Sep 2006

Here´s what I wrote in my journal today:

¨I went into another church today, this time the big cathedral in the Plaza Mayor. I saw that it was open as I was passing, so I was able to catch part of the Sunday service. Many more people attended this one, young and old, well-dressed and in rags, some came and went, and others stayed for the whole service. An old, very poor looking campesino (indigenous) woman approached me for money; I just said ´disculpe´ (sorry) and wished her a good day.

¨When I left the church there were people all over the plaza getting ready for a parade of some sort. A young woman from the procession flagged me down and explained in Spanish that it was a kind of fiesta for the institution/universidad and asked if I would join her. So I was part of a parade! There were little children in ´ropas tradicionales´ (traditional dress), a strong army presence, and all sorts of college students. The girl´s name is Karina, she´s 22, and studies tourism and business in school. Of course our conversation was limited, but she was good to talk to and she even bought me some muyuchi! We exchanged contact info before we parted and she said she´d come visit the hotel.

¨From there I decided to go find the Plaza de Santa Ana where I heard many artisans set up shop. It was out of the city centre and into the more deserted, poor outskirts, but I still felt quite safe. I had to navigate my way thorugh beautiful crumbling old but confusing streets, but found my there after asking for directions from a few people. Outside the central city is very different and very poor, but the people I encountered were all happy to speak with me and give directions. In the plaza a bunch of school boys were playing fútbol, and on the outskirts stood a church (of course), a school, and the art shops I sought. I went into a few and bought a little carved owl made from some white stone found in Perú. Maybe it will bring me wisdom.

¨On my way back downtown I came across 5 little children. I asked for a picture and they complied for S/0.50 (CA$0.17). I asked them a few simple questions that came to my head and left them on their merry way.

¨I´m glad I decided to wander off a bit and see how the other residents of the city live.

¨Actually I remember yesterday, when I was in the central market, seeing babies and toddlers tucked away in odd places. Some merchants have no one at home to look after the children I guess, so they put them on a blanket under one of the tables so no one steps on them.¨

I´m going to use the rest of my internet time to look at the WWOOF website, from which I can arrange organic farm stays in exchange for food and shelter.

Chao!

Today I´ll start by answering some questions that have come up in emails so I don´t have to send multiple replies:

The hotel I´m in right now costs S/20 per night, which is about $6 Canadian. The hotel I might move to in a couple nights is I think S/15, which saves me $1.70 (enough for 2 meals). I think I´ll stay put for a couple nights though cuz it´s in a good area I just don´t feel like moving yet. I can spend less than $10 a day here even in the more expensive hotel, so it´s not a big deal.

The area feels very safe. I watch my day bag when I´m walking around town sometimes wear it on my front where I can see it, but as long as I have my eyes open I don´t think there´ll be any problems.

I do buy bottled water for drinking and for brushing my teeth. It only costs 1 or 2 soles ($0.34-$0.68 for a 600mL bottle) and I´m careful not to use too much. It´s actually amazing how quickly you learn to preserve everything you have when travelling. By the end of the first day I was using half the amount of shampoo I usually use, and only what I absolutely need for toilet paper and that kind of thing. It´s not expensive, but it´s important not to waste anything. And all those squats I´ve been doing have come in handy! If you don´t want to sit on the toilet seat you have to work your leg muscles.

Temperatures have been pretty nice so far. It´s still winter in Peru so during the day it has been about 20 degrees Celsius, and cooler at night. I still get pretty warm during the day though because the sun is strong.

I actually did meet someone today. There are virtually no tourists here and no one speaks English, but I happened to run into a local with whom I´d spoken briefly in Lima. He is on holidays and just happens to be in Ayacucho for a few days. He does speak a bit of English (much more than I speak Spanish), so today I hung out with him and his brother. They also happen to be staying at the same hotel as I am, so I´m sure I´ll see them again.

Before I met up with Herman and his brother though, I spent the day walking around and taking some pictures (I was charging my camera batteries yesterday and so was camera-less before). With churches being this city´s claim to fame, there is one almost every block, all Roman Catholic. I decided to step in on a church service that was going on; I sat in the back and caught the last 15 minutes of the service. Inside the church is massive, very ornate, all gold, very decorative. I enjoyed the choir music and at the end of the service a woman gave me one of the little candles that they were handing out at the front.

I also went to the busy ´mercado central´(central market). There are so many things I was tempted to buy but I abstained. All the clothing and textiles are so colourful and rich. I asked one merchant if I could take a picture of her wares; she moved out of the way cuz she didn´t want me to take her picture, but I got one of the floor to ceiling crafts.

