Arequipa

Arequipa is the most beautiful place on the planet. We have the most charming room on the third floor of a hostel overlooking the city and a famous (and beautiful) convent. The highest peak in Peru, El Misti, is also visible from our patio. We are two blocks from the central plaza. Popsicle stands are numerous. We may never leave.

We find a room in really, the cutest hostel I have ever seen. We are on the third floor, in a tiny room, and the ceiling slants down, giving us a little nook for the table and chair we have draped our belongings over. Our door opens onto a little patio with a porch swing and some benches, and a quite breathtaking view of this city. Arequipa is nestled among the hills of the Andes. Houses and buildings stretch into the corners and cracks in between hills. We can see straight down into the convent garden next door. We can see the church steeples of the Plaza cathedral. We can see the great snow-capped mountains in the distance. There are barely any clouds, and the sun is shining.

I nap while Wade showers, and then we switch. There is gloriously hot water here. Note I am now two for one, in terms of showers, which is quite impressive, given my history at home.

We walk around the city and do the following:

• Plaza de Armaz. Charming, colonial, green, full of people, everything lacking in Los Angeles
• Two young women approach us and give us a survey about nutritional granola bars. They are doing a marketing thesis and plan to produce and sell a line of bars.
• Visit several baby alpaca stores. These go on forever. I did not know baby alpaca was such a commodity.
• Electric appliance store. I am amazed and impressed by the super cheap prices, until Wade points out that the objects are on payment plans, and the prices I saw were just the monthly premium.
• An over-the-counter pharmacy
• At an arcade, we see a claw-stuffed-animal game sponsored by ADVIL and ROBOTUSSIN.
  
• Various churches

In the afternoon, we return to our Casa Reyna and read Bill Bryson. We are lazy and take some naps. After a few hours, I get up, motivated only by the prospect of going to a real cinema and seeing a real movie, in English. Sadly, all three cinemas we checked out were closed or had been converted to churches and were conducting wedding ceremonies. As far as we could tell. There was crepe paper and dancing. Instead, we went to mass at the Jesuit church and the main cathedral.

We have dinner at this Hare Krishna vegie place called Govinda. It is a bit creepy inside, what with the tall ceilings and religiousy music. We have quinoa something-or-other and squash something and some wierd purpley drink which I find out later is chicha morada, one of the most popular drinks here. On our way out, we are bugged by a little boy trying to sell us candles. He whines. I do not fall for whining children selling things.

We go internet, and I learn that Wade cannot spell. Afterwards, we find a fourth-floor restaurant overlooking the Plaza and drink. I get a Cuba Libre (rum and coke) and he gets the locally brewed Arequipena. We hear a Peruvian band playing in the street. Finishing our drinks, we step down onto the Plaza, watching a street performer. He has two dogs dressed as people. I hate dogs, and dogs dressed in clothing is always funny to me. He also has a "robotic" bride and groom who dance the tango. It was clear that there was a person in the groom's legs bent over into the bride's legs -- you could see his waist connecting them -- but the ringmaster was so funny that he drew a large crowd. Even Santa Clause, who had been selling candy in the street, came to watch. Street Man made fun of Wade and I, for being American, and warned us not to steal his Peruvian robot technology.

Question of the day: What is your favorite Peruvian food, other than manjar?
Deens: pineapple wafers
Wade: orange popsicle of indeterminate flavor. Perhaps caramel, perhaps coconut, maybe guava.

Pulse, resting, in Arequipa, elevation seventy six hundred feet:
Me: 96
Wade: 84

Pulse, after climbing four flights of stairs:
Me: 168
Wade: 108

Peruvian scavenger hunt

one point each:

• every time we see a Peruvian littering
• seeing kids fighting in the street
• for every llama, alpaca, and vicuna spotted
• every time someone guesses we are NOT from the USA
• every person who assumes we are dating or married
• for every container of manjar purchased
• every Fujimori 2006 sighting
• every obvious and unmistakable Israeli sighting
  

ten points each:

• every traveler we meet NOT from Israel, South America, or Holland
• every collectivo travelled in with more than twenty passengers
• for every Peruvian who admits to prefering Don Isaac over Inka Cola
• for every Peruvian peeing in public
  

fifty points:

• for seeing the rarest of the camelid family, the guanaco

one hundred points:

• seeing a framed poster of Christina Aguilera
• seeing someone we know
  

the awful bus ride

THE BUS RIDE IS AWFUL.

