Yes, I know the title is clichéd. No, I won’t apologise for it.
Today is a quiet day, we depart for the town of Santa Teresa early tomorrow to begin teaching English. Last night, we decided to eat out, finding a Mexican place. Unfortunately, yesterday’s decisions are today’s problems and the food isn’t sitting too well with me. Live and learn, I suppose.
It got me thinking, though, about the food in Peru. And it is glorious.
Sitting on a balcony in a small bar in Cusco, sipping a cold Cusquena on a hot midday, I have decided that Cusco is, at this moment, my favourite place in Peru.
Firstly, there was Lima, and as I said in a previous post, there is something about that city that denies comfort, it’s a place where I don’t think I could ever happily live. Too much smog, too hectic, it’s a city of eleven million people where everyone is alone. You can feel the souls of these people struggling to be heard amidst the drowning noise of a city that seems to suffocate. From my conversations with Lima natives, it seems the city is expanding and growing quite rapidly in this current era, so I suppose that because of this growth in Lima, people have not had time to adjust, to incorporate and regulate city life in regards to culture and history.
Update: broken link now fixed.
So, a lot of photographs are being taken during this trip so far. Particularly some beautiful ones from Colca Canyon near Arequipa (post to follow soon), and not nearly all of them will be used for the blog, so I dug up my old Instagram account and repurposed it for Strolling Notions.
Any photos that don’t make it to the blog (and there will be plenty) will be found there.
So, the Instagram username is strolling_notions, you can also check it out without a phone here.
Hope you enjoy.
I seem to be spending quite a lot of time writing on buses. At the moment I am sitting on a bus taking me from Lima, the capital city of Peru, to Arequipa, a small town around sixteen hours away. Most of my travel will be done by bus, if only for the simple reason that flying by plane is far too costly. Surprisingly, this bus is somewhat luxurious, large reclining leather, a complementary meal, and even television currently playing Taken 3 (albeit in Spanish).
I have just spent the past four nights in Lima, and to tell the truth, there is something about that city that makes me sad.
Barcelona, a distinctly European city, with touches of French culture, particularly in the architecture of its many grand abodes, with the overarching and unmistakable atmosphere of the Catalan people; a certain sense of uniqueness that never makes itself obvious yet is always present. Maybe in the way a certain word is spoken or a specific gesture serves as a constant reminder that Catalonia is most definitely a country and culture in its own right, despite its political troubles.
Continue reading A Short Ramble on Barcelona and San Feliue de Codine