Huayllay, Fiestas Patrias, and Everything Since

So I will admit it without embarrassment: I have gotten lazy at this blogging thing. Over the past couple of weeks I have been stuck between half my courses ending and the other half beginning, so most of my spare time has been spent marking students on their final papers and organizing my lesson plans. I have picked up some more hours, albeit at night, and one of my classes has decided they like my teaching enough that they wish to continue with me as their teacher and have convinced my employer to open up a new class with them for me to teach once their evening classes end tonight. There are seven of them and I am incredibly flattered. All of my other classes are going great and I am loving my schedule. I currently have classes every morning and every night, with almost all of my time during the day to go to the gym or run and prepare for my lessons. But enough of work, here are some of the exciting things I have done since my last update:

1. Huayllay
2. Fiestas Patrias
3. Barranco

On the 28th of July it was the Peruvian Independence Day, named Fiestas Patrias, when Peru became an independent nation and was no longer under Spanish rule. Whenever there is a holiday in Peru they always give you two days off of work, and try to place them close to the weekend so that you end up having a four-day holiday. The 28th was a Tuesday, and by default Wednesday also became a holiday with Monday as an optional holiday, making this a two-day work week and a five-day festival. It is traditional for Peruvians to travel around Peru during this time and we wasted no time booking a trip. Lucia and Raul organized a trip to Huayllay, an archaeologial wonder 4850m (15, 912f) above sea level famous for its 'rock forest', or natural rock tree-like formations, and ancient cave paintings. People attending: myself, Pedro, Lucia, Raul, Francesca and Stephanie (friend's of Raul and Lucia) and Roberto, who was in our car. After sleeping over in Pedro's family home Friday night, we left early Saturday morning for the almost 8 hour trip up the mountains. The drive alone was amazing and terrifying. The mountains and natural lakes were breathtaking and were present for almost 3/4ths of the drive. Many of the small towns we passed through were built right up to the edge of the winding main highway, meaning one side of the houses would face the road and the other half would be partially hanging off the mountainside. The road was a one-laned curvy nightmare, with Peruvian drivers who are already famous for their horrible driving weaving in and out between slow-crawling trucks. At one point there was a bit of a traffic buildup beside a gorgeous lake called "drunk lake" about 2500m up as a truck had flipped over going on a corner and was an inch away from sliding over the edge of the cliffs. Around lunchtime we stopped in a small town named 'St. Peter of the boxes' (can't remember the Spanish words right now) and had lunch, which consisted of soup, some meat with rice and creamed spinach, and rice pudding for 4soles ($1.50US). I also had my first taste of coca tea, a tea that they brew using coca leaves to help you with altitude sickness. That's right people, I basically drank the ingredients for crack. It both looked and tasted a little like green tea. At that point we were about 3000m up and I was starting to feel the effects of the height - shortness of breath, a little sick to the stomach, hard to climb stairs. After the tea we jumped back in the car where I decided I had seen enough mountains and promptly went to sleep.

We arrived in Huayllay as it was just starting to get a little dark. We were staying in a mining hotel where the public are usually not permitted to go but because Lucia and Raul's father is involved in the mining business he was able to pull some strings and get us some rooms. The hotel itself is usually reseved for the engineers of the hotel who have to travel back and forth from different parts of the country, but as it was a holiday we got the whole hotel to ourselves. It was quaint and cute, which a huge fireplace and chocolates on our pillows sort of deal. I loved it; I was under the impression that we would be staying in the mine in sleeping bags on some bunks so anything above that was a great suprise. That night we stayed in the foyer infront of the fire and relaxed, made some smores and talked into the night.

The next morning we were up early. The mining complex had a cafeteria where they made all of the meals for the employees while they stayed there, and they prepared all of our meals for us during our stay (which were really good!). We were then taken on a tour of the mine, which was pretty amazing. They showed us how the process worked, how they sifted the dirt from the zinc and other minerals. We then drove to the Huayllay rock forests, which were absolutely gorgeous and fascinating. If I recall correctly, they stretched as far as 280 miles across the area and were littered with ancient rock paintings of llamas and other animals. We only were able to see a small area with our guide, who showed us different animal formations people had identified in the rocks and some llama paintings that were thousands of years old. I was in awe half of the tour.

That Sunday night after the tour we celebrated Roberto's birthday with some serious drinking games and horrible karaoke in the mining pub. I learned a new game that they play with dice that if you lost, you were the one singing. I tried pretty hard not to loose. It was more than a riot and I had a good little headache the next morning. We packed up fairly early Monday morning and started on our drive back to Lima, where we stopped at Junin, a monument for the Battle of Junin where the Pervians first beat the Spanish and started their path to independence. We also stopped at a giant turnip one of the towns had built out of glass which was incredibly tacky and therefore hilarious. The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful and tiring. We had to rush a little bit so that I could make it back to a class I had to teach that night. Somehow I made it through traffic and the long drive with 20 minutes to spare!

The next day was the actual day of celebration. Peruvian officials decided to alter one of the fountains in the main square that shoots water out of lions' heads into a fountain that shoots pisco, the national liquer. Safe to say the city was one big drunk mess that day! After sleeping in, Pedro and I went around the city and enjoyed the festivities. They had the President speak to to the people and everyone basically partied. That night some friends came over to our apartment and a number of drinks later, we were ready to head out but realized we had been having such a good time at home that it was already three am. We stayed in that night and continued drinking.

Since then I have spent most of my time teaching or preparing for teaching, exploring the city and making plans. This past Saturday we headed to Barranco, a part of the city known for its beautiful bridges and amazing night life. There are a number of bars and discotheques lining a number of streets there. We settled on an old mansion they had remodelled into a classy lounge where we met up with a number of Pedro's friends. I had a few of them, the girls named Erika, Pilar and Constanza, when I was here in April and really enjoy their company. We drank a whole lot, laughed and then headed back to our house in the wee hours of the morning for some after-drinking sheesha. All in all, a good night.

There are a number of things coming up over the next couple of weeks that I will have to report on, including my participation in the Lima 100 Half-Marathon at the end of August, the circus, casino-hopping, The Killers concert coming up and a few more weekend trips in the works. Things are getting busy!

I miss you all and I hope everything is wonderful in Toronto. I tried to upload pictures but it's not working, so check them out on facebook if you have it.
All my hugs, kisses and love!