In the Plaza de Armas a man convinced me to try ´muyuchi´, a traditional Peruvian ice cream. It´s very different from the ice cream I´m used to, but very delicious. It´s kind of milky, but the consistency is more like a popsicle than creamy ice cream.

The food here is very good. Last night I went into a little restaurant and ordered the set dinner you can always find (a la carte meals are more expensive). I got a big bowl of chicken noodle soup, rice, a quarter chicken, veggies, a potato, and tea for a grand total of S/3 ($1.02). I could hardly eat it all!

And this morning for breakfast, or ´desayuno´, I had ´arroz a la cubana´, a plate of rice with a fried egg on top and fried banana around the side. So delicious.

Last night when I had nothing else to do I flipped on my little TV and found one English channel. I watched the film ´When Harry Met Sally´ with Billy Chrystal and Meg Ryan. It was a nice distraction.

Anyway I´m off to my hotel again then I´ll find somewhere to eat dinner. I hope to be in Cuzco by the 25, but I haven´t decided if I´ll stop anywhere else on the way. Either way I´ll be here for about a week.

Until next time!

P.S. My birthday is in 3 days!!!!

Useful advice for fellow travellers:
Don´t eat somewhere unless there are other people eating there, too.

I haven´t had any bad food yet so this isn´t from experience, but it´s a piece of info that, like most advice, is common sense, but is something you might not think about until it´s too late.

I´m in the mountains now! The bus ride here was less than pleasant, but that´s to be expected for a 9.5hr ride on a speeding bus on a winding mountain road. The guy next to me took up too much space, and I made the mistake of choosing an aisle seat instead of a window seat, so I couldn´t rest as well. Anyway, I didn´t get much sleep last night, but I arrived in Ayacucho just before 7am today and went straight to a hotel for a nap.

And what a hotel! I´ve got to say it again. Here is a clip from my journal:

¨So I´ve landed myself in another spectacular hotel in Ayacucho. ... La Colmena Hotel, where I´m staying, is a bright yellow square building with rooms running around an open courtyard in the centre. The little restaurant is on the ground level and, from my seat by the balcony on the second level, I can look down on it. Like Hotel España in Lima, there are plants everywhere, and though I haven´t been able to spot any yet, there are tons of tropical birds making their song all day.¨

So far I haven´t met anybody cuz the hotel is set up differently. There are no dorm rooms so I´m in a single, and I think only I´ve seen about 4 tourists since my arrival. It´s not as well travelled as some of Peru´s other cities. The city itself, though, is beautiful. My journal:

¨Ayacucho is nothing like Lima. It´s open, has blue skies, it´s not as crowded or large, and it feels much safer. I wandered down an old crumbling street, on which there were only a handful of locals, without hesitation. I´ll have to ask if it´s safe at night.

¨In the Plaza de Armas there were hundreds of children from different schools. They had little booths set up all over the place, all having something to do with conservation projects, indigenous culture, local foods, etc. Many of the children looked curiously at me and some smiled, but they are not as bold as those from Lima.

¨There are many indigenous women lining the streets selling fruit and handicrafts. One woman looked just like the bag lady from the movie Labyrinth, with the same wrinkled shrunken face and hunched posture.

¨I tried some ice cream but can´t for the life of me remember the name of the fruit flavour. Starts with ´m´. And I had a ´sandwich de pollo´ at a little diner for S/2 (CA$0.68).¨

My room is actually perfect for writing. It´s simple and has a bed, a writing desk and chair, and shelving with a little TV. There are advantages to having a single room. I don´t have to worry about security as much cuz I can just lock up behind me, and I can do laundry in the bathroom sink and just hang it up around my room.

Time is up so I gotta jet.

First of all, thanks to those who have sent emails or commented so far. It´s so nice to hear from you, especially since I´m still getting used to everything. And no need to worry! I´m a-ok.

Anyway, last night I had to use the ¨I´m engaged¨ trick to ward someone off for the first time. One of the employees at the hotel here came into the dorm room while I was the only waking traveller, sat down on the next bed over, and proceeded to ask if I had a boyfriend, if I was married, if I had babies, what I was doing... I´m not sure any of what I said deterred him at all, but I think I managed to convince him I wasn´t interested. Anyway, I´ve never experienced that kind of super aggressive forwardness before. On the street it´s easy to ignore, but cornered in my dorm room it´s not so easy. He´s perfectly harmess (don´t worry!), just annoying and he put me in a defensive mood. That was last night though; this is now.

