Posts filed under 'Peru'
This weekend I climbed 2700 m (8,640 ft) to the top of an active perfect-cone volcano named, Misti. The volcano reaches up from the beautiful city of Arequipa, peaking at just over 5,800 m (18,560 ft). While gasping for oxygen at the top, I looked longingly at the city below and choose the bar at which I would celebrate this endeavor.
3 large beers later, the weight settled from the physically and mentally demanding climb. The liquor had befriended the lush deep-within my soul and joyously we frolicked.
I found myself talking to the “belligerent drunk at the bar” and his company was entertaining until he demanded the music to be turned up by yelling repeatedly at the owner. I tryed distancing myself from this lunatic by darting to another table, only to fall in the hands of a sketchy musician. “Lets get outta here and you can listen to my band,” he spouted in broken English. After refusing several times, I reluctantly agreed. That night he walked me across town through dark neighborhoods and emotions raced through my pulsing artery’s…
Is he going to kill me?
Where are his buddies going to jump out from?
If I scream RAPE will anybody come help?
Walking ahead of me, this hombre turned down a dark alley… NO WAY I thought and took off full sprint in the opposite direction. Running wildly though an unfamiliar part of the city made something pull me in totally new direction… this something was my colon. The rumbling within my gut took over and panic engulfed me. Flipping the switch on my survival shit instinct is not a new concept, and I quickly scanned for any possible bathroom spot. WHAT LUCK! A dirt drainage ditch right off the main road. The only problem was it was about 15 feet down. So, I scrambled out on a concrete platform and hopped onto a crossing drainpipe about 6 feet down. Then, finished by jumping the remaining 9 ft, landing on a lot of trash and weeds. Hey, when you gotta go… you gotta go.
During the violent session, I looked down and by my left leg was a right leg…(no, not my right leg). It was a human bone, a femur! Totally freaking out, I did a crab walk against the concrete side and distanced myself from these human remains. Hideous thoughts rang through my head…
“These are the remains of some tourist like me, he was down here doing his business when a pack of crazy homeless people came out and murdered him and ate his flesh. What if they come back? Ooh no… I’m a dead man!”
As if trying to see out both sides at once, my eyes quickly darted up and down the dark ditch and rushed to finish the dirty deed. I need to get the hell outta here… then I realized I was 15 ft down with no way to get back up from this death-pit. Like an animal in a glass cage, I scratched relentlessly at the sides of the concrete wall. Finally, I found a ledge and climbed out. While taking a breather at the top, I looked down into the ditch at the place where the bone resided…
“They will never believe this story on-line if I don’t have proof,” and with that thought, I plunged myself back in the canal of carnage and scooped up the bone. It was too large to fit into my small backpack so I had to stuff it between the straps and my back. An old nasty human leg was rubbing my back all the way to the hostel where I had my large backpack stored. I asked the man at the front desk for “mi mochila” (my backpack) and he pointed at the side of my body where the bone had wedged its way out. “Uhhh…. souvenir turistica,” I spouted. “A gift from a store.” With a puzzled look he retrieved my backpack and I darted out the door while stuffing the bone deep inside. Mark was in Lima… and I didn’t have a camera… so the bone traveled with me back to the coast, so we could document the find.
After a short photo session and a long talk with a gal that works at a hostel… The bone currently resides on display in Hotel España amongst the marble statues and haunted paintings, with a handwritten tag that says, “Inca Bone (Femur de Inca)”.
October 31st, 2007
After viewing the web-page, a couple from New Zealand (named James and Tori) told me… “It isn’t realy a travel log. You pretty much describe malaria dreams and tell random stories.” Well yes… So, to indulge them and you, I will tell what epic things we have done in Peru and Bolivia.
BRAD has
Hiked to the bottom of the deepest canyon in the world.
Swam, bathed, and “aqua deuced” in Lake Titicaca.
MARK has
Moutain biked “The World’s Most Dangerous Road”.
Golfed the worlds highest official golf course.
