So the month of October is the Mez de Morado or Purple. And the whole month is to be marked as a celebration for Senor de Los Milagros. If you are wondering who that it is, well it's Jesus of course. The man of many miracles. Coincidentally I have been reading through the book of Mark the last few weeks and relishing on all of Jesus's miracles. Not coming from a Catholic background, this tradition was a first for me to witness. I will try to explain how it is celebrated, but remember I am just a foriegner and have no expert opinion. Supposedly there are marches or processions all throughout Peru during the month in which the image of Jesus is carried by a carefully selected group of people and everyone follows behind.
The procession in Lima is apparently massive. The one I witnessed was organized by the Air Force and it was small and intimate, but it still had a marching band. Different departments within the Air Force organized their own stations around the base decorated with lots of purple items, images depicting Jesus' miracles, flowers, and candles. The priest led the procession and stopped at every station where a hymn was sung, scripture was read, and prayers were recited. My feet really hurt by the end, but I wanted to see the whole thing.
At the end a group of man made the heavy image of Jesus appear to dance three traditional dances, it looked like backbreaking work. And Jorge made sure I was aware that the actual images of Jesus are not to be worshiped or adored, and instead the actual man behind the miracles is to be adored. I concur.
So a while ago we decided to go to the beach, sounds like a nice laid back idea right? Well in order to get there it was quite a journey. We had to take a long mototaxi ride out of the city to the beginning of a long dirt road where our mototaxi driver decided that he wouldn't take us any further. So then we have to get in another mototaxi that is willing to take us to the water's edge. Then we get on a little "pequi-peque" boat, named for its sound, and slowly but surely arrive at a river beach called Tipishca. And it was well worth the journey.
We soaked up the sun, lost two matches of volleyball to local students, ate shambo ice cream, went swimming, drank some Inca Cola, and then the clouds started to roll in.
I woke up Jorge from his nap and asked if he thought it would rain....and he said, "We have to leave right now." So we did. So that lovely little journey I described earlier, we had to do it all over again backwards in a frightening thundering rainstorm. It was kind of awesome.
And on our mototaxi ride through the muddy road, that now resembled a river, we were joined by a german woman who is one of those extreme travelers I always feel intimidated by. She had been traveling around South America by herself and volunteering in conservation work. She fell in love with the jungle all around Iquitos and is now buying a piece of land in the middle of the jungle and plans to live off the land. Hm, that's not for me, but good for her. Two days later we saw her in the internet cafe and I felt sorry for the people sitting next to her because they didn't even know they were sitting in the presence of a world-traveled jungle warrior woman.
We went to eat at a restaraunt Jorge had heard about from a friend. It was called Bucanero. It had a big glass room at the back of the restaraunt that had the best view I have seen so far in Iquitos. It overlooked a bustling port on the Nanay River. It was breathtaking and lucky for us we caught a glimpse of rainbow while we were there. And the food was delicious. I really can't remember what we ate but involved alot of meat and it was delicious.
Well that's all for now. I had some interesting adventures on Halloween, but I will write about those the next time I get a hold of some internet. I love you all!
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