I ducked inside the first place I found that had a bag of potato chips when I arrived into town. Potato chips in Peru are made from Peruvian potatoes, and even though they are made by Frito-Lay, they taste sooo much better than their American counterparts. I knew better than to get an entire bag because I’d be tempted to eat them all.

I grabbed the .50 centamos bag. I knew it was .50 centamos because that was the price printed on the bag. This is a rarity as nothing in Peru is ever marked with a suggested retail price because the local economy is run by way of bargaining.

I handed a one-sole coin for my chips to the traditional Qechua lady behind the counter. She handed me back .30 centamos.

I held up the potato chip bag with the printed price of .50 centamos and pointed to it. She gave me the correct change.

“Olvido,” the lady behind the counter said dryly. “I forgot.”

I don’t think she meant any malice, but I also don’t think she forgot. It’s just the way of the typical Peruvian vendor. They try to make a little more here and there where and when they can from the hordes of gringos who come tromping all up and down and through their homeland. I don’t mind if sometimes I get charged “gringo prices,” but I do try to be aware of scams and price gouging, however small it may be. It’s always my goal to pay the normal, local price for things, or as close to it as a gringo possibly can.

It’s up to the individual to cultivate the ability to bargain effectively, gringo or not, and when in this area you have to be alert. It’s not unusual in Peru for receipts to have addition errors, so it’s a good idea to double check the addition on hand written receipts. Every time I’ve found one, the error has always been in favor of the vendor. If you find an error on your bill, be nice and point out the error. It very well could have been an honest mistake.

Or not.

Matt and I sat on the bus in Urubamba, waiting for it to fill up, so we could go back to our little town of Pisac. A little girl of about five walked onto the bus and ignoring everyone else, she shoved a plastic bag in our faces and said simply, ¨Rocoto relleno?¨

A lot of the time, we ignore vendors for the simple fact that in Peru, every second of the day, at every bus or collectivo stop, on every streetcorner and in every way one could imagine, there are endless people trying to sell something – food, handicrafts, CD´s, juices, massages – the list goes on and on. But that evening was different. Perhaps it was the blank look on the dirty child´s face. Maybe it was her simple insistence. Hell, maybe we were just hungry after the long day of bus rides and hiking.

We paid the two soles, expecting her to just pull one rocoto out of the bulging plastic bag. Matt pressed the coin into her hand and without any further emotion, she thrust the entire bag toward him, nearly dropping it his lap and quickly disappeared. I´d been wanting to try rocoto relleno for some time, but had no idea what I was missing!

We opened the bag. Inside were two rellenos and three small boiled potatoes – a great deal! Rocoto relleno, a classic Peruvian dish whose origins come from the town of Arequipa,  is a type of pepper that grows in South America and is usually stuffed with meat and vegetables. No, it doesn´t taste anything like an American stuffed bell pepper, not even close. It´s infinitely better!

The relleno batter (my favorite part) was rich and tasted sort of cheese-like. They were filled with a savory mixture of meat and spices. We polished off the entire contents in the bag in under five minutes and decided immediately to get second serving.

Thus began our obsession with rocoto relleno. It seems like now the entire rocoto relleno world has opened up to us. That next week, all the sole menu places in Pisac were serving them, it seemed. We tried them all.

At the market that Sunday, we went from tent to tent, trying the rocoto relleno of every mamacita in sight. After eating four in a row, we finally headed home. Oddly enough, in response to the tourist palate, the ladies of the market have begun to only serve vegetarian versions of this Peruvian carne classic.

I still haven´t found a rocoto relleno that was as rich and savory and classic as the one that little girl served to us, and certainly not one as economical. But, I certainly plan to keep looking! And I plan to continue to rocoto relleno tours, especially anytime I see a row of vendors all selling them. That´s my favorite way to sample them – four in an hour!

Where else in this world can you just show up around noon, eat a leisurely lunch and do all of the following before 5PM?

