It has been quite a long time since I've written - and so much has happened! I've gone and returned from Peru (and likely parts of Bolivia, but that's another story...); completed Disciple I and joined my church; gone to Caterina and Samuele Sangiorgio's wedding in Modena, Italy; moved from my matchbox condo into a three-bedroom house with Kameko and Suzanne; started teaching Disciple I at my church; quit my job as an IP lawyer; spent a month in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Tokyo (one very unplanned day in Tokyo, but we'll get to that, too...), mourned --and am still mourning-- the death of someone I love very deeply and, as of today, started a new career as an immigration attorney. But all of these changes have been so good - overwhelming at times, and frightening at times, but oddly - in the midst of this - I am not reeling. I am anxious about stuff - sure! - but also very much at peace, very happy and fulfilled with the changes. Change is scary, even change in the right direction. But I'm sure I'm moving in the right direction.
I want to write and process all of this as it happens to me, in chronological order. So oddly enough, the first post I'll make after all of this is about Peru! I'm really ready to write about it now. It was a lot to process at the time it happened - partly because it was my first venture into true poverty, and partly because of all of the changes beginning to stir in my life.
So - Peru. I'd always wanted to go to Peru - but of course, the fact that I wanted to visit a place didn't make that place special at all. I want to go everywhere! But I wanted to go somewhere vastly different from the life I know. The point of travel for me is to understand and experience life differently. I say "understand" and "experience" because I don't believe that, on the level of possible human experiences, at least, that I can truly understand something until I've experienced it. I can read books, watch the History Channel, listen to countless tellers of tales, but for as far as my mind can carry me -- I cannot understand someone else's perspective until I live their experience - or as close to their experience as is possible. So Peru, the land of the Inca and, I was sure, a thousand other mysteries I didn't know about, was alluring to me. But more than Machu Picchu and the Andes and the Amazon, what really drew me is Peru's cultural distance from my American life. I wanted to taste and smell and sweat a different way of life. And Kameko invited me to go to Peru - so I signed on immediately.
We flew into Lima to spend our first night. Our flight arrived late in the evening - maybe 9pm? The airport is a bustling heap of steel, escalators, gleaming tourist shops, posh Latin forms gliding through the crowds, and shabbily clad masses swirl and flow like river currents through the chaos. Our driver met us when we arrived and escorted us to our tour bus - a minivan, if I remember correctly, which was very nice. He drove us through the roads from the airport to Lima, about 20 minutes away, in the dark, pointing here and there to interesting places that were no more than hazy spots in the black around us. We squinted and nodded all the same, though, wanting to take in as much as possible. I asked the driver if he knew of a particular restaurant out on the Pacific that my Peruvian friend had recommended. He exclaimed in happy recognition and took us on a 30-minute detour, so we could drive past the ocean and the restaurant. We saw a lit terrace that seemed to hover over the water. Unfortunately, they require reservations, so we continued into the city of Lima, to our hotel. We did quiz our guide about places to eat and go out in Lima, in our area, and he recommended a particular district -- and I have completely forgotten its name. Argh. I can look it up. *Note: this will occur to me at about four this morning and I'll wake up and have an "aha!" moment and then go back to sleep - and it will be gone again.* Five minutes later: LARCOMAR!! Ha!**
Our hotel was in a tourist area, and was about like a Best Western or Holiday Inn... don't remember the name. It was humid - incredibly humid - and a slight salty smell pervaded the hotel, at least to my nose. We showered and threw on some clothes to go out. We walked first in the wrong direction (yes, I was partly responsible for that - I have zero sense of direction, I know) and found a Hyatt or other equivalent hotel. Surely, we thought, this isn't it... I was sorely disappointed, thinking that if I'd wanted to go to a Hyatt, I'd have driven to the one in Atlanta. But we kept trudging and asking questions - in surprisingly quiet and deserted, humid, hot streets - and walked our way to five or seven tall lighted towers-- called LARCOMAR!!! (yay, memory! I am SO not thirty yet...)-- and saw them overlooking some water. They were striking, but quiet, though we saw people walking toward them. We meandered in that general direction, taking pictures of a cool, if not dull, area.
The few people we saw seemed to walk toward Larcomar and disappear into the shadows. We finally followed (stalked?) enough locals that we finally saw a stair leading underground. We followed them - and found the PAR-TAY! Restaurants, bars, clubs, shops - it was all there! Larcomar appeared to be a construction on top of an underground - and pretty hoppin' - hotspot. Nice!
We wandered in and saw the name of the bar our guide recommended. We filtered in and up to the bar. Wall-to-wall Peruvians! Everyone was laughing, dancing to lilting Latin music, drinking - we had FOUND it! This was the first night our whole group -- Kameko, Suzanne, Laura, myself -- were all together. But we had an early morning - 5am- flight, so Kameko and Suzanne just wanted to go out for one drink, to get a taste, so to speak, of Lima, and then turn in. Laura and I were "in," and while part of me had the energy to go out, I was mostly exhausted.
We made it to the bar and managed to meet a local guy along the way - everyone was very friendly, and not just to us (though we did seem to be the only caucasians in the joint). Our handsome friend - black hair, sable skin like silk, piercing chocolate eyes- chatted easily with us, and asked, "do you know pisco?"
