Well, you have heard from Jeremy, Gary and Kate about our day, I guess it is my turn now. By now you are all aware of the teacher strike causing the airport to shut down in Cusco, and our return to our first Peruvian home at the Hotel San Antonio Abad, which we cannot say more good things about. We contacted LanPeru, the airline, and got the first available flight out, which is on Saturday at 3:oo. Everybody expects everything to be pretty much back to normal by tomorrow, but all of tomorrow´s flights were booked even before today´s incident. Kate and I decided to treat ourselves to one of the finer restaurants in the area which is situated overlooking a pre-Incan pyramidal temple. The ruins were very impressive and even at night I think I succeeded in getting a few good shots of the ruins. We finally tasted the ¨national drink¨, a Pisco Sour, which is quite good. We both greatly enjoyed different versions of sea bass, mine with quinoa, yucca and asparagus and hers with cilantro risotto. I can´t remember what the desert was called, however it was a sort of a cylindrical wafer with a cream based filling, surrounded by strawberries and possible lychee nuts with drizzled chocolate. Either the wafer of the filling had something to do with quinoa. It was all quite satisfying.
Since we will still be in Lima tomorrow, we plan to visit a pre-Incan archeological complex 31km SE of the city. We might also go to another Incan site where about 2000 well-preserved mummies were found a few years back. Part of this site has a reconstruction of the chief´s house complete with one room that has been identified as a guinea pig ranch. I feel I owe it to my guinea pigs at home to pay homage to this ancient site.(I also refrained from eating the guinea pig special that was on the menu this evening.)
Well, we´re both tired and will add more tomorrow.
Note from Kate: I put this link in the comments, but not all of you read them (you should) and I can easily make it a hyperlink here, even in my tired state. This link= an article on the strike/riots . That's all for now, g'night!
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4 comments:
Here's a link to an article on the strike. I haven't read it all yet, but we thought we'd post some news.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/19/america/LA-GEN-Peru-Protests.php
From the article to which you linked, it sounds like yesterday was the peak of the craziness associated with the strike. Do you get the impression everything will quiet down now?
Have you watched or read local media coverage? (Great way to sharpen your Spanish!) How would you characterize it? Certainly the BBC story to which Jeremy's post links is a bit alarmist. But remembering the Falklands war, the British media may not be an unbiased source concerning developments in South America.
Don't forget to put away at least one newspaper from yesterday that describes the rioting; it's so relevant to your grant that it's mind-boggling!
I'd also be interested in hearing the Peruvian media's account of the strike. As we saw from Claire's understanding of the controversy over the teaching of intelligent design in the United States, foreign media is often alarmist, biased, and unreliable. But then again, a domestic media often is equally so.
Steve,
It's true. Although Claire did bring up the point that she heard it was more of "middle America" and I think she named Kansas, specifically.
Most Peruvians have been low key here in Lima, but then they had their craziness and closures a couple of weeks ago. We will be seeking out local news coverage to read and bring home.
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