This weekend....

My last weekend in Cusco, and I have to say it was quite an adventure. I thought I would just make a little listy poo of things that transpired over the last 48 hours. Some of them might surprise you, some of them surprised me, and some you may find extremely dull, but I thought was important enough to mention and it is my blog. haha. :)

1. Saturday afternoon I suddenly had this strong desire to bake something. So I decided upon peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips in them Que rico! Katy was my sou chef and we ventured upon creating this American comfort food. Little did we know that Katy would be running around town for eggs, I would accidentally buy potato starch instead of baking soda ( I realized it before it was added) and that our baking adventure would lead us to the very Peruvian experience with what I call ¨the over room¨ because that is what it is. Literally. We asked out host sister if we could use the oven in the kitchen in our house and she said we could but it is easier if we go to the over room near the park with our baked goods. Of course, why didn´t we think to go to another room near the park to bake our cookies in a giant oven because it will taste better? So we headed out with our cookie batter to this room that contained an oven at least 30 ft by 20 ft run by two kids 8 and 10 years old. Awesome. So we dished out our cookies onto these large kind of clean trays the kids slid them into the back of the oven with a large wooden spatula looking thing. There we were. Our cookies baking with the neighborhood´s cakes, casseroles and biscuits. It smelled like ceder, meat and bread, and our cookies came out perfectly, what a hit! I wish I could explain to you the craziness of this 24 hour oven room... but it is just beyond words or pictures. Good news is I conquered altitude cooking! They were such a hit that we gave some to our host sister´s son and his friends on the way home and he came inside later to ask for the recipe for himself and his friends. Now I just have to figure out how to explain how to make them... I really need to start writing down what I put in my cooking...

2. Good news, Friday afternoon I burned all my pictures that I took thus far in my trip on to a CD so that I could clear my memory card. Bad news... my camera was stolen out of a bag check at the Discotheque on Friday night. boo. Good news, I thought my journal was also stolen, but was just at the bottom of my bag... more good news, I was more upset about the idea of losing my journal than losing a camera....

3. After futbal and pool on Friday night we went to a Peruvian disco where I was the only female gringo, so thus being so conspicuous I was chosen, though I didn´t fully understand what was going on, to participate in a contest. So I went up on stage and turns out it was a beer drinking contest. Thank goodness I had not drank much at that point. Guess what folks? I represented the gringos well and totally won. haha. I won a beer drinking contest. That´s hilarious. Mom and Dad would be so proud of their classy daughter.

4. On Friday between the pool hall and the disco I was really hungry so we stopped to have some food on the street. I ate pieces of steak and a potato roasted on a stick. That´s right, you read correctly. I ate meat off of a stick in the streets of Cusco. Again... what a classy dame.

5. Saturday night we went to our friend, Simon´s birthday party. My first experience with Peruvian birthdays. Pretty interesting. Things started rolling around 10Pm when we were served several drinks and played a random game where you have to do whatever is given to you on a piece of paper. The directions could be dancing sexy around a bottle, or drinking all your drink in one shot. hmmm... not sure if it is a common Peruvian game, but our host and her friends seemed to really enjoy it. Then we were served food after a few hours of drinking. My theory is maybe they think people loosen up a lot more quickly when playing games and drinking on an empty stomach, but don´t want to send people home to thrashed, so they feed you late at night to ease waking up the next morning.... just a theory.

6. After the birthday party, Katy, Daniel and I went out dancing to a few clubs and then to a place with a live reggae band. The band was awesome, but the dance floor was crowded. I think the most interesting part of the evening, aside from the music, was when I engaged in a conversation with a few Italians, a German and an American where our common language was Spanish. It was my first time being in a group so diverse where the common language was not English... and I understood! and participated! pretty dang cool I think.

7. This morning, Daniel, Katy and I walked up to the Sachsay Woman ruins for what we heard was a ¨coming of age ceremony¨it was incredible. The colors, the people. Very few other touristas, hundreds and hundreds of Peruvians. There was a giant playing field area, and these teenage boys were in 4 different teams with costumes in 4 different colors, green, blue, red and black. They were doing things like jumping through flaming hoops then climbing up logs balanced by other boys over more fire. When they fell into the fire they were carried off the field. The fires were small, but still. I think my favorite was when they had to start from two different sides of a log with rings attached to it. They were about 20 ft off the ground and when the opponents would meet in the middle, they would lock legs to make the other fall into the fire below. amazing.


So I think that is most of the highlights for the weekend. 7 is a good holy number, I read that somewhere...I am heading out of Cusco, I believe on Thursday, back to Lima for a few days before flying back to the states. Ciao for now!