July 26, 2005
Huanchaco OBGYN sign
Huanchaco is the name of the town we bus to to go surfing. i saw this sign while waiting to return to Trujillo. Notice the baby waving at you from the womb, as if to say: "Wassup? I'm chilling in my mom's belly!"
it is also waving bye to you for now because I leave for Cajamarca tonight to celebrate Peruvian independence. Supposedly the party is there. Paz fuera.
July 22, 2005
aren't the gringos funny!
here's a picture of some Moyobamban kids laughing (presumably at us) as we walked down to the Rio Mayo. Aren't they cute?
The Circus is in Town
and it's actually right outside my door. This morning on my way to work, I walked by a pack/den(?) of lions. Granted, they were caged, but it was still something you don't see everyday. Pictures will be forthcoming.
July 21, 2005
Cage Fight!
ok, not really, but Chase and I did get to see this UFC style fight on Sunday. The main event was pretty lame, as Zopilote ("Buzzard") beat Mamut ("Mammoth") in about 40 seconds. but the undercard match right before that was awesome as the Trujillan beat the Liman after they had to have a tie-beaking extra round after a judges' mix-up. Morris would have been proud.
July 20, 2005
July 18, 2005
No, not that San Antonio
I wish I went to law school with this view. Instead, all I have is ghetto and a soccer field.
This is the pueblo of San Antonio's plaza de armas, where we began our trek to the catarata.
I leave for Cajamarca in 9 days. It should be a blast. We'll be there for Peru's independence day so we should get to see some cool celebrations.
I nearly drowned 3 times Saturday while surfing. First, my leash broke and washed my board to shore, leaving me to swim after it. Then I got a new one and it came off my foot, but still intact. I caught up with the board before it got washed back to shore and right before I drowned. I put my leash back on. Then I almost caught a wave and when I wiped out, the wave took my board from me again. Swam back to shore. Didn't die. Queue Pearl Jam.
July 15, 2005
July 13, 2005
do you juanes some food?
this is what we ate in Moyobamba:
camu camu - the nectar of the gods. note the white bubbles. allegedly, this beverage has more vitamin c than oj or some other drink with lots of vitamin c in it.
juanes - chicken drumstick in rice cooked in banana leaf
tacacho - pork fat and fried banana, yum.
July 12, 2005
the catarata
i can't figure out how to post more than one photo at a time so i hope you enjoy the next 10 posts or so.
July 6, 2005
Run through the Jungle
i just got back from the jungle on Sunday. we bussed 20 hrs to
get there, which wasnt fun, but we had a blast once
there. we first went all the way to tarapoto, a very
small town and we ate lunch and then took a taxi to a
small village called San Antonio (not adobe or
anything, just a few small houses around a square). we
hired a 13 year old guide named Luis through a little
agency there to take us on a 90 min hike to a cool
little waterfall in the jungle. we climbed up and got
in it, but i was the only one of the three of us (abbi
and will are the other two with me on the trip) to have the guts to jump
into the hole where the waterfall fell. of course,
Luis did too, but he lives there. it was a blast. then
we hiked back, and almost got stranded in San Antonio
due to lack of taxi traffic in town but we paid double
for the last one to take us back to tarapoto. while we
waited, we made friends with Luis, and his friends and
siblings.
when we got back to tarapoto, we found a place to eat
(i had to get the meal called 'viagra del mar...' and
it turned out to be a seafood stew with whole crabs
and shrimp and mussels and squid and some other
seafood in it - mysterious but tasty.) afterward, i
bought some tarapoto cigarrillos and smoked one while
sipping uve cocktail (made from a grape wine made in
the jungle called uvechado, which has actual pitted
grapes in it and is very strong and salty, not very
good. but the cocktail was much more tolerable and i
grew to like it the more i drank it). we stayed the
night in tarapoto and the next morning hired a car and
driver to take us back west two hours to moyabamba,
capital of the san martin department of peru, a town
of 66,000. this was friday.
when we arrived, we checked into a hostal and went to
a local restaurant that was recommended in abbi's
lonely planet peru travel book (moyobamba and tarapoto
aren't in my frommer's) where we ate a local dish
called 'juanes' which is basically chicken and
surrounded by rice and baked in a banana tree leaf. it
was pretty good. to drink we had a local beverage
called 'camu camu' which was truly the nectar of the
gods, and made from some grape-like fruit in the
jungle.
