A Sunday in Chilca

So yesterday my parents and I headed about 70 km south of Lima to a town called Chilca. We went to the beach for a while in the morning. It was a bit breezy and super foggy when we got there so we just relaxed for most of the morning. I read some and took a little nap. We also got ice cream. YUM! Then we headed back into town and had lunch. We ordered arroz con pollo but they had run out of pollo (chicken) so we ended up with pato (duck) instead. It didn't taste very different from chicken, but I still wasn't a huge fan. Our waiter was a little 13 year-old boy named Facundo. He was nice, but I felt bad for him. The people in the restaurant were so demanding. Including my mom Ruth, she can be quite feisty. I guess because I work in a restaurant and have to deal with customers I tend to sympathize easily. Its hard work dealing with demanding customers who are picky and sometimes rude. And little Facundo was the only one serving. I totally understand that the customer should be satisfied, but I always appreciate it when someone is polite with me. It always turns me off when I see someone being rude to their server and treating them like less of a person. But anyways...I'm getting off track.

After lunch my mother and I went across the street to one of the mineral baths. It was like a huge pool of warm water. This particular one was high in sulfur so the water was green, like wicked green. It wasn't very deep, maybe like up to my hip at the deepest part. The water is also really dense so you float very easily. What you are supposed to do is rub the mud all over your body and its supposed to have medicinal powers and be good for the skin. So my host mom and I put some on our faces. It didn't smell good at all. But anyways, it was an experience.

Backing tracking a bit to Saturday, Amelia came over and spent most of the day with my family. We went to the market on a search for yeast and we found some! We even had a choice, fresh yeast or dry yeast. I had never heard of fresh yeast, so we went with dry. My mom even bought us some snacks to try. Some maní confitado (sugary coated peanuts) and some palitos de yuca (little white packing peanut-looking things made from yuca, they taste like packing peanuts as well). Then we did a few other errands with my parents and came home to have lunch. After lunch we made PRETZELS. We even had the help of Camila, the 3 1/2 year-old daughter of the empeada (maid). They turned out pretty good, not quite as tasty as when I make them at home, but not bad for not having actual measuring spoons, just regular spoons so we estimated quite a bit.

Started another week of school today. Mondays are hard because I have a four hour break between classes and I don't really have much to do. But Amelia and I kept busy and had a good chat with Marion. Then we got our new government issued carnets (ID cards) that give us a discount on the micros. I'm wicked excited.