Once upon a time I had wanted to find out why a pet fish was so irresistible that people smuggled it into the United States, risking their very liberty. Three and a half years and fifteen countries later, I was now in Brazil (possibly illegally) pursuing the fish myself. At some point, things had gotten out of hand.
After being intrigued by stories of high stakes fish smuggling from a real life Pet Detective – Lieutenant John Fitzpatrick of New York's State Environmental Police – and in receipt of a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship in need of a research topic, investigative journalist Emily Voight decided to enter the shadowy world that surrounds the sale and collecting of the world's most expensive aquarium fish: the arowana or dragon fish. No more interested in guppies and goldfish than the average person, Voight eventually found herself becoming as obsessed with the arowana as any “Arofanatic” and The Dragon Behind the Glass is as much about her own obsessive quest to find a wild population as it is about the fish itself. With an organic blend of travelogue and science/history writing – all in a perfectly journalistic yet playful tone – I couldn't help but getting swept up in the quest myself. Plain fun and intriguing reading.
As Voight says in this National Geographicarticle, “The history of this one single fish encapsulates the history of modern conservation.” As she discovered, for no good reason (and in a move that was perhaps supposed to have been “deleted” before its implementation), an international conservation group in the '70s decided to put the arowana (which was a plentiful and not particularly tasty food fish, with sustainable habitats in several countries) on a restricted trade list. This had the effect of making it seem rare, and that sparked an explosion in collecting them from the wild for exotic specimen aficionados. This caused them to actually become rare, and as they are difficult (but not impossible) to breed in captivity, their scarcity has made millionaires of successful aquaculturists; and has also led to murder, burglary, and the poisoning of rival stocks. In her travels, Voight met those who sell the arowana and those who collect them, and also those naturalists who still scour the globe in search of new species. Falling deeper into the rabbit hole with every new contact, Voight followed every lead that might allow her to witness just one arowana in the wild, and as she pushed the legal limits in countries like Myanmar – travelling well beyond the areas designated for tourists, even as she knew she was being followed by government agents – I couldn't help but marvel at her nerves: a woman, travelling alone and off the map?
In that moment, as I recalled what I'd read about the Asiatic reticulated python (the longest snake in the world at more than twenty feet), as well as lightning strikes, crocodiles, and the well-documented case of an orangutan raping a woman, I began to have second thoughts about what I was doing back in Borneo. My doctor had warned me not to immerse myself in the water, where a snail-borne parasite could cause permanent paralysis. How much was I willing to risk to go after a fish I didn't even think was good looking?
In addition to the travel writing about the exotic locales Voight visited and the colourful people she met there, she also seamlessly adds information about the history of specimen collecting, the work of those who are still in the field, and the evolution of Biology from the study of whole organisms to that of genetics (she and the field workers she meet all agree that there's something of its magnificence lost when a live organism is reduced to bits of code). In the few negative reviews I've read for The Dragon Behind the Glass, readers complain that Voight put too much of herself in this book – that it's more “accidental memoir” than scientific treatise – but I would argue that it was Voight's own experience that makes the whole story about the arowana relatable: it's her own obsession to find a wild specimen and the way that that mirrors the larger story about obsessive collectors that gives the reader perspective. And without being a preachy environmentalist book, the fact that Voight kept failing in her visits to areas formerly teeming with arowanas is its own science lesson.
When I first set out to write about the arowana, I had been attracted to the humor and the high drama of the fish world, to the eccentricities and obsessions of the people who were part of it. But there was no way to think about the arowana – about any fish, really – without confronting loss on a scale too large for the human mind to comprehend. I had come so far to find one wild thing, to experience the wild itself, and all I had to show for my quest was a cult, a cockroach, and a starving dog. Despite myself, tears welled up in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.
I liked everything about this book – it was intriguing, informative, and incredibly relatable – and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
I was no longer afraid. Go ahead. Follow me around. Arrest me. I realized I could accept many things. I could accept not fulfilling whatever ambitions had landed me here in the first place. I could accept the knowledge that nothing I wrote or would ever write would change a thing and that the world would continue to create and destroy and create and destroy as it always did. I could accept living without a relationship. I would still be okay. What I could not accept was Ahlam being gone. It was unthinkable that she had been missing for almost seven weeks. Unthinkable that she could be lost and never heard from again. Unthinkable that I could do nothing.
From the title and my vague knowledge that A Disappearance in Damascus involved refugees, I somehow thought that this book was about the Syrians who have been desperately fleeing their war-ravaged country for the past several years; but that's not what it's about at all. From the early pages, I thought it had something to do with the conditions that led to Syria's current meltdown; but it's not really about that either. Here's what it is about: In 2007, Canadian investigative journalist Deborah Campbell went undercover into Damascus in order to interview the Iraqi refugees that the Syrian government had accepted; as the only country in the Middle East that had been willing to accept those Iraqis who were trying to flee the chaos left in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's ouster, Syria's resources were strained to breaking, and Campbell was interested to learn how the refugees were faring there. As is the regular practise for foreign journalists, Campbell discreetly hired a local fixer (Ahlam, who happened to be an Iraqi refugee herself) and the relationship between the two women transcended the professional into mutual admiration and true friendship. When Campbell eventually witnessed Ahlam being arrested by the secret police (on a return trip when Campbell was starting a followup piece), the reporter feared that she was responsible for Ahlam's situation, began to worry that her own cover had been blown, and resolved to follow Ahlam's own example of disregarding her own safety in the pursuit of justice. This wasn't the book that I thought I was going to read, but I wasn't entirely disappointed by what I found here.
The best part of this book is getting to know Ahlam: as the daughter of a wealthy village leader growing up on the outskirts of Baghdad, Ahlam might have been expected to toil on the family fields until her marriage as a young teenager; like all the other local girls. Although they were from a conservative Muslim family, Ahlam's father encouraged her to attend village meetings against the protests of the other men present, and when she made it her wish, he allowed her to attend high school (the first girl from the area to do so) and then university (the first girl or boy to do so). When Ahlam found herself – a wife and mother by now – back at the family home during the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, she used both her education and her father's diplomatic example in order to liase with the Americans and get information from them about dead and missing locals. After the Americans left and Ahlam had been branded a traitor for her dealings with them, she was forced to flee Iraq, and ended up in the Little Baghdad neighbourhood of Damascus. Here she used her organisation skills to coordinate emergency supplies for her fellow refugees, started a school out of her apartment, and to earn the cash to support her family, she surreptitiously acted as a fixer for foreign journalists. That's the best part, but the weakest part were the infrequent snippets of biographical information from Campbell's own life (I imagine an editor somewhere saying that if the real heart of this book is the friendship between two women, then both women must be characters in it), and she's so guarded with her own biography that it was plain awkward to read a brief unhappy childhood story of her own plunked down amid the rich detail of Ahlam's childhood, and the continuing sketchy details of her dying relationship with her longtime boyfriend back home felt like none of my business (which it's not anyway).
Campbell was in a unique place in history at the time of this narrative, but although this book could well have been about the factors that led to Syria's present day chaos, she chose instead to limit herself to the story of meeting Ahlam, working with her, and after Ahlam's disappearance, what Campbell did to get information about her friend's whereabouts; hopefully, effecting her release. I know better than to complain about an author not writing the book I wanted, but this has the feel of an opportunity lost ; unique knowledge squandered. Aside from some dismissive descriptions of the American mercenaries and hotshot journos with whom she crossed paths, Campbell shared but a few historical nuggets:
It was at Camp Bucca, through which a hundred thousand prisoners passed, that the future leaders of Islamic State met. Thrown together in numbers too large to supervise, their incarceration provided an ideal opportunity to forge bonds and spend time conspiring under the oblivious gaze of the Americans who had inadvertently brought them together. Indeed, without the American prisons in Iraq, Islamic State would not exist.
Although it wasn't obvious from A Disappearance in Damascus, in an interview with the CBC Campbell said that after the events of the book she had an existential crisis about her career: what was the point of writing these articles if the world continues on its destructive path? From the interview:
Shortly after I decided to start writing again, I ran into a writer. I told him about my despair, about the inability of writing to change the world. He said that the point of writing isn't to change the world. It's to keep the truth alive.
And it's this quote that made me reconsider the whole reading experience and bump my estimation of the work from three to four stars: I can't shake the feeling that this isn't the book it might have been, but it certainly represents a valuable piece of the entire truth, and in that sense, it's important. Written in an informal tone, this isn't a hard or dense book to read, and as the story of two extraordinary women who work for truth and justice, the story itself is intriguing.
Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction 2016 nominees:
Mississippi in the middle of a dry spell Jimmy Rodgers on the Victrola up high Mama's dancin' with baby on her shoulder The sun is settin' like molasses in the sky The boy could sing, knew how to move ev'rything Always wanting more, he'd leave you longing for
Black velvet and that little boy smile Black velvet with that slow southern style A new religion that'll bring you to your knees Black velvet if you please
Up in Memphis the music's like a heat wave White Lightnin' bound to drive you wild Mama's baby's in the heart of ev'ry school girl "Love Me Tender" leaves 'em cryin' in the aisle The way he moved, it was a sin, so sweet and true Always wanting more, he'd leave you longing for
Black velvet and that little boy smile Black velvet and that slow southern style A new religion that'll bring you to your knees Black velvet if you please
Ev'ry word of ev'ry song that he sang was for you In a flash he was gone, it happened so soon What could you do?
Black velvet and that little boy smile Black velvet in that slow southern style A new religion that'll bring you to your knees Black velvet if you please
Black velvet and that little boy smile Black velvet in that slow southern style A new religion that'll bring you to your knees Black velvet if you please
If you please If you please If you please
Not long after I first started working at the Mayfair Hotel in Edmonton in 1989, I came into work one day and heard that there had been some excitement the night before: apparently Alannah Myles -- who at the time was all over the radio with Black Velvet -- was playing some venue in the city and her people had put her up at our little establishment. The buzz was mostly about how, as her handler was checking her in, Myles slumped herself into a chair in the lobby, leather-pantsed legs flung over the chair's arm, leather-jacketed arms folded, with a do-not-approach-me scowl on her face. Some of my coworkers had been impressed to see her there nonetheless, some were put off by her attitude, and most of the chatter agreed that she seemed too big to stay at our little place; if she wasn't impressed by what she saw, most of us weren't surprised. As I wrote about before, Dave and I initially bonded over Elvis music, so the fact that someone who sang a song about Elvis had made an appearance in our lives had that "small world" feeling that makes a person sense that everything is on track.
Dave and I clicked right from the start, but it wasn't some hot romance; more like I had found my best friend; someone who finally got me. I've also written before about my boyfriends before Dave, and if they had one thing in common, it was that they treated me like a prize; something to jealously guard as their own; a protectiveness bordering on obsession. Dave, however, was the opposite of obsessed; if we were hanging, fine, if not, that was fine, too; he had other things to do. And at first I loved that -- the freedom was a good feeling to have just as I was breaking away from my parents and I initially thought that this was more honest; there's no way those other guys actually believed the fairy tale -- but eventually it was confusing: were we even a couple, or something more casual? Didn't Dave know that he was supposed to feel lucky that I chose him?
