Christmas - Peruvian Style

Traditional Peruvian dancing, a local boxing match, and a grilled pet for dinner....how's that for a unique Christmas?

We got back from our trek on the night of the 23rd which allowed us to spend Christmas in the wonderful Peruvian city of Cusco. Since Peru is over 75% Catholic, the town was full of Christmas spirit. (The Spanish introduced Catholicism after they invaded Peru 450 years ago.)

We were planning on going whitewater rafting on Christmas Day, but we had some issues trying to book the trip the day before so we decided to just spend the holiday relaxing in Cusco instead. This ended up leading to a very interesting Christmas....

It started out normal enough, watching traditional dressed locals parade outside the church in the morning. For lunch we headed to a local restaurant our Inca Trail guide told us about. It turned out to be a great recommendation and this is where the fun started...

The restaurant, La Chomba, was located down a back alley in a quiet neighborhood away from the tourist center. It was one of those places you would never find unless you knew where to look. It was absolutely packed with locals. Most were dressed in traditional clothing and a band was playing some great Peruvian music. The place was rockin'. We were somewhat of a curiousity being the only westerners in the entire place, but we sat down at one of the communal tables and had a delicious meal of chicharon (deep-fried pork) and lechon y tamales (roast pork with tamales).

As we were finishing up our meal a local couple in their 40's sat down next to us. The guy spoke a little English and, after talking to him for a bit, he asked what we were doing in the afternoon.
When we replied that we didn't have any plans he invited us to the "Christmas boxing match" in town. Since we didn't have anything going on and it sounded interesting, we said we'd love to tag along. After a short cab ride to the outskirts of the city we arrived to a fairgrounds-type place. There was a large horse corral where a handful of women dressed in traditional clothing were dancing. The two small bleachers on one side of the corral were filled and people were standing 7 or 8 deep around the rest of the corral, packed in like sardines. We squeezed into a spot where we could get a decent view. (Lucky for Dustin, most Peruvians are pretty short so he had no problem seeing over everyone.)

We figured there would be a few minutes of dancing before the fighting started. After an hour of dancing, we asked Justino, our new friend, how long it would be until the boxing started. "Ten minutes" he replied in his broken English. After another hour of watching just about everyone, from a 3-yr old boy, to a group of 60+ year old women, to young couples, dance the same dance to the exact same song, Justino again said it should start any time now. The dancing was interesting for the first few minutes, but two hours was more than enough for us...especially with the same loud, static-filled song playing over and over. It seemed that anyone who wanted to could go into the corral and have their three minutes of fame in front of everyone.

As the 2 1/2 hour mark rolled around, and there was still no boxing, we were debating whether or not to leave. But...we figured that since we stayed this long, we weren't going anywhere until we saw some real Peruvian boxing.

One of countless dances before the boxing match (Notice the clothes. All the guys were wearing the same thing...chaps, leather jackets, and masks. The girls were all wearing dresses and hats.):

Finally, three hours after we arrived, the crowd started getting pretty roudy. (Which is bound to happen when you watch three hours of dancing and drink a ridiculous amount of beer.) A few drunks were stumbling into the corral, along with the handfull of stray dogs and kids already playing there. One older drunk guy was yelling at the announcer, mocking the dancers and demanding that the fight start.

The boxers, all dressed in chaps, leather jackets, and brightly painted ski-masks, split into two groups, one on either side of the corral. The first boxer from one side danced into the middle of the ring. He continued to dance for a few minutes until, finally, someone on the other side jumped up, apparently volunteering to fight him. They both took off their jackets and masks and the fight was on. It was more slapping than boxing, and the referee, with his whip, stopped the fight after about 45 seconds and declared a winner. It may have been the single strangest thing we've seen on this entire trip, and that is saying a lot since we've seen more than our share of strangeness.

The first fight about to begin...Can you feel the tension?:

For the next half hour someone from one of the two sides would dance into the center of the corral and continue to dance around until someone from the other side danced out to fight him. They would fight/slap for 30-45 seconds until the ref would break it up and declare a winner. There were even a few guys that jumped out of the stands wanting to fight whoever was dancing around the ring at the time. One teenage boy was held back by his mother for awhile, but eventually he convinced her that it was a good idea to let him fight the old, pot-bellied guy in the ring. As you can imagine, this didn't end well for the boy. After 8 or 9 fights, and with no end in sight, we decided to sneak out before the crowd got any more drunk and roudy.

