Mentiras!
My goodness. Peru goes between relaxing, wonderful and interesting to difficult and frusterating. I guess the last time I wrote was before boarding the bus in Cuzco. Laura had randomly met two old ski team friends and we went to visit them in the morning. They had already spent two months in South America and gave us some deet, zinc for Lauras sore throat and some advice. They told us that none of their buses had bathrooms despite the fact that they had been told repeatedly that they would. Laura and I had purchased the medium price tickets and had been assured that their would be a bathroom on the 14 hour journey to Ica. I was a little concerned but figured that we had paid a bit more and deserved bathrooms. Upon arrival we found our bus and saw that there were no bathrooms. I asked the driver if we were in fact on the right bus and told him we had paid for bathrooms. He told me that there had been mechanical problems and the good bus was broken down. I then went inside to talk to the ticket agents and they told me that the bus with bathrooms had been sent to Arequipa instead. I should have called the man on the lie at this point, but in Spanish I am not that quick. I did insist that we had paid for bathrooms and should get a discount. He lowered the price from 60 soles each to 55 which was more than I expected. At this point we figured that we probably should not believe much more she had said. For example she had promised videos. When a man started turning the TV on we were like, wow she was telling the truth about that. We definitely spoke too soon. The movie was some sort of military thrillar with helicopter explosions and hot female cadets in skimpy clothing. Unfortunetely there were no words, neither the original English or the dubbed Spanish. It was just multilingual fuzzyness.
She had also told us that they would sell food. This was kind of true. We stopped at random markets in small villages along the way and had people shouting at us from the street to buy bread. Sometimes they let them on the bus where they went up and down the ailes trying to hassle you to buy something.
I decided not to drink any water for the 14 hours on the bus because i had no idea if we would stop for bathrooms. It turns out that we stopped a lot. And by a lot I mean that the trip took 20 hours. Another lie. I used one of the scariest bathrooms of my life. There was an old building that said bano, but there were no lights inside. A man asked me what I was looking for and I said el baño and he told me to follow him down a dark hall. I wasnt entirely convinced but when he reached the end, turned the light on and told me it was fine I decided to check it out. Indeed there were stalls, with holes in the concret floors labed with pictures of men and women like normal bathrooms. I was glad to get out of there without any crazy incidents. I could see why lots of the men were just randomly peeing in public around the bus station. (Did I mention that I was the only one with blonde hair on the entire bus, we were the only tourists)
20 hours later we stepped out of the bus in Ica and were immediately harrassed by multiple men selling hotel rooms, taxis and information. They told us everywhere was peligoros(dangerous) except where they wanted to take us. I stumbled around, still tired from not really sleeping and getting bus sick on all the corners, but refused to give them my money. We finally found a dirty gross place to eat breakfast and decided to go to the museum to escape the constant harrassment by taxi drivers and other salesmen. The museum was cool, quiet and free of anyone else. It also had a really clean bathroom where we were able to put iodine in the water and rehydrate after 20 hours of not drinking. It had a great exhibit on mummys, including a special place teaching about the study of diseases in ancient people with the appropriate x rays and bones. It was really cool. We also learned about trepidation where people had part of their skull removed. After the museum we decided to leave Ica promptly, happened upon a bus leaving for Pisco in five minutes and hopped aboard.
Laura sat next to a girl, and I had two seats to myself. A man with a black breifcase hopped aboard and set his things down next to me. He then stood up and proceeded to give some sort of speech to the bus about hard work, studying and other things I am not quite sure of. Then he showed me a box of mechanical pencils and began a sales pitch to the bus. He asked all of us what they were. They looked a lot like pens so everyone, including Laura and I told him they were pens. Then he announced, everyone, including the two tourists told me that these are pens. But they are really pencils. He proceeded to demonstrate everything you could ever want to know about mechanical pencils to the bus. He made squares and circles on a pad of paper. He showed how to make the lead go out and back in. He showed how to erase and add more lead. I got the impression that no one had ever seen a mechanical pencil before. Then he proceeded to walk up and down the bus selling them. I was so grateful that he was selling to someone other than me, he didnt even try to sell me a pencil. I was shocked at how many people bought one for 1 sol.(33 cents). It was way more successful than selling things to tourists.
Since I was holding his bag he kept handing me things and asking for things and called me his secretary much to the enjoyment of the rest of the bus.
Upon arrival in Pisco an hour later we were again bombarded by people selling hostels and taxis and tours but managed to make it away after awhile. We bought some tickets to tarapoto in the northen jungle area of peru. there were some more difficulties with those tickets today as we had to fax our credit card number and our passports to the airline, but were afraid to do so because people are constantly lying to us and I couldnt really just trust the email in broken English telling me I needed to send some random guy a copy of my passport and credit card. With the help of the women working in the internet cafe we managed to work it out.
