Well! Another week has flown by. I don’t even know how long it´s been since I left Arequipa for Cusco…a week? The week was full of adventures. I cannot imagine being a tourist for very long…it is absolutely exhausting. All the near disasters, the crises, and the meeting of all sorts of people…good and bad. It is an absolute roller coaster! I will try to start from the beginning. I decided to go to Cusco because there was no INTIWAWA, and I couldn´t bear the thought of staying in the city for any longer doing nothing…so I went to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The city of Cusco is stunningly green this time of year, reminiscent of Coporaque. I arrive in Cusco at 5 in the morning after a arduous bus ride of about 10 hours. I am delirious, tired, and have to regain my strength inside the bus terminal for a half an hour before I can embark on the journey…first to find a hostel. I meet 4 lovely girls, who at first I assume are from Europe or something. They turn out to be from Argentina. I was later told this is the season of Latinos in Cusco. It´s their summer, and they are ready to travel, and it seems like half of Argentina´s young folks are in Cusco going to Macchu Picchu and other such sites. I went to Cusco to go to Choquequirao, which is a archeological site similar to Macchu Picchu. They say it´s older, and bigger, than Macchu Picchu, yet most of it is still covered in hundreds of years of overgrowth. Only in roughly the last 10 years has it been open to tourists. It´s cheaper, too. I decide to stay two nights in Cusco to prepare for my journey after I learn it is possible to travel solo on the trail. I want to go backpacking, and leave all this craziness behind. After recuperating from the long bus ride, I start getting all of my things together for a 4 day trek, food, tent, stove, etc. I get it all down to the last minute, and the next morning, I heard for Cachora. This is a miserable four hour bus ride. Because I bought my ticket an hour before departure, I get the blessing of having the worst seat on the bus. Number 3. This is the seat that went you open the door from the cabin to the seats, if you are my height, your knees get knocked, and then the person leasons on you to pass by, and shut the door. Normally this wouldn´t be a problem, but because there is very little transit in this area, it turns out to be a bus that stops every 10 minutes, like a combi, to drop people off in front of their homes on this main road and pick up more folks. Great. I realize shortly before my stop, that I´ll have to ask to get off, as it´s not a main stop. I thought Cachora was a big place. Turns out, it doesn´t even take you to Cachora, it takes you to the crossing where you will then take a collective-taxi for an hour down the most rocky bumpy road of my life. When I realize this, I think, I should get my back, so they don´t leave me with out it, or it becomes a big ordeal to get it out from underneath the bus at the last minute. I ask to get my back at an earlier stop where the bus driver decides he wants to he breakfast for 45 minutes, so we all get off, they put some water somewhere in the engine to prevent it from overheating…and this is the moment I lean my backpack, with everything I need for my trek, is not on the bus. It´s 5 hours behind us, left in the terminal by some incapable young worker. I naturally flip out, and demand a solution. They call back to the terminal, and luckily, we call a half hour before the next bus is due to depart from Cusco. They tell me it´s on the next bus, and I should wait where I get off, and flag down the bus, for my backpack. I hesitantly depart from the bus at my stop, Ramal, out in literally the middle of no where. There are 10 houses, and the rest is farmland. There is no where to go. I back in the sun, and then freeze when the clouds pass over the sun, for 6 hours. I meet a really nice young girl a few years older than me who is waiting for a ride down to the bottom of the valley to Cachora. She is Cusquena, and decided to come to Cachora after a trip here 13 years ago with her school, where she met a woman who is a friend of an aunt, or something along those lines. She was just going to show up after 13 years to see the woman. She kindly waits for my for some hours, until my backpack arrives, and we find a ride down to the bottom. It was so bumpy and loud, we couldn´t even speak in the car. At this point, my backpack is missing my nalgene I just hesitantly purchased for 10 dollars in Cusco. I am enfuriated at the situation, but we continue on. She helps me find hostal (there is literally nothing open, at this is apparently not the season for tourists, because it rains like you would not believe, everyday). Good to know. Wrong season. Check. Hostel, 10 soles, for a private room, and hot water. That is like $3.50 a night. Perfect. We have lunch, which we had to beg someone to make for us, as no restaurants are open this time of year. We get some greasy chicken, some shredded lettuce and of course, a mound of white rice. It is always a struggle for me to eat all of my food. We happily chat, and then go to the newly opened tourist agency with one young guy working there, Martin, who looks at me like I have completely lost my mind when I tell him I want to hike to Choquequirao alone. My new friend also thinks I am crazy. They tell me it´s impossible, dangerous, especially for women, and that I absolutely have to hire a guide and a mule. At this point, I am so overwhelmed and worked up, I want to head directly back to Arequipa to escape this mess I´ve gotten myself into. After a little while of weighing my options, having a good cry, I decided to do it. It will cost 240 soles for four days. $83. Whatever. I have no choice. I am too scared to go on my own after all of these bad omens, the bus, the backpack, the waterbottle, and later, I think my camera has been stolen from my backpack as well. They tell me they´ll get it arranged. I go to bed to 7 waiting for them to tell me they´ve found someone to go with me (it was bit of a challenge, as most of the guides have left Cachora for another city to work during the offseason is mines or other farms). No one shows up, and I have a worried sleep. I wake up early, at 530, to figure out what to do. I planned on leaving the day before, so I didn´t want to delay it any further. I search for the two people who said they´d help me out, and finally have to knock on Martin´s door (he is still sleeping) to ask him what the hell is going on. Oh yes, I stopped by your house, and they said you were sleeping! Alright, so what´s happening, then? It´s all arranged. The guide and the mule will be here at 7. Super. I eat as much as I possible can for the long journey, meet the guide, he piles my stuff on the mule, and we head off shortly after, him in sandals made of old tire rubber, and a small backpack, and no food. I think, my god, we are never going to make it. I later learn that there are little houses on the trial that offer food. (During the tourist season). The whole time, I am worried he is not going to get enough to eat, and then I´ll have to share, and then neither of us will have enough. Am I going to starve on this trip? Is he? I will not be the cause of someone else´s suffering, even if it is originally self-inflicted, just so he can make some money. That is crazy. At times, Paulino (the guide) and I have lively conversations about our very different lives and histories. Other times, we walk in complete silence, sometimes for hours. Sometimes we walk together, other times, I am alone, ahead on the trial, while he tends to the mule, and her seemingly tiny hooves, as they make their way up and down the mountain on the rocky, steep, slippery switch backs.
After 15 intense kilometers, the last two hours being in the high heat of the day, we finally arrive at our camp site. I meet a lovely young guy named Julian, who lives up in this seeming jungle, by himself, with a bum leg. He calls himself a mystic. He studied in university some kind of spiritual studies, still unclear of exactly what it could be equated to in English. Kind of like training to be a shaman, or a buddist…we have lively discussions all night long. We are nearly same age, and after a day with Paulino, it´s really nice to meet such a vibrant spirit up here in the mountains. I make my dinner on the ground on my little backpacking stove, Paulino makes his over the fire somewhere else, and slowly over the next few hours, a few more travelers and their guides arrive, exhausted, having taken hours longer than Paulino and I to travel the same distance, which means they were in the heat for even longer. They don’t eat dinner til 9, but I am in bed by then, after having heard some insanely creepy stories about ghosts, zombies, and other terrifying occurrances these locals have personally experienced. I lay in my tent, half asleep, and two cats start fighting intensely, ramming into my tent, scaring me enough to make me scream. I have imaginings of a possessed cat t hat has it out for me. Turns out, it´s Julian´s cat, which he calls little son, (hijito) and the cat from up the mountain, his aunt´s cat I believe, that weekly tries to kill his cat. Julian has tried to kill intruder a number of times, injuring it enough for it to lose an eye. He can identify it easily in the night now, he said. Dear god, I thought. Where am i?
