The day before I left Barcelona, I went to see Maria at her office near where I lived to say goodbye. On top of wishing me luck on my new adventure, she wanted to do one last tarot reading for me. In this reading, among the many things she said, the prevailing theme for her was that this next step would be a vacation for my mind and soul. Well, I've been here now for about 2 and a half months, and that is the perfect tagline to express my headspace right now.
Physically it is definitely not your stereotypical carefree vacation commemorated by a week of lounging on the beach getting fruity drinks brought to you. Physically it is more like walking uphill at altitude on broken streets dodging little yellow cars shooting out of every which way on every intersection, while trying not to think of choking on all the pollution as you try to make it to work for 7am. Not to mention the fact that it is not summer here, it is winter, which yes is still sunny and very-much snow free, but still has a 15-20 degree temperature change between afternoon and night. Which combined with the aforementioned pollution, has brought about a nasty cold that I have been battling for over 3 weeks now.
My mind however, feels like it is very much on vacation. I woke up this Friday morning of this Peruvian national holiday around 8 (yes that means I managed to sleep in 2,5 hours) with the sun pouring in through the window onto my pillow and a slight chill in the air. However under the 4,5 blankets it was nice and toasty warm, and I couldn't help but smile. My mind was perfectly at peace. Sure I had been fairly down for almost 3 days prior to this morning, due to some drama managing to permeate my wonderful little barrier, but those moments are inevitable. If anything, it just worked to make me appreciate this peace of mind even more. I opened my laptop to find Facebook open, and after having read the first 2 or 3 posts complaining about this, and upset about that, I promptly shut it and laid my head back down in the light.
My mind being so at peace has also clearly had wonderful effects for my soul. It feels at harmony with things. At peace with myself, my life, and my plans. Working together they have managed to shut out all the bullshit perpetuated by so many other people out there, and just focus on the light. As a result, I do feel a bit out of the loop with what's happening with almost everyone else, but I really couldn't be happier about it. If this is what out of the loop feels like, than I don't know if I ever want to be back in. Living in the now, and in my now, not anyone else's, has been absolutely wonderful. I still have all of my plans and thoughts about everything of course, but it has reached this beautiful balance.
I will have to extract myself a little bit of course, as even my friend's here are wondering if I've moved. If not in my mental space than the physical one imposed by my cold the last 3 weeks. This weekend though, tomorrow morning to be precise, we are catching a couple soles 2 hour bus to the coast with a few friends. Again, it's winter so it will be cold, but it will be fantastic to just be in a national park looking out at the ocean breathing in lungfuls of fresh air for a day or two. Not to mention, when we get back Sunday or Monday, a friend from Saskatoon happens to be here, in this part of the world in Arequipa for a few days. Also with Arequipa day and weekend long fiestas coming up mid-August, Jasmin coming and month long touring in September, and travelling up to the Ecuadorian coast end of September to be settled in there for my birthday in October, there will be a lot going on the next 2 months. Much to look forward too. :)
Friday, July 27, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
The Peruvian quest for cheap Jack Daniels - desayuno a desayuno
I've experienced so many adventures here on a day to day basis that it is hard to even know where to begin to recount or explain them. This one, however, is still fresh in my mind. It is the tale of a majestic quest taken on by two crazy Canadian girls to find cheap whiskey. But not just any whiskey, Jack Daniels.... And we did. Here is our story.
As a prelude, I must mention that to buy alcohol here is normally fairly expensive (in comparaison to everything else of course). To find a good selection, you must go to the Supermarkets, which cost S/. 35 for a bottle of good Chilean wine, and S/. 114 for a bottle of Jack Daniels. There exists however, this mythical street deep in the markets on the other side of the centre. A street that is composed of nothing but little Peruvian alcohol stores selling wine and hard liquor at vastly discounted prices. A bottle of Jack is rumoured to only cost about S/. 42 there. So as we knew we had a work party to attend Saturday evening, the Inauguration of the second location, Cena and I decided to set forth on our quest Saturday afternoon after work.