I had said before that there was another waiter at the hotel's restaurant, Jody, who asked me out when I first started (I had politely declined), and he talked like I didn't know what I was getting into with Dave; as though he had a reputation as a ladykiller and I was just one more victim (with muttered complaints that he, the prickly and unattractive Jody, would have treated me better). He especially liked to infer that there was something fishy going on when a big group of coworkers would go out together and Dave and this girl, Christine, were both in the group. I honestly remember nothing about Christine except her name, but Jody made it sound like everyone knew I was being made a fool of. I remember asking Dave about this and saying that I didn't like the idea of him and this Christine being out together when I wasn't around and he said that he didn't care what anyone was saying or even what I thought about it: he wasn't going to stop doing whatever he wanted to do. And this was so challenging to me: was this the kind of free and adult relationship that I wanted? Was this really an improvement over the boys who acted like they couldn't get enough of me? (As an immature game-playing test, I once said to Dave, "I get so tired of people making a fuss over my hair. I ought to just dye it brown or something." This was, obviously, Dave's chance to compliment me on my most striking feature, something that previous boyfriends were fascinated by, but he just said, "Yeah? Do whatever you want.") As I ended up marrying Dave, every time over the early years that he made me sad, I would think, "What was it in my brain that made me stay with the one guy who acted like he didn't care if I stayed or not?" I eventually matured out of my self-pitying stage -- reached a place where I decided to own my decisions -- but even looking back now non-emotionally and without any regrets (and I mean zero regrets), it's still strange that I doubled down on someone who didn't treat me all that well in the beginning.
At some point, the bar at the hotel got a new manager, Gary, and he tried to bring in an evening crowd by playing keyboard and having karaoke nights (when this was still a hot new trend). When he found out that Dave could do a decent Elvis impersonation, Gary insisted that he put on a few songs in the bar, and even though Dave said he wasn't that good, Gary had posters made up for an evening of karaoke, featuring "Dave Thespian" as Elvis. He didn't own much in the way of a costume, so Dave wore jeans and a jean jacket, a button up shirt with some kind of scarf, and a wide leather belt of mine. He got up and sang his songs, performing to the crowd as I sat and drank and clapped delightedly at the fun of it all. Dave ended with Love Me Tender or some such, and as he swivelled his hips and crooned, a group of girls we didn't know screamed for him, and when he took off his jean jacket and threw it on the floor, one of the girls stepped forward, picked it up, and held it to her chest as though it was some great prize. And, seeing red, I jumped off my stool, strode over and grabbed the jacket from her hands before returning to my place. Sigh.
Dave was half-embarrassed and half-amused, saying that the girls had just been playing along -- and they probably were -- but I hadn't really been in control of myself; how was it I had become the jealous, obsessed one? I was supposed the be the prize. It was like the more I was sidelined, the bigger scene I was willing to make.
My behaviour was as tacky as a black velvet Elvis; I was as petulant as a one hit wonder in a crappy hotel lobby; I was nearly capable of boiling bunnies. But then we got married. I get to hang out with my best friend every day. And we lived happily ever after.
My name's Caliban, got scales and long nails, I smell like a fish and not like a man – But my other name's Hag-Seed, or that's what he calls me, He call me a lotta names, he play me a lotta games: He call me a poison, a filth, a slave, He prison me up to make me behave, But I'm Hag-Seed!
I think I've been enjoying the Hogarth Shakespeare Series – I like the concept anyway (having popular authors update the Bard's plays) – but the ones I've read so far have all taken different approaches: Only with Vinegar Girl has the author (Anne Tyler) reimagined the play (Taming of the Shrew) as actual events happening in the modern day (which, before this series was begun, was the satisfying concept behind such books as A Thousand Acres and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle; not to mention Ian McEwan's recent Nutshell or even West Side Story). The other Hogarth entry I had previously read (Shylock is my Name by Howard Jacobson) went kind of meta; with the plot of The Merchant of Veniceupdated but the character of Shylock making a physical appearance in the narrative. And now with Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood has decided to double down on the doubling: the main character, Felix Phillips, is a modern day Prospero – having had his “dukedom” usurped and suffering a banishment of sorts – he waits his dozen years for “an auspicious star and Lady Fortune” to send his enemies into his path (which all follows the plotline, more or less, for The Tempest) and then he, self-aware of the parallels between real life and fiction, forces the revenge plot of the play to come to life; all while mounting a prisonhouse production of that same play. Something about the whole thing just felt a bit too clever and deliberate.
Felix Phillips was the Artistic Director for a Stratford, Ontario-type theatre festival, and I got a good laugh at him describing the poor audience reception to his directorial excesses (and not least of all because I've witnessed some excess at Stratford myself):
The almost-naked freely bleeding Lavinia in Titus was too upsettingly graphic, they'd whined; though as Felix pointed out, more than justified by the text. Why did Pericles have to be staged with spacecrafts and extraterrestrials instead of sailing ships and foreign countries, and why present the moon goddess Artemis with the head of a praying mantis? Even though – said Felix to the Board, in his own defense – it was totally fitting, if you thought deeply about it. And Hermione's return to life as a vampire in The Winter's Tale: that had actually been booed. Felix had been delighted: What an effect! Who else had ever done it? Where there are boos, there's life!
When his right-hand man replaces him as AD, Felix decides to go into hiding. Unlike Prospero, who had his three-year-old daughter with him when he was shipwrecked, Felix's own Miranda (yes, he had named her after the character) died in childhood, and as he embraced a hermit's life, Felix had only Miranda's ghost to keep him company. Eventually growing restless, after nine years Felix decides to look for contact with the outside world and he applies for a position teaching “Literacy Through Literature” at a correctional facility. As it turns out, Felix has a gift for teaching, and through studying and performing Shakespeare's plays, the inmates develop a variety of transferable skills. Atwood treats the prisoners with empathy and I enjoyed the writing as she described the prison setting:
There's a click. The door unlocks and he walks into the warmth, and that unique smell. Unfresh paint, faint mildew, unloved food eaten in boredom, and the smell of dejection, the shoulders slumping down, the head bowed, the body caving in upon itself. A meager smell. Onion farts. Cold naked feet, damp towels, motherless years. The smell of misery, lying over everyone within like an enchantment. But for brief moments he knows he can unbind that spell.
When Felix learns that the literacy program is at risk of being cut in the new government's tough-on-crime agenda (and finds that, coincidentally, his old enemies from the theatre are the new Ministers for Justice and Heritage that will be touring the prison before lowering the axe), he manipulates his class into not only performing The Tempest (which they resist because it has none of the themes or battle scenes that the inmates had found relatable in earlier productions), he also involves them in criminal activity in order to exact his revenge.
The idea that Felix can recognise that his life mirrors the plot of The Tempest isn't a problem for me; especially as his “banishment” was self-imposed. Trying to play out his situation as Prospero would is fine too; why not follow a ready-made model for revenge? But when his enemies behave exactly like the characters from the play – even opening themselves to blackmail by discussing murder when they think no one can hear them – that's what feels too clever; and especially since one of these men took over as the festival's AD and presumably is familiar with The Tempest and would understand that he was behaving exactly like one of its characters.
As for the prison scenes: On the one hand, I liked that we got to see Felix interact with the inmates and guide them along in their understanding of the play and its characters. On the other hand, this went on so long that it felt more like Atwood was trying to make sure that I understood her sense of what it all means; and that felt heavy handed; show me, don't tell me. In the Acknowledgments, Atwood writes about the research she put into determining the value of literacy programs in prisons (I loved that she called one of my favourite books, The Enchanted, “astonishing”), but I'm left with the feeling that she values the ideal of literacy over the actual reality of prisoners: the men in Felix's class are thoroughly interchangeable and talk and act like stereotypes (but, hey, she had them add rap numbers to The Tempest; she's so street).
Here's my takeaway: Hag-Seed reads like Atwood is trying to improve on Shakespeare; I was totally aware of her voice throughout, and the play within a play within a novel based on a play wasn't an improvement upon the original play. The bit I liked best was Felix's self-imposed prison of grief – his exile and his being haunted – and how the noncredible plotline is used to finally free him (which I do understand is the actual point) but I was put off by too many of the details to have really enjoyed this. But what does Atwood care for this poor reader? After all, where there are boos, there's life!
Stories are meant to heal. That's what my people say, and it's what I believe. Culling these stories has taken me a long way down the healing path from the trauma I carried. This book is a look back at one native life, at the people, the places and the events that have helped me find my way to peace again, to stand in the sunshine with my beautiful partner, looking out over the lake and the land we love and say – yes.
In the introduction to One Native Life, author Richard Wagamese explains that when he and his partner Debra Powell moved to a house on a mountainside lake, the setting – everything from the morning light to the sounds of wildlife to the sense of community with his neighbours – provoked strong memories from his tumultuous life, and having been a professional writer for his entire career, he decided to write them down. What follows are sixty-five short vignettes, ranging in length from three to five pages, and while at first I was a bit put off by the jarring format, I soon saw the wisdom in Wagamese's method: this isn't a book to rush through, but rather one to pick up, savour, and set down again for contemplation. With the beautiful prose for which I have long admired Wagamese, and a candid revelation of those events that propelled him from the foster care system to the streets and then on to peace, this book is not just beautiful but important: this is the history of Canada and the history of its relationship with its native population, and through the example of this one native life, in a voice without anger or bitterness, Wagamese invites us all to join in a conversation, as neighbours, over our common back fence.
As an example of the format, the story The Country between Us opens with an observation from Wagamese's present:
There are times when something as simple as the rain that freckles slate grey water can take me back to it – that feeling I remember from my boyhood when the ragged line of trees against the sky filled me with a loneliness that had nothing to do with loss. The land sometimes carries an emptiness you feel in you like the breeze.
It's not a sad feeling. Rather it's a song I learned by rote in the tramp of my young feet through the rough and tangle of the bush that shaped me. I come to the land the same way still, expectant, awake to the promise of territories beyond the horizon, undiscovered and wild. All those years in cities never took away that feeling of tremendous awe.
Wagamese then tells a brief story about camping with his birth family after he had reconnected with them; about how he experienced true reverence in the presence of unspoiled nature on a canoe trip with his brother in traditional Ojibway territory, and then returned to find the elders watching baseball on a portable television. The story concludes:
All Canadians have felt time disrupt them. Everyone has seen the culture they sprang from altered and rearranged into a curious melange of old and new. So the country between us is not strange. We all carry a yearning for simpler, truer times. We all crave a reaffirmation of our place here, to hear the voices of our people singing on the land.
And every vignette is like this: a lovely introduction, a related memory, and a concluding paragraph on the lesson to be learned from it. Reading them quickly makes the collection feel formulaic, but taken more slowly, each is a perfect round berry hanging in a cluster from a mountain ash branch; more satisfying when plucked one by one.
Despite the brevity of each story, One Native Life serves as a satisfying memoir, throwing light on the Wagamese novels I've read: explaining his knowledge of baseball and radicalism in A Quality of Light; homelessness and the carnie life in Ragged Company; hockey and the effects of residential schools in Indian Horse; the sorrow of being disconnected from your heritage in Medicine Walk. Wagamese reveals his fascinating life story in a thoughtful order, and I couldn't help but admire him for finding his way to peace in the wake of trauma and prejudice. Consistently concluding with words of quiet wisdom, I repeatedly got the sense that if only all Canadians, of every heritage and circumstance, could take a moment in stillness to really listen as the neighbours speak their truths over the back fence, we'd be the true partners in the national project that would raise us all up.
