JJ's Travelogue

It’s been nearly a year and half since I left the States, since I last saw mom. We’re close, and as this trip drags on and I don’t know when I’ll eventually return for a visit, she’s agreed to schlep down here to see me. Nice! We decide to meet in Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city and one that I hadn’t seen yet. Unlike Peru’s other large cities, Arequipa is quite beautiful. The colonial architecture is built primarily of sillar, a pearly white volcanic rock, from which Arequipa gets it’s nickname “The White City”. They’ve done a nice job integrating the historical buildings into modern banks, cafes, and shops. Arequipa is also framed by three massive volcanoes normally shrouded in mist, but when they do make an appearance, it’s spectacular.

Sandra kindly arranged for us to stay in one of the hotels of her chain, a step up from the kind of place we would normally stay. Huge buffet breakfasts and higher thread count sheets than I’ve seen in ages. Oh, and our room has a view of El Misti, the largest of the three volcanoes at 19,800 ft. The city is walkable, the weather is warm and sunny, and we spend the next five days exploring, talking, relaxing. There’s not a whole lot to do in Arequipa – honestly, you can see most of the sights in just a couple of days. So we stretch things out.. it’s great having relaxed time to just sit over tea and idly chat about our lives. Arequipa is known for it’s cuisine, although neither of us are real “foodies”, so we didn’t really seek that out.

We begin our sightseeing by popping into the tourist office and asking where the market is, so mom can see indigenous culture first-hand. They give us directions to what turns out to be a modern American-style supermarket! “No, no, where is the real market – where everyday working-class people buy and sell?” “Oh you shouldn’t go there, it’s not safe.” Naturally we take that as an invitation and march directly there, and of course it turns out to be perfectly safe. In fact, it’s the cleanest and best organized market I’ve yet seen in Peru. The iron building itself was designed by a French architect named Gustave Eiffel.. I think he did some big tower in Paris. Despite being clean and organized, the market is still wonderfully funky and interesting. To whit – I see a sign advertising “FROG JUICE – FOR THE BRAIN”. That must be a metaphor, right? We wander over, and sure enough, there is a small aquarium containing live frogs, behind which sits a juicer. The manual kind with a big lever that you’d normally use for oranges. I’m still not believing this. Am I on Candid Camera? A customer walks up and orders a juice. The proprietor takes a frog out of the tank and begins to skin it in preparation to juice it. I turn away at this point because I’m going to wretch. Crazy tourist office – why would we travel 10,000 miles to see a supermarket like we have at home when we could see such a spectacle as frogs being juiced?

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Carnival in Latin America is a not-to-be-missed experience. Last year I was in Barranquilla, Colombia – what they said is the second-largest Carnival celebration in the world (after Rio’s) and much less expensive and commercial. I had a fantastic time, and was naturally wondering where to go this year. Lo and behold, people around here say that the second-largest Carnival in the world after Rio’s is in Oruro, Bolivia. So my plan was to go down there for a week, cross back into Peru to meet mom in Arequipa in late February, then return to Bolivia in early March to continue my trip.

Just a few problems with this scenario. One, Bolivia charges Americans a $135 entrance fee (visa), which I wasn’t excited about paying twice. Two, I hate crossing borders. Gee, maybe it’s my bad history of having things stolen or being personally violated, but border crossings just creep me out. So I’d prefer to minimize the amount of them I have to do. Three, the more I read about Carnival in Oruro, the more it sounds like a real pain in the ass. Fun, to be sure – tons of dancing, parades, celebrating, live music – but also all the negatives that come with an overly-hyped event in a small town: prices skyrocket, hotels book out, thieves multiply. Sandra helped me by calling a number of hotels and what few had rooms left were outrageously priced. One poster on the message boards seriously told me that cardboard boxes on the street were selling for $5/night.

Then I found out that Puno, a town in southern Peru on the shores of Lake Titicaca, has a similar celebration a week before. It’s nearly identical – the same dances, same music, similar parades – but on a smaller scale.. less crazy, less expensive, and less hassle. And I wouldn’t need to leave the country. Done and done. The best part was that Sandra was able to take a long weekend and join me for the excursion! Fantastic.. events like that are so much more fun with a partner in crime.

We take the night bus from Cusco and arrive an hour early (!) at 4am. Wake up the hotel to let us in, settle into our room for a bit of sleep, and get woken up an hour later to marching bands tromping down the street. Uh-oh.. are we going to get any sleep this weekend?? Still, their passion is infectious. What possesses people to carry large heavy tubas down cold dark streets at all hours of the night blowing their lungs out? For three to eight days on end. 10 – 16 hours a day. How do their lips not fall off? Are they deaf by the end of the week? These people are dedicated.

And that’s just the musicians. The dancers are wearing hot, uncomfortable costumes – many in high heels or platform shoes, others in 2-foot thick layers of foam rubber and fake hair, sweating under the hot sun.. dancing for miles along different parade routes every day, from pre-dawn until well into the night. Day after day after day. They all deserve medals.

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