WOOLY LLAMAS, BLACK RATS AND A BAD HAIR DAY ....

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My Bed and Breakfast (La Casa Azul or, The Blue House) in San Blas is a really good place to stay. San Blas is the Artists quarter and set up high in Cusco. The family members are all involved in the running of this 'home-away-from-home. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to stay, because the family is all very welcoming and friendly especially Mamacita, the matriach of the family.
Last week, I had a persistent cough (very common up here at altitude), and she seemed worried about it. Next morning, she bought me some herbs from a plant that grows naturally outside of Cusco and made me a hot drink with them, so that my cough would ease off. Such a nice gesture from a really nice lady.

There are so many little incidents I have seen, or had happen to me up here, which make up the substance of my time in Cusco .
Like the woolly llamas,with their colourful ear tassels, grazing peacefully alongside a very large grey donkey on the little plaza just the other side of our front gate. And their owners (Quechua women and children in their colourful local costumes) sitting on the stone wall which overlooks Cusco watching the world go by, or hand-weaving artefacts. Most of these women and children come from outside Cusco and live in very poor and hard circumstances. For them it probably is easier to dress in their national costume, walk themselves, their children and their llamas into town and charge the tourists to take photos of them. Easier than to keep working their small piece of land under very difficult conditions.

And the time I was walking down the narrow street into Cusco and heard a disturbance from behind me. When I stopped and looked back up, I could see people leaping, shouting and jumping up and down. The cause of this disturbance was a VERY LARGE black rat which was running down towards me, trying to dodge the humans who were trying to dodge him! I didn’t even have time to jump up and down myself before he was past me and continuing downwards, avoiding a man in a suit trying to swat him with his umbrella and past several young women who jumped screaming in to the centre of the road. They must have been desperate, because only a madman does that here. It’s a very dangerous pastime, due to the maniacal manner in which the Peruvians drive. Since I’ve been here, I’ve realized that the pictures showing buses upside down at the bottom of a mountain aren’t faked!

Another time was my extremely BAD HAIRCUT day! I had to wear my Inca Trek cap for a week for 2 reasons: firstly because the woman cut so much hair off that my head nearly froze, closely followed by pure vanity. A 'Number One' shave job is not a really attractive sight. And this was despite the fact that I looked up the right words in my Spanish dictionary; “only cut a little off” (indicating 1/8th of an inch), and; "I don’t want a haircut, only a trim”.

The cheapest mode of travel here is by a Colectivo (usually a Mazda or Ford van with seats in the back) which have definitely seen better days and some have seen many worse days. When I first arrived, I saw people willingly pushing and shoving to get into them during peak hours, despite the fact that they were being crowded together like sardines (truly, no exaggeration), by the guy who was collecting the fares. They fit a lot more seats inside them here, than they do in Australia , because Peruvians are small people. This discouraged me from getting into them until yesterday when I had to use one. Almost every third vehicle on the road is either a Colectivo or a small equally battered Taxi. A few are recent vintage, but the more usual are the rackety old ones with their many battle scars and thick black smoke pouring from the exhausts.
There are two flags very much in evidence here in Cusco, flying together atop most Government buildings. The Cusco flag - which has the colours of the rainbow in stripes running across it and the Pervuian Flag in red, yellow and black. I read in a National Geographic magazine that the rainbow coloured flag was used by the earlier Quechua speaking indigenous people here, but it had long ago fallen into disuse. Howev er, due to a resurgence of nationalistic and cultural fervor, it has resurfaced and is now being flown alongside the newer Peruvian one.

Last week, I went with Diamon (one of the other backpackers here) to an ‘invitation only’ musical evening in Mandela’s Nightclub, one of the more up-market clubs here in town. He had two invitations and I was the lucky recipient of the second one. It was amazing - in the small space in front of the upper bar, they had managed to fit a 21 piece Swing Time Jazz Band from the Washington in the U.S. of A. Mind you, there were a few near misses when the trombone players nearly took off some ears from the musicians in front of them, because space was so limited. The music was really good and we were lucky to purloin two stools between the bar and the musicians, when their owners weren’t looking. The rest of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd just had to stand, because there wasn’t room for any seats. The ambience inside of Mandela’s is pretty unique, the colour scheme is very innovative and the décor is really African. The walls and ceilings have been painted with Nelson Mandela’s inspirational words and I nearly fell off my stool twice whilst trying to read the words written in the more inaccessible places. I didn’t know whether to try and save myself, or my Mojito (Cuba ’s national drink for those who don't know) and it’s pretty amazing stuff!.

