Twenty-second report from Peru.
We left the Foundation Ninos del Arco Iris yesterday morning and
caught a tourist bus from Urumbumba to Cusco. You pay a bit more for
a tourist bus but happily to me, the bus filled up with locals who all
paid half as much as we did and when the bus was full we still picked
up lots more. Jim who was on the aisle and had bags, kids and people
almost in his lap wasn,t quite as sure that it was a great bus ride.
I really feel very hopeful when I think about the Foundation Ninos del
Arco Iris project. Their two year courses (government recognized)
available only to the most needy train 100 students at a time in
either hotel work, electrical, wood work, computer or textiles. At
the end of two years, these graduates have all the skills they need to
land and keep a job or to start their own small business. This does
seem to provide a way out of severe poverty.
They also have self esteme and pride in themselves and their schooling.
I was not looking forward to another night in Cusco but it turned out
to be terrific. We found a great hostel just off the main square
and we did some last minute shopping in the afternoon. This hostel
was also on the same alley where I found the courtyard four years ago
and did the full sheet, Gossiping, painting. That painting is now in
Switzerland and last year I started working this image into a rug
hooking just for fun.
After a supper of left over pizza, Jim was more than content to catch
up on the American primaries and so I headed out along to find one
last gift-- a plastic sax with a wooden reed for Kelsey. Turns out
that this is very very hard to find, not being a usual tourist item.
An artist was walking in the square and fell in beside me trying to
sell me his paintings. No I kept saying. Finally he said ,"Well you
are out here looking for something What is it that you want to buy
and maybe I can help you? " "A plastic sax" says I. This was the
start of a long long walk in the dark with a total stranger to find
the elusive instrument. I am happy to report that I saw alot of
inner Cusco and my new friend walked me and my purchase back to
familiar territory before carrying on with his business. Naturally we
exchanged stories about being artists and I compensated him for all
his help. After all his Dad was unemployed and his mother sold
potatoes and this chap,s art lessons were 100 soles a month.
Upon returning to the hostel, I showered and fell into bed, while Jim
continued to follow the primaries on television! (It,s hard for me to
appreciate because I never watch television, but after two months
without the tube, I think Jim was suffering withdrawal.) Anyways as I
lay there trying to sleep, I heard drums and wooden flutes and the
music sounded live (not canned). Eventually I got up and got dressed
and this time Jim jumped at the chance to come along- no doubt
worried about who or what I might run into this time. We turned right
towards the main square and the music dimmed, we turned left towards
the courtyard and again the music dimmed. In front of out hostel in
an incan wall were a set of huge huge doors and on one of the huge
doors was a tiny, normal sized, door and it wasn{t locked. We peeked
in. Six couples were practicing complex Peruvian dances to a wonderful
live band of pulsing drums and pan flutes. Someone closed the door
we were peeking in and I thought our viewing was over but Jim bravely
opened the door and slipped inside the practice room with me on his tail. For the next hour we stood enthralled with the rythmns, and
energy of the dances. It was spectacular and all the more so because
we just happened across it.
We both had a terrible sleepless night because we were up and off to
the Cusco airport at 5 a.m. From past experiences in South America we
have learned never to really rely on a wake up call from a hostel. We
had a beautiful flight into Lima and it saved me 28 bumpy hours in a
bus!! Jim, who doesn't care for flying would have prefered the bus
I'm sure but he survived the hour in the air too.
Despite an overpriced taxi into central Lima and despite the many bad
things the taxi driver had to say about our choice of hostel (of
course he had one that he wanted to take us to) we just love Hostel
Espanol. It,s about $ 15 a night, and is in an old mansion. It is
complete with lots of parrots and three huge turtles that walk about
the roof terrace, and the location is amazing. We can walk to almost
all of Lima,s historic sites. Today we saw the San Fransisco church
built in 1650. We also hiked about 15 blocks to the national Peru Art
Gallery only to find out that it is closed on Wednesdays. We will try
again tomorrow. We did tour the Italian Art Gallery. Its a small
collection of Italian paintings and scuptures for the early 1900s.
Half of them were wonderful and the other half were quite awful.
