Peru: Lima, Huancayo, Ayacucho, Andahuaylas, Pampachiri, Nazca. (Nov 24 - Dec 19, 2010)
Lima, a developed capital of South America. It offers a beautiful central plaza and offers one of the friendliest people, even in the capital! Great variety of food offering, nice parks in the "Miraflores" (safe area) of Lima. During an evening walk, I was approached, then followed by an indigenous man, around in 30s-40s, who was very straight forward about his interest even though he gave me an age of 16... When I told him that I had a boyfriend, then he turned his tacktick into curiosity and asked me inappropriate questions regarding my relationship... to which he later said that's how the "Quechua" people do!
Left pic: Entrée: Ceviche of fish, octopus, shrimp served on a bed of letus, corn, sweet potato and sprinkled with seaweed and red onion. Topped with "cancha" (oven baked corn) and chicha morada (juice made with roasted black corn!)
Bottom right pic: Segundo (plat principal): picante de mariscos. Seafood dish: shrimp, octopus, scallop, shellfish in a tomato sauce with spices. Yum!
Lima - Huancayo (3259m): an exhausting 10 hours on dirt road but absolutely beautiful scenery (didn't take too many pic... as altitude sickness hit me without warning!!! was sick as a dog and didn't have any med with me. Went from 133m above sea level to 3800m within 10 hrs... it hurts!! I had no clue how I would react to it, now I know... my body reacted by purging everything from both ends...)
Huancayo - Ayacucho (2746m): Another 8 hours on road, but this time I was able to appreciate the scenery :) Ayacucho is a pretty mountain town with lots of churches. On the bus, met a nice Peruvian police with whom I shared my first "Pacay" fruit! A cotton like texture fruit. YES, it is like eating COTTON!!! And we also tried a "frog juice". The video below shows how it is done... basically a mix of pollen, honey, frog broth, a live skinned frog, plus a concoction of other stuff, put in a blender. We had to fight the regurgitating impulse to finish the cup... NOT for the faint hearted!! (was later told that there aren't any frogs in the area anymore, so i probably had a toad juice, which doesn't have the supposed benefits !!!)
As a city, Ayacucho is nice and quaint. Not overly touristy and nice surroundings. I've tried my first "anticuchos" (small pieces of grilled skewered meat: in this case, cow stomach, and cow hearts!) by a street stand, "oka" a sweet potato like root vegetable, and visited a cute city called Quinua with cute rooftop decorations.
Tasted lots of yummy food!! I have to say, Peruvian cuisine is extremely varied :)
Ayacucho - Andahuaylas (2926m): Another 8-10 hrs bus trip, a chilly one with the bus driver pumping Andean music the whole 8 hours! The whole time, a very friendly lady across the isle on the bus kept on smiling to me and telling me to sit beside her to share the blanket with her. I ended up following her home and spent the next 2 weeks with my Peruvian mom: Irma.I've always wanted to see and experience unspoiled destinations, unchanged by tourism, and here I am, in the 2nd biggest market of Peru, in Andahuayla. When Irma first asked me if I want to stay with her or look for a more comfortable place. It was a difficult decision to make. I was very tempted to refuse her offer, after seeing the state of which her rented "house" was. But then I thought to myself, this is the golden opportunity, unplanned for, and on the other hand, to experience the most local lifestyle of Peru. My previous home experience was in Guatemala, albeit in a well-off family. Irma's family is a humble family, living and surviving with the little that they have to get by.
Irma accommodated me with the humble compounds: the living standard really isn't recommendable. Yet, Irma has a golden heart, friendly, helpful, extremely hospitable, energetic, smiling and generous with her time and cooking and constantly willing to share the beauties of her country with me, and probably with enough curiosity to have brought me home with her.
The conditions in which the family lived in, combined with the level of poverty I see, make this an experience a bit hard to swallow. It isn't the fancy tourist towns in which I am used to seeing. Even Ayacucho has its pretty areas and nice hotels. Irma's house is rather a simplistic "shack", part made of adobe and part wood, ceiling consisted of layers of corrugated steel sheet. It was amazing though to see the guinea pigs running around freely on the kitchen floor, eating alfalfa leaves, potato peels, carrot peels, and whatever else that Irma would dump on the floor :D There's an ancient black & white tv sitting on top of a pile of books, one of the oldest radio I've ever seen sitting on the kitchen table of wood, looks like that of an recuperated old park bench with seats only on one side. Sitting on the table are the miscellaneous household items, such as a few utensils covered by an old plastic cup to keep the flies away, completely weathered by time and dirt, the transparency of the plastic covered with un washable dirt, rather like stains of food mixed with dust collected over the years of use, and with a crack at that, from which a random fly would get curious and get trapped at times.
The kitchen is a kitchen/dining room/living room/homework room/communal room all in one. The entrance of the house is completely filled with other household necessities and books for sell. As we arrived at night, I was directed directly to the kitchen to have a quick dinner. At that time, I had tried to figure out where I would be sleeping with the girls, other than Irma telling me if I don't mind, the 4 girls would be cuddling up together in the same bed.