Saturday morning
For one of the first times, we woke up early Saturday morning feeling refreshed, energized, and ready for the day. Since this was my old place however, the single digit temperature of the room did have something to do with the 'energetic' morning. It also at the time did not have a working kitchen, so forced us out of the house early to find breakfast. So we took a little detour on our walk to work and stopped to pick up pollo and queso empanadas, peach yogurts, bananas, and an orange. We even made it to the park across the street from work a full half hour before we started teaching to sit and eat our breakfast.
After working 3 hours (an extra half hour for late exams), we headed back to my place to quickly drop our stuff off, change, and head out on our venture.
Saturday Afternoon
Our first task was to actually find the market. Considering it spans out over many, many, many blocks, you would not think this would be a hard place to find. Well, to find the fringes of it, it was not. To find the right area where we wanted to be? Another story.
We walked off in the general direction, crossing the Plaza del Armas, Cusco Coffee, and continued walking in general market territory. Now our plan was to just stop by the mythical alcohol street, buy some wine and Jack, find the food markets for fruits and veggies, and head home.... Ha.
Well as we continued walking we unmistakably landed in the market, however nowhere near the right end of the market. And as things are far from organized, I had nothing but a general vague idea of how to get to the area we wanted. So we started trying to go off memory as best as possible navigating the fringes to find the right street. Nope, still not finding our street.
Then out of nowhere, I spot wine bottles out of the corner of my eye. Yes, that stall is definitely selling alcohol! We'll just nevermind the fact the two front stalls were alcohol, and the rest of the building cheap market hair salons. We take a browse around and find a 1L bottle of Jack Daniels for S/. 50. Considering it is still far cheaper than the supermarkets, that we weren't sure if we would ever find our mythical street, and that it is better to have more bottles than none at all, we buy the bottle.
Okay, so we have a reserve of Jack in Cena's backpack, just in case, so we feel adventurous enough to start wandering random streets in attempts to find the street we are looking for. This works fine for about the first half hour or so, until we suddenly find ourselves completely out of the market and on surprisingly peaceful and tranquil residential streets.. Fantastic, but definitely nowhere near the right area.
So we wander for another half hour or so, turning left and right at random intersections in order to seek out the busy and noisy. Then we see a man pushing a wheelbarrow full of random crap. Definitely getting close. Cross another street, find a random roundabout, circle left, and voilà! Back in the market! Success! But wait.. still nowhere near knowing WHERE in the market.
So we continue our educated guesses about which sections we are in, and where we need to go. Crossing the cleaning supplies/candy section. The underwear, lingerie and electronics section. The bathroom products and backpack section. Then Oo, the shoe section. Clearly we had to investigate.
After getting lost amongst the walls of shoes thoroughly scoping out the selection for a good period of time, our low blood sugar starts kicking in and we realize that we hadn't eaten lunch. It then became the imperative new goal number 1 to find food.
So we leave the shoe markets and start wandering in the direction of the Plaza, where we are sure along the way we will find something.
Sure enough, we wander past a cake shop, stop and marvel/drool over the displays, and realize there is a cafeteria thing inside. So we head inside, to find gelato and sandwiches for S/. 3. Consider our love for sandwiches, we immediately stand in line at the pollo counter and get two (each) of the best homestyle chicken sandwiches we've had, eaten in a sort of Peruvian food court.
After this fabulous food, we decide we need coffee. Given that normal Peruvian coffee is all instant, we agree we need to seek out one of the coffee places I had staked out for having good coffee, and continue to walk in the general direction of the Plaza.
Suddenly we stumble across Café Venezuela, a place that my Peruvian friend Alex had recommended ages ago but for its distance I had never gone to. Decided to give it a shot and go in.
One hint of the scent of freshly ground and roasted coffee beans in the air and the menu having Cortados and other coffees from Spain, and we were sold. Best proper café con leche I had had since leaving Barcelona. Cena fully enjoyed her first Cortado experience as well.
Feeling energized like nothing but the first proper coffee in months can do, we start walking towards the plaza to try to buy a bodum to be able to make our own coffee at home.
