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It happened to my friend Ben in Mendoza, Argentina. And it happened to another traveler-friend, James, on the streets of Arequipa, Peru. And to another, Dan, it happened in a cab in Nicaragua. It even happened in Buenos Aires to my good friend Denise, who was only vacationing for a couple of weeks.
And then it happened to me. I got robbed, or, as my father unsympathetically said just after he sympathetically Western Unioned me $500, I put myself in a lion’s den, so how could I expect not to get eaten?
One moment I was eating jaune de pollo (a whole lot of rice with a tiny piece of chicken in the middle, typical Jungle food I’m told), drinking beer, and laughing at a restaurant in Trujillo, Peru, the next, I was minus a bag and reduced to tears and choppy English.
It took a while for the shock to wear off, and when it did, I felt defeated. Crushed. I’d made it so far: seven and a half months of travel with nothing much worth crying about, save for the beach cover-up/favorite sweltering -weather-going-out-top that I’d lost somewhere between Buenos Aires and Valporaiso.
What I lost (in no particular order of importance):
-sunglasses (an excellent boutique purchase in Santa Fe, Argentina)
-food: a mango, green apple, bag of trail mix
-Passport (full of brag-worthy stamps)
-NARS lipgloss (a recent Christmas present from my pal, Carolyn)
-two tarjetas de credito (credit cards)
-ATM card
-engraved journal (a recent gift from Denise, a fellow SA statistic)
-Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine
-water purification tablets
-a tampon
-moleskin journal, about 1/8 full of my words, including contact information for Pisco Sin Fronteras’ volunteers
-bus ticket to Mancora
-credit card holder (purchased in China last year)
-$150 soles, roughly $48 USD
-$2 USD, which aren’t worth a damn thing here due to their wear and tear
Because I had myself and only myself (mas o menos) to move forward and deal with the situation, I turned my anger on Peru. All of Peru. And all of its people.
Heading back to Lima to obtain a new passport, etc., I went through the motions of traveling and picking up the pieces (bestowing any and every Peruvian that met my eyes with a withering look of hatred, even as I inwardly reprimanded myself for such obnoxious and immature behavior). Had I not learned anything thus far?
I had no one to blame but myself. And the thief, of course.
I thought about leaving, returning to the States, checking out of the lion’s den, until I realized that the hardest part–navigating my way around enormous Lima mostly by bus because taxis are a luxury (alone), waiting online at the US Embassy(alone), finding out the passport photos I’d had taken a day earlier were the wrong size (alone), vehemently pleading a case for my temporary passport to be good for three months instead of one (alone), filing a police report (alone), visiting the Immigration Office to obtain a stamp that would allow me to leave Peru (alone), trying to asses if the woman outside the Immigration building is telling me the truth about a form I need to buy from her or if she’s scamming me (alone)–would have to be done regardless of whether I cut my trip short or stayed on.
Getting robbed, at the end of the day, or at the end or in the middle of a journey across South America, wasn’t that big of a deal. I know this. It’s almost like a rite of passage. Through my misery, I joked with my friend Rachel, who was relating her story of being mugged in Bali, that maybe you hadn’t really lived unless you’d been robbed.
But did it really have to happen four days before my birthday?
I think I would have cried a little less if I’d had someone to lean on physically, if I’d had, as my dearest friend Eileen put it, someone to rub my shoulders, make a list of the things I needed to do and suggested we sit down for a beer and take a deep breath before moving on to the next thing. Just someone to tell me in my own language, in person, that everything was going to be ok.
But though I’ve done it alone, turns out everything is ok. Ahora (now).
No doubt in part because of the oodles of support I received from concerned friends and family back home, support which often had me walking down the streets of Lima with a fresh face of tears.
And so I soldier on, much to my mother’s chagrin, my Peruvian grudge no longer, thanks to a flirtatious cab driver, who lowered his fare and then lowered it again after he listened to my speech (in Castellano so good he thought I was from Argentina!) about how it was wrong to charge extranjeros more than locals, until finally he gave me his number and offered to take me to the bus station free of charge when I was ready to leave Lima, a birthday gift he said.
And of course, there is the family who welcomed me into their clean, sweet-smelling home with a fridge full of food and hot showers, based on nothing but the recommendation of their Couchsurfing daughter, who is currently studying in Paris, and who, apparently, read my grieving request for a couch and contacted her family in minutes.
Asi que (So) Salud (cheers) to ten more weeks on foreign soil.
Pisco Sin Fronteras welcomed me with a hearty breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, fresh bread, ham, cheese, fruit salad, coffee, and tea and then put me to work. Real work. Work like I’ve never experienced before. Some might say man’s work, though not me.