• wander in unannounced at the dentist´s office and book an appointment for the next business day.
• find an old plastic Pepsi bottle filled with snake oil (that would be snakes and oil) at the market for 1 sole.
• walk into a vision center, get an exam on the spot and pick up your new glasses three hours later.
• find an alarm clock, camera battery and a mouse trap in an electronics/home repair center that´s 10 times bigger and better than Home Depot.
• fit in a chiropractic session.
• Hike into ¨The Temple of The Condor Heart¨ for a good cleansing and then randomly meet a shaman everyone´s been telling you about. (That admittely, was before lunch.)
• order 1000 business cards. (ok, I just met with the guy today and have to go back with a design later . . . )

I still didn´t find the face mask with three faces that I´m looking for. My coffee shop was closed, as was my hippie chai shop. And no kids asked me if I wanted my boots shined today.

I feel productive.

Because I just like this picture . . . .

As I walked into one of my usual three sole menu restaurants yesterday, I noticed that the place was packed. Not that it´s unusual for a menu place to be busy, but there are so many of them that almost never is one place more busy than any other. Something seemed out of place, but I wasn´t sure what. I was too hungry to notice just then. Matt and I took the only open table, the one in the middle of the room.

We were talking and not really paying attention to what was going on. That´s when I noticed the entire place was dead silent and that we were being very loud in comparison. ¨I feel like we´ve come at the wrong time,¨ I said. ¨I feel awkward but I don´t know why . . . ¨

We sat in the middle of the restaurant, surrounded by people and every single eye in the place was glued to the television. I noticed a Pervian lady two tables over. She was staring at the TV,  looking horrified but in ecstacy at the same time. Without really considering what in the world she and everyone else, even the waitress, could possibly be watching at 12:30 on a Saturday afternoon, I looked up at the television. After all, it could be my favorite soap opera, La Hija Del Mariachi.

I could not be more wrong.

The program was the most graphic and bloody depiction of the life of Jesus Christ that I have ever seen. I glanced up at the television at the exact instant when a soldier hit Jesus in the eyeball with a rock, leaving a bloody socket where his eye used to be. Ugh.

What was so amazing to me was that everyone was absolutely enthralled. The beating of Jesus continued unchecked, with sound effects and lots of blood and gore and gratuitous missing eyeball shots. I ate my soup in silence and tried to ignore the pitiful moans on the TV. I counted a total of ten children huddled around different tables with their parents, mindlessly shoveling their lunch in their faces while they watched the suffering cinematic Jesus. A group of at least eight people had gathered just outside the door to watch too.

Finally the waitress turned the movie off, but not because of it´s violence. There was a problem with the sound. Within two seconds of the movie being switched off, the crowd outside dispersed. Everyone inside eating at the tables seemed disappointed. As for me, I could finally eat my lunch.

Outside the road in front of our house . . . amazing!

Now, compare this typical Peruvian pig life with the typical American factory-farmed pig´s life . . . check out the documentary ¨Our Daily Bread.¨Very different.

An essential fact to understanding life in the Andes Mountains is altitude. Cusco is 11,126’ above sea level, which is more than double the height of Denver, the mile high city, which is only a mere 5280´.  I’m told that it takes about six months to become truly acclimated to the altitude of this place, but I’m not so sure. I think it must take a lifetime. While I really like living here, altitude included, I find that it does touch every facet of life, even if in a subtle way.

The air here literally contains significantly less oxygen than the air at sea level. The lungs fill up with the same volume of air as normal, but the body isn’t getting the same amount as of oxygen that it may be accustomed to. Just walking up a slight incline and can leave you slightly out of breath. If walking quickly up a big mountain, it’s not uncommon to be heaving and gasping for air. Of course, this isn’t true for the local population, but it is true for most foreigners, myself included.

Inka messengers were able to cover incredible distances at surprising speeds within this network of oft-14,000’ mountain passes with ease. The indigenous people from this region are small in stature and tend to have barrel-shaped chests, which allow for larger lung capacity. I find myself thinking Gosh I must really be out of shape, but in reality, it’s just that my body has to work twice as hard because its not used to the landscape.

