Huanchaco Huanchaco Huanchaco
Another story to add to the collection here:
As part of the cultural immersion at the beginning of the trip, our advising professor set up a scavenger hunt of Trujillo (a nearby city) for us to complete. We broke up into teams, and were given about $40 to complete the tasks. One of the objectives was to take photos of various authentic-Peruvian foods. On the cab ride to Trujillo, we asked our driver where we´d be able to find the dish. Our broken Spanish and his choice of words led us to believe that you could only get this dish one day of the week and in one distinct part of the city. We htuoght that a little odd, but who were we to criticize another culture (especially after all of our workshops)? We ended up at a small little place which happened to be his (the driver) house. It turns out that his wife makes the dish once a week, and it was lucky enough to be that day. A little creeped out, but ambitious to get the picture (and, frankly afriad to say no), we stepped into his extraordinarily humble abode and sat down to a huge bowl of the soup. After talking with he and his wife for a while, we perused her homemade earrings, saw pictures of the grandkids, and played some euchre, but we were out of there without any major problems or commitments - just a few dollars lighter.
All in all - a very good experience. It was really interesting to note that cultural difference. I think it might be safe to attribute at least part of the cordiality to the fact that we were three very harmless looking gringoes, but I still don´t think that that kind of thing would happen in the States, especially not in a city.
Huanchaco, Huanchaco, Huanchaco.