Coya, Peru

Our home for the month of April is a guest house in Coya, Peru. Coya is a small town in the sacred valley, between two larger (but still pretty small) towns: Pisac (which boasts a thriving artisanal market...photos coming soon...and a grocery store that sells peanut butter, tostitos, and Trident gum) and Calca (which boasts a thriving food market every day, but especially Sundays). The stores in Coya are the common mercados that carry everything from fresh baked bread to Inca Cola to toilet paper. There is a central plaza and a well-respected medical clinic that provides outreach and free services to the Quechua community that lives in town and in a small village "mas arriba" (2.5 hour walk up the hill above town). Our house is also "arriba", but only a 30 minute walk. "Why is everyone walking?" you ask...well, most people cannot afford cars, and even if they could, the road is dirt and it floods/mudslides every rainy season. We arrived just in time for it to be fixed enough to be passable in a 4x4.

The people who live here are so strong. It is incredibly humbling to be huffing up the hill, only to be passed by an elderly woman, carrying a stack of corn stalks on her back, herding her cows. Agriculture is the family business here, and every day we see chanchas (pigs), vacas (cows), gallos (chickens), ovejas (sheep), burros (donkeys), and many many perros (dogs). The whole family participates, and it is not uncommon to see children as young as 8 watching the chanchas or vacas as they graze along the hillside during the day and then herding them home for the night. Corn and quinoa are the main crops. The valley is known for it's corn, and it seems to be one place that Monsantos has not taken over - all of the farms are individually owned, and those familes have a co-op that sells together to the big cities like Cusco and Lima.

When we first arrived, it was the start of Semana Santa (Saint's Week), and our taxi had to stop to wait for the procession to pass - it seemed as if the whole town was there in the street, with candles, chanting and walking along behind a large crucifix on their way to the church.

The church is on one end of the main plaza. In the plaza, there is a statue of a Dr who donated a bunch of money to the town in 1988 (which I suppose is better than a statue of some Spanish conquistador). I liked the way it looked against the green of the mountains. There is also a huge tree trunk, big enough to stand in.

Everywhere you look there are the mountains. Or only hills, I suppose - the foothills of the Andes - but to us, they are huge and majestic.

We celebrated Semana Santa by coloring eggs - using crayons because Paas is not sold here. In fact, Easter is not a thing...no bunny, no jelly beans, no chocolate eggs. Nada. Zilch. Luckily, we have an in with the American easter bunny and he did come and leave a basket for G and hide our colored eggs. Three children from a neighbor's family helped with the egg hunt (Jose-8, Jocelyn-8, and Brando-5). We also took a hike up the hill, which is our favorite way to celebrate easter/spring. In this part of Peru, we are moving into "winter", sort of. There are two seasons: wet and dry. We are moving into dry. It is cold (and clear and starry) at night and hot (and stunningly beautiful) during the day.