high gear again every few moves. Couldn´t figure her out. Also toward the end, we flapped our arms like birds to a song with some Andean flute music (dance remix of course) and I enjoyed the Peruvian influence. Our arms flapped lower and lower the more tired they got.

We were still going strong at 6:15 (after an hour of this), and we had to make it back to the house so as not to be late to dinner. Making Paulina, the cook, mad was never something any of us wanted to do. We rounded up our group of gringas in a military style move of one arm circling in the air and then pointing to the door and put our steps away. We were at the front of the room, so when I turned around to go I realized how full the room had become. I also noticed the Peruvian men watching this aerobics class. Creepy.

We gulped our water and enjoyed the walk back to the house recounting our hilarious experience. I knew I wanted to come back later this week and I couldn´t believe I just discovered this fantastic workout on my last week here! I have been missing out on so much!

After dinner and freezing shower, the movie of the night was Transformers 2 (the first Transformers movie was the matinee showing, but I missed that and as a result had a hard time knowing what was going on). This was by far the worst quality bootlegged movie we have seen. The sound quality was bad and the screen went dark a few times or people stood up in the theater where it had been filmed...all of which just added to the real bootlegged movie experience. Several people left the living room because they couldn´t follow, but I stuck it out to the end. Though I did have to keep asking Sopé to pause it and have her and Frank fill me in on what was going on. I was amazed at the plot details they were able to catch when I had heard/understood nothing. The movie filming cut off several minutes before the real ending, and we all yelled with the frustration of having watched the whole movie only to be deprived of seeing the final minutes.

Can´t believe this is my last week here! The time has flown by as will the rest of this week, I´m sure.

Here We Go, Pat Green

Not a Drop of Rain

This morning we woke up in Paracus and celebrated D'Ann's birthday. Pancho surprised her with a big caramel covered cake. He bought it yesterday at Plaza Vea and kept it hidden from us. It was so nice of him. However, D'Ann in gluten intolerant, so she couldn't really even eat her own cake. She didn't say anything though and just enjoyed some of the rich icing. Birthday cake for breakfast, what a fun way to start the day!

Today we were boarding a boat to see the Ballestas Islands. These are know as the "Galapagos of Peru" or more amusingly called "the poor man's Galapagos" by my Lonely Planet guide book. We met our guide Luis at the small office on the water. We joined a group of about 10 more people and stepped on board the open top motor boat. We put on our over-sized orange life vests and set off into the ocean. I spoke with a father/son pair from California behind me, a girl from Colorado next to me, and a guy from Mexico in front of me. Luis was funny (which can be particularly hard when you are speaking a language that isn't your own) and he kept us entertained.

The air was cold, the sun was bright, and the water was blue. There were small mountains that looked like smooth, tan sand dunes that dropped off into the water. Soon we stopped to looked at an unusual carving into the side of one of these mountains. It is called the Candelabra and looks like a three pronged candelabra (or cactus) drawn into the ground. As with the Nazca lines, there are several theories as to how,when and why it was made. It is a huge drawing in the ground, but apparently is only about 30-50 centimeters deep. The reason it is so well preserved is that it never rains here. And when Luis told us it never rains, he meant it never rains.

We sped up and continued on to the islands. Along the way we saw a swarm of birds (seagulls and cormorants) feeding in the water and some huge pelicans. When we arrived to the islands the rock formations were beautiful. There were caves and big rock arches. Birds covered the rocks. We saw gray cormorants, Peruvian boobies, pelicans with brightly colored beaks, and penguins! The cute little black and white Humbolt penguins waddled along the rocks. There were even some high above walking along the top of the rock arch.

While driving around the islands, the strong scent of bird guano whirled around us. My nose wrinkled with the stench and I tried to concentrate on my conversations with the people around me. The rocks were covered with the white droppings and Luis told us how the guano was sold as fertilizer. I pictured the awful job of being the guy that has to shovel that stuff into containers for selling. Despite that thought, the scenery was gorgeous.

As we came around another curve, we saw two sea lions perched on a rock above the water! Luis informed us they were pregnant. We wondered how he knew. Then, he revealed his secret way of knowing that. Turns out, these sea lions are almost always pregnant. Two hours after giving birth they get pregnant again. Thus, they are almost always pregnant. What a life.

This tour was over all too quickly too, like so many of the amazing tours I have been on here. The driver put it into full gear and we sped back to our starting point. I enjoyed talking to the college student from Mexico in front of me as we drove. He and his brother were traveling all over South America.

Before our long drive back to Ayacucho, we stopped at a sea front boardwalk for some shopping and some lunch. I loved all of the beautiful and unusual seashells for sell. There were purple ones, pointy ones, white ones, peach ones, big ones, little ones. It was hard to restrain from buying them all. We enjoyed our lunch with great view of the ocean right in front of us and the sun shining down on us. Several of us got the famous ceviche and it was delicious. Fresh and light. Satisfied and fully, we waved good-bye to the coast.

Our drive back to Ayacucho proved to be just as death defying as my other driving experiences. HUGE trucks and double-decker buses sped to pass us and each other on the winding two lane road on the edge of the mountains. I tried to keep myself occupied with my book and not think about it. I pushed thoughts of careening down the side of the mountain in our little van out of my head. After many pages read, naps taken by everyone else, and several hours of driving, we all became bored. We got good laughs out of playing a story-telling car game. Each person had to add a sentence to the story and each story got funnier and more unusual with each addition.

The sun setting over the mountains was gorgeous. I reflected on what a great experience this is and how happy I am. Once it was dark we came over the mountains to see the lights of Ayacucho spread out in the valley. The rows of little yellow lights snaked through the city. The town was much larger than I thought. It was good to be back "home."

Not a Drop of Rain, Robert Earl Keen