Reusable Shopping Bags

My husband did the grocery shopping yesterday. I forgot to send my reusable shopping bags with him. This is what he came home with:

24 plastic grocery bags for only $87.12 worth of groceries. They were floppy and a pain to unpack. I'm used to my strong, roomy, easy to fold and easy to carry totes. My totes can hold three times as much as a double bagged plastic bag. And now I have to remember to take these in to recycle. Regardless of the impact on the environment, these are a pain. I love my reusable totes. They even come in insulated versions:

They are easy to fold and stuff in one bag. Just grab and go. I put them right back in my car when I'm done using them so I'll have them the next time.

He also brought home several plastic produce bags. I like mine better. Aren't they cute? I made them with inexpensive tulle netting and cheap nylon cord. They are strong--I've been using them for a while and they can take even heavy loads. They are washable. They weigh very little. Produce doesn't tend to mold when you store it in these bags since they "breathe." The baggers at the store always want to know where I got them. I made them in different sizes. I gave some away for Christmas.


* Stores are making it easier to use reusable totes and grocery baggers actually like them!
* Most reusable totes cost $1 or less. Insulated versions are often around $2.
* My Whole Foods gives a $.05 discount for every reusable bag.
* My Trader Joes has a drawing every day for a $10 gift card for people who use reusable bags.
* When I lived in Korea, the stores charged about $.05-.10 for every bag they had to provide. Many municipalities in the US are considering doing the same.
* Americans use 84 BILLION plastic bags a year
* DECA reports that the price of plastic bags has gone up 84% in the last few years. That price gets passed on to the customers.
* DECA reports that 20,635,800 plastic bags were used by U.S. military commissary customers worldwide in 2007. If just 10% of those were replaced with reusable bags it would be a savings of $2 million a year. Imagine the savings if, say, Walmart customers used more reusuable bags!

Peru: Shopping

One of the side benefits of going to Peru is getting to go shopping. It's a lot of fun. When we were there the Nuevo Sol traded for about three soles per U.S. dollar.

We thought we'd done quite a bit of shopping, but when we added everything up for US Customs we realized we hadn't really spent much. Of course, sometimes it seems like work to shop when you have to haggle in the marketplaces.

I sure wish that I had purchased more of the fine, intricate weavings on the Island of Taquile or some of the other places we visited.

lovely vendor in Arequipa who we bought hats from

Where do you shop in Peru? EVERYWHERE. You don't even have to go shopping. Sometimes the shopping comes to you. Musicians in restaurants will want to sell you their CDs, ladies will try to sell you sweaters in the streets, artists will hound you to look at their portfolios in the plazas and at every pull off on the road there might be vendors with their wares spread out on a blanket.

vendors on the road from Arequipa to Chivay

Various items that old ladies managed to talk Dan into buying--he's such a pushover. Some of these will decorate our Christmas tree.

beautiful girl at a roadside scenic overlook near Chivay--I purchased an ocarina from her

Above: hand-guided machine embroidered items I bought beside the road from the lady who made them in Colca Canyon. They depict the huge humming birds and the condors we had just seen that morning.

Uros Islands

Uros Islands--the little one will be a Christmas decoration

Jewelry co-op near Sicuani

Raqchi Tambo

Tambomachay

Urubamba

calabazas

The following pictures are from Pisaq which is known for it's colorful market:

dyes

Ollantaytambo--these girls followed Dan all the way to the vehicle trying to get him to buy

I think that Chinchero was our favorite market. We were only there for a few minutes. We actually went to see the highly decorated church, but we were able to quickly purchase a couple of calabazas from this man below and a woven belt from the lady in the next photo as well as one other weaving. All were purchased directly from the craftsperson--the best way to buy in Peru!

Chinchero

Chinchero

We didn't do much shopping in Cuzco, but we did find this very interesting textile co-op that had a great small museum with it.

Cuzco

Cuzco

Copyright 2009 text and photos. All rights reserved.

Peru: Calabazas

I'm taking a break from writing about our trip to tell you about calabazas in Peru.

What is a calabaza?

It's a gourd or squash or pumpkin. In Peru they dry them, carve them and decorate them and they are fabulous. They are definitely my favorite thing to buy in Peru. They sell them everywhere from high-end gift shops to on the street. I have seen them in gift shops in the states and even purchased them here, but they sell for much less in Peru. The price depends on how good you are at haggling in the market and how much work went into each one.

some calabazas we purchased and brought home--yes, we did have to explain to Customs that they were decorative and we weren't planning on cracking them open and planting any seeds, but they didn't seem too worried

I think this was at the market at Pisac

We paid as little as less than $1 for the small cuy (guinea pigs) in the last photo to as much as $9-11 for the largest one below and the very intricate smaller one. It's hard to say exactly as it's better if you pick out several and then make the vendor an offer for the group. They are very strong and light and therefore easy to pack. Some are cut open forming a "box" with a lid.

