Advertisement
Published: March 17th 2007
Llamas
I don´t think our other Peru post had any (did it?), so here is the requisite shot.Kate somehow neglected to tell you about our ¨fun¨night out with Roberto (our Machu Picchu guide) after the trek. Roberto had handed us performance feedback forms at lunchtime on the final day, and Sarah took the opportunity to vent her frustrations (as she should have). However, when we were saying goodbye to Roberto, he asked for the forms, and Sarah and I were too wimpy to give them to him. I hadn´t written anything horrible, so I don´t know what my problem was, but we both made up excuses about our forms being in inaccessible places. As a solution, Roberto suggested we meet later that night for a drink and to exchange the forms. We said yes, not knowing what else to do. Plus, we had already invited Uno and Dos to the discotecha in front of Roberto, so we were socially obligated to hang anyway.
Our ride back to Cuzco featured a masked dancing railroad employee, and an obnoxious American man who spoke loudly enough for the entire bus to know his opinions of Ewan McGregor, George Bush, and beer festivals in Europe. We reached home, showered, discussed how much we didn´t want to leave our room, gave each
Cuzco Valley
Isn´t it pretty? other lectures on how rude we´d appear if we followed our hearts, then pushed each other out the door in order to meet Roberto in the main square at 10:30. We reached an agreement to give Roberto ten minutes, and if he hadn´t arrived by 10:40, we would leave. We also agreed to go by Kate´s watch, which was a few minutes faster than mine. Sure enough, 10:40 arrived, Roberto was nowhere to be seen, and we gleefully slipped our feedback forms under the travel agency door and started speed walking out of the square. As we were feet away from the end of the square, we heard our names being called. Yes, we suggested pretending not to hear and running away; yes, we´re evil; yes, we did the right thing and turned around to face Roberto and Danny, the friend he´d brought along. As we were introduced, Danny turned to Kate and said ¨So THAT´S Moria.¨I was doomed. Roberto explained it was too early to go to the discotecha, so we should go to a bar for a few drinks and THEN go dancing. We had reached a one-drink arrangement in our room, and this plan went against it.
Sarah and I in a Cave
Part of Sacsaywuaman. On the other hand, Roberto said Dos would be at the disco (Uno had to bail), and I didn´t want to stand up my soul mate. We walked toward the bar without a concrete plan, and as we did so, Roberto smoothly slipped his arm around me and declared, ¨I am no longer your tour guide. Now I´m your friend!¨Uf. I gave Sarah the ¨Oh no!¨look, and she gave me the ¨I´ll help you¨look in return. We reached the bar, Sarah tried to sit in between me and Roberto, Roberto went AROUND the table, ruining our plan, and Kate squeezed next to me, so she could enjoy a view of the awkwardness, her payback for me making her sit next to Sop, our tour guide in Laos. Roberto, like other creepy guides before him, quickly started rubbing knees with me and searching for excuses to hug me. Sarah, Kate and I quickly started teasing him about his childhood sweetheart, partially in an attempt to distract him, and partially because we had run out of things to say to him. He had told his friend Danny to pretend to be his sweetheart´s older brother in advance, and to say the sweetheart
Viva El Peru
The city of Cuzco (Cusco). (Veronica) was just friends with Roberto. Tricky fellow. We could tell they were both lying and spent the rest of the time talking to Danny. After two drinks, Sarah faked a return of altitude sickness, the boys walked us home, and we went to bed. It was hard watching Roberto grow more disappointed as the night wore on, and his friend definitely thought we were 3 lame girls in relationships, (I created a fake boyfriend, even though I was single at the beginning of the trek) but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
The next day we woke up, hopped on a public bus, and set out in search of four sets of ruins close to Cuzco (Tambomachay, Pucapucara, Q´enko, and Sacsayhuaman). We walked from site to site, through the varying mountain climates, desperately throwing on raincoats in downpours, rolling up pant legs during periods of sun, and zipping up hoodies as the clouds rolled through. Sarah and I adored Sacsayhuaman (popularly referred to as ¨Sexy Woman¨by the gringos because of its phonetic pronunciation), a gigantic walled complex of ruins. The rocks that composed the jagged walls, meant to represent the teeth of a puma since the
Kate Is Tiny...
and Sacsaywuaman´s wall is huge. Incas believed Cuzco was shaped like a puma´s head, were some of the largest rocks we´d ever seen, and all of them fit together perfectly. The wall was so large, it was difficult to believe we were only seeing a small percentage of the original structure.
