Japanese Profanity Alive and Well in Cusco

I now realize that for every one of the pictures you see of traditional Peruanans have been paid for with tourist dollars. Dressing up for pictures is their livelihood, and if you attempt to take a picture of anyone even semi-traditional looking without paying them first, they will wag their finger at you and cover their faces with their hats.

(A side note: Our family dog, Achilles, has decided to follow me the 172 mile to the internet cafe and is happily lazing on the cool tile floor next to me. No one has kicked him out, which is interesting considering that he is a pretty ragged, flea-bitten St Bernard mix.)

Well, this has certainly been an interesting day so far. If I need an adventurous day, all I have to do is dress very girly. Taxis were practically fighting over who got to take me to town this morning, and they also only charged me about a 1/3 of the price to get their. Even if I didn't need a taxi, the taxistas would still pull over and honk - just in case I needed one, they let me know they were available! I arrived in town a little early, so I went to the main plaza and had a seat in the sunshine next to the fountain. Within 10 minutes I had two visiting teenaged boys from southern Peru ask to have their picture taken with me, as if I were a tourist attraction. It's not like I was wearing a bikini in El Centro... I am wearing jeans, tennis shoes, a tank top and a frilly coverup, and a necklace. . As soon as they leave, a Japanese tour guide sits on the bench with me even though there are about 20 other empty benches in this plaza. He starts chatting me up, and within minutes he is chastising me for not knowing enough about American or South American history and politics. After he finishes his glowing praises of Hilary Clinton, he begins to go off about Angelina Jolie: "Now take a look at Angelina Jolie - she tries to take a political stance against her own government, but how is she one to talk? She is a naughty, naughty girl - she used to smoke and even smoke marijuana once! Naughty, naughty girl! And Britney Spears and Paris Hilton - now they are just fucking crazy, fucking crazy!" Keep in mind this was all said in a very strong Japanese accent, which makes it even better. He also adamantly told me he didn´t hate me or the people of the USA, only the government. And he also said that Japan is what it is because of the USA and the Japanese people celebrate a Thanksgiving day in honor of the USA every year. I told him I didn't know that, which I was chastised for not knowing.

After this little friendly chat, I went off in search of some museums. Tourists buy a ticket called the Boleto Touristico, which gives you entry to about 15 different sites in Cusco and the surrounding areas. Due to an unfortunate double-funeral for one of the ex-staff at our school, classes were canceled today, so today became my Museum day. I discovered a very interesting artist in the contemporary art museum, Oskar Olazo, who uses extreme points of perspective in his paintings yet they remain quite sweet and inviting. One museum was full of old pottery, weavings, and mummies - which was a little creepy. Apparently the pre-Incans sometimes used boards and padding on their skulls at a very young age in order to slope their heads (similar to the Flathead Indians in the US). There were also several skulls showing the brain surgery of the day way back when. Again, creepy.

It is about 80F and sunny today, so I decided to walk home. I had about 50 taxistas attempt to stop for me, one man tripped over himself, and at least 5 men whistled, and 5 women glared. The guys here, especially the young ones, attempt to crowd attractive touristas off the sidewalk hoping the tourista will not budge and the men will be 'forced' to brush arms with them.

Sunday my friends and I went to Pisac for the big Sunday mercado and to visit the ruins. We took the bus there, which for approximately 75 cents US, was the most exciting and cheapest scary hour-long bus ride I have ever had. The buses, much like the taxis, attempt to go as fast as possible and rarely slow down for turns. At least for the ride there I got to sit down, but the ride back there were 20 people standing in the aisle (this is about 1/2 the size of a normal metro bus). This means you really got to lean into the turns that, of course with Peru being the mountainous place it was, took place always over sheer drop offs of several hundred feet. And you also got to rub butt-cheeks with the person next to you which could be a pro or a con, depending. Being as tall as I am, I only had butt-cheeks rubbing my legs, but my poor friend Dana is quite short and she noticed that every time she would move away from an older man's cheeks, he would immediately move back so they could keep rubbing. Ugh. Public transport. Never dull. While my friends spent several hundred soles at the market, I only purchased a CD/DVD of a popular band here. And you don't get the original CD when you buy music here, pirated copies are rampant and cheap - my CD was only $1 US.

I am attempting to spend as much time as possible in this internet cafe. Half of the interior of my house is getting painted today - all the doors are off their jambs, and the paint smells extremely toxic (maybe you need to use different paint on adobe?), and of course, more importantly, there are 3 semi-creepy guys painting and if I went home it would just be me and them. So much for an easy day with napping and studying involved.