In the kitchen, I was offered a seat on one of those old-school sheel shape chairs held together by metal and bamboo wires that I remember from childhood. The one I sat on has just about almost completely fallen apart, except for the main metal frame and legs, along with the few metal bars that are left to hold the chair together, and multiple pieces of cardboard holding my bum so I wouldn't fall through the wide space left between the bars. A little bumpy, but it'll do.
As I sat there in the kitchen, bewildered by what I was seeing, while trying to hold back my shock, the family carries on with their conversation, and Irma started to hand out tooth brushes and other gifts for her daughter Elida and Cézar, a home-stay kid and helper. Meanwhile, sitting on the stove top, fired by burning wood, are two pots of boiling water, to which Irma added various ingredients such as some herb, balm, "uñas de gato" (a healing tree bark with the name of cat's nails), and other piece of bigger tree bark along with some herbs. The concoction turned into a light translucent red colour, to which I was offered a bowls. It had a rather pleasant herbal taste, I jokingly told her that I've had to drink herbal mixed that were way more bitter than what she is offering me.
Dinner consisted of a can of condensed milk shared amongst four people, with added boiling water and a piece of bread. I debated to decline dinner and purchase something from the street, but concluded not to decline her hospitality and to live the Peruvian experience fully. I did deny the milk, as I am increasingly becoming intolerant to it, but took a piece of bread and drank the medicinal concoction with gratitude. I thought I'd still be hungry, but as I sat warming my hands by holding onto the hot bowl and warming my cold body with the warmth provided by the burning wood, meanwhile enjoying the sight of the guinea pigs chewing away and the family members carry on with the gathering, my hunger dissipated.
Did the herbal tea had filling properties? or was it a combination of my surroundings, full of love, along with a mental awareness that satisfied my hunger. I drank and treasured the piece of bread I was offered, bit by bit. The eating experience, surrounded by the warmth of the burning fired, the smell of a natural herbal tea, and the love and generosity of a humble Peruvian family, made my meal tasted like no other. It tasted better than any meal in the restaurants that I've visited since I embarked on this trip. It was made and shared with love.
After I savoured my drink, Elida and I both chewed on a piece of ginger, laughing at each and wincing at the spicy heat of the root. She later got up to wash the dishes using water collected from the only water source about 10m away, outside of the house, in a big plastic container. The waste water then collected onto another container, for later disposal. We then proceeded to brush our teeth, and headed outside to rinse our mouth and perform the necessities in another shack, which is a whole in the ground (with sewage) and 2 chunks of rock with the shape of feet, and a basket of collected water for flushing. The "toilet" must be shared by at least 10 households, as the area is full of simple households like that of Irma's.
Bedtime comes at around 9pm. The time of truth has come to reveal this sleeping compound that I wasn't able to decipher in the darkness. Irma cleaned the clutter in the hallway and then instructed to remove my shoes and climb the wooden ladder in the middle of the hallway. I parted the curtains and discovered a small space in the attic, just about high enough for me to crawl in and to which I kept bumping my head on the ceiling as the space aloted did not allow me to sit up in it. Sitting, with a cramped back, I quickly changed myself into my pjs and crawled under into bed. As I look around, the only light source in the attic came from the mini 12 inch colour tv, with a mangled cable, sitting at the bottom of our feet. The rest of the time, we maneuvered around the house and the washroom with the light emanating from our cellphones.
I layed myself down in bed, hugging to the comfort of my Air Canada pillow, covered with an old t-shirt as pillowcase, and watched more gift giving between mother and daughter. Underwear and bras exchanged hands. Elida thanked her mother and tucked the gifts away in a huge blue plastic woven bag, served as an armoire. In the darkness, I was able to decipher a few more look-alike bags tucked away behind the 1st back, occupying all the non-sleeping available floorspace of the tiny attic.
In bed, Irma then started to ask me about the living conditions in Canada and apologized for her humble home. I explained to her that although we earn more, but life is also more expensive. Indeed the houses are cozy but our food is far from being as savory as those from here. Our fruits and vegetables taste blend in winter, whereas here, these fruits are organic, something we pay a high price for! She told me that in Peru, agriculture produce abounds and people even throw away tons of potatoes and fruits for the excess! But what they lack is "plata" (silver, a term commonly used to refer money) to buy rice, clothing, rent, electricity, etc. What an irony in the world that we live in!
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| Front door view of Irma's house |
As we eat our breakfast together, Irma, with her golden-edged teeth covered with "atajo" (a spinach like vegetable), half jokingly proposed to me to get married to a Andahuaylo (person from Andahuaylas), and have my own field of poatatoes and would come and sell it in the market! How many people have said that to me? I do not recall !I am definitely seeing more than I have bargained for... a good challenge :)
