Criollo and Taking it Slow (Arequipa, Peru)

Hey Folks! Happy Thanksgiving to you all! And a very special Happy Birthday to my Dad! Even if he does say that my entries are, and I quote, 'short, pithy and personal - and I believe intended for sharing' . Of couse They're for sharing! Come one, come all, and please write me comments if anything comes to mind!

My turkey day was spent 'sin pavo', but after much search I managed to find a killer mashed potatoes and rotiserrie chicken place, 'Pollo Real'to share a meal with my fellow American that's at my hostel, the salsa dancing Rebekah.

So you're still in Arequipa? What could you have possibly been doing for the past week?
Good question, I say. I think I've managed to settle in here a bit, found a nice hostel with a room that opens to a veiw of the city, and also, strangely enough, has a voyeuristic veiw down into the monestary right next to it. Well, with my daypack stolen while I was writing my last BOD entry, (I had it under my chair! Foolish!), I've had a lot of fun exploring the local economy for a replacement USB cable and charger for my camera. The interesting thing about latin america is that you can have 50 stores on the same block selling the EXACT same thing. I'm not quite sure how they manage to make an buisiness but I guess some things are just better left unknown. I found what I needed, as is evidenced by the new photo uploads.

So what have I been doing? Guitar lessons of course! I've been taking lessons from a good local player, the peruvian version of me (23 yrs old, playing for 8 years), in the emotional and clasically-flamencoy styled music known as musica Criolla. Check out Raul Garcia Zarate for a taste of the music. So I've pretty much found myself playing guitar 5 hours a day, shopping around in morning, and going out at night to either a local peruvian bar or a salsoteca.
Three Interesting things about Arequipeños:

1) In a bar, they all drink out of the same cup, taking turns in a sort of social, peer pressure kind of venue. They pour a little beer into a cup, down it like a shot, and then pour the runoff into another cup. Mmm... hygenic.

2) They, by comparison, don't really dance, and they definately don't dance salsa. From what I've seen, they prefer to sit around and drink, rather than get up and shake those hips. Which leads me to last night, where I went to Salsateca Munay's and found myself in the extremely rare situation of being one of the better salsa dancers in the club. Scary... but at the same time, very endearing, and makes feel very comfortable and at home.

3) Regarding social interaction, what I've now found on several situations, and from the mouths of Arequipeños, is that while everyone is sitting around, they're in little circles of friends. Guys are always seperate from girls, and if a guy wants to go talk to a girl, he can't just walk over and say 'Hey, how you doing', even if he is pretty hot stuff, he will be immeadiately shunned. People only talk to people who they have contact with, so you always have to be a friend, or a friend of a friend to bridge the gap between the different friend circles. Needless to say, this puts the foriegner in a strange position, something that a friend of mine at the salsateca last night, (from the north of Peru), found very frustrating and crazy. It seems to me though that its just being very safe, and I can understand it from that perspective.

Anyhoo, tomorrow I go trekking in the second largest canyon in the world (colca) and looking for Condors. I'll be out there for three days and then hopefully I will be going back up to Cuzco for a much recommended Jungle tour (Thanks Gabriel and Ilan!)

Ok, so Ciao for now!