The organization, which originated shortly after the devastating 2007 earthquake, builds houses and sanitation facilities from start to finish, offers community service projects such as swimming lessons and inter-cambio language exchange, and provides a home and food for its volunteers at a low cost, unlike many other volunteer programs, which ask for a lot of money up front.
During my twelve days of volunteering, I learned how to use a power drill, a jackhammer (my dad could hardly believe it), and a pick-axe, and those are just the tools I remember the names of! I worked with cement and dug trenches. Chiseling a floor one day, I cooked dinner (with the help of two others) for the fifty volunteers the next.
I got bitten by so many mosquitoes that I swore my 100% DEET was worthless. I talked with people who’d lost everything in the tragedy, and I listened to their stories and responded with as much compassion as I could, wondering if one day I might return to see the progress of their homes, their community bathrooms, their pueblo.
if I wake up in the middle of the night to pee, I said to Jane before we buried ourselves in our rented sleeping bags on night 2 of our three and a half day trek to Machu Pichu.
It was bitter cold out, probably several degrees below freezing, and the night before, when we were camping at a much lower altitude (3800 m), we’d been cautioned by our Lares trek (an alternate trek to the excessively popular and overpriced Inca Trail trek) guide, Puma to cover our faces and our heads if we needed to exit the tents in the dead of night. In comparison, it had been so much warmer the night before. I was worried about the cold. Very worried. Plus, to make matters worse, I’d lost my head lamp (as I’ve lost so many things in 2.5 months!) and would be relying on Jane’s reading lamp to assist me in the pitch black, freezing cold night.
As I added layers of clothing to my body, I thought how grateful I was that this was our final night of camping. I thought warm thoughts of the hot shower I was going to take when we arrived at the hotel in Aquas Caliente the next night, and I envisioned the hot springs I’d be soaking in after spending hours climbing the many steps inside of Machu Pichu.
I’d read excellent things about Peru Treks, the company leading our trek, and from our 6 AM pick-up the first day, I hadn’t been disappointed. The trek, some 38 km total wasn’t easy, and in fact, my sister suffered from such severe altitude sickness that she had to forfeit a majority of the trek and meet us a couple of days later in Ollantantambo, a town not far from Aquas Caliente.
If I hadn’t experience the amazing heights of Bolivia, I might not have made it either. Fortunately, there were a couple of other women in the family (so-called by our gregarious guide) who opted to go slow up the steep passages and take in the scenery. I often stuck with them and even had the pleasure of riding a horse up one incline for about five minutes. As I passed the family on horseback, Phil, a quirky Australian, wondered if I couldn’t at least pretend to breathe heavy.
Because we got a late start on the first day, part of the trekkking was done in the dark. Most of the family had head lamps or flashlights, we we managed to make it the camp without anyone getting injured. I had some fun practicing my Spanish with Puma, our guide, but I find it better to practice the language with people who don’t speak English than with those that do. It forces me to find the words, whereas with Puma, it was all to easy to fall back on Spanglish when I gew tired of searching for the right palabras.
I haven’t done much camping in my life, but after the first night roughing it, I was ready to sign up for a trek a week! South America is made for this kind of experience, and I slept like I had jet lag that first night–better than I had in days. I imagine the warm alcohol concoction they offered us after dinner helped lull me into a deep sleep.
Although the family maintained a pretty steady pace all together throughout the trek and stopped together in the villages (ours was a culturally rich trek filled with extras like visiting Andean families in their homes and stopping to meet children along the way), the group bonding time occurred over the amazing meals prepared by the cook, Willy. It was on this journey that I ate better than I’ve eaten all my time thus far in South America.
Each meal began with a soup, absolutely necessary for those bone-chilling evenings, followed by steaming plates of meat such as lomo saltado, a traditional Peruvian dish, delicious side dishes like papa de pastel, and a postre. My favorite was a rich chocolate pudding served warm. We finished the meal with hot water for tea or cafe. I took to having my Nalegene bottle filled to the brim with the hot, hot water and used it as a source of warmth for the night. I held onto that baby the second night, and I’m convinced the forty minutes of sleep I got was due to the proximity of the hot water bottle.
I don’t think I can call myself a trekker after this trek, especially noting the fact that the anti-social French couple in the family said it “wasn’t a trek,” but I felt a sense of accomplishment at the end of each pass and on the final day of the Lares trek, before we were to make our way to Machu Pichu at 5:30 AM to beat the crowds coming from Cuzco by train, I felt that I deserved every bit of the warm, happy feeling I had lounging on the grass as we waited for our cook to prepare our final family meal. (I think the French couple was unaware that our expedition included multiple village stops, a favorite for many of us in the family but apparently not for them.)
Chewing coca leaves helped, although the catalyst I used with it per Puma’s instructions, briefly damaged my gums. At one point, before a steep passage, we were each given a drop of some concentrated solution which we rubbed into our hands and put to our noses to breathe in deeply. It was supposed to clear the internal passageways, but mostly it just smelled lovely, and after two days of not showering, I couldn’t be sure that I did!
My sister, who had been experiencing her own authentic Peruvian adventure with the help of the assistant guide while we remained on route, asked Jane and me what the best part of the trek was. When she saw that we couldn’t answer right away, she pressed us for highlights. There were many, and as we began filling her in and listening to her stories of returning to Cuzco and hanging out in the hot springs of Lares, we all recalled the first morning together.
Our first stop outside of Cuzco was a market in a small village. Encouraged to buy coca leaves, oranges, and school supplies for the young children we’d meet along the way, Stephanie, Jane, and I, who had arisen at 4:50 AM traded looks and snuck off to the section of the market that serves cafe and te.
Ordering three cafe con leches, we were delighted to see the glass bottle of very rich coffee sitting before us. As the woman behind the counter ladled steaming milk into our mugs, we grinned widely. It was what we’d been waiting for all morning. Breakfast was to be our next stop–with the group–so I suppose we could have waited for the cafe, though Stephanie and I are self-professed coffee addicts and were craving our morning beverage, but I’m sure glad we didn’t, for the cafe offered at the official breakfast spot was instant.
I couldn’t help feeling slightly smug that we’d been wise enough to wander away from the family in the market for all of three minutes to find the good stuff.
As far as highlights go, that one is right up there.
I cannot end this post without saying a few words about Machu Pichu, and yet, I am processing the experience still and don’t know that I’ve found the best words to describe the magnificence of that historic place. Was it worth waking at 3:45 AM (after five hours of sleep on top of the previous night’s almost zero hours) to be one of the 400 people allowed to climb Wayna Pichu? Absolutely. Was it worth sitting outside the bus station at 4:30 AM in an attempt to board one of the first buses to the site and find ourselves practically alone at the Inca Bridge? Heck, yeah.
Our time at Machu Pichu went quickly, and my only dissatisfaction with the trekking tour was not having more of it at Machu Pichu.
Perhaps after a couple more nights of solid sleep, I will have more to say about Machu Pichu, but then again, I am heading to Chile tomorrow and likely will have a new story soon.
Oh, and by the way, for all you curious folks, I would like to report that I did wake up to use the bathroom in the dead of night. I felt the cold intensely, but worse than exposing myself in that brutal wind was attempting to calm down once I returned to the tent and my sleeping back. At 4500 m, my breathing was short, and I felt exhausted from the energy used to put on my sneakers and unzip and rezip the tent’s flaps. Once again, I burrowed my body and my head in the sleeping bag, and I tried to catch my breath and not wake Jane, though the next morning I would learn that she had not slept either.
Hanging out in Lima's Plaza de Armas
Stephanie and Stacey meet in Peru
She eats arroz con leche
In Miraflores, Lima, an upmarket neighborhood where we were fortunate to be staying at my friend Alex’s family’s additional apt. (they have a house three hours north of Lima), we were hard-pressed to find street eats. Walking around central Lima and meandering past the city’s Chinatown, we came across some yummy street snacks, including arroz con leche and whatever Jane’s eating in the photo below. I’ll have to edit this post later with the correct name of the postre, but I’m staying at a free Internet hostel in Cuzco, Peru, and when you find an available computer, you park.
Purple concoction made from maiz, sugar, lemon, cinnamon and with fruit served warm (similar to the drink ubiquitous for breakfast in Bolivia, api)
Meeting Peruanas in Lima's trendy, upscale Miraflores district
Although I’ve taken only three hours of Spanish lessons (two in Arequipa and one in La Paz), I think practicing and communicating with local people, who generally don’t speak any English is the best way to learn a language. This night was no different. Only one of the guys spoke un poquito (they love their diminutives in Latin America as do I; one of my favorite phrases is un momentito, which always seems to draw grins from my LA companions) English, so we three had fun trying to engage in consistent conversation. I’d say we did quite well, and Stephanie and Jane ought to be proud that after their all-day travels, they eased right into communicating in a language they haven’t studied in years. Muy bien.
Miraflores
I arrived safely in Peru on Saturday. The border crossing was simple, and I was grateful that there was no visa fee.
Arequipa was my first stop, and from there I took an overnight bus to Ica, where I hopped in a taxi going to Huacachina, a swell little spot surrounded by sand dunes and complete with sand buggy and sandboarding tours. (I have a newfound respect for snowboarders after failing miserably at sandboarding. My butt still hurts, and I could barely stand up on the damn board!)
Although it deserves its reputation as a chill hang-out place on the gringo trail, Huacachina offers little else for the (budget) traveler, so yesterday, rather than pay for a pricey bodega tour, I decided to do it myself. Back to Ica I went to find a colectivo (a shared taxi) to take me to Guadalupe, a suburb full of family-run vineyards and bodegas not fifteen minutes away.
In Peru, I am, it seems, with my blonde hair and unmistakebly foreign appearance, a curious figure, so the minute I settled into the colectivo, the man next to me began chatting with me. My Spanish is improving, perhaps not as rapidly as I’d like, but I can certainly carry on a conversation, and I’m told–by many a Spanish speaker that I meet–that I speak it quite well. I hope they’re not just being nice as I know from helping various Chinese people with their English on my trip there in January how laborious it can be speaking to a person struggling to learn the language.
In any case, I was happy to make the acquaintance of Wilfredo, who ended up accompanying me to the bodega and offering me much practice with the language as we carried on a conversation for hours. After the pisco and vino tasting at the bodega, I went with Wilfredo to a radio studio–95.3 Sistema de la rompa–where he has a talk show everyday at 11:00. Although I understood little of what he said on air as he spoke rather quickly and passionately, I was impressed, nonetheless, and found myself thinking about what a surreal experience it was. Here I was, in Ica, Peru, listening to a man I’d just met reach out to an audience of Peruvians via airwaves from what looked to me like a makeshift studio, hardly what you’d find back home!
On this trip, I’m extremely grateful for my gut feelings, my instincts, and being with Wildredo was no different; my powerful instincts told me I was ok. So, I wasn’t worried about my safety, even though he, like many other Peruvians I’ve met, warned me of the gente malo (bad people) of the country. I suppose it was the same in Brazil.
Listening intently and translating the words in my head as fast as I could, despite my asking, “Puede hablar mas despacio, por favor?” I learned that my new friend was married with three children and had lived in Lima for several years. Of course, he wanted to know of my current status, and this question–”Tienes enomorado?”–is asked by nearly every local Peruvian man I meet, from the taxi driver to the hotel employee, who in Huacachina, by the way, just loved saying my name, to the sandbuggy tour guide. Apparently, they find it a curious and incomprehensible thing when I proudly say, “Soy soltera y estoy feliz (I am single and I am happy)”. Perhaps I should learn how to say that I believe there is plenty of time for marriage and kids, etc., that I am young and interested in other things, that settling down at 28 is so far from what I want…?
It is possible, however, that the cultural differences as far as these idea are concerned would make the Spanish expression pointless.
I believe with Wilfredo, anyway, I managed to explain my length of travel and the difficulties of carrying on a relationship in the midst of them, but in the future, I may have to resort to pretending I have a novio (boyfriend) so as to be left alone by inquiring and flirtatious Latin American men. Sometimes walking alone takes serious guts, not because I’m worried that I am in danger, but because it is frustrating dealing with the stares and the kissing noises.
Still, any opportunity to work on my Spanish is welcome, especially since the few hours of classes I’ve taken have been less than remarkable, so I suppose answering a few invasive questions, like those asked by Wilfredo, is harmless.
I had to agree with Wilfredo that the company was nice. I appreciated being off the gringo trail and was proud that my language skills had gotten me there. Wilfredo and I continued the day with lunch, where I enjoyed some of the best ceviche I’ve had since arriving in Peru less than a week ago. After lunch, we headed towards the main plaza as I had told him I wanted to buy tejas, a special nut-filled caramel candy. Somehow, after the purchase of the sweet treats, we ended up in a bodega drinking Pisco puro and talking some more. Wilfredo began telling me how much he was going to miss me, but I shifted the conversation to a lesson on the difference between por and para. And yet, here it was, I thought, the inevitable man’s move from friendly to friendlier. It turns out, Wilfredo is in the process of a divorce and wondered when he could see me again. He was a kind man, but I definitely wasn’t interestedm and when I firmly made it clear that he and I were just amigos, he backed off.
Or so I thought. After the morning of wine tasting and the afternoon of Pisco drinking, I was ready to return to my hotel in Huacachina for a siesta. Wilfredo insisted on riding in the taxi with me, and I allowed myself one more drink with him at the bar next door to my hotel. Afterwards, we said goodbye, and I took the nap I was craving only to be woken hours later to a persistent knock at my door. Wilfredo had returned with a box of chocolate-covered tejas. Although I accepted the gift, I sent him away, and when I hoped he was gone, I went next door for my free salsa lesson.
The salsa lesson was fun, but the afternoon drinking wore me out, so after taking full advantage this morning of the included desayuno (breakfast), I left Huacachina for Pisco. (Me gusta Pisco, the drink, not the sad, disrepaired city, BTW). I’ll continue to head north and meet my sister in Lima on Saturday.
Just this afternoon, I received the excellent news that I can stay at my friend Alix’s family’s place in the safest, prettiest neighborhood in Lima. I spoke with his mother this afternoon and arranged to meet her tomorrow morning at the apartment. I’m looking forward to practicing my Spanish with someone who has only fair and good intentions!
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