One week, $200 – that’s all she wrote :)
Further on my series of posts on cost of living in Peru, time to fess up that out of $200 I started with exactly 1 week ago, there’s nothing left in my wallet.
Nada, nichts, zilch, nothing.
The final straw came yesterday morning as I started to boil water (we boil our drinking water) and the gas in the kitchen ran out. I called the gas company to bring a new cylinder of gas and, as always, they asked me with how much I would pay. This is so they can make sure the driver has correct change. I mustered up the confidence to open my wallet and saw I had S/.60 (~$21.80) left. A cylinder of gas is S/.35 and change. I don’t think most people tip the driver, but I do. After all, the guy’s delivering cylinders of explosive natural gas on a motorcycle in Peruvian city traffic for 12 hours a day, I think he’s earned a tip.
Since my previous post on day 4 of my “cost of living in Peru” experiment, this is how we’ve spent the last of my $200:
Food: I loose track of how many times I go to Mega – our local grocery store. Since the store is about a half a mile from our house I walk to Mega and back, consequently I only buy as much as I can carry (and still chase the baby if I need to). I think I go to Mega 4-5 times per week. I spent S/.20 at Mega yesterday and S/.36 the day before if I remember well. Some time earlier during this experiment I spent S/.170 or so at Mega because we bought expensive items like laundry detergents, etc.
Bread, snacks, etc: I spend S/.2.00 for fresh bread every morning and occasionally S/.6.00 – S/.10.00 to buy yummie treats at the bakery in the afternoon. I often take Pitufiloquita to the park in the morning and we both get our S/.1.00 ice cream when the sun is out.
Restaurants: Saturday we ate at “Sr. Panda”, a nice little restaurant right by our house. We like it because the food is good and reasonably priced, it’s only a block away, and “Sr. Panda” is about the only place in Cuzco (maybe all of Peru) where you can get good, hot and greasy chicken wings.
We also like “Sr. Panda” because right nextdoor is an arcade where I can take Pitufiloquita while we’re waiting on the food – just so she doesn’t raise too much cane in the restaurant 
I believe I spent S/.28 (~$10) at Sr. Panda and maybe S/.5 – S/.8 at the arcade.
Mamacita and Pitufiloquita playing at the arcade
Brianna getting ready to race at the arcade
Long story short, I managed to make it through a week on $200. That’s about right as far as our cost of living here in Peru goes. Our rent is $220 per month, our bills are around $200 (some are discretionary such as cellphones and satelite TV) and with food, restaurants, day trips and the like we usually spend between $1,000 – $1,400 per month for a family of three (5 if you include the mutts).
When I lived by myself in the US my bills were around $2,400 per month just for mortgage, car payment, gas, utilities, etc. That was before buying food and any discretionary things like going out to eat.
How about you, how much is your cost of living and in what area?
Cost of living in Peru – day 4
Ouch this is getting ugly real fast. Only 4 days since I started my cost of living in Peru experiment and I’m already scared to look in my wallet to see what’s left of the $200 I started with on Tuesday.
Day 1 was easy enough. After paying some regular bills (see previous post) the only money we spent was S/.23.94 (~$8.86) at “Mega”, our local grocery store. Mamacita got a few things at “Mega” and we had our famous homemade salchipapas for dinner:
Homemade salchipapas
Salchipapas are a favorite Peruvian snack: a mix of french fries and deep fried slices of hot dog. Yumm!! Most Peruvians eat their salchipapas with lots of sauces (ketchup, mayo, aji, etc) but I prefer mine just with plenty of salt.
