Running for Cover

South America continues ot be fascinating. I had my cocoa leaves read by a Peruvian lady on a bus and she told me all sorts of interesting things.

I have developed an obsession with the cuteness of Peruvian children. I think it is largely because they wear really lovely little hats and have such big brown eyes and nice skin. It seems to be a specific condition to all girls in South America, even those like myself who aren´t particularly enamoured with children generally.

Anyway, today we got up at 4am (for the 3rd day in a row, this is not a relaxng holiday) to head out to the Sacred Valley, and so the others could start the Inca Trail tomorrow. The reason we headed off so early was that they like their protests in Peru and there is a big one in Cusco today and we were trying to avoid it.

We didn´t. We passed burning tyres, burning rubbish, large bricks and stones thrown onto the road only to come face to face with protesters blocking the road and generally being pretty angsty. A whole lot of tourist buses were caught there, and some went through the line, but it was pointless, because you could see the next bloackade about 100m up the road. And if you couldn´t pass that, you got trapped. We sat there for a while in the bus, assessing the situation (at least our tour guide was assessing the situation) and absolutely shitting ourselves.

By the time they started trying to life a small Peruvian cab off the ground, we decided it was better to make a mad dash back for the hotel. The police offered no deterrence whatsoever and the whole striking and rioting mentality is beyond me. Here, they use strikes as the first tool of ´negotiation´ which doesn´t make sense to me, coming from a country where it is always the threat held over the negotiating table.

The strike was about the fact that the cost of living in Peru is rising. Something that is happening everywhere. The difference being that if the cost of livng rises in Australia, we can´t afford a DVD player. It rises here, they can´t afford food. I can understand why they are angry. But it seems so self defeating. They destroy and block roads which affects them and other Peruvians, they piss off tourists that spend a significant sum of money here, they enlist the help of their children that should be at school. It seems that all the harm they cause falls on their own heads.

Apparently the other GAP Tours bus is still sitting between two protest lines, unable to mnove forward or back, slowly dehydrating. At least we´re not fending off protesters with hiking poles.

The plan is to head out really early tomorrow morning if there isn´t a second day of the strike. But because I am not hiking I am staying at the hotel to sleep in. Which will be nice. I don´t know how the others are going to do it.

Flashing Peruvian Farmers. And their Cows.

Just so that I can provide evidence of how outdoorsy I have been in South America I think I should note that I have sat on a night bus drinking a large bottle of red wine with my new best friend, Rahki ,and Martin, our exceptionally young tour guide. I have also been in a teeny tiny plane with with people vommitting while I was trying to keep my own dinner down and enjoy the not as large as I expected Nasca Lines.

I went on a boat trip to see animals where my seat broke and I was a little perturbed at teh thought of falling through the boat floor into the freezing water.

I went sandboarding and hooned through sand dunes in a very unstable car looking contraption.

And that brings me to the white water rafting today. I like white water rafting. It is fun. Less fun is needing to go to the loo half way through when you´re wearing a wet suit and one piece swimsuit. My very nice rafting instructor (is itcompulsory that all rafting instructors be super cute?) allowed us to ´pull over´ so I could use the facilities. But not before he asked me for the recipe for pavlova. So, he pointed up a hill, a steep hill, which for some reasons I decided to climb with my oar, and I ended up in a large field.

So I felt it was pertinent to yell down ´Where?´ to which he responded Ánywhere´. So there I was, in a field. With cows. Trying to decide where to best hide myself. Obviously I didn´t do a very good job of this as I had just pulled down my bathers when I realised the cows were, in fact, accompanied by a Peruvian farmer. Who was herding them or something. And who I had just managed to flash.

Anyway, white water rafting was fun. When Sarah fell in, her boyfriend Scott didn´t move to pull her in but instead shouted ´Don´t worry honey, I have the oar´ which I am sure won´t make him that popular. The water was freezing. There were beautiful volcanoes in the background, and you could see the snow on top that fed the river. Absolutely stunning.

