Halloween in the Inca City

Saturday of the halloween weekend dawned, and brought with it the reality that that very night I would be voluntarily parading down a runway in frontof Cuzco's elite. Evelyn, a local designer, and good friend of my current employer was holding a fashion show for her clothing line based in Cuzco. Cailtyn, Erianne and I (all Loki employees) had been asked to help model the $200- 300 dresses on the runway of one of Cuzco's more exclusive nightclubs on a Saturday night. And at the time it seemed like a good idea!! Having been rehearsing two hours a day all week in order to learn the Thriller dance (that Evelyn wanted us all to perform in perfect syncronisation at the end of the show) we were nervous but actually very excited to be finally getting to the big day. The night did not disappoint and with big hair and crazy makeup all the models were very excited to be showing off the lovely clothes (see picture... the clothes really were lovely, my face not so much in this picture!!). A local band was playing and we were all encouraged to dance about on the runway, hence the face in this picture... and up to the point where the skies OPENED the night was fantastic. Now the fashion show was indeed inside, however, I strongly suspect the roof had been sufferering from Peruvian maintainance syndrome for some time as when the monsoon started the deluge poured in, flooding the floor to about 5cm within 10 minutes. This was how I ended up spending last Saturday night dancing the thriller dance in a Cuzco nightclub, wearing a $200 dress, submerged in water to the ankles next to a Peruvian 6ft 4 drag queen called Barbie wearing a PVC miniskirt. Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually in the matrix...

The next day was halloween in itself, and once we had all revovered from our hangovers we were very excited to spend several hours carving fake gravestones for the garden at Loki out of polystyrene ´R.I.P your liver' and 'Here lies the remains of your dignity' coming out the winners. Followed by carving pumpkins (... check out smurf pumpkin to my left on the lower picture!). The night itself didn't dissapoint and with a live band, apple bobbing and many a fine zombie costume we had a very enjoyable and incredibly busy night with a totally full hostel bar. Luckily I hadnt been unable to get my hair untangled from the night before or my makeup off, so my zombie costume was very convincing... That combined with the fact that Mitch and I had spent the morning before making fake blood which had thickened convincingly and I spread it liberally over my face the effect was very pleasing, see below...

And the Sunday, apart from seeing us all much worse for wear, saw my boss gave me four days off, and by Monday night I was able to get on a bus to spend a few days in Arequipa and visiting Colca Canyon...