Next day we were up early and Hugo Jesus, Elva and I went to the market after breakfast. Knowing the precautions I took against mosquitos, Elva warned me before leaving that there was a much greater risk of encountering different species of mosquitos at the market because instead of the usual produce market, Saturdays and Sundays were a much bigger affair with produce coming from all over, including the jungle, as well as clothing, household wares etc from Bolivia. We were in the market two or three hours and you would never believe the amount of fruit we bought - probably around 12 kilos worth of different ones as well as other shopping. Hugo Jesus had heard about the curry I had made so I bought the chicken to make it again that night. I was also looking for a suitable present to give Hugo for Father’s Day next day - I wanted to buy him a silk shirt but there were none to be had and eventually after looking on every clothing stall in the market I found a very nice one. The people in the market were so friendly that shopping there was a pleasure. Elva was telling people how I was a friend met via the Internet and one lady said she would like to find a nice English man via the Internet. When I asked for her email address and said I would find one for her she very regretfully told me she did not have an email address. You can imagine the laughter of all within earshot! All the sellers in the market were like this - teasing and with an excellent sense of humour and friendliness - even the old lady who had sold me fresh ginger a few days previously held up chunks of ginger with a questioning look as I passed. We spent a brilliant time in the market during that day including me listening to some musicians playing my favourite sort of Andean music (charangos, panpipes, flute, guitar and drum)..
I had told Elva about the Rocoto Relleno I make for Aquiles and she actually bought some from a stall in the market for us to take home to have with our lunch so that I could compare it with the one I make. Back at the house we washed and dried all the fruit and put it in a special fruit fridge and Elva showed me how to make strawberry jam and then we had the rocoto relleno along with pork tamales and a potato accompaniment, all of which were really delicious especially the rocoto relleno. Before we finished that the doorbell rang and a friend was delivering a meal cooked by Willy’s wife for us of fried chicken coated in a special spicy coating with potato, corn, salad and a spicy rocoto salsa. This was followed by a special spicy dessert we’d purchased in the market and lots of different types of fruit. As you can imagine I was full to burst after all that. Then Willy arrived and we had an enjoyable chat around the table. I was amazed at how much my understanding of spoken Spanish had improved in less than a week. When I met Elva at Lima airport on the Monday I was really struggling with my Spanish and could hardly understand a word spoken but a week later I could understand around 50% - every time Elva asked Willy or Hugo Jesus to explain something in English I had already understood what she had said in Spanish.
Peruvian DogIn the early evening we went walking along the sea front and I saw one of those Peruvian dogs that I fell in love with - at the museum a few days earlier there was one with a lovely colourful knitted coat on that I fell in love with, and regretted later not taking a photo, so to see another one I just had to take a photo of it. I was running after this dog all over the place trying to get a photo, without success - in the end it crossed the road to its master’s house and ran indoors so we asked if he would bring it back out and let me take a photo. He went indoors and came out with four dogs - two of them the Peruvian ones and I had a few goes at taking photos. My camera takes a while to take a photo, so each time I pressed the shutter with a dog in the viewfinder, by the time the photo was taken there was no dog in the picture! In the end after 4 or 5 attempts I managed to capture one of them. These dogs are so cute - they have no fur at all and really look Peruvian and have a dark skin. Had it not been for the quarantine problem I would have been tempted to take one home!
After that we went to a special market of Bolivian crafts, which I enjoyed immensely. I bought a lovely cardigan and some finger puppets, knitted ones, of condors and llamas to give out as presents when I got back home. Also whilst there Elva and Hugo bought me a beautiful souvenir of Peru made of baby alpaca wool, with a llama woven into it and the word Peru underneath. I was really pleased with such a lovely gift.
Sunday was Father’s Day and we all had a nice breakfast together in the morning with extra special things and afterwards I went to get the presents, which we had hidden in my wardrobe, one gift from each of us for Hugo. He was really pleased with our gifts - the shirt from me, aftershave and toolbox from his son and a watch from Elva. Afterwards I had a game of table tennis with Hugo and then the wife of his eldest brother visited with her daughter and granddaughter and before they left they invited us to their home for that evening.