Off to check out the sights of Arequepia and head to a discoteque. Hopefully with the guys from the rafting company.

At at least I am making friends with the natives. And their cows.

Visiting the Spanish Inquisition

I am in Peru where I am feeling slightly less tall and slightly more damp. I swear, if I saw blue sky it would be a miracle. Enjoying Lima enough. It's hard because all the bits of the city that are safe and that the guide books recommend are the old parts. Which really are lovely. But lets face it, the old parts aren't likely to be able to compete with the 'old parts' of Europe so it just feels a bit pointless. And because I want to leave Lima with all my money and credit cards, I am not particularly inclined to just go wandering about by myself in areas that are designated as dodgy. Just a personal preference.

I went to the Inquisition Museum today to avoid the rain. One of the tortures tastefully reconstructed with wax figures was especially for women only. They lay you on a bech, put a large rock in your mouth and poured water over it to simulate a drowning sensation. Sound familiar? All I am saying is that if the Inquisition thought this was a form of torture, along side burning the bottom of the feet and stretching you on the rack then Ashcroft, Rummy, Bush etc really need meds for delusion. Or a history lesson. Possibly with pseudo-realistic wax sculptures.

I was sad to leave Quito - I had just felt like I was settling in to the school and learning enough Spanish to not look like a complete moron all the time. In fact, I learnt enough Spanish that I help a (bad) conversation for 40 minutes with the woman who drove me to the hotel from the Lima airport. I discovered that we had EXACTLY the same birthday.

Snap Judgement for the Day
I am doing a tour for a while in Peru and Bolivia and was checking out the list of names that were posted on the board. I noted the following:
1. I am the ONLY one not described with a Ms/Miss/Mrs; and
2. Most of the group is married to each other.
So, I am now imagining myself in a group of over 50s but I will be the under 30 not hauling my butt up the Inca trail, but instead catching the train. Ah well.

Una, Dos, Tres...dance, dance dance.

In my last post I mentioned my lack of rythym and how the verb bailar (to dance) was unlikely to be very useful to me because of it. Somehow, this didn't actually stop me from showing up in the Latin Dance class the school runs every Thursday.

I should clarify that 'showing up' really means 'was dragged up the stairs by my teacher because they were one girl short and I was the only Chicka left in the school'. Talk about desperation. And where in the world, may I ask, is a dance class one GIRL short? If I learnt anything from Strictly Ballroom it's that girls are always doomed to dance with other girls. And Scott will be really mean to you about it when you ask to dance with him at the Pan Pacifics.

Anyway, it was fun, I managed not to maim anyone. In fact I was twirling like a pro in the end and even stopped leading. I think it{s really unfair to teach you the steps one way for 30 minutes, then make the girls do it all backwards. It is very confusing. It was made worse by teh fact the class was in Spanish and half the time I was confused about which way we were supposed to be going. If nothing else, however, I will now be able to count up to 7.

As a side note, wearing thermal underwear to dance class on a warm day was not one of my better ideas.

Went to Otalavalo last weekend were I went to an animal market (weird) and an 'indigensou crafts' market. I use inverted comas because I am not entirely convinced that people who buy live guinea pig to eat have a giant weaving thingy in their back shed to mass produce the lovely, authentic table clothes.

Went to the middle of the world and stood on the fake equator. And the allegedly real equator. Went up the Teleferiqo and saw Cotopaxi which was very, very cool. Apparently the mountain would be covered with snow if it was anywhere else in the world, because it is 4100m above sea level, but being equatorial, it is lush and green. Crazy!

I am actually very sad to be leaving Quito. Just got settled here, met heaps of great people and now I am heading off to Lima. And I hardly speak any Spanish. Argh!! Ah well. There are nice people everywhere. Except Romania, which I am still holding a deep seeded grudge against.

Rookie Mistake

I should also add that I don't look Latino because I am not a man.

The title of yesterday's post shoud have been 'I don't look Latina'. Which I realised about 10 minutes after leaving school.

Now I am going to conjugate verbs and learn the Spanish word for humourless.