Chivay

Hello all,

This week was pretty much the same old same old as far as work goes. I tried to meet with my artesans but they were no-shows, so I had to content myself with the schools and teaching computers to the Water Commission (Comision de Regantes)- which is the most important group in town because they regulate water usage for irrigation purposes in the fields. I´m in the capital city of Arequipa right now for my monthy meetings and we´re going to grill out American style tonight, which should be a good time. Tuesday I´m going to try to get somewhere to watch or track the election results, but other than that this should be a standard month until Reconnect, where all of my class will be getting together to find out what exactly we´ve been doing so far... definitely looking forward to that.
This week I think I’ll talk about Chivay, the closest city of any size, although it is probably better classified as a town. It is pretty much the only place to get most of the amenities of modern civilization such as internet, consumer products and food, or contact with the governmental resources that are necessary to get big projects off the ground here.
Chivay has maybe 20,000 people, a pretty sizeable town square with a beautiful white adobe church, and a bustling tourist trade as it sits at the end of the highway from Arequipa and at the mouth of Colca Canyon. It is pretty much the portal for the canyon and has all the connecting transportation for the region as well as plenty of hotels and adventure sports agencies.
I try to get in once a week to meet up with the other volunteers in the canyon, buy a few things I need, and check my email and the news. I also get my weekly shower in at La Calera, the regional hot springs. My town does not have a showerhead in it to the best of my knowledge, so I’m pretty much dependent on the hot springs or ice cold bucket baths to stay clean. La Calera is a complex of 5 or 6 pools, indoor and outdoor, and compartmented into the more expensive tourist baths and those for locals. I’ve been able to convince the staff by my frequent presence that I indeed live in the canyon so I can use the local baths. The water is quit hot and the showers, though public, do the trick.