Change of plans, etc.
So. Hmm…recap of happenings as of late? As of four days ago, I thought I had the rest of my trip more or less figured out. But then I received two emails in the same day, both pertaining to the previously mentioned “plans”—in a changing fashion. First, I got an email from Mary saying that travel plans for January have changed and that Venezuela will now be the targeted country (and not Colombia). I’m pretty sure I’m the person that brought up the idea of Venezuela in the first place (chocolate tree farms anyone?), but after having been advised repeatedly to not go to Venezuela (mainly by Venezuelans) I decided that I would prefer to not go to Venezuela and perhaps I’ll venture into the jungle of Peru instead to discover my beloved chocolate farms. So. January is all up in the air now. Then I opened up my next email, from a name I didn’t recognize. Well, I’ll give you the back up really quickly. I was browsing around on Craigslist on one of my more languid days in Lima and I decided it would be fun to look around on the Buenos Aires page (what the hell?). I stumbled across an executive assistant position for this company (I believe it’s based out of the US but has offices in a number of different countries) that, as I recall, works to “coach” executives of large companies. It looked interesting, and I was longing for that sense of normalcy that I tend to seek and I sent my resume. This was at least a month and a half ago, and in that time I figured that the whole situation was null and void, until Tuesday. Until I received that email. They asked if I was planning on coming to Buenos Aires and if so, would I be interested in a phone interview. That’s a bit of a change in plans, after deciding that Cusco had called my name. Then again, I had also decided that Buenos Aires called my name, and that was after the sending of the resume. Now I’m not sure what my plans are, yet again, but I like the fact that I have some possibilities. I might be working in Buenos Aires. Or I might be volunteering in Cusco. Or maybe I’ll fall in love with Brazil (because as far as I know, I am going to Carnaval in Rio in February).
Good recap of the future plans. But other goings on? Let’s see, I’ve been doing much mingling with the students of San Blas and was able to spread my love the other night in my favorite forms—cookies and movies. Mm hmm. There’s an apartment of German girls just down the block from me and we decided to have a dinner night. So what did Tina propose? “I’ll make cookies! Oh, and do we want to do a movie night, too? I know of some good movies. Anyone seen Love Actually?” Nobody had seen “Love Actually”, so I got to introduce no less than eight people to the delightful world of that special movie. (Yes, that same movie I used to watch every Sunday for weeks on end, crying my little heart out.) : )
We also visited the Cuzqueñan cemetery on Friday, continued the outing with a lunch of seafood (pollo, I said, pollo!), and then reconnected, yet again, later that night for a night out on the town. There was much dancing to be had, but I ended the evening at the ever-early hour of 1:00 am since my alarm clock had a 4:30 am sounding with my name on it. Against my better judgment, I decided to go visit yet another site of Incan ruins in Pisaq with a few friends. Somehow my alarm clock did not go off, and I awoke to the mother of the house, telling me that my friends were yelling my name outside the window. Um, what? My alarm clock hasn’t gone off yet. Maybe it was the dormilona in me that subconsciously convinced me to not push the alarm clock button to the position of “set”. Because it was 5:30 am, a half hour past the time we were supposed to meet. I dragged my arse out of bed and in five minutes headed out the door to the bus station. When the hour-long bus ride commenced toward its end, I peered out the window across the valley to the next mountain over, only to see Incan ruins and terraces that spanned the entire mountainside. No doubt there’s a long day ahead of me…We managed to get to the ruins about five minutes before the “control” person got to their station and started charging admission. Score! I mean, that was the whole point of going early, the bonus of not having to pay. I’m certainly not going to wake up at such a ridiculous hour, cutting short my precious sleep, to pay 40 soles. I can pay that amount at any time of the day! We got whistled at, but luckily we were far enough ahead to where we could pretend we didn’t hear. Whoops! We spent about six to seven hours that day walking, climbing and scaling. Now, when I usually think of ruins, I think of one set of terraces and a singular location of once-upon-a-time buildings, but at this particular site…they were everywhere. There was an endless amount of ruins to be had! At every corner, there were more and MORE! Peter and Mike, I think you both would have been very proud of me and the amount of hiking I did. : ) And I hardly complained! Okay, I did start complaining when they told me we were done hiking and we ended up going uphill again....so not my style. When you tell me we’re done, and we’re near the top of the mountain, I assume we’re not going back up! How much I have to learn.
