Peru Installment 1

Woohoo! It is the first of February. I have a lot to report. Dear almonds, it has been such a busy month! School starts tomorrow and I couldn’t be more unprepared or more excited for it to. I really miss Spanish class. After more than a month without the three hours of practice every morning, my Spanish has severely suffered. I can still string a sentence, but I have not been having much practice on my vocabulary and whatnot. Joy!

So, I am signed up for six classes right now… no way I am keeping all those. I have my Spanish VI, Portuguese II, French I, Meditation in Movement, The History of Women and Economics. I had a terrible Portuguese class last semester, so if I have the same teacher in level 2 this cycle, there is no way I am staying in that class, so I would take French instead. If Portuguese turns out to be okay, I will continue with that and give it priority, since I can take French back in Moscow. But if it does not, I would love to start on French, since that is the next language on my list. My list has to be conquered!

The Economics class would be perfect, if it would transfer over as either 201, 202, or 272. If I could get it for 272, that would be great! It would be REALLY hard to work in Econ in Spanish, but I have this minor that I have not even started on! I need to dig in.

So, since I last wrote, there are things that have happened that MUST be chronicled! I wrote on the first day of the year, posting a re-cap of everything for about two months. On the night of the first, Chelsea and I had tickets on a bus from Quito to Manta. This was an overnight bus and cost $10.

Let me tell you, that afternoon and evening before, I reviewed what I was packing at least 8 times, loading my water bottle with good water, packing tea bags for some relaxing cups along the way. I was checking over our schedule to make sure we had everything arranged, making last minute adjustments, and mostly just stressing about being on the road for so many days.

Chelsea and I met at the bus station at 10:00ish. I was there way early because I was nervous about our tickets. When her family finally pulled up to drop her off, Chelsea tried on my Pumas to make sure they would fit her for the trip, and we said goodbye to her host family. We sat on the steps of the bus station and watched as an old bus pulled into the station. What if we had to be on that bus! It was dirty and smelly and would not be comfortable.

Luckily, another bus pulled in and we climbed on that one. They were going to the same place, but one was for ten minutes earlier. Some people were kicked off the nice, new one to sit on the old one. I had moved up from my assigned seat since no one was sitting next to Chelsea and then someone moved into my old seat. That girl got in a little trouble with the stewardess, so we just kept our eyes down, pretending to be asleep. It worked!

The seats were fairly uncomfy for me, though apparently not for Chelsea. What was the trick for her? After being on a bus for SO long this last month, I have learned that the window seat is the very best because there is always something on your side that you can lean on. Plus, no one is bumping into you from the aisle. So Chelsea slept and I pretended to sleep.

7:00 AM dawned on Manta, a dirty little town that has a stupid US military base. Sorry for all those that enjoy war and the idea of killing other people to resolve conflict, but I find US presence on the shores of Ecuador as disrespectful and assuming. I refuse to be angry at troops, because they only have good in mind, but I refuse to fall into the stupid, “Support Our Troops” trap that calls for war through a false pretense of supporting the men who are willing to die in an effort to “uphold our country’s values.” I support everything about the troops. What I don’t support is the bureaucratic use of troops in a manner of conflict that is uncivilized and out-dated. Does anyone see a shadow of Vietnam in our current conflict? What good came of Vietnam? And what are the people doing to stop this idiocy? I’m included in that. Here I sit, criticizing without providing a solution. I am as bad as anyone. Rant over.

So Manta was a little boring at 7 in the morning on a Friday. The harbor was buzzing, full of men, whose greasy eyes were on us as we looked around. But seeing no reason to stay around, we took a bus to Puerto Lopez, where we could catch a bus to Ayampe, a tiny little one dirt road town where there were multiple hostels for surfer-bums to hang out. The bus was hot and walking was hot, so we stopped and Chelsea had a beer while I sucked on a Coca-Cola. We walked barefoot through the tiny little store/bar by the road and hung in the hammock while we cooled down.

The hostel we had planned to stay at (Finca Punta Ayampe) was at the very end of the dirt road. We walked for what seemed like so long, wanting to stop at every hostel we passed so we wouldn’t have to keep walking, but we persisted and were rewarded. Finca Punta Ayampe was the coolest place we had ever seen! There was a sign to the Recepción, but the bottom floor was open-air with tents set up and a beautiful staircase that said to take off shoes before climbing. When we got to the main floor, we were greeted in such a chill manner that we had no idea who was a guest and who was a hotel worker. The place was like a grown-up’s tree house, with hammocks and bean bags and couches everywhere and stairs to the upstairs rooms (where we would stay) and a deck that looked out to the beautiful and impressively clean beach. We left our bags in our rooms and were introduced to the other guests, which was the part that told us we wanted to hang out here for the rest of our lives. We chilled out in the sunshine on the deck and then took at four hour nap in our room! We were exhausted, but in no way upset at having slept that long. We were tired.

