What's up since February

We have been busy "living" in Arequipa, working, eating and enjoying the weather. However, now that it is winter, it feels really cold...because none of the buildings or houses have heat.  So we bundle up at night and wear layers that we keep taking off and putting on all the day long.  We try to take as many weekend trips as possible, since working does seem to get int he way of traveling. The nice thing is that just a few minutes from our apartment "rural" begins, and as I walk to one of the neighborhoods from our apartment I walk on busy streets right past cornfields and cows. What this means is that a short bus ride (.80 soles) from our apartment is real countryside. We took a trip to the Founder's Mansion one lovely Saturday afternoon and enjoyed the trip into the countryside as much as the mansion itself!        Always the ubiquitous llama( or is it an Alpaca?),  Please note the knock off that we saw on the way!  David's office opened in March on Lucia, a native of Arequipa is working as office manager.  She and her husband have a house in Majia, a lovely beach town and we visited their house in March.  Lovely weather, people and lazing on the beach with super powerful sun! 

                Could this be the Jersey shore?

Arequipa has a little zoo which we went to one day.  Again, the ride was as good as the destination.  Out into the countryside, in the hills almost at the base of Misti.

  Our next weekend trip was the to Majes Valley.  At the other end of the valley is Colca Canyon.  The topography is quite different.  This is a mountainous desert area and stunningly beautiful.  We picked a lovely lodge to stay in, which was, coincidentally, the site of a private bull ring where the only bullfight of the year was happening.   They also made wine and pisco right there from grapes grown on the property!   What a treat!  Especially since this was a "bullfight" with yearling cows who were just poked and not killed.             The bullring was packed by the time the fight started and then bottles of wine and little glasses started going up and down the rows.  What a hoot!   At one point this hat was used in the bullring instead of a cape, and then it was on my head!        The owner of the Majes Lodge, where we stayed was a retired bullfight with a chest like a topographical map from all his old injuries.   He ran the bullfight but did not participate, but one of his old friends did!   
In addition, the matadors seemed to be yearlings too, and once or twice when they got knocked down, they simple grabbed the little cows horns and pushed them away!  Great setting, great fun!            We took several walks around the area and found these figs drying the in sun.    This was a view of "castle rock" which is just one of the views from the road across from the Majes Lodge. 

And we met the nicest couple whose daughters I am now tutoring!  About 1/2 hour from the Majes Lodge was "Jurasic Park" which is the site of some dinosaur footprints, somewhat high up a high hill.  The nice thing was that the walk up to the footprints was paved and quite beautiful.                 And the footprints were amazing     as were the dinosaurs walking about.       At the other side of the Majees Valley is the Colca Canyon which we visited during our Easter break.  We stayed in a tiny village near Chivay which is jumping off place for Colca Canyon.  The name of the village is Yanqui and it is tiny with thatched roofed huts, donkeys in the streets and dirt roads.  Coincidentally, the lovely folks we meet in Majes Valley had a family home there are were in Yanqui for Easter so we got invited to a barbecue and then for Easter soup.

Again, the trip there was half the fun.  First of all, we went to the bus station without tickets, which didn't seem like a bad idea at the time except that when we got to the station either all the buses were full or they  were all leaving late in the afternoon.  Luckily we found a wonderful woman at a tourist booth who ran us all over the whole area around the bus terminal until she found one of the little private vans going to Chivay and put us on that.    Here is a view of Misti from the side opposite our apartment on the way to Chivay.  We stayed at a wonderful place with only 4 rooms  which also provided a guide to the ruins above the town  This turned out to be a very knowledgeable 15 year old boy who stoke only Spanish which I could sort of understand.  When I didn't understand something and asked him to repeat it, he would put his face very close to mine and earnestly, very earnestly say the same thing.  He was extremely knowledgeable about the medicinal qualities of the plants.  The walk up, while very steep, was wonderful     Here is some quinoa.  He kept stopping to pick plants and tell us about them and then to pick prickly pear cactus fruit (tuna) for us to eat.  That wasn't so simple as the cactus are quite thorny as are the fruit.  He also scrambled up a steep hill to pick a red flower for me!     He took us to some beautiful ruins with great examples of Inca drainage systems.         There was a woman living in the ruins who had a donkey and some llamas.  As we were going back down the donkey took it in his mind to chase David and came running after him, around me and nipped David's elbow.  We chased him away.  He ran in a giant circle and back around us to go at David again.  3 times until finally he trotted away! 

