el diario limeño: a diary of my peruvian escapades: April 2009

Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is a really important and widely celebrated holiday in Peru. It's during this week that many Lima residents travel to other parts of the country, which is exactly what Katie, Mary, and I did once classes let out on Wednesday for a long weekend. We boarded a bus in Lima at 5:30 that afternoon, not to arrive in Arequipa (the country's second largest city) until around 9:30 the next morning. A number of movies were shown on the bus (I watched a Spanish-dubbed version of the remake of The Honeymooners featuring Cedric the Entertainer - pure gold), meals were served, friends were made, bedtime was announced, and inadvertent snuggle-related offenses were committed against unwitting strangers (whoops). All in all, it was a good and uneventful trip. In Arequipa we purchased tickets for another, 3-hour bus ride from Arequipa to the tiny pueblo of Aplao. After a two-and-a-half-hour 'layover' in Arequipa, we boarded our sweaty, smelly, yucky bus; I was surprised to find that this three-hour ride would far surpass the 16-hour journey I'd just completed in discomfort and overall disagreeableness. Among other things, the featured film was The Ten Commandments, and the volume was such that my wee little iPod could not compete. Ayayay.

Upon arriving in Aplao, we were whistled, shouted, and leered at in such a way as we had never experienced, even in Lima. After a few minutes of panic prompted by the apparent disappearance of Katie's backpack from the under-bus storage compartment (it was soon recovered), the proprietor of the lodge in which we would be staying picked us up and drove us to said lodge (about 30 minutes away). Strangely enough, Mary had met the daughter of the owner, Julio, at a dentist's appointment prior to leaving the States. Her recommendation led us to Majes River Lodge, which is situated in Colca Valley, one of the deepest canyons in the world, near Majes River. Julio gave us a tour of the lodge, which consists of, among other things, a dining room, several guest quarters, a fire pit, a chapel, and a bull ring. Julio also produces his own Pisco (Peruvian liquor) and wine from grapes he himself cultivates; he gave us samples of each. His Pisco is 100% pure alcohol - I got tipsy off of the equivalent of half a shot. The rest of the evening was spent unpacking a bit, having dinner, and attempting to make friends with some not-as-nice-as-we'd-hoped young people from Arequipa, one of which was apparently high on something much stronger than marijuana. Yuck. Oh, and we spent some time around a hotter-than-hot bonfire drinking wine and lamenting the loss of our eyebrows before retiring to our quarters at what we thought was a late hour but what was, in reality, approximately 9:20, thus establishing ourselves as the dorks of the weekend crowd.

On Friday we woke up early to have breakfast and set out, with a number of other guests, on a white water rafting excursion. Mary, Katie, and I were in one raft with a high school kid named Victor and a professional guide named Manuel (a son of Julio's), whom I absolutely adore. We drifted (yes, drifted - it was a class II) down Majes River for about 90 minutes, surrounded by mountains and terrain so awe-inspiring that none of us could be certain we weren't dreaming. After lunch Katie and I were itching to hike. Julio drove us to the outskirts of a huge area surrounding El Castillo, a mountain shaped like a castle. According to Julio, the surrounding area is purportedly populated by women who, though very young, are all widows. Locals believe that El Castillo killed all of their husbands because it wanted the women all to itself. While Julio waited for us in the truck, Katie and I hiked what we estimate to be 2 miles toward - and up - El Castillo. There wasn't a soul in sight - human or otherwise. It was dead silent and absolutely beautiful. Silent, that is, when we weren't screaming bloody murder and listening to our voices echo. It should be noted that the names of all of my beautiful sisters, my angelic niece, my mother, Areli, and Evan have been echoed by a breathtaking Peruvian landscape. Love. A "path" that followed the base of the mountain led us to another "path" that we followed up El Castillo into an amphitheater-type structure where we took some pictures inside a "sick crevice," as Katie called it, and observed a few minutes of pure, unadulterated, sun-soaked silence. The sun was setting as we made the trek down the mountain and back to the truck, creating a spotlight-like effect that was absolutely breathtaking and a perfect send-off. We made it back to the truck just in time to miss the spirits that begin wandering El Castillo every evening at 6:00 pm. Phew!

