Randomness

This entry will continue to grow throughout the year; I will try to update it with some of the things I find funny, shocking, or more interesting than usual.

Llama sighting!! A few weeks ago we saw our first real live llama in the park in the pueblo. (It was very small and may actually have been a vicuña, but that's close enough.) It was decked out in brightly colored trappings and there was a little girl nearby in traditional highland dress--clearly something that did not belong there among the buses and commercial streets. It looked like someone had brought it there as an attraction for kids, and you could get your picture taken with it if you wanted. Unfortunately I didn't do this because I had to jump on a bus that was leaving.

Sheep walking. One day when I went out to jog around the cancha, there were several people out with their dogs and one guy out walking his sheep. I have also seen this sheep in its house, where it hangs out on the roof baaaaaing at passersby just like all the dogs do.

Enormous avocados. Last week I bought two that were each the size of a small eggplant. They were delicious.

Haircut for a dollar! "What the heck, it's a dollar" was my swing thought here. I had heard that haircuts were ridiculously cheap here in the pueblo, but still, at first I didn't believe I had heard the señora correctly when she said 3 soles. I showed her about how much I wanted cut off, and she proceeded to take large sections of my hair, dry, and go CHOP! Amazingly, it turned out pretty good.

Chicken farms. Possibly the most surreal moment of this whole year. Our friend Alfredo is a chicken farmer, and when he drove us to Huacho for the weekend, we stopped by his work so he could see to a few things. The chicken farms were in the middle of nowhere and the desert around looked like rainbow sherbet because of all the vividly different colors of the sand, it was very starkly beautiful. We couldn't go in because chickens are apparently really susceptible to disease, so Catherine and I stayed in the car reading our books, except at one point when we got out and wandered down the road out of boredom, and a car of Peruvians came driving by and stared at us as if to say that a pair of gringas out for a stroll around the chicken farms was the most surreal moment of their year as well.

Trash truck. People don't leave their trash out all night here for the truck to collect in the morning, because the dogs wandering loose around the street would get it. So the trash truck comes by once every few days and just parks on the corner for a few minutes to announce its presence. It honks its horn imperiously, without stopping, and one of the workers hops down and rings the heck out of something that looks like a huge, clanging triangle. Then it goes slowly on down the street while people come running out of their houses with their trash to catch it.

Ketchup in a bag... and milk, and jelly, and mayonnaise, and other things you would normally find in cans or cartons in the US, they are all sold in plastic bags around here. Cheaper, but more difficult to re-seal.

Listening to "Whip it" on the taxi ride back from Ollantaytambo to Cusco, at night under a gorgeous full moon. We asked for American music...

No seatbelts necessary. Peruvian men ride motor vehicles in all the ways you always wanted to as a kid, but your parents wouldn't let you. Lounging in the back of pickup trucks, in the trunk of the taxi, perched on top of the cargo cases on a multi-axel delivery truck. On the way back from Arequipa to Lima, the bus stopped for breakfast and one of the drivers opened an underneath baggage compartment--and the other driver climbs out. He had a little bed and pillow made up in there for himself.

Two-in-one banana! Picture coming soon.

My sandals molded. I should have known better than to keep them in a drawer in Lima for months during winter. Good thing they were old.