Day 2 of my “cost of living” experiment wasn’t bad either. The only things we bought were bread in the morning and some paltas (avocados) to make fajitas for dinner at night. In the US many people assume that all Latin American food is like Mexican food, but that’s not true at all. Peruvian food is nothing like Mexican food. Having said that, my homemade fajitas didn’t turn out bad at all 
Day 3: now it gets bad
It’s my own fault, we had to spend some money. A few days ago I lost my cellphone, been looking for it ever since but it didn’t turn up. In Peru cellphones get robbed all the time, but in my case I’m certain I just misplaced it (or pitufiloquita may have taken it out of my coat pocket and disappeared it somehow). I can live without a cellphone, but the trouble is that I just sent out a few resumes to my potential dreamjob, and the resumes of course have my phone nr on them. Mamacita has threatened if I don’t get a real job by the time I’m 40, that we’re all moving back up North – so I can’t afford to miss any phone calls
Our plan to replace my phone was very Peruvian: mamacita has various cellphones and doesn’t use all of them. Since her phones are with a different company, we decided to take one of her unused cellphones to “Centro Commercial Paraiso” to have it unlocked. “Paraiso” is one of the less reputable markets in the Santiago district of Cuzco. A lot of stolen cellphones end up there to be unlocked and resold.
Mamacita thought we would be able to unlock her phone for S/.10 and buy a new chip at Movistar for another S/.10 but we had no such luck. Mamacita’s cellphone is a nicer new model, and nobody at “Paraiso” was able to unlock it for us. I gave up and we went back to Movistar to buy a new phone (S/.109 or about $40) and new chip so I could retain my phone number.
On the way back from the cellphone store we spent S/.39.40 (~14.59) at “Mega” again. Just some supplies, drinks, juices, etc. I drink a lot of juice in Cuzco, not sure if it’s the altitude or why?
KFC in Cuzco, Peru:
Later in the afternoon on day 3 mamacita spent some time with Maria, one of her best friends, to work on their univeristy thesis (presentation next Wednesday!!!). Exhausted and hungry from all their hard work, mamacita and Maria wanted to go eat at KFC at the Plaza de Armas late in the evening.
The KFC restaurant in Cuzco recently opened up in the spot where Cafe Ayllu used to be at the Plaza de Armas. I don’t care too much anymore for American style fast food, but since this is only the third American style fast food restaurant in Cuzco (the others are McDonalds and Bembos) I understand that mamacita and Maria wanted to try it out. In my opinion the food at KFC in Peru is better than KFC in the US. I haven’t eaten at KFC in the US in a long time, but I remember some years ago eating at KFC and thinking that the Colonel would have been ashamed if he was around to see what the food had become. Here in Peru the KFC chicken is pretty good, although in Cuzco I prefer “Brosso” for fried chicken and if you want really yummie fried chicken I think La Paz (Bolivia) has the best.
KFC restaurant at the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco, Peru
Inside the KFC restaurant in Cuzco
We spent something like S/.51 (~$18.75) for the big combo at KFC. Pitufiloquita was her wild usual self inside KFC. She managed to stay out of major trouble until she jumped and fell of one of the bench seats, but no harm done. At least no food ended up on the floor…
Yesterday was day 4 of my “cost of living in Peru” experiment. I didn’t really spend any money other than fresh bread in the morning (S/.2.00), S/.36 in groceries at Mega and S/.3.00 for more fresh bread, the Peruvian national bread pan ciabatta in the evening.
Conclusion:
I started out with $200 (S/.544) in my wallet on Tuesday. Right now I’m scared to look in my wallet, I’m hoping to at least make it through the weekend without having to hit the bank again
Cold as a witch’s boob
I personally have no experience in the matter, but my friend Dave does. It’s hard to recycle the story but it’s a great story when you hear it from Dave himself. I’ll give you the short version anyway.
Dave and I used to work together. He was on my “team” at GE, now he’s moved on to management. Dave cut his teeth in aviation as a US Marine. He was a young Marine still in technical training when he started dating a cute young Navy electrician. If memory serves me they were both based in San Diego. I guess Dave didn’t understand at the time why this cute young thing didn’t seem to have a lot of dates and he took to liking her. After they’d been dating for a while, cute young electrician one night tells Dave that she is a witch. A bona fide practicioner of witchcraft, trained by her mother who was also a witch. I think cute young witch grew up in California, so that explains a lot.
Dave’s a good man and a God fearing Christian, the idea of dating a witch didn’t appeal to him too much but since he’d already been dating cute young witch for a while, he also didn’t break up with her right away. If I remember the story well, over a Christmas break he just decided not to call cute young witch and not to look her up after he got back to base. He didn’t really break up, he just disappered. In short, he woosed out.