This morning we decided to forgo taking a tour to the Paracas national wildlife reserve and take a collectivo instead. These are the buses that the locals take and we only spent 50 cents to go the 15 miles to the reserve. We decided to walk the three kilometers along the beach instead of taking the tour bus despite the best efforts of a tour guide to convince us this was a bad idea. 5 or 6 kilometers later we arrived at the museum and the wind started to pick up. We realized that walking back acrosss a desert landscape in the wind would be kind of hard on our eyes. We wanted a taxi and were in the middle of no where with no one trying to sell us anything. Luckily four Peruvian boys who were also tourists had a taxi and we convinced them to let us ride with them back to Pisco. We tried to sit in the back but they wouldnt let us. They also would not accept money. We could not understand what was going on. They were not whistling at us, asking us about our boyfriends or asking for our money. We decided it was because they had money and were upper class. No one else would hire a taxi to drive that far. I was so happy not to be lied to.
Soon we will be in the Jungle. There may or may not be more internet.
She had also told us that they would sell food. This was kind of true. We stopped at random markets in small villages along the way and had people shouting at us from the street to buy bread. Sometimes they let them on the bus where they went up and down the ailes trying to hassle you to buy something.
I decided not to drink any water for the 14 hours on the bus because i had no idea if we would stop for bathrooms. It turns out that we stopped a lot. And by a lot I mean that the trip took 20 hours. Another lie. I used one of the scariest bathrooms of my life. There was an old building that said bano, but there were no lights inside. A man asked me what I was looking for and I said el baño and he told me to follow him down a dark hall. I wasnt entirely convinced but when he reached the end, turned the light on and told me it was fine I decided to check it out. Indeed there were stalls, with holes in the concret floors labed with pictures of men and women like normal bathrooms. I was glad to get out of there without any crazy incidents. I could see why lots of the men were just randomly peeing in public around the bus station. (Did I mention that I was the only one with blonde hair on the entire bus, we were the only tourists)
20 hours later we stepped out of the bus in Ica and were immediately harrassed by multiple men selling hotel rooms, taxis and information. They told us everywhere was peligoros(dangerous) except where they wanted to take us. I stumbled around, still tired from not really sleeping and getting bus sick on all the corners, but refused to give them my money. We finally found a dirty gross place to eat breakfast and decided to go to the museum to escape the constant harrassment by taxi drivers and other salesmen. The museum was cool, quiet and free of anyone else. It also had a really clean bathroom where we were able to put iodine in the water and rehydrate after 20 hours of not drinking. It had a great exhibit on mummys, including a special place teaching about the study of diseases in ancient people with the appropriate x rays and bones. It was really cool. We also learned about trepidation where people had part of their skull removed. After the museum we decided to leave Ica promptly, happened upon a bus leaving for Pisco in five minutes and hopped aboard.
Laura sat next to a girl, and I had two seats to myself. A man with a black breifcase hopped aboard and set his things down next to me. He then stood up and proceeded to give some sort of speech to the bus about hard work, studying and other things I am not quite sure of. Then he showed me a box of mechanical pencils and began a sales pitch to the bus. He asked all of us what they were. They looked a lot like pens so everyone, including Laura and I told him they were pens. Then he announced, everyone, including the two tourists told me that these are pens. But they are really pencils. He proceeded to demonstrate everything you could ever want to know about mechanical pencils to the bus. He made squares and circles on a pad of paper. He showed how to make the lead go out and back in. He showed how to erase and add more lead. I got the impression that no one had ever seen a mechanical pencil before. Then he proceeded to walk up and down the bus selling them. I was so grateful that he was selling to someone other than me, he didnt even try to sell me a pencil. I was shocked at how many people bought one for 1 sol.(33 cents). It was way more successful than selling things to tourists.
Since I was holding his bag he kept handing me things and asking for things and called me his secretary much to the enjoyment of the rest of the bus.
Upon arrival in Pisco an hour later we were again bombarded by people selling hostels and taxis and tours but managed to make it away after awhile. We bought some tickets to tarapoto in the northen jungle area of peru. there were some more difficulties with those tickets today as we had to fax our credit card number and our passports to the airline, but were afraid to do so because people are constantly lying to us and I couldnt really just trust the email in broken English telling me I needed to send some random guy a copy of my passport and credit card. With the help of the women working in the internet cafe we managed to work it out.
This morning we decided to forgo taking a tour to the Paracas national wildlife reserve and take a collectivo instead. These are the buses that the locals take and we only spent 50 cents to go the 15 miles to the reserve. We decided to walk the three kilometers along the beach instead of taking the tour bus despite the best efforts of a tour guide to convince us this was a bad idea. 5 or 6 kilometers later we arrived at the museum and the wind started to pick up. We realized that walking back acrosss a desert landscape in the wind would be kind of hard on our eyes. We wanted a taxi and were in the middle of no where with no one trying to sell us anything. Luckily four Peruvian boys who were also tourists had a taxi and we convinced them to let us ride with them back to Pisco. We tried to sit in the back but they wouldnt let us. They also would not accept money. We could not understand what was going on. They were not whistling at us, asking us about our boyfriends or asking for our money. We decided it was because they had money and were upper class. No one else would hire a taxi to drive that far. I was so happy not to be lied to.
Soon we will be in the Jungle. There may or may not be more internet.
posted by Cammie at 4:06 PM
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