Pisco and Lima

The Reserva Nacional de Paracas in Pisco, where we went after Arequipa, is touted as the “little galopagos.” I guess that considering those lofty expectations I shouldn’t be surprised that it didn’t quite live up to its reputation… we got there at 5am on Friday after taking an overnight bus from Arequipa, and since the bus stewardess gave us absolutely no advance warning that our stop was coming up, we had about 90 seconds total to get all our things together (in the pitch-black), get our bags, and attempt to wake up before being booted (well, not literally) onto the gravel strip that’s the turnoff for Pisco and the closest thing they have to a bus terminal. I had to put in my contacts on the side of the road (with the taxis circling like vultures, I might add) because my glasses were stuffed in the depths of my monster backpack.

Anyway, after 2 hours sleep in a hotel bed, we got up to take the first part of our tour to the nature reserve. Which as far as I could tell was just sand. We saw some flamingos from really far away, a pretty view of the sand dunes, the shoreline, a few other birds and some ugly vultures, and 3 fish oil factories, 1 fishmeal factory, and a gas plant.

The second part of the tour (which we did the following day) was fortunately better, although still not quite the tropical paradise of hundreds of cool species of animals that I had expected. Here’s what we saw: a couple of rock islands, completely bare except for hundreds of thousands of birds and a correspondingly enormous amount of guano. And some seals. It was actually pretty interesting — the guano is collected every 5 years and sold at ridiculous prices in North America. I forget what they use it for. But whatever it is, it’s a multimillion dollar industry, and actually one that has literally fueled the growth of Peru at various points in its history (that might be a pun. Guano might be used for fuel. Like I said I kind of forget. And the pun, if it is one, was definitely not intentional). The guide told us that before they started collecting the guano, the islands appeared to be 30 METERS TALLER. That is a lot, lot, lot of bird poop. Luckily no one on the tour got bombed, although supposedly if you do it’s a sign of good luck. However, the guide did say that he gets bombed on a regular basis and is still waiting for his luck, so I don’t really know how well it works.

And now we’re in Lima. Lima… is foggy. Actually, we’re in Miraflores, a suburb of Lima, but it’s basically the same thing. Miraflores is foggy too. All we really did yesterday was shop (there’s an outlet-type store selling the defective garments from American brands like Abercrombie and Hollister that are made in Peru. A t-shirt costs 5 soles, or about $1.75, and there’s also a market and some music stores with unpirated CDs) and go out to eat, and oh yeah, watch the most important football game of the season on tv, in which the #1 and #2 ranked teams faced off. The team from Cuzco won, which was a huge disappointment to most of the people who were watching with us at the hostel, although I couldn’t figure out why because half of them were Brazilian anyway. We were thinking about actually going to a game, but the one in Cuzco was really the only one anyone cared about, so we decided just to watch that instead of hiking to the stadium in San Martín. Today we’re going to tour the Centro of Lima and maybe stop by the Chinatown, and that’s pretty much it, I think, because tomorrow I leave at 4am to catch my flight back to BA.

–> Arequipa

I guess it’s been awhile since I’ve written about what we’re actually doing. The summary: From Ollanta we took a train to Aguas Calientes and then the bus to Machu Picchu early the next morning (nope, no Inca trail and I’m actually feeling okay about that), and then took a train-bus combo to Puno by way of Cuzco. Stayed one night in Puno, one night on a tiny island in Lake Titicaca, then went directly to Arequipa. 2 nights in Arequipa, 1 night each in two of the small towns by Colca Canyon (Cabanaconde and Chivay) then back through Arequipa to Pisco. That’s where we are now.

