arequipa the 2nd

so machu picchu was good - great, really. getting there was pretty much just as i said it would be in my blog post, except add a zip line over a river. being there was much better than seeing it in the movies or in postcards.

then, after spending another couple of days in cuzco capitalizing on the hospiality of hospedaje inka, eating papayas, bananas and coffee, we came here to arequipa - for a specific reason.

sure, coming to arequipa is couner-intuitive seeing as how it is south of cuzco and we are, in general, headed north. but, with a little luck and good timing we were able to have a free date today: the day of the bull vs bull fights in a town nearby to arequipa.

we got in yesterday morning from an overnight bus and got to a hostel we had heard of that supposedly had a kitchen. after cooking a lot of healthy food in cuzco, and talking to other travelers over dinner, the idea of a kitchen had become ideal. mind you, we had stayed in a nice hotel in arequipa last time we were here. there was direct-tv, but no kitchen. so, being good travelers, we shunned the cable and opted for the socializing. however, upon entering the hostal, we found that they charged 2 soles for the use of their kitchen. you see, there was also a restaurant run out of the lobby. also, the kitchen as dirty and arequipa is full of good restaurants. so the kitchen idea was quickly put to rest. but it was early and after a night bus, so we decided to stay so we could get some immidiate rest. though, after we agreed to stay and put our bags down, i took a walk to the roof to see what looked from the outside like a nice rooftop lounge. instead, to my horror, what i found were decrepit chairs and dirty laundry hanging everywhere from lines so that you couldnt really walk upright and wouldnt want to sit down. fine, i thought. then i went back downstairs to sleep.

upon waking up and figuring out a place to go, anna and i were set to leave, but anna had to use the bathroom. in the bathroom, anna found no toilet paper, and so, understandably, asked the hotel lady if she could replace the toilet paper. however, to our double horror, the hotel lady stated that the hotel does not provide toilet paper. guests are expected to bring their own toilet paper with them. luckily, like a cub scout, anna is prepared and does carry toilet paper around, but still - who has ever heard of such an abomination? so, after telling the lady that it is a dirty, shameful policy, i suggested hat she put a sign up near the bathrooms informing guests of their obligation before commiting themselves to the point of no return. to my flurry of complaints, she only replied that 'its the bosses rules'.

when leaving today, already furious with the hotel for being the way it is, we still decided to entrust them with the holding of our bags for the day. every hotel weve been to offers this service, and it is nice to not have to carry your bags around all day without a room to put them in. this hotel charged a $.50 fee for this service. unacceptable. and sticking to our priciples (in this case that we disliked the hotel), anna and i decided to entrust the bus company with our bags during the day. they charged a 2 sol fee, but it is expecd from them. anyway, it was nice to get out of the sheister hotel. the name is la reyna, dont stay there. my last bit of revenge was handing them a 100 sol bill for them to change when checking out. this is a fate worse than death in peru (ensuring a reaction akin to the ecuadorian 20 face).

besides, being at the bus station left us in better position to get to la joya, where the bull vs bull fights were to take place. we took a bus about an hour out of town into the desert to get dropped off somewhere at the side of the road, and then wound up getting in someones car who was headed to la joya. was it a cab? i dont know.
the man let us off at the local stadium (you see, we arrived early to get our tickets: good thinking...) sometime near 12 midday when the sun was at its desert strongest. the stadium was about 1 sol away from the center of town according to the cab driver, but fortunately for us, that was only about a 10 minute walk. after we bought the tickets, we undertook this walk along the train tracks and it was actually a bit more strenuous than it would have seemed if only for the heat and the fact that a dog ran out at us at one point, bearing its teeth. this would have been but a silly episode if not for the unfortunate memory of a certain incident last summer ivolving the combination of a dog and my lack of bravery - an event that weighs heavily on annas mind whenever a similar situation arises. and frankly, the memory shakes her to her core for a number of hours. our solution this time was to be vigilant, and to walk with rocks in our hands.

at any rate, we then decended upon lunch, a fanciful feast of soup and then a piece of meat. unfortunately, my love of strange foods has not yet extended to the eating of brains, though i do hear that it is tasty, or else that would have been the soup of the day. however, we opted for the other option, soup containing a piece of meat that needed about 56 chews to break down into swallowable portions. the highlight of lunch being, of course, when a man came by with an oral device that allowed him to make the noise of any animal he wished. he wished for cat this particular time and also carried around a plastic bag with a fake cat tail hanging out, and in his other hand, a club of some sort. he proceded to stand outside of the restaurant pounding the plastic bag with the club while making rather convincing dying-cat noises. one family bought the oral device for their amused 2 year old.

then we made our way back to the stadium. we were the first people in the stadium and so took seats in the shaded part. by the time anyone else showed up, we had had to move because the shaded part had become the sunny part. a couple of the bulls had been paraded around for no apparent reason and had a rope tied around their horns and head - the other end of the rope tied to a stake in the ground to keep them from going anywhere - and kept standing in the sun for quite some time. this was a good time for me to go up and take a picture, although i didnt really get any great ones because each time they actually looked at me, i flinched. they were a bit agitated and stamped their feet and swung their heads around, snorted from their noses and hollered. also, they really are quite big. i mean, they were taller than me and about 2000 pounds of muscle. i got a a few pictures, mostly of their sides and asses, and looked forward to seeing them fight.

im not a huge fan of the idea of the spanish bullfight. i guess its supposed to be a spectacle rather than a sporting event, fine, but the bull is at such a disadvantage that i cant really see how it isnt just a massacre. the rodeo seems like lots of fun and the bull lives afterwards. and this peruvian bullfight, though all the people of la joya showed up in their favorite cowboy hats and bootlegged wrangler jeans (i dont mean bootleg in the physical sense), seemed to show a certain respect for the wishes and individuality of the bulls: the bulls would be released from either side of the field, sometimes being coaxed along by their trainer, and sometimes charging towards the other bull. in either case, in every situation, the bulls stopped when they met each other and stood still for some time. in the most exciting of cases, they then commenced to butt heads and lock horns and push each other around a bit. the bull who pushed the other bull around the most was deemed the winner. this would take, usually, around 20 seconds to happen. in the more boring circumstances, the bulls would become quick friends and smell each others butts and commence eating grass together. the trainers would allow their bulls to go on like this for some 5 or even 10 minutes before calling a draw and leading the bull off of the field. in this case, the bull always acted scary - bucking, snorting and mooing as it was led off the field. as the people became more drunk, they had a bit less tolerance for these non-fights, but were generally accepting of the bulls preference for passificism. of the scheduled 14 fights of the day, we stayed for about 6.

so, you ask, why were you there for 5 hours? well, between each fight, or non-fight, or bull-social-club-meeting-in-the-middle-of -the-field, it became evident that the whole event was really an advertisement for arequipeña, the local beer - and the beneficiary of a t-shirt purchase by anna. a man with control over a microphone, cd player, and absurdly loud speakers that could be heard from all over la joya, routinely began speaking of the virtues of their local beer, playing songs that sounded scratchy, as though they were the first songs ever recorded, but were about the local beer, and then making noises as though he had just been refreshed by the local beer, ie. 'aaahhhhhhh' (remember, we were sitting out in the desert sun). these interludes lasted 30 minutes each and never failed to also advertise the deep fried guinea pigs that were for sale at the food area. anna and i took a walk over to that area at one point and saw that it consisted of a large pot filled with oil and guinea pigs, some tables where people were eating the guinea pigs, and a clothesline over which 50 skinned, yet to be deep fried guinea pigs were draped. fortunately for the bulls, this was the most gore we encountered that day. we didnt eat any because they were too expensive.