Finding nothing, we are about to resign ourselves to buying one at Starbucks, when I suddenly spot Spiderman walking just ahead of us. (Making him the 4th character to see behind Winnie the Pooh, Santa and Green Santa). Cena is stoked. She loves spiderman and we had just seen an add for Hombre Araña 3 (Spiderman 3) and laughed at the translation earlier that day.
Once we finish laughing over spiderman, we realize that it is already 5 o'clock, and as we had planned on showing up the the party (which basically had mandatory attendance for teachers) fashionably late at 7 or 8, we had to get moving.
Saturday Evening
After making the trek back to Cena's place, and deciding we weren't going to bother showering or changing, but were still going to show up 'fashionably' late, we decided to start enjoying our single purchase of the entire day: our 1L bottle of JD. Oh, sorry. We also bought a bottle of water at the store nearest Cena's place to drink the Jack with.
We had just started sipping our first glass when we spotted Aaron, one of the 4-5 roommates living in Cena's Hospedaje out at the kitchen table crushing some coca leaves to make a pitcher of this coca pisco drink.
Considering it isn't every day that you get an offer to try a pitcher of pisco style lemonade made with a pile of coca leaves, we couldn't say no and sat down to have a drink with him. Soon enough we were sitting there we Aaron, his girlfriend, Mama Leo, and another roommate before we realized that we should probably start walking over to the party.
After 20 minutes of flasks vs. water bottle debates, we settled on a small flask and a half and half water bottle of Jack and water and set off.
After an energetic walk comprising of Cena and I switching between talking non-stop in French and English and laughing hysterically, and Aaron and his girlfriend following us in near silence, we arrived with perfect timing.
Sunday Night
The party turned out to be fantastic. Stocked bar with our boss Chris playing bartender and smoking his stogie all night, and all of our favourite people there all in the same state as we were in.
After hours of Cena and I floating around individually, being the social butterflies we are talking to anyone and everyone in many different circles, we found ourselves back in our Canadian corner with our 2 other Canadian/pseudo-Canadians, plotting our escape.
We all filled up our drinks/water bottles and made a break for it, with half the party following us out the door. We walked down to the main street, decided on a karaoke bar, and haggled an S/. 8 taxi ride of 6 women (in a 5 seater extremely small taxi) to the place.
Once we got to Boxes, the karaoke place, Amanda (the pseudo-Canadian) and I's Coordinatrice skills kicked in. Between the two of us, we managed to get discounted cover and a private room for our entire group consisting of a private karaoke machine, disco lights, and bar service at the touch of a button. Amanda also managed to blame all the spilled drinks on the crappy tables and got them all taken off our bill.
Insert several hours of hilarious and ridiculous private karaoke sessions with an entire room full of extremely drunk people with tequila shots.
The trip home was equally as adventure filled as Amanda, Cena and I grabbed a taxi and took it to Plaza Yanahuara near to her and Cena's place. Here we ended up talking for hours before Cena decided to climb one of the palm trees, proceeded to fall off with a garbage can breaking her fall, then promptly decided she was hungry and was going on an adventure for tacos. We all parted ways, Amanda and I going home, Cena adventuring for tacos.
Sunday morning
After weeks and weeks of getting up at 5:30-6am for work at 7, we wake up around 8am, estimating to have slept something like 4 hours. Seeing as it was early and we were feeling good, albeit starving, we decided to venture out for breakfast.
It didn't take us very long in to our very slow and tranquil walk to realize that we might still be drunk. Actually, it was the hysterical laughing fits at absolutely nothing at all that tipped us off...
Our breakfast was fabulous and equally as hysterical. It all started with two giant bottles of water which seemed surprisingly difficult to open. After a struggle between laughter I opened mine, and Cena was still completely unable to open hers. We laughed at our suddenly very weak muscles and she promptly got up and walked over to the next table of men and asked him to open her water bottle as I laughed from a distance.
Getting back to the table our buns with butter and marmalade had arrived. I tried to butter my bun but as usual it was rock hard. So we tried to think of the Spanish word for soft to ask the waitress, however without success, so we reverted to our usual method of trying out the French word with a Spanish twist. However, the French word for soft is moux, pronounced "moo". So when Cena decided to ask for some "moo" butter we completely fucking lost it and decided to just warm it up in our hands.