So now you’re all caught up and can discuss the trip among yourselves very knowledgeably. But for those of you who have nothing better to do and want more details, here’s the breakdown:

Machu Picchu: The ruins definitely lived up to their reputation, and I guess that I can’t really complain that the place was crawling with tourists, even at 6am, considering that I’m one of the crawlies. I do think that if I ever go back I’ll try to go during the off-season. But no matter…

Puno/Lake Titicaca: Town of Puno — scary/highly sketchy. Funny, too, cause our area seemed so normal by day. Luckily we were only there for one night. And I loved the tour we did of Lake Titicaca. We went first to these floating island that are made by an indigenous tribe called the Uros, then on to a regular island called Amantaní. We actually spent the night in the house of a family there! It was really cool, because to a large extent they maintain the traditional ways of doing things — no running water or electricity, they’re vegetarian (best vegetable soup I’ve had in South America), they speak Quechua… and they dressed up all the tourists in the traditional gear, for a supposedly traditional celebration. It was so much fun, even though it was obviously a little forced, and even though the clothing was by far the least flattering I’ve ever worn. If you don’t believe me, I’m sure J will be happy to display the blackmail-quality pictures he took of me. (his comment when our hostess had finished dressing me: “Wow… (pause)… you look… heavy.” THANKS.)

Arequipa: By far my favorite city that we’ve been to in Peru. I was sad we couldn’t spend more time here… it’s touristy, but in the way that tourism sometimes has a good effect by making things look nicer. Not as frantically tourist-dependent as Cuzco, not as ghetto as Puno. It’s a big city, but if you’re in the downtown it doesn’t feel that way, and the buildings are beautiful — they call it the White City because a lot of the buildings in the center are colonial casas antiguas made of white clay. The climate is perfect, and it’s surrounded by mountains. The food was even good.

Cabanaconde, Chivay, Colca Canyon: Arequipa is the main jumping-off point to trips to these towns, and really the only reason that anyone would go to these towns is to see the canyon, which is the second-deepest in the world. Too bad it’s such a long jump — 6 hours in bus between Arequipa and Cabanaconde, and ooooooohhh the most uncomfortable bus ride of my life, narrowly beating out the previous titleholders (before it was a tie between my ride from Calafate to Chalten and the marathon Santiago-Esquel). They call it a road. Ha. ha. But whatever, even though the towns themselves had very little of interest, the canyon was spectacular. The view from Cabanaconde, especially, was worth every bit of uncomfortable bouncing, jarring, jolting, back-aching bus time.

Pisco’s still left to write about, but I’m out of energy. Maybe it has something to do with the overnight bus we took and the rather rude awakening when we arrived at 5am. Anyway, I’m tired, so good night… and um, happy satyuga to everyone in Fairfield, yeah?

Peruvian Spanish

Today’s Peruvian word of the day: FULL. Seems straightforward, right? HA. In reality this is such a tricky concept that I can’t even give you a definition, so I’m going to take it situation by situation.

Meaning 1: It’s FULL… only not really.
EXAMPLES:
Travel Agent: “everything in Aguas Calientes is completely full at this time of year.”
Translation: I want you to book hotel rooms through me, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be between 30 and 40 people hawking hostels when you get off the train, for a lower price than you paid.

Ticket agent @ train station: “the train is completely full.”
Translation: Maybe so, but there will somehow still be several empty seats when the train actually departs at 5:40am.

Meaning 2: It’s not really FULL, but we may be using a non-conventional definition of “space available”
EXAMPLES:
Colectivo van driver: “You would like to go to Ollanta? Come this way, we have space available”
Translation: There are already between 23 and 36 people in the van, but it’s not full–look, there’s space right there by the wheel well if you crouch upside down. And squish down and make room, because there will be several people climbing on after you.

Bus driver: “Bus to Cuzco, Cuzco. There are still seats left.”
Translation: Oh, you thought by seats I meant actual places to sit? No no, you will be standing in the aisle for 2 full hours, but you won’t realize this until your bags are already stowed on top of the bus and it’s too late to do anything about it. Peruvians ride standing on long-distance buses all the time, so shut up and stop being a whiny tourist.

Ruined

Don’t be alarmed. In this case, “ruined” is just a crazily clever reference to the fact that I’ve seen more Incan ruins in the past 3 days than in my entire life before that, and not any sort of trip description. Actually, things are going really well — we’re finally out of Cuzco, to a smaller, quieter town a few hours closer to Machu Picchu called Ollantaytambo (affectionately known by me as Ollanta, mostly because I have trouble pronouncing the full name. We got here last night — left Cuzco in bus around 5:30, and then switched in Urubamba to a tiny colectivo. That part was a bit uncomfortable — partly because the road was kind of bumpy, and partly because they managed to squeeze 24 people (we counted) into a van that was approximately the size of our family minivan.

