Sexual Dimorphism. OK, boys are different from girls in more ways than their working parts. Apes are bigger than the members of their harems, and men are bigger than women. But spider guys are smaller, dangerously so, when the passion ends. And how about those fish I was reading about¿ (And how about that funny question mark, while we´re at it¿) The species in question have males about the size of a skin tab and they attach themselves to the females, who may have a regular harem of these tiny romeos.
Dimorphism extends to habits, too. Why do men spit? (I just found the regular question mark on this nutty keyboard.) For that matter, why do they scratch, and burp, and do that fourth thing that I don´t want to mention here. Women don´t do that, do they?
And did you notice? It´s not the woman who is hurling in the advertisement for altitude sickness pills. It´s the guy. While the guy in the center is staring off into space like he doesn´t want to know, the woman on his left looks revolted. Like that never happened to her. What? Women don´t throw up from altitude sickness? Or are we just coddling them? Why couldn´t all four of those people be barfing? How chauvanistic.
Stopping traffic. Pretty girls have been known to cause car wrecks. But in Cusco, they try to prevent them. To wit: You hear a lot of tweeting along busy cobblestone streets, even with traffic lights.
The toreadors:
Cusco pedestrians
Can safely be said
To fall in two classes--
The quick and the dead.
Check out this intersection at the traffic circle around Plazoleta Limacpampa: In this photo mamacito is teaching chico to look both ways and then run like hell across the cross-walk. Hell, they ought to call those white lines cross-hairs. Cars don´t slow down for nobody. Watching an intersection is like watching a Viennese waltz -- people swirling around each other like a morphing pinball game. But they seem to have the system down.
There´s a lot more to share, but I´m hampered by the lack of a photo editing program and computers that have to stop and catch their breath due to the altitude. Here´s a few short cultural notes:
Cusco: You fly over whatI call ¨mesa de montanas¨ Soon out of Lima you are flying over a plateau characterized by waves of mountain ranges that serves to isolate the people in the mountains from the coastal areas. Counting the Amazon lowlands, Peru is really three countries.
Local time: My cell phone automatically resets itself, even though I can´t get my messages.
White water: So far, so good. It´s when it turns yellow that you know you need to pay attention.
The shower at my hotel: It comes in three temperatures, chilled, tepid and scalding.
Cocaine: If you haven´t thought about this, I´m worried about you. Yes, I´ve already had some. They gave it to me when I got to the hotel. Very small amounts, though. They put the leaves in the tea. Gives it a strange leafy flavor. Supposed to help with altitude. They even have coca candy: Damn, why did it turn out upside down?
This side of the label shows it´s all legal and everyting. Does that mean I can bring some home to share? Yeah, right.
The label uses the word, Keshua, instead of Quechua. Interesting.
Corn nuts: They don´t put out salsa and chips at Trujillo´s restaurant. They put out toasted maize kernels. They are quite tasty. I asked what they were and when I found out remembered those bags of roasted, salty hominy we could get from dispensers in junior high school.
Pulse: For me, at rest, at sea levels, it´s 51. In Cusco, it´s 68-76. I took it after a meal and during a nap.
Inca presence: You see it in the natives, but it´s also underfoot. Shops are built atop pieces of Inca wall.
I´m tired of fooling with this computer. That´s all you get today.
Hasta luego
And Amor,
Roberto
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