Are you happy… it’s more like a travel log. Now, time for a story… this one involves prostitutes and drinking.
In Cuzco, we were lodging in a hostel with a bar and theme nights. This night was TOGA Saturday, with prizes for best dressed and most revealing costume. Mark insisted on wining a prize so he crafted his toga out of clear plastic and created a diaper out of the plain white toga’s they gave. Of course, they ran out of regular togas and I had to create mine out of a blood red bedsheet.
The hostel wouldn’t allow outside alcohol in (as most of you know this is not going to fly with me… I HATE paying bar prices). So, I bought a bottle of Pisco, which is some sort of weird rum, and put it into 650ml beer bottle. All was well until a funky Irish drinking game arose… after each round a quarter would spin, the multiple losers of the game drink until it stops. Everybody else was drinking beer… I had Pisco (40% alcohol). Needless to say I was plastered. Mark kept in spirit by pounding beers and hitting a 6 person alcohol bong, multiple times.
A few hours later the bar closed and they issued armbands for some discotech, called Chaos. (I tried waking-up passed out Mark… but he wouldn’t budge.) Walking down coy fish filled steps into 80′s dance music paradise, wearing nothing but a toga, was quite the experience. I walked slowly up to the bar to grab a drink, when some local girl grabbed my hand said “Billar” and pulled me on to the dance floor. Local girls apparently eat up foreign white boys… and I owned the dance floor. Until, a taller better dancing and looking Gringo from the hostel showed up to say hello… and stole my thunder. Like a heard of sheep they followed him around the floor, and I had to resort to the “B-Squad”.
It was around 3:00 in the morning when the hostel-group decided to go to another dance club. Somebody said it was in walking distance… so I took off… and got lost.
Four boys with beers in hand yelled from a red taxi. I hopped in. They tossed me a beer and I started talking with them. I said, “Take me home (change clothes, get my knife) to grab the remains of my pisco, then lets party!” These wild boys kept saying dancing girls… so I thought strip club. After they paid my way in, they finally revealed what this was… a prostitute dance bar. (You had to pay to dance with the women)
I told them I didn’t have any money to which they replied, ”Its OK, your a gringo, they think you have money.” Right away the song from Grease came on; pretending to be John Travolta I had 3 Latinas at my side singing the part of Olivia Newton-John. (Yep it’s weird) But, as soon as they figured out I wasn’t going to pay them, they left… and I was again sin dancing partners. After the first stripper left the stage (yep right on the bar… hella weird) the boys signaled it was time to leave. We entered the street and were blinded by the morning light.
October 22nd, 2007
Rushing wallstreet bus stations are filled with auctioneers constantly yelling place names. The shouting that occurs from each booth can be very overwhelming at first…. then at some point the musical rhythm of their raspy voices, becomes soothing, pleasant, and will queue you in for low bus fares. Usually, the person trying the hardest to push their bus to a certain destination, will give you the best price. There was a lady with a look of desperation in her eyes, as her soft voice pleaded for Cusco, I pounced like a wolf on a sheep. 25 soles ($8 US) for a 16 hour night bus ride… Hell yah!
I sat in my carefully chosen comfy reclining chair, opened my window to overlook the hatch where my bag resided, and looked up at the television set wondering what movie will be shown. This is the life… or so I thought.
A huge Peruvian woman walked up the steps huffing and grunting with every step. As a smell of body odor, cat piss and death entered my nose. I knew she was going to sit right next to me. The old bag was dressed in a brown tenderly animal hide with bead like objects dangling from their loins. In her dark wrinkly hands was a huge animal skin bag… it was frighteningly hideous. With a loud throaty cough, she plopped down putting her entire weight on to my un-budging shoulder and thousands of individual spiky hairs from her coat, burrowed like razors into my arm. The stench was so incredible; I literally gagged and stuck my head out the window. Too frightened to look her in the face for fear that this witch would curse me… I faced the window and quietly wept.