The story ended with Dave standing around with his buddies one day when cute young witch snuck up on them and punched or yelled at Dave in front of all his buddies.
“You could have at least called!!!!”
And all Dave’s buddies: “Boohoo! She’s gonna put a spell on you!!!”
I never had the courage to ask Dave if cute young witch’s boobs felt really cold or not…
At any rate, the reason for all this talk about cold, is that it’s been unusually cold and rainy in the Cuzco area the past week or two. Normally between May and November the weather in Cuzco is great: sunny, dry and 21 degrees C (~72F) every day, with just a few clouds in the sky. As soon as the sun starts to go down though, it gets cold very fast. So these past couple of weeks, without the typical sunshine during the day, it was cold and miserable in Cuzco. Very unusual.
I had just returned home from a trip with stops in Nunavut (northern Canada), Greenland and Iceland, so you wouldn’t think I’d be cold in Cuzco, but I was.
The East coast of Greenland near Kulusuk
Even after almost 4 years I still have a bit of a hard time with the climate and altitude in Cuzco. Cuzco is at an elevation of 3,400 meters or about 11,000 feet above sea level. I tend to get a little cold or flu more often in Cuzco than I did in the US or Europe. Patricia and Brianna hardly ever get sick, because they were born in Cuzco they are much stronger. I’m weaker than them and Patricia fusses at me every time I catch a cold or flu, but I blame it on being a bottle-fed baby. Silly Europeans and all their progressive nonsense!
Long story short, I’m seriously thinking about moving to the Sacred Valley of the Inca, which is about 3,000 feet (1000 meters) lower elevation than Cuzco and consequently has a milder climate, more tolerable for us gringos. With the boom in tourism and real estate in Peru, I’d like to beg, borrow or steal (not really) some capital and build a few villas in the Sacred Valley of the Inca as an investment project. From a little bit of research we’ve done here, building villas in the valley is a good business, as is building apartments in the city of Cuzco for that matter. I’m told you can make 20% return in less than a year, probably more if you have capital available and don’t need to borrow it. What many people do is build 5-6 apartments, condos or villas, sell all but one and have a free house for themselves at the end of the day.
That’s my plan, all I lack is time and money
Here’s some random pictures of the Sacred Valley of the Inca:
Brianna in Urubamba, Sacred Valley of the Incas
Overlooking the Sacred Valley of the Inca from the shrine of Señor de Huanca
Dining room of a hotel in the Sacred Valley of the Inca
CUSCO, LOS DE ARRIBA Y LOS DE ABAJO
A loyal reader asked me to comment on the following video. From Melissa Peschiera at the Peruvian TV program “REPORTE SEMANAL”: CUSCO, LOS DE ARRIBA Y LOS DE ABAJO (“The haves and have nots of Cusco”):
It’s not a bad report, although it’s sensationalized as anything TV usually is. The report only takes 2 snapshots and leaves out the middle class, which is thriving in the city of Cuzco. Life in our middle-class neighborhood is nothing like either the partying tourists or rural poverty that is shown in the video.
As for the rural poverty, the longer I’m in Peru the more reluctant I’ve become to suggest that more money and material possessions equals a better way of life. Having said that, it is hard to comprehend how the South of Peru (especially the regions of Cuzco and Puno) can be so poor and with such bad infrastructure when so much tourist revenue is generated there. That has to be a failure of local authorities.
Much is said in the report about the popularity of Ollanta Humala in the South of Peru. On the surface it may seem that the rural poor support Ollanta Humala because they believe he offers them a way out of poverty. I’m not convinced of that. I think it has more to do with being able to associate with your leaders. The way of life of the market-oriented, neo-liberal ruling class in Lima during the last 10 years or so is completely foreign to the way of life of the rural poor as well as urban poor, and this in my opinion is the reason why the Peru presidential runoff is between Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala, the 2 candidates who represent the greatest perceived change.
What do you think?
Another expat experience
I had another one of those expat experiences last weekend. One of those moments where you go in no time from “I’m so happy to be here” to “What are these people thinking”, or vice versa.