I also have the pleasure of meeting an arrogant guy from Lima, 31, who is seems desperate to speak English. He lived in Florida for 7 years, and no matter what I do, he continues to switch back to English. It annoys the hell out of me, but is only the beginning of our journey, in which we will continue to butt heads and argue. He rudely corrects my Spanish continually, and switches to English when he doesn´t feel like asking me to explain myself in Spanish. I am irritated. I try to remain polite, but in the final hours of our trip a few days later, he asks me why I don´t like to be corrected. I said I didn´t mind, as another guide and I were correcting each other´s English and Spanish with no problems. It´s just that I don´t like to be corrected by you, I tell him. Oh, he says. And he finally stops correcting me. It only took 3 days!
On the second day, we arrive at Choque. I feel like crap. I didn´t eat enough for breakfast, it´s raining on and off, it is straight up hill, I´m slipping in the mud. I am miserable. Paulino takes me around to some of the sites, tells me what he knows about the Incas and their history here (some of which turns out to be entirely incorrect). The nostalgia is incredibly strong for the days of the Incas here. I feel for their nostalgia, but also am sure that they ran their society with just as many injustices as we have today. One empire for another. I am sure that that some of what Paulino is telling me is not correct, but I listen just the same, take photos and walk around, wishing I was alone, back in my tent, or somewhere dry, left to just look at this enormous valley which seems to continue forever. All you can see are mountains, covered in thick semi-jungle forest, and even further out, snow capped mountains. These mountains give me comfort for some reason. It´s good to know, perhaps, that in some places in the world, no one lives there. It´s just the rocks and the snow, and whatever else nature allows to thrive. It´s a comfort to know that some places are unreachable, insurmountable…that the impossible does exist. If everything was possible, I guess, you´d have to keep outdoing yourself. Besides the mountaineers and climbers that challenge the snow, glaciers and mountains, no one lives in these places. Only the sun and the moon reach the farthest reaches.
After a long trek back to the next camp, I settle in, meet some new people, play with too little boys, Jan and Juan Carlos, brothers, who are only a few years apart. I share my snacks with the little one, Juan, who is four, and has no fear of asking for a hand out. We share toasted corn together, and later, he even gets hot chocolate from another group and some crackers. He´s ridiculously cute, is learning to whistle, and his little nose continuously runs without bothering him. He shows me his scribble drawings of butterflys and houses in a newspaper from the new year, now a week old, and presumably, the only written news this family will see until their dad comes back from Cachora, attending some other farms. This family tends a few chickens, pigs, mules and the bathrooms, supposedly which have been put in place by the French Government. A French guy discovered Choque in the early 1900´s. There is an insanely strong French influence in Peru, from the NGO´s, the French language schools in the city, tons of young people who dream of travelling to France, and now, these bathrooms. They flush and everything. I have never been to such a remote place that still had some of the basic amenities we are used to at home. They are squat toilets, don´t get me wrong, but they flush. They have this crazy gravity system for a shower, using the toilet as the drain. Inventive. They journey back to Cachora is pretty intense. It´s a valley, so you have to descent one mountain down to the river, and then back up the other day. My legs are destroyed by the time we get to the river. And we aren´t even close. Luckily, the ascent and descent use different leg muscles, and I manage just fine up the other side, no thanks to the intense sun. Paulino and the other guides are worried about the tourists and the sun. They decide not to push them too much and we camp where the others must camp, as he is also short on places to eat. I graciously accept dinner made by the cook of another group in this little ramshackle structure, realizing I could use a change from the quinoa and rice i´ve been eating for every meal. It´s the last night, so I give him the rest of what I´ve got, carrots and oat meal, to share with augment when he´ll make for his group. The cook, Edwin, and the guide, Benji, of the the other group, one Peruvian guy (who I theorize is some kind of shaman in training) with his two German girlfriends who always sit on either side of him. The three of them speak German quietly, to the point you can´t even here them to determine what language they are speaking, and then run off for hours by themselves…which I also theorize they are smoking pot…which is fine, but why so secretive? Why so quiet? It´s a mystery to all of us.
When we finally arrive in Cachora on the fourth day, we are all pooped, Edwin, the Lima guy, and Benji and I walk most of the way together, arriving in one group of tired, filthy, stinky young folks. It feels SO good to know I can sit down soon. Paulino has gone ahead, presumably sick of hiking too, especially slower than he probably can hike on his own, as he does this some times five times a month with other groups, which he tells me about, laughing about how out of shape the tourists are, and how unprepared, some to never make it to Choque. He´s even had to carry someone´s baby on the trial! We decide to meet at the information agency so I can pay him. I get there, and I realize, after not having thought about money for four days…that I do not have enough to pay him. Not nearly enough. Less than half! Shit. I know Benji and Edwin don´t have anything to lend me because we just changed the Shaman guuy´s Euros so they could stay at a hostel an extra night. We are stuck with Euros. Completely useless until we get to Cusco. I am not coming back here, I decide. No way in hell. The journey is too long. I ask if I can leave money in Cusco for someone to take back to Cachora. Nope. Not possible. One option left. The Limean. The guy I did not get along with the entire trip. The only person I would rather not see again, and he´s the only one who can save me. I ask him, and he thinks he can lend me some of the money, but not all. He´s worried he won´t have enough, either, to get back to Cusco. But I know he´s fine, because he doesn´t have to buy anything until Cusco, because he and his group have a private van back to the city. He kindly offers me the money, finally, after I think I am completely screwed. Benji and Edwin and I stick together, barely scraping by enough money for the collectivo to the top of the mountain to Ramal. We know we don´t have enough money to get back to Cusco. We have to find a car that will take us, and let us pay at the end. Not happening. There are no cars to Cusco, only half way. They say we can get another car there. We manage the fee (all with Benji´s money) to the next town. We´ve got a pile of stuff, as Benji and Edwin are responsible for bringing back tents, a bottle of propane, some stools, and pots and pans back to Cusco. The rest stays in Cachora with some agency or somebody´s home. In the next town, drive, sunny, and crowded with people desperate to get to Cusco. Nobody´s driving there. They know they won´t get passengers back, so they choose to just drive between the towns out in the middle of no where, rather than make the 3 or 4 hour journey to Cusco, to return with an empty car. After more than an hour, we finally find a van, and cram in the back, our stuff behind us. This vans windows barely crack open, I have to keep mine open with a water bottle, and I sit, feverish, in the back, bumping along, desperate to sleep, terrified we are going to crash with this moronic driver. As the sun finally eases up, and the day passes, the rain begins its daily descent to the earth, it cools off. We run into traffic (in the middle of no where??) because two drivers, a bus and a small car, collide. The bus has tumbled to a halt off the side of the road, into a small farm, just 15 feet below. At the moment of the accident, the road is flat, straight, and it hadn´t begun to rain yet. Who knows how it happened. These drivers are so desperate to drive fast, they risk their passengers and their own lives every day driving like lunatics. I have been scared for my own life a number of times. This is the status quo. Everyday there are major bus and train accidents in the paper. You can tell someone has happened again when you pass by the little news stands, with the various news papers hanging for all to view, with a dozen people standing in front, chins up, reading what tragedy another bus has caused. The major causes of accidents (as was in the paper), starting with tired drivers, then driver negligence, then drunk drivers, I believe. Don´t quote me on that, but that´s roughly what I remember. The trips are so long, and I presume the businesses can´t afford to have two drivers in every car, taking turns, which is really what is absolutely necessary for anything over 9 hours, I think.