I've used this before but it's my favourite picture from our trip.
El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
(Milchberg, J / Robles, D / Simon, P) Performed by Simon and Garfunkel
I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
Away, I'd rather sail away Like a swan that's here and gone A man gets tied up to the ground He gives the world its saddest sound Its saddest sound
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would
Away, I'd rather sail away Like a swan that's here and gone A man gets tied up to the ground He gives the world its saddest sound Its saddest sound
I'd rather be a forest than a street Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
Away, I'd rather sail away Like a swan that's here and gone A man gets tied up to the ground He gives the world its saddest sound Its saddest sound
I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would
I've been putting off really writing about our trip to Peru because it feels like such a big story, but here goes. I'll start with a note on this week's song: El Condor Pasa(If I Could) is based on a Peruvian composer's work from 1913 (which itself used traditional Peruvian folk music themes and instruments), meant to evoke the soaring of condors over mountain passes. I had always loved this song, and even with the Spanish title, I had no idea it was Peruvian or otherwise not an original composition by Simon and Garfunkel. There's something universally provocative about this song -- you only need to see the YouTube comments about people "wanting to cry" when they listen to it and they "don't know why" -- it seems to touch something elemental in the human soul, which was my persistent experience while in Peru: whether flying over the Nazca Line Drawings or climbing the terraces of Machu Picchu, I was always aware of following in the footsteps of others; of retracing some common human path. Not to say I claim some particular connection to the Inca: I felt the same way when I placed a hand against the limestone walls of the Roman Collosseum and whenever I stand in the shadow of the Canadian Parliament Buildings; big construction projects seem to be the purest expression of humanity -- the shout to the heavens that WE WERE HERE -- and something about the ethereal pan flutes, drums, and rattles in El Condor Pasa create a soulful connection between the heavy stone blocks that anchor us to the ground and the giant birds that float on the thermals high above the earth. I love this song and always have. With our 25th anniversary coming up in June of this year, I started thinking that Dave and I ought to go on a special trip to celebrate. Because I had been reading and lovingElena Ferrante this spring, I was intrigued when I got a Groupon Getaway email about a tour of Italy that included Ferrante's Naples, and since the tour also included the area of Sicily where Dave's father's family came from, I thought that might be an interesting trip for both of us. But while I was looking through all of the trips on the Groupon website, I saw the itinerary for a trip to Peru and wistfully imagined going there instead. As it turns out, Dave had also been thinking that we should go somewhere special, and we began to talk about it. I told him about Italy, and surprisingly, he was tepid about the idea. Dave said he had been thinking about retracing our honeymoon trip to New Orleans and Memphis (but with money this time, lol) or maybe going to San Francisco like I had been interested in when we were first married. I said we needed to think bigger; we could go to the nearby States anytime we felt like it. Even though Peru was nagging at me, I suggested Hawaii -- after all, there are Elvis, Gilligan's Island and Magnum PI connections for Dave, and I would never be unhappy going to Hawaii -- and he was a little more intrigued by that idea. When he finally said, "Is there anywhere you'd really like to go?" I took a breath andreminded Dave that when we saw a financial advisor about ten years ago, he asked us the same question, "If you were to plan, say, a twenty-fifth anniversary trip, and shoot for the moon, where would you really like to go?" I reminded Dave that my immediate answer had been Peru (but "shooting for the moon" at the time, I imagined adding on a cruise to the Galapagos Islands and Antarctica), and always after in my mind, this was a possibility (and especially as the financial advisor's point was that anything is possible when you have good credit, haha). When I reminded Dave of this conversation his immediate response was: 1) "I wish I had remembered so I could have surprised you with your dream trip", and 2) "What the heck is there to do in Peru?" I brought up the itinerary I had been dreaming about, and as soon as he saw the pictures and the descriptions, Dave was also enchanted and said, "Then let's book it". I again offered up Hawaii as a compromise -- I wanted this to also be Dave's trip, and as I said, who could be unhappy going to Hawaii? -- but Dave recognised the difference between a dream and a desire, and he assured me that he would be happy to go anywhere, as long as we were together. I booked it. (Note: Dave and I had never been on a guided tour before and we felt like we were really taking a risk: what if the rest of the tour group is made up of sour-faced senior citizens or other grumpy groaners? But when I started looking at putting together a tour for ourselves, it just wasn't feasible; and especially because the distances are so large between destinations and renting a car isn't advised: many areas aren't safe for tourists and the roads themselves are questionable. When we eventually witnessed the traffic and the crazy driving required to navigate it -- there are speedbumps on the highway! -- we were happy to have put ourselves into the hands of the pros. And ultimately, we had no regrets.) I want to note that every time Dave or I mentioned over the next few months that we were about to go to Peru, people responded one of two ways: 1) "I can't believe it; Peru is number one on my bucket list!" (what a dumb expression, but there it is), and 2) "What the heck is there to do in Peru?". There is no in between; no one said, "Oh, that sounds nice"; either you understand what's there and are intrigued or you have no idea there's anything there. Even my mother said that if she could get over her fear of flying, Peru is the only place she'd want to go; and I had no idea she was among the intrigued. Our first stroke of good luck: flying out of Toronto, the first leg was an Air Canada flight, so because Dave is a Premier Member, we got to use the exclusive Maple Leaf Lounge: free food and drinks, stacks of free magazines and newspapers to select from to take along, and comfortable tub chairs to relax in while waiting for boarding. The two-and-a-half hour flight to Houston was unremarkable, the brief layover and the meal we got there was unremarkable, and the further six hour flight on American Airlines was unremarkable. When we got to Lima, however, there was a hitch: the greeter sent by Gate 1 Tours met us as we left Arrivals and explained that we were to go stand with a couple that had landed earlier, and when a third couple arrived, we would all be driven to our hotel. As meeting some co-travellers was the last thing I actually wanted to do after a long day of sitting and standing and waiting and anticipating, I kind of resented being told to go wait together, and when we arrived at the designated area, there was only one man standing there (his wife was off sitting somewhere, because like me, she wasn't interested in being told what to do after a long day of travel; I envied her). This man, Randy, turned out to be a relaxed character, easy to talk to, and while I'm never a big talker, he and Dave exchanged all the pertinent details: he and his wife Karen were from Chicago, they had had an even longer day of travel (with, for some reason, a four hour layover in Panama City), and they were celebrating their thirtieth anniversary with this trip (the first of many times their story would trump ours, lol). We stood there for the longest time, and the Gate 1 rep kept apologising and saying that there was a problem with the other couple, and after an hour and a half (more like a three hour wait for Randy and Karen), he came and explained that he would continue to wait for the other couple alone and was sending us with the driver to the hotel (why couldn't this have happened earlier! gah!) It was a forty minute drive to the hotel (Sonesta Hotel el Olivar), everyone was too tired to do much talking, and it was after one a.m. when we arrived; with a six a.m. wakeup call to get on the road the next day, I wasn't a happy camper. Too few hours later, we were up and showered and on the bus to Pisco. We had a full sized tour bus for the six of us on this part of the tour (as it turned out, the couple we had been waiting for the night before never did arrive, so it was only me and Dave, Randy and Karen, and Ed and his mother Carmen who had the good sense to add a couple of extra days to the start of their tour so they would be rested and ready when it actually began). Our guide for this part of the tour was named Jhonn (since his father, who had a too common Peruvian name was once mistaken for a Shining Path terrorist, his mother decided to give him an "English" name) and he was young and knowledgeable and obviously proud of his country. As we made our way through Lima, I marvelled at the traffic: buses, trucks, cars, and motorcycles drove at speed right up against each other -- travelling more abreast than the actual lanes drawn on the road would seem to allow -- and when we'd approach one of the frequent traffic circles (where there were rigid lane requirements) each vehicle would surge and yield and somehow sort itself into a safe space, stopping a hair's width from the bumper in front of it, often with a blast of horn. As we were in the biggest vehicle on the road, everything yielded to us, and I was in awe of our driver as he smoothly found his path through what looked like chaos to me. Although we had seen hints of impressive colonial and modern architecture on our drive into the city in the dark of the night before, the buildings that line this road to the highway are concrete blocks; a mix of commercial and residential, with storefronts at street level and hanging laundry and satellite dishes on the rooftops. The streets are dirty, filled with people and innumerable stray dogs, and on most top floors, there is exposed rusting rebar pointing to the sky. (Jhonn later explained that in a quirk of Peruvian tax law, buildings are taxed at a low flat rate until they are completed, so most buildings and homes appear to be under construction for many years after they are actually finished. The practical effect is that every city we travelled to in Peru looked slapdash and provisional.) Leaving the city, we drove south along the Pan-American Highway, and from this vantage we could see that the hills that surround the bowl of Lima are crowded with small homes, higgledy piggledy, without apparent roads leading to them or running through their neighbourhoods. Again Jhonn explained: when the Shining Path was terrorising the countryside, millions of rural Peruvians headed for the relative safety of the cities. With nowhere to live, they started building these shantytowns, and even today many people live there without water or sanitation or electricity. They have now been squatting there for so long that they are incorporating as townsites and lobbying for services to be put in. Within no time, we were away from the city and coursing between the sandy dunes and foothills of the Andes to our left and the cliffs down to the Pacific on our right. Just a gorgeous drive from there. Leaving Lima:
Jhonn spent a lot of this drive talking about the geography of Peru and explained that although it always looks like it's about to rain in Lima, it's technically a desert (residents call the sky in Lima "donkey's belly" because of its usual colour). The cloud is caused when the cold air currents that come up the coast from Antarctica meet the warm air coming down the Andes from the Amazon; causing cloud but rarely rain, and then only in the rainy season. Driving down the highway, the coast was just spectacular (what I imagine it would be like to drive down the PCH in California) with cliffs and beach and waves, and although there are brave surfers every here and there, there is very little seaside development and no swimmers without wetsuits (Antarctic currents, after all). I have written before about when Jhonn brought up the quirky Peruvian connection to ancient aliens, so I'm just going to put a link here for that part of my Peru story. He also explained that the line drawings are pre-Inca and had totally been lost to history, only rediscovered when the first commercial flight went over Peru in the twentieth century -- the Pan-American Highway partially goes through the Nazca Plain because no one knew there was anything there to preserve -- and I was burning with anticipation to see them for myself the way they were presumably meant to be seen: from the air.
We arrived at the small but modern airport in Pisco, and I could barely contain my excitement: I was about to fly over the Nazca Line Drawings; something I had dreamed about for years and never for a moment believed would actually happen. There was a lot of hurry up and wait as our small group waited for other tourists to show up and fill a small plane, and we had to go through a metal detector and stand on a scale to be weighed (I assume to distribute the weight evenly on the plane?) All boarded, there were maybe twelve of us passengers on the plane; everyone with their own window. It took about a half hour to fly out to the Nazca Plains, and as we hit the thermals where the mountain and ocean airs collided, our little plane dipped and shuddered, and with one hand white-knuckled and gripping my armrest, I gave Dave a thumbs up with the other: there's no way my Mum, with her fear of flying, could have ever handled this.
