Trout farm and Festival de Torrechayoc

 After a few days off from the blog scene, I'm back and coming in hot.  The end of the work week went well, as our environmental education group finalized plans for a field trip for our students to show them around the farm and greenhouse where we work. On Friday,  rather than working in the greenhouse with Ameriko, we hopped in the trailer on his moto and rode up the bumpy paths through the mountains to check out the Pumawanca trout farm.

Pumawanca Trout Farm. The tanks, each holding hundreds of trout, are in the bottom right.

Close up of a tank of medium-sized trout.

 The guys who run the trout farm sell their fish to local restaurants day in and day out, and the average trout is about 18 inches long and costs 15 soles per kilo (6 USD).  These guys must roll in the dough, and based on watching them clean and gut the fish in a matter of seconds, they've been doing it for a while.

After checking out all of the tanks and the different sized fish swarming around in the cold, fresh water, we snagged a handful of grown trout out of a tank and prepared them to cook over an outdoor fire.

Studly turkey hanging out on the farm.

We had these guys cooking in no time after pulling them out of the water.

Boiling up some potatoes to eat with our trout.

Frying up the trout over the fire.

We hung out by the stone aquaculture tanks and ate our fish around the fire. It was a great morning and a delicious break from the usual manual labor on the farm.

Friday night, we hung out in the Plaza de Armas with my wild uncle, Andres, and a few of his friends.  One of them happened to be a Peruvian police man, adorned in his full uniform with high-top boots and a shiny gun.  I'm usually pretty reserved whenever I pass a soldier or policeman in the streets based on my preconceived notions of Peruvian jail. I imagine it'd look somewhat like the Vickers first floor after the eye-opening culture experience that was the "Thug Life" party. Be that as it may, these macho guys toting around unnecessarily large rifles usually don't strike me as potential friends.  Turns out I was far from right.

Jorge, the police man, and I hung out in the plaza with the other Dukies and few of our Peruvian friends, passing back and forth bottles of Pilsen (stupidly cheap liters of beer) until he was hugging me for bringing him "the most beautiful American women to look at." Creepiness aside, this guy ruled, and we seemed to hit it off. 

As our group gradually got louder and the supply of Pilsen dwindled, he invited us down to the "station" to hang out with the police force.  I don't know if it was new-found friendship with Jorge or a lack of something better to do that allowed me to block out how bizarre this invited was at the time, but our pack of rowdy gringos rolled squad deep into the police station.  We walked in on about thirty other cops with the same thirst as Jorge.  The night ended with Jorge telling me that "I could have anything I wanted in Urubamba" because I was his friend.  I'll have to take him up on that get out of jail free card someday.

This morning was a the long-awaited festivial de Sr. Torrechayoc.  Sr. Torrechayoc is the patron saint of Urubamba, and the morning is an amazing assembly of dance groups and marching bands through the streets.  My uncle, Andres, is a coordinator of a dance group, and my little host sister participated, so Dave and I planted ourselves in the plaza and took some great pictures.

Marching band keeping the crowd rockin'.

A bunch of the dance groups wore masks like this one.

A crowd of people on Torrechayoc street, where the parades started.

Traditional drumming group.

And lastly, my favorite of all. This guy sported the sweetest threads, hands down.

The parade filed into the soccer stadium on the other side of town, where a priest led a mass of Urubambinos through mass.  The whole event seemed to me very similar to Mardi Gras, minus the Daq Shack frozen drinks and the Zulu Indians chucking decorated coconuts at the crowd.

The festival continues tomorrow morning in a similar manner, but I wanted to wrap up with a few shoutouts before closing up shop for the night.


David Chou, my partner in the environmental group and an excellent photographer, has taken all of the pictures in my blog, and although he's realistically not going to press copyright infringement charges, he deserves a bravo for all of the amazing shots he's captured.

Caroline, my one and only 11 year old sister with the sarcastic humor of a 30 year old, brought home the girls' 5th grade conny lax championship trophy today. Nice work, wee one!

Lastly, to Coach Wiseman and Pearsall and the WHS lacrosse team, congrats on winning a 21st state title this afternoon. Wish I could have been there, but duty called here in Uru.

Enjoy the weekend,
Chris