Off to Darkest Peru!

We have spent rather too much of out 7 weeks holiday in Huancayo, doing legal stuff and Santiago and wearing jumpers in the strong sunshine. So it was time to go to Darkest Peru, as I like to think of it, to the rain forest at Satipo.
We spent a short time in the desert of Lima (Yuk) and a long time at he high altitudes of Huancayo and now for Peru's third climate region the Amazon forest. It really is shocking to be able to go from one climate to another in one bus journey. From the dust dry, cold, strong sunshine, low oxygen of the mountains to the humid, hot, strong sun if it's not raining of the jungle.

We got a bus from the bus terminal in Huancayo, where they still celebrate the strong historical and cultural ties between the Junin region of Peru and East Yorkshire. Here is the check in desk for the Goole express!

We didn't go from the potato fields of Huancayo to the potato fields of the East Riding but instead to Satipo over night on a bus with no toilet(We took a Guinea pig in a box with us, because that's what you do. Nobody seemed at all surprised by its occasional squeals).I once learnt a very very hard lesson, coming ac cross the Andes on a bus to Huancavalica with no toilet and no stops, so I was prep aired. NO food or drink for the hours before setting off and as many toilet stops as I could manage before getting on the bus. I enforced this on Michael too and though it was not fun the alternative is so damned painful I am glad I did it.

Apart from the no-toilet and the enforced watching of Mad Max 4 on the video screens, it was a good journey, getting hotter and wetter all the way and my ears popping again and again as we left the Andes mountains to go down to almost sea level Amazon.
 We got off the bus just as the sun was rising over Satipo and you could see the cloud in the valley and the green hills rising above,  Nice to see green stuff after the dust dry summer of Huancayo, and you could smell growing things in the air.very nice.

Now here's a thing that drives me crazy. Satipo, like many places in the rain forest of Peru and probably elsewhere, produces many things, fruits, corn, coca, chocolate, bananas, sugar cane, and many other things, but one BIG crop is of course coffee. Rocio's family are firstly coffee growers here in the jungle and so are almost all the people of the village. They make tons of the stuff every year and it is beautiful coffee. They don't really use any chemicals they use hard work. This is P{eruvian coffee, made by Peruvians as a business to make money. That is all good. So why in Hell is it that they drink bloody Nescafe?? Every shop you go into has little sachets of over priced Swiss crap instant coffee. Like this one in Satipo.

It is not only rubbish in comparison to the good stuff they are making tons of but it costs a fortune  to keep buying those stupid little sachets. I have never seen a jar of coffee in Peru. So the money they make gets sent out of the country to one of the world's richest countries to take the profit. Ridiculous. I have been boycotting Nescafe for about 30 years so far, for many good reasons, and I wish all of Peru would do the same.

From Satipo we got a classic Rain forest Taxi ride up the mud road, past the land slide ( there are always landslides when it rains and it often rains) with about 9 of us in the car to the village of Mentushari. It has about 30 houses and, as I said, almost everyone here is related in some close way to farming, especially of coffee.

It was great to be back there. staying in a small wooded house, less sophisticated than many UK garden sheds, but such a nice place. The day was dry and hot and we drank cold pop and walked about listening to the bird song and the dogs and insects.

Rocio's Dad Florentino is in the process of building a new wooden house on a piece of land at the other end of the village, ie about 3 minutes walk away. It will be so beautiful when it is done. It's a bungalow on a wide piece of land that already has fruit trees but will have far more when Florentino has finished. Here is Michael picking oranges from the tree, just before getting stung by tiny horrible wasps, who were living in the tree. The fruit was great, but the sting hurt him a lot. Strangely Michael seems immune to almost all insects and the like in the jungle. He didn't get any mosquito bites at all and my arms are covered! The wasp sting went away in an hour or so too, amazing.

Here is a view of one side of the house with a coffee plant in front. It has four rooms inside and there is a kitchen/dining room across the yard too. I can't wait to see it when he's finished.
Back at the current house, Alvaro (Michael's cousin) decided to harvest the enormous runner beans!

Well, to be honest they are not beans but a fruit called Pakai (My spelling) which grow on a tall tree. Can you spot Alvaro up there having a snack?

Inside are big yellow or white fluffy blobs each with a shiny black stone inside. You suck the fluff off which is better than any sweet I  know of. We soon finished all Alvaro could harvest without falling to his death.

