Wednesday, Darcy and I left after lunch for Abancay...a city of 100,000 about 3.5 hours west of Cusco. It´s where he grew up. First, we caught a car with a mom and two little girls for the first two hours of the trip there. Analia is 8 years old and had a cute 3-week old puppy named Beethoven who only peed on the seat twice. In Curahuassi, we changed vehicles and got stuck in the back seat with two other grown men. I slept most of that segment of the trip...it helps with motion sickness going around all those curves! I think this driver thought that a sign saying ¨dangerous curve, slow down, 35 km/hr¨ actually meant, ¨i´m going 90 km/hr now, ok, that works!¨ It´s just better not to watch many times.
Anyhow, we made it to Abancay and stayed at his place there. It was nice except that there was only water for a few hours in the morning. And even this wouldn´t have been a big deal, except I got sick while I was there. Not having water in the baño is not a pleasant experience when you´re not feeling so well. I took a lot of Pepto Bismol and Tylenol and slept a lot. Luckily, I only had a fever for one day before it was gone.
But on to the interesting things...We went to Parque El Mirador (Lookout Park) on a hill above the city that was nice. They have playground equipment for the kids, a small pool, and some zoo-type animals. I saw my first vicuñas (like wild alapacas) and condors, too. The condors were enormous! And Darcy said they weren´t even full-grown! There was also this really cute little monkey that took quite a liking to Darcy and followed him back and forth. The next day, we took a colectivo car to Yaca, which is about 30 minute away. They had a food festival, some live music, and some prancing horses. Unluckily, I didn´t really eat anything, but I enjoyed spending a good part of the day there. It´s Tourist Week in Apurimac (where Yaca is and Abancay is the capitol), but I think there were only 3 other international tourists around. We ran into two girls from England a few times, and ended up riding back to Cusco with them, too. Also listened to a great band from Argentina and Columbia and did some dancing, too. Lots of walking around the city, a bit of window shopping, and bought replacement sunglasses that, as it turns out, stain my face maroon when I wear them!
One of the best meals I´ve had was in Abancay. It was meat nearly as good as steak. Thinner, but very juicy and tender. And something similar to very runny mashed potatoes. It´s the first time I´ve seen potatoes cooked that way here in Peru. They were very yummy. And there was a cold pasta salad and cooked carrots on the salad buffet. Oh, healthy food. (Healthier than french fries, fried trout, or fried chicken!)
Otherwise, I´ve been taking it easy, enjoying the city, and practicing Spanish. I´m trying to read one of Darcy´s books, Y De Repente, Un Ángel by Jaime Bayle, and it´s fun, but takes forever. I think the first chapter (about 3 pages) took a good 30 minutes by the time I read it, looked up all the words I didn´t know and wrote those down, and read it again. I´m almost on Chapter 3 now!
