Day 4—Sunday, July 24—Cuzco→Puno

Adam woke me up a little before 10am, wondering whether or not I wanted to go to the big soccer game that day: Cuzco’s Cienciano vs. Lima’s Universitario. The winner would be league champion. I declined his offer, though, due to the fact that I felt pretty drained from doing the whole Machu Picchu dance the day before; thus, Adam gave my ticket away to a friend at the albergue, Edmundo. When I arrived at breakfast, Adam was wearing his jersey, working on his second beer and had a Red Bull in his pocket for later. Soon thereafter, however, I realized that the albergue’s two newest volunteers, Andere and Ainhoa, a couple of attractive Spanish girls from el País Vasco who use “vosotros” and pronounce Cuzco like “Cuthco,” would be attending the game as well, so I changed my mind and decided to join the group, making eight of us in all. I found a 2x1 ticket without much hassle outside of the stadium and then proceeded to quickly find a local friend willing to split the ticket with me. Together, we all put ourselves in the 4-block-long line that led to the entrance. Every ten minutes or so, the line shortened, which led the rest of us to make a mad dash to catch up to a spot closer to the front. In between dashes I drank a beer. Luckily, Lucía and Rocío found a shortcut in on the other side of the stadium and we found our way in fast.

We sat down in the Cuzco section. I was the only one in the group cheering for La U, but didn’t cheer too loudly because loyal fans of Cienciano vastly outnumbered me in terms of manpower, volume, and loyalty. They also came up with a number of creative, though vulgar, insults for the other team and sang and danced during the entire game. The nearby mountains cradled the stadium, giving it more grandeur than el Matute in Lima. The game proved to be more exciting as well. At halftime, Cienciano was up 1-0 on a header off a corner kick. Andere and I left our seats to procure some chicha—a colorful, corn-based, mildly alchoholic beverage—from out of a bucket for the crew. When we got back to our seats, I got some popcorn from one of the vendors too.

As the game resumed play, things started looking pretty bleak for La U, and then the middle-aged man sitting next to me wearing his Cienciano jersey gave me a thorough and manly embrace once his team scored a second goal late in the second half. That’s how it ended: 2-0.

After the game, Adam and I headed over to the bus station to buy our tickets to Puno. We gave ourselves an hour and a half to get ready and stock up on some supplies, taking off as the afternoon sun went down around 5.30. I couldn’t see much out my window, save a few sporadic fires that looked like miniature lighthouses in the distance. Much to our chagrin, and that of rest of the bus as well, no movie was shown. The ride also took longer than it was supposed to: we arrived in Puno after 1.30am instead 11.00pm. Nevertheless, we quickly found a hostal for the night.

feliz cumpleaños

boy with mushroom 2
Originally uploaded by rswells.

yesterday, brother curtis turned 15. friend adam also turned 23. heads up.

Day 3—Saturday, July 23—Ollantaytambo→Aguas Calientes→Machu Picchu→Cuzco

llama and machu picchu
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I woke up at 5.42. Hit the snooze button. Woke up again at 5.47. After washing my face, organizing my bags, and dressing, I heard a knocking on my chamber door at 6.10. It was the doorman from the night before: “You’re still going to eat breakfast at 6am, right?” “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” The breakfast consisted of tea, juice, coffee, and one pancake. On my way down the road, i witnessed the moonset. I arrived back at the ticket booth by 6.45, but the lady told me that the next available train would leave at 9.05 and that the roundtrip would cost about $80 or 260 soles. I only had about 260 soles total in my wallet and I couldn’t pay with a credit card. Since there’s no ATM in Ollanta, I rapidly left the line and hired a taxi driver to take me to the nearest ATM in nearby Urubamba. I gave him one of my chewy bars along the way. This roundtrip took about 40 minutes to complete, and I returned in time to buy a ticket for the 9.05. After paying 1 sol to take a crisp, mountain piss in a restaurant’s bathroom, I entered the waiting room at 8.00.

