Some culinary discoveries....

Picante de Cuy 

Yes! Finally tasted guinea-pig! Cuy is pronounced "couille", so we had some giggles when we first heard about it. All they do is pretty much remove the hair/fur (although I'm sure I saw a few hairs laying around) and then you are set to go. I wasn't particularly a fan, it sort of tasted like chicken and the texture wasn't fab...And I have to admit that it wasn't really the most pleasant dish to look at.

 Hamburguesa de Alpaca

For all those who don't know the difference between Alpaca and Lama, well I don't know it either. Let's just say they are pretty similar. Anyways, I had this at a French Crêperie in Huaraz (don't ask why it was on the menu) and it was delicious. 

And this is a drink made out of coca liquor,  which I absolutely loved.

Snow in June?

For our third day in Huaraz we jumped on a bus that was supposed to drive us to Pastoruri. I wasn't too sure what Pastoruri was or what we were going to find there, all I knew was that it was a highly recommended place to visit. To get there we entered Huascaran National Park, a national park in the Cordillera Blanca, a range of the Andes  The road we took was zigzagging up the mountains and as we were driving up higher I could feel my ears starting to feel a little funny and, most unexpectedly, a mix of snow and hale was starting to fall. Turns out we were heading up to a glacier, at 5000 metres of alt. When snow started really falling and when we must have been higher up in altitude than I've ever been before, the bus stopped and we were made to get off and, surprise surprise, walk up to the glacier. To make up for how inappropriately dressed I was to walk up a glacier in the middle of a snowstorm I bought some Alpaca gloves (I knew they were legit as soon as snow hit them since they stunk like wet dog). The walk up to the glacier was only 2km; but because of the altitude and the freezing cold every step I took was a struggle, thus when I finally made it to the top I was extremely happy (as well as soaked). The view was impressive, the glacier itself was massive, as you can see on the photo below, and it was surreal to think we were at over 5000 metres of altitude, and still breathing.

After such an epic day, what would have been better than celebrating the St Jean-Baptiste (very important holiday in Qc) in our hostel by putting together a hybrid form of Andino/Québécois poutine? 

Me... in front of ... a large bloc of ice 

LAGUNA 69

The next day we woke up at 5.30am to catch a minibus to the starting point of the Trek to Laguna 69. The ride lasted about 3hours, 1 of which we spent on the bumpiest rockiest road of my life, not helped by the bus' lack of shocks/suspension which meant I was literally bouncing out of my seat like a ping-pong ball. We finally made it to the starting point after what felt like hours of hitting my head against the ceiling/roof and started walking along the trail. Before the trail even commenced to go uphill everyone's breathing became more difficult and people started to slow down. My group slowly started to fall behind and for some unknown reason I kept a steady pace and ended up catching up with 2 americans, an experienced mountain climber and his daughter. I tagged along with them the whole way, and I was lucky enough for them to share with me their peanut butter sandwiches (i miss it so much!!), as well as their trekking tips, whilst we munched on Coca leaves to avoid headaches. We ended up passing a number of climbers on the way and arriving at the Laguna (at 4800m) 1hour before the rest of the group! We were ecstatic to have made it to Laguna - it was so beautifully blue, surrounded by snowy summits - after such an intense climb. We were also lucky to have enjoyed a bit of sun once at the top, since it snowed/haled quite heavily on the way down. I definitely think I have caught the trekking bug, so if ever  anyone one of you wants company to climb a mountain or two in the future, I'm in! 

Back in Lima!

Having just chugged a cup of Instant Nescafe coffee diluted with some canned milk (SecondCup i miss you!), I am now ready to tell you all about the past five days spent in Huaraz, small town in the middle of the Andes. We arrived in Lima at 5.30am after having taken an 8hr nightbus, in which I must have slept a total of 1h30mins, as I was extremely uncomfortable - physically - but also psychologically - due to the sounds coming from a man who was, no doubt about it, vomiting all his guts out in the bathroom.

As well as feeling tired, I am also a little bummed to be back in noisy, polluted, stressful Lima. I really had the best of times in Huaraz, it was so beautiful and reminded me how much I love being surrounded by mountains and fresh air. We did so much in the past few days that it's going to be hard to  write down everything, so I'll just start with some of the highlights, and hopefully the photos will help convey how amazing it was.

Huaraz is at about 3000metres of altitude, I don't think I have ever stayed anywhere that high so I wasn't sure how well I would cope. I had been warned about altitude sickness and how anyone can get it, regardless of age or fitness. We had therefore planned to take it easy the first day, in order to acclimatize a little to the lack of oxygen - walking up the hostel stairs got me so out of breath, I felt like I had just ran a semi-marathon. We also bought Coca leaves at the market, which you are apparently supposed to munch on/make tea out of them, as a preventive measure to avoid altitude sickness (I'm going to try and bring some back to Montreal...!)

