Life in the Central Andean Highlands

Hello people!

This chapter does not have a real subject besides that its all about life in the Central Andean Highlands. All the snapshots are in peublos where I stayed a night or one-two. This whole country is scattered with ruins from many different cultures and so you start to loose the wowieness from seeing yet another site. Still, most of them are at beautiful miradores. The same counts for markets, still my favorite past time. They all are a little different, but feel like home. It's the place where I eat, where I talk for hours and where I learn the most.

Lets see what and who came across my path in the last three weeks:

Weaving and chewing Señora in Arequipa.

Ruins Saqsaywaman with Arequipa in the background.

I met Rey in Arequipa and together we visited ruins in Pisac. Here you see tombs in the cliff face.

We made a camping spot on the steep terraces in Pisac. The next day people told us they saw our fire.

On to Ollantaytambo, a super historic little town with narrow streets made by the Incas. The houses people live in today are tru museums.

A massive two day party(the birth of the town) stirred the streets into a colorful event. Lots of partyfood, especially cuy (guinea pig) and Chicha (fermented corn beer).

This is how all the traditional people dress. Yes, every day.

Everybody with big plastic cups full with Chicha.

There were a lot of traditional concerts as well.

An Inca Lookout tower high above Ollantaytambo.

The next Inca site was Moray where amphitheatre-like terracing is beleaved to have been a kind of laboratory to determine the optimal conditions for growing crops of each species.

Many, many times you come across pastores with their sheep, pigs, cows, llamas and dogs. It really becomes part of your everyday walk.

Here in Latin America they have no Helloween but Dia de los vivos and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the living and dead). The firts is celebrated with Tamales, pan de trigo y chancho (corndough in cornleaves, wheat bread, and pig). So the days before you can learn how to slaughter a pig. How they kill, burn- then scrape-off the hair (cause yes they skin is nice and crispy) and then clean the pig.

Those breads, Huahua, are baked in different forms, then offered and later eaten.

And after eating all this it's time for the death. So the next day EVERYBODY moves to the cementery to renew the graves of loved ones, put flowers, burn candels, place coronas (paper crowns) and eat more sweets while washing it away with yet more Chicha.

I got lucky with hitching a ride and Persy and Melisa drove me from start to finish in a wild ride through red-soiled lands and many valleys. All the way to Ruinas Sondor where I camped all by myself under a wide open sky with thousands of stars.

Selling absolutely the most delicious cheese I've tasted so far here in Peru, to bus passengers.

Near Ayacucho you may visit the town of Quinua where you can walk across the battlefield where the Spaniards and Peruvians fought untill Spanish royalist troops signed their surrender, leading to the end of colonialism in Peru.

Interesting spider no? Anybody knows what it's called?

In Ayacucho I met Shanty, 52 and his daughter Mama Quilla, 7 with whom I spend two very nice relaxing days. Growing in his garden, Shanty offered to have me try San Pedro, a cacti that grows here in Peru and Bolivia in the high Andes. The drank made from this cacti will give you a journey to your innerself. A chance to gain more knowlodge about oneself, an deeper insight and understanding about life and how you might live with life.

Of course I had heard many times about it, and today seemed to be a perfect time to accept. I fasted for 38 hours, drank two cups of very bitter extraction, stayed open to every possibility, but was told that I needed more. It seemed that I had a very strong spirit. I was left with a vague dreamy state and restlessness in my sleep that night.

We'll try again.

A Shoeboy sowing my weathered shoes for $0,30 ........Shamefull.

Dried frogs at the Huancayo market. Only the head is eaten.

The delicious fruit concoctions they make for you can keep you going for hours.

No frogs please!

Passing many people working the chacras.

And this is how they make the mud-bricks, adobes, with which they build their houses:

Hack earth from a solid wall, this grainy sand is mixed with water and mashed with the feet into a clay-mass, put into molds and stamped firmly. Following is a dry period of four to five weeks before they are moved into big open ovens (made of those same bricks) which are stoked for five days with eucaliptus wood. And then moved to the truck and on to the new owner ........ all by hand.

A thousand stones for $100,-

In the super friendly town of Cochas they turn Mates (family of the calabas) into tru pieces of art. For sure it's my favorite type of souvenir and so I roamed around the town into different craft shops for the whole day. Meeting all the enthousiastic artesanos, their work, learning about the different ways of burning and listening to the different stories that are told with the carvings. Each is like a book!

I bought something with everyone and was invited to sleep and eat with Alejandro and Andrea who (to my opinion) carved the finest.

In one of the work shops I spotted a photo from a gorgeous Nevado with a tuquois lake at it's feet. It turned out to be Nevado Huaytapallana, only two hours away by car.

The next day I set off and the day gave me some nice hiking, touching this massive glacier and extreme stomach cramps. It turns out that eating bananas with extreme cold is really bad. (Tell me, who knew that?)

I ate three little ones with the icy view and was rewarded with massive pains and extremely bloaded intestines.

Tears were rolling down my cheeks after Andrea brought me some warm herbal tea later at night. Trust me, I have no idea what the real cause was, but bananas will not be on the menu any more when I go cold.

Next ride (and the last one for today) was a dangerous one. First this one 'thing' came loose when we took a bump with speed and after this was repaired we did not get much further then ten minutes before the whole axel came down. It was 7pm, all people drooped off with passing busses. I waited untill I retrieved my money and parked my tent right there in the middle of nowhere. Great place, cheap too. For safety they burn two massive tired on both sides of the bus ..... you know, instead of safety-triangles.

The bus who picked me up the next day knew of the accident and gave me a free ride to the highest town of its size in the world, Cerro the Pasco, 4333m above sealevel. It indeed takes your breath away.

That's it. I'm off to the Huaraz area where hiking will be priority one, lets hope the rainy season can stay away three more weeks (normally it starts around now).