A Traditional Thanksgiving...Not.

Holidays are a time to be spent with friends and family...or 200 of your closest Japanese tourists and a handful of traveling companions from Australia, Germany, and Canada.  Such was my Thanksgiving Day in Cusco, Peru.  Dont miss the video at the end. 

I decided to start breaking traditions early and went to my favorite bakery in town, Meli Melo, to order a cake since my moms homemade pumpkin pie wasnt really an option.  My Spanish conversation skills made it great through the discussion about the size of the cake (medium), number of people eating it (8), and the color (orange and brown).  Then I wrote out "Happy Thanksgiving" on a napkin for him to copy (remember this is not a worldwide holiday like Christmas).  I was about to leave the store when I realized I had not picked the flavor of the cake.  When I asked him about this, he told me, "Es muy rica.  Naranja y mocha."  Apparently when you pick a color that also determines the flavor.  I asked if mocha was like coffee.  No.  Like chocolate?  No.  But es muy rica.  So I gave up, crossed my fingers for the best, and paid for the cake.

Next step, dining companions.  I have met one fellow American in Cusco.  On last weeks pub quiz, he guessed every country song was from Brokeback Mountain.  Needless to say, a Plan B was in order.  Luckily, I have met lots of other nationalities that were more than happy to celebrate a holiday they barely understood the point of.  Especially when they heard there was cake.

My host family recommended a restaurant in Plaza Recojo, El Truco.  I made this the official location for my Peruvian Thanksgiving, sight unseen.  The venue did not disappoint.  The restaurant is actually a museum built in a building styled like a medieval castle.  I felt like I should have been wearing a crown.  Long wooden tables were covered with golden tableclothes and white china.  High vaulted stone ceilings rose above walls covered in Cusqueñan art, including a replica of the famed portrait of Jesus and the Twelve Disciples dining on cuy, a classic Peruvian dish of roasted guinea pig.  My thoughts?  If it was good enough for Jesus to eat at table with his friends, then it was good enough for me.  Plus, turkey is so overrated.  And normal.

The most important detail of any Thanksgiving dinner, aside from begging God to spare you unnecessary family drama, is of course the food.  And the entertainment, if the Macys Parade and the football games ranks high on your list.

My Thanksgiving Menu
Cuy, a.k.a. the guinea pig you probably had as a class pet
Alpaca Steak
Bread*
French Fries* (everything here comes with French Fries)
Chile Relleno
Mixed Vegetables
Potatos*
Rice*
Quinoa*
Cake*, that was indeed orange cake in coordination with the color of icing
Cusqueña beer*

*side note-in Peru, a meal is not a meal unless it comes with 12 kinds of carbs 

Alpaca Steak with Quinoa, French Fries, and Mixed Vegetables

Guinea Pig with Stuffed Chilis and Potatoes

 


































 As for the entertainment, there was a show.  Which worked out great for my holiday, as well as for the busloads of Japanese tourists that joined us for dinner.  I find it strangely appropriate that if I cant be with my family for this particular holiday, I at least managed to spend it with a tour group.  Our table even got "adopted" by an elderly Japanese man.  Anyways, the entertainment.  There are no words.  Except that Macys aint got nothing on El Truco.  A band with flutes and drums.  Exotic dancers.  And a gigantic gorilla that more closely resembled a character out of the childrens story, Where the Wild Things Are.  Pictures really dont do it justice, so Im inserting a video.  By the way, this Spanish keyboard doesnt like apostrophes.  If youre wondering why my grammer is slacking.  Youre probably not, but its driving me crazy.

And here is the video that you should all watch and wonder why your Thanksgiving didnt include a dancing gorilla...

Things to Do in Cusco Besides Eat...

As I prepare to leave the city that has become my first South American homebase, I am almost sad to leave the city that stole a good portion of my possessions, refuses to let you flush toilet paper in the toilet, runs out of hot water throughout the day, runs out of water period after 10pm if you happen to live on the second floor, and has a taxi fleet that Im pretty sure are just regulat civilians who get bored and decide to offer tourists a ride in their unmarked vehicles.  I have almost adjusted to the packs of stray dogs that eat the food you drop and bartering for everything from hotel room prices to the cost of directions (that in America we are stupidly and courteously giving out for free lol).  My stomach has recovered from eating fish served bare-handed and cold after sitting out all day and I now know where to watch burned DVDs shown in a movie theater setting (cost: $3 USD...the evil guy in the last Batman movie sounds even more hardcore in Spanish on a bad speaker system).  Heres a few of my adventures around town, for better or for worse...

Hiking to Cristo Blanco
Do not do this the day before you leave on the Inka Trail.  Or the day after.  If you have a few days though, it is a great way to start acclimating to the altitude, along with coca leaves of course.  If you go through the main entrance, it costs money.  But if you wander side streets asking directions from strangers and practically crawl up on all fours through a "path" that isnt...its much more exciting and free.