after lunch, we walked to the 'central market' and
bought some stuff and browsed. then we walked out of
the paved part of town and into the poorer regions (or
so we imagine) and took photos of the valley and
chilled with beer (me) and soda (others) in some
thatch cabanas or something on the premises of the
bodega (convenience store) where we bought them. then,
it was dinner time, so we went to another restaurant
recommended in abbi's book, which also was a
resort-type hotel with an amazing view of the valley,
where we watched the sunset, ate dinner (i had some
fish i think, but i dont remember what it was) and a
pisco sour to drink (this is the so-called national
beverage of peru, and tasted and looked a lot like a
margarita with no ice, but is made with pisco (some
peruvian alcohol, some sort of souring agent, and egg
whites, which gave it a frothy foam top - it was
delish). after dinner, we each smoked one of my
tarapoto cigarrillos (i still havent found cubans -
but allegedly, the cubans came to the jungle and
showed the jungle-peruvians somewhere how to make the
cigars, the wrapper on the cigarrillos says 'tobaco
habano' so who knows?) anyway, the cigars were fine
tasting and even-burning so it was fun. it turned out
we crashed some guy’s wedding party at this little
bungalow-restaurant where we ate. he was american from
arizona and marrying a girl from Lima, and it looked
like it was just him and her and her family and like 5
other guests. there was a band playing, but since
there were only like 2 women there, no one was
dancing. they played their own songs in spanish and
some american covers. it was nice free entertainment.
and the american groom came over and talked to us and
said thanks for coming to his wedding, saying they
were just begging for guests. i scored a free beer. we
went back, and we stayed friday night in moyobamba.
we got up on saturday and found out our bus was
leaving at 4:30 pm so ate at a panaderia (bread shop)
and then hiked down to the river in the valley, and
paid a total of 10 soles ($3) for a half hour ride on the river. then
we hiked back up and went to the hot baths just out of
town which were very relaxing, although we only had
about half an hour before we had to check out of our
hostal. then we went to lunch, also over-looking the
valley, we had more camu camu. i had some crazy looking tilapia.
there were some american missionaries we met who had spent 50 plus
years in the jungle translating the new and then old
testaments into the jungle languages. then we went
back to the plaza (square) and looked into a catholic
church there which was interesting. then we left. fun
times.
paz fuera.
July 5, 2005
weekend update
It's been a month now since I arrived in Peru, and I'm still not dead. Hoo-ray me! I did meet a dead person though. His name was Montezuma, and boy was he pissed!
I can't say I miss the States much, yet, except for the NBA finals and soon the All-Star game. It's 70 degrees here everyday, and all the girls love me. (Blogging is an exercise in narcissism so I can say things like that, right?) But I do get stared at...by everyone. I think I am going to buy a shirt and write GRINGO or GUERO on it, and maybe that will stop the staring. Hopefully the Peruanos will get the message: "hey, I'm white so deal with it, and stop staring! You know we exist!"
(actually, during the course of composing this post, which has taken two weeks, ive found out it would be taken as saying that i'm better than they are, but it would have been funny to me)
I guess I should say what exactly I'm doing down here. Basically, I teach English at San Augustin Language Institute (SALI) in downtown Trujillo, Peru. The Institute was started by some Presbyterian missionaries to fund the work of Peru Mission (www.perumission.org - I think the site is down though). English language schools are a booming business in Trujillo, and the Institute is gaining new students everyday.
last month I taught 3 classes: Basic English 4, Intermediate English 4, and a Conversation Club. this month is similar, too.
In Basic 4, I'm teaching them can/can't right now. In Intermediate, it's the passive voice (this is really difficult because the passive voice is kind of built into their language). In Conversation Club, we just talk about whatever - it's just designed to help build conversational skills. But lately, in this last class, I just bring my iPod and play music that they know and put the words up on the board so they can learn them. We've learned the Cars' "Just What I Needed" and RHCP's "Scar Tissue. Sadly, there's not much of an indie-rock scene in Trujillo.
All of my classes were in the afternoon after siesta ends at 2:30, which is sweet cuz I get to get up late. And stay up late. So I usually get up at 9 or 10, and read and get ready for the day. Then I go downstairs and talk to out landlady who lives in our apartment building with us. This helps me practice my Spanish. I'm the only one there in the late morning/early afternoon, so she usually has some coffee and food ready for me. Sadly, there isn't any fresh-ground Peruvian coffee made around Trujillo, and the only Peruvian coffee I've had has been instant, but it still tastes better than the instant coffee from Jersey that SALI has.
All the other teachers at SALI are also American (i.e. native English speakers), which makes SALI unique among Trujillo's language institutes. There are 5 guys and two girls, all between the ages of 20-27, and 2 from TX, 3 from MS, 1 from SC, and 1 from FL. We're a vastly different bunch, but we all get along.
The other guy from Texas is my roomie, and he's 20 and we get along pretty well. He's been a lot of fun so far. I get along with all the others too.
Sorry to bore with all the basic stuff; that's all I've got for now. Next, I'll post about my trip to the jungle. Hopefully, it will be replete with pictures, but that's up to my tech support.