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And so starts the end of our journey. We are actually writing this in Australia having returned safe and sound. Some of our friends find it amusing to be receiving travel blogs from Peru when they know we are in their livingroom but we would really like to finish them, as much for us as for you. We estimate that there are only two more blogs after this one. So all of you that we see regularly, just sit back and pretend that we are still overseas. We are sure that is a relaxing thought!
So after returning safely from the depths of the Amazon jungle, it was to face a much larger and cunning foe: Christmas in
Yarina Cocha. While Pucallpa is the main city in the Ucayali region, Ana's family lives in a port town on the lake (cocha) called Yarina. Pucallpa has now grown so much that Yarina has now become a large, independent suburb, connected by strings of houses and shops. We had spent one Christmas in Yarina as a couple several years before and were looking forward to introducing Delia, James and Rachel to jungle yule traditions this time around.
Meet the... wow there
At the Yine Association
We arrived too late for the chocolate but they waited for us to give them the presents. Good huh?are just too many
First duty was to attend two
chocolatadas, or massive get togethers where people drink hot chocolate and eat panetoni (needless to say Delia, Ana and Rachel were more than satisfied, particularly Delia who almost died from eating too much panetoni). The first chocolatada was at the
Yine association, a block of land where the Yine tribe is trying to create a collective community. Ana's mother and grandmother are Yine, an indigenous Amazon tribe. We loved hearing of Flor's stories about having the chickens taken by anacondas and the pigs by crocodiles during the night. We learnt some truly amazing things about Ana's family. Ana's grandmother Flor was one of the first bilingual accredited teachers (Piru and Spanish, not English) and her daughter Licenia, Ana's mother, was the first indigenous Peruvian doctor
ever! She is the equivalent of the first aboriginal Australian with a medical degree. Ana felt very humbled at the thought of her origins.
Anyway, Ana's parents provided small toys for all the children of the Yine tribe to be handed out by us. It was delightful to be given the opportunity to be Santa Claus' even if some of the children were a
Part of the family interview panel
Common question: "So where are the babies? You have been married 9 months, there should be at least two or three by now!" little old to be receiving toy cars. Ana realised that she had some work to do; she introduced herself to a couple of people who were her aunts and knew exactly who she was. After feeling very embarrassed, Ana decided to write out a family tree to be prepared for meeting more family that afternoon.
She tallied 211
close family members! In Ana's family (and probably across Peru), cousins are as close as brothers and sisters and their children are considered your neices and nephews. Chas had instanly become an uncle to about 50 people! It was wonderful meeting and being instantly accepted by all these people as close family, something Chas was not accustomed to. Everyone was an uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew or neice. The family chocolatada went very well, was inspiring for Chas and wonderful for Ana to get to know her family better. Delia, James and Rachel also seemed to have a great time and put in some hard yards crossing the language barrier.
Feliz Navidad and the turkey massacre
The preparations started with the killing of dinner. A much repeated story around Yarina is how last time we were in Peru, Chas helped Genaro
kill the Christmas turkey (a 14kg monster) and it ended up beating the living hell out of him. Seriously, he was mauled by a Christmas dinner. So it was with certain trepidation that James, Delia and Chas signed up to turkey detail. While James and Chas helped with the slaughter, Delia cheerfully donned an apron and merrily got on with plucking and butchering both turkeys much to the admiration of Carmela and Julia (one of Ana's aunts, i.e. the wife of Ana's mother's cousin). James and Delia have a hilarious video of Delia singing and enjoying herself up to her arms in turkey, a la Mr Bean Christmas special.
We do not want to sicken vegetarians with photos of this process, so if you want some very funny turkey slaughter photos, just email us. "The damn turkey almost escaped me again!" Chas, like the macho man that he is, simply shrieked like a girl and gripped harder. A very harrowing thing to feel something die in your hands. Chas says that, as a meat-eater, he should not shy away from the nastier aspects of eating meat.
Christmas dinner was an oddly formal affair where the food was great
The end product!
With a mildly peckish Delia but not much conversation or merry-making (all you could hear was Ana yabbering away just outside with her old uncle who was sitting outside in the motorcar. She didn't realise that no one inside was talking, yet they could all hear her perfectly well!). It may have been because in Peru the celebrating starts at midnight on Christmas Eve (Christmas day is strictly for recovery purposes). After dinner we headed out to Ana's close cousin's place for a more informal, alcohol-related celebration. Maribel is Carmela's eldest daughter and had, since we last saw her, given birth to the charming and mischievous (Spanish combines these aspects into the wonderful word
traviesa) Adara Isabella. Ana was given the honour of choosing her middle name. What was really nice was having some time together as a group, drinking and cooking snags on a fire, being a group, knowing that it was for only two days more.
