Oh the Adventures We Will Have...!

A Taxi

On the second night I´m in Cusco, I end up getting into a taxi with the only Taxista in Cusco who doesn't know where 'Urbanizacion Quispicanchis' is! My 10 minute drive turned into about 45 minutes, and my Taxista tried telling me the abandoned dump of an alley was the Avenida Brasil I lived on. Now, while I really didn't know the area AT ALL, I knew that my house was NOT in an alley full of garbage. Indeed, my street is quite beautiful with many gardens and 'vigilantes' (police). Eventually after some very bad Spanish and plenty of exasperation, we found the house. The next morning I took a walk and got my bearings, and I also made sure to learn how to give directions in Spanish!! My Spanish has increased 400 fold.

Speaking of taxis, they are very cheap. A 10 minute ride is somewhere around $1.00 US. Everything is 'muy barato' - my friend Jana and I have found our favorite lunch spot up a hidden alley - it's gorgeous inside, always full of Peruanans, and for $1.50 US we get a giant bowl of fresh vegetable soup, a main plate of rice, a vegetarian casserole, some vegetables, a dessert, and tea. Whoa!! And it´s amazing food, too!! For about $50 US, in one week I´ve had about 5 lunches, drinks at a bar, 15 taxi rides, laundry service, 2 espressos, ice cream, snacks, a donation to a clinic, and entry into a dance club!

muy Muy alta!

In Peru, I'm not simply tall, what I hear instead is that I am very, VERY tall, complete with hand gestures and facial expressions.

I have arrived in Peru! My host family is a grandma and her 4 daughters (all somewhat older than me), and all have children of their own, and all live in the same household. What worries me a little is that in 3 days I have not seen a single man in the house... so I am surrounded by doting, sweet ladies and screamingly joyful and dramatic children. My host mom-grandma makes me very good things to eat, although I don't always know what kind of meat I am eating, which is a big leap for me! But she makes very good strawberry smoothies and hot chocolate! That's important. I didn't realize that the gifts I brought with me would require so much explanation in Spanish - I brought some smoked salmon and tea, which took about 30 minutes to explain adequately. My host mom-grandma (Alicia) is pleased that I understand so much Spanish and says that usually her students only know hello/goodbye! I think she is the Peruvian equivalent to the head honcho Avon Lady.

My room is small and is pink, blue, yellow, and white. I am on the 2nd floor and overlook a mountainous park and the neighbor's laundry room. I think I live in a very nice, more upper class area as we have a garden plaza in the middle of the house, we have a large shower, and my roof does not consist of just wood beams and tile shingles as many houses have. Also my neighbors seem to have a guard shack in the front yard, and we have police who are there and regularly patrol our neighborhood on bicycles and blow whistles in codes. Who needs walkie-talkies or cell phones when you can essentially whistle the morse code!? At first though I thought maybe my neighbors were druglords and had private security! No such excitement. I think my family actually arranged to have a guard shack 15 feet from my house.

I have made friends with 'Camila' - Alicia's 4 year-old granddaughter - she sits in my lap and we watch Clifford the Big Red Dog on TV together, and she makes me change the channel if I have The Discovery Channel on. I think giving her candy was a good bribe toward friendship. And despite rabies warnings from my Dr, I also have petted the family St Bernard, Achilles, and now he seems to like me too.

Today was my first day of classes - and I have made my first friend (cheer)! She is, of course, from Denver. We walked around downtown and this is what was successful and not so much - buying a calling card = successful, using the calling card = at least 30 times unsuccessful. Finding an authentic place to eat = unsuccessful, finding a really good Chinese place after 2 hours that we could afford = successful. Using the ATM = successful, receiving bank notes under $100 = unsuccessful. Finding a computer with internet that actually works = three time's a charm. My next test will be trying to tell a taxi driver tonight where I live when I don't even fully understand where I live.

Pre-Trip Trip: Because the Road There is An Adventure in and of Itself

Teton County, Wyoming

For those in the know, I took a road trip home to Seattle and will be flying to Peru in a week and a half.

My first stop on the road trip was the Wind River reservation (see Rez Blog Dog from first entry). If you're willing to dig in as soon as you arrive, you'll become an instant multi-tasking pioneer. Within less than 24-hours, I had cooked dinner for 10, remedied a dog's swollen eye from a horse kick, pulled porcupine quills from a dog's chest, kept my eye on a toddler bent on playing in a full corral, pulled errant wire from a pen so horses and dogs wouldn't get hurt, chased 11 dogs off from a horse (one was biting the horse's tail and was literally flying in the air from the horse spinning around), ran two loads of laundry, assisted in a sweat lodge ceremony, and went hunting for ceremonial wood... At some point I was riding in my friend Stan's pickup and when we crossed through a barbed wire fence and onto some kind of preserve he says, "By the way, it's illegal for you to be here unless you're enrolled in the tribe, so you need to decide now which one of us you're married to. And if they ask where your wedding ring is, tell them you had to hock it for gas money, otherwise you'll go to jail." Uhhhh. Great, my choice is between a guy nearly 50, a 20 year-old punk, or a 17 year-old kid. I said I would make my choice if the game warden actually found us. He never did.

On my way out of Wind River, I drove through the stunning and desolate Wind River Canyon. The only people I saw on the rest of my trip were hunters and guys on 4-wheelers. Good times. As I wound my way to Jackson, I came across torn up roads and snowy mountains. Because of this, I didn't make it to Boise on time and instead had to camp out in my car in Craters of the Moon Nat'l Monument. I'm glad I slept in my car because it began to downpour and by morning had turned into a good 3-4" of heavy snow. I was asking myself why I had put my snow tires in storage. The tetons were clouded in, but I had decent weather the rest of the way and made it from southern Idaho to Seattle in one big push. Yakima was amazing (wait, wait, don't roll your eyes yet) because it's apple-picking season and the air was thick and hot with the scent of apples - it was dizzying! The rolling hills of vineyards and apple orchards were glowing and gorgeous in the golden glow of pre-dusk sunlight, making Yakima the most picturesque city on my trip.

Pacific Northwest

Ahh Seattle... I am typing at a Starbucks that is literally right across the street from another Starbucks.

Rough waters and stormy skies on Whidbey Island this weekend made for time spent cozied up in a Lazy Boy with the family chihuahua instead of kayaking and salmon fishing! Fie. My intrepid parents *did* go fishing and dad caught a salmon in less than an hour. Dusty (the chihuahua) and I caught some Z's instead.