We finished up our Christmas by having a great meal with our new friends from South Africa. Dustin decided he couldn't leave Cusco without trying the local delicacy, grilled cuy (guinea pig). Rachel said she'd try it, but didn't want the whole thing. Once we got over the little claws and teeth it actually tasted pretty good, like a cross between pork and venison.

Dinner with our favorite South Africans:

Mmmm....guinea pig:

Anyway, we loved our time in Cusco. It is a great city and the Peruvian people were wonderful. (Plus we found a place to get a wonderful 1 hr 20 min massage for $7 which made the city even better.)

Two of our favorite ladies in Cusco:

We just got to the coast south of Lima last night (Punta Hermosa) and spent 3 1/2 hours surfing some fun head high waves this morning. As we were laying around and watching TV to recover from our long surf session we flipped the channel to a local news station...we couldn't believe our eyes...they were doing a story on the Cusco boxing match that we attended. Definitely the weirdest Christmas ever.

The Inca Trail

After a few days of relaxing in Cusco, we started our 4-day trek on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. We would've liked to do the trip on our own, but the government requires you to hire a guide for this trail. The guided trip ended up being quite enjoyable, with great company and luxuries we never have when we camp on our own. We even lucked out with the weather, getting only a few light showers while we were hiking.

Heading down "Dead Woman's Pass":


First the great company: Our ten person group consisted of two other Americans, four South Africans, and two Koreans. Over the handful of days we spent together our group seemed more like a close-knit family than a group of random travellers trying to reach Machu Picchu. Besides great scenery, our 10-mile days were filled with laughter and great conversations. We spent our nights drinking rum to keep warm and playing card games along with creating differnt embarrassing punishments for the losers.

As for the luxury: We had 14 porters to carry all of our gear. (In our defense, we didn't pay the $60 for a "personal" porter and instead carried our sleeping bags, sleeping mats, clothes, etc on our own.) We had two professional cooks to prepare fresh, delicious food for every meal, which was enjoyed in an actual dining tent. Of course, the porters and cooks would run ahead so we'd have a hot meal waiting for us when we arrived at our camp. We even had hot water to wash with in the morning and evening. And just to push it over the top...we'd be awaken each morning with a cup of hot tea sitting outside our tent.

Not a bad camp spot:

As far as Machu Picchu goes, we arrived over the mountain in the morning to find fog so thick we couldn't see more than 50 feet and didn't even get a glimpse of the ruins right under our noses. Somehow our amazing luck with the weather continued though, as the clouds slowly parted throughout the day, reveiling an awe inspiring sight...

Our wonderful group, happy to have made it to Machu Picchu:

Machu Picchu ruins, well worth a four day hike:

Back in the USA (Briefly)

After being gone for almost a year, our arrival back in the US was not nearly as strange or weird as we thought it would be. In fact, besides being very excited to see some of our friends, we both felt pretty indifferent about being in New York City. Granted, it was much easier to get around, to order food (we didn't have to rely on pointing and having no idea what we were going to get), we knew exactly where to stock up on supplies, and we didn't have to worry about miscommunications. Besides Rachel continuing to try to convert prices already in US dollars into US dollars (guess that happens when we've always had to convert prices for the last year), everything was very easy about being in the US.

Anyway, our good friends from college, Colin and Lisa, made the trip up from North Carolina to hang out with us in New York. It was great seeing them again...we spent our time together wandering through Central Park and Rockefeller Center, window shopping, relaxing in cafes, and just getting silly and hanging out in our hotel room. All of us had been to NYC before so it was nice using the time to catch up with each other instead of running around trying to see all the sights.

As an added bonus, one of Rachel's old co-workers from Patagonia, and a New York native, Maggy, happened to be in town so we were able to meet up with her as well.

Surprisingly, in the last year we haven't missed much about the US. One of the only things we have missed, and what's been the hardest part of traveling for this long, is not getting to spend time with our family and friends. That said, being able to see Colin, Lisa, and Maggy was a great Christmas present and helped re-energize us for the last leg of our journey. Thanks guys, for taking the time to meet us on our crazy trip.

