in the early hours

A Thursday, a going-to-school day, I decided to go out and walk to Urubamba to catch the bus taking me to Lamay.

 I had to leave early, the bus leaves Urubamba at 6:10, and it is a half an hour walk. It is very dark at 5:30, but every minute after that it just gets lighter and lighter. Here you see the mountains starting to light up...

These two pictures really almost exactly the same, I just really like the way the sun starts lighting up everything.

                                              The road I had to follow- leading to Urubamba. 
        In this picture here it looks like there are many lights lightning up the street- there are no.

The same road in the opposite direction- continue straight straight, well, you can't really go straight up because there are very steep mountain- which you have to cross. The whiteness at the top of the mountain is at this early hour clouds, but in the day time, this mountain called Puerto de Malaga is visible, and is filled with snow all year round. If you continue on this road, going up up up and, exatly on the other side of Puerto de Malaga is where the jungle starts. And if you continue on and on you will finally reach Brazil- but that is a trip of more than 20 hours by car.

The same road about 20 minutes later.

What the houses look like. There are many little shops- like this one- all over the place, also in Chumpi Poques. They sell different things, soap, oil, bear- like here in the picture. They sell both more 'modern' things such as cookies in plastic packages, chewing gum and chocolate, and Peruvian things such as this thing you eat, the word starts with 'ch' but i forgot the name. It is kind of like popcorn- only tastier-always come in sweet forms and its form is elongated. To tell you the truth, I am not sure how they make it but they do not pop it. But it is dry like popcorn...
They also sell chicha, a Peruvian 'campesino' farmer's drink, which you will be difficult to find in the touristic places. There are more than 20 different kinds of chicha made out of quinoa, corn, apples and different plants. Each one has a different colour- all natural- pink, white, yellow. Some contain alcohol- the fermented ones. They sell chicha in these HUGE one litter or 800 ml glasses, and people drink one, two (and go on) six, seven glasses while sitting with the friends chatting. They can do this the whole day. Builders, building houses, will not come to work without knowing that they have a big plastic bottle so that in their break they can go get chicha. It is very cheap- a 4 litter bottle costs not more than 2.5 soles, which is like 70 cents of the euro. Children as young as 3 years old have these huge glasses. They get one once they can hold it, sitting down, laying it on their laps. They drink it like water. I do not like it. It has a very sour taste and has absolutely no taste of the product it was made out of.
In these shops they also sell the coca leaves, in small plastic bags. Farmers take about half a hand full of leave and chew it all day. They chew it in one side of their mouth, making it into a ball. This gives them energy, sufficient for climbing high mountain and working all day in the sun.

                                              Chicon.