What day is it?

Well, aside from my recent inability to remember the day, date or even month I did manage to successfully retrieve Caroline from the Cusco airport this morning, after frantically calling every cab company in town (no one answered the phone and when they did I was told my house was inacessible because the Plaza was closed for further Cusquena celebrations) I scrambled down the hill grabbed one and got there before she did, woo hoo! Now, as far as the cab trials go I then had to argue with every cab driver at the airport who said the plaza was closed and wanted to charge inordinate amounts of money to get us home. So, unfortunately Caroline´s first experience in Cusco was me fighting with cabbies in Spanish. The hysterical part is that my house has nothing to do with the Plaza, just the most direct ROUTE to my house was inacessible. Therefore the fare inflation etc. Also, despite the fact that Cusco is built into a hillside, which I live on top of, cabbies don´t like going up hill. They literally say "oh no thats up the hill" as though cars don´t drive up hill- and as though they don´t treat their cars like crap anyway. Sometimes it really amazes me how difficult people can make things here.

After an uneventful (and unnecessarily circuitous) drive home I got C settled and went back to work. I am SO excited to have a friend here and only have to work tomorrow afternoon while she is here so it all works out well!! We are heading to dinner and drinks (yay C for taking Diamox and not having altitude sickness). She also brought some excellent wings for the Fallen Angel party on Saturday. Woo hoo!!

Now, before I run some very belated Corpus Christi pics and some from Lake Titicaca as well. This whole month has just been building and building in terms of local celebrations (this is Cusco month and the city and REGION are quite large) every day the Plaza is closed for parades, performances, all night raging concerts...you name it, we´ve got it and the hangover to go along with it!! Not to mention in the middle of all this madness there is scaffolding and ladders everywhere as shop and building owners belatedly clean and paint their buildings and hang flags (required by law for the month of June in Cusco!!) Amazing, desperately poor people make up a large population of this country but National and regional pride (and apparently most random of all building cleanliness) take precedent. Well, thats a talk for another time....

So, Corpus Cristi was celebrated last Thursday, announced with night and day long fireworks and a HUGE procession of the saints of each church in Cusco (15 in total) around the Plaza de Armas and into the Cathedral. The whole thing, procession from individual churches, march around the Plaza and into the Cathedral takes (get this) more than 7 hours not including the blessing of the masses beforehand in front of the Cathedral. This is a really local celebration and people come from all over Peru to see it. The Saints themselves are huge and carried on massive pedestals by at least 10 men and boys each and proceeded and followed by huge crowds of the congregants from each church. I ran down for a peek during work and snapped these pics in the midst of a drunken mob (oh yea religious holiday) was offered beer by everyone I passed, saw huge crowds of dancers and more. It was a crazy day and I think every single person in Cusco was hungover the next day...the streets were a mess. I didn´t join in the festivities that night in town but had a small party at my house that night in which we all definiately had our fill and had the appropriate hangover the next day (brutal).

Friday I think passed uneventfully (well, for me) and Saturday was a going away party for a coworker and a massive concert in the Plaza which went on all night. Sunday I left for Puno with friends and a tour group and had an amazing time. The floating reed islands of Uros absolutely blew me away, since the conquistadors came a group of Quechua people (currently less than 2,000) have been living on floating islands (25) made of lake reeds in houses made of reeds, using boats made only of reeds. It was amazing and it was so cool to walk on the reeds! You don´t get wet, they are just very soft and springy and probably about 6 feet thick. When family groups have a fight they can just cut the island in half and go somewhere else with it. Kids never get hurt because falling is soft, they fish for a living and now tourism also plays a large role in their lives but still 70% of inhabitants live there full time (not just by day). We took a ride in a reed boat with a huge cat face that was just awesome. We also went to the island of Teqiule which reminded me a LOT of the greek islands and was just gorgeous, in sight (my first!) of the Cordilla Real of Bolivia. Titicaca is so unimaginabley huge and high its hard to fathom that you aren´t in the middle of an ocean. The height is also hard to imagine (over 11,000 feet) since the mountains are so high around it. But you feel the height all the same (despite being at altitude for two months now) and the headaches set in again, as did my typical hot by day FREEZING at night head cold but thats already gone, thank god. Puno may be the coldest place I have ever been and supposedly living on reed islands in the lake is warmer than being on land but I question this!! Another great perk of my hotel was it had a BATHTUB and thanks to the lake there is no lack of hot water in Puno (unlike Cusco, land of water shortages!). So that was a lovely way to stay warm and a rare treat.