 Views from the Hostal terrasse

After strolling around the town during our first day there, the second day we took a day tour to Chavin de Huantar, an archeological site about 3hours away from Huaraz. At first I wasn't too keen on the idea of a guided tour as it's the most touristy thing out there, but turns out we were the only foreigners on the bus, everyone else was Peruvian. On the way to Chavin we stopped off at a Laguna, which was absolutely stunning (see photos!!!), and enjoyed a running commentary from the guide about the Inkas and their rituals and whatnot. The archeological site itself was really interesting, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it's got it's own museum too which we visited. 

Chavin de Huantar

If you were by any chance listening to Radio Comas yesterday at around 4pm Peru Time...

...you would have heard me!
We were invited to promote our project (it's quite long so I won't bore you with the details just yet... but   in short the NGO is offering a training for youth to start their own business). The interview was part of a radio program done by young teenagers, so yes, not the most professional and "legit" interview, but STILL. The 2 girls interviewing us were the bubbliest and most grown-up 14 year olds ever, and they asked us a ton of questions on Canada/Quebec: the culture, the food, the climate, etc... We fed them all the typical clichés: how cold it gets, polar bears and beavers, poutine, maple syrup...I explained that football was not THE priority in terms of sport, but instead it was hockey.. which I tried to describe as best one can. Justin Bieber was OBVS playing as background music, as he is (sadly) well-loved here in Peru. After all the chit chat about Canada, the girls started reading out loud unusual little news stories, and they asked me to comment on an affair that had happened in France the other day, about a man who was fired from his job because he had been farting and burping in front of his colleagues. I was like, qué?!

I will post some pictures, and who knows, maybe a video of me failing miserably at spanish, when I get back from Huaraz - we are leaving tonight and coming back next wednesday.

Hasta Pronto chicos!

It was father's day sunday, so I thought I should write a little something about my Peruvian father, J. Father's day is quite a big deal here in Peru. At work the other day a huge buffet breakfast was organized and all the fathers at work received a present (which happened to be a belt each, personalized sizes of course for those with beer bellies and those without).

Anyways, Padre J and I have quite a strange relationship: he is quite an unusual man, very quiet most of the time, except for when he decides to go off on a tangent about how grapes are fruits of the earth. He is also a bit of a mystery: I still havent figured out what he does with his time, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a job, and he doesn't seem to leave the house much. He is either watching TV or feeding the dog. And when I come home from work he greets me with a shaky wave and a monotonous "Hola, Sophia". Every, single, time. 

At least twice a week it ends up only being padre J and me at dinner. At first we had a few awkward silences because we didnt have much to say to each other, but then the subject of football appeared and we've found a common ground (Football as in soccer, for all the Canadians out there). The TV is on all the time in the house, which means when we do have some awkward blanks there is always the sound of the football program as background noise, its comforting in a way. And I have thus been following the European cup very closely, as well as the equivalent of the Latin American Champions League, oh and let's not forget the Peruvian Cup.

Sunday morning we made pancakes together, and everyone got to try the maple syrup I had brought. When I offered it to them during one of my first few days I remember trying to explain what it was exactly but I was too tired and gave up and said it was like special canadian honey. Today though, I decided I needed to try harder and get them to understand what maple syrup really was and where it came from so I looked up all the words I knew I would be needing in my dictionary and attempted..with little success (at one point I thought they got it but then I caught someone say "pollen" and they all went "AHHHH" - at that point I understood it was a lost cause)

They seemed to really like it, especially J, which was the most important thing. Once the pancakes were finished, he whipped out some stale bread and started dipping it in the syrup. Everyone followed and thus I discovered a new way of eating maple syrup. At lunch he started putting it on his grapes and at dinner he whipped out the stale bread for the second time. I'm pretty sure the can is already half empty by now.

Last Friday I spent what I have to say was probably my most interesting and moving day so far. We were invited to go visit a Women's Centre for women suffering from physical and psychological violence/abuse in San Juan de Lurigancho, which is the most populous district in South America, with over 1 million inhabitants. Needless to say, its poverty and unemployment rates are also extremely high, as well as its number of  cases of violence against women.

We all sat in a circle and listened to the women talk about their stories. They each explained what had led them to seeking help at the centre, going back through memories of their husbands beating them and their children, and describing how helpless they had felt at that moment in time. Listening to these stories was not easy; but it must have been ten times more difficult for them to open up to us strangers. One of the women started crying as she described how her husband used to treat her, and I think at that point we were all on the edge of tears.
The one thing that I found extremely interesting and different in the case of this Women's centre was that it tries to decrease violence against women by helping women assert their rights but also by trying to change the mentalities of the men. Therefore most of the women at the centre have actually stayed with their husbands, as they managed to convince their husbands to seek help at the centre, and participate in workshops for example. I think this approach of keeping couples together while tackling the issue of abuse is really interesting (and from what I understood there are probably some religious motives behind it).