When we got to Nazca, the experience was everything I could have ever hoped: The pilot would roll the plane onto one side as we passed over each drawing, with the copilot pointing out exactly what we were looking for. (I only took the one picture of a drawing -- the "Astronaut" there -- because I was committed to seeing everything with my eyes instead of through the lens of a phone's camera.) Then the plane would do a tight circle, and the plane would roll over onto its other side so that those passengers could see each figure up close. This circling, rolling, and the continued turbulence was slightly terrifying (too bad, Mum), but as I was beyond excited to be living out this dream, it just seemed to add a charged physical component to the mental one. The flyover itself took about a half hour, and then it was another half hour back to the airport. Everyone was so drained by this point that this flight back was quiet and contemplative (and I can only assume that some of us were sleeping; not me; I was here to see everything I could.)
When we got back to the airport, Dave let me set up a picture of him with a souvenir hat:
^ This potential embarrassment just so I could put that picture on facebook with the caption "Nazca Lines? I thought you said Nascar Lines. Where's all the cars?" He's the best sport.
We were then brought to the Hotel Paracas, and it is absolutely gorgeous; oceanside, with palm trees and resort-quality accommodations (including an oceanview patio on our room where breakfast was delivered the following morning) and spa-like services. We enjoyed afternoon drinks on the bar's patio:
Mine's a Pisco Sour (national drink and so delicious) and Dave's is the Gin and Tonic
And it was here, not even in Peru yet for twenty-four hours, that we first sat down with Karen and Randy and got to know them. We had such a pleasant chat that we decided to go get cleaned up and go for dinner together down the boardwalk. (*We passed Ed sitting on his patio and invited him to come along, too, but he and his mother had had an early dinner and were happy to relax. We would get to know him better eventually, too.)
Walking down the boardwalk teeming with tourists, menu-waving waiters, and the now common sight of numerous bony stray dogs, we chose a restaurant more or less at random, knowing that they would all probably serve the same Ceviche and Cusqueña; raw fish and corn beer, what a paradise on earth. We settled onto a patio in this fishing port's townsite, and got to know some of the most interesting people Dave and I have ever met. Randy and Karen are impressive enough on their own merits -- he's a successful entrepreneur and she's a noted physician -- but once they get talking about their kids, a person can only sit back and attempt not to gawk. And note: I told these stories to my own daughter, Kennedy, because I know she knows I wasn't jealous as I listened -- there was no way I was wishing these were my own kids, who have plenty of accomplishments of their own -- and I knew that she would laugh with me at the absurdity of two young adults who are so near perfect. Further note: When I said I knew that Kennedy would laugh with me (and she did) it was just laughing at the situation, not at the achievements of people who I assume are really fine young people (I'm not going to name them because I wouldn't want them to stumble upon this, and if they somehow do: please know that this is not meant to be mockery; I am in awe). Some of what I remember:
First of all, they showed us a picture and the kids look like models: he's working towards an MBA, and she is in Med School. His last serious girlfriend was from Peru and he lived with her in Lima for a time, hired by her wealthy family (her father is a powerful politician) to act as her driver. The daughter's current serious boyfriend is a talented artist and high achieving student from Brazil.
Randy was talking about how easily he sweats, and this one time when they were in Washington DC because their daughter was receiving a Congressional Medal of Academic Achievement (!), he got so sweaty as they crossed the Mall towards the Congress building that Karen suggested he go soak his entire shirt in water in order to even out the colour. Bonus: it was really hot in the building, too, and Randy's wet shirt kept him cool as a cucumber throughout the drawn out ceremony.
Last summer, the daughter wanted to feel like she was "making a difference", so she and Karen went to volunteer at a school for the mentally/physically disabled in Guatemala (apparently, the public school system doesn't have the resources to supply an education for any child outside the mainstream, so they are totally excluded. These children only participate through charity efforts.) The daughter was most interested in the horseback riding program (she loved to lead the pony around in circles), and for the first time ever, one little boy with cerebral palsy began to speak when the daughter interacted with him on his pony. Because of this experience, the daughter is taking an extra major in medical Spanish in order to always provide services to the disadvantaged.
Everyone in the family is a master diver -- Randy told a story about him and Karen going on an advanced dive in Hawaii: because they are so fit, they can make their air last 30% longer than the average diver, so they were able to go with a guide to some Edenic underwater grotto that next to no one will ever see -- and a couple of years ago, the son decided he wanted to go to Cozumel and take a rescue diving course. I had heard before about how treacherous the waves can be near Cozumel (Rudy had a vomit-inducing time just taking a ferry over from Cancun), and the conditions were ripe for tragedy when the son got there. On the first day, as the group was bobbing in the surf and watching their instructor, the son noticed a strange patch of bubbles rising to the surface at the limits of his sightline. When he dove down to investigate, he saw a young woman who had lost one of her flippers, and struggle though she may, she was circling ever deeper, in wider and wider circles, approaching a dangerous depth from where she couldn't possibly be rescued. With no time to spare and little regard for himself, the son dove on an intersecting path, and just at the point at which he should have been more scared for his own ability to resurface, he grabbed the young woman and brought her to safety. (Here Kennedy said, "So, instant certification?" But wait. There's more.) Before the course was over, the group did a night dive, and once again, the son saw something in the corner of his eye that didn't look right; a light bobbing under the waves. He went scrambling, swimming and drifting beyond where anyone from their group could possibly still see them, and found another young woman, this time unconscious, and he brought her to the surface and spent hours signalling for help with their flashlights, a boat appearing just as the lamps were starting to fade, his muscles were tiring, and the numbing cold was starting to wear him down. So, yeah, instant certification.
In addition to diving, Karen said they put the kids into tennis lessons when they were children so "they would always have something to do together as a family". Her father is in his nineties and still playing, so I guess it's a family thing. A few years ago when they were at the father's condo in Florida, they all participated in the annual "fun" tennis tournament, and to everyone's surprise, the son and daughter won against the resort pros in mixed doubles play. The pros took it not so "fun" and demanded a rematch, and the kids won again.
The daughter had a custom made rack in her room to hold all the bottles of A1 steak sauce that Randy would present to her whenever her report card was straight As; we can only assume it held a lot of bottles of A1. The son has had a lifelong talent for spotting and catching wildlife; especially flying and jumping creatures that he can snatch from the air with his bare hands. When they were in the Galapagos Islands, their guide had said, "If you try really hard you might see such and such" and the son immediately started pointing to the shadows, "You mean that and that and that?"; all the critters the guide himself had to squint and strain to eventually confirm.
The daughter chose to do her undergraduate degree at the college with the best softball program (and whenever Randy went to watch her play, he'd chuckle at the smack talk of the opposing coaches who had tried to lure her to their schools), and the son did his undergrad on a hockey scholarship. At one point Karen remarked to Randy that their son had texted to say that he had scored two goals in a hockey game that night, and what makes this truly remarkable is the following story:
A couple of years ago, when Randy and Karen were renting a house in the south of France, they had no sooner gotten settled in when they received an urgent phone call from their daughter: the son had been in a horrific amusement park accident and was currently in Intensive Care at a Milwaukee hospital. Karen and Randy hopped the next flight for home, but still it had been a few days since the accident itself by the time they could get to Milwaukee. When they arrived, they got the story (which I didn't quite follow): the son and his friend had been on a roller coaster that stopped suddenly and jumped the track (I think?), leaving the son half hanging out of the car. When the operator restarted the ride, the son's leg was twisted, broken in three places, and his knee was totally shattered. Although he had been rushed to a decent hospital, it was the beginning of July, the experienced surgeons were off on long holiday weekends, and in a quirk of hospital administration, new Residents would have been just rotated into orthopedics, and no one had really examined the son yet. Karen looked at the chart and saw zero notations. She looked around the hospital room and saw no lunch tray. When she asked about that, the daughter said that no one had been feeding her brother; she had been bringing him food from the cafeteria. She had apparently also been the one bringing her brother the bedpan and helping to keep him clean. Karen hit the roof and demanded her son be moved to her own hospital in Chicago, but the local doctors resisted; they recommended amputation of the entire leg; every bone in it was beyond repair. Eventually, Karen make a phone call to the (apparently famous) orthopedic surgeon who fixes up all the Chicago Bulls, and on his say-so, the son was transferred and fixed by him personally. After months of grueling physiotherapy, the son is not only walking against all the odds, but playing hockey and scoring goals. According to Randy, "The most amazing part is how he never once complained. Whenever someone says to him, 'I bet you're mad and cursing fate', he always shuts it down and says he's just so grateful to be alive. Even when the accident first happened, as he was laid out beside the roller coaster, he said to his friend, 'There's a golf towel in my backpack, I need you to go get it so I have something to clamp down on to stop myself from screaming'. And then he turned to the adolescent ride operator and said, 'You might blame yourself for this, but I want you to know that I don't blame you. I just need you to call 911.' That was it. And our kids are so close now because of it. She calls him her hero. And he calls her his angel."
How do you respond to a story like that? Yes, Kennedy laughed like I knew she would, but not because either of us find it funny: it's just too good to be true, and sometimes the response to that is laughter. (Later in the week, Karen was taking a lot of phone calls from her daughter as she was obsessing about an upcoming quiz [and if I was in Med School and my Mom was a doctor, I would totally call her, too, even if she was in Peru; I totally get it.] One evening they were on the phone together and Karen turned to me and said, "I don't know why she was worried, she got a 100%". I looked her in the eye and said, "I'd tell her what I tell one of my own daughters when they give me news like that: Do better." And Karen laughed and laughed and she repeated what I had said to her daughter [and I can't imagine what she might have thought of my message] and Karen summed it up to her daughter with, "That's Canadian humour for you.")
Throughout their storytelling, Randy and Karen told us about their adventures in Tahiti, Japan, Australia (diving the Great Barrier Reef, natch), New Zealand, Italy (where Randy developed blood clots in his legs from the intense bike tour; a less fit man would certainly have died on the flight home), Ecuador, China, camping at Yellowstone, rafting through the Grand Canyon, skiing at Vail and Whistler, Karen's undergrad semester in France (and because of this life-changing experience, she encouraged her daughter to do a semester in Spain, her son in Australia), and probably more adventures that I'm forgetting. I feel like a person who has been some interesting places, but the only exotic experiences I could offer of interest were my trips to Cuba because as Americans they haven't been able to go (yet); they were fascinated that the locals often ask tourists for disposable razors and ibuprofen; a situation that will likely soon change.
Now, this was not a monologue, and throughout the meal, Dave and I were also telling stories about our great girls, and Randy and Karen agreed that it is always a wonderful thing to meet people who like their kids. In the end, Randy raised his glass in a toast to all of our children, that they may continue to find happiness wherever life leads them. I drank happily to that. Fascinating conversation on top of great food, fine weather, and an exotic atmosphere, this was one of the nicest dinners of my life and laid the foundation for a trip filled with laughs, confidences and real friendship.
At a different dinner but this is the four of us.