The end of the party of five
Delia, James and Rachel were going their separate ways on Boxing Day. Christmas day was spent at the Pucallpa zoo which had an amazing array of the jungle creatures we didn't get to see actually in the jungle (useful
At the Parque
Pictured from left to right: Flavio, James, Genaro's father, Flor, Genaro's mother, Carmela, Genaro, Chas and Rachel (Delia is taking the photo) things zoos). In the manner of most zoos, some of the enclosures were great, others depressing (such as condors or big cats in cast iron cages). However, we had a happy time wandering around, avoiding the zancudos and getting personal with the monkeys.
Boxing day was spent with Delia, James and Delia trying to stuff their Christmas pressies and keepsakes into their luggage. This was time-consuming and provided much entertainment for Ana and myself but we have to admit that they kept their cool and somehow managed to fit everything in, even their Inca Trail walking sticks! The goodbye felt odd, us staying with our family for another ten days and we would not feel the loss until we got on the road again. We had many wonderful times as a group of five people travelling together. 21 is just not the same with two people.
They do it differently in the Jungle
The next ten days were simply beautiful. All we did was be part of the family, helping cooking, building the house and attending end of year celebrations. Chas was asked to held build a door to the new house. He stupidly agreed to making a
fool of himself (it's funny how often it happens). After years of randomly swinging hammers and saws while building theatre sets he assumed it would be easy. We all know the offspring of assumption. Peruvian jungle wood is
hard. So hard that wood is Pucallpa's biggest industry and export. Let us summarise the cause for much laughter: Chas used 27 nails; only three of them are in the finished product.
What we also got to attend were Marta and Flavio's (Maribel's siblings, Ana's cousins) graduation ceremonies. Marta's ceremony was just for finishing her third year of art school and was remarkably formal yet low key; three quarters of the graduating students did not even show up. Flavio's was far more exciting as he was finishing highschool. What an extravaganza! They rented a cool location and decked in out in the chosen colour (pastel green) and the night started with all the leavers parading in and performing a choreography. They had in fact rehearsed several choreographies, each one more elaborate than the last, involving ballons, candles, lifts, everything. The choreographer was a genius, the girls did all the complicated bits around the men who just stood around and mooched to
the music. All the guys had to do was heavy-lifting but there was one poor girl too heavy to lift so she had her own choreography in the centre of everything. Little Adara, wanting to be in the centre of attention, kept wandering discreetly to the edge of students, and then would dart into the centre of the circle just to get a better picture of what was going on! It was quite a challenge to entice her back to our table without having to barge in and pick her up!
Then each leaver paraded in, announced by the MC with the answers to several set questions. These questions went along the lines of 'Do you love your parents?', 'What are your hobbies?' and 'What do you want to be?' Hence the announcements of every leaver had: He loves his parents and likes to listen to music. Chas was dying, absolutely dying, for one of the students to say he or she hated their parents, liked to smoked bongs and wanted to be an escort. Thankfully, his fantasies remained unfulfilled.
New Years and goodbye to Yarina Coche
New Years gave us an opportunity to be young and foolish
A happy chappy
Well actually a bit shy and probably has fleas, but very cute nevertheless
with Ana's cousins (like we needed any excuse). As Flavio, Marta, Maribel and Guido had all been busy with one thing or another during the week, we were looking forward to just chatting and finding out a little bit more about their personal lives without their parents present. The plan was to go to Maribel's house and then hit a club later on for some fun dancing. At this party, we were introduced to several wonderful Peruvian New Years' traditions:
• You are given a glass with 12 grapes in it which you must eat. Each grape represents a month of the year and if you get a sour one, that will be a bad month. September '08 is not going to be great for me. Ana cheated by checking hers out thoroughly and picking which months she wanted to be good and bad.
• In Pucallpa, they make mannequins out of people they do not like, sit them outside the front door and at midnight set them on fire! If you have done something to piss off your neighbour, you may find an effigy of yourself burning outside on Christmas!
• If you are going travelling in the upcoming
Farewell family
We will be back when we have children, we promise! year, pack a suitcase and then run around the block at midnight with the suitcase for good luck.
• You have to wear bright yellow underwear to bring good luck for the year!
The club was wonderful, great latin music and good booze. We graced the dance floor at regular intervals but always left feeling like 'graced' was a misnomer. Latin people have such a good sense of rhythm and had obviously done salsa in kindergarten as they knew some moves.
Nothing like family
To sum up, we felt like we belonged there, we felt like we were part of the family. It was really hard to pack up and leave (not least because we had way too much stuff!) We had made real and deep connections with so many people, who instantly and sincerely called us cousin, son, daughter, uncle or aunt. We have were waved off with just one demand, to come back again with a baby!
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Dad
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So nice to feel that the journey is going to be completed for those of us unlucky enough not to have been traveling.