Las Vueltas

The “Vueltas” meaning strikes in Spanish have risen again. This time the people are protesting the high gas prices occurring all over Peru. Apparently Peru has the most oil in all of South America, but because the government wants to make money they export it all to other countries in South America leaving Peru with little to get by and an inflation of the price daily.

This much bigger, country-wide strike began on Thursday morning at 3 am with the same sort of acts I saw last time but it seemed to be more organized and political. The streets all around and in Cusco were blocked off with tires, rocks, logs, etc. and there were people yelling and walking in groups with their picket signs and drums starting in the middle of the night.

I was out downtown on Wednesday night with some friends and because of the strike beginning, we were not able to get a taxi home as they had already blocked off many streets out of the city. We had to find a hostel to spend the night in but were awaken the next morning by chanting from the Plaza around 8:30 am. Almost every business and every school in the country was closed for the day and the police were all over to keep some form of control on the situation. There were signs, newspaper clippings and charts posted all around the Plaza explaining the problem that many people were stopped looking at.

We realized our only choice of making it home would be to yet again walk through the strike so we started the 45 minute journey to our home-stay through the rubbish and protesters in the streets. I was offered a ride home numerous times on people’s motorcycles but obviously declined since that did not seem safe at all especially in the middle of social unrest. Eventually as we got a little further out of the city a brave taxi driver approached and asked if we wanted a ride home even though it would cost S8, almost triple the normal price. The sun was hot and we were tired from the night before and gladly took his offer.

As we were almost back to our neighborhood he ran out of none other than GAS! Of course, we are in the middle of the biggest gas strike I have ever seen and this guy has to pull over and leave us to run to the gas station to fill up a jug of gas to bring back to the car. He told us to make sure no one stole his LG radio and re ran off down the road. He was able to buy some with no problems, but it was a quite ironic thing to run out of at quite an ironic time.

I was supposed to go rafting today with Chantal, Brendon and Brittany, but we arrived at the tour office and were told that the strikes were still occurring outside of the city and that we would have to reschedule for tomorrow. She said that in a smaller city on the way to where we were headed, a small bomb went off last night. It didn’t injure anyone, but its proof that these strikes can get violent and we need to be careful during traveling.

Since we were already up and out at 8:30 am for our canceled tour, we decided to go to breakfast where we watched USA play Slovenia in the World Cup. The English owned restaurant with tourist food was filled with fellow westerners and everyone in there was screaming at the TV rooting on the US. I had what they call pancakes but were more like crapes. It had bacon and bananas inside and was very filling.

Afterward I went shopping at “The Red Barn,” a huge shopping center on Avenida Sol with every touristy knick-knack you could want for great prices. I found the rest of my gifts and bought myself an Inca rainbow ring, a key chain, and some warm alpaca socks all to remind me of my amazing time spent in Peru. I hope to be done with shopping, but it’s really hard for me to not buy things when I am out and see something that I think one of my family members or friends would like. You can bargain with them to get great prices and I really want to make sure I have everyone fully covered with something they will love and use back home.

As you can see I didn’t get to go to Pisco this weekend either because of the strikes. We would have ended up being stuck on the bus again like Arequipa and I was NOT going to walk another 4 hours. Instead, I will spend my time here this weekend getting some other things done I wanted to do. The rafting will now be tomorrow during the day and tomorrow night is the monthly International Party at Maximo Nivel. They hold one in the middle of every month to welcome or say goodbye to volunteers with free drinks, food and salsa dancing. Sunday morning I would like to try to go to church with my roommate Tanya and then the Cocoa museum which I keep putting off because I never get there before they close since it is in San Blas, about a 10 minute walk from the Plaza.

I am really excited about Sunday because Patti told me we are getting 3 new housemates! I will finally have a new girl roommate (and my cough is just about gone now, thank God!) and there will be two new boys upstairs. Connor is leaving tomorrow and Julia will be getting an apartment for the next year and a half while she will be working here in Cusco. Although I only have 3 weeks left, I am really happy to have some new people that will hopefully be around my age to hang out with around the house. I have enjoyed the Chicago couple, Jennifer and Glen, because they remind me a lot of my sister Allison and her husband Adam and are fun to talk to, but there will be nothing better than getting some new peeps to do stuff with in Cusco and making more friends for my last few weeks here.

Since my weekend plans got messed up, I think I will use the money I would have spent to go to Pisco and take the trip into Bolivia and go to La Paz. A friend of mine here named Andrew wants to go to Puno and Lake Titicaca next weekend and Laura wants to go into Bolivia so it would be great to combine the two and make it a long weekend to see another country of South America while I’m here.

Laura and I went out to dinner this week at a great restaurant called Two Nations. They have enormous burgers and we split one called the Aussie Burger that was delicious! I met up with Mario afterward and one of his friends gave me a free hair wrap. It is really well done in blue, green and gray but will have to come out for the wedding of course.

Also this week, a group of American photographers came to Colibri and donated disposable cameras to all the kids. We all went out to the Plaza and they took pictures of anything they wanted and had an absolute blast doing it. They usually try to steal our cameras and take millions of pictures of random things, but it was great that they finally had their own where they could snap pics of anything and anyone and then would later have the pictures to keep. The group wrote each child’s name on the camera and got the film developed for them to take home to show their parents or for those that live on the streets to hold on to of fond memories with the influential volunteers in their lives.

Cookie got a bath the other day so he smelled great but once again he let me down and pooped in my room today! I can't wait to get back to my pets that I actually like and aren't annoying and cry all the time!

It’s time for dinner now. We don’t get a lot of meat in our meals here so I am ready to get back to some of my dad’s summer outdoor grilling. We have a lot of carbs like bread, rice, potatoes, etc. and I need to get some more variety back in my life! So daddy, fire up the grill because I will be home soon and wanting some burgers, steak and chicken to fill up the protein I am missing out on. Adios amigos.

-Hillary-