The next morning, the six of us who had tacked on the Nazca experience to the beginning of the tour were taken to the dock for the "optional" boat tour of the Ballestas Islands. It was while waiting for our speedboat that we first really started talking to Ed and Carmen and got their bios: he is a retired New Jersey police lieutenant, just turned fifty, and as he has begun turning his photography hobby into a second career, he feels like he's "just begun to really live". He has a wife and college-aged son at home, but when his mother begged him to come along with her on a tour of Peru (after initially reacting with, "What the heck is in Peru?"), he agreed for her sake. Carmen was born in Puerto Rico and she has all the spice and fire of a twilight Charo: dyed blonde hair, perfect nails, designer clothes, and a huge heart and love of laughter. As we neared the boat, Dave started whistling the Gilligan's Island theme song and Ed turned around with a huge smile, and then started laughing and couldn't stop: and this was the tone for the rest of the trip -- Dave/Randy making some lame joke and Ed cracking up. (For the rest of the tour, every now and then, Ed would turn around in his seat on the bus, and with a huge smile, say, "I was just remembering you whistling Gilligan's Island." He'd chuckle and shake his head at the hilarity of it all, and I'd think, "That man needs to get out more.")
The Ballestas Islands were an amazing sight: bare and craggy rocks humped in the ocean, covered with wildlife. On the way out we passed an isthmus with another Nazca-type figure on it: known as "the Candelabra", no one knows if it is as old as Nazca, and there is debate as to whether or not it represents a tree (a well known pre-Inca motif), or if it was later built by pirates to show the way into the Bay of Pisco, or if it was made in the 1800s by nationalists to indicate an invasion point (but it really looks like a Nazca figure, and wouldn't people remember if it was made in the 1800s?) When we got to the islands, we saw thousands of pelicans, one Humboldt penguin, hundreds of sea lions, and innumerable "guano birds". These latter are the most significant: it was the great explorer Alexander von Humboldt himself, in the wake of Peruvian independence -- when the country was hopelessly in debt after hiring mercenaries to fight against the Spanish -- who "discovered" the guano-covered rocks and proposed that it should be mined as fertiliser for Europe. As a result, between 1850 and 1950 (for a hundred years) bird poop was Peru's number one export and saved the country from financial ruin. For a hundred years. Today, the islands are protected and the guano is harvested every ten years.
Penguin!
A touchstone joke from this side trip: As we were approaching the island that serves as the main source of modern guano, the tour guide pointed out that not only is the site closed to tourists because of the value of the guano, but the birds themselves are ridden with disease and infested with fleas and ticks. Randy piped up with, "Hey, hey! You had me at guano!" Dave and Ed laughed like this was the funniest joke ever and "You had me at guano" became one of many running gags.
After the islands, we got back on the bus and backtracked to Lima. Now, when I booked the tour, I added on nearly all optional excursions (how else would we see everything?), but as I've learned, that's a rookie move. When we had first arrived at the hotel from the airport, Randy and Karen asked the concierge to try and book them a table for this evening at some world famous restaurant. When we eventually got back to the Sonesta Hotel el Olivar, they were able to confirm that a table had indeed been secured, but Dave and I couldn't go with them because we had already paid for an "evening of dining and traditional dance". This was the day that the rest of our tour group would be flying in, so we had barely an hour to relax, and then there was a mandatory meeting we had to attend with the new guide for the balance of the tour. As we all gathered in a meeting room, the six of us who had already met were clustered together, all familiar and cosy and popping our inside jokes. We were given information on the upcoming days -- including dire warnings about altitude sickness and how to prevent it (Dave made a note to pick up some Diamox) -- and then we who were going on the excursion were hurried onto a tour bus. Although Ed and Carmen had indeed booked this dinner, Carmen is also not a rookie and booked through a different company so they could enjoy a semi-private tour of Lima's entertainment district on the way to the restaurant. In the end, Dave and I were forced to sit with and meet new people, and although everyone was very friendly, the noise of the music and conversations made talking difficult.
This dinner was just okay -- a buffet of traditional foods -- and we sat stage-side as the same group of young people in a variety of traditional costumes came out and performed what looked like the same dance (tapping feet and a snapping wrist swirling a handkerchief over the head) over and over; it got a little dull. The big finale was something different though: called the "scissor dance", a group of young men in bright costumes came out and circled around the stage, a pair of giant silver scissors in one hand (handkerchief in the other). As they danced, they snapped the scissors open and shut and it made a sound between castanets and chimes. In the beginning, the scissors were the most impressive part of the dance, but this eventually became something like a breakdance battle: the young men would circle and snap the scissors and then someone would go to the middle and do some unique dance step. At first this would just involve the feet, but as the dance progressed, the steps became more acrobatic, until eventually, they were tumbling and rolling, and then doing crazy moves in unison, all the while snapping and flashing these giant scissors. That last dance was simply spectacular; worth the whole underwhelming evening. This is someone else's YouTube video, but this is essentially what we saw, and where we saw it:
Apparently Randy and Karen's dinner was totally gourmet, and the setting of the restaurant -- built around some authentic Inca ruins -- was enchanting. The next morning, we flew to Cusco, former capital of the Inca Empire (elevation: eleven thousand feet; something you feel immediately with shortness of breath and tingling extremities). The new tour guide, Willy, made everything run smoothly, and although at first I refused to be charmed by his referring to us as family ("This way my family..."; "My family, I must tell you..."), I eventually became a huge fan of Willy and his ways. We hopped on a tour bus at the Cusco airport and left the city for now. As we headed for the countryside, the Andes never far from view, it seemed that the vista was constantly changing: from farmland to scrub to foothills and desert (of the something like 130 microclimates on earth, Peru has 90 of them, making it the one of the most biodiverse countries in the world; this is something you can witness in real time from the window of a passing tour bus). We stopped in the village of Chinchero for lunch, and as promised (threatened?), the highlight of the feast was guinea pig.
Now, I don't eat any mammals, and even if I did, I don't know if I could get my brain to force my stomache to accept guinea pig, but Dave is adventurous and tucked in. And even he said this was gross: chewy and greasy and full of bones, the skin too tough to get through (and that made me wonder: is there any mammal skin we eat? Isn't that considered leather? Who told Dave to try and eat the skin?) The rest of the meal was delicious, and sitting afterwards and watching the women give a weaving and agriculture demonstration was fascinating.
That evening we got to Urumamba, and at a beautiful restaurant, had a fine meal:
^This is a typically modern-looking presentaion of the gourmet dinners we had throughout the trip, and typical of Dave, this is the "heart kebob" he ordered, despite having no idea what animal the hearts came from. Gag.Here we stayed at the Aranwa Sacred Valley Hotel, and it looked spectacular; a resort and spa nestled in a valley between the mountains and a river. Built to resemble a colonial era complex, Dave and I explored its various courtyards and balconies; him remarking that it looked like the backdrop of a dozen FPS videogames he's played ("I've shot so many bad guys right here where I'm standing.") Covered passageways were filled with what looked like actual antiques, and there were two pools, manmade streams, and small bridges that crossed them. Our hotel room had an enormous gilt kingsize bed, and when we first saw it Dave said, "This is the kind of room that even Elvis would have looked at and said, 'Nah, this is just too much, man'." The bathroom was also enormous, with a party-sized jacuzzi that, on first glance looked luxurious, but on reconsideration, the fact that the shower was also in this "tub" was kind of inconvenient: I immediately saw that climbing down into such a deep and wide tub to use the shower (that was far too close to the wall) would be awkward and unsatisfying. And as beautiful as this place was, it all had the feeling of a movie set; of the kind of place that Peruvians think tourists might like to stay. And yet, it was very comfortable.
After our group dinner, Randy, Dave, Karen and I wanted to explore more of the hotel complex. We walked around, admiring the paintings and antiques and stained glass windows in the main building, and when we ventured outside, we saw that the chapel door was open. We had to cross a little bridge to get to it, and when we went inside, we marvelled at the enormous gold altarpiece and the intricately carved wooden pulpits. I could immediately see that everything was reproduction -- this was gold paint, not gold leaf, and the blocks used in the construction were obviously formed concrete instead of quarried stone -- and as a result, I didn't consider it a sacred space; there's not a chance mass was ever celebrated in this repro church. When Randy noticed that there were stairs up to the bell tower, we all went up to have a look. Dave, of course, couldn't help but be the class clown:
And this bit of smart-assery became another touchstone joke: It was only when we eventually left the chapel and started walking around the rest of the complex that we noticed the bell tower had large open windows on all four walls; Dave would have been visible from pretty much everywhere at the hotel. For the rest of the tour, Randy kept pointing at churches along our route and calling out, "Hey, Dave! You can see the bell from here!" We eventually found Willy in the hotel lobby and invited him to have a drink with us at the bar -- although he only had lemonade, this was the beginning of the four of us spending extra time with the guide; and assuming that we were his favourites.
The next morning we joined the optional tour (as did most of our group) that started at Moray: an Incan agricultural research site. Utilising natural depressions in the ground, the Inca created circular terraces that served as microclimates where they experimented with a variety of crops in order to perfect their production. The walk around this site took about an hour, but as it dipped down fairly far and then climbed up again, the altitude was already a factor for many of us; the going was pretty slow. And now a note on that couple who didn't make it to the airport the night that we arrived: Randy had talked to them at some point, and he found them to be loudmouthed and rude (and worst of all in his opinion, they weren't shy about being aggressively pro-Trump). Their flights had been so messed up that when they went to make their transfer in Houston (I think that means they were meant to be on the same flight into Lima as me and Dave), they were actually sent back home to Seattle; so although they had also paid for the Nazca portion of the tour, they totally missed out. And the original six of us felt like we had dodged a bullet: we all got along so well, and continued to travel together as a core group, that we couldn't help but think that this complaining older couple would have ruined the beginning for us. After our guide, Oscar, had spent half an hour describing to us the wonders of Moray and its importance to the success of the Inca Empire, Marlene (of the loudmouthed couple, who had been with Oscar this entire time) pipes up with, "So what is this? Some kind of thee-ay-ter?" I guess it kind of looks like an amphitheater, but...come on...it took Oscar this whole time to tell us what it actually was...we definitely dodged a bullet when they didn't make that flight.
Next, we went to the Maras salt works -- as Peru was at one time under the ocean, it is situated over hot salt springs that the people are still using to make salt in the traditional ways (flooding ponds during the rainy season and then allowing them to evaporate through the rest of the year) -- and while this wasn't fascinating, I was hungry to see and experience everything.
In the afternoon, we travelled to Ollantaytambo; an Inca fortress and the site of their last stand against the Conquistadors. This complex is so huge and impressive that it's pretty depressing to learn that the Spanish started dismantling it nearly immediately -- repurposing the perfectly formed building blocks for their own construction -- and it wasn't until the mid-twentieth century that people stopped using Inca sites as handy quarries. As big as Ollantaytambo appears today, it's only twenty-five per cent of what it was originally. Again, there was much climbing involved at this site, and again, it was slow going because of the elevation.
As I mentioned before about the (so-called) alien connections in Peru, Ollantaytambo is the site of another conversation that's at the abovelink. When we reached the top of the climb, we were given the option to retrace our steps down or to take a portion of the Inca Trail; and although I didn't really like the look of the sheer drop at the side of the mountainside path, I was glad in the end to have braved it, knowing Macchu Pichu itself was somewhere along that ancient roadway.