"Pisco? No. What is it?" I asked
"Ah, you must know pisco. Pisco- the drink of Peru. Pisco sour. I order pisco sour for all. Yes?"
As four heads nodded, our friend gestured to the glowing Latina bartender, and four pisco sours appeared. Pisco is like the grappa of Peru, but much, much, better than real grappa (Sorry, Cate and Samuele, but my stomach threatens to leave me via my throat every time I even THINK of grappa.) (And grappa is like the clear equivalent of moonshine: smells, tastes, and hurts just like rubbing alcohol). Pisco, like grappa, is a white lightnin' clear liquor made from grapes. Pisco, though tastes a helluva lot better.
And the pisco sour, when I tasted it, was the best drink in the world. It's pisco mixed with straight fresh-squeezed lemon juice, with a little water and -- in Peru only -- an egg white blended in, for thickness and to cut the acid of the lemon juice. Finish off with three drops of bitters, and voila!
A note about drinking: every drink I know that has the name "sour" in it is, to put it bluntly, a drink for those very new to alcohol. Weak, sweet, a little tart, and much more like candy than a real drink. If you have had enough amaretto sours to be drunk, you will have consumed enough sugar to hate yourself - and your amaretto sour - well into the next afternoon. So when it was a pisco sour, I thought - "hey, I know this game!" So I had three.
That would be mistake number one. And two. I'd originally wanted to go sleep - but after the first pisco sour I thought, "oh, why not another? It's our first night in Peru! Viva!" And I felt warm and wonderful in this underground local joint in Lima with three friends and Latin music flirting in our ears, and beautiful Latin faces (and men - let's be real) everywhere, half-talking, half-dancing.
Kameko and Suzanne, after our first pisco sour and trying to yell over blaring music (that realistically wasn't so much flirting as it was screaming) announced that they would go back to our hotel. I tried to reluctantly agree, but Laura - who had kept up with me drinkwise - and I exchanged a fun smile that said, "Oh, we are SO staying out...." and we did. Our third pisco sour later and suddenly it was 3am, and we had to be up at 5. Laura and I giggled our way home (very short walking distance) and crashed. We asked for a wakeup call. See? We are so responsible!!
So when the phone rang at 5:15, and Kameko and Suzanne were downstairs waiting with the cab, we were kicked into action. Oh, we got our wakeup call -- and I promptly hung up on the poor guy at the front desk. We took three-minute showers trying to wash the smell of pisco and smoky bars from our skin and hair. I felt surprisingly wonderful. I was thinking, "I am in Peru! I'm about to fly to the rain forest! ... uh-oh, I shouldn't be this happy... damn, I'm still drunk!"
So I did my best to hold it together while we descended the stair and slipped clumsily into the van. We were welcomed by Suzanne and Kameko into our minivan by, "You guys smell like alcohol!!" Nice. And we did. But I was determined to (1) be (ok, act) sober, and (2) not complain. So we flew through the streets of Lima, back toward the airport, with me trying not to grin in the back seat. Score. =)
So we got to the airport and checked our massive packs. By this time - I needed food. And water. Badly. We found a McDonald's in the airport. A word: I hardly ever, ever eat at McDonald's in the States, but when you're away and need a taste (or hangover remedy) from home, it's predictable, greasy, salty, and it won't bite you back. So I gladly ordered a breakfast egg sandwich combo. I finished my meal - only I couldn't bring myself to eat the egg- and still craved hash browns, which I had downed with gusto from my combo. But the girls each ate theirs, except Suzanne, who took pity on me and gave me half. But there was a table of people next to us eating their combos - all except the hash browns! Selfish b@stards. How can you leave a hashbrown? Kameko and Suzanne egged me on, "Tif, why don't you just ask for it? I bet they'd give it to you. " It started as a joke. I even laughed at the idea for about half a second. And then, let's face it - I was a desperate woman, and I knew where those hashbrowns had been - and more importantly, where they HADN'T. There wasn't time enough to stand in line and buy more. So I staked out the hashbrown-forsaker table with shifty eyes and a slightly drool-dribbled lip. As they got up to leave, taking the UNTOUCHED hashbrown to its untimely end, Laura (God bless her) stopped laughing long enough to get up and ask, "Hey, excuse me. My friend is starving. And drunk. Could she have your hashbrowns?" The two people - as it turned out, native English speakers - looked around awkwardly (probably for hidden cameras) and said, "umm, yeah. Sure." Laura thanked them and laughed as she took the hashbrowns. Kameko and Suzanne laughed rioutously as I pounced on and devoured those hasnbrowns. They were the best hashbrowns I ever ate. Ever.
We boarded the plane, and I fell asleep instantly and slept the ENTIRE way to the small airport that would take us to the rain forest. I tellya - three hashbrowns, two huge bottles of water, two advil, and four hours of undisturbed sleep on an airplane will cure a three-pisco-sour hangover. (I haven't re-run that experiment - once was enough).
Our trip to the Amazon will have to wait... I'm sleepy and it's time for bed. Goodnight, guys. Sleep well.
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