After the first hour, I need to go pee. I walk to the back of the bus, but cannot open the door. I return to my seat, thinking I can wait a bit until the person comes out. Half and hour later, after no one has emerged, I make Wade come with me to pry open the door. It is definitely locked. We go back to our seats. Another half hour passes, and the pee urge is so strong that I can't go to sleep. We walk to the front of the bus to ask the busdriver about the locked bathroom. He claims it is open. We argue. He says the bathroom stop is in five minutes. We return to our seats. I have to go so bad, but what can I do?

FIFTY MINUTES LATER, we finally pull over to the side of the road, in some shanty town in the middle of nowhere, next to a small shack. I RUN behind the shack and pee. It is delicious. When I get back onto the bus, the driver shows us that the bathroom door is open. I think he is a lier, I think he unlocked it just then. No matter, I was finally able to fall asleep.

We twist and turn and flop all over each other, trying to find a mutually comfortable positionfor the night. I drift in and out of sleep. Hours later, I awake and realize I am a bit nauseas. I take another Drammanine, but I cannot sit in our seat, in the middle of the bus, in the darkness, for very much longer. I walk up to the front of the bus, where fresh air is wafting in from the driver's compartment. I stand in the aisle, where I can look through his window at the road ahead. I don't normally get carsick, but we have been driving on a twisty highway at high speeds in the dark for hours. Up at the front, actually seeing the road ahead, my stomach is quieted. I watch our driver (the same driver for the whole twelve hour trip) swerve around steep ocean cliffs. I notice his speedometer, which indicates that he is driving TWICE THE SPEED LIMIT. Eventually the drugs kick in, and I fall asleep on the double seats in the second row.

In the morning, when the bus stops, I find Wade again, and we discuss how aweful this bus ride was. For me, it was more the length and the twistyness and the location of our seats. He cannot stop talking about how I had to wait to go to the bathroom for TWO HOURS. He says it like that, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WERE WAITING TO GO THE BATHROOM FOR TWO HOURS. Days later, when we are in Arequipa and even again in Puno, he mentions is again, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HAD TO WAIT TWO HOURS. Like it was the craziest thing that ever happened. I suppose if a boy had to pee so bad, he would just stick it out the window and go.

We agree that on our next overnight bus, we will treat ourselves to Royal Class, where the seats recline fully and there are two bathrooms.

Nazca lines

We hitch to the mirador. We don't actually stand there on the side of the street holding out a thumb or a forefinger. We are walking on the street in Nazca, and a man next to a vehicle asks if we are going to the lines, and we say yes. We agree on a price of four Soles, and he shows us to his car, where five other gentleman are already sitting. We get it, squished in the back. I am obviously the on-the-lap-so-everyone-can-fit girl, and obviously I am not sitting on a strange Peruvian man's lap, I sit on Wade's lap. Only once we are out of the city and on the PanAmerican Highway in wilderness does it occur to the two of us that we have basically hitched a ride, and that we would NEVER do something like this back in the States. We would NEVER get in a car with strangers, we would NEVER not put on our seatbelts, we would NEVER enter a minivan with more than seventeen people on it, etc. But it just makes sense here. Perhaps because there was an exchange of money, perhaps because the car already had several passengers, perhaps because we are traveling and having ADVENTURES, who knows.

Once at the mirador, we marvel at our surroundings. We are in the middle of a desert, with reddish mountains to one side, flatland on the other, and a narrow strip of highway in the middle going on and on and on. This highway is the PanAmerican, a road that stretches from the very bottom of Chile all the way to the top of Columbia, into Central America, and perhaps even across the border into one of our interstates. It is a long, long stretch of highway, and a road trip destination for the incredibly dedicated. Here, it is only two lanes -- one in each direction -- paltry, compaired to the 405 or 101 that stretch across California. And after our car drives on, empty. We cross it slowly, then run the other way, then stand in the middle and laugh.

We climb the mirador, which is a small hilly mound maybe three stories high. From the top, we can sort of make out some lines that stretch into the distance, and we can tell that way in the distance the lines twist around and make a shape, but that's about it.