Finally, after an hour or two of hysteria when we were almost finished our coffee, we decided that it would probably be best to go home and nap for a few hours. So we started our equally slow but hysterical walk back, taking twice as long going uphill as we were walking so slowly it seemed as though we were barely moving at all.
And so ended the quest, with our two crazy Canadian heroines laying back down in bed and thanking the gods for their fantastical past 24 hours and their cheap Jack Daniels.
As a prelude, I must mention that to buy alcohol here is normally fairly expensive (in comparaison to everything else of course). To find a good selection, you must go to the Supermarkets, which cost S/. 35 for a bottle of good Chilean wine, and S/. 114 for a bottle of Jack Daniels. There exists however, this mythical street deep in the markets on the other side of the centre. A street that is composed of nothing but little Peruvian alcohol stores selling wine and hard liquor at vastly discounted prices. A bottle of Jack is rumoured to only cost about S/. 42 there. So as we knew we had a work party to attend Saturday evening, the Inauguration of the second location, Cena and I decided to set forth on our quest Saturday afternoon after work.
Saturday morning
For one of the first times, we woke up early Saturday morning feeling refreshed, energized, and ready for the day. Since this was my old place however, the single digit temperature of the room did have something to do with the 'energetic' morning. It also at the time did not have a working kitchen, so forced us out of the house early to find breakfast. So we took a little detour on our walk to work and stopped to pick up pollo and queso empanadas, peach yogurts, bananas, and an orange. We even made it to the park across the street from work a full half hour before we started teaching to sit and eat our breakfast.
After working 3 hours (an extra half hour for late exams), we headed back to my place to quickly drop our stuff off, change, and head out on our venture.
Saturday Afternoon
Our first task was to actually find the market. Considering it spans out over many, many, many blocks, you would not think this would be a hard place to find. Well, to find the fringes of it, it was not. To find the right area where we wanted to be? Another story.
We walked off in the general direction, crossing the Plaza del Armas, Cusco Coffee, and continued walking in general market territory. Now our plan was to just stop by the mythical alcohol street, buy some wine and Jack, find the food markets for fruits and veggies, and head home.... Ha.
Well as we continued walking we unmistakably landed in the market, however nowhere near the right end of the market. And as things are far from organized, I had nothing but a general vague idea of how to get to the area we wanted. So we started trying to go off memory as best as possible navigating the fringes to find the right street. Nope, still not finding our street.
Then out of nowhere, I spot wine bottles out of the corner of my eye. Yes, that stall is definitely selling alcohol! We'll just nevermind the fact the two front stalls were alcohol, and the rest of the building cheap market hair salons. We take a browse around and find a 1L bottle of Jack Daniels for S/. 50. Considering it is still far cheaper than the supermarkets, that we weren't sure if we would ever find our mythical street, and that it is better to have more bottles than none at all, we buy the bottle.
Okay, so we have a reserve of Jack in Cena's backpack, just in case, so we feel adventurous enough to start wandering random streets in attempts to find the street we are looking for. This works fine for about the first half hour or so, until we suddenly find ourselves completely out of the market and on surprisingly peaceful and tranquil residential streets.. Fantastic, but definitely nowhere near the right area.
So we wander for another half hour or so, turning left and right at random intersections in order to seek out the busy and noisy. Then we see a man pushing a wheelbarrow full of random crap. Definitely getting close. Cross another street, find a random roundabout, circle left, and voilà! Back in the market! Success! But wait.. still nowhere near knowing WHERE in the market.
So we continue our educated guesses about which sections we are in, and where we need to go. Crossing the cleaning supplies/candy section. The underwear, lingerie and electronics section. The bathroom products and backpack section. Then Oo, the shoe section. Clearly we had to investigate.
After getting lost amongst the walls of shoes thoroughly scoping out the selection for a good period of time, our low blood sugar starts kicking in and we realize that we hadn't eaten lunch. It then became the imperative new goal number 1 to find food.
So we leave the shoe markets and start wandering in the direction of the Plaza, where we are sure along the way we will find something.