Anyhew, the hiking was nice, in fact, and I find that strangely enough I’m not super sore. The best part, though, was eating empanadas afterwards. Now your average every day empanada usually just has some meat or cheese in it, but here, in the giant, special empanada ovens of Pisaq, there was a unique variety of empanadas to be found—they had cheese, tomatoes, oregano…So. Good. I’m thinking about taking the hour-long bus ride back just for the empanadas…
Speaking of towns that remind me of food, I have also managed to visit the national bread capital of Peru. The Pueblo of Pan, aka Oropesa. Isn’t that fitting? I mean, the bakery is the first thing I look for in any town, and somehow without even knowing it, I visited the bread capital. Oh how fresh the bread, right out of the oven. By the way, did anyone else know that fresh bread blows up your stomach with gas? This is what my friend Zoe tells me, and I’m inclined to believe her because on that particular bus ride home, my stomach was certainly doing some turns!
This is my last week in Cusco before my as yet undeciphered January travel plans, and my mind is toiling, trying to jot down memories. Like the abuelo of the house, and how at every meal I hear his dentures clicking away, and I sit not knowing whether to laugh inside or be grossed out and unable to eat. (Laughing usually wins.) I’ll miss watching the crazy Cusco weather change from sun to rain in the blink of an eye and witnessing the abundance of mountains disappear amongst the clouds. Not to mention the excuse the rain gives me to stay inside and read or write. (As if I need an excuse! It’s easier when the sun’s not out, though.) I do love the sound of rain, though, and getting to listen to and watch the storms. The very strange sores that have developed at the side of my mouth due to the arid atmosphere and possibly the oversized spoons used for eating soup. I have to be very cognizant of these spots early in the morning as I open my mouth to brush my teeth. Open wide! (Ow.) Being freaked out at night, sitting in the dark with thoughts of ghosts floating through my mind cursing Nano all the while for having told me so many ghost stories and yet still finding the idea of living in an old colonial building here in Cusco to be an interesting prospect.
Currently I sit in my old man sweater, pajama shorts, toe socks, and my last pair of clean underwear. Don’t ask me why I waited so long to actually do my laundry, it’s pointless. I know that I’ll be better in the future because I actually went out and bought myself a clean shirt to wear for tomorrow and I’m feeling a little bit like those guys that go out and buy new underwear when they’ve used all the clean ones. Yikes! I’ll consider the shirt a happy laundry day present to me. I do like laundry day, though. My trip to the Laundromat was pleasant with the man behind the counter being impressed that I could speak Spanish. And I made sure that I got my right price of three, yes that’s right, three soles per kilo of clothes instead of four soles. Uh huh, I’m getting better at following through on those details that exist in my head but that I have a nasty tendency of ignoring in order to make the lives of those around me easier. What an idea, to try to make my life easier! : ) I’m really excited to go pick up clean laundry tomorrow. I think of any of my household duties that I miss, I miss doing my laundry the most. I love the smell of clean laundry and cuddling with warm clothes fresh out of the dryer, not to mention the joy I get every time I witness my ever-amassing underwear pile.
