We had an official song for the second part of our trip. It´s called "Day Bus" sung to the tune of "Day Man" from It´s Always Sunny.
Day bus! aaaAAAaaa!
Followed by a night bus! aaaAAAaaa!
Mancora was blessedly less eventful. We had a 6 hour bus ride through the desert
to the beach town and arrived at our beautiful Posh Corps beach house. We went down to a ceviche restaurant by the
beach and Matteo and I jumped in the ocean while we were waiting for our
food. It turns out that our waiter was
high as the stars and it ended up being an almost 2 hour wait. He would come to our table, then run/scurry
over to the kitchen, only to stand listlessly as soon as the door shut, unaware
that we were watching him through the window.
It was funny until we got really hungry.
We spent the next day on the beach playing
in the waves and buying incredible mozzarella, tomato, basil empanadas from a
lady with a basket who walked by at perfect intervals. It had felt like forever since I’d seen the
sun and the ocean. Something about the
beach turns me back into an 8 year old.
I can spend hours just swimming around and jumping in the waves. All day if I have a boogie board.
Sadly, despite repeated sunscreen
reapplications, I paid for my full day of nearly equatorial sunshine with a
crazy sunburn. I spent the next day
reading or watching It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia in the hammock and
rubbing overpriced aloe over my sun-dried tomato skin. The peeling didn’t start until a few days
later. It was unsightly, but good bus
entertainment. It’s been several weeks
and it still looks like I’m wearing a white bathing suit when I’m naked.
Anyway, the next day we were up early and
on a bus to go back to Chiclayo to catch a night bus to Chachapoyas. The Mancora-Chiclayo bus took several hours
longer than it should have. It was
cramped and hot as hell and thankfully, even the Peruvians wanted to open the
windows. We were accompanied by a vocal
rooster and vendors selling ceviche and jello.
We had a few hours to kill when we finally got to Chiclayo and all went
out for Chinese food. Then I went
walking with Baber and Ivan. We got ice
cream, then found a street where there were a dozen people selling puppies who
were willing to let me pick almost all of them up. Awesome.
The hour finally rolled around and we piled
on our night bus to Chachapoyas in Amazonas.
We were stopped several times during the night for landslides and
unexpected rivers in the road. At around
5 in the morning I was woken up from Dramamine-tinted sleep to hear Baber, my
seat mate, yelling for me from outside the bus and telling me to bring
water. I grabbed my 2L bottle and
stumbled out half-awake with my hair all askew.
Babes was sitting by the side of the road with a good deal of blood
dripping from his hand. It turns out
that, good guy that he is, he woke up and went out to help move rocks from a
recent landslide that was blocking our bus.
Someone rolled a rock on top of one of his fingers, which was covered in
blood and had a good deal of skin and nail separated from their proper
places. He was brave when I poured water
on it to clean it out and half the skin on his finger went flapping around. It turns out that in the dingy hospital in
Chacha, they pulled the nail off with pliers and cut the liberated skin
off. He’s ok, though. And he took a lot of pleasure in wagging the
finger in our faces for the rest of the trip, especially during dinner.
We eventually arrived in Chachapoyas and to
my favorite leg of the trip. Amazonas is
a beautiful department. It’s like
Jurassic Park and Narnia combined with worse transportation. We went hiking to pre-Incan ruins, cliffs,
and waterfalls, many times in pouring rain and came back to the city and had
wonderful dinners. The only downside was
the several hour combi rides on twisty, bumpy roads to get anyplace, but it was
through incredible landscapes and my belly behaved most of the time. I don’t think it would to be too interesting
to describe all the places we went, so check out Facebook for lots of
pictures. I couldn’t convey how
beautiful it was with words, and the pictures only do a little better.
You know the beginning of the first Indiana
Jones movie where he’s in the temple, touches the idol, and is chased by a
giant boulder? That’s a Chachapoyan
ruin. Pretty cool!
We were in Chacha for 4 days and then it
was time for yet another long bus ride back to Lima. While carrying my big backpack on my back, my
smaller one on my front, another bag and hurrying to the bus station, I managed
to hit a curb wrong and sprained my ankle.
I went down like a ton of bricks and came up with a mouth full of
swears. Poor Grant had to run carrying
my backpacking bag while I hobbled to a cab with bloody ripped pants. We all made it with plenty of time to hurry
up and wait since the bus was a half hour late.
The curves coming down from the Amazonan mountains made reading
impossible for most of us. The bus
entertainment was dubbed Sandra Bullock movies and Peruvian music videos on
tiny screens. Grant was sitting next to
me and we had some nice chats and a discussion of religion before he mercifully
passed out from the Dramamine I gave him.
I spent the majority of the time listening to music or podcasts and
looking out the window. If nothing else,
the Peace Corps makes you more tranquil and able to deal with waiting or doing
nothing for long periods of time. I
didn’t get antsy until the end. We had
an uneventful night and a breakdown in the desert 150k from Lima in the morning. The whole ride ended up being 26 hours
instead of 22, but we made it and nobody lost their minds.
We had a nice time in Lima with wandering
around (limping for me) and cappuccinos.
Nicole and I took a bus up to Junin the next day. We were ready and it felt like coming
home. It seemed right that there would
be snow and wind lashing the sides of the bus as it climbed.
I’m getting back into the rhythm of
things. All the schoolkids ask me where
I’ve been. I’m motivated to work and get
new projects going. We’re going to start
a recycling contest in one of the colegios and I’m hoping the money raised from
that will get the municipality to sit up and take notice. It turns out that a paper for my master’s
that I thought was due at the end of May is due at the end of April, so that
has been taking up a lot of my time.
It’s refreshing to use that part of my mind again. Research, analysis, and above middle school level
English. Though it took me a full 5 minutes
the other day to come up with the word “juxtaposed.” That’s a long time to sit and scour your
brain for something you know is there, but can’t put your hands on.
I hope to get some good work done before
our next training, which is already coming up at the end of May. We’ll see!
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