We bused back to the hotel, and along the way, learned that Karen and Randy had opted in to the only optional excursion that I hadn't been interested in: dinner with a typical Peruvian family. Dave was so attached to our friends at this point that he asked Willy if there was still an opportunity to buy in, and although it still sounded awkward and artificial to me, Dave happily reported back to me that we were going along, too. In the end it was just the five of us (including Willy himself as our interpreter) and we took the big bus through the narrow streets of Urumamba until we arrived at a lovely little hacienda with white plastered walls and a festively lit inner courtyard. We met our hosts, a friendly couple and their young adult son, Igor (a recent graduate with an Archaeology degree), and sat down at a long table as they served us a basic meal of chicken and corn and potatoes. They sat and ate with us as well, and the husband, Norberto, attempted to make small talk through Willy, mostly asking questions of the men ("What was your favourite sport as a child?") and focussing mainly on the customs of America (despite Willy saying a couple of times that half of us were from Canada, the poor man had no apparent points of reference with which to engage us, and he didn't try). As I had anticipated, it was all a little artificial -- them welcoming us as dear friends -- and I smiled and nodded and chewed my dry chicken while Randy practised his basic Spanish and Dave nodded encouragingly. A definite highlight: Francisca made a dessert of tree tomatoes (Willy assured us that these tomatoes do indeed grow on trees like more familiar fruit) and with the spices and cane sugar that were used as a syrup, these tasted just like homemade canned peaches; so delicious. Norberto ended with a serious toast, assuring us that we were all now family, and Randy responded with a toast of his own (the man likes to make his toasts), and we headed back for the hotel.
Also this day, Willy had learned that the local teachers were planning to go on strike, and in order to make sure that we weren't impeded on our trip to Macchu Pichu the following day, Willy advised us that we would be leaving the hotel at four a.m. (Honestly, he said that strikes can be very unpredictable in Peru, with people moving boulders and whole trees onto the roadways in order to put maximum pressure on the government.) The early morning would have been hard enough, but disaster struck us personally: as soon as we were back in the room, Dave started suffering from constant diarrhea. (And another note on the fancy hotel room: a frosted glass door might look modern and cool, but it does nothing to block out the sounds when someone is suffering on the toilet. Just saying.) I had Imodium and Gravol for Dave, but nothing helped him and he was up all night; neither of us getting any sleep on the eve of the most important part of our trip. When we assembled in the lobby, Dave was obviously pale and weak, and we had another stroke of luck: Karen is not only a doctor, but a Gastroenterologist, and as is her custom when travelling, she had brought along a bagful of sample packs of powerful gut-focussed antibiotics. She gave several packs to Dave, and although they took a long time to start working, they definitely saved the day. We boarded the bus while it was still dark, and drove without interruption to Ollanta; the small town that hosts the train station. Because of the potential unrest, we arrived hours too early, and Willy brought us to a cafe for hot beverages. Dave needed to run for the washroom several times as we sat here and waited, and I didn't know how he would make it through the day: Dave couldn't drink the special tea that Willy suggested for him, and although we had all been provided with a bagged breakfast from the hotel, Dave couldn't take a bite of anything; he was just so weak and queasy.
When it was time to head for the train station, Willy handed Dave a Gatorade-type drink, and I was filled with anxiety: as part of our prep talk for Macchu Pichu, it was explained to us that once we entered the site, there would be no washrooms there. What if Dave's guts attacked him? What could a person possibly do on a mountaintop without a toilet and churning innards? (There were vague jokes made involving llamas, and Randy sang us cheery songs -- Well I've been running down the road trying to loosen my load...hey you wanna hear Like a Brick by Jethro Tull? -- groan.) Without too much fuss, we boarded the Vistadome train, and were pleased when our assigned seats put us with Ed and Carmen. Immediately, Dave put his head down on the table between us and tried to sleep; and although that made me anxious that I was about to experience the best part of our trip by myself, sitting with familiar people made for an enchanting ride through the changing landscape. Along the tracks, we could see the starting points for the four day and then the one day hikes along the Inca Trail into Macchu Pichu, and although a decade ago I had dreamed of making that pilgrimage myself, Dave and I had correctly dismissed the idea while planning this trip: although we couldn't have imagined it beforehand, the altitude was so hard on us, and now with Dave falling sick, it would have been impossible for us to make that climb. As for the train, it was definitely luxurious, with breakfast service and a glass roof through which we watched the passing peaks.
We arrived at Aguas Calientes, the end of the line, and Willy explained our day: from here there would be a bus that would snake us up to the top of Macchu Pichu, and once there, we could decide whether we would take the hiking tour with him or the easy route through the complex of ruins with Oscar. We would be given our return bus tickets to keep on us, and although we could choose to spend our free time either exploring Macchu Pichu or return to Aguas Calientes for lunch, the most important thing to remember was that we had a firm departure time on the return train and it was easy to underestimate the waiting time for the bus that would bring us back down to the townsite. We boarded the bus.
On a narrow dirt road, our full-sized bus drove quickly up the mountainside switchbacks, and whenever we'd encounter another bus going in the other direction, we would either move perilously close to the road's edge, or one of the buses would reverse to a spot along the road where they could pass in such a nail-biting fashion. Dave was perking up by now, and although I couldn't force myself to look out the window and down at the receding valley, Dave was craning over my shoulder to admire this dizzying view for himself. We arrived at the top at last, had our final bathroom break, took our turns stamping our passports with a Macchu Pichu imprint, and decided to join Willy for the hiking tour. (I should note: Willy had polio as a boy, and although he apparently couldn't walk until he was eight, and now lumbers along with a hitching gait, as a proud descendant of the Inca line, there was no part of this tour that he wasn't physically equal to. Everywhere we tourists huffed and rested before proceeding, Willy was ahead of the group, keeping watch and patiently encouraging.) Dave was running on no fuel but his few sips of the electrolyte beverage, yet he squeezed my hand and said, "Let's do this."
There were three levels to Willy's hike up the peak that overlooks the Macchu Pichu ruins, and each time we stopped on an overlook, we'd think, "Ah. there's the classic postcard view", but it wasn't until we reached the third level that we knew we were really there; and it took some slow going and a few breaks for the group to make it (and everyone who chose this option made it; including Carmen, at seventy-something.) At this third level, Willy had us assemble on a terrace while he gave us the history of Macchu Pichu, and I delighted in the chance to just stop and look and breathe that mountaintop air; I was sitting in the sacred space of the Inca and that feeling of living history pulsed all around me. My weather app had been calling for rain and chill temperatures for the entire time of our trip -- just the day before it had guaranteed rain at Macchu Pichu itself -- but here we were on the top of the world with nothing but a few clouds that only added to the feeling of mystery and magic. I felt like I had waited my entire life for this trip and now I was here. And from the ground at my side, Dave erupted with a loud snore. Even that was okay -- he was feeling better and resting, and when Willy was done with his talk, Dave felt refreshed and renewed. As per my plan, I got Dave to take a couple of pictures of me reading my decades old copy of Chariots of the Gods at this point:
(Yup, important enough to me to add full-sized pictures, lol.)
When Randy and Karen then said that they wanted to spend their free time hiking up the Inca Trail to the Sun Gate along with some of the others in our group, Dave said he was in, too. Okie dokie artichokie. We followed the others up the stone steps, ever higher up the mountain, but it was still slow going, with breaks and pauses for everyone. Also on this part of the hike was Walter, the man that we had sat with at the dinner and dancing show, and although we hadn't spent much more time socialising with him after that, he could see that Dave was particularly struggling, and he offered to carry Dave's backpack for him (an exchange for his own near empty breakfast bag). Dave gratefully accepted, and I was in awe of this near stranger who would make such an offer. After about twenty minutes of straight up climbing, so low on fuel, Dave said he needed to stop and rest, and Walter stopped with us when we arrived at this way station:
After a couple of minutes, we thanked Walter and waved him on -- we'd have to make a decision about if we could go any further. Within a short while a woman and her private guide arrived and sat down beside us, and when he told her that the Sun Gate was another twenty minute climb straight up from here, we knew we had to turn around. And of course, I wasn't even disappointed: after the night Dave had, he had been such a good sport and made Macchu Pichu the most satisfying of experiences. (Note: when I posted pictures to facebook this night, not only did my least favourite blowhard frenemey call me a smartass for posing with my book, but when he asked if we had hiked the Inca Trail [as he had many years ago] I actually lied, saying, "We decided at our age to take the glass-domed train up to Macchu Pichu instead. We did hike up to the Sun Gate from there, though". As if I needed his thumbs up. When I confessed the lie to Randy later, he insisted that we actually did "hike to the Sun Gate", even if we never made it, and he even offered to send me some of his pictures from there as "proof": but I wasn't committed to taking the lie that far with someone I'm not actually trying to impress.) As we sat looking out through this stone opening, thunder began to sound from the distant peaks, and the air was charged with electricity and the scent of ozone; and yet, the rain never did come.
We hiked back down the stone steps (harder on the knees than going up) and then took our time exploring through the complex of buildings that make up Macchu Pichu; running our hands over the well-joined blocks and peering over the edges of the manicured terraces. We'd linger around other tour groups to get some history and then mosey into any area that looked interesting -- I would say in the end that we saw everything. At one point, as we were descending some steps, Walter jogged past us: his wife had been in the non-hiking group with Oscar and he was hoping to make it down to Aguas Calientes in time to have lunch with her. We continued our slow pace -- we were in no hurry at all -- and at one point we heard "Thompsons!" resounding through the air: Randy and Karen were many levels high above us and Randy underestimated how loudly he would need to yell to get our attention (I wasn't embarrassed by this, but Randy later said that he felt like a typical loudmouth American tourist). And still Dave and I poked around until we were done -- he still running on empty, me finally overwhelmed and satiated with the experienced -- and we decided to head for the bus lineup. When we exited the complex, my stomache dropped when I saw the long snaking line: we were both so tired (neither of us had slept the night before) and standing in line is always a test of my patience. Just as we were looking over the heads of the crowd for where the queue started, Willy waved at us from the head of the line, called out, "My family!", and said to the staff who were managing the buses, "They're with me, they're getting on the next bus with me, this is my group". I was slightly stunned and said to someone else from our tour group who was standing there, "I don't think it's really fair if we were to just jump the line", and he said, "It's not really fair, but it's okay. It's not like you could know it would happen". That felt kind of backhanded, and I was hesitant to join them, but Willy kept talking, saying we were supposed to be with him, and Dave was looking totally spent, so we joined Willy at the front of the front of the line: they had been waiting together for over an hour; Walter was among them.
We retraced the mountainside route down, again needing to accommodate and yield to passing buses, and when we got to Aguas Calientes, we joined everyone for lunch, finding and sitting with Ed and Carmen when we got there. Willy suggested that Dave try to eat some chicken soup, and although he ordered it, he barely tasted the broth. The mood at the table was excited -- we had all accomplished what we came to Peru to do -- and incredibly, Randy and Karen showed up within a half hour (although they hadn't been on our bus, by the time they arrived at the bus stop, the line was gone and they hopped right on the next one). They sat on the other side of us and we drank and ate and made merry, and since Willy had somehow found out that Randy and Karen were celebrating their thirtieth anniversary, he had a cake brought out for them and everyone sang. They looked at us in disbelief -- hadn't anyone told him it was a milestone anniversary for us too? -- but no, I guess not, and we didn't want anyone to tell him either. As we were leaving the restaurant, a photographer who had taken a group picture of us up at Macchu Pichu was selling the prints on the sidewalk. When Dave offered to buy one, he said he had just sold his last copy, and then one of our group, Sonny, stepped forward and said, "We bought three between our family, you take this one and I can have a copy made." Sonny had paid $10 for the picture, and when Dave tried to give him the money, he threw up his hands and said, "No worries." I started to balk, and Sonny's sister, Brenda, smiled and said, "That ten bucks isn't going to make you rich or us poor. Don't worry about it." I didn't really understand the logic behind this, but I could only once again wonder at the generosity of the people we were meeting on this trip.