Transportation is certainly affected by the topography of the area. Busses and combis (mini-vans) are slow-moving as they struggle to get up the steep hills and curve through the complicated switchbacks of the area. This pace seems to fit the majestic beauty of the mountains perfectly; to speed through such a gorgeous place at any speed higher than 45MPH would be a shame. Get on a bus, though, with suspect brakes that squeak or make airy gushing noises at every curve and suddenly the romance of the distant mountaintops is replaced by silent prayers or the deep need to just take a nap.

Water boils here at a lower temperature instead of the normal 212 degrees. This affects cooking and baking. I still haven’t mastered how to cook rice to a fluffy consistency. My favorite café, Ulreke’s, serves moist, home-made carrot cake, so I know that success in baking is possible here. I plan to take a foray into high altitude baking. I’ll be sure to post my trials and tribulations.

Coca is ubiquitos in Peru. It’s a medicine as old as the Andes themselves. The locals call her Cocamama. Intricate Qechua ceremonies revolve around the giving and receiving of coca leaves. Chewing the leaves or drinking coca tea, both of which I do regularly,  helps alleviate altitude induced headaches and lethargy. Yes, cocaine is made from coca leaves, but the leaf and the highly processed drug are two completely different things. Without coca, adjusting to life here would be much more difficult.

If I get cranky for no apparent reason, I blame the altitude. Sunburns happen more quickly here, alcohol goes to the brain faster and sometimes folks new to the area just pass out for no reason. I think the general laid back attitude of the people around here has to do with the altitude too. People move slower, but more deliberately and at a steady pace. Things get done when they get done. No one is in a hurry about deadlines or appointments or times – they’re too busy climbing, making a living from, or gazing at the beauty of the surrounding mountains.

A relatively new Peruvian phenomenon are strikes, or los paros. If the strike lasts a longer than a day or so, then it´s called la huelga. In any case, the people of Peru have only recently begun to implement strikes as a form of protest. Usually the strikes revolve around transportation, which can make getting from town to town difficult for locals and tourists alike. (Such a bitch when you´re trying to get to Maccu Pichu, ya know . . . )

Apparently, when the transportation strikes first began,  the protesters would hide on the edges of highways and throw big rocks at passing traffic. But, after several busses were hit with rocks and subsequently fell off of sheer roadside cliffs, killing everyone on board, they´ve re-vamped their stategies. Now they block the roads with huge rocks or cut down giant eucalyptus trees to stop the flow of traffic. I´ve heard also about riots and fighting in the streets of Cusco on occasion.

So far, the strikes have not directly affected me, as I usually stay close home. The strangest thing of all about the strikes are that, believe it or not, they are actually scheduled events. This is very helpful and considerate of los paros in my opinion, because at least it gives people a chance to make alternative arrangements.  Most of the time we find out the day before about an impending strike from Ulreke´s, the local ex-pat cafe.

One day when we went to Ulreke´s for breakfast, we noticed that there weren´t very many vendors set up in the market, which is usually packed. There was a military truck parked in the town square filled with soldiers in full riot gear, guns and sheilds ready. Although there were children scrambling all over the hood of the truck, there was an unsettledness in the air.

Ulreke, the cafe owner, came to take our order. She informed us in a very matter-of-fact way that the neighboring city of Calca was demanding Pisac´s solidarity in their strike over a land dispute with the jungle provinces. Any shop or vendor caught doing business by any of Calca´s protesters were promised to receive broken store windows and smashed stalls and merchandise. Ulreke just shrugged her shoulders and said, ¨If los paros show up, then we´ll just lock the doors and the shutters and we´ll have a party.¨

And about 25 Calca protesters did show up that day, brandishing broomsticks and chanting in the streets. No broken windows or looted market stalls to speak of – in fact, most of the vendors kept right on selling their food and wares. 

Today there was supposed to be a strike, but it was cancelled. There´s talk that it may happen on Wednesday instead, but everyone just kind of shrugs their shoulders and says, ¨who knows?¨ I´ve noticed a bit of a lackadaisical attitude in local people and tourists alike regarding the strikes. The issue at stake this time is a bigger one: the people are angry about possible government privitization of water. With such a bigger issue looming on the table, it will be interesting to see if strike days remain business as usual.