Today was an amazing day. It was the last day of Cuzco’s Carnaval celebration. For some reason their’s lasts longer than the Rio Carnaval. Basically, the entire city converged at La Plaza at 10am. The marching band was the signal for the place to go nuts. The entire plaza became a war zone. It was all about water fights. Be it water pistols, water balloons, or huge buckets; everyone was in frenzy. There was no sanctuary. Not even the breakfast nook on the second balcony in which we ate was spared. I’ve never seen anything like it. I tried to take photos, but balloons were flying through the air like bombs and I felt very much like a cameraman in Nam or something. In fact, the whole Carnaval experience has been a sort of metaphor for my Cusco experience: I weaved in and out of trouble unarmed, as in, without aqua; just as I’m weaving through this city unarmed, as in, without understanding Spanish.

   My Spanish, which is improving, must sound to these people like I was deprived of oxygen in the womb. Like when I want more toast at breakfast I say, "Estoy buscando mas pan caliente." Translation: "I’m looking for more hot bread."

   The parade was going around and around the plaza and the floats and the poor dancers in the parade were being pelted repeatedly. A fire engine, which more closely resembled a tank, kept firing its hose into the crowd. Old men with missing teeth and hunchbacks were cruising the plaza with bags of water balloons and huge boyish grins like they were 12 again.

  There was one float in particular that represented a sort of castle upon which stood and danced about six locals dressed as Incas. The Incas were the natives indigenous to this area and were wiped out by the Spaniards. So the mock Incas danced upon the float as water balloons sailed up and into their faces and bodies. They withstood the onslaught and continued dancing. It was they vs. about 50,000 people and they were the underdogs just as the real Incas were some 500 years ago.

  Some of these people were whipping water balloons with full might right into the faces of senors and senoras and bambinos. It was nutty.

   Balloons and birds were flying around with such continuity that when the shadow of a bird approached I ducked in absolute fright. For the first hour I remained dry, having dodged many a bucket until I finally said fuck it and put away the camera and got myself a water bottle (big mistake). Stealthily, I crept around the plaza just like I was a boy again, and I WAS a boy again. I attacked small children and aging senors and senoras and I laughed. Then Andrew and I sought a good militaristic vantage point where we could defend ourselves. But we were bombarded. Peruvians are a small people. I would say the tallest Cusqenian male is about 5' 7". They aren’t very wide here since McDonalds hasn’t made it to this leg of the woods yet and high altitudes make for high metabolisms. So, at 5' 11", 220lbs, I am, perhaps the largest person in the city; Clearly, a juicy target for water balloon assaults.

   The city had gone mad, or as I now call it: Aqua loco. And when it had become too much for us to bear, we departed the plaza and headed back into the hills to search for an apartment. The problem with locating an apartment was that we needed a phone line already installed. Without which, neither of us would have been able to hook up to the internet. This is essential since we are both writing and relying on the internet to send and receive our pieces.

  Searching for an apartment had begun to drag us down, and today it was much worse. Because, as we learned, Aqua loco does not only occur in the plaza, but in the entire city of Cuzco. So as we hiked around the city searching for a home, lunatic aqua bombers assaulted our good beings. We would be climbing steps or walking through an alley and come across a raiding party, giggling and pointing at us. We could only plead with our eyes as we walked by, or sometimes with our tongues, "No mas aqua senorita, por favor, no mas, no mas?!" Sometimes it worked, more often it did not.

  Many of these raiding parties would lay in wait in the corridors of buildings and leap out like moray eels sloshing buckets and chasing us down the street. We did not find an apartment today.

  Tuesday Feb. 23 (morning)

  We found an Apartment. For all its hassles and for our inability to communicate with these people, and for all the walking and cabbing and bussing (the busses are small vans that whisk around and in the city like rodents) it was a terrific way to see the city. But I’m glad it’s over now because only after we are settled will I be able to write and to sightsee. Some of the places we saw were downright frightening. Others were spectacular. The place we chose, which is abreast of the plaza, is a little of both.

  One place we looked at was particularly frightening. When we turned the corner to the front door we were greeted by a sharp, thunderous grunt which had me nearly leaving my feet, and Andrew and our guide/friend Tammy shrieking in alarm. Two enormous Pigs, hairy and smelly, blocked our path to the front door. We stepped around them as they snorted. "I don’t know about this," said Andrew.

   I didn’t either.