We spent one day in Chivay, which is the touristicy little town where everyone goes to see Colca Canyon.  They have really made it beautiful with one whole pedestrian street lined with these beautiful statues.

               We also walked up high hills to another wonderful ruins. 

           This photo shows a field of quinoa.  Notice the terraces.

We went to Yanqui to see the Easter celebration in their beautiful, old church and it was certainly worth it.

  First, on Saturday night they took Christ down from the cross in a very intricate maneuver, First, during the day, the effigy was covered in white.  Then at night they took Him down and put Him in a glass coffin.               and went on a parade through town complete with bands that lasted until well after midnight.  The coffin was followed by an eloaborately decorated statue of Mary Magdalene.    The next day we went to the parents of our friends for Easter soup, a very rich chicken and meat soup served, of course, in a huge bowl!!!!

The tradition in these little villages is to decorate the churches in a most magnificent way. Here is a church is Maca.

   Notice the melon flower holders.


Of course, one of the big attractions to the area are the condors of Colca canyon     

   The condors float up from the bottom of the Canyon on thermals as the sun warms the air at about 9:00 am every morning.  They glide around for about an hour and then go on their way.  They are really big and really ugly!!!!! A little condor family!

Move over Mummers. Here comes Candelaria!

On February 8-10 David and I went east to Puno, right on Lake Titicaca, for one of the largest festivals in Peru.  Called Festividad de La Virgin de Candelaria, it is a religious holiday that goes on for about 2 weeks.  Dance, bands and marching groups from all over Peru come for the celebration which involves carrying the statue of the Virgin through the streets and about 80 groups of about 60-70 people each parading through the city from early morning to late at night.  For those who know Philadelphia, it is like the Mummer's Parade Squared.   For David it was a bit overwhelming as he could not figure out a schedule, a parade route or any sort of organization.  We kept getting conflicting information about when and where the parades would be.  And then once we heard the music we quickly figured out that the reason we got conflicting information was because there was no real schedule or logic.  That being said...it was quite wonderful.

However, everyone kept saying that Puno was very cold and we didn't believe them.  PUNO WAS FREEZING! and it rained every night, our room had no heat (no place in Peru does) and we had no hot water (or a window in our room, for that matter).  We still had a good time, but do like Arequipa better!

Interestingly enough, during the dancing and parading we saw on Sat., Sunday and Monday each band played the same tune, but a different one based on the day.  And the vendors sold beer during the day and bottles of coke tapped to bottles of rum at night!  All the dancers carried their beer with them!  They also sold watermelon, ice cream and jello!

       And lots of candles for lighting in the church.    

You won't see these ladies in the Mummer's Parade!

       David liked these ladies, but why isn't he smiling?  Here are "my guys".

   We love looking at the old people on the streets!         The music was wonderful!  A real mix of traditional and new, with enough sousaphones and bass drums to make us deaf!             What was a riot was that there was no one directing traffic and very few streets blocked off.  However, the paraders followed no route and groups that we saw in one part of town in the morning, we saw a few hours later in another part of town.  meanwhile different groups were in other parts of town.  The only thing we could think of was that each group went were the traffic dictated, because we did see groups start down a street, then turn onto a side street when they saw cars coming.  But the seeming chaos added to the charm!   This whole troupe was a bit weird! Isn't David a good photographer?       Puno itself is a smallish city in southern Peru, about a 6 hour bus ride from Arequipa, with about 100,000 people at 12,500 feet which is higher than Arequipa.  Luckily we were nota ffected by the altitude, because Arequipa is at 7500 feet.  David is in love with these mototaxi's and finally got  a chance to ride in one.   Our square is nicer than the one in Puno, but they do have two big ones.  This church, on the square was where all the Virgin celebration started.