We've had two very different weeks. We moved out of Little America, got taught how to be good Quechua housewives, and for most of last week, trekked to Machu Picchu.
But first: cultural stop. Towards the end of May, Cusco had a huge festival. Corpus Christi is a a pagan ritual in catholic robes: huge statues of saints are paraded around the main Plaza, just like the old Inca mummies used to be, then get to have a sleepover in the cathedral with Black Jesus, and are taken back to their homes the week after. To celebrate, Peruvians eat the typical “chiriuchu”, which contains about three times as much meat as a person could eat, amongst other things: guinea pig, chicken, jerky, sausage, rabbit, cheese, corn and omelette. We turned up, saw some dancing, and some great masks and outfits, and, for once, didn't eat the questionable meat.
Anyway, that weekend we were apprenticed by various members of the church, who were keen to teach us how to shop, carry, speak, clean, wash, do sport, dress and cook like good Peruvian women:
They took us to the most Peruvian market in the dodgy area of town, to the meat stalls to buy 60kg worth of beef. They were beside themselves laughing at our reactions to the woman sat selling sheep heads, and we asked one too many questions to identify the misc bits and pieces laid out in boxes. We bought 70kg of potatoes from a woman who taught us some more Quechua while we were waiting, only to carry our purchases - between the four of us - back through the market, and down a full flight of stairs. (If I could pinpoint a moment when we definitely failed the Quechua Woman test, it was then). To the excitement and amusement of our friends from the church, we helped to cook and serve a Peruvian dish for 15 of them - apprenticed by a professional chef who has promised us lessons. At one point he handed me a bowl of water and a broom, to clean a lounge by sprinkling water all over the floor and sweeping. And the next morning, we were taken to help wash an incredibly dirty tablecloth by hand for the church anniversary, 20 minutes after it should have started. Admittedly, it wasn’t long before they said, “Move aside – she has washers’ hands”, and subbed in a native. We served food to 200 people, learned how to play volley, Peruvian style, and the weekend culminated in us sat wrapped up in church in beautiful Peruvian blankets, like proper Peruvian women.
All this was for the church's fourth anniversary. We turned up at church at 5am for our builders’ yard clear up, and transformed the mess of cement and dog poo into a flat area for a huge marquee and stage. It was a special six hour service that started extra-specially late. (Needless to say it wasn't long until we got as restless as the kids and escaped to the football field above to play games and sing songs with them.) There were sports tournaments in the afternoon (hence the volley), so we did our bit to cheer on the teams, which had everyone in stitches but it didn't faze us too much. We later got distracted by some girls who come to some of the groups we run, so we just played games with them until it got dark.
We didn't go to our usual Sunday afternoon group because of the anniversary celebrations. We later found out that the kids turned up anyway: two girls impersonated me and Saz, and took the session for us!
In other news, one night, our walk home turned into a Sports Night, where Saz and I and two friends carried and raced eachother down the main road in various forms: shoulders lifts/piggy-backs/fireman lifts etc. Saz and I dominated the 3-legged races. In these last two weeks or so we have sung until our voices hurt (mostly with the kids in Burns, and I've done a few solo concerts, squatting in the corridor with a 16-year-old lad, and sitting with an 11-year-old in Pediatrics), and I've helped lead worship on keys at 2 seconds' notice (the guy on guitar strummed the opening chord then got me up). We went to another incredible concert in the coliseum – this time of an Argentine called Marco Barrientos, and we've made some exceptional knitwear purchases. We made a group of thirty elderly Quechua people - whose feet barely touched the floor when they sat down - play 'Pin the Tail on the Llama' (some of my best artwork). And someone tried to pickpocket Sarah, but she turned around in time, took the purse back out of the man's hands, and told him firmly "no".
Questions of the week include “A lot of foreigners swim naked. Do you swim in your underwear?”, “What’s the exchange rate between the peso and the dollar?”, "Why are you white?", and various unanswerable questions about the size and number of English counties.
Annnd... we made it to Machu Picchu! We did a four day trek, around the 3rd biggest glacier in South America (the 2nd biggest one we can see from our house), and through a cloud jungle. This included a bonus zip-line tour over some valleys (ranging from 300m to 1000m in length!), hot springs, tents which frosted overnight, quinoa porridge, a path aptly called the ‘Gringo Killer’, pre-sunrise coca tea, poncho o'clock, sleepless nights, tropical weather, and lots of waterfalls. We had the same cook as on our last tour, which we could not have been more excited about. There were 10 in our team, and I laughed so much my stomach muscles still hurt – more so than my legs! We've really missed Brit wit! When we got to 4600m, we deposited our pebble offerings to Pachamama in a small ceremony, and became a family.
On Sunday we reached Machu Picchu. It was incredible. Our guide gave us a tour, then we hiked up to the Sun Gate, then did Huayna Picchu - the huge hill at the back of the pictures of MP. We checked the stats before we started walking up Huayna Picchu, and 2 or 3 people die every year from summiting it, so I was pretty scared. The path up was 45 minutes of narrow but steep Inca steps - it would appear Incas had extremely long legs but no feet - with a rope to hold onto when the steps were less-existent. I can’t quite explain that view from the top. We sat on the edge with our legs hanging over the side and had the Ultimate Picnic.
We're back in Cusco for our last fortnight, and we can't believe how quickly the time is going. We're going to the ACTUAL JUNGLE with some friends next weekend, so this one is our last in Cusco, and a pastor and his wife have invited us to go for a sleepover and to the countryside their family. Other than that, it's more singing, late night coffees, kids' groups, avoiding misc meat...
We're looking forward to our onward travels, but it's going to be very hard to leave.
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