To save time and to save repeating myself to myself (hahaha), I´m going to copy bits from my personal journal to account for the rest:

¨12 Sep, 11pm -- Last night I was sitting in the little cafe outside my room talking to Michi from Switzerland and Jen from England when this drunk middle-aged Bulgarian man came over to join us. He had a hard time with his English but managed to tell us about his trek up the highest mountain in Ecuador and how he was temporarily stuck in Peru because he lost all his documents. His light-hearted but very drunken jocularity prompted the British girl to raise her eyebrows a few times, but he seemed harmless. We three younger travellers left soon after a second drunk guy joined in the conversation though. He was out of it and probably on some kind of bad drug trip. He tried to give me his email address because he live in Cochabamba (where I´ll be travelling soon), but he was so intoxicated that he couldn´t remember half of it and didn´t notice that parts were missing (and I didn´t let him know either).

...

¨So far I have found Lima very warm and inviting, which is nice for my first time visiting a foreign city alone.

¨Just as I wrote that last line an employee of the hostel who knew I was still awake came into the room with a surprise cup of tea - a perfect example of what I just said.

...

¨13 Sep - 5.16pm -- I went to see the Inquisition Museum today; it had a bunch of plaques I couldn´t read and a neat display with wax models of torture victims. More interesting than the museum though were the school girls I met while waiting to use the bathroom. Four of them, probably around 8 or 10 years old, crowded around me and I had a wonderful smiling conversation with them about our names, where I was from, whether I spoke Castellano (a formal way of saying Spanish) or Ingles... The children are all very curious.

¨After that I went to the central market. It is large and under tents, and kind of dirty, but now I know where to buy single packs of toilet paper and cheap fruit and other foods.

¨I also went into the San Fransisco convent and had a partial tour in Spanish before I abandoned the group with a 60-something year old English woman (from London) to look around on our own. Lillian, as she is called, is travelling around South America for 3 months on her own, and had lots of wonderful things to say as she and I marvelled at all the old bones piled in the catacombs underneath the convent.

¨The library in this place was stunning! So old and filled with books dating back to the 15th century.

...

¨I like Lima, but I´m looking forward to moving on to Ayacucho tomorrow. I haven´t seen any blue in the sky since my arrival - it is grey and smoggy all the time, day and night.¨

That´s all for today. I probably won´t be on the internet tomorrow, partly to save money and partly because I will be checking out of the hotel at some point and heading to the bus station. The next entry will likely be from Ayacucho. Until then, ciao.

P.S. The keyboards here aren´t so good so if there are weird spelling mistakes you know why!

So so so. I´m here, I´m scared, I´m excited, I´m surrounded by unfamiliarity, but since it´s only my first day I´m taking it easy. I´m in the little internet cafe attached to the hostel at which I´m staying, and, funny enough, the person running it is listening No Doubt. What a way to make me nostalgic and homesick! If she were playing Spanish music I wouldn´t care.

Anyway, I am here, so there you go. It´s so bizarre being on the other end of the world. Everything is so different. The people here are very friendly and willing to help out with language difficulaties and that kind of thing, but I think it will take a few days before I´m used to being away from everyone at home.

My ride from the airport to the hostel was nuts! Apparently there are no rules to driving here. The hostel employee who picked me up was very nice. He had a beat up ancient car with a busted back window and drove like only a local could drive. A lot of the time there are no lines on the main roads, and when there are lines no one pays attention to them. He was weaving in and out, cutting across 4 lanes at a time, driving through red lights, braking at the last second when approaching other cars from behind... It was a crazy ride but he whizzed me through safe and sound to the hostel.

And what a hostel! It´s this massive 3-story building with ornate carvings, chandeliers, and white busts of random people, statues, a huge macaw that says ¨Hola! Hola!¨, 2 cats, three tortoises roaming around on ropes on the first floor, a little cafe restaurant on the second floor that opens up to the sky, covered in vines and plants, and sorts of wonderful things.

Trying to organize all my stuff and get to bed soundly was a litle stressful when I first arrived at 11.30pm (which felt like 12.30am with the time change) because everyone in my dorm room was sleeping. I had to fumble around with my little flashlight and I think it was the loneliness more than anything that I had a hard time with. This morning was much better after I showered and could organize myself in the light.

I´ve met some good people (who speak English), had a yummy breakfast for 4.5 soles (about CA$1.50), and walked around the Plaza 2 de Mayor with my new friend Mike from Switzerland, after which we watched the changing of the guard at the Government Palace. They change the guard everyday, but there were tons of people, some tourists but mostly locals, who lined the street to watch.

Sitting in my dorm an hour ago I met this guy from Bulgaria (I won´t attempt to spell his name). He´s such a character! I and this French girl who was also there were cracking up at how crazy he is. He´s got this long hair and a wandering, hilarious way of speaking that makes me want to remember him just so he can be a character in a book.

Anyway, I think I´ll stay one or two nights more before I head to Ayacucho. I´ll stay there for a few days before moving onto Cuzco.