Day 22: Huancayo and elections

In a way it feels like I've been in Peru for less time than three weeks, and in a way it feels like I've been here for longer.

I went for a walk in the morning, just around town. It was fairly sunny, but I was still wrapped up warmly since I don't want to risk getting ill again. Then I met up with Yesy and Juliana for lunch in a seafood place - I dislike seafood as a rule, so I got ceviche (raw fish left to cook in lemon juice - it's quite nice, if very lemony). The three of us then went to visit Oscar and Sonia for a bit, then back to Juliana's to watch the prelim results of the presidential elections.

As Hilda later explained to me, voting closes at midday, and the results of the polls are shown at 4pm (not the actual results, although Yesy said that there's a very small margin of error). If nobody gets more than 50% of the vote, then a furhter election is held later on between the two most popular candidates. So... in early June, it'll come down to an election between Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13027410)

In the evening I went out with Juliana and her friend Daniel - we ate hot dog and chips - 'salchipapas', it's called over here. On a side note, did I mention how cheap food is here? A good plate of salchipapas (I couldn't finish them all) in a cafe in the shopping centre cost the equivalent of 1.75 pounds or so. After dinner, we saw Rio in the cinema, that was good fun. We smuggled in drinks (strictly speaking we can't bring in food from outside of the cinema - there are attendants to check bags for food and cameras, but so far I've been lucky), at one point in the film mine fizzed out of the bottle and the people in the neighbouring seats turned to stare - joyous... other than that, I really did have a great evening.

We came across Hilda and Yesy while trying to get a taxi back, so the five of us got a taxi together - Juliana and Daniel got off outside Oscar and Sonia's, then the rest of us made our way back to the house.