This past Easter Sunday we decided to take a trip to Urubamba and eat Easter dinner at “Sol de Mayo”. This in itself was a big step for us. “Sol de Mayo” is one of our favorite restaurants, where you get a heaping plate of excellent typical Andean food. However, “Sol de Mayo” was also the place where Brianna decided to throw noodles on the back of an unsuspecting customer about 6 months ago, and we hadn’t been back there since
Instead of taking the traditional buses from Cuzco to Urubamba, we took one of the “fast cars”. These are simply combis (vans) that drive direct from terminal to terminal, which saves about 20 minutes or so over the traditional buses between Cuzco and Urubamba.
No matter how many times we’ve taken the trip from Cuzco to Urubamba, I still enjoy the beautiful scenery along the way:
Riding from Cuzco to Urubamba, Peru.
So we’re the proverbial fat and happy in the back of our combi, no more than about 1/4 of the way to Urubamba, when the driver pulls over to check the rear tire. No big deal, tires get damaged regularly on the winding / pothole-filled mountain roads. The driver gets back in and gets into a fairly agitated discussion with the boletera (the girl who takes bus fares). The boletera gets on her cellphone and starts an equally agitated discussion with the person on the other end of the line.
Next thing we know the combi turns around and limps back to the nearest service station. By now Patricia is mad because she overheard the driver and boletera discussing something about a problem with the tire before we left. The combi pulls into a service station and we get out.
Combi driver knew tire was bad before leaving Cuzco.
Combi has no spare tire.
Service station has no tires.
So these guys started out on a trip with a known bad tire, no spare tire, and a bunch of paying customers in the back. Oh, and the driver drove like a maniac on the flimsy tire. Only in Peru!
The boletera took off walking, never to be seen again. We waited about 15 minutes hoping that a spare tire would magically appear, but then we just hailed a taxi and went the rest of the way by taxi. Luckily the road from Cuzco to Urubamba is quite busy with numerous combis/buses/taxis, so we didn’t have to wait too long.
After that we had an uneventful trip and a wonderful Easter dinner. Brianna ran around the restaurant and generally acted like the lovely little hellraiser that she is, but at least no food got thrown at anyone
Typical Peruvian food
Easter dinner!
Papi can smile and chew at the same time!
Playing in the park after Easter dinner.
Señor de los Temblores and my expat moment
I had one of those expat moments yesterday. Any foreigner who’s spent a significant amount of time in Peru probably knows what I’m talking about. If you’re not familiar, an expat moment is when you go from total elation, “I just love the way of life here”, “I’m so glad I left the rat-race up North behind” to “what the heck are these people thinking” in the span of about 30 seconds. Complete happiness to mindless frustration quicker than you can say Pisco Sour.
Yesterday’s moment came at the annual procession of Señor de los Temblores at the Plaza de Armas (main square) in Cuzco. I’ve written previously about the procession of Señor de los Temblores. This annual procession on Easter Monday attracts tens of thousands to the center of Cuzco. The image of Señor de los Temblores is taken out of the Cuzco Cathedral and carried through the center of the city, with the procession ending back at the Cathedral for the blessing of Señor de los Temblores in front of a crowd of thousands at the main square.
Señor de los Temblores is the patron Saint of the city of Cuzco. It is believed that He protects the city from earthquakes and other harm. The origin of the legend is said to be the devastating 1650 Cuzco earthquake, which was at the time believed to be the strongest earthquake on record. The 1650 Cuzco earthquake continued for a long time only to finally stop when the image of Señor de los Temblores was taken out of the Cathedral and worshipped. Read more about the 1650 Cuzco earthquake here.
Here’s a picture of the procession of Señor de los Temblores by the Cuzco Cathedral:
Señor de los Temblores
Back to my expat moment. I decided to go to the procession yesterday with our “wawacha” (wawa is Quechua for baby, in Cuzco the word wawa is used more often than its Spanish counterpart “bebe”) accompanied by my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. The four of us found a good spot at the corner of the Plaza de Armas, to the side of the Cathedral. Mamacita had to work until 7:00, so we were tentatively going to meet somewhere at the Plaza de Armas. As it happens we didn’t get together with mamacita until after the procession due to the crowd at the Plaza.
