Health Education: market

Exploring the Inca Capitol

On our first full day in Peru, my Australian friend Joel and I took to the city streets. Cusco has a tourist-driven economy and you're likely to see more Gringos than Peruvians in the central square, Plaza de Armas, but once you get off the beaten track you find that Cusco has so much more to offer.

A golden statue of the last Inca in Plaza de Armas.

Locals were often protesting in front of the huge Spanish colonial cathedral.

The city is built of stone: ancient Incan walls perfectly carved with mysterious technologies, colonial churches that have the double meaning for residents of Catholic worship and Spanish conquest, cobblestone streets, rock walls, and oh so many staircases.

A stone arch over the city street, and my friend Joel in the left corner.

A fast-flowing stream contained in a stone channel, between boulder outcroppings and a rock wall.

Stairway to heaven... if your lungs don't collapse before you get there.

The street dogs don't mind the stony sidewalks one bit.

A woman and her lamb lean against a stone wall in downtown Cusco.

The stairs stretch into the heavens, and it's nearly impossible to climb them with so little oxygen in the air. Cusco, at 3800 meters, is the highest city I have lived in, and I was feeling it!

We entered the San Pedro Market for a bit of touristy shopping. I hadn't planned to buy a fuzzy gray llama sweater, a green hat-scarf-combo-garment, rainbow wool socks, a pair of white baby booties made from alpaca hide, or anything else but... when in Cusco, these things happen.

Stacks of touristy alpaca sweaters, racks of sequined girls' dresses, and colorful hand-tailored suits all down the aisle.

Dead animals were conveniently located on the next aisle over.

Flowers took up the next aisle. Then baked goods. Then fruit juice stands. It was very organized.

The craziest thing about the market was the similarity between vendors. Every fruit juice stand provided the same juices for the same prices -- they even used the same signs. The baked good stands were the same way, each offering exactly the same crusty cracker-cookies with sprinkles, the same yellow pink and white meringues, the same flat round loaves of bread. I don't know how each vendor differentiated itself to customers, but someone explained to me that customers have great loyalty to their vendors. Once a woman picks a bakery, for example, she will always return to the same one, and shopkeepers rely on this fact to keep business steady. Totally confusing to a capitalist-minded American girl like me.

We took a walking tour and learned about traditional Peruvian instruments and the unique wooden guitars which emerged through Spanish influence. The small ukulele-like instrument is called a charango.

The more traditional charangos were made out of armadillo shells!

I spent a whole week in Cusco -- much longer than planned -- because I was feeling sick. First it was a nasty cold, then general altitude malaise, and finally a bacterial stomach bug. Yeesh! As I was healing, I spent many days lounging around the hostel, reading in coffee shops, and buying Christmas presents for my family.

A bonfire with two of the funny Argentine workers at my hostel.

Yes, I paid a couple soles to hold this baby alpaca in a hat. Best money I've ever spent.

Joel couldn't resist the little guy either.

I admit, I frequented the Starbucks in the central plaza. The vente hot chocolate just tastes like home!

While I was shopping for jewelry, a creative saleswoman dressed me up like a Cuscuena. I even have a baby strapped to my back!

One day I decided to be the ultimate tourist and the take the City Tour Bus to the Incan ruins surrounding Cusco. Of course, I had to take the requisite tourist photos.

Qurikancha, a big colonial palace built atop the Incan Temple of the Sun.

The entrance to Sacsayhuamán (often pronounced "Sexy Woman"), a walled Incan battlement overlooking Cusco.

The Incas held together their impressive stone walls with a carved male-female locking system.

The notches and protrusions in the stones are totally hidden once the wall is complete.

Red tile roofs, dusty green hills, and cool sunshine.

Tambomachay, another hilltop ruin with caves and gravity-fed fountains.

Undercover Shark Market Monitoring

We do monitor the shark bycatch at the morning fish market, but it's not really undercover. All the fishermen know what we're up to. But I've heard the fisherman used to be a lot more friendly about the counting and measuring before the new bycatch regulations and penalties started popping up due to our data.

The fish market is held right there on the beach.

The frigatebirds steal fish out of the buckets the fisherman carry on their heads.

Some frigatebirds don't wait until the fish is brought to land to steal their fill.

The harbor at Puerto Lopez is a small city of boats.

The fish are prepared right away by one of the fillet women.

These ladies are skilled with a knife and and tough as nails.

A pair of volunteers visits the shark market every morning, Monday through Saturday. (The market is closed on Sundays.) It's a bustling place, located directly on the sandy beach between the road and the ocean. When the tide is high, water laps around the table legs and the fish vendors' shoes.

The market draws all types of people, from the discerning French woman who owns a restaurant to haggling businessmen holding a cellphone to each ear. There is always one poised, older Ecuadorian woman in a floral skirt-suit who effortlessly commands the respect of everyone in sight. She walks through the muddy, bloody water in her pumps without batting an eye, and walks out of the market with exactly the fish she came to purchase.

Dorado, or dolphinfish, is the staple of the market.

You can also find more exotic seafood like octopus and squid.

Whatever kind of fish these were, a lot of them were gravid with eggs.

Our job at the fish market is to record the number, species, and sex of sharks brought in by fishermen. It's illegal to catch sharks purposefully, but a certain amount of bycatch is legal. Like many laws in Ecuador, this one doesn't do much in practice. If a fisherman catches more than his quota of sharks, the fine is $1 per shark. We're not there to report violations or enforce the law -- we're just trying to collect data.

Sharks are finned as soon as they hit the sand.

I was astounded by how quickly a shark is reduced to its core body.

A bucket of shark heads.

Stray dogs lick the blood and carcasses for a morning treat.

There are six main species of shark which show up at the fish market: two hammerheads, two threshers, the angelote and the vieja. Occasionally, though, we get a surprise.

This species is called "angelote" because it looks like an angel.

One of the two thresher species, either Alopias superciliosus or A. pelagicus.

One of the two hammerhead species, either Sphyma zygaena or S. lewini.

This would be considered a surprise -- a tiger shark! Photo credit: Consue Vanessa Arboleda.

You can buy more than just fish at the fish market -- there are vendors selling snacks, cookies, fruit, sunglasses, and even entire meals. A couple full-fledged restaurants in tents appear each morning. I tried the breakfast one day and found it identical to the lunch: a heaping pile of rice, a slab of fresh fish in juice, and a couple slices of ripe fried plantain. I think I prefer that menu after noon!