We discovered cockroaches in the bathroom that first night. In fact, one crawled up into the faucet head and then never really appeared again, making it a little creepy to lean our heads into the sink to get water to rinse our teeth after brushing them. We slept well and were up the next day in time to have breakfast and head to the beach.

The waves were phenomenal. I still remember better ones in Costa Rica, but I realize at this point in my life that I might only remember those as being so big because I was smaller. We played for a while in the waves and then came back into shore to read and lay in the sunshine. I hate that I did, but I got majorly burnt on the front. I peeled for at least two weeks, but it was an accident because the old sunscreen I had been using was just crap. I threw it away before I came back, but that was my test for it. And it failed the test!

We went back into the water to wash off the sand. I was playing out in the waves and Chelsea was a little farther in shore. Suddenly she realized she couldn’t get back into shore. Neither could I. The rip tide was taking us out and to the right. I had heard before that if this situation comes about, I should swim parallel to the shore. But if I swam to the right, there were sharp gatherings of rocks where I would have been dashed to pieces. If I swam the other way, I would just be fighting the same rip tide and tiring myself out. Chelsea was crying out and I was fighting to get back into shore. At one point, I was under the water, not able to breathe, thinking this could be the end. I was trying to stay calm so that Chelsea would not panic, but inside, I was screaming. I was fighting with everything I had, trying to use the waves to help.

Luckily, a couple of newly-married Dutch surfers who were staying at the same hotel with us were watching and instructed us to swim parallel, even if it meant towards the rocks. As soon as I did this, the rip eased up and I moved in toward the shore. Chelsea was still trying to fight the tide out of instinct, but slowly she moved in as well. She still cried out and I assured her that I would not leave her, holding out my hand and pulling her in while I had good footing. We walked back in-shore, shaking and affected greatly by what had happened. We were a little embarrassed that we had lost control and had to be instructed on how to get back in, but just thankful that the couple had been there and watching out for us.

With our nerves having taken such a hard hit, we headed back to the hostel and into town for some lunch and water. We wouldn’t go back into the ocean, being thoroughly shaken, but we still enjoyed the rest of the day, talking to some Irish, British, and German chaps at the restaurant we ate at.

Later that night as we were getting ready for bed, we saw a cockroach on the wall of the shower and I said, as I opened my toiletry bag, “I just hope there isn’t one in my bag.” My scream (which the entire hostel heard) told of the shattered hope. Our battle to get it out of the bag and then out of the room was also heard, as we laughed and gave out frightened cries. We finally conquered, getting it to crawl out the window.

The next morning after breakfast we climbed the steep hill to catch a bus to Montañita, another surfer hangout, but this time more geared at the night-life and commercial enjoyment of the beach. I personally enjoyed Ayampe 10x more, but everyone has his or her own preferences. In Montañita, we met up with Jipijapa, a friend from Quito. He was to be teaching us to surf, but with my sunburn, Chelsea's fragile knee, our new fear of the ocean, and Jipijapa’s new tattoo of some sort of wizard, it seemed to be the last thing that we could accomplish. Plus, Jipijapa said he was going to change his shoes and then never returned!

So, instead, Chelsea and I found a disgusting $5 per night per person hotel, we stashed our stuff in an awful room full of used beer bottles, bugs, and cigarette butts that smelled of paving oil. This was not to be our room, but our room was full still of passed-out Argentinians. So we were given the key to this cheaper room (it had a shared bathroom) and were allowed to store our stuff there while out on the beach.

We rented beach chairs and relaxed on the beach for the majority of the afternoon, being visited by Jipijapa and his drug-dealer friend Floyd with the nice set of abs. Eventually Jipijapa said he needed to use the restroom, disappearing and once again not returning. Then Floyd excused himself for the same reason and didn’t return either. We retired, found dinner, drank liquor with scorpions at the bottom of the bottle, and hung out. I got sick for the second time in a month that night and walked around like a zombie. By the time we got to sleep, it really didn’t matter what the room smelled like or what kind of bugs were crawling around in it.