After s pending two more days in Cusco, hanging out with Benji, and meeting up with two friends from Chewonki who were visiting Cusco at the same time, which was completely surreal. Easier to meet in Cusco, Peru, than in Utah? Crazy. I departed, for the final leg of my journey, back to Cusco. I buy a more expensive ticket, with a seemingly fancy agency, as they have nice tickets, well dressed workers, and I someone advertising for them convincingly in the terminal. I was completely dooped. It started to rain in the early afternoon, and didn´t stop until we got out of the range of the storm, 5 or 6 hours down the road. The bus was not made for rain. Water was pouring down from the windows, the emergency exists, and the air vents. I was lucky enough to have a seat next to an emergency window. Completely permeable to the weather. I had to wear my rain jacket, the man next to me with a plastic trash back covering him, and a blanket over my head to keep from getting soaked. When the rain picked up even more, after hours of suffering, sweating to death in my rain jacket with this blanket over my head, I demanded a solution. They told me I could come sit in the cabin with the driver. I finally accepted, and sat up front, watching the crazy driver drive with a drink in one hand, wiping the window´s condensation with the other, driving this massive machine. All I could do was try to sleep. As we got up to higher altitudes, I started to freeze. We stopped somewhere to add water to the engine ,and they left the door open, and I couldn’t´take it anymore. I was so cold, bundled up with hat, scarf, many layers , a blanket, and even someone´s jacket draped over my legs. I had to leave the cabin. But I didn´t want to sit in my wet seat again. I asked the attended (like a flight attended, who hands out food, blanekts, etc.) what to do. She was sleeping on the floor in this little cubby between the cabin and where the passengers sit on the first floor of the bus, and there was another small cubby I could curl up in, but not for long, as my feet would fall asleep. I managed that for a while, but then, I was too cold there, and ascended to my seat on the second floor. It was just beginning to get light out, and people were starting to wake up. I felt a small, internal applause from those who were awake when they saw that I had survived the night. It was good to be back with them. I sat again next to Elmer, this old, political man, the former president of some collctive farming business, who rambled on about the state of things, haciendas, latifundios, the US, the Spanish, etc. All food for thought. But Elmer, seriously, I am tired. Can´t you tell I am not interested!? We finally arrive in Arequipa. I am exhausted, and so pleased so be off that bus. Back to…´reality´? Vacation camp starts Wednesday. I leave Thursday night for anther 16 hour bus ride. This time, I spend the extra money to get on a better bus to Lima. Cruz del Sur. I hate that there are only one are two businesses, who charge an arm and a leg, that can manage a decent bus trip. Grr. Oh yeah, and NEVER ride on Enlace. You´ll regret it. Don’t be deceived by their fancy tickets!! Until next time…
Monday, January 11, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Once Again
I´ve finally gotten myself together enough to write here again. It was a rough journey from the Northern Hemisphere down to Arequipa. I can´t even count how many modes of transportation it took to get me to the apartment I stayed in before. When I arrived, it was full of german chatter, save one American girl who has lived in Germany for five years, so the majority of the time, the volunteers speak German. It was quite uncomfortable at first, but we have gotten to know each other a Little better and I am more at ease. There have been so many people I decided to move to the roof top apartment that is a single room. I love it. It´s small, prívate, and mine, for two weeks! I am truly beginning to learn the value of solitude. The room reminds me of the one I stayed in in Puno. Basic, compact. After preparing for a few days and later and celebrating Christmas eve in San Isidro, things quieted down.
Organization and a sure-fire date for the beginning of vacation camp for the kids in San Isidro has been lacking, so I decided to head to Coporaque alone to see the family I had become accustomed to, including Christian, Antonella, Shamira and Little Ruby, who now walks and says a few recognizable words (like ma, for mama, and more, convenient, right?) I spend three days with them, recuperating from a nasty cold that has been spreading like wildfire in our apartment. The clean air and the higher altitude definitely helped, but I managed to wear myself out entirely but going fishing one day, and to the river the next. Two insanely arduous journeys, especially with a cold. Fishing was really fun, save for the fall I took walking on slippery rocks, gouging my shin bone. A week later, it´s still swollen. I mostly watched Chocolate (his long-held Nick name), the father of the children I mentioned, use his beloved net. He was bouncing back and fourth on these enormous river rocks in sandals made from tire rubber, throwing this next, pulling it back in, and there would be a few shiny, tiny trout. I was bummed they were so tiny, thinking how much of a pain it is to deal with so many Little ones instead of a few big ones, but it turned out that the Little ones are preferred, for their small, digestable bones, and their stronger flavor. I was later served the bigger ones, as the bones are more managable to take out, and I tried both, and like the bigger ones better. The taste was less fishy. Four two hours of walking to and from the river, plus the two hours of clammoring over rocks, dealing with their yelping puppy in training who was more of a wimp then you could possibly imagine, I returned barely alive, it felt like. I crashed after eating lunch the first two days for at least a couple of hours, plus the early bedtime of around 8 or 9, as there´s nothing to do, you are completely exhausted, and the roosters will soon begin to roost around 3 or 4, not that that will stop me from sleeping 12 hours. It was good to see the family, but strange to see how the town has changed over the last 6 months during my absence. It´s a fever of tourism, as Chocolate described it. People are fixing their houses, their walls, the plaza in the center is completely torn up for repairs, but there is still only one restaurant, which I´ve never been in, a few small stores with essentials, and a few family homes to host tourists. I hate to say it, but I really wouldn´t recommend this place to all types, as the walks to and from the beautiful sites are dangerous and tiresome I can´t imagine trying to run a business out there with so little information, or experience, risking injury to my guests, being so far from anything, and the incessant possibility of the food unsettling your guests stomach. As much as I love it there, I feel sick half the time. I suppose with time, and if I knew what I was eating, and really was able to determine all that I was doing, eating and drinking, it would probably be better. Complete with an awful stomach ache, I made the journey back to Arequipa in the early evening, and things just becamse more of a struggle.
After returning to Arequipa, and still no sign of the approaching preparation for vacation camp, and after arriving to a house FULL of people, I was overwhelmed, and knew I had to do something. I had decided at that moment, that I wasn´t going hanging around waiting around for who knows what. I thought about where to go, and finally, after talking to friends about a managable trip, I decided on Cusco. So, after a few days, food poisoning or god knows what, the most horendously painful, freezing cold 10 hour bus ride, I arrive in the rising sun in Cusco. I feel awful, and have to sit in the bus terminal for a half hour to regain my strength to begin my quest for a place to stay, and a trip to Choquequirao. I think to ask a bus business how much I should expect a taxi to be to the center, so I confidently leave read to not get ripped off. He told me I need to go further away from the terminal to get the cheaper Price. There was a group of four girls asking for prices, and I told them what I had Heard about prices, so we continued to search together. These girls were very nice, from Argentina, travelling for two weeks during their summer break from university. We were all so tired and delerious from our long bus rides, we slowly but surely moved around the city with our heavy packs, looking for places to stay. Two of the girls dropped their packs, and the other two and I waited for them for what seemed like an eternity to ask around. They finally found a place for the four of them together for a reasonably Price, and nearby, I finally found my sanctuary. A Little room, reminiscent of Arequipa and Puno. Just wanted I needed. It´s at a hostel, so there is a community kitchen. A holding ground for people from all over the world. It´s somewhat clean, the kitchen is a few steps away, and there´s a lock on my door. I can´t really ask for much more. I havealready fallen in love with Cusco. I feel even more at home here then in Arequipa because of its manageable size. The streets are narrow, and quite steep. It´s an earthen-colored versión of Arequipa in some respects. I´ve already been to their big market to buy some vegetables for lunch, and made a nice peruvian meal of veggies and potatoes complete with one of my favorite spicy green sauces. My favorite part so far is the lush green forest surrounding the city. Cusco is tucked inside a valley, with tall, sweeping eucolyptus trees. The mountains from here aren´t as tall as in Arequipa, but this place is full of beautiful, historic Incan ruins like Macchu Picchu and Choquequirao. It´s just so nice to see green again. The suni s intense, but the air feels cleaner, like in Coporaque. There is less dust, and clouds move about, blocking the suns rays on occasion, and you can feel the drastic difference in temperature. It´s a welcome respite in the face of Equatorial sunshine during the summer.
In the next two days I´ll set off for Choquequirao, starting with an early morning , several hour bus ride to the next city over, where we will take another combi up to the trail head, and embark on a four day trek to see this awesome, still being uncovered, archaeological wonder of the world. I know I will be blown away. I just hope my health improves and stays stable for the next week. Why beautiful things have to be so difficult?