Preferential treatment

In Peru there is a law called something like "The preferential law" which means that disabled people, old people, women (men?) with young babies and pregnant women don't have to cue up as normal in any public office. Banks, government offices, the electricity board whatever.
This is a great idea, codifying what would just be good manners if we all had good manners and were observant enough about who else was in the office with us. We really should do this in England.
I practice it kind of works, except that banks and government offices have found a way round it. They provide a separate queue for Preferential People and don't provide enough staff serving it to make it useful. So where by law the next person served should be a Preferential, if there is such a person, whoever is in the queues, in fact the Preferential queue can be slower than the others as there is often nobody at the end of the queue serving.
We went to the RENIEC, the government office of Identities, to renew Rocio's ID card, and got quite a shock to find the Preferential queue was about 50 people long and moving very slowly. We did queue up and waited a looooong time to be seen, Here are Rocio and Michael slowly going mad.
To be fair the normal queue on this occasion was far longer. Occasionally people would try to jump  the queue and "just nip in to ask a quick question" or the like, then the room would erupt in shouts and jeering and waiving of fists. Those poor people who had queued for 4,5,6 hours were having non of that!

No photos this time, but I have more blogs ready to go...

Trago and Graveyards

Rocio's Mum , Mami Noemi has been a bit full of cold recently so we went to buy her some traditional medicine, trago !
I know she was drinking this for fun throughout Santiago season but this time was for medicine. So we went to find one of those tiny "Trago and Coca" shops in town. I don't know who makes this stuff, but as you see it comes from very unofficial looking huge plastic barrels stacked up in a huge fire hazard of a shop. You buy 250ml or half a litre and it comes in a re-used pop bottle. It's damned strong stuff and I have found it cleans the windows really well. I would never drink it though. As I said the same shops sell coca leaf as well. Huge sacks of leaf sit on the pavement outside and a couple of quid will get you a big bag full for hours of chewing pleasure. I have chewed it many times, but it's not really for me. It doesn't seem to do anything at all (coffee is clearly a stronger stimulant) and it does taste a bit like chewing a hedge. Must be an acquired taste I guess

I just loved seeing this man take his harp across town on the top of a taxi. They are far too big to fit in a car and usually go in a small bus or tied to the roof. He perhaps forgot his rope to tie it on though as he had to have his arm out of the window and hold in in place. They are quite light and made of thin wood for acoustic reasons, so if he drops it it will smash on the road before getting run over I think.

It came time for one more bit of Santiago! These people really have stamina, but this time a really special one. This was Santiago in the graveyard to remember various family members who are now dead. Especially to remember Donato De La Cruz, Rocio's birth father, who died when she was quite young. Donato was a violin player in various folk groups and orchestras and he left behind him tow violins. Nobody after his death took on the violins until I went to Rocio's house. I took the violins, now in a state of disrepair, and I paid to have them both thou roughly serviced and polished and they are now mine. So these are very special instruments to me and to all the family. One day they will belong to Michael, who is getting better at violin. He is not big enough yet to play them and he has two small violins of his own to learn with, but one day I will be glad to pass them to him.

So Michael and I have been practising a couple of the tunes we have Donato playing in recordings. Me on violin and Michael on a small drum called Tingya. We are not experienced players but I think we did alright. We went along with one of the Principes orchestras to the graveyard and there was (can you guess?) much drinking and singing and dancing and more drinking, speeches and offerings of coca and beer for the deceased.The orchestra played and played and it was all a really jolly time. At one quietish moment Michael and I played our pieces, and then we all go back into the bus to go do it again at another graveyard. Nice time!

The guys in the band wanted me to wear one of their hats and pose with a saxophone, like a band member, so here I am.

I thought it was better to pose with the violin player of the orchestra so here he is with me and Michael.

Health care and Animal Abuse

This morning there was a knock on the door and it turned out to be Health Visitors doing the rounds of all the houses in Huancayo (eventually) offering an immunisation against Papiloma virus, and somehow protection against cervical cancer.
It was pretty quick from turning up at the door unannounced to talking Layde into having the first of two injections. Here she is as the needle went in. Perhaps it was a little heartless of me to take the photo right then, but in my defence Layde herself did hang around to laugh as her friend over the road got hers.

