It has been about a week and no opportunity to write another blog entry. Leisurely though life is here, somehow I rarely find time to stay at an internet cafe long enough to write the next entry; what time I have is spent catching up on replies to those who have written.
We had glorious weather the whole past week and I am as brown as a berry already. I have got my little kitchen up and running and invited the first lot of musicians round for a meal - Rosalio came with Pedro, and two others, Marco and Jose joined us. I cooked Malaysian chicken soup for them and they really enjoyed it. We shared a few bottles of beer and listened to music from my iPod via Pedro´s speakers and it was a really fun evening. Rosalio is going to invite me round to his parents house one weekend soon as he would like me to meet them. Rosalio still lives at home with his parents but Daniel now has his own place, since the birth of his little son, so at some point I will probably be invited there as well.
The 31st July was like New Years Eve here, celebrated by homage to Pachamama - Mother Earth. The market was full of extra stalls selling various things for people to buy and pay homage including yellow confetti to strew outside the house, incense sticks, other things to burn in a dish, chewing of coca leaves, sharing beers etc. I was with several musician friends on this particular evening and it was interesting to share this ceremony with them. Afterwards some of them played for us and for me that was the best part. Although the baptism was supposed to take place on 1st August it was deferred for some reason and I wait to hear when the new date has been fixed for it.
The following day we went to Cusco for the weekend and that was really enjoyable too. We went to El Molino market again and I bought a few more CDs and a couple of DVDs. Afterwards we took a taxi up towards the feria but stopped en route to look at all the animals for sale - chickens, ducks, guinea pigs, rabbits, kittens and pupplies and further on more livestock animals. Arriving at the feria it was absolutely enormous, far bigger than the main market day at Otavalo, and very crowded too. I had to be really careful to keep hold of my things as such places are rife with pickpockets and thieves. I was the only foreigner there as well and was only safe there because I was accompanied, Santiago being one of the dodgier parts of town.
Later on after tea with Nohemy and Alfredo, I met up with Pablo, another musician befriended last year, and it was great to see him again. We went for a few beers in a bar just off Plaza de Armas. The intention was to go to KamiKase but we were so engrossed in conversation that before I realised it, it was too late to go there as the live band usually finishes promptly at midnight and the music changes to disco for the next few hours. I was only interested in going to see the live band. Later on Pablo accompanied me back to Nohemy´s house and I stayed the night there.
The next day I met up with Lydia and her son Sebastian in the early afternoon. Sebastian is my Godson from the baptism ceremony of last year. The plan was to go to Sacsaywaman and Lydia suggested walking up there. I agreed but found it very hard going because it was such a steep upward trek. We walked for over an hour, stopping frequently for a rest, because the altitude in Cusco is so much higher than Urubamba, plus I am suffering a bit from a cold and cannot breathe through my nose, so the steep climb combined with the altitude and being unable to breathe properly made it too difficult to go more than quarter of the way on foot. We arrived at the church of San Cristobal and at this point decided to take a taxi. A big fair was taking place there but we decided we would call in on our way back.
The taxi took us up to the entrance to Sacsaywaman, but we were unable to enter the actual site because the cost of entry was so high. It would have cost 14 quid for me to get in plus 8 quid for each Peruvian, and none of us could afford this - 14 quid is 70 soles which is quite alot of money here. The site is huge and the walk is miles to get around the other side, so we had to take another taxi which took us to the statue of Jesus Christ which looks down over Cusco and can be seen from the Plaza de Armas lit up at night, as if he is standing in the sky. Here we took a few photos, and there was a woman selling chicharon - fried piglet - with maize, broad beans, salad and green chilli paste - delicious it was too, sitting eating it in the open air, the sun shining down, enjoying the tremendous views in every direction, especially the fantastic view over the whole of Cusco below us. I really love Sacsaywaman and another day would like to go back and take a nice picnic.
Later in the afternoon a brisk wind blew up so we decided to make our way back. We went back on foot via a shortcut - which was almost like walking down a cliff it was so steep in places and we had to go slowly so as not to overbalance and fall. It took us ages but finally we came to a bridge which crossed into Sacsaywaman and along side it the beginning of a long series of cobbled steps which were just as hazardous to negotiate, it would have been so easy to turn an ankle if we had not proceeded really slowly. Finally we reached the road, about half an hour after leaving the Sacsaywaman bridge, and in no time arrived at the fair. We went in and found seats in the bar area - dozens of covered areas with benches and tables and people wandering round with crates selling litre bottles of Pilsen for 7 soles a bottle. The custom here is to buy one or two bottles at a time and a single glass circulates. This means downing one´s beer really quickly as the next person is waiting, so sometimes one can end up drinking much more than one intended.
We shared 4 bottles of beer - we were sitting with some relatives of Lydia´s so there were about 6 of us sharing each bottle. A parade of bands and corpus christi paraded by and at intervals a set of firecrackers were set off, the ones we heard in the distance sounded bad enough. At one point Lydia and I went off to find a loo in a nearby shop (ignoring the two portaloos in the street which must have been horrendous by now, so many people were there) and on our way back the ones where we were sitting were set off. Lydia warned me they were horrendous and I was jolly glad we had exited at that point because the noise was horrendous and it was dark by this time and one could see the clouds of smoke, with the fire crackers jumping in all directions, even over the crowd. They obviously don´t worry about health and safety here! And the noise was incredible even from 500 yards away. Goodness knows what it would have been like had we still been sitting there. I understood why nearby canvas covered food and beer outlets shut their doors when they realised these were about to be set off. It was about 8 pm by the time I got back to Nohemy and Alfredo´s and I had an early night as they always retire to bed early. I was quite tired after all that walking and fresh air though and slept well.
We came back to Urubamba early Monday morning, arriving back about 10 am for a late breakfast. The weather wasn´t too good on Monday but was much better today, back to the usual sunny mornings and blue skies. Last night it was Lidia´s birthday party and I went along to it. It was mostly family there, but a few musicians, Pedro amongst them and everyone had to dance to the tropical music being played - not my favourite music and the dancing was lively so one was worn out after just one song, but it was a really enjoyable evening all the same. We were all given rocoto relleno, potatoes, and chicken and the beer was flowing. I stayed until around midnight but I heard next day the festivities continued until 4 am. I met another friend there, Jessica who I got to know last year, and I invited her round to my kitchen today and cooked her a Trujillo style chicken guiso, a bit like a casserole but drier. She really enjoyed it and I promised to have her round again very soon. Her husband has left her, gone off with another woman, and she is on her own with two little children aged 3 and 6, so it is nice to be able to do something to help. After lunch I took them to an internet cafe which was something quite new for her. Unfortunately the youngest one couldn´t understand the games and cried his eyes out and we had to leave he was making so much noise!!! Much to the dismay of his little sister.
The rest of this week looks pretty quiet, but I will probably go and watch some musicians play on one of the days. The next planned visit to Cusco is this coming Sunday. We cannot go before as work has started on their 2-storey extension and one has to be there to keep an eye on the workers, otherwise they just down tools and do nothing. Alfredo knows a place where we can buy a fat rabbit for 25 soles and I will then watch Nohemy cook it and learn how to do this myself. I had rabbit here once last year and it was really delicious. At the fiesta on Sunday I got a brilliant picture of a platter of cooked guinea pigs - this will appear on my blog in a couple of weeks when I get around to loading the first lot of pictures.
Well that seems to be all news for now. I am mainly only writing once a week because life is much the same here on a day to day basis. Lovely and leisurely and I am really enjoying the long rest!