After a semester in gradúate school studying international development, and then plopping myself back into a ´perfect´location for some development, I can see first-hand some of the crazy things I´ve been learning, that until now, have really just been vocabulary words. Spare parts, for example, is one that sticks in my mind. In my development economics class, this is a term that roughly alludes to equipment, machines, factories, etc. That have been exported to developing countries for use in industrialization or other such favorable types of development…and here we are, in Peru, with nearly everything we use, broken. Faucets, Windows, cars, toilets. Nothing is as it was in the beginning. It´s frustrating, to say the least, and it´s also a shame, that everythign has to be more complicated than necessary. Simple things are rendered unusable, and simply go to waste. The ingenuity I see here, selling and making new things out of used things is common and impressive. But there is still so much waste. And where is it going to go? I haven´t seen a landfill here, yet. But I do see the piles of trash people burn, the plastic, the chemicals, in the street, or near wáter that will be used for irrigation. The dead stinking dogs, the smell of urine on every street corner, the piles of trash that get picked up several times a week by trucks that say ¨Together, we can improve Arequipa.¨ But is picking up trash really improving a place? Isn´t it simply moving the problem to a new location? A former co-worker introduced me to an organization in Guatemala that Works with the children who live at-on-near the dump. The disease, the risk, the filth, is unimaginable. The chronic, long-term exposure of whatever is in these dumps, smoldering, seeping into ground wáter, is incalculable. What do we have to say for ourselves? I am embarassed to be part of a species that creates and changes nature for its own purpose with out a second thought.
I happened upon a book the other day, thankfully in English, in our apartment. It´s about what the world would be like if the human race ceased to exist one day. The first parts are about the deterioration of our homes and our cities. Much of what we´ve created will quickly be overcome by nature. Much of what we´ve created will also stay, perhaps indefinitely, like aluminum, and other nearly impenetrable materials homo sapiens have created. Think of all the buildings we´ve built, and then destroyed, in the name of progress, practice, or what have you, only to be send to landfills. All of that concrete, that metal. The author leaves Little to our imagination, as most of what would happen is easily seen by what has already happened in the past with abandoned homes, natural disasters, etc. It´s something to think about. What have we done? How do we feel about it? And what are we going to do about it? These are the things I think about every day, no matter where I am. Ask yourself, where is ¨away´ when we throw something away?
Organization and a sure-fire date for the beginning of vacation camp for the kids in San Isidro has been lacking, so I decided to head to Coporaque alone to see the family I had become accustomed to, including Christian, Antonella, Shamira and Little Ruby, who now walks and says a few recognizable words (like ma, for mama, and more, convenient, right?) I spend three days with them, recuperating from a nasty cold that has been spreading like wildfire in our apartment. The clean air and the higher altitude definitely helped, but I managed to wear myself out entirely but going fishing one day, and to the river the next. Two insanely arduous journeys, especially with a cold. Fishing was really fun, save for the fall I took walking on slippery rocks, gouging my shin bone. A week later, it´s still swollen. I mostly watched Chocolate (his long-held Nick name), the father of the children I mentioned, use his beloved net. He was bouncing back and fourth on these enormous river rocks in sandals made from tire rubber, throwing this next, pulling it back in, and there would be a few shiny, tiny trout. I was bummed they were so tiny, thinking how much of a pain it is to deal with so many Little ones instead of a few big ones, but it turned out that the Little ones are preferred, for their small, digestable bones, and their stronger flavor. I was later served the bigger ones, as the bones are more managable to take out, and I tried both, and like the bigger ones better. The taste was less fishy. Four two hours of walking to and from the river, plus the two hours of clammoring over rocks, dealing with their yelping puppy in training who was more of a wimp then you could possibly imagine, I returned barely alive, it felt like. I crashed after eating lunch the first two days for at least a couple of hours, plus the early bedtime of around 8 or 9, as there´s nothing to do, you are completely exhausted, and the roosters will soon begin to roost around 3 or 4, not that that will stop me from sleeping 12 hours. It was good to see the family, but strange to see how the town has changed over the last 6 months during my absence. It´s a fever of tourism, as Chocolate described it. People are fixing their houses, their walls, the plaza in the center is completely torn up for repairs, but there is still only one restaurant, which I´ve never been in, a few small stores with essentials, and a few family homes to host tourists. I hate to say it, but I really wouldn´t recommend this place to all types, as the walks to and from the beautiful sites are dangerous and tiresome I can´t imagine trying to run a business out there with so little information, or experience, risking injury to my guests, being so far from anything, and the incessant possibility of the food unsettling your guests stomach. As much as I love it there, I feel sick half the time. I suppose with time, and if I knew what I was eating, and really was able to determine all that I was doing, eating and drinking, it would probably be better. Complete with an awful stomach ache, I made the journey back to Arequipa in the early evening, and things just becamse more of a struggle.
After returning to Arequipa, and still no sign of the approaching preparation for vacation camp, and after arriving to a house FULL of people, I was overwhelmed, and knew I had to do something. I had decided at that moment, that I wasn´t going hanging around waiting around for who knows what. I thought about where to go, and finally, after talking to friends about a managable trip, I decided on Cusco. So, after a few days, food poisoning or god knows what, the most horendously painful, freezing cold 10 hour bus ride, I arrive in the rising sun in Cusco. I feel awful, and have to sit in the bus terminal for a half hour to regain my strength to begin my quest for a place to stay, and a trip to Choquequirao. I think to ask a bus business how much I should expect a taxi to be to the center, so I confidently leave read to not get ripped off. He told me I need to go further away from the terminal to get the cheaper Price. There was a group of four girls asking for prices, and I told them what I had Heard about prices, so we continued to search together. These girls were very nice, from Argentina, travelling for two weeks during their summer break from university. We were all so tired and delerious from our long bus rides, we slowly but surely moved around the city with our heavy packs, looking for places to stay. Two of the girls dropped their packs, and the other two and I waited for them for what seemed like an eternity to ask around. They finally found a place for the four of them together for a reasonably Price, and nearby, I finally found my sanctuary. A Little room, reminiscent of Arequipa and Puno. Just wanted I needed. It´s at a hostel, so there is a community kitchen. A holding ground for people from all over the world. It´s somewhat clean, the kitchen is a few steps away, and there´s a lock on my door. I can´t really ask for much more. I havealready fallen in love with Cusco. I feel even more at home here then in Arequipa because of its manageable size. The streets are narrow, and quite steep. It´s an earthen-colored versión of Arequipa in some respects. I´ve already been to their big market to buy some vegetables for lunch, and made a nice peruvian meal of veggies and potatoes complete with one of my favorite spicy green sauces. My favorite part so far is the lush green forest surrounding the city. Cusco is tucked inside a valley, with tall, sweeping eucolyptus trees. The mountains from here aren´t as tall as in Arequipa, but this place is full of beautiful, historic Incan ruins like Macchu Picchu and Choquequirao. It´s just so nice to see green again. The suni s intense, but the air feels cleaner, like in Coporaque. There is less dust, and clouds move about, blocking the suns rays on occasion, and you can feel the drastic difference in temperature. It´s a welcome respite in the face of Equatorial sunshine during the summer.
In the next two days I´ll set off for Choquequirao, starting with an early morning , several hour bus ride to the next city over, where we will take another combi up to the trail head, and embark on a four day trek to see this awesome, still being uncovered, archaeological wonder of the world. I know I will be blown away. I just hope my health improves and stays stable for the next week. Why beautiful things have to be so difficult?
After a semester in gradúate school studying international development, and then plopping myself back into a ´perfect´location for some development, I can see first-hand some of the crazy things I´ve been learning, that until now, have really just been vocabulary words. Spare parts, for example, is one that sticks in my mind. In my development economics class, this is a term that roughly alludes to equipment, machines, factories, etc. That have been exported to developing countries for use in industrialization or other such favorable types of development…and here we are, in Peru, with nearly everything we use, broken. Faucets, Windows, cars, toilets. Nothing is as it was in the beginning. It´s frustrating, to say the least, and it´s also a shame, that everythign has to be more complicated than necessary. Simple things are rendered unusable, and simply go to waste. The ingenuity I see here, selling and making new things out of used things is common and impressive. But there is still so much waste. And where is it going to go? I haven´t seen a landfill here, yet. But I do see the piles of trash people burn, the plastic, the chemicals, in the street, or near wáter that will be used for irrigation. The dead stinking dogs, the smell of urine on every street corner, the piles of trash that get picked up several times a week by trucks that say ¨Together, we can improve Arequipa.¨ But is picking up trash really improving a place? Isn´t it simply moving the problem to a new location? A former co-worker introduced me to an organization in Guatemala that Works with the children who live at-on-near the dump. The disease, the risk, the filth, is unimaginable. The chronic, long-term exposure of whatever is in these dumps, smoldering, seeping into ground wáter, is incalculable. What do we have to say for ourselves? I am embarassed to be part of a species that creates and changes nature for its own purpose with out a second thought.
