Days 71-77: Peru

There's a story for each photo here and how I wish I had time to tell them all.

What I can say is, I fell head-over-heels in love with the innocence, beauty and wide-eyed wonder of Peruvian children. Amazingly and overwhelmingly in love and utterly covetous. And while my immigration paperwork warned against smuggling fruit and animals back into the U.S., it was surprisingly silent on the subject of popping two or ten cute kids in my backpack and heading for home. Thankfully I was raised better.

Besides, my pockets, suitcase, overhead luggage compartment and every other nook and cranny was bursting at the seams already with items of near equal beauty so there simply wasn't room for such exports.

I must say, it helped upon arriving home to be able to say, "But honey, I could have brought home TEN ridiculously cute Peruvian children instead." Suddenly all else seemed a whole lot more palatable.

Strategic planning. That's what I call that.

Day 70: Peru

La cola de los Peruvians.

Looks like Mountain Dew. Tastes like Cream Soda. I don't like either but am stashing a couple bottles in my suitcase anyway. I'm not sure why. Quite possibly the same reason I want to get my nose pierced- everyone else seems to be doing it.

Day 69: Peru

The Cathedral of Santo Domingo in Cusco. We had a tour guide who told us no end of interesting facts and historical trivia about this beautiful place. I mostly ignored her and took photos of stuff that looked cool to me. Kind of how I approached my entire public school education.

Day 68: Peru

We happily and unexpectedly stumbled upon this scene in an old town square in Lima. One of the most popular traditional dances of Peru, tbe "Marinera" is a stylized reenactment of the courtship of young lovers. Most of the dancing couples were quite a bit older than these two kids...

Day 67: Peru

The alleyways of Cusco...where Peruvian men go to gossip.

Day 66: Peru

Here's a photo about the tamale that never was.

It required all the restraint I could muster to resist buying a tamale from this industrious little woman. Her corner was the popular stop on the town square and received a steady stream of hearty endorsement from the locals. I was slavering to experience firsthand what the fuss was all about.

And, if my traveling companion hadn't on his last visit to Peru brought home his very own resident tapeworm from such a liaison, I may have thrown caution to the Peruvian wind. As it is, he's weaved one too many colorful tales about the fettuccine-like parasite that wound its way onto his fork, into his belly, through airport security, and back home with him to the United States. The rest of the story...is in the toilet.

So I exchanged the short-term pleasure of an authentic Peruvian tamale for ten minutes of admiring a successful business woman manage her roadside restaurant. I took her photo, coveted from afar the meal I would never eat, and gave her a Neuvo Sol for the pleasure of it all.

And hopefully, will arrive home parasite free.

Day 65: Peru

Here's a photo for which I struggle to find words.

Sadly, I've spent more time admiring the quality of this photo than I have wondering about the woman whom it depicts.

But now, I wonder: what's her name? Does she have a family? Is she as sad as she looks, as was she always?

I wonder.

Day 64: Peru

Just before this photo was taken the little boy was happily at play with two boys a few years older than him. Suddenly they darted off down the narrow cobblestone road, leaving him behind in search of new adventure. As quickly as he could, he scrambled to his feet and put his little legs in motion to follow wherever the party was moving. Just as his escape was nearly realized, his mother appeared on the scene and hollared something sternly in Spanish that caused him to immediately plop right back down where he started and look over at me with this defeated expression.

Pobre niño...