Other people have recommended hiking to Saqsayhuamen (Sexy Woman), but to be really honest, Ive started to view Inca Ruins like Italian churches...how many can you really see before they start to blur together??? 

And what better activity to do after your hike than a massage?  Or in my partner in crime´s case, after 4 days of hiking the Inca Trail and no shower?  Im pretty sure the masseuse is still washing her hands...

Get a massage.  In Cusco, there are massage parlors on every corner.  For 25/S. I had an hour long massage.  That is $8.  I repeat.  $8.  Granted, you get what you pay for, but a massage is a massage.  We were ushered into a large room with 20 beds.  They drew a curtain around two of them.  Privacy, Peruvian-Style.  After giving instructions, the masseuse left, only to return 2-minutes later to do who knows what, aside from see us very exposed?  Very puzzling.

It was a hot stone massage, using only one kind of oil/lotion that Im pretty sure was equal to Johnson & Johnson Baby Oil.  The masseuses would whisper to each other while they worked, as if you couldnt hear them in the silent room.  Or at least it was silent until other people came in and they pulled more curtains.  All in all, the best $8 Ive ever spent...I apologize theres no pictures of this one...lol.

Cusco is filled with museum.  I have visited several, including the Museo de Inka, Museo de Coca (of course they have a museum filled with facts about the Peruvian wonder drug), Qooricancha.  But at the end of the day, I am on vacation, so of course my favorite museum was the Museo de Cacao...or the Museum of Chocolate. Including a 2-hour choclate making demonstration where you take home the final product.  We might have gone a little overboard.

Cacao is rapidly becoming the most important export in Peru.  The government is even encouraging farmers to switch from growing coca, which obviously cant be exported, to cacao.  The high quality of Peruvian cacao makes it in high demand, even in luxurious Swiss chocolate locales.  Plus, its good for you.  Or at least thats what I reminded myself as I had European hot chocolate, Mayan hot chocolate with chili powder and honey, chocolate raisin buns, brownies covered in chocolate, and chocolate candy made by yours truly.

Another great part of the city is San Blas, the local artists community.  The drawback being that it is at the top of a very steep hill.  I had the great pleasure of making this hike two nights in a row.  My teacher had told me about a music festival that started at midnight, with bands playing all night and into the next day.  Now what kind of Austinite would I be if I missed a live music opportunity?  Using a combination of charm and sheer desperation, I persuaded my friend at 5 strangers from our chocolate class to stay out drinking until it was time for the festival to begin, then walk up the hill in the pouring rain, only to find it was the wrong night.  Oops.  I guess my tour guide side was on vacation.  However, the next night I returned with a fresh group of unsuspecting victims.  We were the only Gringos in the entire place.  I couldnt leave the side of my guy friend without being propositioned things I couldnt understand...and probably didnt want to.  But the music was great, and of course I love local experiences like this.

Note the extremely drunk Cusqueñan that dominated all of my pictures...

Something I would skip.  Horseback riding.  Usually a sure-footed animal, my horse seemed to find it difficult to walk on flat land, much less trot, gallop, or ascend small inclines.  It was a depressing tourist effort, not to mention that the wonderful sites we saw were more or less rock piles.  Our guide took naps while we were given "free time to explore the ruins". 

Shopping.  Everyones favorite part of traveling right?  I must have missed that girl gene.  But I survived the Pisaq Market, a giant maze of bargaining and identical looking alpaca clothing, by using a rotation system.  Shop, empanada and beer, shop, empanada and beer.  I was terrible at bartering...I guess I find something heartless about arguing over the equivalent of $3 USD with a woman who has children selling candy on 12-hour shifts.  But maybe thats just me...lol.  For the record, the goods available in Pisaq are the exact same as those available in Cusco.  So if catching a van out of someones garage and riding in the wrong lane while rounding blind curves at breakneck speed doesnt sound like your idea of a good time, stay in the city.  It was much quieter, though, and of course any drive through the Sacred Valley is a gorgeous way to pass the time.  Who doesnt love a morning of counting crosses on the side of the road with beautiful mountain views?  Note-guardrails are not as common in Peru as they are in the United States.  Pisaq is also a good place to see the luxury palaces the guinea pigs live in before winding up on peoples plates. I also had a first-time chivalry moment here...which given that Im a small-town Southern girl I pretty much thought Id seen about all the various versions of door-holding and chair-offering there were.  But I can officially say that Market Day in Pisaq was the first time a guy has ever bought me a turn in a toilet lit by candlelight.  Yeah.  I didnt really know what to say either.

I was going to include the foods of Cusco...but upon further reflection of how much Ive eaten...I think it deserves its own post!

