Thursday, May 11, 2006

I was just reaching into the heavy tangle of blankets this morning when I noticed the giant spider merrily making his way along the valley where Michael's and my twin beds are pushed together. The spider was huge. Michael was in the bathroom. More than anything, I didn't want the spider to disappear before we could remove him. I called for Michael and he came running, thinking something horrible was happening. Which was true. The spider was so big that even Michael was a little uncertain, but he grabbed up the water bottle to do some smashing.

"Wait - wait - take a picture," I said, between shudders of terrified revulsion. So he grabbed his camera, took a picture and then smeared the poor things guts all over our blankets. As a result of the frenzy, we were going to be a few minutes late to meet Ben for lunch. And as we were walking down the street to the Plaza Mayor, we stopped for just a moment to look at the daily menu in front of one of the many, many restaurants on the way.

I heard someone call Michael and looked around even though it's a common enough name. And then the voice added, "and Megan!" The Belgians were calling us from yet another restaurant across the street. This would be our fourth city seeing them, and the second time we'd run into them purely accidentally.

They were still traveling with their English friends that we'd met in Lima, but were about to split up as the English couple were going on a trek and the Belgians were taking the train to Machu Picchu. It was great to see them and we talked for a minute, but Ben was waiting in the Plaza de Armas, so we quickly made plans to meet for dinner at seven.

At lunch with Ben, he invited us to take a walk with him up to Sacsayhuman (yes, the infamous Inca ruin pronounced sort of like "sexy woman"). Michael and I figured it was a good idea to get a little exercise in preparation for the big trek, so we dropped off our laptop and then headed up there. The first phase was a long flight of stone steps leading up from one of the side streets near our hostel. After just a few steps I was completely winded. "If I can't even walk up a flight of stairs," I panted, "how am I going to do Salkantay?"

It was a joke, but I was also serious. Between the altitude and my general lack of fitness, what if I just plain can't do it? Continuing up out of the valley of the city, we passed a church where an indigenous woman and a little girl coaxed us into taking photos of them with their llama for a donation.

Michael hates taking photos like that, but he gave in this time and took a few shots. We continued up the trail and I started to feel a bit better about hiking. After a much shorter time than I expected, we had reached the huge, perfectly fitted stones that make up the ruins at Sacsayhuman.

But then someone wanted us to buy a ticket. We weren't sure if we needed one or not, and there followed a long and confused discussion about what exactly the ten-day tourist boleto would entitle us to. In the end we decided to skip Sacsayhuman for the day and possibly come back in the future. In the meantime, we had determined that it was free to hike to the large white statue of Christ in the other direction. No sooner had we turned away when two of the guys came running after us. One spoke English and one didn't, and we held our conversation in a mix of both languages.

We could get in for less, one told us. No thanks, we said. Well, how about this then, we could ride horses over to these other sites, and that would be free, except for the fifteen soles for the horses. I said I was afraid of horses. Not because it's true but because I realized I could say it perfectly in Spanish and who knows, they might back off. It didn't work. No, no, the horses were very tame, no reason to be afraid. Michael, not realizing I had said I was afraid, took some very macho offense and indignantly responded that we weren't afraid, we just didn't want to. But it's free. .Except for the fifteen soles. No thanks. Well, how about this.... Eventually we had to just walk away because they had an alternative for everything. "Come back after five o'clock," the English-speaking one called after us.

There were more llama ladies up at the base of the Christ statue, smiling and calling out, "take a picture." This time we declined. We hung out up there for a while, looking down over the vast panorama of the city. The airport, we noted, is right in the middle of things, something Michael insists on doing in Sim City, even though it's undesirable for high-wealth commercial offices. Eventually we started back down, taking the path in the opposite direction for variety. This was a more circuitous route, leading us through the outskirts of the city, along narrow alleys and down flights of stairs between the houses. We passed an old man as we went.

"Buenas tardes," Michael said.

"Buenas tardes," said the old man.

"Buenas tardes," I said.

The man wrinkled his forehead and looked at me sideways. He said nothing.

"Buenas tardes," Ben said.

"Buenas tardes," said the old man.

As we worked our way back towards the center of the city, we found an arty little cafe where we stopped to have a beer and chat. Ben wanted to know if I'd had any problems in Latin America being half black. He said his brother's girlfriend is black and faced some outright discrimination when the two of them went to Spain. I had to say, I just don't know.

Sometimes I've wondered if the hotel was really full or not, but there's been nothing outright, for sure. But how do I know what the deal is with, say, that old man who returned Michael's and Ben's greetings but not mine? He could have been thinking anything. "Does that dirty negrita actually think I'm going to say good afternoon to her?" or "What a mumbler. I have no idea what she just said." or "My wife hates it when I talk to young women and I just don't feel like dealing with the yelling today." Who knows? So I guess in fairness the answer has to be nope, no problems. Didn't love that staring in Honduras though.

Back at our hostel, I took a shower and Michael burned a CD for Ben on our laptop. Ben said he thought a German guy from his hostel might be expecting him in the plaza, so he went to get him and then we all went to meet the Belgians for dinner. (The English couple had to go to the briefing for their trek the next morning.) So there we were, Michael and me, a German, a Swiss, and two Belgians, and we were all speaking English. Michael and I didn't even feel we had to watch our vocabulary. They just all spoke great English.

It's very frustrating being monolingual. We've both made a lot of progress on Spanish, but not as much as we'd hoped, and certainly we can't speak Spanish as well as all those Europeans were speaking English. I'm determined to keep working at this if it takes me the rest of my life, and I'm equally determined that my children will speak at least two languages. It's really too bad that American schools don't focus on language until high school, because by then it's pretty much too late, unless you really work at it.

The conversation turned to our ages, and we found out that the German was twenty years old. Michael oh-so-helpfully pointed out that I was the oldest person at the table and could in fact be the German's mother. Which is so not true. Dinner was pretty good - four courses for twelve soles. I especially enjoyed my appetizer of palta con vinagre, a sliced avocado with a creamy vinaigrette sauce. I'm not sure when exactly aguacate became palta. Just Peru? South America in general? But whatever, it's delicious.

We haven't socialized much with others on this trip, so it was a nice change to get out with a big group. Ben's leaving for Machu Picchu tomorrow, but we're going to do the Sacsayhuman hike again tomorrow with Ruben and Katrien... Salkantay is looming ever closer and we need all the practice we can get.

 

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He seemed bigger in real life... Cuzco.

The journey to Sacsayhuman begins with a ton of steps. Cuzco.

Local models with llama, Cuzco.

Somewhere in the upper edges of Cuzco.

Cuzco's rooftops. View from the statue of Christ.

View of Cuzco from the somewhere near Christ statue.

Christ overlooks Cuzco... from behind the barbed wire.

Ben, Katrien, Ruben, Cuzco.