The train departed on time and wasn’t too crowded. I opened my window and snapped a few eager photos of the scenery afforded by the ride. When I arrived at Aguas Calientes, I felt as confused as everyone else looked regarding how one would get a bus to get up to MP, so I asked someone from the bus company. He pointed me in the right direction and I found my way to a bus that immediately began to ascend up a winding dirt road. I arrived at the entrance twenty minutes later, checked in my backpack, bought a student ticket, and passed through the gates by about 11.20. Luckily, the sun was shining.

I’m not sure what to say about my time around the ruins. Maybe whatever I would have to say could be best explained through my pictures. I felt pretty low on energy for all four of my hours at the site, though, for sure, especially because the chewy bars and sour gummy worms weren’t really filling me up too well. I talked to a few people. An Aussie tried to convince me that the structure was built, at least in part, through “levitation.” “Human levitation?” I asked. “Oh yeah,” he responded. A dude with a Stereolab t-shirt took a photo of me. I’d stand in on explanations provided by guides once in a while and ended up wishing I would I have studied up some more before trying to comprehend what I was seeing.

I left the site around 2.45 in the afternoon with dusty nostrils, having to catch a 3.30 train back to Cuzco from Aguas Calientes. I bought a Tropical Fruit Gatorade for the road. While on the train, the steward and stewardess served us brownies and beverages…And then put on a fashion show—all sweaters, scarves, and shawls being made from only the finest alpaca wool. They would take turns walking up and down the aisle and changing in the bathroom. The musical accompaniment included Kylie Minogue, Madonna, and The Bee Gees.

Arriving back at the albergue around 7.30 in the evening, I took a quick shower and then went out to dinner with Adam. I ordered an alpaca steak. As Adam keenly noted, alpaca thus makes for a both fine pullover and a fine piece of meant as well. After dinner, we made our way to one of Cuzco’s Irish pubs for a Guinness and then played the wall for a while at a disco. When we got back to the albergue, however, we were locked out and no one responded to our knockings and doorbell ringings. We realized that our only way in would be to scale the 12-foot walls next to the door, and that’s exactly what we did. Once in, a neighbor asked us what we were doing. We explained the situation, he easily understood, and then he told us to be careful with the dogs—they might bite us. Then, the door to my room was locked as well and we couldn’t find the keys. I was poised to sleep in one of the student’s beds (they were all back at their homes for the weekend) when Carlota’s daughter, Lucía, woke up and helped me get into my room.

Day 2—Friday, July 22—Cuzco→Ollantaytambo

view near albergue
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I got up and ate some breakfast with Adam and the American volunteers around 9.00 and then spent most of the morning huffing and puffing around the city center. Cuzco’s an awfully charming place and reminded me quite a bit of Granada, what with it’s cathedrals, narrow streets, and surrounding mountains. The plan was to get up early early the next morning in order to take a train up to Machu Picchu. Carlota, however, told me that I didn’t have to go the “rich gringo” way, but that I could get there quicker and cheaper if I did it the local way; this meant taking a taxi from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo and then a train from Ollanta to Aguas Calientes (the base city, so to speak, for MP) that evening. I took her up on the idea and got myself a shotgun seat in a station wagon taxi headed towards Ollanta. I was facing a serious time crunch with respect to arriving in Ollanta in time to catch the last train, which led the driver to drive like a speedfreak amongst the countless curves through the mountainous highways. At one point, we picked up a middle-aged couple, squeezing four people into the back. I happened to make eye contact with one of the other two; his eyes told me, “Lucky bastard.” Within five minutes, the woman said, “You’re driving too fast, amigo,” so he slowed down for a few twists and turns, but then resumed his ways, which led the woman to let loose the lord’s name. When she and her man got out of the taxi, she said she had never been so scared.