We were in Cuzco a fairly long time, maybe even a little too long, all things considered. But on the bright side, we did manage to have a couple of adventures before we left. John went paragliding, I went horseback riding (okay… that was NOT an adventure, it was actually incredibly boring. But oh well). But the most amusing little adventure, believe it or not, was actually part of my efforts to book our train to Machu Picchu.

I headed to the tourist office on Monday morning to try to figure out the best way to do the trip, and after waiting in line for foooorever, I finally got to ask my questions about train schedules, train prices, and English-speaking tour guides. The girl (she was maybe a little older than I am) answered everything pretty well but seemed a little bored… but as I was about to leave, she motioned me in closer and lowered her voice conspiratorially. Did I want her to recommend someone who could help me out with the planning and (almost whispering) cut me a really good deal on the Machu Picchu package? Yes?

When I nodded, she pulled out a small piece of notepaper and scribbled down a number. She was speaking so quietly that I had a little trouble understanding her
–Call this number and ask for Nacho. Tell him what you told me, that you want to go to Machu Picchu by train. He’ll make all the arrangements…
–Um… I’d kind of like to talk to this guy in person, doesn’t he have a regular office?
–(pause)… Call him and tell him that you want to meet with him. You can say that you’ll meet him on the Plaza de Armas, in 20 minutes. Describe what you look like (pause, as she sized me up)… tall, long hair, American, long-sleeved black shirt…
–So, he doesn’t have an office?
–You can meet him by the fountain in the center of the Plaza. Tell him that. Call him and tell him to meet you in 20 minutes. You’ll know him because he’ll be carrying a black notebook that says Agenda on it. Here’s the number.
–Aaaaah… thank you… very much…
–(speaking at a normal volume) You’re very welcome. Have a nice trip. And… remember… (lowering her voice again and looking sideways at the other desks) You didn’t hear any of this from me.

I wandered outside, still a little confused. But I decided that I might as well call the number. Although as I waited at the Plaza de Armas, being accosted by postcard sellers and scanning the faces of everyone who walked by, I was torn between feeling incredibly silly and incredibly nervous, because I seemed to have either stumbled on government secrets or gotten stuck in a bizarre spy novel.

The sequel was, of course, much less exciting than the build-up (sequels are like that, I guess). The guy who eventually came up with his black Agenda was a normal, middle-aged, Peruvian travel agent. Very nice, very helpful, and I’m still not quite sure what the point was of the secrecy and the rendezvous point, because he did have a normal office after all. I was half-relieved and half-disappointed that he didn’t enlist my aid on a secret mission. But he did manage to get us train tickets from here to MP for a decent deal, and he took care of the lodging and tour guide arrangements for MP and Aguas Calientes. And I got one-half of a good story to tell…

Cuzco

Aaaaand the vacation has officially begun. Packing took forever and was horribly sad, because I wasn’t just packing for 3 weeks in Peru, I also had to clean everything out of my room so that my host mom can paint it and turn it into her office while I’m gone… the classic “oh, we rented out your room while you were away” — only it’s literally true in this case, she’s a psychologist and also renting it to another psychologist starting in mid-August. But luckily I can still stay there when I’m in Buenos Aires, which won’t really be that much time between now and September, so it’s okay.

Anyway, the trip here was pretty uneventful. The flight from BA to Lima might have been a little turbulent — or maybe the spontaneous passenger applause when we landed was for some other reason — but I’m actually not really sure, because I slept the entire time. But luckily I managed to keep my eyes open from Lima to Cuzco, because the view was spectacular. I had a hugely hard time not using up an entire memory card just with those out-the-window shots (the ones that I always have to take, but that never come out well). Soooo now I’m in Cuzco, and getting really worried because John was supposed to get in yesterday and I still haven’t heard from him!!

