So...Peru

(From last night)

Ohhh boy! I am just about the happiest girl ever today. I´ve arrived in Puno, Peru after three stressful and exhausting days of bus travel.

The goodbye to the boys was sadder than I´d imagined it might be. I even teared up! But I just adore those two. They are some of the silliest people I´ve ever known, but they also have a very sweet and sincere underbelly. Very endearing.

It´s amazing how quickly you get to know people when you travel together. Perfect strangers become intimate friends within days. Secrets are shared. Wholes selves are opened up in a way that just doesn´t happen in the "real world", whatever that is. (I think I still define the real world as my old life in America. My life is very real here, too, though. I´ve just fully realized that in the last month. What i´m doing is real and legitimate. Not fluff. Not escape. Not a dream. Just being.)

As I stepped onto hte night bus to Arica, Chile, fighting my goodbye tears, I ran into Sara Peyer, a Swiss gal who was at the school in Buenos Aires when I was. So when the bus pulled into Arica around 7 AM the next morning, we buddied up to find our way across the border, into Tacna, Peru.

The Lonely Planet said that shared taxis, "collectivos", are the easiest transport across the border, so when someone approached us in the bus terminal and offered our groggy selves just that, we shrugged in agreement, and followed the greying Chileno out the door. Though I am certain now that our way across the border was totally legal and frequently used by locals and tourists alike, the situation was certainly questionable at the time.

We were led out to a parking lot full of unmarked, beat up Cadillac-looking automobiles, make cerca 1985. Our "taxi" was a maroon clunker, with bench seats front and back that were covered with a lovely fabric of a just-noticeable different shade of maroon. The driver had to use a pole to keep the trunk open as he loaded our bags. We were told to get in and wait. We looked at each other nervously. "You think this is okay?" I said. "Don´t know. Do you?" A few minutes lter, three other passengers joined us. They all looked to be locals, and I don´t know why that was comforting, but it was. Two of them were older women, another reassurance (no offense, men).

And off we went. This area of the world is nothing to look at, by the way. It´s worse than the Patagonian Steppe, actually. Flat, dusty, desert. And the towns are so depressing. Sara was planning to stay a night in Arica, but when she saw it, she decided to pass. "I just do not want to stay here at all," she said.

Tacna was no better, though some creative folks had done some very impressive artwork on the enormous sand duns surrounding the city. We spent the entire morning in the bus station, trying to sort out travel plans. After much stress, I got my next two bus tickets in order, and at 12_30, we were on another bus to Arequipa, Peru. Then at 8:45 this morning, I was on yet another bus to Puno, my final destination (for this week, that is).

I had a grand tour through American pop culture over the past few days. In three bus rides, I was forced into watching: The Pianist (didn´t mind that one), I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (why?), The Alamo (blah), Pirates of the Carribean - Dead Man´s Chest (entertaining, mas o menos), License to Wed (actually more entertaining than I expected), and John Tucker Must Die (which, shamefully, I have seen before). I could´ve tried to read instead, but they pump up the volume so loud, it´s impossible to concentrate, not to mention that my current book of desperation is a Robert Ludlum thriller called The Sigma Protocol. My reading horizons sure are expanding. I even read some Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts on Easter Island.

Anyway, I was very relieved when we finally pulled up in Puno. While I was, in the end, very glad to have Sara around for the border corssing, I had been anxious for a little alone time and was slightly annoyed to find myself paired up with someone for another day.

But, ah, I´ve finally gotten some alone time, even if it´s just for a day. I sort of forgot about the rush that comes from solo-travelling. The huge self-esteem boosts that come from navigating strange cities alone, communicating en Español, solo dining.

