Holidays in Cuzco

Ok so i'll admit it- I'm a terrible blogger.  I just can't seem to find the time to update this thing.  It's March, and finally I am getting around to publishing the Christmas Blog.  Whoops!  Well, just so you all know, I am busy having a great time in Cuzco and teaching a lot when I am not blogging- which is most of the time.  Here you can see how I spent my Christmas in Cuzco.  It was so strange to not see my family on Christmas, although in fact we did open presents via Skype, so I got to see all their pale winter faces on the computer screen.  It was a pretty rainy Christmas here in Cuzco, but fortunately I have found some great friends here and so wasn't alone on Christmas.

The Christmas Market in the Plaza del Armas in Cuzco, where everyone does their last minute shopping and finds decorations for their "Nascimiento"or nativity displays.  Everything was perfectly troll sized (or baby Jesus sized, as the Peruvians would probably prefer I mentioned)

Troll playing Jesus in the cresce... terribly sacriligious, I know

Where's Troll?

Playing Jacks on the sidewalk

Next Year's Christmas Card?  They got quite a kick out of me and Troll

Photography in San Blas with Selena

Christmas Day dinner party at the "Frat House"

An impressive Christmas day spread, potluck style.  I made the quinoa salad.

Many campesinos, or people from the countryside, come into Cuzco around Christmas time, both to sell goods and to find a little charity from which they can celebrate their Christmas.  There were many more ragged children than usual running the streets, and one can only hope they were able to receive a few gifts and have a nice meal for Christmas. Peruvians generally celebrate the holiday on Christmas Eve, as midnight, when they have champagne and Paneton and chocolate.  Paneton is somewhat like a big fluffy fruitcake.  I tried a little bit after Christmas, and it wasn't so bad really.  The grocery store actually cleared out an entire aisle to stock the shelves with the huge Paneton boxes.  These are not usually homemade, but come from a box, which comes from a factory, probably somewhere near Lima.  In addition to eating Paneton at midnight, just about everyone in Cuzco sets of fireworks.  I went to a mulled wine party at what we call the Ice House in San Blas.  The house is very cold due to most of its walls being windows, but it made for great viewing of the fireworks, which went off all over Cuzco at midnight and continued to well near 1 AM.  It was certainly the most spectacular fireworks display I have seen on Christmas Eve, and never before have I seen fireworks going off in every direction.  Clearly fireworks aren't very well regulated here!  In fact, on New Years Eve, when there were even more fireworks going off, my Irish friend Selena got hit by one in the food!  Dangerous!

  I was extremely glad to have some nice homecooked food on Christmas- many of the teachers are really quite talented in the kitchen, so we had plenty to eat for our Christmas day meal.

A typical street vendor in San Blas