We were fortunate enough to be able to see an exhibit of outstanding examples at Qoricancha in Cuzco while we were there, but couldn't take photos.

Above: the largest one we purchased is about eight inches high

This man has been decorating calabazas all his life. He demonstrated his skill for us in the market at Chinchero. The largest calabaza in the previous photo is his work. I'm sure we would have purchased more from him if we had had more than five minutes before our tour van left. I love buying directly from the artist. He actually does carve them upside down like he is demonstrating. Below he is explaining (in Spanish, of course) the intricate iconography.

Most examples have pictures of the sun and moon and a puma, serpent and condor--the most important images in Inca cosmology. They also often have images of people working at various tasks such as farming, pottery making, animal husbandry, images of mountains, Machu Picchu, Inca sites and more. Some are long shapes and used as maracas as the seeds rattle inside the dried gourd.

Cuy (guinea pigs) are raised like rabbits and eaten on special occasions in Peru. I had to get these little guys which are about 3 and a half inches long. Owls and Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) are also popular motifs on calabazas.

I'm not much of a shopper, but once again, I am kicking myself for not buying a couple of bigger, more intricate examples. What was I thinking? So if any of you go to Peru and discover that I've saved you lots of time and money by posting all these tips on my blog, you'd better bring me one back!

Sue

Copyright 2009 text and photos. All rights reserved

Peru: Arequipa to Puno

This is Peru trip post number four and it's mostly photos.

After returning to Arequipa from Colca Canyon, I scheduled in a somewhat free day for us. In the morning we had a tour to a University museum just off the main plaza to see "Juanita" the ice mummy or "ice maiden" or "ice princess". It was a fascinating tour, but no photography was allowed and they didn't even sell postcards. You can google her or watch for her on the Discovery or History channels. She's very famous.

The rest of the day we wandered around and relaxed in Arequipa's city center. Caleb fed the pigeons in the plaza, we sampled the local delicacy queso helado at an outdoor market, we got empanadas from a panaderia and ate them in front of the cathedral for lunch, we did a little shopping and walked in a city park. It was a very nice day.

school girls in the Plaza de Armas who thought Caleb was "bonito"--especially when he said "Tengo ocho anos." They were so giggly and chatty even though we only understood about a quarter of what they were saying.

a vendor we bought hand-knit hats from

we had to take this photo with the jacaranda tree since we've planted one in our backyard

Dan and Caleb trying queso helado--literally cheese ice cream even though it has no cheese in it--ice cream made with egg yolk, milk, sugar and cinnamon--on the steps of La Iglesia de San Francisco. It's a specialty of Arequipa.

Some of the many beautiful wooden doors in Arequipa:

To Puno

After our free day in Arequipa, we spent the next day on a five hour bus trip to Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca. It was a nice bus, but there weren't any stops or sightseeing along the way except for a brief stop at the bus station in Juliaca. Juliaca isn't a very pretty place. The main features of Juliaca are dirt streets and mudbrick buildings with spikes of rebar sticking out of the flat roofs which are left in place in case they want to build another storey later. If you are going to Puno you will go through Juliaca.

In Peru you also have the option of flying from city to city or of taking a night bus. The night buses have been robbed on occasion. If you are the type of person who wants to take the small risk and is able to sleep anywhere, it's a good way to save time and money on your trip. I'm not that type of person. Our tour company booked us into the First Class compartment as you can see from the photo below (I think because we booked late and that was all that was left). It was a double decker bus and the coach compartment was the upper level. There was a bathroom on the bus and they served snacks and had movies. I guess they play bingo on the night bus.

on the bus

landscape on the way to Puno

view of Lake Titicaca from the road

After settling in at our hotel, we wandered over to the main plaza, toured the church and found a restaurant for dinner. The restaurant gave Dan a free Pisco sour with dinner. Pisco is the famous grape brandy from Peru and a Pisco sour has ice, lime juice, sugar, egg white for froth and bitters in it. After dinner, ladies selling knitwear on the street discovered Dan was an easy target for a sale. Caleb got outfitted for the cold boat trip the next day.

How cute is this?

Be careful if you go to Puno. There were pick-pockets out looking for a mark. One tried me, but he wasn't very good at it ☺ Read your guide book and find out about the tactics they use so you can spot them. All over Peru, wear a money belt for your passport, immigration card, ATM card, credit card and most of your cash and keep a close eye on your camera and other items.

Puno is at 12,500 ft altitude. It's often below freezing at night. Wear layers.

We don't have a lot of photos of Puno because it's not as scenic as other cities in Peru and we didn't really spend much time there, but it's worth the visit for a boat tour of Lake Titicaca. Check back for my next post on that!

Sue

Copyright 2009 text and photos. All rights reserved.