From Peru

It’s not as cold as I thought it would be. Through various friends and websites, I had the idea that it was always in the 40s: sunny and cold. Well, it’s definitely sunny. High-altitude, skin-scorching sunny, but it gets stiflingly hot in the afternoon. We went down to the market the Sunday we got there, where local indigenous women were selling scarves and ponchos knit from alpaca. The sun was shining so brightly I had to squint to see them, and just looking at all the cold-weather stuff made me sweat more. It does get cold at night and in the morning (especially walking across our concrete floor and climbing into a cold shower in the morning), but you could easily wear short sleeves during the day.

We were supposed to spend a day in Lima, meeting with the bishop and some other people, but our broken plane pushed us a day back. So we got into Lima around midnight and left for Huancayo the next day at 1. Duke has a relationship with a wonderful travel agent couple named Raúl and Gladys, and they took care of our transportation and housing. I’m so used to flying into places and then looking for a taxi and a hostel while traveling that I’d forgotten how much of a difference it made to have someone pick you up!

The trip wasn’t that bad (we took the expensive bus with reclining seats and a meal service), it was just long. 7.5 hours long. Huancayo is only about 140 miles from Lima, but it’s 140 miles across the Andes. We crawled along, winding up and up and up until the window were all fogged and it felt like there was a weight on my chest.



Everyone talks about the altitude here, and I understand why. When we were crossing part of the Andes on the way here, I remember waking up and having the odd sensation that my blood wasn’t flowing quite right. It wasn’t exactly painful, and it wasn’t exactly nauseous. It just felt like things inside me were tightening and straining to push blood through my heart. At this point, the window had been completely fogged for awhile, and I ran my hand against it. I caught a glimpse of the sun setting behind a snow covered peak (across from us, not above us), but the window fogged again almost as quickly as I had cleared it. I kept wiping my hand across the condensation until I lost feeling in my fingers and decided to go back to sleep.



When we arrived, our supervisor and his family met us at the bus station. His name is Cesar Llanco, and he and his wife Karina have two teenagers: Diego and Andrés. Everyone was a little bit shy at first: Cesar kept asking us what we wanted to do and we had to remind him that we are clueless about everything Peruvian right now. They laughed and took us to a chicken place.

I didn’t know before, but apparently charcoal-roasted chicken is pretty famous is this area. They serve it with salad (which, tragically, we can’t eat), French fries, and about 5 different kinds of sauce. It’s ridiculously good. I don’t know how they manage to get it quite that tender, but it just falls off the bone and has a wonderfully unique taste. And it gets better, because the whole meal costs about 6 soles at the expensive places, 3 at the cheaper ones. That’s a difference between $2 and $1.

We’re living in an apartment about a 30 minute walk from the town center. It’s owned by the mother of one of the girls we work with, and it has concrete floors, a small kitchen, a bathroom with sometimes-hot-water, a bedroom, and internet. Yep, we’ve got internet in our apartment. So much for roughing it. Our duena knocks on our door about once every two days to offer us pots, chairs, or to ask if we need anything.



There’s a little market right outside our apartment where people bring all sorts of produce and stuff to sell. The street gets busy about 6:30 in the morning, and doesn’t stop until 10 at night. Some women set up stands of fruit presses, where you can pick a piece of fruit and get her to press it into juice for you right there. Other women make about ten kinds of sauce (they have far more salsas here than we do back home), and sell small bags of it to the nearby restaurants.



Stephanie and I are very visible here, and are still getting used to it. Very few people are rude, but it’s obvious that everyone notices us. I have to admit, though, I understand where they’re coming from. The other day Steph and I saw a student with blond hair standing on the side of the road, and we stopped and stared. “Where on earth is he from?”

Our life has begun to fall into a bit of a routine. Get up, shower, walk to Cedepas (the organization that houses the seminary we work for), prepare lesson plans, eat lunch, get coffee at a place that has wireless internet, do last minute preparations for class, teach, eat dinner, go home, watch Arrested Development. (Yes, I brought the DVDs with me, and it is the best decision I ever made.) It’s not a bad life.

We’ve found several favorite restaurants, including a vegetarian one that makes everything with soy. Our favorite, though, is this incredible little place called Antojitos. It’s all once building, but a different part is open for lunch and dinner, so it’s like a completely different restaurant. For lunch, you walk into a courtyard-type place with vines everywhere and picturesque little tables. Then you eat a menú that includes an appetizer, soup, entrée, and juice for 5 soles. (For those of you keeping track, that’s a little less than $2.) For dinner, you walk into a low-lit place that looks a little like a hunting lodge, listen to Peruvian live music, eat oven-baked pizza, and drink sangria made with papaya and mango. A bit more than 5 soles, but definitely worth it.