Tag archives for Masks
Posted by Candombes (Uruguayan drummers) filled the streets pounding tribal rhythms on their drums and colorful singers and feather topped dancers followed. It was Carnival time!
On our way to Carmelo we found a cute little wine and cheese shop with a fun patio and garden. The owners let us tour their cheese storage. Incredible smells of blues, brie and their most famous parmesan filled the room. We sampled an enormous fruit and cheese platter. It was amazing and yummy.
Posted by Allillanchu! That is Quechua for hello. Quechua is the native language of the Incas before the Spaniards arrived in 1532.
We had a nice breakfast at the Libertador Hotel. I had watermelon with sugar and prickly pear cactus root. It tasted like the white part of watermelon, but it was red and had tons of seeds. We have been trying many different foods that you don’t eat in America. For example, they served alpaca, llama, and guinea pig. (I didn’t try the guinea pig because they are pets in America.) Another thing that was quite interesting was that Lijah let me try a little calamari (or octopus). It tasted like fish and was purple with tentacles.
After breakfast we boarded the bus and we drove through the Andes making a few stops along the way. We took pictures and stopped at the marketplace in a small village. The market was filled with people in colorful costumes who were there for a weaving contest. I bought a woven camera strap and an alpaca breeder mask. The mask is part of a costume that people wear in the dance to get the season off to a good start. Most of the masks are white with a cross and a stripe on the forehead. But there are many different types of these masks. They have cool colors, horns, beards, and faces. If you look at one from far away they look like a ski mask or socks with many colors.
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Hey, It’s Grace T from Pennsylvania. My exciting expedition to Peru started out at 3: 30 am, at which point I started getting ready to leave for JFK airport. Driving to the airport we passed the New York Times building, the Hudson River Gap and crossed the George Washington Bridge into New York, before I knew it we were at the airport. It was now 7:30. At the airport there were many different languages spoken, even the airport workers were speaking Spanish. Once we had gone through the airport lines and gotten all our baggage checked, we met up with some of the National Geographic staff in the waiting lobby. We were surprised when we were boarding the plane that the airline was taking precautions against the swine flu. They passed out dust masks that we had to wear the whole flight into Ecuador; where we would take another flight to Lima.
Hi, it’s Lijah. We have arrived in Lima and to my surprise I am actually not that tired. I usually cannot sleep on planes but this time I was sound asleep on both plane rides. We arrived at the Peruvian airport and we noticed everyone had medical masks on. We asked around and supposedly they were very big on keeping swine flu out. This was kind of scary to know that it was a possibility. We went to get our luggage; we got ours just fine, but Dewey and Tim were not having much luck. Finally after a while it came through. Then Dewey and Tim also got the random security check. They were not having much luck in the Peruvian airport! 
From the airport we were bused to our hotels. The night life of Peru was amazing. There were a lot of casinos and bright tourist lights that lit the city. We also saw many wild dogs that roamed the parks and alleys. There were these two specific dogs that were running in circles around a big park statue. They were barking and rolling around. It was quite humorous!