Salsa is huge here and the younger people’s main form of nightly entertainment seems to be to go the myriad bars here and dance salsa all night. They even have salsa classes for an hour, before they clear the floor for dancing and every radio station plays Salsa all day and night. The younger girls keep asking me to go dancing with them, so I went once, but felt awkward and decided to have private lessons again instead. I booked one for last Wednesday with Cesar, the guy who’s supposed to be the best teacher up here, and I loved it. I’d forgotten how much I like the Salsa music and dance. It’s also much cheaper here - the equivalent of AD$10 for an hour, compared to AU$50 at home. When I went down again last night for my second lesson, the studio was locked up tight and after waiting for 10 minutes, I decided to give him a miss and go for a walk around town instead.
Town was absolutely jam-packed with groups of people clustered around shop windows and doorways and noise coming from every bar and coffee shop. Turned out that the local football teams (Cusco versus Peru ) were playing off a final against each other and talk about home-town fever!!! I’ve never seen anything like it. You didn’t have to see it to know when they scored a goal because people would jump up and down and yell at the top of their voices. When the home-town team finally won the game, the town went crazy, literally. Ticker tape was thrown up into the air and looked like falling snow, people were running up and down the footpaths screaming with joy and the really fanatical ones (for that, read ‘stupid’ )ran up and down the streets waving their arms in the air. Taxi drivers were driving around playing a tune with their horns and clusters of supporters were gathered in corners, loudly re-living the game in detail.
So then I worked out where my Salsa instructor had probably been! The majority of Peruvian males are very machismo and casual with their word. The women are much more responsible and there are a high percentage of partnership and marriage breakups, when the males move on to other relationships, leaving their women and children behind. So although I’ve been told that Cesar is the best Salsa instructor in town, I don’t know whether I will go back next week.
This week has been the lead-up to Semana Santa (their name for Easter religious festivities). A large majority of Peruvians are Catholic and seem to combine their love of colourful and joyful fiestas with the usual Catholic ceremonies, which makes for a very enjoyable spectacle for the tourist. There has been something going on in the main town square almost every day and evening this last week; band musicians in costumes playing music and marching around the square, the upstairs restaurants with rich and colourful cloth decorations draped over their balconies, the ornate multi-tiered fountain in the centre of the town square gardens flinging up streams of crystal tear drops under the spotlights. At any hour of the day or night, the garden and square are thronged with tourists, their cameras flashing, the locals in their business-suits or national costumes, the very poor hoping for money to buy a meal, the shoeshine boys carrying their small stools containing brushes and polish, the adults and children trying to sell paintings, knitted finger puppets, silver jewellery, the local semi-precious stones, cigarettes, decorated gourd rattles, beautifully hand woven bags or belts, knitted Peruvian caps with ear flaps etc., and the young women trying sell massages (mostly legitimate) - anything that might persuade the tourists to part with some money. There are also lot of people who aren’t selling anything, but instead are skilled at relieving other people of their valuables. In fact, one enterprising restaurant here has produced Tee shirts which simply say; “NO, GRACIAS”. Although I don’t have much space in my little bag, I just have to have one, because I use these two words countless times each and every day (and often to the same people).

There are also a lot of Tourist Police walking around the streets in their flashy olive green suits, brimmed caps and guns holstered in white leather. I have been told that a lot of them have second jobs as taxi drivers, tour guides or even lawyers, because a policeman’s pay is so poor. In the tourist areas especially, there is an obvious police presence at night and up here in San Blas, I have often seen the local Security guys patrolling with their truncheons. Because of this, I had relaxed my rule of not walking home alone at night and had almost started feeling comfortable about it. It's just easier to walk back home since the taxi’s here haven’t yet figured out a way to navigate the stairs! One night last week, one of the younger girls here was stopped by a security guy and told she couldn't walk down the next street alone, because it was known there were two men armed with knives who have been robbing unwary tourists. And although San Blas is a much nicer area to stay in than where a lot of the Hostels are situated, I've also been told by someone at South American Explorers Club, that it is a known druggie hang out. I suppose that was inevitable given that it is the Artists' quarter.

