como se dice

Ahoy,

Como se dice, sunburn? Frito del sol? We spent yesterday walking around town and seeing museums. We went to the museo inka, machupicchu museo, cafe museo, y choco museo. We learned lots of interesting things that gave us more context for Machu Picchu and the culture and history. We usually don't have so much time in a city to see all these things. It's not a bad luxury. We stumbled across the San Pedro market and gawked at the food that locals were eating. We wandered around the street markets that were selling meats, seafood, fruits and veggies, everything. It was very obvious we were out of place, but A and I think it was one of the highlights. It's just really fun to be wandering amongst non-tourists, and non-tourist establishments.

I inadvertently planned this trip over Valentine's Day, and so we did a little research to discover that Valentine's Day is a national holiday to celebrate not jiust your sweetheart but just any one that is important to you. And this year it also fell on the last day of carnaval, wherein people pelt each other with water balloons and canned foam. Good thing I looked this up so we knew to expect this. There were folks walking around with water guns, bags of water balloons, so much canned foam. We walked across a lot of war zones and found ourselves the primary targets on emptier streets. It was uncertain whether going through busy plazas with a lot of other targets or going down less busy streets would keep us drier. Today was a great day to experience a Peruvian tradition. We weren't expecting this, but definitely a pleasant surprise. I got targeted more than A, I'm pretty sure, but no harm done. Everyone was in good spirits and just having a good time. You can't really be cranky about it.

We also decided to take a cooking class at the last minute. No one else had that idea apparently because we got to have a private class. I'm incredibly pleased with our experience because it was great to have someone to ask questions and talk to about the culture and local customs. Our chef was a fantastic resource for cooking things and Peru things.

I got pretty red on my shoulders today despite sunblocking. It's summer here and it's supposed to be rainy, but we haven't seen much rain, a whole lot of sun.

cosmically toasted,
jt