Good recap of the future plans. But other goings on? Let’s see, I’ve been doing much mingling with the students of San Blas and was able to spread my love the other night in my favorite forms—cookies and movies. Mm hmm. There’s an apartment of German girls just down the block from me and we decided to have a dinner night. So what did Tina propose? “I’ll make cookies! Oh, and do we want to do a movie night, too? I know of some good movies. Anyone seen Love Actually?” Nobody had seen “Love Actually”, so I got to introduce no less than eight people to the delightful world of that special movie. (Yes, that same movie I used to watch every Sunday for weeks on end, crying my little heart out.) : )
We also visited the Cuzqueñan cemetery on Friday, continued the outing with a lunch of seafood (pollo, I said, pollo!), and then reconnected, yet again, later that night for a night out on the town. There was much dancing to be had, but I ended the evening at the ever-early hour of 1:00 am since my alarm clock had a 4:30 am sounding with my name on it. Against my better judgment, I decided to go visit yet another site of Incan ruins in Pisaq with a few friends. Somehow my alarm clock did not go off, and I awoke to the mother of the house, telling me that my friends were yelling my name outside the window. Um, what? My alarm clock hasn’t gone off yet. Maybe it was the dormilona in me that subconsciously convinced me to not push the alarm clock button to the position of “set”. Because it was 5:30 am, a half hour past the time we were supposed to meet. I dragged my arse out of bed and in five minutes headed out the door to the bus station. When the hour-long bus ride commenced toward its end, I peered out the window across the valley to the next mountain over, only to see Incan ruins and terraces that spanned the entire mountainside. No doubt there’s a long day ahead of me…We managed to get to the ruins about five minutes before the “control” person got to their station and started charging admission. Score! I mean, that was the whole point of going early, the bonus of not having to pay. I’m certainly not going to wake up at such a ridiculous hour, cutting short my precious sleep, to pay 40 soles. I can pay that amount at any time of the day! We got whistled at, but luckily we were far enough ahead to where we could pretend we didn’t hear. Whoops! We spent about six to seven hours that day walking, climbing and scaling. Now, when I usually think of ruins, I think of one set of terraces and a singular location of once-upon-a-time buildings, but at this particular site…they were everywhere. There was an endless amount of ruins to be had! At every corner, there were more and MORE! Peter and Mike, I think you both would have been very proud of me and the amount of hiking I did. : ) And I hardly complained! Okay, I did start complaining when they told me we were done hiking and we ended up going uphill again....so not my style. When you tell me we’re done, and we’re near the top of the mountain, I assume we’re not going back up! How much I have to learn. Anyhew, the hiking was nice, in fact, and I find that strangely enough I’m not super sore. The best part, though, was eating empanadas afterwards. Now your average every day empanada usually just has some meat or cheese in it, but here, in the giant, special empanada ovens of Pisaq, there was a unique variety of empanadas to be found—they had cheese, tomatoes, oregano…So. Good. I’m thinking about taking the hour-long bus ride back just for the empanadas…
Speaking of towns that remind me of food, I have also managed to visit the national bread capital of Peru. The Pueblo of Pan, aka Oropesa. Isn’t that fitting? I mean, the bakery is the first thing I look for in any town, and somehow without even knowing it, I visited the bread capital. Oh how fresh the bread, right out of the oven. By the way, did anyone else know that fresh bread blows up your stomach with gas? This is what my friend Zoe tells me, and I’m inclined to believe her because on that particular bus ride home, my stomach was certainly doing some turns!
This is my last week in Cusco before my as yet undeciphered January travel plans, and my mind is toiling, trying to jot down memories. Like the abuelo of the house, and how at every meal I hear his dentures clicking away, and I sit not knowing whether to laugh inside or be grossed out and unable to eat. (Laughing usually wins.) I’ll miss watching the crazy Cusco weather change from sun to rain in the blink of an eye and witnessing the abundance of mountains disappear amongst the clouds. Not to mention the excuse the rain gives me to stay inside and read or write. (As if I need an excuse! It’s easier when the sun’s not out, though.) I do love the sound of rain, though, and getting to listen to and watch the storms. The very strange sores that have developed at the side of my mouth due to the arid atmosphere and possibly the oversized spoons used for eating soup. I have to be very cognizant of these spots early in the morning as I open my mouth to brush my teeth. Open wide! (Ow.) Being freaked out at night, sitting in the dark with thoughts of ghosts floating through my mind cursing Nano all the while for having told me so many ghost stories and yet still finding the idea of living in an old colonial building here in Cusco to be an interesting prospect.
Currently I sit in my old man sweater, pajama shorts, toe socks, and my last pair of clean underwear. Don’t ask me why I waited so long to actually do my laundry, it’s pointless. I know that I’ll be better in the future because I actually went out and bought myself a clean shirt to wear for tomorrow and I’m feeling a little bit like those guys that go out and buy new underwear when they’ve used all the clean ones. Yikes! I’ll consider the shirt a happy laundry day present to me. I do like laundry day, though. My trip to the Laundromat was pleasant with the man behind the counter being impressed that I could speak Spanish. And I made sure that I got my right price of three, yes that’s right, three soles per kilo of clothes instead of four soles. Uh huh, I’m getting better at following through on those details that exist in my head but that I have a nasty tendency of ignoring in order to make the lives of those around me easier. What an idea, to try to make my life easier! : ) I’m really excited to go pick up clean laundry tomorrow. I think of any of my household duties that I miss, I miss doing my laundry the most. I love the smell of clean laundry and cuddling with warm clothes fresh out of the dryer, not to mention the joy I get every time I witness my ever-amassing underwear pile.
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