We were then invited to walk all the way to one of the women's house, which happened to be right on the top of a cerro (the hills where the slums are built on). It was quite a hike - the hills are really steep and there are no stairs past a certain point - but we made it to her house, which as you can see on the photos was pretty much made out of scraps of metal and wood.
She insisted on feeding us, which demonstrated the "Peruvian generosity"that I had been told about (she gave us what her family was supposed to eat that night), and then preceded to turn on her radio. The women asked us if we wanted to dance, and therefore we did - to the very fragmented sounds that were coming out of the radio and unpredictable volume increases. I nearly stepped on a chicken that was running around in between everyone's legs - probably their next meal. I found the whole situation really hilarious, and at the same time extremely authentic, as there were no fake cover-ups or superficial details - it all felt really honest - which is the general feeling I have been getting from the Peruvians I've met so far.
At it started to get dark we had to start making our way back down the hill, and as everyone hugged in each other to say bye, I felt that we had shared a special moment together and enjoyed each other's company, even if our lives couldn't be further apart. (I know this sounds cheesy but I wanted to write it)

The view from the top

 The house

And the dancing begins...

While I was eating my breakfast...

....I experienced my first mini-earthquake!
Ok, so it was more like an aftershock..of an earthquake that occurred yesterday in the south of Peru. But still! It's hard to describe what it felt like exactly, but I literally felt and saw the whole kitchen sway from side to side. At first I was convinced the washing machine had exploded and deregulated the natural order of things. Then I heard my peruvian mama's "Terremoto!!!" and realized what it really was and I got all excited for some reason, I guess because it was my first earthquake.

(The earthquake that hit the south of Peru yesterday was of magnitude 6.0 but no damaged material or victims had been reported)


On a completely different note, last night a few of us decided it was time to try out the local gym that's just by where we work. It's called Safari Gym and its walls are covered with tacky posters of body builders in leopard prints. We arrived in time for a class called "baile", and had no idea what to expect, only that it was probably going to be quite funny. Which it definitely was! The prof was some kind of male flamboyant diva queen that was completely in his own world - just started dancing and we all had to follow the moves. Most of the people were middle aged women, minus a few girls that looked our age and a couple of men that fit right in since they danced quite femininely. The prof didn't bother explaining the steps, so we were struggling to keep up with his twirls and booty shakes and slightly suggestive moves, with year 2000 J-Lopez songs as a soundtrack. It was hilarious, especially the looks we were getting from the other women - who were probably wondering what the hell us 3 non-peruvian stiff as a board girls were doing there. I'll definitely be going again!

Some random things that have occurred since I've been living in Lima Norte

• On Thursday, a National Emergency Simulation plan was organized to prepare everyone in case of an earthquake. First of all, I had no idea there were earthquakes in Peru. Yes, I should have known,  cos there had been that massive one in Chile a couple of years ago and therefore Peru is close to the same tectonic plates or whatever. Anyways. I was at work when the alarm rang at 10 - it lasted for as little as 5 seconds. We all left the building, and stood in a circle in the narrow street. I really wondered how much of a good idea that would have been if there had really been an earthquake. Aren't you supposed to crouch down under a table? What if the building had crumbled onto us?

• That night Charro and I went to visit her friend Rosana in the Beauty Salon. A girl my age who works there asked me if I wanted a manicure and I didn't want to sound rude so I said yes. I got to chose the colours I wanted; I picked gold cos I know how much it makes Julia cringe. Once she finished my nails, she asked me if I wanted a pedicure too. I tried to explain that my feet would probably be smelly but the words never came to me in spanish so I accepted. Charro's mother then appeared and asked why my fingernails were so short: I mumbled something about stress and being in an unknown country and not being able to understand what people told me. She then ordered Rosana to give me a massage: what I thought was just going to be a hand massage turned into a face, arm, back, and neck massage...and when we returned to our house she made me lie on my bed and then proceeded to give me a full on leg massage.

• The Peruvians I've met are not only scared of earthquakes, but also pretty much everything else. Every 2 minutes I hear someone say "Es peligroso!" (go google it if you don't know). Taking a taxi when you don't personally know the driver is peligroso. Walking on a busy street during the day is peligroso. On Tuesday a woman stopped our group and explicitly told us not to be in this neighbourhood because it was peligroso. Another one leaned out of her car window to tell us to put our backpacks in the front. It's really difficult to know what the level of danger really is when you are being told that everything you do is peligroso.

• Last night however, I met some kind of pastor (I'm never quite too sure with my poor spanish) and I shared with him my thoughts about this "es peligroso" syndrome. He smiled, grabbed my hand and told me that, if Christ was with me, then I will be safe. 

 Tsunamis are apparently also quite common

Some pictures from the first week in Lima

La Plaza de Armas

Catedral San Cristobal

El Cerro San Cristobal

La costa verde

Los gatos en el Parque Kennedy