Dinner Friday night consisted of fried shrimp that had yet to be stripped of their legs, heads, even eyeballs. We struggled to find the edible parts, which made for a fun little game. After dinner a very delightful, if inebriated, woman from Arequipa successfully taught us some indigenous dances and quite unsuccessfully (on account of the multiple bottles of wine she'd consumed) attempted to teach us a card game. We went to bed happy.

Saturday morning we woke up early once again to go rafting. I had insisted to Manuel the day before that the outing that morning had been too "tranquilo" and I wanted to raft a more turbulent part of the river. Though the water level had risen significantly, round 2 was only nominally more exciting, but nevertheless a lot of fun. What's more, we stopped halfway through and hiked up a mountain where Manuel showed us pre-Inca ruins of the Huari and Collagua cultures. We were literally stepping over unearthed bones and handling pre-Inca pottery and textiles - whoa! It was incredible. We even ran into some grave-robbers who wanted to take a picture with us. (Seeing white people is even more foreign to them than it is to people here in Lima.) We obliged, half-bemusedly and half-awkwardly.

After a lunch consisting of fried starches and broccoli (two of my favorite things in the world), we met up with a guy about our age named Jim (Gimber) who took us horseback riding. There was only one horse - Tornado - so we took turns. I went first - my first time riding a horse (I think)! I rode Tornado up the street a ways and, as we turned onto a dirt path into the mountains, we had to stop for an unexpected and amusing cattle crossing. We rode for just under two hours. About halfway through we stopped and scaled a mountainous structure and took some beautiful pictures of the valley and the surrounding mountains. Awesome. Jim was an absolute doll and talked a lot about the struggling tourism industry in the area and his love of hanging out and tending the crops and the livestock there. Oh! That reminds me - when we got back, I milked a cow! Neither Katie nor Mary wanted to, but I was really into it. It requires more skill than you would think, and man the flies are intolerable. But it was a fun experience and one that, as Katie and I like to say, brings me one step closer to dominating future games of "I never." And isn't that what life is all about?

Saturday night at the good old Majes River Lodge was...strange. A couple from Arequipa, Lily and her boyfriend Alex, both in their late fifties I'd say, invited us to have some Pisco with them, and of course we accepted. Little did we know Lily was drunk beyond amusing, beyond entertaining, beyond sloppy, I'd say just shy of dangerous. Alex was in the same condition. Lily's speech was so slurred that I understood MAYBE 15% of what she said, and half of the time that was English (though admittedly atrocious English, bless her heart). Alex told us repeatedly that, "Los americanos, los ODIO. Los odio" - "I HATE Americans. I hate them." After, oh I'd say, the fifth time he said it I looked him in the eye and told him if he said it again I'd kill him. Four more times he said it. He also told us he had thought we were French because all Americans are ugly. Oh, and here's a gem - he expressed his desire, in front of Lily, to trade her in for the three of us. All opposed? Yes, I do believe the nays have it.

The next morning while we were eating breakfast we found out that, shockingly enough, a bottle of water was not enough to revive Lily and that Alex would be taking her to the nearest hospital right away.

After breakfast we gathered our things and piled into the van to go back to Aplao and catch a slightly nicer, but nearly as miserable as the first, bus to Arequipa. This time we had about four hours to spend in Arequipa, and we had every intention of doing as much as we could during that window. We met up with a friend of Julio's who, for a little over $5.50 per person, stored our backpacks in a safe place and drove us everywhere we wanted to go. We were starving, so we had lunch first at an Italian restaurant where I finally got to enjoy some kickass pizza. We then went to El Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a convent that was built in the late 16th century and still houses practicing nuns. It is GIGANTIC and we allowed ourselves only and hour to roam around, so needless to say we were booking it. But it was amazing. Disturbingly macabre images of a crucified Christ on every wall were no match for the beautiful gardens, architecture and rich history.

