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Published: March 26th 2008
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No Sleep
Ray Ray and I on the way to the airport...we're tiiiiiired!! Wooooooo-Hooooooooo!!!!! PERU!!!
So, I think most of you know I didn’t end up going to Ica to volunteer…but for those of you who don’t - it was just too weird. No phone for 15 miles or so, I would have been alone once the kids left for the day, and (safety concerns aside) how the hell was I going to learn Spanish sitting in my little dirt-floor hut all by myself?! So yeah - I decided to fly into Lima and will set myself up with some sort of volunteer position (to give me some structure) and make a little life here :-)
So I left on Sunday...and my trip took a couple unexpected turns. But that just makes better stories, now doesn't it?!
My plane ran out of fuel before landing in Lima. How bad-ass does that sound….it’s really not - we were supposed to land at 10...but we didn't arrive until 11:30 at which point we were told that the airport was full and we would have to circle for another hour....after 1/2 of that, the pilot said that we were running out of fuel so we were flew to and landed in Pisco instead. Once
Wooo-Hoo!
The TV Map on the plane that was tracking our flight on the ground, the pilot came on the loud speaker saying, "Hey folks, yada yada yada, I have no idea when we're going to re-fuel, but I do know that it's going to be a long time"....you know you're screwed when the pilot isn't staying positive...
We ended up having to wait 3 hours for fuel - then another hour to take off before we were on our way to Lima again. After I hit up customs, the baggage claim (I wish any one of you were around to see my try and put on my 90 lb. pack on alone...it took a couple of tries and people were totally pointing and laughing)...it was 6 in the morning! My little 7 hour flight ended up taking like 14 hours. It was pretty funny to watch...everyone was really upset. Mostly it was just hard to sit still after awhile - I couldn’t really feel my butt by 2 in the morning - which was when everyone started getting up and hanging out in the isles...I'm uploading a picture of it - quite a social event.
So, Yay!!! I'm staying in this little bed and breakfast in Barranco (a part
Seat Mates
The kid looks cute - but he threw the BIGGEST fit EVER and started shaking the seat in front of him because he was hungry... of Lima) called DÓsma. And even though I could have slept till 4 in the afternoon on Monday, I woke up at 9 to partake in the “breakfast” part of the “bed and breakfast” experience. Yum...ham, cheese, butt-shaped bread, jam, butter, and tea. So my first day was sort of funny because I was sleep-walking through most of it. Ray, Marg and I also stayed up till the wee hours of Sunday morning doing last minute Wegmans runs, laundry, and they taught me the magical packing concept of rolling your clothes! I’m a convert...Anyway, I had totalled 6 hours of sleep for the last two nights - I was tired. And for those of you who know me...I'm usually worthless on less than nine a night. But I told myself to man-up and ended up having a great first day!
After a nice little jaunt around Barranco, I came back to the hostal and had a wonderful talk with Lilly, Walter's wife. She's LOVELY!!! (I put in a picture of Walter and Lilly so that you could all meet them as well...they're right here - they say, "Hola!"
Lilly and I talked about everything from religion to books -
for like two hours...I couldn't believe I could hang!!! It was a nice little confidence boost in the whole language thing...I'm pretty anxious to improve my Spanish.
So I'm totally giving you guys a play-by-play by the way…
After that convo, my brain hurt (and still hadn't slept) - but I wanted to meet up with Olga's friend that she put me in touch with, Andres. Andres is from Lima - and as I found out last night, he lived in I-town back in the day while he was getting his MA from JGSM at Cornell! He's awesome....so nice, and I think he's going to be a great friend while I'm here. Honestly, I don't remember it being this hard to be away from everyone I love. Having a friend will help me to feel more like I belong here or something. And he and his friends rent a beach house south of Lima for the summer and this is the last weekend they have it - so my pale ass gets to live it up spring-break Peruvian style....
or something
So I woke up this morning, and went to make my bed when I saw
a couple of little bugs crawling around near the end. Totally freaked out. I was imagining having to go wash everything I brought and spend the next couple of days de-bed-bugging...so not fun. I was all, "Walter, pienso que hay insectos en mi cama!" (Walter, I think there are bugs in my bed!!)... So he comes in, takes one look and starts laughing at me while taking my arm and leading me out to the poarch to show me the very same bugs in their natural habitat. Turns out that they had fallen in from the open roof window above my bed and are harmless. Pheww!!!! (but I did feel a little dumb)
Also, there's another girl, Jess, staying here - so after I collected myself from my little scare, we decided to stroll around. And speaking of being pale, we went to the beach so that I wouldn't be glowing in the middle of all these bronze and beautiful people this weekend....but it didn't quite work out...despite my attempt at SPFíng, I burned BIG TIME. Boooooooo....
Aside from laying on the beach for a bit, she took me for my first Ceveche experience. Now, I had heard
of Ceveche before coming here....but, WOW...nothing could have prepared me for the orgasmic experience that is Ceviche. Tons of raw seafood marinated in Lemon, sprinkled with pepper and served (usually) with a sweet potato and some HUGE-ASS corn (see photo :-) ...one even had a face! How funny!
So there you go...that's about it so far. Jess and I just got back from our late lunch and I think I'm going to start in on finding a more permanent place to live - since I asked Walter and Lilly if they wanted to adopt me and they said no.
Oh - just one more little story! This was so funny (at least I thought so - you tell me)...at breakfast this morning, Walter and I were talking about music and he said that one of his guests just gave him a Bob Dylan CD - so of course, I'm all, "A mi me encantan Bob Dylan!" (I LOVE Dylan!!!) and so he's all, "Pues vamos escucharla!" (well let's put it on!)...so we all end up eating breakfast this morning listening to Masters of War and all of his really political shit....they're all, "Que bonito" (How pretty!) …cause of
course, they can't understand what the hell he's singing about, and I'm all, "nice...blood, guns and war....pass the jelly" ...but they put it on just for me, so I smiled and ate my butt bread with butter (pun intended)...
Ok....now I'm really done :-)
Needless to say I miss you all SO much….but I’m off to a good start. I think this is going to be pretty great.
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Lauren
non-member comment
Yey--you made it safely!
YEY MEADOW! I'm glad you arrived safely, after a long and harrowing adventure!! It sounds like a great trip so far, and I'm just upset that you didn't take a picture of your giant corn! It was so good to hear from you and know you are safe--we miss you very much here--it's just not the same. Please continue to add to your blog--it provided some much needed entertainment this morning. Are you by an internet cafe? Is it expensive to use? Anyway, keep in touch, we love and miss you!!