Just kidding. (that was pretty funny, wasn’t it, Mom? Rest assured that he was thrilled you followed his flights second-by-second over the Internet.) Actually, he got in yesterday morning, a couple of hours late but with no major problems other than a serious lack of sleep, which he is busy making up for at the moment. Yesterday we didn’t really do much, just walked around Cuzco and visited a couple of tourist agencies and ate lunch and tried to fend off the hordes of little boys selling postcards on the main plaza. I’m telling you, that last bit took some effort — those kids are seriously aggressive. It took us almost 5 minutes to convince one boy (maybe 6 or 7 years old) that I really, really, really was serious when I said that I didn’t want to buy anything, and that him placing the whole pile of postcards on my arm when I wouldn’t take it voluntarily did not change that fact… but finally he got the point, turned around angrily, and “accidentally” kicked me as he walked away. I’ve officially made my first Peruvian enemy.

After that incident, we decided we’d better get out of Cuzco. Well, there maybe wasn’t such a cause-and-effect there, but Cuzco can be a little overwhelmingly touristy and we weren’t planning to stay here forever anyway. Probably we’re not going to do any sort of Inca Trail hiking — the main one has apparently been completely booked since March, and the alternates don’t actually sound that thrilling. So we might spend a couple more days in the Sacred Valley, and then head to Machu Picchu, and then to Lake Titicaca, although nothing’s definite yet.

One thing that’s fun (and amusing) about having J here is that I get to watch his reactions to various S. American weirdnesses. Like how you can’t trust the plumbing enough to flush anything down the toilet, and how it’s the biggest pain in the world to get change for any bill over 20 soles. And (his biggest complaint) how the sun is always in a different part of the sky, so if your sense of direction depends on remembering where North is, expect to feel permanently lost. I think he brought that one up about every half-hour yesterday. And once again, I get to feel like a wickedly good Spanish speaker, because instead of having to compare myself with Argentine university students I can compare myself with other tourists. Although I do have my moments… yesterday I tried to ask what time Sunday Mass (misa) was in the Cathedral, and instead I ended up asking for the “time of the dough” (masa). Confusion on all sides. Oops.

Countdown begins

I know I’ve said this before, but I really, really am having a hard time believing that my year is… over. Well, except for that 25-30-pager that I still owe for my independent study. But at the very least, I’m done with UBA — placed out of my finals (yesssss!), so all that’s left for me in BA is clear out my room, pack, plan Peru, plan Brazil, try to contact 3 million people that I still need to talk to for my independent study/senior thesis research, get ahold of everyone I want to see before I leave, clean up the loose ends with the program, get a yellow fever vaccine, etc. etc. Luckily I’m coming back here in between trips, or I’d probably be in danger of losing whatever grasp on reason I still have after the weeks of studying and projects and finals and a seemingly-endless series of colds.

Maybe I do this to myself subconsciously — that is, maybe I procrastinate on purpose so that when it comes right down to the wire I’ll be so busy that I don’t have time to be sad. (What do you think of that explanation, Mom?) I’ll let you know how it works, although I’m sure it’s not for everyone. But it’s strange, because even though all my tasks definitely are keeping my head out of the clouds, in a way I feel like I’ve already left Buenos Aires. Seriously, there are times when I can barely speak Spanish anymore (One of those times was during my oral exam in history, but ironically I think it helped me because the prof felt sorry for my inability to pronounce “especialización”. Or maybe my difficulties that day were just the result of having been sitting on the floor in the hall for 4 1/2 hours — no exaggeration — waiting to take the stupid test.). It’s weird — I want to enjoy my last days here, but I find myself thinking like all this is already past-tense.

If I’m rambling, it’s because I’m out of practice with blogging. But once I start travelling (oh good grief will someone please tell me whether that word has one or two l’s) I’m going to try to reanimate the blog, mostly so that no one gets mad at me if I don’t have time to stay on top of the emails.

And also, a little, cause with today being July 4th and all — the ultimate American holiday — I’m definitely missing the States more than I have in awhile. I want a (non-asado) barbecue, a picnic, pool party, a nice big fireworks show, and strawberry shortcake! Please. And warmer weather, while we’re at it. So for all you people in the USA, have fun being patriotic, and enjoy that corn on the cob or whatever it is. Lots and lots of love…