It has been 6 hours. I awake to a dark bus, most people are quietly sleeping, but the brunjo next to me is humming and rocking her plump body wildly in her seat, bumping me with every revolution. Her chant is dark and evil. I roll up in a fetal position and try to cry myself back to sleep, but another smell enters the bus. This smell is violent and quite pungent… the smell of shit. Her movements stopped. Did this witch just crap herself? I clenched my eyes shut and tried to escape into some dream like paradise, her smell lingered for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the smell subsided and I opened my eyes and she was gone, leaving a dark wet spot in her seat. Returning from the bathroom about 20 minutes later, she paced back and fourth by the wet seat. Did she forget where she sat… or is this some sort of ancient South American after-crapping-yourself ritual? With a loud grunt she sat and again the smell of body odor, cat piss, death and now poo entered my nose…
Only 6 hours left.
October 12th, 2007
Amongst marble statues, ancient tiled floors, ornamental ghostly lacquered walls and dark Dutch renaissance paintings… a wondrous green glow illuminates a silver statue of armour. A steel plated glove beacons onlookers to come closer and pear into the hollow slit where the eyes of a warrior once resided. Carefully standing on tiptoes trying not to rub against the shiny metal outstretched arms, for fear of an instant reanimation, I looked into the dark slit. As if looking into the infinite abyss of space, my eyes probed into the past. Lost in a daydream my chest bumped the sword, thinking the statue would spring to life I jumped back in slightly startled in fear, then laughed…
“WWSD – What Would Scooby Doo,” I thought, while looking out from one of the overgrown crawling weed terraces at the street, three stories below. I almost expected the mystery machine to pull up and the Gang to run out. If a ghost flew by at this moment… chasing a multi-hamburger holding shaggy, I wouldn’t be surprised.
This was the feeling of my hostel for the night, even though there wasnt a armor statue… there damn well should have been.
The bathrooms felt comical… with totally pink enclosed walls with a sprinkling of flowers. This used to be a detention center to calm down the insane people that visted this haunted asylum in the past. Come on Fred where is your slightly gay fashion sense when I need you.
Pulling the heavy dusty covers over my little body while starring at a horribly dark painting of wild strokes; produced in a madness only experienced by the twisted mind of jack the ripper, during a killing spree. The brown and black rushed streaks, speckled with fiery bright flame colors, gave a village burning feeling of death. Sleep tight I thought… and wished Velma was there saying something comforting while stroking my hair.
Climbing up some hidden ladder to the very top of the building to which I expected to find a mad scientist working away on a transmitter to power some un-human beast but I found a parrot and some doves in cages. Comforting I thought… then as if possessed by some demon they flapped wings and thrashed the cages. Damn it Daphne couldn’t you have been drawn by Disney and sing to these devils.
Ok…Ok… so I am kind of over exaggerating, but my hostel for the night does have creepy haunted museum written all over it.
Well my journey to Peru started with Mark getting his passport stolen in Quito the day before our flight. So there was no choice but to leave him in Ecuador and fly to Peru. While he waits for his passport, I have been wondering the historic city center and viewing huge city squares and numerous churches.
Hiking with my backpack from the airport presented my first challenge… and the only time I hadn’t felt safe in the journey. I took a wrong turn and ended up in a bad part of town. About twenty people sat scattered about the sidewalk, on a back alley road, and stood in unison when I entered their vision. Hand on my knife… I took confident steps forward as they, holding beers in their hands, came closer. Two children kicking a ball burst out of a neighbourhood house and I sighed with relief, as if I forgot to breathe. I asked them if they knew where the San Francisco Church was. They told me to stop and not go any further… and get out, in broken English. Who am I to listen to those fools… HA just kidding… I got the hell out of there!
Some crazy girl, named Sandra talked me into heading down to a town, called Arequipa, at the base of an active volcano, with her… which is halfway to where I will hopefully meet up with Mark sometime next week, long as everything goes well.
October 2nd, 2007
I may not be in Quincy for the drinking but I am growing the stache for spirit…
I love you boys.
October 1st, 2007
