Okay, so it´s about quarter after 10pm here, and I have a little more time for an update.
To breeze over yesterday, since I didn´t get much of a chance to detail any of that, it was the bus (Cruz del Sur) at 7:45am, an 8 hour trip, a high pass, some bus/motion sickness, three terrible movies on the bus (and BINGO... believe it or not), etc. Altitude is a neat thing. It cleared out my sinuses after we went through the 4000 metre pass and descended to about 3200 metres. Which was nice! Apart from all that, the trip itself was BEAUTIFUL. I took a few pictures, but am still experiencing difficulty with upload times.
When you pour a beer at altitude, it foams like never before! Handy to know.
Huancayo is great. It´s sunny and warm during the day, and cold at night. The air is a lot fresher than in Lima, and it´s dry, much like Edmonton/Alberta. Much more to my liking than Lima´s fog.
It´s busy. Can´t remember the population, but it´s a couple hundred thousand. Everyone stares at us. Little kids who notice us will slowly drift around behind, following our group curiously. All we did yesterday was visit a local mall, walk around to the centre of town, and have dinner at La Cabaña (Chicharron de Trucha - deep friend trout, YUM). The hostel is excellent... it is essentially a large guest house run by a local family. It has a lot of character, and the people are great. La Casa de la Abuela, I believe, is the name (The House of the Grandmother = Grandma´s House). And yes, Grandma is most certainly here, bustling around and being very friendly. They gave us some coca tea when we arrived, it is said to help with altitude sickness, and it did indeed take away the small headache I had.
So that was yesterday. Ok, today!
We decided to go on a tour of all the different towns in the Mantaro (spelling?) valley, the valley where Huancayo is located. The tour was with a guy named Lucho. His Grandma is the one whom the hostel is named after, and he runs La Cabaña and a tour agency across the street. Very nice guy. Anyhow, each town is famous for one particular kind of craft. The first town (all the names escape me, I´m sorry) produces carved gourds. They dry them out, and then add color by burning them with a hot stick... and then carve into them with a tool. The amount of detail that they achieve is just amazing. Maybe this doesn´t sound interesting... I´ll have to get a picture up. We visited the main family that produces them for all of Peru, and they gave us a demonstration of how to make them. This was just so neat to me, and afterwards, I had to a purchase a few (they run about s/20.00 to s/40.00 depending on shape and detail, I´m too tired to convert at the moment).
The next town was VERY rural. We visited a local hat maker. He makes hats out of sheep´s wool through a very physical process of wetting, pressing, and shaping the wool (and then starching and heating and shaping, again). The hats produced are very unique, and it´s kind of interesting that such a stiff hat could be made from wool. Again, we got a demonstration of the entire process. The guy was very welcoming.
The next stop was to a town that is known for it´s Alpaca products. Again, we got an explaination, and a demonstration, as we visited two local families and got to see them both working on their looms. It looks VERY time consuming... apparently, it can take weeks to produce a detailed pattern. Alpaca wool is very soft and VERY warm (my blankets here at the hostel are Alpaca). I did end up getting a traditional blanket, at the first shop, for s/200.00 (don´t know offhand what that is, it´s about $70, maybe?). The second shop´s speciality was fusing traditional with modern, and the individual artist had beautiful, colorful designs. His work cost more because of the time put into it, and although I told myself I WOULDN´T get anything else, I broke down and got a llama wool rug. I can´t say how much it is because I´m still sort of kicking myself over it, but regardless, Lucho tells me it´s a good deal, and I did manage to bargain my way down about 30 soles, anyhow.
The problem now will be packing these.......
The final village, San Geronimo, produces silver work. I´m happy to say, I didn´t buy anything here (was feeling guilty over my previous purchases, plus nothing appealed to me that much). Again, as before, we were invited into the home of a silversmith, and while he was not home, his daughter showed us around and gave us a demonstration. All of these artists and craftspeople were very hospitable, if a little bit shy. All very friendly.
That´s another thing. The people in the valley are MUCH friendlier than the Limeños, even if they DO stare at us (I´m sure it´s only out of curiousity)!
At this point it occurs to me I haven´t written anything about my group. To keep it brief, our leader is Denicia, she was born in South Africa, and now lives in Peru. She speaks English, Spanish, and Afrikaans. She seems nice, and helpful, and optimistic. The other 4 group members are all from Denmark, they all know each other, and they are all really TALL. They do indeed speak English, but often they speak Danish amongst themselves, which feels alienating, at times. Also, they´re all over 50, so I am definitely the young´un. I would write their names down except I´m unsure of spelling... Menne, Henne, Stig, and Henning? Maybe? Oh well.
Ok, we did one last thing today - horseback riding. Yeah, I know. I´ve never done this before. Well, the horses were pretty calm, and mostly followed each other, though Henning fell of his horse when crossing a small creek (he was OK, and continued on with a different horse). My horse was so slow... and kind of small... my butt hurts, and my legs hurt. We rode for two hours through the valley and several small towns. It was beautiful, but... I dunno. I´ll have to get the pics up.
Ok, sorry I kind of trailed off, I´m tired and I have pictures to fight with.
Tommorrow is hiking and archeaology, I think
More later!
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