Sure enough, we wander past a cake shop, stop and marvel/drool over the displays, and realize there is a cafeteria thing inside. So we head inside, to find gelato and sandwiches for S/. 3. Consider our love for sandwiches, we immediately stand in line at the pollo counter and get two (each) of the best homestyle chicken sandwiches we've had, eaten in a sort of Peruvian food court.
After this fabulous food, we decide we need coffee. Given that normal Peruvian coffee is all instant, we agree we need to seek out one of the coffee places I had staked out for having good coffee, and continue to walk in the general direction of the Plaza.
Suddenly we stumble across Café Venezuela, a place that my Peruvian friend Alex had recommended ages ago but for its distance I had never gone to. Decided to give it a shot and go in.
One hint of the scent of freshly ground and roasted coffee beans in the air and the menu having Cortados and other coffees from Spain, and we were sold. Best proper café con leche I had had since leaving Barcelona. Cena fully enjoyed her first Cortado experience as well.
Feeling energized like nothing but the first proper coffee in months can do, we start walking towards the plaza to try to buy a bodum to be able to make our own coffee at home.
Finding nothing, we are about to resign ourselves to buying one at Starbucks, when I suddenly spot Spiderman walking just ahead of us. (Making him the 4th character to see behind Winnie the Pooh, Santa and Green Santa). Cena is stoked. She loves spiderman and we had just seen an add for Hombre Araña 3 (Spiderman 3) and laughed at the translation earlier that day.
Once we finish laughing over spiderman, we realize that it is already 5 o'clock, and as we had planned on showing up the the party (which basically had mandatory attendance for teachers) fashionably late at 7 or 8, we had to get moving.
Saturday Evening
After making the trek back to Cena's place, and deciding we weren't going to bother showering or changing, but were still going to show up 'fashionably' late, we decided to start enjoying our single purchase of the entire day: our 1L bottle of JD. Oh, sorry. We also bought a bottle of water at the store nearest Cena's place to drink the Jack with.
We had just started sipping our first glass when we spotted Aaron, one of the 4-5 roommates living in Cena's Hospedaje out at the kitchen table crushing some coca leaves to make a pitcher of this coca pisco drink.
Considering it isn't every day that you get an offer to try a pitcher of pisco style lemonade made with a pile of coca leaves, we couldn't say no and sat down to have a drink with him. Soon enough we were sitting there we Aaron, his girlfriend, Mama Leo, and another roommate before we realized that we should probably start walking over to the party.
After 20 minutes of flasks vs. water bottle debates, we settled on a small flask and a half and half water bottle of Jack and water and set off.
After an energetic walk comprising of Cena and I switching between talking non-stop in French and English and laughing hysterically, and Aaron and his girlfriend following us in near silence, we arrived with perfect timing.
Sunday Night
The party turned out to be fantastic. Stocked bar with our boss Chris playing bartender and smoking his stogie all night, and all of our favourite people there all in the same state as we were in.
After hours of Cena and I floating around individually, being the social butterflies we are talking to anyone and everyone in many different circles, we found ourselves back in our Canadian corner with our 2 other Canadian/pseudo-Canadians, plotting our escape.
We all filled up our drinks/water bottles and made a break for it, with half the party following us out the door. We walked down to the main street, decided on a karaoke bar, and haggled an S/. 8 taxi ride of 6 women (in a 5 seater extremely small taxi) to the place.
Once we got to Boxes, the karaoke place, Amanda (the pseudo-Canadian) and I's Coordinatrice skills kicked in. Between the two of us, we managed to get discounted cover and a private room for our entire group consisting of a private karaoke machine, disco lights, and bar service at the touch of a button. Amanda also managed to blame all the spilled drinks on the crappy tables and got them all taken off our bill.
Insert several hours of hilarious and ridiculous private karaoke sessions with an entire room full of extremely drunk people with tequila shots.
The trip home was equally as adventure filled as Amanda, Cena and I grabbed a taxi and took it to Plaza Yanahuara near to her and Cena's place. Here we ended up talking for hours before Cena decided to climb one of the palm trees, proceeded to fall off with a garbage can breaking her fall, then promptly decided she was hungry and was going on an adventure for tacos. We all parted ways, Amanda and I going home, Cena adventuring for tacos.