From my analysis of the map, my hostal here appeared to be quite close to the bus terminal - no more than ten minutes walk or so. I turned down countless taxi drivers, eagerly offering me an easy (and cheap) way out. I can do this, I thought. No problem. As soon as I got out onto the streets of Puno by myself, though, looking every bit the backpacker, I started wondering if I´d made a rather large mistake. I couldn´t find any street signs anywhere, and everyone was looking at me like I was an alien. I finally asked someone on the street how to get to El Puerto, where my hostal is located. Just one block up, they said. Perfecto! And so I somehow managed to locate my hostal without a single wrong turn. May sound silly, but when you finally see that sign you´re looking for and realize you´ve done it! it´s an incredibly empowering feeling.

Even better, I got led up to a private room with a private bathroom! All for me! And only about $11 per night! Eeek! So after an incredibly cheap, early dinner (vegetable soup, grilled trout with rice, fruit salad, and hot tea for $6), I have returned to my little haven and am just in delicious, alone-time heaven. It´s a few minutes before 8 now, and I doubt I´ll make it much past 9 before I conk out. The altitude´s given me a headache, and I´m pooped.

A few words about Peru first, though. A few days ago, I was explaining to someone how excited I was to get into Peru. "Argentina and Chile were amazing," I said, "but most of the time nothing really felt THAT foreign to me. I think Peru is going to be much more foreign."

Indeed. Well, I sort of forgot about Peru´s third-world status, and the poverty just walked up and smacked me in the face. It´s always easy to idealize things in your mind - Oh, Peru! So exotic! So...Peru! And then a town comes into view, full of one-room lean-tos. Small boxes of bricks (if they´re lucky), many with roofs of sheet metal. Nothing attractive about it. Nothing exotic about it. Over half of Peruvians live below the poverty line. I´d read that fact numerous times, but it never quite registered until I saw how most Peruvians live.

I feel both guilty for parading around here on VACATION among such poverty (though I do think I´m a pretty tolerable American tourist, as things go), and slightly hopeful that my money will help them out in some small way. They need my tourist self, don´t they? (That is probably no better than the way I used to justify going to the walk-in Asian nail spas for a mani-pedi: "I´m supporting their business!" But oh well.)

The Peruvians are super friendly, though, so I´ll hope that they DO want me here. A girl on the bus started chatting my ear off for the first twenty minutes. She seemed so genuinely interested in me - I was a little taken off guard. And the folks at the hostels in Arequipa and here have been fantastic.

My walk from the bus station was eye-opening. Block after block, women in traditional dress sat with their merchandise. They are all short, squatty, grandmother types, with two slick black braids running down their backs. They wear a long, frilly skirt, with layers of peticoats underneath, hand-knitted cardigans, hand-woven shawls of bright colors, bowler hat, opaque tights, flat shoes. It´s exactly what I was expecting to see, and yet, being face to face with these women was just shocking. It felt like when I walked through the Hacidic Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn - I have stepped into another century! Help! Much of what they were selling was produce. I have never seen so many potatoes! I cannot believe they actually sell them all, so what do they do with all the leftovers?

Amid so much foreign-ness, though, is everyday life. School girls giggle to each other, mothers argue with sons, people go to the bank, go to the market. Just living. Just getting through the day. Not NYC at all, and yet, exactly the same.

****

It´s Tuesday now. Present day. I slept for almost 12 hours last night. I needed it.

To answer my Suzers' question, I am speaking a bit of Spanish, though probably not as much as I spoke when I was in classes. Traveling with English-speakers is not very conducive to exercising the Spanish, especially when those English-speakers don´t know more than a few words and DO NOT want to practice with you. However, I am very glad I took those classes because I do try to use my Spanish whenever I´m talking to locals (obviously), and I think THEY really appreciate the effort. And, as I get further away from the modern world of Buenos Aires and Santiago, fewer and fewer locals speak any English. I have witnessed my non-Spanish speaking friends try to communicate with people, and I feel slightly embarrassed for them. You can certainly get around without Spanish - hand gestures speak volumes - but it´s not the same.

And, to my Marie-pie-face, I was actually decent at sandboarding, you little you-know-what. I have some pictures of it for you, in fact. I was basically the best one out there.

Okay, time to go now! Peru awaits!