Developing in a Developing Country...

Being new is always difficult, whether it is a new school, a new apartment, or a new job.  Being new in Peru has required even more adjusting...to the altitude, to the cuisine, and to the people who never stop trying to sell you something.  I am a rich woman here in Peru, made a little less so by the unfortunately large number of talented pickpockets here in Cusco.  I am hoping my accountant will let me write it off as a charitable donation, as some lucky Peruvian family will now be very well fed for several months.

My next lesson?  Coca leaves = Magica
Or so says my tour guide.  And my host mother.  And everyone else.  According to them, coca leaves can cure everything from cancer to infertility, create world peace, and make the handsome man sitting next to you on the train fall madly in love.  I am not exaggerating.  They also contain 27 essential vitamins and are a good source of calcium.    Illegal in the United States, in Peru coca leaves are more widely accepted than marijuana in San Francisco.  In fact, I have a bag in my backpack right now.  You can put them in tea.  Or hold them chewing tobacco style in the side of your mouth.  Wrap a couple leaves around a black gooey substance called the Activator (which in itself sounds suspicious), and you have magic in your mouth.  Legally.  As we all ¨"rolled one up" out on the Inca Trail, the good girl in me felt a little scandalous...but you know what they say, "When in Rome..."

Speaking of drugs...here prescriptions for medications are completely unnecessary.  I literally walked into a pharmacy, told the girl behind the counter who was NOT a doctor that my throat hurt in Spanglish while mimicking coughing and holding my throat in my hands.  I gave her the empty wrappers of the drugs I had been taking on the trail, given to me by someone who was also not a doctor, and she looked them up in a book, found something that I THINK she said was the same thing, then sold them to me for the American equivalent of 33-cents a pill.    

Yes I was sick.  I have terrible luck while traveling.  Then again, perhaps anyone climbing to 14,000-feet during a 10-hour hike in the freezing rain might have gotten sick as well.  It was the most challenging and rewarding thing I have ever done.  In return, my body chose to reward me with a pain so intense I did not sleep for the next 2 days.  I also could not talk.  I´ll leave you to guess which I was most upset about.

Sometimes tourist destinations are overrated.  Like, no offense Texans, the Alamo.  It looks SO much cooler in the movie.  The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu were not.  Despite a toilet that was essentially a hole in the ground, having no showers, and experiencing four seasons in the course of an afternoon, it was truly one of the best experiences of my life.  My group consisted of 13 hikers, 2 guides, and 19 ´cheskys´or porters.  Chesky means ´runner´ in Quechua, the native language of the Andean Highlands.  By the end, we were all one big happy smelly family.  Something about sharing medicine, coca leaves, and outhouses for 4-days really brings people together.  You might have noticed the lack of wisecracks about the food.  The food was phenomenal.  I could not cook half the meals we had in my American kitchen, much less in a tent at high altitudes.  Steak, soups, pizza, even a cake complete with decorative frosting.  The porters took amazing care of us.  Each time we reached the meal site or campsite everything was ready to go, with water for washing and hot tea waiting.  If you´re thinking of doing the Inca Trail, www.llamapath.com.  I strongly recommend it!

I am now back in Cusco with toilets and hot water (sometimes).  Before the hike, I stayed in Pariwana Hostel.  That was a completely different kind of adventure, but I met people from all over the world to explore the city with.  We partied a little, where I learned how fond Cusqueñans are of 80s and 90s American music.  The entire bus ride to our starting point for the Inca Trail was Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, and a little Bon Jovi.  Oh and ´Girls Just Wanna Have Fun´.  Also facepainting.  Why do bars in Austin not offer this???

We ate alpaca steak and ventured into a market where you can have lunch for US $2.00.  Just like our fast food culture, everything here comes with French fries.  My host mother served me salad yesterday, you know, just your usual carrots, broccoli, beets, green beans, and French fries.  The only difference here is that despite their love for fried potatoes, no one is morbidly obese.  Other than French fries, they love their fruits and vegetables, and I have tried many I´ve never even seen before.  My guide said this is because they do not produce any processed foods in Peru.  So fresh produce is much cheaper than the processed foods they have to import.  A dining challenge in Cusco is to avoid the tourist traps.  So many restaurants offer three menus, a Peruvian, an Italian, and a Pizza.  They cater exclusively to tourists, as do the McDonalds, the KFC, and the Starbucks in the main square.  These restaurants are pricier and not nearly as delicious as the few hole in the wall spots we found by exploring outside the plaza.  I will write more on food later.

Now I am living with a host family and starting my Spanish lessons.  It is a little awkward being in someone else´s home, especially with the language barrier, but they are very nice and I am sure that just like everything else, I will adjust.  After all, I now have a toilet.  And access to all the prescription drugs anyone could ever want lol.  Adios!