Many greetings from behind a rather crummy keyboard somewhere in 
the Peruvian highlands of the Andes! For those of you whom I haven't
spoken or written in a while, here's the story so far:

For reasons I shall explain later I currently find myself at an
altitude of 3.4 km in the colonial city and former Inca-capital 
of Q'osqo, better known to map-makers around the world as Cusco.

The first thing one notices about South America is that
there really is *a lot* of it! On the way in on the plane you
see nothing but endless stretches of jungle for about three hours,
and that's traveling at an average speed of 850 km/h so go figure...

The second thing one notices about South America is that in some 
respects it is very similar to Asia, although it is of course 
completely different. I especially like the distinct abscence of 
rotting carcases along the side of the road, which makes a nice 
change to the public wastedump that was Sri Lanka three years ago.

Also, being at high altitude the number of small insects and other
dangerous and/or annoying animals is quite limited, which is 
great. The one thing that bothers me though is that I have now
been in Peru for nearly four weeks and I *still* haven't managed to
photograph a llama! This is of course somewhat worrying.

Luckily there is an abundance of other drooling creatures, like 
Achilles, the slightly deranged dog of my host-family. The reason
I live with a local family is that I am trying to learn Spanish.
Now Spanish is not a difficult language to learn, but unfortunately
I suffer form a near-complete disability to memorize new words,
which meant that in the first week my vocabulary was somewhat limited
to things like 'fork', 'spoon' and 'strawberry-yoghurt'.
(Interestingly enough the Spanish word for 'spoon' is nearly
identical to the Japansese word for 'Godzilla', a fascinating fact
which does of course facilitate me memorizing this particular noun.)

Another interesting fact is that here in Peru they use the same
word for both potatoes and The Pope. In such a Catholic area this
can hardly be a coincidence, and indeed, they do truly use potatoes
in *every* part of their meal. One day we had a dinner consisting of
traditional potato-soup, followed by boiled potatoes with rice and
fried potatoes, and for dessert of course a bowl of sweet potatoes.
Now this is all very well and I am sure that potatoes are very 
nutritional, but personally I can't stand the damned things!
Luckily there is always a bottle of 'Inca-Cola' nearby to wash 
things down, a truly fascinating iridescent beverage that looks
somewhat like urine but is significantly more sticky.

Yet another of Peru's more interesting culinary experiences is
'Cuy', or roast-Guinea-Pig-on-a-stick. This is indeed the same
animal that serves as a popular pet in most of the western world, 
but slightly flatter, well done, looking somewhat surprised and 
with a stick inserted into its back end and out the front. 
A truly bizarre sight, and apparently quite difficult to digest...

Spanish class is nearly finished for me, just one more day to
go. It's actually going a lot better that the first week,
I'm beyond the strawberry yoghurt, though still having some 
trouble with the vocabulary and the many past tenses.
Starting Sunday I'm going to travel for three weeks with a
friend from University, after which we should in theory end 
up in Ecuador for voluntary work.

We've already visited the major sites around Cusco, some truly
impressive Inca-ruines, meticulously built from huge blocks of
very hard rock (I don't mean the type of music but things like 
Andesite, Granite and Basalt - not exactly easy material to cut 
into shapes!), some weighing more than 50 metric tonnes. 
These Inca's were strange lads, building a huge empire more than 
half the size of Europe, without horses or ever having invented 
the wheel, and moving huge blocks of stone across rivers by 
simply leaving them at the waterside and then diverting the 
entire river.

After seeing some of the defensive structures I'm quite surprised
that the Inca's were beaten by a handfull of Spanish mercenaries
some 400 years ago. Cusco today is a former colonial (and highly
touristic) city with churches everywhere. It is certainly interesting
to see paintings of Jesus being crucified by Spanish soldiers,
or the main dish of the Final Supper featuring roast Guinea-pig 
with potatoes. These scenes were painted by local artists some 
200-300 years ago, and most of them had never been to Europe, 
let alone seen European food or a Roman soldier. 

The last week Cusco has been the scene of many strikes and protests,
including a strike of public transport and taxis, and today
complemented by a visit of the presidents of 15 South American 
countries. All this means that it is now virtually impossible to
go anywhere, because even if you would manage to find transport
most of the city-center is now off-limits and secured by about 
3000 soldiers, policemen and serious looking men in black suits.
This leaves me sitting in an Internet-cafe for want of something 
better to do, and pondering where to get my next dish of potatoes.

And with this I will leave you. I will get back to you all in a 
week of three, hopefully from the slightly warmer lower-jungle-regions
of Ecuador, with more tales about Cuy and a llama-picture.

Regards!
Levien