It's A Bad Sign, Clothing Edition

It’s good to make sure you’ve got your similes covered. 

Kristi, indeed, is the bad.  Ask anyone.

Turns out Predator is good with kids.

Spiderman walking around selling smaller spiderman outfits.  

It's how they reproduce, dontcha know?  

It's A Bad Sign, Part 2

 If you pee here, bad things will happen, guaranteed.  

These people seem oblivious to giant coming up behind them. 

Also, this sign is white enough to be in Connecticut.  What’s with the self-loathing, Peru?  Do you know what I would give to not instantly become a cinder under the high altitude sun or to have those flowing black locks?  

After we escape the giant, we could get high and wash our hands.

Or brush our teeth, then murder everyone.  

This man was on another ice cream cart.

Why in God’s name is everyone representing ice cream furious and wearing a giant hat?

Chachani

I recently returned from a vacation in Arequipa city.  In between oogling architecture, eating multiple daily ice creams, and making fun of the pant choices of European men, my friends and I decided to climb one of the picturesque snow-covered volcanoes surrounding the city.  We settled on Chachani, which soars to 6,075 meters. 

Now, I was confident.  I live at 4,100 meters and am a marginally high functioning, currently parasite-free adult.  What would 2,000 more meters be?  On top of that, base camp was at 5,100m, so we only had a thousand to climb on the day of the ascent.  Piece of keke. 

There’s nothing quite like the realization that your self-confidence was completely misplaced, but we’ll get to that later. 

We rode out of Arequipa and after a stretch on the highway, turned off onto a dirt road where shortly after, we got a flat. 

Thankfully, it was a nice day.

Just as we were ready to be on our way, our driver blacked out from the altitude.  He was fine, and we refused to take it as a portentous sign.  No problem.

We eventually made it to the drop-off point feeling hydrated, sugared-up, and confident.  

This feeling dissipated as soon as we started hiking.

We were a bit above 5,000m, and felt the altitude, taking deep breaths and fighting away fuzzy edges in our peripheral vision.  Slowly, slowly, we made our way to base camp.

Our guide, Jose, was a champ.  I can’t emphasize enough how he took care of us and kept us positive.  When I was freezing, teary eyed, retching, and generally cursing the world on the mountain, he got me going again.  But that comes later.

Here the ladies are posing with the route up the mountain.  

The camera’s perspective significantly flattened it.  The path was imposing.  Thankfully, we got to laze around camp for the afternoon and rest up.  I was wandering around camp in the mid-afternoon wondering why I could see my breath.  It wasn't too cold yet.  It took me a while to realize that it was the dry mountain air sucking the moisture from my body.

Our bellies protested our noodley dinner.  

All of our blood was being dedicated to basic body functions and general survival, so none wanted to be directed to our stomachs for digestion.  We ate some anyway, since we knew we’d need the energy.

This photo is of the sunrise, and we were already well up the mountain.

We woke up at 1:30 in the morning to begin hiking at 2.  It wasn’t like we were going to get a lot of sleep anyway.  My heart was racing as I lay in my sleeping bag and I had to consciously take deep breaths in through my mouth to keep from hyperventilating.  That was the point when my confidence that I’d be able to sashay up the mountain started to wane.

We began trudging at 2.  It was difficult.  Every step required focused effort.  As we climbed higher into darkness, the air thinned further.  I felt increasingly wobbly and couldn’t tell if my blurred vision was due to nearly blacking out, or because it was nighttime.  I was so dehydrated that sips of orange Gatorade tasted like Ocean flavored Fanta.  My toes were frozen and my core would get chilled during our breaks despite layers of down and fleece.  I look like some kind of misguided early 2000’s preppy kid with multiple popped collars.

I was listening to either Beyonce or Queen, and still wasn't pumped.

There was some vomiting, a few tears, but we kept at it.

Daybreak was a blessing.  The sun warmed our extremities and let us see how far we had come.  With a few more hours of trudging, we made it to the top!

Arequpia far below.  

There more tears and some dramatic attitude adjustments.  We frolicked around in the snow and congratulated ourselves for being kickass. 

The descent was much easier.  We were exhausted and hungry, but the soil was soft and we skipped and skated all the way down.  

We even took some breaks.

Jose, per usual, had the situation under control.

Once at the bottom, there was a bit more vomiting and a rickety hike back to the pick-up point, but we did it! 

We were accompanied by some cute mammals on the way back. 

Andean fox.

Viscacha.

Vicuna.  

It was amazing, I feel very accomplished, and also like I don’t need to do that again for a while.  

Searching...

Here are some of the recent search terms that lead to my blog:

Peru photo lady love
primping and sex
stasia orkwixzewski
wrist flapping  

The first is a good descriptor of myself.  

I´ve mostly forgotten how to do both in the second. 

My name is almost spelled right, though the x kinda comes from left field.

I´m awesome at wrist flapping.  I can hail a Peruvian taxi like nobody´s business. 

The Best Part

In June, My family and friends came to visit me and we had an epic Peruvian adventure.  It would take me too long to tell the whole story here, and there are a ton of photos on Facebook.  So, I thought I’d just share the very best parts of the trip.

Even the lady behind the juice bar felt the love.  

24 Hour Papa People

We spent a few weekends in June harvesting the potatoes we planted back in November.  It was hard work, but fun to be with the family outside for two days. 

Everyone goes out to harvest on the same weekend.  If you ever wondered what the creek where I wash my clothes looks like, there it is.

Folks cook up pachamanca right there in their chakra.  It makes a good bit of smoke to compliment the physical labor.

Papas as far as the eye can see.

Lunchtime!

Generally, the men dig out the potatoes with little picks while the women gather them up and put them in bags.  I did the men’s job the first day, felt like I had shown my mettle, and was thrilled to have the woman’s job the second.  Carrying sacks up papas up and down the hill is no joke, so go ladies.

David helped out.  Though his biggest contribution is being a cutie.

Sacks of papas and the old papa truck.

Just a couple of potato farmers.

Lunch the second day was under a tarp because it started to hail. 

Thankfully, it cleared up so the dog could get a sunbath.

Mamita is probably making some smartass remark here.

Here we are collecting.  I’m skeptical about the amount of potatoes. 

Coming down at the end of the day.

My host brothers are beasts.  Those sacks were heavy as hell.  I fell over just trying to hoist one onto their backs. 

Elena on top of a day’s work.

Family in the papa truck, looking super cute.  It looks like my host mom is doing an awesome thumbs up, but I think Carlos is just sitting behind her in a similarly colored sweater.

Some silly boys with two days of potatoes. 

I didn’t think it was possible for me to eat more potatoes, but I can see them replacing most other foods in the near future.  Noodle soup?  Potato soup.  Carrot sticks?  French fries.  Juice?  Potato puree.  I’ll probably be brushing my teeth with mashed potatoes.