Saturday, February 06, 2010

Genki des Ka?

Another tidbit that I´ll add while I´m waiting for hayley to finish talking to her father in the telephone cabin is that there is a noticeable Japanese population here in Peru. There are also part-Japanese people like me! I knew for sometime that there were people of Japanese descent living here, but I was surprised at how many. The most notorious ex-pat being the disgraced former President Fujimori. Upon entering Peru through the north (through a wiley, dusty, unruley and relatively bleak border city packed full of hustlers and rustlers) I was surprised to see giant ad banners painted along factoy walls with the slogan ¨free fujimori¨ and ¨Fujimori innocent!!¨. It would appear he still has big support here from some. Hayley sat next to an interesting and rather extravagant woman on the bus from Trujillo who declared that she was part Japanese, Italian and Spanish blooded, (not the woman pictured) whatever that means. The quality of the seafood here is good enough that I can see why Japanese people decided to stay. Unfortunately this hasn´t translated into any kind of preferential treatment for me. Maybe half helpings don´t count hehe. There is also a chinatown in Lima that we tried to find but got distracted with the cream filled churros. We actually get waylaid quite a bit by the desire to eat something rather than dwell over some ruins or mummy or something. Hopefully we can see some ruins in Ayacucho of some kind. I hear it´s not ruin-land like Cusco, but ruins are overrated anyway. Maybe I´m just trying to make myself feel better about not getting to Machu Picchu. Funnily enough we have been to Ecuador without seeing the Galapagos Islands and now we will have been to Cusco without seeing Machu Picchu. Well, tomorrow we will ascend yet again into the mountains and from what I hear, things may get a bit chilly from there on in. I can finally use the wool socks and long sleeved shirts I´ve been lugging around in anticipation for the last weeks - but lugging things around in anticipation is what travelling is all about I guess. More snapshots to come...