We woke bright and early the next day for our flight to Lima. After some difficulty landing (Lima airport was too full to accept us, so we had to fly to Pisco, refuel, sit on the runway for 2 hours, then fly back to Lima), we arrived in the capital city, Sarah and Kate both beginning their visit in the airport bathroom, paying homage to the porcelein gods. Because Kate pukes multiple times per week, and because Sarah pukes each time she gets motion sickness (which was at least 3 or 4 times on this trip), I thought nothing of this. We hopped in a cab and headed to Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) convent, nestled in the beautiful neighborhood of Miraflores. We received a warm greeting by all 4 of the sisters and their staff. The food at the convent is excellent, and each day we´ve been surprised by how generous and
kind the sisters continue to be. I was afraid that returning to the nuns would be like reverting back to childhood (not that it was that bad), but instead it´s been like hanging out with REALLY nice friends. At lunch, the sisters went into maternal mode with Sarah, expressing their concerns about her appearance (healthwise). They suggested Sarah see the school nurse then nap. Kate and I headed to the computer room to feed our addiction. Because of Sarah´s previously mentioned motion sickness, we did not take their concern seriously. Next thing we knew, Sarah had puked multiple times, was hugging the communal toilet, and the nuns were preparing her for the hospital. Trying to prove we weren´t horrible friends who always ignored our friends´sicknesses and not wanting to miss a photo shoot, Kate and I hopped in the car and went to the hospital with Sarah. Luckily, it seems to have been food poisoning or dysentery, and once again, an IV was prescribed. Kate and I were excited to have a guest go to the hospital, thus bringing our hospital count to the following:
Kate 6
Moria 3
Sarah 1
Unless Jonathan went to the hospital after he left
Kate, and unless Kate and I get sick in our last week, that will probably be the final count.
We walked home after the IV was complete and watched a DVD about the hospital where Kate and I will be volunteering this week. I´ll leave the details to Kate in her next post, but for now I´ll just say the last entry from the road might be intense.
Yesterday we took a city tour of Lima. The city is beautiful, or at least the gated, rich sections and the coastline are. They didn´t take us on a tour of the slums, so I can´t make general statements about the entire city. Our tour introduced us to ancestral Lima, colonial Lima, and modern Lima. We were wowed by the Museum of the Banco Central de Reserva. The gold objects, which were the main reason we were there, were quite impressive, especially the gigantic nose rings, but I enjoyed the colorful ceramics the most. The Peruvians knew how to make a mean (read: realistic) pot. There was no room for interpretation... you KNEW if an object was an owl, a person, or a llama. Very accurate. My second favorite part
Sarah´s IV
This might be why the nuns thought we were bad friends. of the tour was the Convento de San Francisco (Convent of Saint Francis), which, according to our tour, ¨displays the biggest collection of religious art in America.¨In reality, it was my favorite stop because of the catacombs, though I thought the Sacristy with its hidden drawers and main patio with its Sevillian tiles were beautiful.
After returning from our tour, Sister Patricia dropped us off at the markets where we all bought more than we intended. I WILL have a beautiful room when I return though. Perhaps no money to rent it, but that´s a minor detail. We returned to the convent, ate dinner, and tried to convince the sisters we weren´t totally lame 20-somethings when we opted to watch a movie with our 80-something nun friend instead of going to the ¨hip¨part of town for Pisco Sours. I promise that Kate and I will do so before we leave. Promise.
Sarah left this morning, and Kate and I are preparing for our week of volunteer work. The trip is winding down.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.131s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0684s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