(On that note, thanks to Jen, Josephine and Terri for meeting us in Australia; Cody, Mary Lou, and Ashley for meeting us in Africa; Connie and Hannah for meeting us in central Europe; and Frank and Linda for meeting us in Ireland.)

Tomorrow we begin our 4-day trek on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. The weather forecast does not look promising as it is supposed to rain daily for the forseable future. We've had so much luck with the weather on this trip we were well overdue for some rain, plus this will give us another chance to test out our Patagonia gear.

(New blog posts for two days in a row? Consider this our Christmas present to you Ashley!)

Highlights of Europe

As we write this we're sitting on a plane, on our way from London to New York City. Before we get back to the US we wanted to write one last post on Europe, looking back on the last 4+ months we spent here...

Europe by the numbers:
14,033: Miles driven
22: Countries visited
$60: Amount paid to corrupt Moroccan police officers
2: Flat tires
1: Unpaid parking tickets (Germany)
2: Dents added to the van
1: Times ran out of gas

Favorites:
Best Scenery & Hiking: Switzerland
Best Food: Italy
Best Bakeries: France
Most Underrated: Slovenia
Best Beer: Belgium
Best Surf: Morocco
Up-and-Coming: Bosnia-Herzegovina
Best Pubs: Ireland

Our favorite pictures from Europe:

Venice:

The Vatican:

Cinque Terre, Italy:

The Swiss Alps:

Marrakesh, Morocco:

River Surfing Munich, Germany:

The Matterhorn, Switzerland:

Luxembourg:

Lahinch, Ireland:

Croatia:

Paris:

Dubrovnik, Croatia:

Dingle, Ireland:

Bosnia-Herzegovina:

Bosnia-Herzegovina:

Essouira, Morocco:

Bled, Slovenia:

Bavaria, Gemany:

Current update: We're actually a little behind on our posts. Although we wrote this on our London-NY flight, it took us about five days to get around to posting it. We're in Cusco, Peru right now and will begin a 4-day hike on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu on Sunday. We'll try to get a quick post published on NYC before we leave on the trek also.

Speaking English Again!

We have officially closed the loop on our journey through Europe...

After taking the ferry from France back to England we made the drive north to Scotland. We spent a few days in Scotland hiking a section of the West Highland Way, strolling along the streets of charming old villages, and window shopping in the city of Glasgow. Unfortunately, we also endured the worst weather (which wasn't that bad) we've had in our four months of traveling through Europe. Since arriving back to the United Kingdom, we've had nothing but grey skies, rain and bitter cold. Our first night in Scotland we awoke in the morning to find the doors on our van had frozen shut during the night from the combination of rain followed by temps well below freezing.

Deciding it was time to move on (and hopefully warm up) we headed southwest to the Lakes District of England. The weather improved slightly so we were able to do some hiking along the scenic countryside. Our last few days of exploring were spent wandering the scholarly streets of Oxford, periodically ducking into museums and cafes to avoid the rain.

Currently, we are back at our family friends' house in Botley in the south of England, where we've spent the past few days unloading the van, doing laundry, packing, and finalizing plans for South America. Yesterday we did manage to sneak away for the afternoon to get in one last European surf session. The south coast of England isn't known for it's surf so we didn't have high expectations, but when the forecast said they were expecting the "best waves they've had in five years" we had to check it out.

Wearing only our 4/3 wetsuits and reef booties we made the paddle out past the breakers but soon realized we definitely did not have the right gear for the conditions. The water was FREEZING! All of the other surfers were wearing gloves, hoods, and thick booties. We toughed it out as long as we could and caught a handful of nice, head-high beach break waves. We surfed until our hands and feet were frozen and ice cream headaches became unbearable. Even though their best waves in years were no better than an average (at best) day in California, we still had plenty of fun. It was a great way to end our European surfari. (As opposed to ending on the beating we took in the south of France.)

Tomorrow we leave for New York City. This will be our first time back on US soil in nearly a year. We're both anxious to see what we think of the United States after being gone for so long. We've been gone so long, the last time we were in the US Bush was still the president.

Thankfully, we have some great friends (Colin and Lisa) who are meeting us in New York for our time there. They were the same ones who sent us off when we left Minnesota last January so it's only fitting that they join us on our short stint back in the US before we head to South America.