I happened upon a book the other day, thankfully in English, in our apartment. It´s about what the world would be like if the human race ceased to exist one day. The first parts are about the deterioration of our homes and our cities. Much of what we´ve created will quickly be overcome by nature. Much of what we´ve created will also stay, perhaps indefinitely, like aluminum, and other nearly impenetrable materials homo sapiens have created. Think of all the buildings we´ve built, and then destroyed, in the name of progress, practice, or what have you, only to be send to landfills. All of that concrete, that metal. The author leaves Little to our imagination, as most of what would happen is easily seen by what has already happened in the past with abandoned homes, natural disasters, etc. It´s something to think about. What have we done? How do we feel about it? And what are we going to do about it? These are the things I think about every day, no matter where I am. Ask yourself, where is ¨away´ when we throw something away?
Saturday, August 15, 2009
What does it mean when you google your own name?
I should be showered, in bed, dreaming of stealing BMW's and torrential floods like last night, desperately searching for my beach house??? What is this pathetic existence I lead? I shouldn't be publishing this.
I found this, entitled Amanda Barker:
Henry got me with child,
Knowing that I could not bring forth life
Without losing my own.
In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.
Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived
That Henry loved me with a husband's love,
But I proclaim from the dust
That he slew me to gratify his hatred.
Poem by Edgar Lee Masters
I knew about this poem a long time ago, and had forgotten about it. After revisiting it...it's all becoming so clear
Henry gets me pregnant despite the fact that he knows I will die as a result...everyone back home things he loves me...I think he killed me because of his hatred? Is this a love story? Did he choose baby over me? Was he fulfilling the inevitable...or purposely ended my life?
quick bio on edgar:
Edgar Lee Masters (Garnett, Kansas, August 23, 1868 - Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, March 5, 1950) was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of Spoon River Anthology, The New Star Chamber and Other Essays, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain: A Portrait, Lincoln: The Man, and Illinois Poems. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman.
this poem sums up my life, doesn't it?
some connections we share...he died in pennsylvania...his wife's name was emma, and i was almost named emma, he is heavily tied to legal realism...and well...that one just goes without saying.
i will continue to investigate this, and i expect you to do the same. any rumors about him, i want to hear. something good. all these brief bios have been less than satisfying.
I found this, entitled Amanda Barker:
Henry got me with child,
Knowing that I could not bring forth life
Without losing my own.
In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.
Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived
That Henry loved me with a husband's love,
But I proclaim from the dust
That he slew me to gratify his hatred.
Poem by Edgar Lee Masters
I knew about this poem a long time ago, and had forgotten about it. After revisiting it...it's all becoming so clear
Henry gets me pregnant despite the fact that he knows I will die as a result...everyone back home things he loves me...I think he killed me because of his hatred? Is this a love story? Did he choose baby over me? Was he fulfilling the inevitable...or purposely ended my life?
quick bio on edgar:
Edgar Lee Masters (Garnett, Kansas, August 23, 1868 - Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, March 5, 1950) was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of Spoon River Anthology, The New Star Chamber and Other Essays, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain: A Portrait, Lincoln: The Man, and Illinois Poems. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman.
this poem sums up my life, doesn't it?
some connections we share...he died in pennsylvania...his wife's name was emma, and i was almost named emma, he is heavily tied to legal realism...and well...that one just goes without saying.
i will continue to investigate this, and i expect you to do the same. any rumors about him, i want to hear. something good. all these brief bios have been less than satisfying.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
More photos
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1724151007/a=47625438_47625438/
Alright folks, if you want to see these pictures, you've got to sign in. Use the email address ABarker1006@gmail.com and password amanda. If that doesn't work, email me! Happy photo perusing.
Alright folks, if you want to see these pictures, you've got to sign in. Use the email address ABarker1006@gmail.com and password amanda. If that doesn't work, email me! Happy photo perusing.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Pictures
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1490460007/a=47625438_47625438/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
La Playa!
Here I am updating again at a terribly slow pace. I am home searching for jobs on the internet. It all seems to irrelevant and stupid compared to my mentality while in Arequipa. I just reread my last entry, and realized I should clarify what I meant, towards the end, when I said that the information I learned in the nurse’s station in Puno would soon change someone else’s life. After 3 or so months of working every day of the week, I travel to Puno. The following Thursday, we are out listening to jazz music late at night. We all realize we have a free Monday coming up, and, one by one, we convince each other it is a good idea to escape to the beach for a few days. I am one of the last ones to be convinced in the initial group of people, Edwin, Leonel, Estiv, and I. After a mountain of organizing who will do what, when, and how we’ll get there...we leave the next day, Edwin, Leonel and I. This couldn’t be a stranger trio.
It’s only a few hours by bus, and the bus is pretty nice. The windows don’t open, which means there is clean, cool, dust-free air to breath. The windows are enormous, and I share Leonel’s music as I stare out the window for four hours watching the scenery fly by. I am thoroughly. We arrive in Camana, a small city a few miles from the beach. It seems just like all of the other small cities in Peru I have been to, only this one has sea food, though it’s winter, and there are no tourists. The three of us with our backpacks, sleeping bags, tents and a few bags of food and Pisco head off for the beach. We have to take a colectivo, or group taxi, to get there. We cram in the car with our packs. These people look at us like we’re crazy. When we arrive, there is only one restaurant open, and the beach is empty, save for a few fisherman in their underwear, and the occasional group who comes to enjoy the tranquility of the beach in winter. It’s not cold, but it’s not hot most of the time either. A few hours of cloudless skies during the day heat us up enough to go swimming. The water is some of the coldest I have felt.
We make a fire, eat bread and fruit for dinner, and chat away the rest of the night. Only this doesn’t seem to me to be an ordinary camp fire with ordinary people. These are two of the most passionate, giving and emotional men I have ever known.
We are expecting our friends in the next few days, but we have no idea when they’ll come. Leonel and Edwin’s phones are dead, and I left mine in a taxi...so we are completely isolated. So, the next day, we eat, swim, roam around the beach, sleep, argue over who will go back into town to get more food and Pisco...and make a fire in the evening.
At some point we meet two very interesting men. One is a young guy from Argentina who has come to take care of a friend’s hotel during the winter months, to relax, make some connections, and learn to fish with a net. We have a hard time communicating at first with his Argentine accent, but we manage toward the end of our trip to understand one another. The other man is the owner of the lone restaurant...Dudu, is his nick name. He used to be the governor of this little beach town, which, by the way, looks like the apocalypse has come and gone.
About 10 years ago there was a Tsunami that hit here...and no one was prepared for it. I suppose no one ever is, but it completely devastated the little beach town, and many are too afraid to return, and have left fallen down houses. Others have rebuilt, and close down or move out merely for the winter. Dudu has two penguins, and lives right in front of where we’re camping on the beach. A convenient bathroom and fried fish supplier. He only remembers my name, so when we order food, he screams my name, and motions for us to come in. He reminds me of a Peruvian version of my grand father a little bit, with his big belly, and big heart. Both Marco, the Argentine, and Dudu, are philanthropists after our own hearts. Marco works with street children in Argentina, and Dudu works with groups like Marco’s, networking his business friends to donate food and put on events and what not. Dudu offers to host our children’s intercultural congress in November at the beach, during a festival time, when he knows his friends will be here and willing to donate and help out. Leonel accepts his invitation. These kids are going to die of excitement to hear they get to go to the beach again, I think. Most of them never travel unless it is with INTIWAWA. Few of our children we work with on the weekends outside San Isidro, which is only an hour away, go to Arequipa. Some have never been. They only know one place. Most of these children have never been to the beach either. Only the kids from San Isidro had that privilege last year.