After about an hour and a half of the deathdrive, we reached Ollanta. A great mass throbbed in front of the gates that led to the trains. Much like my taxi driver, I quickly darted my way through the slightly treacherous environment and safely made it to the ticket counter. When the man told me that the last train was full and that I’d have to wait until tomorrow to catch one, I almost let loose a tear. Slowly walking back up the cobblestone road to town with my head held low, I found a hotel for my night’s sleep and then a restaurant for my dinner. At the small spot with rather swpartan décor, I took a seat upstairs. Four Germans sat across the room and a youngish American couple at the table next to mine. The young Americans quickly made fun of the Germans without them realizing it. Once the Germans left, I vacillated on what to order: either pancakes in honor of Huacachina and Jon Snyder or pizza in order to continue a long-standing and much-storied personal tradition. In the end, I went for some chicken kabobs instead. Once the other Americans’ food arrived, the girl started slurping her soup. This then turned into some sort of joke between them, as they tried to outsplurp each other amidst other forms of lovey dovey that included bad jokes and mild slaps to the face. Meanwhile, I, tried to focus on my Cortázar short story and my food. Upon paying their check, the young man approached me, asking me where I was from. Various origins instantaneously flashed through my mind, but I decided to tell the truth: “I’m from Kansas.” The dude then apologized and justified their actions by explaining to me that they thought I was French.

Back at the hotel, the doorman asks me when I’ll be up the next morning fro breakfast. The conversation—translated by me—went more or less as follows:
-What time do you plan to eat breakfast tomorrow morning?
-6am.
-6am?
-6am. I’m going to Machu Picchu.
-Ok, but most of the other groups are going to eat around 7.30 or 8.00—Why don’t you join them?
-But then in wouldn’t get to see as much…You just don’t want to get up early, do you?
-How about if you go get your ticket first and then come back and eat breakfast?

My bathroom came with ventilation, but I kept it closed while I bathed myself that night, singing “Satellite of Love” in the shower.

Day 1—Wednesday/Thursday, July 20/21—To Cuzco

the andes from the plane
Originally uploaded by rswells.

Since my flight was scheduled to leave on the morning of the 21st at 6.10am, I decided not to sleep at all on Wednesday night, the 30th. That evening I saw a friend’s band called La Ira de Díos in concert. They rocked pretty hard and I had a difficult time understanding their lyrics, save for when the frontman screamed about something being “en fuego.” Actually, La Ira opened up for this other band composed of grandpa rockers that covered groups like Iron Butterfly, Grand Funk Railroad, and The Kinks. The 60+year-old frontman—dressed in corduroys and a turtleneck sweater, topped off with a beautiful, silver bigote—wielded a commanding voice and is relatively well known here in Lima. He used to host radio and television programs, or something. After the show I went back to Tali’s house and watched tv until a taxi came to pick me up around 3.30. By this point in the night, my stomach was beginning to test me—I think because of some yuquitas that I had eaten earlier at the concert. Indeed, as soon as I got in line to check in at the airport, I got out of line to hustle to the bathroom. When I returned to the line, I moved the pink stuff from my check-in bag to my carry on—and in front of an attractive girl, no less. I moved forward a few steps when it hit again. This time proved to be more of a false alarm, though, and I eventually got myself checked in, paid the airport tax, and got myself to the proper gate. Once seated, I started to listen to my favorite airport record, The Velvet Underground s/t.

On the plane, I watched the sunrise over the Andes.

My friend, Adam, was at the airport to greet me when I arrived in Cuzco around 7.30. We taxied to his current lodgings/volunteer site at an albergue that houses and educates impoverished children from Cuzco’s mountain communities. Most of the kids speak Quechua but not so much Spanish. At the albergue, Adam works as the liaison between the local directo, Carlota, and the American volunteers that come in every other week to do some community building projects and play with the kids. Oddly enough, when I arrived there was a family of volunteers there from Ann Arbor. I talked to the oldest son about Big Ten Burrito and The Fleetwood Diner. Anyways, since I hadn’t slept a wink the night before, I slept that day from 9.30am to 6.00pm. When I woke up, Adam and I went to go get pizza for the group’s dinner. After the meal, the volunteers watched somebody’s pirated version of Seabiscuit. I couldn’t really get to sleep later that night, however, because my levels were so off. Plus, the pills I was taking to combat the probable onslaught of altitude sickness made me temporarily loose feeling in my digits and lips.

