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Showing posts from June 21, 2007

Just a quick observation....

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A long time ago, I read a book entitled Prague about a group of travellers that hit upon an observation that I am being constantly reminded of. One of the characters pointed out (and I am beyond paraphrasing here) that anywhere that tourists gather, you are sure to find two things: a Peruvian flute band and a person whose sole talent in life is painting themselves a metallic color and standing very, very still. I can vouch for this as fact. Yet, I had not given any thought to whether or not this truism would hold true in Peru. I should have, considering that we could have been inundated with Peruvian flute bands, dropping our very last sole into someone's empty guitar case. Turns out that there was no reason for concern. We spent a week trying in vain to find some live music before we hit upon the realization that not only were there no Peruvian flute bands, there were no musicians left in Peru. They must have all been exported to the plazas, parks and subway stations of every o

Arequipa and Colca Canyon, Peru

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The next stop on the Gringo Trail is the so-called "White City" of Arequipa. It is not named, as some may suspect, for its veneration of the coca leaf, but for the sillar,or white volcanic rock which was used extensively in the building of the city. The city founders did not have to go too far to find this sillar, since the city lays in the shadow of three volcanoes, El Misti, Chachani and Pichu Pichu. (Interesting note: the Quechua or indigenous language does have a plural form, so if you wanted to, say, talk about more than one peak, or "Pichu", you would just say the word twice, thus "Pichu Pichu".) The presence of this trio quietly provides two things: constant danger of volcanic eruptions and really great views from virtually ev