The second night, after Dudu and Marco have gone to their homes, it is just Leonel, Edwin and I again. We always have INTIWAWA on our minds, and talk about it quite a lot. Our hopes, dreams, frustrations and disappointments. We tell stories, and learn more about each other. We have all shared some difficult and trying times together, and this weekend seems like a culmination of this. Part of this trip was a going away and reorganization trip for my departure. We knew when we both Leonel and I left INTIWAWA, things would change. I told the guys my uncle’s story about his little fluffy white dog that chased an adolescent boy down the street. The boy, to protect himself from this ferocious pooch, jumped on a neighbor’s car, and dented and scratched the roof and hood. My uncle would have to pay the damage, and received a fine from the police for not having control over his pet. They laughed at the ridiculousness of it. I also told them my story about Puno, similar to what you’ve read in my blog here. Leonel was hearing it for the second time, but wanted me to tell Edwin. Edwin is the most cynical person I have ever known. He has no hope in adults what-so-ever because they are selfish and blind and ignorant. He only believes the future is purely in the hands of the children and that hardly anyone in the world wants to help. We had a nasty argument over this in the past, but managed to move on despite our differences. This time, things would change. When I told him that 25 of the 30 children at the hospital in Puno were receiving free treatment, he cried. He didn’t know, he told me, that there was help. He thanked me and hugged me and told me I had given him hope. I cried too. We must have looked like lunatics out there on the beach, just the three of us. I will never forget that night.
Our friends arrive, and it's nice to have the new faces. We play soccer, eat at Dudu's restaurant...swim, and play music with odd instruments we've created. Water bottles, rocks, pens...someone has the idea to read a paragraph from a book as the lyrics of a song. The rest of us sing back up or play instruments, others just watch. It was fun making music with friends...something I am not personally used to. Normally I am a spectator. I think that speaks to my how comfortable I was around these friends. I still won't sing solo, but at least I piped up a little singing nonsense songs.
For now, this may be my last blog entry. I do plan to return to Arequipa and INTIWAWA (though I haven't really left, still dreaming, worry, and writing to volunteers making sure they're alright and answering questions) as soon as possible. I hope to be one of the few who returns.
"There now, steady love, so few come and don't go
Will you won't you, be the one I'll always know
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down" - the fray
It’s only a few hours by bus, and the bus is pretty nice. The windows don’t open, which means there is clean, cool, dust-free air to breath. The windows are enormous, and I share Leonel’s music as I stare out the window for four hours watching the scenery fly by. I am thoroughly. We arrive in Camana, a small city a few miles from the beach. It seems just like all of the other small cities in Peru I have been to, only this one has sea food, though it’s winter, and there are no tourists. The three of us with our backpacks, sleeping bags, tents and a few bags of food and Pisco head off for the beach. We have to take a colectivo, or group taxi, to get there. We cram in the car with our packs. These people look at us like we’re crazy. When we arrive, there is only one restaurant open, and the beach is empty, save for a few fisherman in their underwear, and the occasional group who comes to enjoy the tranquility of the beach in winter. It’s not cold, but it’s not hot most of the time either. A few hours of cloudless skies during the day heat us up enough to go swimming. The water is some of the coldest I have felt.
We make a fire, eat bread and fruit for dinner, and chat away the rest of the night. Only this doesn’t seem to me to be an ordinary camp fire with ordinary people. These are two of the most passionate, giving and emotional men I have ever known.
We are expecting our friends in the next few days, but we have no idea when they’ll come. Leonel and Edwin’s phones are dead, and I left mine in a taxi...so we are completely isolated. So, the next day, we eat, swim, roam around the beach, sleep, argue over who will go back into town to get more food and Pisco...and make a fire in the evening.
At some point we meet two very interesting men. One is a young guy from Argentina who has come to take care of a friend’s hotel during the winter months, to relax, make some connections, and learn to fish with a net. We have a hard time communicating at first with his Argentine accent, but we manage toward the end of our trip to understand one another. The other man is the owner of the lone restaurant...Dudu, is his nick name. He used to be the governor of this little beach town, which, by the way, looks like the apocalypse has come and gone.
About 10 years ago there was a Tsunami that hit here...and no one was prepared for it. I suppose no one ever is, but it completely devastated the little beach town, and many are too afraid to return, and have left fallen down houses. Others have rebuilt, and close down or move out merely for the winter. Dudu has two penguins, and lives right in front of where we’re camping on the beach. A convenient bathroom and fried fish supplier. He only remembers my name, so when we order food, he screams my name, and motions for us to come in. He reminds me of a Peruvian version of my grand father a little bit, with his big belly, and big heart. Both Marco, the Argentine, and Dudu, are philanthropists after our own hearts. Marco works with street children in Argentina, and Dudu works with groups like Marco’s, networking his business friends to donate food and put on events and what not. Dudu offers to host our children’s intercultural congress in November at the beach, during a festival time, when he knows his friends will be here and willing to donate and help out. Leonel accepts his invitation. These kids are going to die of excitement to hear they get to go to the beach again, I think. Most of them never travel unless it is with INTIWAWA. Few of our children we work with on the weekends outside San Isidro, which is only an hour away, go to Arequipa. Some have never been. They only know one place. Most of these children have never been to the beach either. Only the kids from San Isidro had that privilege last year.
The second night, after Dudu and Marco have gone to their homes, it is just Leonel, Edwin and I again. We always have INTIWAWA on our minds, and talk about it quite a lot. Our hopes, dreams, frustrations and disappointments. We tell stories, and learn more about each other. We have all shared some difficult and trying times together, and this weekend seems like a culmination of this. Part of this trip was a going away and reorganization trip for my departure. We knew when we both Leonel and I left INTIWAWA, things would change. I told the guys my uncle’s story about his little fluffy white dog that chased an adolescent boy down the street. The boy, to protect himself from this ferocious pooch, jumped on a neighbor’s car, and dented and scratched the roof and hood. My uncle would have to pay the damage, and received a fine from the police for not having control over his pet. They laughed at the ridiculousness of it. I also told them my story about Puno, similar to what you’ve read in my blog here. Leonel was hearing it for the second time, but wanted me to tell Edwin. Edwin is the most cynical person I have ever known. He has no hope in adults what-so-ever because they are selfish and blind and ignorant. He only believes the future is purely in the hands of the children and that hardly anyone in the world wants to help. We had a nasty argument over this in the past, but managed to move on despite our differences. This time, things would change. When I told him that 25 of the 30 children at the hospital in Puno were receiving free treatment, he cried. He didn’t know, he told me, that there was help. He thanked me and hugged me and told me I had given him hope. I cried too. We must have looked like lunatics out there on the beach, just the three of us. I will never forget that night.
Our friends arrive, and it's nice to have the new faces. We play soccer, eat at Dudu's restaurant...swim, and play music with odd instruments we've created. Water bottles, rocks, pens...someone has the idea to read a paragraph from a book as the lyrics of a song. The rest of us sing back up or play instruments, others just watch. It was fun making music with friends...something I am not personally used to. Normally I am a spectator. I think that speaks to my how comfortable I was around these friends. I still won't sing solo, but at least I piped up a little singing nonsense songs.
For now, this may be my last blog entry. I do plan to return to Arequipa and INTIWAWA (though I haven't really left, still dreaming, worry, and writing to volunteers making sure they're alright and answering questions) as soon as possible. I hope to be one of the few who returns.
