Out of sight in more ways than one, Cindy Kurleto fills us in on what she’s been up to, staying stinky, the lost city of the Incas and her antipathy towards lazy lovers.

In the reality series that is Pinoy pop culture, Cynthia Christina Kurleto (“Cindy” to the rest of the populace) is that recurring character you wish they’d guest more often, or—damn it—absorb permanently. When she steps into the screen, there is surely no need for canned sighs and swoons. (Hell, you’d want to jump the TV monitor the second she appears.) Equal parts hissing seductress and sporty girl-buddy, Cindy on the boob tube proved one thing: television is, indeed, a godsend. Suddenly, with her in the spotlight, mock-burlesque numbers at noontime made perfect sense; suddenly, all the gameshow tackiness became easy to swallow. Music-channel hosting, meanwhile, was never any better: with Cindy’s hypnotic Bond-girl delivery (it’s the Viennese twang-in-reverse), you never want to do anything in the world but watch that freaking Blink-182 video she said you should “check out.”

For someone who wasn’t even trying to get into show business, Cindy did embrace the work wholeheartedly.

“It was wonderful. I had a great time—stuff that happens in movies, you know, every silly girl’s dream kind of stuff,” she begins nostalgically. While vacationing in idyllic Albay perhaps a decade ago, the unsuspecting Ms. Kurleto got “discovered” to appear in a commercial for soap: her first in a string of successes on the superstar front. And to think that, less than a year prior, things had been much, much simpler. “I lived (in Albay) for nine months, shared a room, (and) showered with tabô. Cold water!” she exclaims proudly.

“Tabô is cool,” I tell her.

“Yeah! The suspense, before the cold water hits!” she expounds.

I push it further by suggesting the use of such bathing implements somewhere colder, like Baguio. “Oh, no, no! No!” she protests, letting her imagination run wild, adding, “Stay stinky; who cares?”

“The person who’ll be sitting beside you?”

She counters:  “Pheromones, baby!”

And, speaking of beastly scents, even with almost-zero media visibility these days, Cindy still does gym a measly five times a week, like her life depended on it. “In reality, I would eat less instead of work out more,” she shyly admits, adding, “but now that I have more time I’m kind of taking it to another level: sixty minutes of intense cardio and weights [each session].”

“You going for the bicepy Madonna look?” I ask, like I know anything about any sort of physical activity—occasionally taking defective escalators does not count—much less intense cardio and weights.

“No! But you gotta give her respect for her age and that body.”

When Cindy first graced Pinoy pop culture via Masayang Tanghali, Bayan, it was like she wielded a magic wand that turned things into objects of class. She had that face (a gorgeous European gauntness), those eyes (a Filipina’s pleading innocence), and that frame (in Woody Allen’s words, “a body that won’t quit; it won’t [even] take five minutes for a coffee break!”). After her celebrated stints as Vic Sotto’s better half in Daddy Di Do Du and as a model-ish elf in Encantadia, she found herself pining for The Great Vacay, and now she’s in Peru (I know, I know; don’t cry).

As for the why, the when, and the how, she laughs, “About seventeen months ago, with a plane obviously,” continuing, “The why—has many answers that change as time goes by. [But now, it’s] because it was the right time to move on and focus on new challenges, you know, leaving your comfort zone.” She adds, “I haven’t spent all my days in Peru since I’ve been gone. I’ve visited friends in New York, twice. And went to see family in Vienna for four months and two months another time.”

When you think of Peru, you think many things, one them perhaps being ancient civilization (not the 80s, think more like 11,000 BC). The Machu Picchu is the no-brainer Peruvian association anyone can easily make, but, by all accounts, there’s a damn good reason behind that. I mean, “The Lost City of the Incas” is a really head-turning distinction. In more ways than one, juxtaposing Cindy with a world wonder such as The Machu Picchu—perfection in form, an artfulness in its contours, structural grace—makes real sense.

“You get there over the city Cusco, which is also amazing! Its original layout looks like a jaguar from the sky,” she paints in words, adding, “It’s humid. Super-humid, but coolish. Though right now, it’s going into winter. It’s three-thousand meters above sea-level and I got altitude sickness!”

She is enjoying her time, but, when there’s an opportunity to work, The Great Vacay goes on momentary recess. After all, Cindy is someone whose career arc was drawn before our very eyes, and we have witnessed her in several incarnations since. “I’m focusing on my health, getting in shape, and relaxing. I’m traveling too much to work for a long time anywhere at the moment, though I do jobs wherever I go—doing little shoots, pictorials, et cetera—but it soon gets routine.”

However, when the subject of Manila gets brought up, she is all wide-eyed, pining for the infested metropolis she has come to consider as home. “Peru is nice, but Manila is nicer. I’ve got plenty of reasons to always be coming by there.” Like which reasons? “Being able to call for a late night in-house massage; getting your nails done for no money at all; the always-warm weather. But those are just the little things,” she giggles.

During a lull in our conversation, she asks me about music, and I tell her about my band and our records, which are really polar opposites to her listening fare (currently Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come). I snap out of it and ask whether she’s heard DJ Minty Fresh Beat’s Radiohead-Jay-Z mash-up called Jaydiohead. I proceed to send her sample tracks, among which she liked “Fall in Step” (a mash-up of the rapper’s “Fallin’” and the British band’s “15 Step”) the best. “This sounds like jungle; I love it!” she enthused.

Another lull came as I aimlessly try to veer the chat into the “sex route.” Though she did say, when asked what kind of a lover she is, “Every time, different, I hope. I don’t like lazy lovers,” there was just something really amiss and unimaginative with that angle. Cindy pauses briefly, then lights up, “See, if you wanna spin it sexually…”

“Yes?”

“You can do the frequent-flyer thing; I travel all the time,” she says in deadpan. “They say the airport is the new club scene,” she adds half-kiddingly. “Is that true?” I protest, realizing, quite late, that I should use my imagination instead, and not keep yapping away.

Originally published in UNO July 2009 issue.

So the new issue’s out! And, as you can see on this site, the cover rocks. But what’s inside?

We’ve got a quite frankly astonishing shoot with the gorgeous Cindy Kurleto — photography by who else but Juan Caguicla, and interview by none other than poet/songwriter Aldus Santos. And then we have a feature on Ellen Adarna, again with amazing photos by Juan, made even more amazing by special guest artist Lala Gallardo (I’m not going to describe it, you just have to see it). Interview by yours truly, writer and closet gangsta rapper Luis Katigbak.

There’s lots more: Jessica Zafra on historically significant treasures, Tweet Sering on Manny Pacquiao and boxing (in more than one sense of the term), Noel Orosa on Kinatay, Norman Black on how to win a championship, Erwin Romulo on Lor Lapus (and PJ Harvey), longboarding in the Visayas, UAAP predictions, and more more more, fashion and business and pop culture coverage that is second to none. Just get it!

“No fun to be alone… Well come on, well come on, well come on!” — Iggy Pop

*Incidentally, Cindy Kurleto was also featured recently on Complex magazine’s list of 9 Hottest Filipinas. If you check it out, you will also come across former UNO cover girl Kat Alano (as well as images from our Anne Curtis cover shoots).