Last stop - final memories.

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It was a late flight to Arequipa - the last flight in fact. The lights at the small airport were turned off shortly after I picked up my bag.

“Taxi! Taxi!” the man yelled.
Right next to him was another man. “Hotel? Come with me. I have Taxi.”
“No, he is pirate. He’ll rob you!”
An older taxi driver walked up flashing his badge. “Official Taxi!”
“Pirate!” Another Taxi driver pointed.

It was feeding time and I was the feed. I thought to myself - what have I gotten myself into. How did the fat Chinese kid from Oakland come up with the idea to solo his way through Arequipa halfway around the world? One thing I’ve realized about life is that I can control the decisions that I make, but I’m helpless to the outcomes. I’m subjected the randomness of the world just like everyone else. I can choose which taxi to get into, but I can’t choose whether or not I get robbed. Oh well, I’ll choose the yellow one.

I open the door to the cab. An older Peruvian gentleman sat the back seat. He wore a modest brown suit and a dark colored gaucho hat. I didn’t expect there’d be another person in the cab. I pretended to scratch my butt, sliding my hand over my back pocket to make sure my pocketknife was still there - better safe than sorry. I smiled my best smile and shouted “Hola!”

“Hola.” He replied.

The old man didn’t look like a mugger, so I climbed in. He was a passenger too. The taxi driver was obviously trying to make twice the money for a single fare.

The old man looked at me warily.
“Do you speak English?” He said.
“Yeah…” I replied, caught a bit off guard by how good his English was.
“Where are you from?” He asked.
“California. Where are you from?”
“Here, I’m from Arequipa, but I live in Florida.”
Life truly is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get.

It was a funny cab ride from the airport to downtown Arequipa. The old man had a good sense of humor, as did the taxi driver.

…..

Some how I broke my glasses. Right down the middle, at the point of the frame that crosses the bridge of the nose. It is terrifying to be in a foreign place and not be able to see. I took apart a ball point pen, cut a section of the plastic ink tube with my knife, and joined the two pieces of my glasses with the tube and some superglue. MacGyver would have been proud.

.....

I ate the last fresh Brazil nut that I bought in the Amazon today. I've been snacking on the same small bag since I left the Amazon all the way here to the Andes. Fresh nuts tend to have a hint of sweetness that is lost during roasting. I doubt that I’d be able to get them fresh back in the US. My guide in the jungle called them Amazon nuts because they grow all over the Amazon and not just in Brazil. I learned that these nuts are contained in a coconut-like casing that comprises of many nuts and grow on very large trees in the higher parts of the forest canopy. When they are ripe and ready to fall onto the ground, they are as heavy as a bowling ball.

Gathering Brazil nuts is big business. It is estimated that the revenue from the sale of Brazil nuts exceeds the revenue from harvesting lumber. During the season of harvest, workers in hard hats gather the fallen nut casings. Injury or death could result if a casing fell on a person without adequate head protection. As I ate the last nut in the bag, I thought to myself - if someone had risk their life for something as simple as a nut, what a shame it would then be for me to buy a bag of nuts and not finish it.

…..

I had been wandering all day: walking up and down the streets, following a photocopied map the man at the front desk of the hotel gave me. Sights were marked of on the map. There were marks for monasteries, government buildings, historic buildings and museums. There was no mark for the local market. I went in anyways. Each vendor had a small stand and sold their good from that stand, like a farmer’s market that one would see in the US. A huge wall of fruit lined one isle, dead animal carcasses the next, then fishes and seafood, then dried potatoes and starches the isle after that. Everything was neat and orderly, everything had a place.

I walked along an isle where the counters were piled with fruits. The women who sat behind the counter had blenders and would make any juice concoction listed on a sign I could not read. I pointed to a fruit that I have not seen before and asked her what it was.

“Que es?” I asked in my very poor Spanish.
I couldn’t quite understand her reply. Nevertheless I ordered a cup.
“Tres Soleis.” She smiled.
I thought to myself: “Three Sols for a new experience, what a bargain.”

She took several fruits and quickly placed them into the blender. Within a minute she placed a tall cup of juice in front of me. I sat down to enjoy myself. My notebook and pen came out of my bag and I furiously begun to write in words the things I saw, and draw in pictures the things I had no words for. After some time had past, I stood up to leave. The lady then said wait as she poured me another cup. Apparently I had only drank half of what I paid for. I thought to myself: “Three Sols, what a bargain.”

…...

“What is this?” I asked
“I don’t know how to say. This is not for eating, it is for making juice." She replied.
"Oh."
"You bought this?”
I shrugged. “I saw it at the market. I didn’t know what it was. Can I still eat it?”
She tried her best not to laugh. Later I had to say good bye to her, I watch as her taxi disappeared into the streets, it reminded me of a Bob Dylan song.

The next day, at the airport, I waited for my plane home. When hunger struck, I looked through my pack to see what I had left that I could eat. I had a single funny looking reddish fruit in a well worn plastic bag I had reused many times over. It opened it with my hands and ate the flesh inside, it was sweet.

Adios Peru.

.....

My flight back to San Francisco International Airport landed a bit past midnight. Being the fantastic planner that I am, I forgot to tell anyone when I was coming back. I made my way to the pay phone to make a phone call home. A busy tone - great, someone had left the phone off the hook. I did not bring my cell phone and I could not remember any other phone numbers.

The BART trains stopped running at this hour, so the bus was my only real option. The bus from the airport went to the bus terminal where I could switch to another bus that would take me the rest of the way home to Oakland. I managed to get off the first bus just in time to see the second bus leave without me. Fate liked toying with me. I didn’t feel like paying for a cab. So I sat and waited for the next bus to come. It would be an hour before the next one.

Hobos came and went. As did all sorts of other characters - a man and a woman who had trouble hailing a cab, an Irish fellow who had obviously just gotten off a plane too, and a transvestite who wasn’t fooling anyone. The bars in the city closed around this time. Glazed-eyed youngsters trickled out onto the cold night street. Two young men who had been out drinking but had no money to take a cab came to the bus station and waited beside me.

“Pardon me what day is it?” I asked. I truly didn’t know.
“It’s Saturday, or Sunday now.” Since midnight just pasted.
“Thanks.” I replied.
“Hey man, do you have any water? I’m so thirsty.”
“Here.” I handed him my bottle.
“It’s okay?” He said, already moving the bottle to his lips.
“Sure, I don’t mind.”
“Thanks. Hey, I’ve never seen this brand before.” He said right before taking a big gulp.
“I bought it somewhere far away.” It was a Peruvian brand.
“Wow. I was so thirsty. Thanks man. This stuff right here is like the elixir of life.” I wonder how drunk he had to be to say something that utterly stupid.
“No problem.” I replied.

I sat there sullenly waiting for the bus. My auspicious trip had come to an end. Peru was a world away now. Everything I had done or seen might just as well have been a dream. I almost regret coming back. Just then, an old man in a kilt walked out of the bus station and begun shadowboxing.

“He’s fighting his own ghost again! He never wins!” My new drunk friend exclaims.
Apparently, this was a rematch. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Of all the places in the world, maybe home is the most peculiar of them all.

---

Photos

Arequipa
I like this city. Colonial style building. Good food. Plenty of nearby mountains and volcanoes to climb.

Volcano El Misti
Roughy 6000 meters tall.

Volcano El Misti
The curvature of the earth.

Volcano El Misti
See the fox?