Sunday morning
After weeks and weeks of getting up at 5:30-6am for work at 7, we wake up around 8am, estimating to have slept something like 4 hours. Seeing as it was early and we were feeling good, albeit starving, we decided to venture out for breakfast.
It didn't take us very long in to our very slow and tranquil walk to realize that we might still be drunk. Actually, it was the hysterical laughing fits at absolutely nothing at all that tipped us off...
Our breakfast was fabulous and equally as hysterical. It all started with two giant bottles of water which seemed surprisingly difficult to open. After a struggle between laughter I opened mine, and Cena was still completely unable to open hers. We laughed at our suddenly very weak muscles and she promptly got up and walked over to the next table of men and asked him to open her water bottle as I laughed from a distance.
Getting back to the table our buns with butter and marmalade had arrived. I tried to butter my bun but as usual it was rock hard. So we tried to think of the Spanish word for soft to ask the waitress, however without success, so we reverted to our usual method of trying out the French word with a Spanish twist. However, the French word for soft is moux, pronounced "moo". So when Cena decided to ask for some "moo" butter we completely fucking lost it and decided to just warm it up in our hands.
Finally, after an hour or two of hysteria when we were almost finished our coffee, we decided that it would probably be best to go home and nap for a few hours. So we started our equally slow but hysterical walk back, taking twice as long going uphill as we were walking so slowly it seemed as though we were barely moving at all.
And so ended the quest, with our two crazy Canadian heroines laying back down in bed and thanking the gods for their fantastical past 24 hours and their cheap Jack Daniels.
A living breathing example of globalization and its cultural steamroller
What an interesting place this is to live. I am living and breathing in a class A example of globalization and capitalist economic development. Working in Arequipa Peru for an American owned and mostly staffed company teaching English (American English) to wealthy Peruvians who must get their certificate for work purposes. I actually have the opportunity to sit down and write something today because we have this day off, the 4th of July. These Peruvians love to go eat at TGI Fridays and go wander the mall when they have nothing better to do, checking out the lastest American movie (dubbed in Spanish) playing at the cinema.
It is quite the change from being in European countries that are fiercely protective of their cultural and linguistic wealth and diversity, and are in a position to take extreme measures to retain their independence. Even little things, like showing only a specific percentage of American films, the layout/look of shopping centers (or their existence all together), or how they view learning another language such as English (they see it as becoming more international, nothing more, nothing less).
Countries like Peru on the other hand, are not in a position to be able to protect themselves from the American cultural steamroller that is globalization. In order to develop their economy they needed to open their borders to foreign investments. Pretty soon, you see Starbucks popping up, McDonalds, KFC and Burger King fast food centers, TGI Friday's, malls, and cinema chains that have become the hallmark of American influence abroad.
Certain measures have of course been taken to protect certain Peruvian cultural landmarks, such as the world heritage cites of Machu Picchu, the Colca canyon, and even the main square, Plaza del Armas, in Arequipa. However, as these places remain untouched (except by tourism), the rest of Arequipa and Peru are slowly changing. It is incredible to go outside the central areas of the city to the poorer parts, and out in to the countryside. Even when you escape the car and pollution filled metropolises, you see nothing but garbage, waste, and factories lining the edges of the cities and surrounding dirt roads and fields.
Yes economic development is absolutely imperative in order to bring up the standard of living within countries like this one, but at what cost? Languages and cultures all over the world which hold incredible wealths of information encoded in their very identity, are slowly being forgotten in the face of the Western cultural and economic steamroller. The fact that you have to go out of your way here to buy a bag of coca leaves to make coca tea or coca pisco, one of the quintessential elements of Peruvian culture, yet you can buy burger/sandwich at every corner really says something.
That being said, certain elements of Western culture are highly appreciated. I just feel that a better happy medium needs to be found. A way to incorporate elements of this new international culture and language into existing cultural wealth. Create a culture 2.0 if you will.
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