It was soon enough time for the return train trip, we were again assigned to ride in a foursome with Ed and Carmen, and Dave was awake this time, and keeping everyone laughing. Willy gave Dave a bottle of a more medicinal electrolyte drink that he had bought for him at a pharmacy in town, and Dave gratefully took it and drank it up over the next day. As we were travelling along, there were once again refreshments served, and eventually, the staff put on a fashion show of alpaca wool capes and sweaters (later available to purchase, naturally) and as one would walk down the aisle, the other would encourage us to clap our hands rhythmically. When it was over, Karen got up to use the washroom, and as she was coming back down the aisle, Dave started everyone clapping rhythmically, and by the time she got to her seat she was turning around quizzically, her cheeks bright red, and then one of the model/stewardesses (if that's the right word) strode down the aisle towards her, and after winking at us, pretended to get angry with Karen telling her to "sit down right now" and asking "do I come to your job to make fun of you?" Her tone was perfectly mock angry, and everyone but Karen understood that it was all a joke, and I might have felt sorry for her if I hadn't been laughing so hard.
Our tour bus was waiting for us at the train station, and we enjoyed our well earned exhaustion as we made the quiet drive back to Cusco, where we checked into the Sonesta Cusco Hotel (I would call this the least luxurious of our accommodations, but considering Cusco as a whole, it's probably the nicest hotel in the city). Again, I had signed up for all the optional excursions for the following day, and out of the twenty-two other people in our group, only Ed and Carmen had bought in for the morning's activities. Cusco is actually at a higher elevation than Macchu Pichu, and as we met in the morning, it was obvious that the altitude was getting to Carmen. First stop was a visit with a shaman off the hotel lobby, and this was the spiritually touching experience that I hoped it would be, with smudging and blessings and bells and offerings, all under the guidance of a wizened elder. We were held up briefly when it was time to leave the hotel because the teacher's strike was finally happening and thousands of angry protesters (and their police escort) were marching down the wide avenue in front of the lobby. Interestingly, when Ed stepped outside to take some pictures of the throng, the doorman insisted that he come back inside and desist from taking more pictures (and also interestingly, this retired cop complied). Eventually we were off to the cemetery, to see the crypts:
When we first arrived in the square beside the cemetery, the bus was swarmed by children wanting to help us (since it was an unexpected day off for them), and after giving some coins to all of the children, Willy chose a boy and girl to run off on some errand. He explained that even when he was a child, there was always money to be made from people who wanted these little windowfronts to be cleaned. The children came back with fresh flowers, a lemon and a cloth, and they freshened up a random crypt as Willy gave us all the history on the customs here. The children sang us a sweet little song, Carmen insisted on buying a treat for all of the kids who had gathered again, and then we were off to the huge farmers market. I was interested to learn that this building was erected by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (of Tower fame), but less interested in trying every exotic fruit that Willy bought for us to sample. The morning was rounded out by a cooking demonstration at a gourmet restaurant, and by the time our meal was ready, none of us were all that hungry.
When we got back to the hotel, we learned that Karen's guts had been betraying her since the train the day before (lucky she still had lots of drugs, but it might explain why she seemed so awkward as we all clapped her down the aisle), and she tentatively joined us for the afternoon tours that were included with the trip. We drove out to Sacsayhuaman (which Randy always referred to as "Sexy Woman" every time Willy mentioned it; hilarious?), and marvelled at the giant stone construction. Coincidentally, this was a festival day at the site and there were many dance troupes performing that Willy said were authentic and not simply put on for the benefit of tourists. We did some shopping here (I got the girls baby alpaca fur hats) and Carmen discreetly pulled me aside to point out a display of "natural viagra", saying that the translation for its Spanish name was "pants buster". She covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed at the naughtiness of that and said, "I know Dave would have laughed if I had told him but I just knew I'd turn too red if I tried." We then returned to the city and stopped at a "typical family home"; complete with a dirt floor half covered in live guinea pigs and the skulls of ancestors recessed in the wall to watch over all:
We then made our way to the main square and toured the Cathedral, noting its blend of Western and traditional art:
(Yes, that's guinea pig being served at the Last Supper.) And from here we walked to the Sun Temple: a sacred Inca site that the Spanish tore down and reused the foundation of for one of their own churches (and while the Spanish-built church was eventually toppled in a earthquake and needed to be rebuilt, the foundations are still secure and immovable). Today you can see the entire history of Peru in this one building as one society builds upon another upon another, topped off with examples of modern architecture. This was another long day, but it wasn't over yet.
We attended another group dinner, this time with traditional panflute music being played, and over this dinner we made plans to go out as a group to Willy's favourite place in this, his hometown: Paddy's Irish Pub ("the Highest 100% Irish Owned Pub on the Planet at 11156 ft"). It was here (the dinner and the pub) that we got to know Sonny and Brenda better, and what interesting people they are; always sharply dressed and ready with a smile.
Originally from the Dominican Republic, the entire family has been living in Miami for most of their lives. They're a very close family and they often travel together; on this tour were Brenda, Sonny, their other sister, Millie, and their Mom (whose name I didn't catch; she doesn't speak much English). After the 2008 housing crisis, the family started buying up properties around the city, and they're all now partners in a huge real estate development company; and all live together (with children, too) in a large mansion where they have the room not to bump into each other if they don't want to, but are close enough to enjoy knowing each other is there. While Sonny is primarily a property manager for the company, Brenda is an Assistant District Attorney and she spends her spare time mentoring at-risk teenagers, running a program that keeps first time offenders out of jail. At the pub, Sonny told us the craziest story:
One day a buddy of his (a property flipper) asked Sonny to come give him a hand with some electrical work. He said sure, he just needed to collect some rent, but he'd be there right after. As Sonny and the buddy were hefting an air conditioner into a ground floor window, he happened to notice a couple of young guys in hoodies looking left and right along the sidewalk in the front of the house; remembering that the front door was wide open, Sonny turned to his friend and said, "We're going to die tonight." Sure enough, the young guys charged up to the house, pulled out a couple of guns, and told the men to get on their knees. Sonny did as he was told, and as the guys started yelling, "Give me all your money! Your wallets! Your cell phones!" Sonny calmly started taking everything (including a roll of cash from the rents and the keys to his new car, which is where he had uncharacteristically left his pistol) out of his pockets and laying it all on the floor, saying, "You can have everything, just don't kill us. Here it is, just don't kill us." The friend didn't have any money, and when the guys found out, one of them pistol whipped him and sent him crashing to the floor, blood flowing out of his scalp. Sonny noted that the guys were looking around anxiously now, peering out the window up and down the street, and when one of them said, "Get to the back of the house", Sonny knew that's where they were going to kill him. He bent to help his friend up off the floor, and as the others were anxious and jittery, looking around distracted, Sonny whispered to his buddy, "When we get to the hall, we gotta run out the front door and just keep running. If we go back to the kitchen with them, they will kill us." And when they got to the hall, they flew to the front door and escaped to safety.
As Sonny is a former Marine and licensed for a concealed carry in Florida, he says he will never spend another legal minute unarmed in his life. "I am nearly fifty years old, I am a father and a veteran, and I would rather die like a man with a gun in my hand than ever again be forced down onto my knees, begging for my life like a boy."
Sonny pointed out that Brenda refuses to carry a gun -- despite receiving threats through her job -- and when she shrugged at that announcement, I said to her quietly, "I understand exactly what Sonny is saying, but the fact is that he left that experience alive. Once each side in a confrontation is armed, somebody is getting shot." But she shrugged and smiled at that, too.
Meanwhile, Dave had been off on a crazy mission to find a bank machine in order to clear our group's bar tab (apparently Paddy's only takes cash and Dave felt we were seemingly in everyone's debt), and after a night of laughing and storytelling and just a wee bit of Cusqueña, we left for the hotel as even better friends.
Early the next morning, we left for the long drive up to Puno and Lake Titicaca. We travelled through so many geographical areas -- from plains to mountains to valleys and bush -- and I was so tired that I had a pleasant time resting my head against the window, watching the world go by. Along the way we stopped at a children's school: because of the teacher's strike we had been told that this planned trip would be cancelled and any school supplies we brought would be forwarded along, but this school was so poor that the teachers made an exception to the strike rules in order to welcome us; as our huge bus slowly made its way down the narrow streets, children came popping out of doorways, racing us down the hill. They gathered and we gathered and the children sang songs, and we made our offerings, and while I found it all very sweet, I obviously didn't find it as emotionally touching as it was for the many amongst us who were hugging the kids with tears in their eyes. We eventually stopped at Wirococha -- the largest Inca temple ever discovered -- but as it is mostly ruins, I was kind of feeling a ruins overload and looked and nodded and headed back for the bus. Somewhere along the way we stopped at an open air market, where locals in their brightly woven clothing were selling blankets and hats and other souvenirs, and I didn't even bother getting off the bus; though I was enchanted watching the llamas and alpacas grazing on the near plains with the Andes in the background. The remainder of the drive was taken up with a showing of the movie Contiki (about a Swedish scientist who wanted to prove that Peruvians could be descended from Polynesians, so he built a canoe and crossed the Pacific in it), but I wasn't very interested; my eyes kept closing, and reopening upon the stunning and ever-changing landscape. I needed this day to relax, and I got what I needed out of it. We arrived at the Jose Antonio Puno hotel on the shores of Lake Titicaca, and at the highest elevation of our trip (12500 ft), it was difficult even to climb the stairs up to the second floor lobby. We had a nice dinner together with our friends, and ever the adventurer, Dave tried the alpaca steak:
Once again, Willy had a special dessert brought out for Randy and Karen's anniversary, and once again Dave and I were pleased that the fuss wasn't for us. The next morning, the altitude was really getting to us -- it was breathtaking just getting dressed, but our day on Lake Titicaca was another that I had been looking forward to, and in the end, it was even better than I had expected. We made our way to a boat launch near the hotel (and it was while we were on our way here that we discovered that now Randy had spent the night before with stomache trouble; I was either born under a lucky star or it was all the cute furry critters everyone else was eating that were taking their revenge), and from the dock, it was hard to imagine just how big this lake is. We climbed into the speed boat (Ed chuckling to himself again about Gilligan's Island) and with our captain Elvis at the helm and our tour guide Ivan on the microphone, we made our way out to the Floating Uros Islands.
Stepping out onto this island made of woven reeds felt just slightly more stable than walking on a trampoline, and the few children who live here (and are too young to be paddled out to the school island) are so used to tourists that they spend half their time playing with and half their time ignoring all of us smiling and waving adults. The women of the island gave us a lecture on how the islands are made and described their lives there.