While one the mirador, we meet some Japanese boys. Turns out they are on our bus tonight! There is also a small TV crew at the base of the mirador, and the boys tell us that the girl they are filming is a famous TV star. We saw a celebrity! In Peru!

We get back to the city by riding with one of the Japanese guys. All the internet places report that the net is down in Nazca. We have an early pizza (con palta, how wierd) at Julio's resturaunt. When we are done, the internet is back, and we do that for a bit. We have our first taste of the excellent SUBLIME chocolate bar, and go wait at the bus station.


Question of the Day: Name one quality of Peruvians you like, and one quality you don't. (Not truly a question, but it begs an answer, so there.)
Wade: He likes that Peruvians have no shame, and he doesn't like that they all have gaps in their teeth.
Me: I like that they love talking to tourists, and I don't like all the litter.

(My first response was that I loved all the pineapple products in this country, but it was pointed out to me that that is not a quality of Peruvians.)

how to spot an Israeli

MEN:

• have longer hair than usual
• wearing a headband
• sunglasses pushed up over head like headband
• small shirt than normal, often a sports jersey type, also often sleeveless
• short shorts
• man purse

WOMEN:

• really long hair
• with an Israeli man
  

the great taste-off

Inka Cola is a bright yellow, bubble-gum flavored soft drink. It is the Bebida Nacional of Peru. It is more popular than Coca Cola in this country. It is at once both disgusting and delicious. It has many, many knock-offs.

One knock-off that we keep seeing on the southern coast is called Don Isaac. We think this is hilarious, because who names a soda after a person? And who the hell is Don Isaac? Not exactly a Peruvian name. Not so much a Spanish name, either. Don Isaac is half the price of Inka Cola, and exactly the same highlighter hue. We purchase a bottle of each.

We open the bottles and toast. We count down from three, and take a sip of one. Then we take a sip of the other. Then we go back to the first. And to the second. We intertwine arms and sip, as if we are holding champaign glasses at our wedding. Or shot glasses at a skanky bar. We pose the bottles together and take pictures. THEY TASTE IDENTICAL.

Thus we spend our afternoon, drinking yellow soda and eating pan con manjar. The manjar has become our chief condiment, nay, our cheif entree. I know it is only sugar and milk, but boy, is it good. And boy, is it plentiful here.

Nazca

We intend to get out of the combi to climb up the mirador and try to see the Nazca lines. Oops, we miss it. The combi just keeps on driving, and it's not like we have asked to be let off at a well-marked spot. We also can't do much, like request to turn around and find our spot, since there are at least fifteen other people in the vehicle. We content ourselves with our view from the window, which is not much. We can sort of make out that there may be rocks pushed around on the pampa floor, but by no means can we distinguish shapes.

In Nazca, we walk back and forth between bus companies comparing prices and departure times. We would like to bus out of here to Arequipa overnight. The buses in this country are all privatized, so there are always many options. You have to shop around. We walk back and forth for half an hour, with our packs, past the same restaurants. And each time, the same Peruvians call out to us to patronize their shop. Cheap! Americans! Ten Soles! For you, eight Soles! Lady! Each time, we are not interested. We eventually settle on Ormeno business class, which promises reclining seats and a bathroom. The bus leaves at ten pm, which gives us enough time to eat, internet, and return to the mirador.

In one of the bus stations, we speak to two travelers who have just flown over the Nazca lines. They are incredibly airsick, and I am SO glad that we opted not to spend money on a plane ride. It is here that we also meet our first American friend, a Californian, no less.

The convenience store we choose is decidedly not near the yelling Peruvians. An old lady and a fat man attempt to serve us, but they apparently don't know Spanish. We ask for very simple things, a single Don Isaac and a single Inka Cola (they are both yellow soft-drinks), and we are given very different items, like plantains and cookies.

We sit on a divider in the middle of the road. This is our favorite spot to rest, in between cars and far from proprietors. On the sidewalk next to us, a man is shimmying up an electric pole with a rope harness he tied himself. He is putting up a wire all by himself. While watching him, I taste my first plantain. It tastes just like a banana. I am a teensy bit disappointed by this, since it is so much larger and pinker than a banana. It is rather phalic, in fact, and we make appropriately crude comments and poses about the fruit. Of course we also take pictures.