All right. It is time I put down on my screen all the
adventures of our travels from Cusco to Lima. The 36 hour trip was full of
world music and Pepe’s hair along with a slight mishap with fallen rocks and a
leg that should have been over at 2 in the morning but ended at 6:30am instead.
Here we go.
We left Cusco at 5am with Pepe in tow. Unfortunately, the
night before, Pepe had some diarrhea and it got all over his butt. Marco had to
cut off a lot of hair that ended up being a good thing because Pepe had problems
with diarrhea for the next 12 hours. You can imagine how nice it was to get
whiffs of Pepe’s excrement every once in a while. We stopped every few hours to
stretch and let Pepe out and we made it to outside of Arequipa right on
schedule at 5pm or so. We found a place to eat a late lunch/early dinner and I
had the pleasure of taking care of baby Pepe. Wiping a dog’s butt is not cute.
We hit the road after a fill up on gas and started the more
than 12-hour leg to Acari. I always though that Marco’s mom lived closer to
Arequipa than to Lima but she is pretty darn far from Arequipa. A few things
slowed us down. One, the headlights on Marco’s car are terrible and on top of
that they were not positioned towards the road. It looked like we had a ghost
above us because that is where they were shining. We eventually stopped to
adjust them but it didn’t help too much. Second, the lights from cars coming
the other way were absolutely blinding and at times Marco would have to come to
almost a complete stop to let them pass because he couldn’t see. One of these
instances almost cost us a tire. Marco was looking away in the mirror and
didn’t see the fallen rock that we ran over. I was half asleep at this point
since it was 2am but after that I was wide-awake. I wanted to be Marco’s
co-pilot for as long as I could but eventually around 3am or so I couldn’t keep
my eyes open. At 5am Marco couldn’t keep his open either. We took a half hour
nap and then finished the last hour to Acari at 5:30am.
When we got into Acari, doña Ynes welcomed us with open
arms. Marco almost forgot which house was his. He hadn’t been back to Acari in
13 years! 13 years!! That is such a long time to not go home. He spent all of
his adolescence in Acari and many of his childhood friends live there now. I
cannot imagine going 13 years without returning to the States. That is such a
long time and I also want my kids to know where I am from.
I got to see the ducks, geese and guinea pigs that Ynes
keeps. I also met her doggy Chiquito. He is seriously, the sweetest boxer ever.
I almost exchanged him for Pepe. Haha! Just kidding! I wouldn’t get rid of my
baby. Ynes fed us some caldo de gallina, we took showers, and we went to bed
until 12:30pm. When we got up Ynes
had prepared duck for us. I also checked out pictures of Marco’s youth. What a
hotty! There was one picture with his hair down to the middle of his back. He
had to have been 5 years old or so. Ynes didn’t want to cut off the curls.
We made our way to Cañete where we spent the night with
Liset, Marco’s half sister. In the morning I met Marco’s dad. Marco is
definitely a mixture of his parents. I couldn’t tell you who he looks like
more. He is tall like his dad but has his mom’s smile. He is a wonderful mix of the two and I
am happy he is alive!
We got into Lima around 8:30am and headed straight to the
apartment. I feel the need to describe the apartment complex that we live in
now. It is a villa but it feels more like a mixture of a hotel and a dormitory
from the outside. Everything is super close and there is no green space.
Apparently, the park that is outside of the gates and in front of the
apartments that were also built on military property but sold directly by the
constructors. It is so obvious that the army got ripped off. They sold some of
the land for the constructors to build apartments on to sell to the public
while they made super cheap apartments that don’t even come with cabinets or
closets hence, there being men in my apartment constructing cabinetry for the
kitchen. We also have a closet. We are in desperate need of more bookshelves
though. Thank goodness for my dresser because the closet we have is very small
for the two of us. Hopefully, our stay here won’t be too long but nothing is
certain. Depending on where we are on the list for a house on the villa we
could be renting for the rest of the year. I hope that isn’t the case but we
have to be ready for it.
So here we are, living out of boxes until we can put the majority of our stuff away in the kitchen. We were not expecting to have 3 and a half bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. For the price we are paying it is a pretty good deal. The worst part about being where we are is that there is a mall/grocery store about 100 meters from our apartment but there is no way to get there except to go all the way around. It takes about 20 minutes on foot. The nice thing, however, is that we CAN walk there. There are also mototaxis that charge 2 soles if we don't feel like walking.
No comments:
Post a Comment