Peru Travels: Extra Anecdotes

Ok, with more time to gather my thoughts I have remembered various little things that I left out in my story that you may appreciate. In no particular order, really:

- in Peru they eat guinea pigs*, or, as they call them, cuyes ("coo-eez") but they also celebrate them. We kept coming across cuy paraphernalia, like shirts and bumper stickers with cartoon cuyes on them doing funny things.  Best of all, they sell little stuffed cuy dolls make with alpaca fur, that are some of the softest, cutest things I have ever felt. So even though we were a little weirded out by the cuys-are-so-cute-that-we-also-eat-them operation goin' on, we fell in love with the little cuyes (and also with saying with word "cuy"). 

- In Cuzco our airport transfer didn't show up, so we shared a cab with a pleasant Argentinian lady who was in the same boat as us. We agreed to the total price of 30 soles for the 4 of us and were dismayed to see that her contribution was just 5 soles.  I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt--maybe she's just shit at mental math! But our cab driver actually scolded her for cheating us and she still stuck by her measly 5 soles, so as soon as she got out the cab driver went on a nice long rant about how Argentinians are always pulling crap like that, them and the Israelis, won't fork out the money that something is worth because they think they shouldn't have to pay it, blah blah blah casual racism colliding with cultural differences. We were politely laughing along and eventually he shifted to a more positive topic: how great Cuzco is! "Tourists are completely safe here, no one ever steals anything. The only thing they might steal is your heart!" Do they teach all cab drivers to give that spiel to gringo girls arriving from the airport, or does this guy deserve his own TV show? 

- As I mentioned, we got up super early for The Big Day and left our hostel to get in line for the bus around 4:15am. As we're trotting down the street, a girl opens a door to hop in the building to our right and bumpin' club music and flashing lights pour out onto the sidewalk where we're walking. We were super disoriented for a second and then realized, yes, that is a nightclub, and yes, some people are still awake from yesterday and are in fact partying in that nightclub as we are on our way to head up to some Inca ruins. Worlds collide! 

- The train rides were an interesting experience. One of the better moments came when we were waiting in line to board and the man in front of me, who was travelling by himself and had some European accent that I couldn't place, turned around to ask me excitedly if this was "the train that went UP Machu Picchu?" He did a fantastic hand gesture to go along with it, his hand going diagonally up a mountain like he imagined this train was going to do. I had to let him down easy and explain that no, this train did not go up the mountain, it took us to the town at the foot of the mountain. "And then there's another train that goes UP Machu Picchu?" Hand gesture again. No, sir, I'm sorry, there is no train that goes UP Machu Picchu. "So this is the only train?" This is the only train. He looked a little heartbroken. I can't blame him--how awesome would it be to have a train going UP Machu Picchu??

- One of our more troubling mornings was spent in the Cuzco airport. When we first got there they tried to convince us to switch to another flight (if we change to tomorrow we get $50!) and we politely refused, but it turned out that our flight was over an hour late anyway. The Cuzco airport only has 5 gates, and all five were being used by other flights that also had boarding and departure times close to ours but were not ours. The gate we were first assigned was actually boarding for a flight later than ours, but when I asked the lady if we were in the right place her answer was, "I don't know, I don't work for that company." The only person in the terminal who did work for our airline was busy boarding passengers onto another flight so we waited and waited, and there were a lot of us waiting, and eventually tempers flared. An hour and a half later they shuffled us to a different gate and we were able to board, and... what?... what's this?... first class?? Yes. We had been bumped up to first class without realizing it.  Our patience had paid off and we got to sip orange juice and watch HBO and eat fancy grilled vegetables while the plebeians were herded like cattle into the rear.  IT WAS SO SATISFYING. 

- Ok mom, this last one is for you. Our last morning in Peru we had an early flight leaving Lima, and since the airport is almost an hour outside of Lima that meant getting up and hitting the road EARLY. We had arranged a cab through our hostel for 5am, and were outside waiting for it when we got a nice vision of just how well-policed the neighborhood of Miraflores is.  A group of teenagers were walking past, not causing any trouble or acting drunk or anything, just a big group of them heading somewhere, and a cop car was also driving past. As we watched them head down the street it clicked in my head that the cop car was just tailing them! He was just following right behind them, slow as you please.  What does that tell us? #1 they don't mess around here. #2 there was literally nothing more pressing for the police to attend to than tailing some teenagers.  As if we needed further proof, once our cab came and we were on our way another cop showed up and pulled us over. Why?  "Just to check in on the security of the ladies." Whaaaaat. YOU have a nice day, sir.  Mom I swear this is true haha



* and no I did NOT try one. you know me well enough by now.