From El Monasterio we went to do a little handicraft shopping. I came upon a number of vendors who had set up on the steps of San Francisco Church, among them a little girl named Ariana and her mom. Ariana cannot be more than eleven years old, and she knew and explained to me what each piece of jewelry they sold was made of - what kind of stone, what kind of silver, what animal this tooth came from, what kind of fabric that bracelet is woven from. She was amazing and beautiful and I wanted to take her home with me. But I settled instead for two rings and a leather change purse. After snapping a few quick pictures of Arequipa's Plaza de Armas, we made our last stop at La Iberica, a renowned chocolate shop, where I bought (and later consumed) an obscene amount of chocolate.

The bus ride from Arequipa back to Lima was peaceful enough at first, but was ultimately more eventful than I'd bargained for. About halfway through the first movie of the evening, I began to sneeze practically incessantly. The usual indications of an irritating-but-not-life-threatening reaction to an environmental allergen ensued - itchy, watery eyes, itchy runny nose, itchy inner ears, and an itchy neck, all of which I'm quite accustomed to given my sensitive immune system. What happened next I was not so accustomed to. My eyes started to itch so badly that I wanted to rip them out and the itchiness of my neck spread to my arms and, worst of all, the palms of my hands. I was scratching furiously and growing increasingly concerned. My chest, stomach, and legs then began to itch and a rash appeared all over my body. At one point I turned around to Katie, who was seated behind me, to tell her that I thought something might really be wrong. Her response to my face alone confirmed it: "Oh my God, Taylor! You look...oh my God!" I began to panic and, of course, cry. The bus happened to be stopped (why, I'm not sure) so Katie and Mary informed the attendant that I needed to get off the bus and get some medicine. There was a pharmacy on the same block where the bus was stopped; I bought a couple of antihistamines. They did nothing. When a lady sitting diagonal from me, a doctor, told me I wasn't getting any better I began again to panic and cry. Somehow, for some reason, another passenger on board, apparently with a medical background as well, had with him a pill that was specifically for the kind of reaction I was having. I took it and within twenty minutes the itching waned and I started to feel better. I took a total of 7 pills and freaked out a total of I-don't-know-how-many passengers, but in the end I was fine. I still don't know what prompted the reaction. My hypothesis, in retrospect, is that I had a worse-than-usual reaction to an environmental allergen and I panicked, which caused the symptoms to worsen and spread.

Unfortunately, that was not the only misfortune I met with on our journey home. The attendant turned out the lights; it was bedtime once again on the Cruz del Sur bus. I had already drifted off by this point, but I awoke by chance to a most disturbing scene: the man sitting next to me was masturbating. To say that I was more uncomfortable/scared/confused/in need of my mommy than I have ever been in my 22 years is an understatement. There was motion, there was panting, there was...pure terror on my part. I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended to be asleep - I didn't know what else to do. I wanted somebody to hold my hand (not him). I wanted to cry. I wanted it to go away. But all I could think to do was close my eyes. As my mother would say, I got that honest. (Thanks, Mom.) One friend later told me that I should have jumped up and screamed, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Another, that I should have cleared my throat and said, "Excuse me sir, I can't help but notice you have your dick in your hand." It was terrifying and weird and uncomfortable and I hope to never experience such a thing again.

In spite of the rather traumatic ride home, the weekend was a grand success. In the end it cost us less than 1200 soles, or 400 soles per person, which is well under $150. Oh how I love the Peruvian tourism industry.

In conclusion, some key words to summarize the weekend: Pisco, rafting, horse poo, El Castillo, ruins, nature, history, mountains, cold showers, creepy crawlies, wonderful people, wonderful memories, spirits (of the dead variety as well as the alcoholic variety), flying hot ash, hammocks, donkeys, cows, cow poo, vino.

I am so appreciative of these experiences that, for whatever reason in the world, I've been afforded.

Video and photos to come...