It’s a new year and the beginning of mango season here. We’ve been spending our free time getting to know the hiking paths around La Jalca, visiting the spectacular ruins in the area and on Sundays we usually head to the weekend market in Yerbabuena. It’s a couple hour trek down the mountain out of the “eyebrow of the jungle”, the name for the cloud forest climate region where we live. At the bottom, in the village of Ubilon, we hike along the Utcubamba River for another hour or so and arrive to the bustling market where we stock up on spices, meat, mangos and avocados and then hop on the truck for a butt numbing ride back up the mountain to La Jalca. We bought beef at the market for the first time and it was rather amusing. We picked the most crowded of the vendors in the row of meat stalls and pointed at the part of the skinned cow we wanted that we thought most resembled a filet. The petite señora slapped the carcass down on the wood stump, pulled out an axe and in a few bone crushing hacks we had about 3 lbs of meat from which we made a steak dinner and fantastic stew the next day. At the spice stall we found dried truffles for about $1 and they were a perfect accompaniment.
The amount of biodiversity here is incredible. On a hike with one of the community officials I asked about medicinal plants and within minutes she had plucked an armful of different leaves that are used for everything from soap to curing malaria. There is a lot of discussion at meetings we’ve attended to make this region a natural protected area in order to preserve the biodiversity, which is exciting for us to be a part of.
The holidays here were quite a different experience. It feels like we’ve stepped back in time. There were masses and processions through town and celebrations of the Saints with music, dancing and eating. In the days leading up to Christmas, we attended our first celebration in the community complete with a candlelit procession to the 500 year old cemetery. The band played traditional folk music and men carried a beautifully decorated float of San Roce on their shoulders while women and children followed behind with lanterns. The stone church in the cemetery was filled with candles and calla lilies and we were unexpectedly welcomed by the priest at the mass and introduced to the congregation. Afterwards, a feast was held with more live music and dancing well into the night.
For Christmas we found a small synthetic pine tree in the store, decorated it with some lights and played our Ella Fitzgerald Christmas songs playlist way too many times. Thanks to our wonderful family and friends in the states we had cards and gifts under our tree to open Christmas morning and a mini ‘Nacimiento’ or Koresh. It was a quiet holiday but we were happy to have each other to share it with.
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| Our year in review - a family tradition. |
On New Years we visited Kuelap, an ancient, sprawling mountaintop ruin that rivals Machu Picchu in size. It was spectacular.
