Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas, my leg is on fire

Ho ho ho! Sort of. Due to the warmish weather and general total-differentness of Christmas season in Peru, I repeatedly forgot about Christmas this year. But there it was, and I enjoyed it!

They typically celebrate la noche buena (Christmas Eve) much more than the 25th, so I decided when in Rome.. I accepted a dinner invitation last night to go out with my 12 Argentines who I´d met on the Inca Trail, plus 5 more of their friends, plus the other honeymooning Argentine couple I met while stranded in Aguas Calientes after finishing the Inca Trail. So yes, I was out with 19 Argentines, making me the crazy gringa rounding things out to 20 people. We went to a nice place right on the Plaza de Armas in downtown Cusco and I ordered a traditional feast, which involved coca sours (pisco sours with coca), champagne, a stuffed turkey dish, and a quinoa dessert... all was delicious, albeit slightly strange (note: quinoa doesn´t make very good dessert, just sayin´).

At midnight we headed out into the plaza to check the fireworks, and I swear I have never seen anything like it. It´s like the 4th of July on crack. There were so many fireworks exploding at once all around the city that it sounded like a war was going on, and the sky was filled with explosions and smoke. Also there had been an artisan fair in the plaza all day long, and vendors had left trash around, so kids were going around setting piles of trash on fire, so it really looked like a war zone And just to make things extra exciting, the local hooligans thought it was hilarious to not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES throw their fireworks directly at us after setting them on fire, and so they kept exploding at our feet and we´d have to run away as they went off!!! Kind of scary... but also funny in retrospect! I´m just glad my leg didn´t get blown off, so yay for that.



Tonight I´m overnighting back to Arequipa, and will arrive tomorrow morning at Kieran´s once again. The plan is to make a huge Christmas feast and drink beer. The perfect December 26th. Merry xmas to all!

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