Getting to the Point

January 7. I took a quick flight and hopped over from Cusco to Lima. I had picked up three Argentinians - friends of Flor's. Andres, Lucho, and Manuel. My new travelling band from Rosario, Argentina.

The four of us crashed Flor's pad for a quick 5 days. Site seeing and partying. Days included
tours of the catacombs in the Cathedral and introducing the boys to Peruvian cuisine including my favorite bar in Barranco, Lima - Juanitos. Best sandwich and beer in town. Also, stops at Bigote for Ceviche - raw fish cooked in lemon juice, Jalea - a fried assortment of fish with a white fish filet at the bottom and some yuca, chicharron - calamari with great tartar sauce, tacu tacu - rice with beans, and of course lots of Cusqueña - the beer.

Eventually the 13th came, and we all had a flight to Arequipa to embark on the journey south. A goodbye lunch at Bigote and the boys went on their way to the airport. My plan was to stay in town and wait for my debit card to arrive the following day, forego my flight with the boys and take a 13 hour bus ride to Arequipa to meet them on the 15th.Luckily I ran into an exceptional amount of good luck, which sadly diminished the minute I crossed the border into Bolivia.....

The boys took off on their flight - leaving me behind and by chance, my debit card showed up at the apartment a day earlier than the tracking online had said. My original flight, an hour long, spent an actual three hours circling the airport in Arequipa, unable to land due to the clouds. So the flight headed back to land in Lima and rescheduled for 4am the following morning.

As I settled into the idea of my future possibly excruciating bus ride in Flor's apartment over a Pizza Hut pizza night the boys surpisingly showed up at the apartment to wait for their later flight.

In a whirlwind, I packed my bag and said goodbyes, figuring I could talk my way onto the flight at 4am. With some fast talking by Andres, the stewardess at the check-in desk asked some questions and got me on the flight to Arequipa. We got into Arequipa airport early morning and headed to a hostal to catch up on some sleep.

We slept into the afternoon and woke to get oriented...(Falk - a German friend of a friend, joined us in Arequipa to travel through Bolivia with us.) With two days in the second largest city of Peru, we didn´t do much. Manuel and I toured a museum to see Juanita - the child mummy found in the mountains nearby.And otherwise we relaxed to prep for BOLIVIA.....

more of the Past.

Of course, upon arriving drearily into Cuzco, the ladies napped. The altitude punishes you as you climb the steep cobbled roads, so the siesta is a must. It rained for the next day or so and so the 5 ladies, including myself, hopped on a bus and headed to Puno. The city that lies on Lake Titicaca, bordering Bolivia. We arrived after a tiring eight hour bus ride and headed on a tour of the floating islands of Lake Titicaca - altitude 4000 meters.



Los Uros. Upon the colonization of Peru and Bolivia, people constructed and moved onto Los Uros to detach themsevles and to maintain their native traditions , speaking either Quechua or Uymara. There are currently 2200 people living on these remote thatched islands. Ranging from a family of two to a family of twelve living on one island. We stayed a night on one of them with a very hospitable and simpatico family. It rained quite furiously through the night, but luckily the day settled into a hot one as we left Los Uros and headed for Taquile Island. Taquile, a natural reserve, which is an enormous island in the middle of the Lake. We ate lunch and went along with the tour, hiking up and through the mountainous isle.
A completely packaged American tourist (i.e. big awkward hat with a flamboyant picture of Machu Picchu in the front, a sunscreened white face, sunglasses from the 80s on a string around his neck, khakis that unzip from pants into shorts if necessary, and a shirt with a picture of some textile fabric and the word, Peru underneath - here, they would call this typical Janqui, or for us, Yankee) kept complaining how his tour group had left him stranded on one of the islands of Los Uros and he couldn´t believe that anyone could be left behind. He had to take another boat to Taquile in order to try and catch up with his lost tour, unfortunately, that meant he was stuck with us, on my freaking boat! He yelled at our tour operator and then once again when we arrived to Taquile. Eventually as we were heading towards the port of Taquile to leave I saw the Janqui complaining again to some Brazilian tourists.
¨Get over it, dude,¨ I said after hearing the story for the fourth time.
¨You know, if that was to happen on a scuba diving trip, they would take away the licenses of the tour operators and guides.¨He said, consistent with every other time he had told the story.
¨Well, I hate to break your bubble, but you´re not scuba diving....This isn´t the states. Welcome to South America, bud.¨I said with a bow and continued walking on with my tour group of Taquile.
-------->Probabaly why so few of us Yankees ever make it down to Peru; the Peruvians dont necessarily take responsibility. Tour guides leave behind people part of their tour, they never tell you lunch is not included in the price until you have no other option for food, peruvian time must always be tripled- if they say one hour, it is really three- and nothing has a fixed price - there is always room for negotiation. Right, Amiga?

After the tour we headed back to Puno and took a bus through the night to arrive back in Cuzco.
Cuzco - Ruinistic. There was a birthday party for me, of course, including my favorite bottle of Scotch, a piñata in the shape of a beer bottle, and a cake that was smashed ever so eloquently into my face at 3 am on the 31st. There was the end of the year dinner in the hostel on the 31st and then a run around the Plaza de Armas at midnight for good luck in the new year. A ridiculous amount of fireworks and firecrackers - one of which accidently hit me in the face and drew some blood. Caution - if you hold a firecracker in your hand and then light it, dont forget to let it go! (otherwise, it might crack and hit one of your friends standing close by). Later on in the night, there proceeded to be lots of Chela (beer) and dancing. And then a few days of rest, to recuperate.

The beginning of 2009, seemed to be flowered with the past. Especially since I was in Cuzco, and most of my days consisted of viewing old Inca ruins. Nonetheless, historically and aesthetically pleasant. My favorites been Salineras and Moray, which were unbelievably breathtaking. (Other than Machu Picchu, throughout and around Cuzco, there are various amounts of ruins, each with distinct functions, resources, capabilties, and explanations of their histories.)

Eventually, after days and days of brick remains with accented fertil green grass, I headed back to Lima AGAIN.

Porque? Porque....

In the recent month, a lot happened. It was all actually quite enjoyable.

There was a weekend at the beach; Punta Hermosa - translating to mean the beautiful point, which is meant to be ironic, I think. The town was grungy, the water contaminated - a greenish yellow that supposedly stains the skin, unrelentingly hot, and of course, the burning South American sun - it burns through the 50 Sunblock you put on. The weekend was relaxing. It was a mini break from Lima.

Sometime after there was Christmas dinner. A Jew´s Christmas. It was announced amidst the devouring of a store bought dinner, that it was my first Christmas because I was Jewish.
A family member at the table proceeded to ask the following questions:
¨Do Jews smoke?¨
¨Well,¨ I hesitated to respond, ¨Do Peruvians smoke?¨
Also---
¨Aren´t Jews really closeminded and segregated, you know, because they like to live separate from everyone else?¨
¨No,¨I immediately said through my wine glass.
And eventually, while I was finishing a glass of wine----
¨Well, we know those Jews can drink,¨gesturing me.
No response from me for that one....

The 25th of December I headed to Cuzco for a second go thinking that I would just spend a flash of time through the New Year with some friends and head into Bolivia. This did not happen. And now I am back in Lima.