At midday we got a taxi and went to New Ilo, a new town being built above the old town, which is where their elder son Willy and his family live. With Willy, his wife and 2 daughters we all went to a special seafood restaurant called Mochica, where the food specialities were from Northern Peru. We had an excellent meal there, all of us together, huge platters of delicious seafood - two different types of Ceviche, fried octopus, fried toyo and assorted other fish, and on another plate fried chicken and potatoes. With this we had salad and several beers and it was a really enjoyable meal. Ceviche was turning out to be one of my favourite dishes there. This was one dish I refused to try last year in Edinburgh with Claire and Aquiles, not liking the idea of eating raw fish, but it was now too one of my favourite Peruvian dishes, a real treat to look forward to. The owner of the restaurant brought over a special drink for me to try, a speciality from Trujillo, a type of chicha made from fish, but very sweet and potent and I really enjoyed it. Afterwards we went to Willy’s house and enjoyed a few more beers throughout the afternoon until going back home in the early evening. I was continually amazing myself at how well I could understand the conversation. It was just a case of getting used to the people concerned and the understanding of their Spanish became so much easier. I hardly referred to a dictionary at all.
In the evening we went to Hugo’s brother’s house and had a very nice time there. They gave us a delicious cocktail made from a fruit grown in Northern Peru called albaricoque, mixed with pisco, beaten eggs, milk etc. We had a couple of those each and then they gave us a dish of Ceviche made from Pejerrey which was really delicious as well. Then they produced a bottle of white wine made locally, from a blend of chenin and another (local) grape which was really nice. The following day we went to the travel agency and confirmed my flight to Cusco for a couple of days later and then phoned Aquiles’ Dad and arranged how to find each other at the airport.
The following night we would be leaving on the 10 pm bus for Arequipa and then on to the airport for my flight to Cusco at 7.45 the following morning. I would have been feeling quite sad about leaving had I not had the prospect of coming back to celebrate my birthday with them in July. I found Elva to be really delightful and we became really close and I thought the world of her. How many people would travel a 16 hour bus journey just to meet someone’s plane and then look after someone as well as she did? She wouldn’t let me go anywhere unaccompanied; knowing how certain it was that I would be taken advantage of. Whenever I went to the Internet cafe for instance she patiently waited while I wrote my messages and I tried not to keep her waiting too long, mainly only sending the collective emails and quickly reading those received. She delighted in buying different foods for me to try and was so pleased that I liked pretty well everything. She told all her friends that I was a friend met over the Internet, and they always looked really impressed that we met in such a way.
Whilst at the bus station we tried to book my return journey from Cusco back to Ilo in time for my birthday next month. I would be getting back from La Paz on 3 July so wanted to book the 6 pm bus leaving Cusco on the 5th. The man at the bus office got in contact with the Cusco office by two-way radio only to find that I had to wait until I got to Cusco to book it there. I found the contact by two-way radio really interesting - Hola Cusco, Hola Cusco!
Elva insisted on accompanying me to Arequipa airport, so I could only think that the capacity for me to come adrift as a sole traveller in Peru must have been pretty great for them to go to such lengths to prevent me from going anywhere on my own. They were both extremely relieved after speaking to Alfredo, for instance, to know that someone would be there to take care of me at the other end. They both told me that I must be especially vigilant in Cusco - that there would be more risks there than in Ilo - even their friends when told that I was travelling to Cusco alone looked really alarmed!
One of the things I noticed in Peru was that people live in their houses even before they have finished being built. In most homes the families live in the ground floor with the upper story still in the process of construction. People there place more importance on having a computer and access to the Internet than in anything else. Most homes visited had their own computer and access to the Internet. Between houses there were mostly areas like building sites with piles of rubble and stray dogs picking their way through the rubble.