Great system eh? No appointments and no chance to chicken out.

Here is a statue in a local park. Very symbolic, It shows a Condor (symbol of the people of the Andes) attacking a Bull (Symbol of Spain, where the Conquistadores came from) Sadly this is not just a symbol, this is acted out in real life in a stupid and cruel tradition called Yarwar Fiesta, of Blood Fiesta. They go and catch a condor and tie it to the back of a bull and watch as in trying to get free it slowly pecks the bull to death. Sick stuff.

Peru is full of beautiful tradition and a lot of it is connected to History, but this rubbish needs to end, along with all forms of Bull Fighting ( and of course our native British shame such as Fox Hunting )

There was just a little bit more Santiago recently too. Rocio Michael and I went to a house in the country for the traditional drinking, dancing, din king, eating guinea pigs, drinking and decorating bulls to music.
This form of Santiago, called Tayta Shanti, or Shakatan, is really my favourite. Just Violin, small drum and a lady singing in a very strange high voice, each section introduced by a trumpet like instrument made out of cow horns. For me it's great to be able to hear the violin, as there aren't 20 Saxophones to compete with.
After the meal and plenty of beer we all went out to the field to dance and play and three bulls were dragged up. I don't think they knew what would happen, but I don't think they like the noise and people very much.
Here is the pagan ceremony with coca leaves and trago and corn and chicha offerings (to whom? Pacha Mama maybe) and the ribbons are being prepared to put on the bulls. Sadly all this went on much longer than we had expected and we in fact left before the bulls got there bling. I don't imagine this event was too terrible. Cows get ear tags in England too I think, if not so fancy. I guess they already have their ears pierced.

Michael has taken to building wooden houses in the yard and all are welcome to eat at Michael's place. He eats much better there than at the table !

Santiago at last

Santiago has arrived. The biggest festival of the many that take place every year here in Huancayo. The streets are full of people dancing and  parading around and holding up traffic and each accompanied by a Folk Orchestra playing traditional Santiago tunes.

I love the orchestras. One violin, one harp, perhaps a drum and at least a dozen, perhaps 30 saxophones. There is of course no way on earth to hear the violin or harp once the Saxes start up. It's a magnificent wall-of-sound experience and they play and play and play (and drink) and play some more. They really earn their money.
The sad new is that the family orchestra "Los Principes" has had a family feud and split into two orchestras "Los Principes de Huancayo" and "Los Super Principes de America" . So we can't contract one set of uncles to play without offending the other set of uncles. I don't know what argument they had but I hate to see them separate like this.
We did in fact get to see both orchestras perform on the first day of Santiago, and both are excellent, but together would have been even better.
A Santiago party here is at least a two day event. Starting with a communal guinea pig breakfast and drinks before drinks and dancing at the start house, followed by dancing along the streets to a series of different houses, or the street outside at least, for drinks and more music and dancing, followed by drinks and lunch and more dancing and drinks on the way to the site of the main stage where the serious drinking can start and more dancing and drinks. That carries on into the night, although Michael, Rocio and I went home early.
The following morning it's beer and coca leaf for breakfast and sitting around or dancing and drinking until it's time to dance the way back to the main stage for more drinking and dancing. The music during the day is some of my favourite from Santiago, a sub-set called Tayta Shanti or Shakatan, this is played my a trio of violin, wakra and small hand drum the Tingya. This time the violin leads and can be heard. The Wakra which plays introductions (improvised I think) is a long trumpet-like instrument make from a series of connected cows' horns and is loud and earthy and wonderful. I am hoping Rocio will buy me one but it is big and I am not sure how to get it onto the plane.
By the next morning things are starting to get a little boozy and the dancing a little uncoordinated but you really do have to admire the stamina of Peruvian party goers as they drink some more and do their best.

