Holidays are wonderful things

Good afternoon to one and all, we have got through Christmas and are now on holidays until the New Year, which is excellent, however I should let you know how we got on at the Xmas fair. 

Santuranticuy is the artisan fair that is held every 24th of December in the main square of Cusco. We had our stand in Portal de Panes with our nice little green tent and our white regulation plastic on the roof. 

After a very early departure from the house at 5 am we got to the square, grabbed a couple of guys on their way home from the disco to assist us across the Plaza with our wares. We got set up and the first shift started at 7am, I was on that one. We did very well in the morning selling baskets and in the afternoon we managed to sell a lot of soap with the Ruda soap and choco chapstick being very popular. 

When I was off in the afternoon I spent a while wandering around the market but didn’t see much in the way of new stuff. 

We finally closed up shop at 7pm and headed home to pack and get ready to hit our friend house in Maras. This involved running down to the ridiculously busy super market and getting in a bus for the 90 min journey, fortunately he collected us from the road as we would have then had a 40 min walk in the dark. 

We arrived about 11pm just in time for some turkey and a glass of wine before bed. The following day we got up for breakfast of turkey, bacon, eggs, paneton and hot chocolate, with our friends god child, sister and parents, then as it was such a rainy day we went for a nap until later afternoon and then turkey soup before a different version of the Wizard of Oz, I enjoyed it, an early night and a late morning before we headed back over the hill to Cusco to do a little work pre New Year, get the house clean and tidy etc. 

Probably will not be blogging again until after the New Year so we at Tika Soap and Tika Trek would love to wish you all a very happy Hogmanay and a prosperous New Year.

www.tikatrek.com  www.tikasoapperu.com  

Its nearlyChristmas

Its raining today, seems we are entering into the rainy season, hope it is not too bad on the 24th when we are at the Christmas market. Fortunately we are now the proud owners of a tent to keep the rain off us.
Expect to see all sorts of gifts available in the market from models of the baby jesus for nativity scenes, lots of religious artefacts, candles, textiles and lots of different types of herbs and mosses that are brought down from the mountains to make the stable more life like.
In addition you can buy miature cars, houses, money, bank bonds and anything that you want in real life, these are meant to simbolise your intent.
Prior to that we have a traditional chocolatada which is were we will be heading off to a community to give gifts, paneton and of course hot chocolate which is a real part of the Christmas tradition here.
Here in Peru the ceñlebration of Christmas is normally at midnight on the 24th, people have hot chocolate and wafer biscuits and in some cases will have their turkey at this time.
We personally will be working on the 24th from 5am to about 7pm, we will take it in shifts, but honestly its always a fun day.
Think thats all, have a wonderful day.

Is it nearly Christmas?

So its been nearly 2 weeks since our last blog, its been a busy time with both ups and downs. It started with mass for our dear friend Miguel for his passing away. The mass was held in the beautiful church of La Recoleta and a few of us went out afterwards to just chat and talk.
This ended up with me meeting a lovely couple from Oz who were having difficulty in finding things to do in Cusco so this time we may be talking a little more about the agency side of things. Anyway we sent these nice people off to the valley of Lares to do some trekking visit Machu Picchu, go mountain biking, rafting and then on for 5 days in the jungle, excellent. They are having a lot of fun and have not even made it to one of my favourite lodges yet, tomorrow off they go.
Now what does this mean for me, well for the biking means making packed lunches, good job my orange cake is a winner. On the trekking means I have to find guide, cook, horses and transport fortunately it all worked out. On Machu Picchu invloves running about getting a guide, train tickets, hotel and entrance tickets, fortunately I got them tickets up to Huayna Picchu which is great as only 400 people a day can do that. For the jungle its organising their lodge trip, getting air tickets and printing off boarding passes. All done excellent. Today I can leave them at their hotel so they can take off tomorrow to Tambopata.
In addition we also went off to our friend Jeff.s house up in the hills near Maras, we always take the bus and get dropped off about 2 kms from his house where we trek round the fields. On arrival his lovely cook Gloria always has something yummy to eat and I always to dinner, so we had pizza for 6.
His house is looking great. the wall is nearly finished and the only thing that seems to be missing is hot water, well that and actual water, he collects lots of rain water and in the dry season has to get it trucked in. Had a wonderful nights sleep and we were back in Cusco for 10am the next morning. Unfortunately it took longer to actually get home as all the University students were protesting about the price of combi (bus) tickets going up, so basically most of the roads were shut and we had to go round and round to get home, with a slightly irate taxi driver.
Well I think that all for today, remember you can find us on www.tikatrek.com and www.tikasoapperu.com