Sometimes when we went out walking we all felt quite nervous whenever loose dogs approached us - for instance two collie dogs in a nearby street who approached as close as they dared and then veered off at the last moment, much to our relief. The only time I was pleased to see a dog was whenever we came across a Peruvian one - they are so cute and their faces have that Inca look. They have no fur of any kind and their owners have to dress them up - a) to keep them warm when a breeze is blowing and b) to stop them from being bitten to death by mosquitos. Because they are a warm animal, they are specially bred for people who have asthma - cuddling these dogs helps keep them warm and thus helps where asthma is concerned.
Walking through the market another evening, we came across another pair of musicians and stopped to listen and it was really funny as there was a man dressed up as a woman prancing about all over the place to the music which was really hilarious, but especially so when he tried to grab hold of and kiss a nearby youth who was not amused at all and got really angry when he ran away, was pursued and caught again. We scarpered then as it looked as though the confrontation might come to blows.
Elva told me that I would experience a new lot of different foods in Cusco, and the chance of being offered an enormous beefsteak for breakfast was a distinct possibility - imagine my dismay! We walked from the house to town that last day. It was the sunniest day yet and it was wonderful walking along the seafront to get to town. We watched some people fishing from a small boat near the shore and it was amazing how long they could stay under the water without air as they were not wearing any breathing apparatus. I changed some more money into soles ready for Cusco and then looked at some crafts handmade by a young Peruvian, which were incredibly well made, and the prices quite reasonable so I bought a few more souvenirs. Unlike most, he did not try to overcharge me because I was foreign and for that reason alone I wanted to buy some of his wares. I would probably go back there and buy more when I returned to Ilo in July. Some of his crafts made from seashells were unbelievably detailed and beautiful, but unfortunately too fragile to get them home without breaking them.
I was so excited to finally arrive in Cusco, hometown of most of my Peruvian friends back in England! It was an incredibly long and tedious journey to get there but well worth the effort. What a place - full of magic and one of the most enchanting places ever seen in my life. Elva and I took our bus for Arequipa at 10 pm the previous night and it was a long five and a half hours trip to get to the bus terminal. That was the only chance to get any sleep and I simply could not sleep no matter how I tried. Luckily I had my Andean music through headphones to relieve the tedium of the journey. At the bus terminal we waited an hour and had hot drinks at a cafe there and then took a taxi, which got us to the airport at 4.30 in the morning, only to find when we got there that the airport was closed! It meant paying the taxi driver to wait an hour and half with us as it was too cold to wait outside. Although hot in the daytime, very hot with lots of sunshine, it got very cold at night and a strong cold wind was blowing also. Luckily he was quite reasonable and did not charge us the earth to wait.
El Misti VolcanoAt 6 am Elva and I went into the airport, checked in my baggage with Lan Peru and she left me then as she only just had time to get the taxi back to the terminal in time for her bus home. I was so grateful that she expended all those hours seeing me safely on my way as it certainly was not safe for me to travel alone. I stood out too much as a gringa and was therefore a target for being mugged, robbed or whatever.
At 7.30 we boarded the plane and it took off at 7-45. In the background was snow peaked mountains which looked very pretty against the runway. Our plane trundled down to the end of the runway, turned round and then we were off (my most favourite part of a flight the speed on the runway and the actual take off itself) and it was great to have a panoramic aerial view of Arequipa below us and the whole flight towards Cusco was magical, flying across the Andes mountains and having such a brilliant view of them the whole while - it was a hot sunny day and the view was perfect all the way, 35 minutes of pure enjoyment. Even though I had almost nodded off during those last couple of hours at the airport it was impossible to sleep during that flight with so much to see.
When the plane started its descent towards Cusco I had my camera ready for the first sign of the city and then took a whole series of pictures as we descended, the last one just as the plane touched the ground. I was absolutely enraptured! When we disembarked the plane - I was first off as my seat was 2L (a window seat) and then it was short bus ride to the terminal and at the point where one collected luggage there was a group of 6 musicians in Andean dress playing welcoming music and I was so delighted with such a brilliant welcome to Cusco that I bought their CD even though it cost me 50 soles!