"There now, steady love, so few come and don't go
Will you won't you, be the one I'll always know
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down" - the fray
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Puno
Forgive me for not writing!!!!!!!!! I am back home now, but I will attempt to write this collecting all that I can from my memory along the way. I will start with where I left off. I was heading to Puno on my own. After hearing on the news what was happening in that region, I decided on our first weekend off, I would go to Puno with clothes for the kids at the hospital. Puno is not only a city, where Lake Titicaca is located, but also a region. The region of Puno has seen some seriously high death rates, which repeats itself with out failure, every winter. Puno is high, and in the winter, it’s dry, and freaking cold. Generally all they raised up there, like in San Juan and Salinas, are llamas and alpacas. The vegetation is low to the ground, and there isn’t much to eat otherwise. The problem the people face there is sickness from the cold. I’m not a doctor, but the changes in temperature are pretty drastic from night to day, the cold can get really intense, like 18 below zero C, and the generally population in these areas is seriously under funded, and nearly forgotten. There is no insulation in the homes, they are made from dirt floors, thatched roofs, brick, and are generally windowless (well, yes, there are holes for windows, but no glass). So, I go to the used clothes market with Leonel, and we find fleeces for about 15 children, plus mittens, and whatever I can find in the box we keep in our house which is overflowing with clothing which will be donated during Christmas time. I fill a potato sack and a big shopping bag full, plus my belongings, and headed off to Puno at 7am on an 6 hour bus. I paid 5 dollars for the trip there, and it felt like I was riding first class in American Airlines. It was the nicest bus I’d been on. I curled up and slept well most of the way. I had only caught a few hours of sleep the night before.
I arrived in bright, “wow I am way overdressed for this sun,” Puno in early afternoon. First task, find a place to dump this immense amount of luggage and get something to eat. Went to an internet café, found a neat sounding hostel, lugged my stuff there, full. Walked around in circles, sweating to death, hungry, tired, and increasingly more frustrated and angry. Stopped in probably 5 hostels, too expensive...too fancy. Where is the cheap stuff? Oh, there it is. Let’s have a look. Oh god, no. Too cheap. I do not want to be the only person staying in this place, and it has shared bathroom stalls, no hot water. Please, this is my weekend off. Give me something! 150 places later, I found a cute little hotel type set up, not exceedingly nice, not terrible, reasonably price, friendly old man showed me the way. Door locks, hot water all the time, they even give you a towel. 10 bucks. Sold. Dump my stuff, and head back out to find some food. I didn’t get further than a block, found something interesting, one lonely tourist eating by himself in there...whatever. I am hungry. I order, oddly enough, coconut curry veggies and rice. It was amazing!!!! Fresh tea. Wow. I am in heaven. Leave there, roam around the touristy shops. Jesus, everything is so expensive. It seems worse than Arequipa, just smaller. I meet a nice girl in a shop who is struggling to communicate with the vendor lady, help her out with her expensive sweater situation, and we chat about what we are doing here by ourselves. She has a neat story to tell. She just quit her well paying job fixing the eyeballs of rich people. Literally, she is an optometrist. She says at first she is a doctor, but specializes in eyes. I don’t know their system, but I don’t bother to ask. We network a bit about INTIWAWA, and she promises she’ll contact us when she comes back to Peru. She’s traveling with a Peruvian guy she met in Mexico who has organized the whole trip. They are off the next day to check out the Islands in the lake. I have a tinge of “someday I am actually going to travel.” Whenever I meet tourists who are seeing everything, that tinge comes knocking on my door. I hate it. I love what I am doing, and I wouldn’t trader it for all the cheap hostels with hot water in the world. We part with smiles, and meet again 10 minutes later in another street looking at knitted hats. Finally we part for good. I manage to find my way to the lake as the sun is setting. It’s really big, but nothing terribly impressing. The good stuff is in the middle, away from all this algae and the taxi drivers and bicyclists.
I head back on foot, mostly to demonstrate to the taxi drivers that dammit, I can walk, even though I am white. I walk a few blocks, and here I am in another market. Fruits, veggies, rice, potatoes, shampoo, cheese, ceviche, raw meat, and lots of wide open eyes. I am the only white person here...I assume because it’s dark, and tourists have no need for these fresh food markets. They eat at restaurants. Alas, this time, I am essentially a tourist. I really don’t have any need for any of this. I buy only apples, avocado, and bread. Dinner. I head back home. It’s nearly 6. I should be in bed soon. I should be doing as much sleeping as possible on this trip to make up for lost time. I make avocado and apple sandwiches, after borrowing a butter knife from the front desk to make this situation a little easier, using newspaper as my plate, but still turns out to be a terribly unavoidable mess. Anyway, it was delicious. I surprisingly have a television in my room, and it has a remote. More than I could ask for. I flip through the excessive amount of stations a few times, get bored, and switch off the light. Here I am. Me and me, just hanging out for the night, and it’s probably 7pm. I am tired. I wake up the next morning, and decide to venture for a shower. I’ve noticed how awfully small the bathroom is. The whole thing is about as big as my bathtub at home, but also includes stand up shower, sink and toilet, all conveniently located in the same place...literally. The sink is actually in the shower...there is no tub. The entire room is tiled for protection. First, I have to shut the shower curtain, which now separates the toilet and the “shower.” Then, I have to stand on the toilet so I don’t soak myself or stand in the freezing cold water while it waits to warm up. I forgot to close the bathroom door, so water lakes out a bit into the bedroom. Tight quarters. wow. I finally manage myself into the shower, and the water is hot. This is the first hot shower I have had in a long time. Not to mention a shower. Excellent. I pack my stuff, and head out. I don’t have a lot of time to waste. I leave at 1pm for arequipa. 24 hours in Puno doesn’t seem like a lot, but it was packed with Amanda adventure. I walk out my hotel door, turn right onto a pedestrian/tourist only type street, walk a block, and find a moto taxi driver half asleep in his motorcycle. He pulls around, I load my stuff into the very back...and OH MY GOD he’s driving away!! Those things don’t go very fast, so I run to catch up with him and I’m there in just a few leaps, I’m banging on his door, “I am not inside!!!!!!!!!!!” “Oh oh, sorry sorry.” Idiot. He felt all the weight bear down in his taxi, and assumed I was in, too. This is really what happens when you assume. I get in, half freaked that he was actually trying to steal my stuff, and to the hospital we go. We arrive at the front entrance in a few minutes... “It’s closed, you know.” (Sunday). “Wow, REALLY?! You knew that before? You couldn’t have told me that before???” How the hell is a hospital closed? I think to myself. Okay, “So what if there is an emergency, what do people do?” “There’s an emergency entrance that’s open on the other side.” Then what the hell are we doing sitting at the closed front entrance if there is another entrance? This guy is killing me this morning. “Let’s go!” He drops my annoyed butt off, and all of my things, at the emergency entrance. There are people loafing around, as usual. But, they are very helpful, and one man offers to help carry my things, and escorts me around the hospital looking for where we need to go. After a few flights up and down the stairs (and it is really cold in the hospital stairwell), we arrive. The nurse’s are scampering around talking to parents and kids, making tea, preparing cotton balls by hand from a mountain of cotton...she’s brought clothes for the children, the man explains. They are very excited, and want me to wait here in their office/everything else room a minute while the visiting nurse finishes up. We are going to deliver the clothes personally to each child. Oh my. I was just thinking of dropping them off, I think to myself. Here we go. We separated the clothes into Mom size and baby size. Two nurses and I set off for all of the rooms. There are 30 children in total. All are under the age of 3, it seems. They are really tiny, all bundled up in these big beds. Three children to a room. Many of their mothers are their by their side. I feel very out of place here, like an intruder. The nurse’s take care of everything, explain what I am doing, take clothes out of my arms according to the size of the mom and child, toss it on the bed or to the mom, and off we go! Wow, this woman knows what she’s doing. Scarves, mittens, fleeces, and in minutes, our arms are nearly empty. One room is a steam room, it’s like 200 degrees in there and 99 percent humidity I think. Another room has two itty bitty infants sleeping. I ask how many months this one is, she looks at her chart, and says one year. Sepsis and pneumonia. I would have guessed 6 months old. She’s way too small. Sepsis is an infection in your blood, and a baby with pneumonia is never a good thing. She’s very sick, but she is sleeping pleasantly, and looks like a little doll baby. I choke back tears. Every one of these children is suffering from pneumonia or another cold weather related illness. We head back to the nurses’ station to wait for the visiting nurse to do her thing. After about an hour of waiting, we finally get to hang out the last of the clothes to the rest of the children. The mothers nod and smile in thanks, and I can’t say anything or I know I’ll cry. Despite the coughing and the crying, half the children are asleep, or are calmly lying in their beds with their mothers sitting in a chair next to the bed. They look at me in wonder.
