So you may be wondering just what exactly I mean by the title of this post. This is in, if my memory serves me correctly, the words I read on the side of a taxi here in Arequipa. One thing about the ' white city ' is that most of the big cab companies all use the same model of car, which are these little boxy hatchbacks probably made by Daewoo. But the funny thing is that ' taxistas', or cab drivers, like to put a bunch of after-market stuff on their taxis to make them look like street racing cars. Even if the words aren't exactly correct. The title of this post is a case in point. More cabby awesomeness can be found in these sort of crappy photos I took.
Notice the mini-spoiler and blue running light. There were more under the car.
Look cosely and you can see the hood scoop and racing stripes. Is that a roof scoop as well!?
Also funny is this guy, who I assume is always drunk, who dresses up like a green Santa Claus and stands in the middle of the street every night right outside my hostel and yells at the cars in an attempt to sell chewing gum.
So last post I talked about how I had all these thoughts my first day in Arequipa, but the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. That night I met my friend Alexa from Couch Surfing and through her I also met my friends Carlita and Aaron. Aaron is a fellow traveler from Spain while the two girls are both from Arequipa. We went to dinner and then had drinks and played pool on the hardest table I've ever seen. I think one game took 2 hours that's how tight the bumpers were and how bad we were collectively. Alexa is super cool and very nice and willing to help me with my Spanish but she has been pretty busy lately. Carlita is really cool and she has shown me lots of local places where young people go, as well as teaching me Arequipeñean etiquette. For example, the guy, boy friend or not, always walks on the street-side of the girl when on the sidewalk. I assume this is so that the guy can be used as a human shield should someone decide to run off the road. Obviously the minute a runaway car hit the guy it would stop and not even remotely hurt the girl. Makes sense. She and I also went over to a friend's hostel and cooked a traditional Arequipeñean dish called causa rellena.
The dish is like a cake made of a potatoe paste and stuffed with avocado and tuna, but you can do it with chicken. It was delicious, especially with homemade sangria.
All of last week and some of this one, I hung out with Aaron every day, which was great because my Spanish speaking skills got way better since all we spoke was Spanish the whole time. One crazy thing we also experienced together was this huge protest last week. So I'm finishing up school last wednesday (I'll talk way more about school in a bit) and my students, who are all young adults say they aren't going to be able to come the next day because all of the roads will be closed due to a city-wide protest and strike over the price Peruvians have to pay for oil. Even their regular school was cancelled. At the volunteer meeting that night the woman in charge of the program, Brenda (who is really cool), said this had happened before and that nothing would come of it, that we would probably still be able to go have school the next day. In this case, she was wrong. The protests were huge.
Aaron and I were in the plaza getting our mobile phones recharged (my phone from the states was stolen even after I bought a Peruvian phone to keep my US phone safe) when the bulk of the protests started. The store we were in immediately closed half of it's roll down door. After we left they closed the other half. The whole three hours over which the protests continued there was the sense that at any moment things could go really south. Aaron is an aspiring photo journalist and we went out and took photos pretty much the whole time. Many of the groups protesting were very leftist, communist or socialist. Che Gueverra flags and banners were everywhere. Leftist extremism, as much as it decimated many parts of the country two decades ago, is not dead. But that seems to be the South American way to a certain extent. Situations of extreme poverty and injustice illicit extreme reactions. They all have so much passion it makes American politics seem docile (in a good way). AS I've said before it's unclear how effective these protests are as political tools but they are hardcore. I watched at least four mock ups of the Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, be burned in effigy and the ashes stamped on. As I understand it the reason for this protest/strike is that Chileans can literally buy gas in Chile (some of the gas comes from Peru) and sell it to Peruvians for less than what they pay at the pump. That seems ridiculous if it's true but I don't know the whole story. And the reason for this strike is chump change compared to ther things the country has been through. Here are some of my favorite pics that I took:
So here's the deal. I have to go teach english now. I am going to post this because I won't get to post again until Monday. Obviously I have way more to say and show about Arequipa. It will have to wait until then, but by then I will also have gone to Colca Canyon. So much to talk about!! Hope you can hang on until then.
So last post I talked about how I had all these thoughts my first day in Arequipa, but the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. That night I met my friend Alexa from Couch Surfing and through her I also met my friends Carlita and Aaron. Aaron is a fellow traveler from Spain while the two girls are both from Arequipa. We went to dinner and then had drinks and played pool on the hardest table I've ever seen. I think one game took 2 hours that's how tight the bumpers were and how bad we were collectively. Alexa is super cool and very nice and willing to help me with my Spanish but she has been pretty busy lately. Carlita is really cool and she has shown me lots of local places where young people go, as well as teaching me Arequipeñean etiquette. For example, the guy, boy friend or not, always walks on the street-side of the girl when on the sidewalk. I assume this is so that the guy can be used as a human shield should someone decide to run off the road. Obviously the minute a runaway car hit the guy it would stop and not even remotely hurt the girl. Makes sense. She and I also went over to a friend's hostel and cooked a traditional Arequipeñean dish called causa rellena.
Check it out, Carla is the one the far right. The other two people I just met that day.
All of last week and some of this one, I hung out with Aaron every day, which was great because my Spanish speaking skills got way better since all we spoke was Spanish the whole time. One crazy thing we also experienced together was this huge protest last week. So I'm finishing up school last wednesday (I'll talk way more about school in a bit) and my students, who are all young adults say they aren't going to be able to come the next day because all of the roads will be closed due to a city-wide protest and strike over the price Peruvians have to pay for oil. Even their regular school was cancelled. At the volunteer meeting that night the woman in charge of the program, Brenda (who is really cool), said this had happened before and that nothing would come of it, that we would probably still be able to go have school the next day. In this case, she was wrong. The protests were huge.
This was the first thing I saw when I left the hostel Thursday morning.
Aaron and I were in the plaza getting our mobile phones recharged (my phone from the states was stolen even after I bought a Peruvian phone to keep my US phone safe) when the bulk of the protests started. The store we were in immediately closed half of it's roll down door. After we left they closed the other half. The whole three hours over which the protests continued there was the sense that at any moment things could go really south. Aaron is an aspiring photo journalist and we went out and took photos pretty much the whole time. Many of the groups protesting were very leftist, communist or socialist. Che Gueverra flags and banners were everywhere. Leftist extremism, as much as it decimated many parts of the country two decades ago, is not dead. But that seems to be the South American way to a certain extent. Situations of extreme poverty and injustice illicit extreme reactions. They all have so much passion it makes American politics seem docile (in a good way). AS I've said before it's unclear how effective these protests are as political tools but they are hardcore. I watched at least four mock ups of the Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, be burned in effigy and the ashes stamped on. As I understand it the reason for this protest/strike is that Chileans can literally buy gas in Chile (some of the gas comes from Peru) and sell it to Peruvians for less than what they pay at the pump. That seems ridiculous if it's true but I don't know the whole story. And the reason for this strike is chump change compared to ther things the country has been through. Here are some of my favorite pics that I took:
So here's the deal. I have to go teach english now. I am going to post this because I won't get to post again until Monday. Obviously I have way more to say and show about Arequipa. It will have to wait until then, but by then I will also have gone to Colca Canyon. So much to talk about!! Hope you can hang on until then.
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