And here's what I found most interesting: The residents of these islands are a separate people from the rest of Peru, having been driven out onto the lake by the marauding Incas. They found this unique way of surviving, and have been living apart like this for five hundred years; Ivan told us that it was only in his parents' time -- with the encroaching reality of needing cash for medicine and small conveniences -- that the islanders willingly allowed contact with tourists. Ivan also told us that his own great-grandmother is alive at 101 and still plays volleyball; a fact he credits to the simple diet and clean living that the island life provided. Now, however, with climate change, the lake level is dropping and the reeds that these people have relied on for five hundred years -- what they use for shelter and food and countless other purposes -- are starting to die off. Looking at that little girl running around on the brink between traditional living and its imminent collapse wasn't a very good feeling; it's easy to ignore the Chicken Little climate alarmists until you meet people who have so little control over their fate.
Everyone was invited into a different home by one of the women, and Olga welcomed us and we sat around and smiled with no common language. After the visit, she showed us her handicrafts -- primarily embroidery -- and we bought a wall hanging with traditional Peruvian motifs on it (I assume they're not from Olga's own people's traditions; it's all pretty Inca looking but I guess that's what sells).
^Note the solar panel they use to power their lights and televisions (they may keep themselves separate, but they're hardly Amish). Another interesting fact: there is a special outhouse island that the residents use, and they paddle out there whenever the need strikes (the waste apparently filters down through extra thick layers of reeds that "totally purifies" everything before it joins the lake. Uh huh.) We were then taken out on a huge woven reed boat:
Every boat, with up to ten tourists on it, would be rowed by just two women out onto the lake, and being smart alecks, Dave and Randy eventually offered to give our rowers a break. They took over the oars and the women laughed at their puny arms and poor technique, and claiming his weakened state, Randy then declared he and Dave didn't want to embarrass the women any longer and they took readily to the easy life:
We returned to shore, and in the afternoon had our final excursion of the trip: to the Sillustani Tombs, a pre-Inca burial grounds that used towers to house mummies and artefacts. This also involved plenty of climbing, and as I've said, we never did get used to the altitude. It was slow climbing, with frequent breaks, and when we got near the top of the mount, a group of school children came running up from the bottom of the hill, laughing and jostling and not breaking a sweat. Dave mumbled something about tripping them.
When we got back to the hotel, Willy had been able to get a new room for Randy and Karen -- they had trouble sleeping in their stuffy room the night before, and with a common balcony that ran across their entire floor, they weren't able to open the sliding door that served as their only window -- and Dave offered to help Randy moved their suitcases. Willy looked nervous about this somehow, but waved them off before he got back to his work in the lobby (Willy was always at work in the lobby, making our lives easy and smooth), and Dave and Randy followed a female manager up to the old room. On the trip, Randy had bought two identical hats in different colours, and when they entered the room, he and Dave each grabbed a hat, put it on their heads, grabbed a suitcase and returned to the elevator where the manager was waiting. As the elevator doors closed, the manager looked nervously from one of the men to the other and said, "You do know the suite we're moving you to only has one, king-sized bed?" Randy smiled hugely and said, "Well, I should hope so." They brought the bags into the new room as the manager scurried away, and then returned to the lobby. Dave and Randy being gay for each other became the next big joke that they shared with us. Then Willy came over and said, "Please don't tell anyone else, but I was able to get another suite for Dave and Krista, and you can now move into it, too. Special for the anniversary couples." Ah, that's why he was nervous: Willy thought Dave would see Randy and Karen's new big suite and get jealous, so he felt the need to arrange for another; and someone had told him we were being left out of the anniversary celebrations. Problem was, I loved the room we were in: it was on a corner with a lake view, and our balcony was private and secure. Ah well, we moved into the new suite -- huge but not as comfortable as what we had before -- and were grateful for the considerateness.
That night Willy was able to make a reservation for us at a restaurant in Puno that had been recommended to Randy and Karen by gourmand friends, and although Sonny, Brenda and their family had been initially invited, in the end, it was just us core six and our new friend Willy: the symmetry of that was pleasing. The food was delicious (although the altitude seemed to suppress our appetites), the talk was friendly and fun, and as we looked out over Lake Titicaca from the private room Willy had managed to secure for us, it was impossible not to feel that on a trip of a lifetime, we had been particularly blessed.
The next morning, we boarded the bus and headed for the airport in Juliaca (both times we passed through we were warned that this is a dangerous town, famous for manufacturing knockoffs and importing contraband from Bolivia; literally a den of thieves). Waiting in the airport departures lounge, Randy said that someone turned to him and said, "You're on the other Gate 1 tour, aren't you?" (We had crossed paths with another tour group several times, and no one in their group was ever smiling or appearing to be enjoying themselves at all. At one stop, Randy went onto their bus and pretended to belong there, and no one would play along so he sighed and left. On our bus, that would have killed.) So Randy turned to this woman and said yes, he was on a tour too. And the woman said, "You got all the good hotels and it's not fair." As Randy recounted this story, he said that he explained we were the luxury tour and it is fair if we were getting what we paid for. Now, this was a surprise to me: When I was looking at the tour packages on Groupon, I was initially going to buy "Affordable Peru", which didn't include the Nazca Lines at the beginning. As I tried to figure out how to add a sidetrip to Nazca, it looked like it would cost about the same to just upgrade to "Luxury Peru", and I really thought the added cost was just for the extra couple of days and the trip to Pisco/Paracas (and the flyover itself). I hadn't been consciously looking for a "luxury" option, but that certainly explained the impressive accommodations everywhere.
Another Randy story: Karen can get claustrophobic on planes and prefers an aisle seat, and when she and Randy were assigned window and middle seats for this flight, she felt a little panicky (Dave and I also had window and middle, so we couldn't help her out.) As an older, traditionally dressed Peruvian woman took their aisle seat, Randy scanned the rows and saw that up ahead, what appeared to be her son was sitting alone on an aisle seat of his own. With some hand gestures, he arranged for Karen and the son to switch spots, and Randy had an uneventful flight beside the pair...until the descent began. Once the plane started going down, the woman pulled the hood of her sweater up over her face until only her mouth was uncovered, and then from the folds of her clothing, she brought out different coloured paints and started tracing them over her cheeks and brows, chanting something under her breath, all while Randy tried to watch surreptitiously out the corner of his eye. She then started rocking as the plane descended even more, and she pulled out a handful of oily tar-like stuff from somewhere and began smearing it all over her face, the rocking becoming more pronounced and the chanting getting louder as she appeared to be praying into her cupped hands. It all reached a fever pitch as the wheels hit the tarmac, and as Randy risked a glance over at the son to make sure everything was okay, he watched in amazement as the woman threw back her hood, produced an iPhone from some secret pocket and started texting, chatting happily with her son beside her. Surreal.
This Saturday was to be everyone's last full day in Peru, but in an odd bit of scheduling, while nearly everyone would have time for some sightseeing in Lima the next day before heading to the airport, our flight was for 12:30 a.m., and we were scheduled to leave our hotel again at 9 p.m. (I for some reason thought that our flight was for 12:30 a.m. the following night and I had been looking forward to really exploring Lima on the Sunday.) As we struggled through weekend traffic from the airport to the hotel, I wondered if it really even made sense to get there just to turn around again. We got to the hotel, were given a room like everyone else on the tour, and after a bit of refreshening, went down to meet with our new friends in the bar before the farewell dinner. Sitting there with Karen and Randy, Ed and Carmen, and Brenda and Sonny, I was awestruck to think how close we had all gotten in just over a week. And yet, when Karen started asking if Brenda would be around in February -- when she and Randy and their family were scheduled to have a week at her father's Florida condo -- and Brenda said yes, yes, come on down, and Karen turned to me and asked if we had enough notice to come, to bring the girls, to all get together...I was all like, "Hold on sistah, I'm not committing to nothing." And there must be something wrong with me that I wasn't looking for more: this trip had been perfect, the company had been wonderful, and why couldn't that just be that?
Apparently, this is Brenda's first ever selfie
We went in to the farewell dinner, and Willy ordered wine for just Karen, Randy, Dave and me -- taking extra care of all the anniversary celebrants -- and after he gave a warm and lovely speech, Randy raised his glass and made a speech of his own. Everything was ending on such a lovely note, and then I got a notification from American Airlines that our flight was delayed and wouldn't be leaving Lima until 3:30 a.m. Noooooo.
I showed it to Willy and asked if we would still need to get the shuttle at nine, and after he looked into it, he said we did: you never knew what would happen once you got to the airport. So what was warm and fuzzy was starting to make me anxious, but on the other hand, I had already started my goodbyes and I didn't want to start over again. As dinner ended, we went around and said goodbyes to those people we had gotten to know less well, and it was a wonder to me: I haven't really given a sense of how relentless the jokes were between Randy and Dave, the interrupting and teasing of the various tour guides as they spoke to the whole group, and always in my mind I was wondering if that was getting on the nerves of our fellow travellers. But as we said goodbye, every single person had a comment about how nice it had been to travel with Dave, that he should never lose that sense of humour, that I was so lucky to have him. Even the loudmouth from Seattle had nice words for Dave. And of course, we had a few more heartfelt moments with the ones we had grown closest with.
Enough about goodbyes: we got on the shuttle on time and were dropped at the airport where we waited in the AA line for an hour and a half (we could see that the agents were doing what they could to make everyone happy, and appreciated that that took time. It was not unpleasant to swap travel stories with strangers in the lineup.) When we finally got to the front, the agent said, "Since you're going to Toronto, we're going to send you down to the Air Canada desk and put you on their direct flight at 3." We're going to leave earlier on a direct flight? Well, okaaaaay.
As we headed for the Air Canada desk, which was just about to open for the flight to Toronto, Dave pulled out his Premier Member card and we waltzed right past the throng of people who had been waiting for who knows how long (and this time I didn't feel guilty for jumping the queue because I had put in my time). We were the first to the desk, checked in, and Dave asked if there were any upgrades available. The agent said that they couldn't tell until closer to boarding. We went to the gate, waited more or less patiently, and just before boarding Dave asked again and yes, we would be upgraded to Business Class. Leaving earlier on a direct flight and comfortable seats and services? Oh yesssssss. (And as a happy corollary, Air Canada credited Dave with the mileage for our "expensive" flights and that will allow him to maintain Premier Membership for another year despite having travelled less for business this year.)
Okay, according to my word count, I'm at 34 pages with this story (if I was participating in NaNoWriMo, I'd have finished a third of the goal in two days; yikes!) and I know I've rushed some parts and may have carefully recorded what will turn out to be all the unimportant bits, but I do hope this leaves an impression of how I was gobsmacked by our trip to Peru. It's a beautiful country with friendly people, great food, and a palpable sense of living history. In this particular case, I was wrong to worry that a tour group could be a drag (based on this experience, I would probably try one again; but who knows if you can get this lucky twice; at least I wouldn't be a rookie next time). Most importantly: I got to celebrate my anniversary with my favourite person in the world; someone who will stand by my side when he can hardly stand at all; as he has for twenty-five plus years, Dave committed himself to making my dreams come true (and was a good sport every time I insisted on a selfie).
Nazca!
Uros!
Our last morning on the shores of Lake Titicaca!
And to bring it full circle to the original Tunesday post, here is tour guide Willy's favourite version of El Condor Pasa, by Japan's 12 Girl Band. It's interesting to note how well this Peruvian melody translates into the traditional instruments of such a different culture, and surely this argues my point for the universality of the song itself:
