chubsters

today´s blog is divided into 4 sections as follows

1. a competition!!!!!
2. some unanswered questions
3. miscellaneous comments
4. an actual update


1. competition!!!!!
something stupid happened to us on saturday. can you guess what it was? (laura inti, you are not allowed to post a comment about this as you know the answer). everyone else, please post comments on blog. prize for nearest correct guess is a free flight out to visit us. it really was the stupidest thing that we have done so far. but not dangerous so please don´t start panicking. in hindsight it is beginning to become vaguely amusing, but definitely not fully amusing quite yet.

ps if we don´t get enough responses with ideas, we won´t disclose the answer...

2. some unanswered questions
why do mosquito bites itch so much and for so long, do they inject poison into you when they bite you?
why do they use air bricks out here instead of solid ones, is it better for insulation, or is it cheaper in terms of resources, or both or neither?
what is the highest mountain in the uk, in metres?
is there a worldwide snowline, above which there is always snow? (we are obsessed with altitude. fyi, we are now at around 1500m)
if there is a full moon in england and you are looking at it from halifax, is a person in eg cornwall seeing exactly, the same full moon, and is a person in eg germany seeing it, and in australia 12 hours later seeing the same moon?
why are there no homeless people in peru, even though it´s really poor?
why is the english language so global, is it due to america´s influence today, or from years ago from the british empire spreading around and the growth of christianity?
what does INRI mean on crosses of jesus?


3. miscellaneous comments
abi fell over a chair in a hotel reception the other day, which was very very funny.
95% of roads in bolivia are unpaved
we saw some chickens actually crossing the road in salta, i don´t think i´ve ever seen that before. we don´t know why they were doing it, but it was definitely funny.
i was so excited to find some ritta sport chocolate one night in cuzco that i ate it all really fast and then had to take a stomach drug to stop me being sick.
the river urubamba in the sacred valley in peru supposedly follows the milky way, and is therefore super sacred.
eucalyptus trees were introduced to peru in the early 19th century to help with erosion, and they also use them to build houses and telegraph poles from. they are supporting beams in houses.
we visited a little village called ccaccacollo where they were weaving, they use cochinille worms blood who live on cactuses, to dye the wool red, and eucalyptus for green, and blue berries for blue and lots of other strange things. we gave a bouncy ball to some children, and a little action figure to a boy and some masks. we also saw a llama spitting.
on day 1 of the inca trail, in the afternoon, as it was an easy day of walking, we played football with the leaders and the porters, on a big dusty football pitch surrounded by the andes. it was amazing fun. i may have written about this already, but it was so good i´m mentioning it again. we won the first game, and lost the 2nd and nearly died from dust and altitude. someone asked me what team i played for usually ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. actually arsenal ladies.
jen got a hat that looked like a bee, so we called her mama abeja for the whole inca trail and made bee noises at her. ironically her only phobia is of bees and wasps.
on the 2nd night of the inca trail me and andy stayed up with the porters teaching them a card game called shithead (or cabeza de mierda in spanish), which was really funny as we really couldn´t communicate the rules properly, and there was 26 of them all staring at us expectantly. victor came to help but then left...
in the cathedral in cuzco there is a saint that single women pray to to find a nice man, there was lots of little letters in his shrine, and i read one of them from a woman saying she just wants a nice man to spend her life with and to have a lovely family with etc. later on in the cathedral there was another saint that men pray to to be rid of these crazy women.
on the inca trail i found a stick and used it to walk with, and called it gandalf as it was slightly reminiscent of the lord of the rings. i left him near the sun gate which overlooks machu picchu so he can look at it forever. we put some sacrificial raisins on his branches.


4. an actual update
so friday me and ab were laura-less and group and leader-less in lima. we spent the morning safe in the hotel, as soon as we ventured out things became strangely surreal. here is a bullet point list:
- we saw a nice cafe to have lunch in, but when we went back to find it it had gone
- an english lady with a guidebook stopped us to ask where she could buy a torch
- we got in a taxi to go to plaza mayor, but changed our minds and went to el museo de la nacion instead, as had heard it was amazing
- we got to museo de la nacion and had some lunch, everything we ordered the cashier got quite frustrated, so we just had some crisps and a piece of chocolate cake, all the sandwiches were chicken so no good for abi
- we found the first part of the museum and all was looking interesting and hopeful, saw some ancient pottery, and gold and silver and costumes, and t-shirts made of gold, they looked uncomfortable
- every floor we then got out of the lift on, there was absolutely nothing there. the lifts kept pinging and going up and down and nobody was getting in or out of them, in fact nobody was anywhere to be seen
- someone told us to go to the 4th floor, so we did, and lo and behold there was a whole exhibition dedicated to that national treasure the POTATO! We fell about laughing at all the little potatoes, there was gold potatoes, stone potatoes, twin potatoes, a potato theatre, pictures made of potato peel, potatoes with eyes, a neon potato sign.
- we left
- we went to plaza mayor to see the cathedral. in an interesting twist of fate, the taxi driver had my question asking tourettes disease, so all the way there, we had to answer questions in spanish from him, such as - are you catholic, do you have brothers and sisters, do you like sport, what is a typical english meal, what famous english authors are there, etc etc. this taxed my little spanish brain, and has made me think twice about asking so many questions
- lots of roads were closed by plaza mayor
- we tried to find the post office as we had a few parcels to post. we found the museum of post offices instead, but a nice man took us to the actual post office
- it took 40 minutes to post 3 parcels, and the post office was not even busy. this is because we had to buy envelopes from a stall outside, then write the letters and addresses and buy sellotape to tape up the envelopes as they didn´t have any stickiness on them. then they weighed them, and told us we shouldn´t have sealed them, and they may need to open them and check the contents. then we had to go down the road to a photocopier and get copies of abi´s passport, which were stuck to each parcel. abi then had to sign a declaration, and put a fingerprint on each parcel´s passport copy. then finally we put them in a letterbox
- meanwhile, lots and lots of policemen were parading round the playa mayor. there was lots of tanks around, with little policemen in them too, who looked quite stern until we got our cameras out then they started smiling and waving
- we couldn´t actually go in the cathedral due to the police procession, and when we returned later a mysterious large wedding was now going on in there. we watched it for a bit, and decided the couple did not look happy
- we went to iglesia san francisco instead to get some church action, and looked down into the crypt and saw lots of exposed bones which freaked us out a lot, so we ran out of there
- we went into a market, and saw a disabled lady in a wheelchair doing a concert. there was one person in the audience, gently swaying back and forth
- we left the market
- we asked some policemen what the hell was going on, they explained it was the founding day of the police force in lima, thus lots of parades and parties. they were very proud and happy and told us what all the buildings in the square were
- we found a pub and went and drank some beer from a massive jug to recover

thus ended our friday in lima

saturday - we can´t report on this yet, due to the aforementioned competition

yesterday - sunday - not much to report. stayed in our hostel room recovering from saturday for most of the morning. ventured out for a bagel and a coffee and cake, and a look round the town. it´s a nice town, cobbly, old, crumbly, colourful, lots of markets selling the usual textiles and crafts. there was an earthquake here in around 1967 from which lots of the buildings are still being repaired. on the drive from guatemala city we were very surprised at the seeming affluence around us, lots of car garages, fast food restaurants, and an obesity problem, which we definitely weren´t anticipating, thinking this was a poor country. good road system, and not half as dusty as peru. there was a massive rain storm yesterday lunchtime, the climate is quite jungly here, hot and humid. the rain lasted for hours and there was a huge river in the middle of the street. we found tourist information but it was closed, so have spent today doing lots of organising of the rest of our time here.

halfway through writing this blog yesterday there was a massive powercut, thus the delay.. nobody seemed to be at all concerned, and the power came back on around 4 hours later.

to conclude as this is getting rather long and potentially boring - last night we had really nice dinner in a pena restaurant - a pena is a place where you can go to eat and listen to local or national etc music. there was a band playing pan pipes and charangos, playing peruvian music ironically. the drummer in it was called bill and was from nashville and now lives here and owns the restaurant. we told him he was living the dream. the power came back on midway through our conversation with bill, to a round of applause.

today - is monday. we have been planning our next few weeks. great hostel breakfast on the roof terrace in the sun. going to eat cake now.

jim, not sure how they refer to el cruncho credito over here, i think they´ve been having a cruncho for a long time hence why they´re all so fat...

x
ps hurricane gustavo has missed us, though storms predicted in most of central america. will let you know if we get blown away.
pps another prize to anyone who has actually read this far.