Rebecca, who is staying in my B and B, last week went to another town for a few days to do some sightseeing. She was having lunch in a restaurant there, when she discovered that someone had artfully whipped her backpack away from where it had been - on the floor between her feet. When she asked around, one woman remembered seeing the man who had been sitting at the table next to her with Wife, Grandma, and Small Child, walking out with a Backpack the same as Rebecca's. So now, she's down good travel clothing, money, her MP3 player and camera complete with all her travel shots. Most of the backpackers here who have been on the road for a year or two, have all been robbed at least once during their travels. All the more reason for me not taking a daypack or handbag out into the streets. And when I do take my camera, I use it and put it straight back into the plastic supermarket bag I use instead.

Yesterday, I started teaching classes in one of the voluntary schools here. This school is 25 minutes through insane peak hour traffic to the outskirts (and close to the Airport) of Cusco . There are 3 English classes of 1 ½ hours each (back to back), on Wednesdays and Friday,
commencing at 8am and finishing at 12.30 on Wednesdays and Fridays, with computer, cooking and video filming classes on the other days The organizers told me that it is normal to share the classes with another person as, according to them, it is too much to do 3 classes in one session. I don’t think they can have any conception of ‘a full teaching load’ for teachers in Australia ! So I asked one of the other girls who volunteers at the orphanage Aldea Yanapay, if she wanted to share the classes with me and she said ‘yes’. Last week, we both attended the Basico, Intermedio y Avanzado classes to see what the teachers were doing. My Wednesday shift was supposed to the first class of the morning (the Advanced level) from 8am to 9.30 and she was to do the last two classes.. And on Friday, she was to do the first morning class, whilst I took the last two classes of the day. All very well in theory, but in true Peruvian fashion, the whole school relocated over last weekend and this is where my first journey in a colectivo comes in. I intended to leave here at 7am and catch one to the school, but wasn’t able to get away from here before 7.30am, so decided to take a taxi out there instead. Easy in a Westernised country, not so easy in a 3rd world country which simply doesn’t work like ours. The drivers of both colectivos and taxis seldom understand English and in the case of taxis, the drivers are very good at ‘mining the tourists’, who often pay much more than the locals do. Anyway, with a lot of conversing with ‘them up there’, I eventually found my way to the designated stop, down an un-named street, to an un-marked building, (which a local assured me was the right one)! I waited until 10 minutes past the starting time of the classes, when one of the organizers eventually arrived and I was shown up to my classroom. Luckily I had been given the course book for my class last week, had gone through the exercises, making notes to use with this class. So no problems!
However ……… when the next class started filing in, I discovered that my partner hadn’t turned up.
OK - so I asked for the course book for this level and ‘winged it’, which I hate having to do because I always feel my class is better with pre-planning. And at the end of this class, I hopefully asked if my partner had arrived yet and was told; “not yet!”. So, armed with the next level’s text book, I taught my third class of the morning, totally unprepared - by my standards at least. If I were teaching at home, it would have been easier. But here, it is necessary to speak a lot of Spanish in the classes and so my brain was in overload before I had even taught the other two levels. And because the Peruvians don’t work logically, the first class of the morning was Advanced, followed by Intermediate and then Basic. Teaching Basic level is harder than teaching the other levels - and when one has to plumb the depths of one’s brain to explain grammar complexities in another language, the pressure is really on. So I went home in a colectivo, instead of a taxi didn’t I? It’s that instinct which says; “You haven’t punished yourself enough yet, have you?” Didn’t know where the colectivo stop was, had to use more Spanish to find out, had to find out which of the various colectivo companies was going to my destination, and submit to being jammed way to the back, so that I had to stumble over local feet and legs to get out my end.
Anyway, to cut a long and self-absorbed story short, I found my way home with just enough time to start my two hour Spanish class!! You can bet I had a really good night's sleep!

And there is a really good perk to this job. My family and friends know that I have a fascination for watching planes taking off or flying overhead, even sometimes when I'm driving, which sends them insane. Don't really know why I feel this way, because when I'm in a plane, I am a very nervous traveller indeed!! However, from my classroom picture window, and much closer than I see can them from our airport , I see all the local air traffic taking off and landing. PERFECT!!

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