El gran corso de WONG + Música

confetti
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I went to the big national parade yesterday here in Lima with a few friends. We saw thousands of limeños pushing each other and witnessed a few insults thrown back and forth between two full-grown women, but didn’t see much of the parade itself. For me, the highlight was this state employee, dressed to deal with toxic materials. The crowded avenue quickly overwhelmed us, however, so we went into a café where I drank a ginger ale and ate some strawberries with cream. The spectacle concluded the afternoon with some nice fireworks viewed between buildings and accompanied by “Darth Vader’s Theme” and Beethoven’s “Symphonty No. 5—Allegro con brio.”

On Saturday, Tali took me to an arcade of sorts: music, DVDs, not-so-clever t-shirts, and paraphernalia sold out of little, entrepreneurial shops. About every fifth shop or so specialized in “todo lo que es…la estética de heavy metal.” Almost all of the music and movies were burned—part of the piratería phenomenon that runs rampant here—and all of the shops with música indie continued to manifest this country’s obsession with early 80s Britpop, especially The Smiths. The last place we checked out made me feel like I was being confronted by Pitchforkmedia Perú. The dude’s walls agreed with everything current that the website touts (and, admittedly, I tend to tout from time to time as well): Four Tet, Of Montreal, Iron and Wine, M83, The Futureheads, LCD Soundsystem, Antony and the Johnsons, The Boy Least Likely To, The Arcade Fire, Belle & Sebastian (+ singles from DEAR CATASTROPHE WAITRESS), Interpol (+ numerous live European bootlegs, even though anyone who’s seen Interpol live knows that the difference in sound between studio and live show is slim to none, but that the light show is blinding, and not necessarily in a good way [of course, had I not seen Interpol in Detroit a few months ago, I pry would have purchased one of the burned live European bootlegs myself]), Sleater-Kinney, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Fiery Furnaces, Cat Power, Beulah. Dude even had Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, for crying out loud.

The current Lima mixtape—gleaned from taxi rides, bus rides, restaurants, discos, and bars—includes the following:
-“Love Will Tear Us Apart” Joy Division
-“Boys and Girls” Blur
-“What if God Was One of Us?” Joan Osborne
-“Gasolina” Daddy Yankee
-“Careless Whisper (I’m Never Gonna Dance Again—These Two Feet Ain’t Got No Rhythm)” George Michael
-“¿Marica quién?”

Tomorrow, Tali and I will do a little rusticating when we bus out to a few towns that linger in the Lima countryside like Canta and Obrajillo. Thursday, I leave for Cuzco for 10 days; while there, I’ll be staying with an old college friend from KU, Adam Huggins—or am I still to young to characterize it like that? On August 2nd, I return to Prairie Village, Kansas.

photos

a nearby park
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I have recently added some more photos to my lot in flickr: a couple from the neighborhood, a bunch from the poorly lit and slightly creepy museo de la nación, and one of sweet, little elsa helping tali dye her hair.

wednesday

not too much to report from lima. no new photos. the weather still stays the same, yet i may have found a park. today, i'm back to being healthy, but now tali is bed-ridden after staving off a fever yesterday and then suffering through a tooth removal today; thus, she ascends the throne built under blankets to rightfully claim the recently abdicated crown of the pathetic one.

i booked a flight for cuzco yesterday. as of now, the trip will include at least some of the following: machu picchu; a pint of guinness at an irish pub; another big soccer match; white water rafting; an excursion to lake titicaca--the highest lake in the world; altitude sickness; celebrating peru's independence day on the 28th. i'll be staying in cuzco with an american friend of mine who works at an orphanage of sorts there. should be fantastic.

in the meantime, here are a couple of interesting and alarming pieces from antiwar.com regarding 1) "the smash of civilizations in iraq" and the destruction of the "cradle of civilization" and its artifacts and 2) what troop withdrawal might really mean.

with little on the upcoming agenda, i might go see BATMAN BEGINS tonight for the third time. this time, however, i'll keep a keener eye on how the film relates itself and its audience to terrorism, i.e. how master bruce receives his training in the orient at what is ostensibly a terrorist training camp, how these shadowy men plan to once again destroy one of the hallmarks of western civilization, gotham, because of its decadence (not, apparently, because of gotham's meddling, haughty foreign policy), how these men attack in the name of morality but a select few of us really know what is moral, just, and rational, how "justice" in the form of a masked, wealthy man seemingly alters history's natural course by saving his corrupt empire via science and speed, etc.

me duele la barriga

pankreoflat
Originally uploaded by rswells.

originally, i thought i'd be going to the circus tonight. you know, the greatest show on earth. turns out, though, that spanish streams got crossed and i wouldn't have seen elephants and lions and acrobats anyways, but rather a magician at the back of a discotheque. no matter: i'm stuck here at the apartment with a case of the stomachs (anyone who knows me well, knows mine's a "sensitive" one), listening to mostly quiet songs on low volume, medicating myself with pankreoflat, amusing myself with posts like this.

Epiblogue

on the way back to the bus
Originally uploaded by rswells.

What follows documents the past six days of my life in el Perú on excursion. Like Butterfly from Digable Planets, I too covered mad area in my les soul Clarks. Five buses in five days included. If there were two things the trip lacked, they would be toilet paper and soap in the public bathrooms. I took almost 300 photos in all and will be uploading many of them in the days to come. They can be viewed by clicking here.

Like any other sentient being, I tried to take in and gauge my surroundings everywhere I went. What I was often left with, however, was a furrowed brow and the single sentiment: “Where the fuck am I?”

Day 6—Tuesday, July 5th—Huacachina/Ica→Lima

on the way back to lima
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I woke up a little hungover this morning with no water for an anodyne because I ended up the previous night with bills only worth 100 soles in my wallet, bills which, paradoxically, are usually worth nothing because no one has enough change to accept them. After a breakfast “Americano” style—scrambled eggs, bread, butter, jelly, juice, and coffee or tea—Tali and I took a taxi from Huacachina to Ica for the final time in order to take a bus back to Lima; the strike was over. The slow busride included SPIDERMAN 2 (a film which I’ve now seen a total of three times, all in Spanish-speaking countries) and DUPLEX.

Day 5—Monday, July 4th—Ica/Huacachina

training for next season
Originally uploaded by rswells.

As I wrote in a brief post that day, Tali and I ended up somewhat stranded in Huacachina for the whole day and night because farmers and peasants had blocked the highway passage back to Lima. Their beef was squarely with a/the free trade agreement with the United States. Our captivity turned out to be a pleasant and pensive one, though, for we spent most of the afternoon and evening up on a dune overlooking the town and the surrounding desert. We also ended up with a better room at the hostel. Plus, Huacachina breaks down more or less like this: bikins by the pool during the day, north faces by the bar at night.

Later on we attended a barbecue at one of the other local hostals, but we didn’t eat anything from the official bbq tent—we just drank, Cuba Libres for Tali and cerveza for Beto. Tali did eventually get a little hungry, so we went inside the place to the restaurant for a chicken sandwich. At this point, all hell broke loose downstairs as a nasty fight broke out between many of the local workers in the hostel’s lobby. Most of them had been drinking since noon in celebration of the boss’ birthday. Things got ugly fast. I couldn’t see what was going on too well from my high vantage point, nor did I dare take any photos, but I could’ve sworn I saw one poor, drunken soul get an uppercut—POW! Right in the kisser! When we cautiously came back downstairs, things were still heated and strong words bellowed from a few men; the tourists, meanwhile, were all nothing’s going on around the bar. I somewhat achieved my goal to talk to new people that night, striking up a conversation with a Peruvian young man from Pisco who loves Usher and DMX and asked me question after question about the US and a rugged Norwegian whose eyes were so lazy I thought he was blind—I didn’t talk to the latter for too long, however, because he threw off my balance. And though my eyes struggled mightily to discern whether or not a pair of Australian birds were indeed attractive or not, I spoke not a word to them.


For the second 4th of July in a row, I saw no fireworks; last summer I saw hail in Oaxaca, México.

Day 4—Sunday, July 3rd—Nazca and Huacachina

the astronaut
Originally uploaded by rswells.

Since we didn’t have any official tour set up to fly across the mysterious Nazca Lines, Tali and I took a taxi to Ica in order to take a 3-hour bus south to Nazca. The movie for this bus ride: TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES. To our extreme surprise, Claire Danes was one of the stars—Was anyone else aware of this? After the flick and the mini-invasion of a few flies into our immediate surroundings, some VH1 CLASSICS came on next. The videos included one by Rod Stewart and a back-to-back showing of the same song, Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It!” (I think the second one contained an alternate beginning.)

The whole reason any tourist gets down to Nazca is to fly over these lines to which I’ve been referring. The game sets up with about a dozen companies that all offer 35-minute flights over said lines and attracted people from all over the world, few of which seemed to speak any Spanish whatsoever. We arrive around 11.00am, booked a flight for 2.00pm and walked down the road to get an early lunch. A youngish American couple from New Hampshire sat at the table across from us. We chatted for a little while about our respective adventures in Perú up until that point. They were on their “real” honeymoon after taking a cruise with family and friends a few months earlier: an intense, 5.30am wakeup, 10-day action-packed trek of a honeymoon, that is. They had just watched Gus Van Sant’s fictional take on the Columbine shootings, ELEPHANT, on their bus ride. Like them, and surely anyone else who has seen this slow slow chill of a movie, I had no idea why this film would be shown to an unsuspecting audience in such a way. When I said we’d watched T3, the guy responded with, “Oh, man! That’s awesome!” (Neither of them knew that Claire Danes played the female lead either, nor had they seen BATMAN BEGINS yet—no time for movies for them.) You could kinda tell that the guy was itching to talk to another guy because he was really digging my travel jokes and anecdotes, especially my description of Huacachina as being fit for the x games crowd and the story of how I almost shit myself trying to run up one of the dunes. Plus, his new wife was the one with the guidebook—if you know what I mean.

Our flight scheduled for 2.00 didn’t end up taking off until 4.30. Before we took off, Tali was so nervous she was shaking and tried to compose herself with some Lamaze type breathing techniques. It didn’t help that the plane that took off before ours didn’t really take off per se on its first try. Nor did it help that once airborne the pilot kept taking his hands off the controls and turning around to face us passengers in order to explain what figure was coming up next. He banked steeply and frequently so that both sides could get a good look at whatever lay below. For me, the most impressive figure was the ASTRONAUT, with the MONKEY, and the HUMMINGBIRD coming in with the silver and the bronze. As we approached a figure, the pilot would be all like, “Okay, it’s right there to the right! There it is! Can you see it? It’s right there. Look under the wing.” And, of course, I couldn’t see shit for the first few seconds, but then these lines came together to form shapes which subsequently came together to form recognizable figures. Once we landed, Tali admitted to me that the lines were more impressive to her than Machu Picchu.

Our evening bus back to Ica was packed to the point where the standing passengers lined the entire aisle and included a Steven Seagal movie whose title translates to BLOODY FACE 4. Back in Huacachina for another night, we ended this one with pancakes filled with dulce de leche for dinner.

Day 3—Saturday, July 2nd—Ica/Huacachina

huacachina
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I wrote about part of this day in a previous post and it proved to be the most low-key day of all. Tali and I did peep THE WAR OF THE WORLDS that afternoon, though; I liked it all right…right up until (SPOILER ALERT!!!) the very very end which I found to be straight trite and appallingly bourgeois. As the war played itself out and the entire theater seemed to talk and talk in not so hushed tones*, I ate and drank my “Combo Juvenil”: a medium pop (known in Perú as a “gaseosa”) whose lid served as the base for my popcorn box, which meant that the extra-long straw came all the way up through the popcorn.

Once back in Huacachina, I got ancy and attempted to scale one of the many surrounding sand dunes—I nearly shit myself because my stomach was so full of popcorn and coke. Tali was nice enough to fetch me some water and meet me back at the hostal once I took some deep breaths and burped and farted my way back down the dune, just like Charlie and Grandpa Joe had to when they drank too much soda and floated up too close to Mr. Wonka's menacing ceiling fan. We took it easy the rest of the night because we were getting up at 6.30 again the next morning with the lines of Nazca as the day’s destination to be.

*This tendency to disobey the “Silence is Golden” rule does not apply to all movie theaters here in Peru, but may indeed be an avatar of the Iqueños. Unfortunately, we were not able to test this hypothesis because the only other movies showing were BATMAN BEGINS (I’ve already seen it twice), yet another Denzel as a cop project, and THE PACIFIER starring Vin Diesel in a role once played by Hulk Hogan. No wonder ticket sales are down.

Day 2—Friday, July 1st—Islas Ballestas/Reserva Nacional de Paracas→Ica/Huacachina

sea lions or lobos marinos
Originally uploaded by rswells.

A 6.30am wakeup call started this cold, long, beautiful day. The day before, we signed up for a tour that would take us by boat to las Islas Ballestas and then by bus to la Reserva Nacional de Paracas. After being picked up at El Cesar around 7.30, we were bused down to our point of embarkation on the coast. We groggily boarded the small boat that took us out to the big one, named Pedro Pablo, that would cruise us around the islands. Besides the cold, biting sea breezes, gray sky, and low visibility, things didn’t look so promising when the driver of the small boat spilled gasoline on me.* Nevertheless, once we finally got our first glimpse of land again from the port side of the Pedro Pablo and the sugary coffee came around, I was awed for the rest of the ride. We came across billions of birds, a few penguins, scores of sea lions, and a shitload of guano. We never got off the boat. I took lots of photos. Our first guide, Yuri, tried his best to explain everything to the international group in both English and Spanish, but wasn’t always on point. One thing he said that did stick with me, though, was how a layer of guano measuring 6-7 meters in height once covered the islands—before someone realized the substance’s fertile possibilities.

After we got back to the buoy and onto hard land, our next guide bused with us to la Reserva Nacional de Paracas: a wildlife reserve without much wildlife, but plenty of desert and wondrous views of the Pacific. I guess I had really never been to the desert before; I felt like I had stumbled across another planet (these feelings initially crept up on me in the morning around the islands and surged back from time to time during the rest of the trip). The tour ended at this tiny, uncapitalized fishing village on the shores of a small bay that looked something like this. It looked like what I imagine the White Cliffs of Dover would look like, if they were exoticized and weren’t white. It was the kind of spot that would entice real estaters like the Donald to give up an organ—or, in Donald’s case, shave his head—just to build a modest hotel. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries at this point in the day, but maybe it’s better that way—I almost feel like the less people see the spot, the less the likelihood for development. Tali and I ate a 4 o’clock seafood lunch on the rocks near the bay, near men fishing for their own meals. Our guide came over to Tali and me and pointed out one fisherman in particular, saying, “Hey look, Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway! The old man and the sea!” The old man turned around and gave a polite wave. He turned around again once he caught a respectable fish to display to us. Our guide went on to inform us that Hemingway himself had once fished off the Peruvian coast…and that Peruvian blood apparently flowed through Nat King Cole’s veins as well.

We got back to Pisco around 5.00, packed our things, booked it out of El Cesar promising to never return again, and rushed to catch the next bus to Ica. The islands and the wildlife reserve had been a real treat, for sure, but the town of Pisco brought on this foul taste to our mouths. Our bus’s windshield had a huge crack in it. We stopped at one point so that the busdriver could pass along some dinner to the highway patrol. My LONELY PLANET guidebook told us on numerous occasions that Ica was a crummy place to stay and that the oasis laguna of Huacachina—only a few kilometers away—was a much safer and enjoyable stop, so we got off the bus and took a taxi out of one town and into another.

The first two hostals we checked out based on LP’s recs were all booked up. Luckily, we found some beds down the town’s short and only road. As I said in a previous post, Israelis had stormed in to the point where menus were written in English, Spanish, and Hebrew.

Tali saw the stars for the first time in a long time that night. Because of my limited knowledge regarding astronomy—all dilettantish enthusiasm aside—I couldn’t figure out whether everything was upside down or not.

*I also should have worn socks.

Day1—Thursday, June 30th—Pisco

el cesar
Originally uploaded by rswells.

I described the initial part of this day in a previous post. Pisco didn’t offer too much besides a bad night’s sleep at our hostal, El Cesar, a private tech school named “Bill Gates,” a surprisingly photogenic cemetery, and a seafood dinner that didn’t sit so well in my stomach. In the afternoon, we started what turned out to be a wild goose chase with the post office being the object pursued.* We asked about six people for its whereabouts and they all gave us different answers. One man contended that the post office no longer existed. We eventually found it and I went up to the counter to ask the lady for some stamps that I could put on some postcards that I wanted to send to the states. I asked for 20. The price? 93 soles.**

After dinner, the energies took on some relaxing tones as Tali and I sat around the Plaza de Armas, just chatting and watching the people watch the people come and go. A young boy around age 8 soon came upon us armed with a basket of small candies and intent to sell. We tried to shrug him off, but he started talking to us, asking us where we where from, how it could be that Tali is from Peru***, why we didn’t want to buy his candies, why I didn’t want to buy a little chocolate for my lady friend. The kid wouldn’t stop, so I suggested that he go play with the other children over there. He said he couldn’t because he was working. He kept repeating the same phrase over and over, “Cómprame, p.” We were intent on not buying, just as he was intent on selling. Finally, Tali and I got up from our spot and left the plaza. As we walked away, the boy said, “I hope someone robs you!”

On a side note, my father turned 50 on this day back in Kansas City.

*The same phenomenon took a hold of us in Ica a few days later.
**Roughly $30****
***Indeed, this child was one of the seemingly innumerable Peruvians who put on looks of sheer incredulity when Tali said that she was from Lima.
****Roughly equal to the cost of a one-way bus ticket from Lima to Cuzco, with the ride lasting at least 24 hours.

delay

today, farmers, fieldworkers, miners, and some other peruvian workers are on a one-day strike because of an unfair agreement regarding free trade with the united states. they have successfully blocked the one highway that connects our current location, ica, with lima; hence we are stuck here for the time being. happy 4th of july, usa--yea, capitalism.

currently

i type to you all from an internet spot in the city of ica. 50 cent pumps out the boombox. the desert´s tall, other-planet-like dunes mark ica´s perimeter. tali and i are actually staying in a small laguna/oasis/mini mtv spring break locale nearby called huacachina. all of the hotels and hostals in the entire pueblo are booked up with kids from all over the world--in truth, mostly from israel, and i have been asked on three separate occasions if i too am from there. they all seem to be looking for some x games travel, replete with sandboarding and dune buggies, i.e. the type that tali and i don´t really get down to. power sandals, dreds, fleeces. some dude from france asked me if i knew where he could score some weed last night at the local bar. i sad no, but we struck up a short conversation. he realized that i wasn´t fom israel and told me he liked my american accent, that it was easy to understand. i said it´s because i´m from kansas, and he replied--yeah, i´ve heard a lot of good things about kansas and colorado, i want to go there. i told him that there really wasn´t much too see in kansas west of state line, unless you enjoy 10 hours of tiny towns and wheat fields with 5 o´clock shadows. he said that that was fine, maybe he could ride through the state on a motorcycle.

today, tali and i got up late and took a taxi around to a few bodegas to check out how the local hard alcohol, pisco, is made. after two separate spots and upwards of six or seven free samples, we left a little tipsy and better informed. our kind taxista threw back two himself. one of the bodegas included this grab bag kind of an antique collection that included the following: pisco, paintings of simon bolivar, a replica of a dali painting, tiny human bones, ancient incan flip flops, and a vitrola.

i´ve got more to give and plenty of pictures to show from this current excursion. indeed, a big post awaits once i get back to lima and organize my notes. yesterday, for example, i saw penguins and the desert in the same day around the ballesta islands and a national wildlife reserve. i also saw more birds over the course of a few hours than i had seen in all of my life up until then.