The procession of Señor de los Temblores is a powerful experience. Yesterday was a perfect night, a bright moon and an exceptionally clear night’s sky, even for the famously bright Andean sky. There’s a huge crowd, many true believers as well as tourists and curious bystanders. The crowd, the solemn procession, the ring of the famous Maria Angola bell and finally the blessing of Señor de los Temblores all adds up to a moving experience, whether you’re religious or not.
After the blessing the crowd starts to leave. We tried to wait a few minutes to avoid the rush but get swept up in the crowd heading away from the plaza. These kinds of big events aren’t planned as meticulously as they would be in the US or Europe, crowd control is really limited. As we’re stumbling down one of the narrow streets leading away from the plaza there’s 5 or 6 people behind us holding hands or holding a rope so as not to get separated. The biggest guy up front keeps pushing against me and telling me to “Walk” “Walk” “Walk”. Nevermind there’s no way to walk faster in the crowd.
“Walk walk walk”
I’m having a hard time to maintain my footing and I’m carrying a sleeping baby. Next to me was a lady with a baby behind her back in the traditional Peruvian blanket, getting pushed around all over the place. What I didn’t know at that point is that there was a fat drunk guy just bulldozing his way through the crowd a few rows behind us, in addition to the folks pushing their way through behind us. Finally the pushing gets so bad that people are starting to loose their footing and I loose my temper.
I turn around and yell at the guy behind me:
“STOP PUSHING YOU JERK”
I might have even added in my personal opinion about his ancestry and sex habits…
I’m normally a very laidback guy and hardly ever loose my temper. When I do, people are stunned. This skinny soft-spoken white guy just turned into the devil himself. Everyone stopped. At that point the fat drunk guy who was bulldozing his way through slips by us and people everywhere are yelling at this idiot. All the pushing stopped and everyone was able to walk normally.
I felt terrible. I was at the blessing of Señor de los Temblores, I’m not supposed to loose my temper and yell at people but when you’re holding a baby and feel like you’re going to get hurt, nothing will stop you from protecting your baby.
Here are a few pictures of the most recent serious earthquake in Cuzco, in 1950. Pictures courtesy of LIFE:
1950 Cuzco earthquake
1950 Cuzco earthquake
1950 Cuzco earthquake
1950 Cuzco earthquake
1950 Cuzco earthquake
1950 Cuzco earthquake
A Cuzco rainbow
After fussing about the rain a few days ago, we saw the most gorgeous rainbow yesterday: (Click on the picture for full size)
Beautiful Cuzco rainbow
The picture really does not do it justice. This was one of the brightests, most beautiful rainbows I can remember seeing. There’s a second rainbow above, but the inner one was by far the most brilliant. We ran outside and took pictures and showed the rainbow to the little Goose, one of these moments you live for.
Incidentally, Cuzco has a rainbow colored flag. So if you’re in Cuzco and notice a lot of rainbow flags, especially around major holidays and cultural festivals, it’s just that: the Cuzco flag, not the same as the rainbow flag you see “up north” sometimes…
Back in Cuzco… and still raining.
This blog’s been awful quiet for the past month or so because I was on trip “up North”. I was gone for just over a month and was hoping that rainseason in Cuzco would have begun to fade away by the time I got back, but no such luck. I’ve been back in Cuzco since Sunday and we’ve had rain every single day since then. No worries though, another month or so and rainseason should be history. After that the forecast is 70 degrees (20C) and sunny through November.