I arrived in bright, “wow I am way overdressed for this sun,” Puno in early afternoon. First task, find a place to dump this immense amount of luggage and get something to eat. Went to an internet café, found a neat sounding hostel, lugged my stuff there, full. Walked around in circles, sweating to death, hungry, tired, and increasingly more frustrated and angry. Stopped in probably 5 hostels, too expensive...too fancy. Where is the cheap stuff? Oh, there it is. Let’s have a look. Oh god, no. Too cheap. I do not want to be the only person staying in this place, and it has shared bathroom stalls, no hot water. Please, this is my weekend off. Give me something! 150 places later, I found a cute little hotel type set up, not exceedingly nice, not terrible, reasonably price, friendly old man showed me the way. Door locks, hot water all the time, they even give you a towel. 10 bucks. Sold. Dump my stuff, and head back out to find some food. I didn’t get further than a block, found something interesting, one lonely tourist eating by himself in there...whatever. I am hungry. I order, oddly enough, coconut curry veggies and rice. It was amazing!!!! Fresh tea. Wow. I am in heaven. Leave there, roam around the touristy shops. Jesus, everything is so expensive. It seems worse than Arequipa, just smaller. I meet a nice girl in a shop who is struggling to communicate with the vendor lady, help her out with her expensive sweater situation, and we chat about what we are doing here by ourselves. She has a neat story to tell. She just quit her well paying job fixing the eyeballs of rich people. Literally, she is an optometrist. She says at first she is a doctor, but specializes in eyes. I don’t know their system, but I don’t bother to ask. We network a bit about INTIWAWA, and she promises she’ll contact us when she comes back to Peru. She’s traveling with a Peruvian guy she met in Mexico who has organized the whole trip. They are off the next day to check out the Islands in the lake. I have a tinge of “someday I am actually going to travel.” Whenever I meet tourists who are seeing everything, that tinge comes knocking on my door. I hate it. I love what I am doing, and I wouldn’t trader it for all the cheap hostels with hot water in the world. We part with smiles, and meet again 10 minutes later in another street looking at knitted hats. Finally we part for good. I manage to find my way to the lake as the sun is setting. It’s really big, but nothing terribly impressing. The good stuff is in the middle, away from all this algae and the taxi drivers and bicyclists.
I head back on foot, mostly to demonstrate to the taxi drivers that dammit, I can walk, even though I am white. I walk a few blocks, and here I am in another market. Fruits, veggies, rice, potatoes, shampoo, cheese, ceviche, raw meat, and lots of wide open eyes. I am the only white person here...I assume because it’s dark, and tourists have no need for these fresh food markets. They eat at restaurants. Alas, this time, I am essentially a tourist. I really don’t have any need for any of this. I buy only apples, avocado, and bread. Dinner. I head back home. It’s nearly 6. I should be in bed soon. I should be doing as much sleeping as possible on this trip to make up for lost time. I make avocado and apple sandwiches, after borrowing a butter knife from the front desk to make this situation a little easier, using newspaper as my plate, but still turns out to be a terribly unavoidable mess. Anyway, it was delicious. I surprisingly have a television in my room, and it has a remote. More than I could ask for. I flip through the excessive amount of stations a few times, get bored, and switch off the light. Here I am. Me and me, just hanging out for the night, and it’s probably 7pm. I am tired. I wake up the next morning, and decide to venture for a shower. I’ve noticed how awfully small the bathroom is. The whole thing is about as big as my bathtub at home, but also includes stand up shower, sink and toilet, all conveniently located in the same place...literally. The sink is actually in the shower...there is no tub. The entire room is tiled for protection. First, I have to shut the shower curtain, which now separates the toilet and the “shower.” Then, I have to stand on the toilet so I don’t soak myself or stand in the freezing cold water while it waits to warm up. I forgot to close the bathroom door, so water lakes out a bit into the bedroom. Tight quarters. wow. I finally manage myself into the shower, and the water is hot. This is the first hot shower I have had in a long time. Not to mention a shower. Excellent. I pack my stuff, and head out. I don’t have a lot of time to waste. I leave at 1pm for arequipa. 24 hours in Puno doesn’t seem like a lot, but it was packed with Amanda adventure. I walk out my hotel door, turn right onto a pedestrian/tourist only type street, walk a block, and find a moto taxi driver half asleep in his motorcycle. He pulls around, I load my stuff into the very back...and OH MY GOD he’s driving away!! Those things don’t go very fast, so I run to catch up with him and I’m there in just a few leaps, I’m banging on his door, “I am not inside!!!!!!!!!!!” “Oh oh, sorry sorry.” Idiot. He felt all the weight bear down in his taxi, and assumed I was in, too. This is really what happens when you assume. I get in, half freaked that he was actually trying to steal my stuff, and to the hospital we go. We arrive at the front entrance in a few minutes... “It’s closed, you know.” (Sunday). “Wow, REALLY?! You knew that before? You couldn’t have told me that before???” How the hell is a hospital closed? I think to myself. Okay, “So what if there is an emergency, what do people do?” “There’s an emergency entrance that’s open on the other side.” Then what the hell are we doing sitting at the closed front entrance if there is another entrance? This guy is killing me this morning. “Let’s go!” He drops my annoyed butt off, and all of my things, at the emergency entrance. There are people loafing around, as usual. But, they are very helpful, and one man offers to help carry my things, and escorts me around the hospital looking for where we need to go. After a few flights up and down the stairs (and it is really cold in the hospital stairwell), we arrive. The nurse’s are scampering around talking to parents and kids, making tea, preparing cotton balls by hand from a mountain of cotton...she’s brought clothes for the children, the man explains. They are very excited, and want me to wait here in their office/everything else room a minute while the visiting nurse finishes up. We are going to deliver the clothes personally to each child. Oh my. I was just thinking of dropping them off, I think to myself. Here we go. We separated the clothes into Mom size and baby size. Two nurses and I set off for all of the rooms. There are 30 children in total. All are under the age of 3, it seems. They are really tiny, all bundled up in these big beds. Three children to a room. Many of their mothers are their by their side. I feel very out of place here, like an intruder. The nurse’s take care of everything, explain what I am doing, take clothes out of my arms according to the size of the mom and child, toss it on the bed or to the mom, and off we go! Wow, this woman knows what she’s doing. Scarves, mittens, fleeces, and in minutes, our arms are nearly empty. One room is a steam room, it’s like 200 degrees in there and 99 percent humidity I think. Another room has two itty bitty infants sleeping. I ask how many months this one is, she looks at her chart, and says one year. Sepsis and pneumonia. I would have guessed 6 months old. She’s way too small. Sepsis is an infection in your blood, and a baby with pneumonia is never a good thing. She’s very sick, but she is sleeping pleasantly, and looks like a little doll baby. I choke back tears. Every one of these children is suffering from pneumonia or another cold weather related illness. We head back to the nurses’ station to wait for the visiting nurse to do her thing. After about an hour of waiting, we finally get to hang out the last of the clothes to the rest of the children. The mothers nod and smile in thanks, and I can’t say anything or I know I’ll cry. Despite the coughing and the crying, half the children are asleep, or are calmly lying in their beds with their mothers sitting in a chair next to the bed. They look at me in wonder.
While waiting with the nurses, we chatted about the health care system a bit. What happens if the families don’t have money?, I ask. They don’t come, she answers. They don’t receive treatment. No one? I clarify. Well, most people, no. You can petition the government, she explains, for help. Most people are lazy and stupid and don’t write to help themselves or their children, she explains resentfully. And the children here? Does the government help any of the children here? 25 of the 30 children here are here free, she tells me. I am shocked.
Most of the people I have talked to in Peru have no idea this is possible. They think there is no hope. These children don’t receive much here in the hospital, but at least they are in a warm bed, receiving fluids. The one’s who don’t receive any treatment out there in the cold are the one’s who don’t make it. This information has changed my life, and will soon change someone else’s. I leave sad and confused and sorry I couldn’t hang out with the kids and play with them. Back to Arequipa I go.
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