Through all of this drinking the music continues uniformly excellent. I find the local folk music quite moving and soulful. It's a Huancayo soul, it's earthy and straight forward, and that's what I love. There are so many many forms of folk music here and each has it's history and traditions and costumes and dances and times of year to be played etc. Each form is itself a large repertoire of tunes and each one is gradually being expanded by new tunes being written and becoming popular and so becoming part of the tradition.  We have nothing in England that can compare at all with this example of living folk music.  Our lovely tradition of Morris tunes and dances is quite tiny in comparison, and it's not so much a living traditon as a maintained historical event. Northumbrian pipes are so very beautiful and still being written for, but they don't have a tradition of dances and costumes and times of year to go with the, Santiago isn't my favourite style of music from Huancayo, though I like it a lot, but it's up there with the best. Santiago is up-beat, drunken and relentless. There are other styles that are slow, very sad and very dignified, and others that are jolly and more fun. And so many more.
And in all of that I am only talking about one city and surroundings in Peru, and Peru is a big country and the traditions change from one place to another. In the next city along the Andes, Huancavalica, they have a whole world of other traditions and tunes and dances. Peru is amazing.

Public Toilets

Public toilets in Peru are horrible. It was one thing I was really not looking forward to coming back to here. There are toilets on most of the main streets in the city and they are all terrible, you always have to paddle through the piss to get to the broken toilet, dodge the used paper on the floor and hope for some sort of privacy. You soon learn that there will not be any toilet roll and everyone carries there own all the time.
Even in restaurants the toilets are horrible. You would think that in a place where people eat the would be some very basic maintenance or cleaning sometime, but no. It is beyond me to understand this, but it is a constant of life. You pay to go to the toilet here and it is very bad.
So I was amazed the other day when Rocio and I payed to go to the toilets in Sapallanga Market to find that they were spotlessly clean. The woman in attendance wouldn't let us go in until she had checked and they were perfect (No toilet roll but that was a minor detail) They were so good I took a picture.

It is a crouching down one obviously, but you soon get used to that and the stall next door had a normal seat one. Almost worth a trip to use them,

My health is getting better and better. I no longer get out of breath going up stairs and I am feeling very well. I know that once I am altutude adjusted to life in Huancayo I feel musch better here than I do home in England. I am not quite at the stage of going jogging yet and I am a long way from going up the surrounding mountains, but I should get there before we go back to England. I have my eye on a local mountain I would love to go up. I am not planning on a trip to the glacier of Huaytapallana this time ( I have been 4 times I think) but I do fancy a day out in the mountains.

The preparations for Santiago are nearly done. Rocio has her new traditional dress, her fustan, and her shawl (gliclia? Never seen it written) and she's looking good. Michael and I both haev new hats and our shirts and suits are ready. We are all looking good.

Party food is being prepared, unbcluding huge bathtubs full of potaotes and several guineapigs, whose lives ended almost as soon as they arrived in the house so Michael didn't see them alive and get upset.

Michael's Party

Michael's Peruvian Birthday Party went fantastically well. It got off to quite a bad start when the "clown" we ordered didn't turn up for an hour or so after the start and Rocio and I were left to try to entertain the children without any preperation. Rocio is great though and she had them dancing and playing games, most of which I was left to discover the rules of as we went along.
The "clown" did eventually come. I put that in speech marks because he really doesn't try to do jokes or clown about or do slap stick fun or anything like that. He does have big shoes on and a little makeup, but a half effort at clown costume really.

 

He was more or a party organiser and he got the children singing and dancing and doing silly games. We did have one problem. When we went to the party shop we explained to the woman we placed the order with that we were worried that the clown would do as we had seen others do. Spend his time makeing rude jokes with the adults and getting them up to do sexy dancing in front of everyone. We strongly believe that a children's party is for the children, and so his job is to entertain them not to do spend his time flirting or trying to embaras the adults. She seemed to understand and assured us that as a modest Christian woman herself she wouldn't want that (personally I don't care if that's what you want from your clown, but it's not for us.)  When the clown arrived we talked to him and told him the same and he assured us it would be OK. SO as you can probably guess, half way through the party he told us he wanted to Fathers to come up to the front (as there were only three Fathers there I was one) and we were going to become a dance troupe, OK so far I don't mind a bit of silly dancing. He explained that he would sing and we would do the moves he wanted. They, of course, turned out to be sexy dancing moves that I probably can't do and wans't willing to try. There was a difficult moment while he tried to force me. That was never going to happen. Then he switched to a nice game with the children and left me abandoned at the front. 

Apart from that the party went very well and Michael was a real star, singing and dancing and really having a good time. There was one bit where he got sick of the other children pulling him about and trying to mae him do stuff he didn't want to and he did cry a bit and refuse to do what they wanted. Sometimes I think he is a little like me. I am so very very proud of him.
It was only one bit of a very happy party for him though.