Speaking of weather, I had some interesting weather on my trip. First I spent a few days in Lima which has hot beach-going weather during the Southern hemisphere summer. Then I was off to Quebec City, where there was about 2 feet of snow on the ground and I saw 3 snowstorms in 10 days:
Quebec City in winter
After Quebec City I headed North to Iqaluit in Nunavut, Northern Canada. Temperatures in Iqaluit were about -27C (-17F) during the day with even colder wind chills. I admire the local Inuit who live there. (Inuits are the native population of the Artic regions, we used to call them “eskimo”, but I think that’s a bad word now)
Frozen Frobisher Bay
After Iqaluit the temperature got about 10 degrees warmer every day for the next 3 days of my trip. First I flew out of Iqaluit to Greenland:
Preheating the airplane in Greenland
Compared to Iqaluit, the -16C (3F) temperatures in Sondre Stromfjord (Greenland) actually felt mild! Then I flew over to the East Coast of Greenland where the forecast 15 MPH winds turned out to be 35 MPH gusting to 50 MPH by the time of my arrival, so I diverted to Reykjavic (Iceland), which was supposed to be my next stop anyway. The next morning I took off amid snow showers in Reykjavic, but when I arrived in Egilsstadir on the East coast of Iceland, the weather was just beautiful:
Landing at Egilsstadir, Iceland (BIEG)
Finally on to London. I landed in London in rain and low ceilings, but the next day it was sunny and mild, an unusually beautiful day for mid-March:
A beautiful day in London
In case you’re wondering about the reason for the trip: one of the things I do occasionally to stay gainfully employed is to deliver airplanes. Small, personal or business type airplanes. Typically someone buys an airplane in the US and needs it delivered to Europe or another area of the world. I take an airline flight out of Lima to the US to pick up the airplane, deliver it where ever the final destination may be, then take another airline flight back. For most trips I can be back “home” in Cuzco in about 2 weeks, but on this last trip I ran into some delays and was gone about a month.
Read more about the fun and adventure on my flying blog.
Visit to Señor de Huanca
Perhaps the most important religious shrine in the Cusco area today is the church of Señor de Huanca, in the Sacred Valley of the Inca, about an hour outside the city of Cusco. Many Cusquenians go here to worship and ask for the blessings of Señor de Huanca.
Patricia with the baby outside Señor de Huanca
Inside the shrine, believers light candles and pray for blessings of Señor de Huanca. It is believed that if one enters the shrine with a pure heart, Señor de Huanca will grant you any blessings you wish, but if you go inside with less than a pure heart, you will not receive any blessings and may even find harm.
In front of Señor de Huanca's church
Family visit to Señor de Huanca
It is believed that here is where God made his home among men. There are actually 2 different stories as to the origin of Señor de Huanca, of miracles that are believed to have happened there.
Today, many Cusquenians bring their new cars here to be blessed, because it is believed Señor de Huanca will protect them from harm. In fact, when we were there an entire fleet of at least 15-20 delivery trucks for Coca-Cola / Inka Cola were there.
Overlooking the Sacred Valley of the Inka
Mommy with baby Brianna by Señor de Huanca
During the month of September, the month of Señor de Huanca, thousands of believers make a pilgrimage to Señor de Huanca. From outside Cusco, I believe the pilgrimage is about a 4-6 hour walk. I haven’t done it, but I’d like to some day.
To visit Señor de Huanca, you can take a taxi from Cusco (by the hospital EsSalud) for 6 Soles (~$2) per person, or you can take a bus to the nearby town of Pisaq and get a taxi from there.
If you’re visiting Cusco, a day-trip to Señor de Huanca is definitely worth it. The shrine of Señor de Huanca is in a beautiful area overlooking the Sacred Valley of the Inca. It is a very quiet place where you will find few tourists but typically several dozen locals who have come to worship. After visiting the church of Señor de Huanca you can enjoy typical Andean food in the nearby town of Pisac or in any of the towns in the “Valley of the South” on the way back to Cusco.
Date night!
Last weekend was our first post-baby night out. I haven’t been this excited about staying out till 10:30 since I was 14!!!
At the end of the day, people are people no matter where you are. Like any new parents we’ve been overjoyed with our new baby, but also quite overwhelmed. Patricia has been doing a great job taking care of our wawa, but after 10 months just to be able to go out for a few hours without the baby was a big event for us.
Patricia’s mom was kind enough to watch the baby for us while we went out to get a bite and a drink downtown at the Plaza de Armas here in Cusco.
Mommy looking great!!!
Que papi este papi!!!
First night out post-baby
About us
View from Machu Picchu, Peru
Read the story about 2 tickets to Lynyrd Skynyrd, love over gold, and our move to the beautiful city of Cusco, Peru.
Ward Welvaert & Patricia Carrasco
Cusco, Peru
contact: ward DOT welvaert AT gmail DOT com
More blogs
-
Our Photos on Flickr
More Photos
