A Moving Story (by Lawrs)

Well, we went and did it.  We actually found a *house* here in Cusco for rent, and eight days ago we moved into it.  Sort of.

Our previous apartment was really small and had but one bathroom.  The house we rented has two bathrooms with bathtubs (Sophia nearly fell to her knees with joy when she saw them), three bedrooms, a gigantic kitchen by Cusquenan standards, and three levels.  The stairs are encased in glass and from the top offer an extraordinary view.  That's the good part.

The bad part is that the previous tenants discovered a leak  in the third floor bathroom while moving out.  On the day we took possession of the place the third floor bathroom was literally ripped to pieces.  The toilet was teetering uneasily in the bath tub, most of the tiles on the floor were torn up, the wall and wood flooring in the bedroom were soaking wet and stained, and it smelled like raw sewage.  It kind of felt like we were back on Green Street dealing with one calamity or another,  except we didn't own this mess.   It was not possible to move into the third bedroom, so we shacked up with Sophia downstairs.


The previous owners used a handyman who they adored, and he had begun to repair the mess when, out of the blue, he lost consciousness at home one morning for over three hours.  His name is Francisco and he is only 32 years old.  He awoke with both fists swinging and ran out into the street in his pajamas with no memory of what had happened or even who his wife and children were.  Needless to say, the proper functioning of our second bathroom was not high on his list of priorities.  So we waited a few days and finally told the landlords that we would not pay rent until it was fixed.  We figured they would find another guy to the job, but instead they forced Francisco to come.  He showed up literally minutes after we told the landlords about the situation with a tired and sad look on his face.

We felt absolutely awful.

He told us that he had spent the entire day after his episode in the hospital where they took x-rays, checked him over and declared with authority that he was the victim of witchcraft.  I, personally,  have never received that diagnosis from a physician.


In any case, Francisco got right to work and had most of the bathroom put back together in about six hours.  Amazingly, when we awoke the next morning, water was streaming out of the toilet inlet hose onto the newly re-tiled floor.  Francisco couldn't return for another 24 hours to fix it, so we wadded up some towels to catch the water, and eventually fix it he did.

We also had to buy a stove and refrigerator for the house.  The house is in the pre-colonial neighborhood of San Blas, so everything is squeezed tightly together.  Our house is on a pedestrian walkway (or trash-strewn dirt alley if you prefer) above another pedestrian walkway called Tanda Pata.  We have to climb 62 steps and walk about a hundred yards to get to our door.  The men carrying the appliances to our house were not psyched to have been chosen for this detail.

The very first morning after sleeping in our new house, we woke up to the bass-heavy, pounding beat of Reggaeton from the neighbors across the way.  A colorful collection of dreadlocked teenagers lives there in a kind of boarding house that is also owned by our landlords.  They were playing drinking games and dancing at 7 am.  As you can see from the photos our house is made of glass, so we can hear everything.  Poor Isabel had to stick foam earplugs in her ears to try and concentrate on her work.  This scene was repeated on the following Sunday at 6 am.  Happily, I watched as the landlady went over in her nightgown to bang on their door.  It's been pretty quiet since then.  I have been working hard to think of something clever to say about people living in glass houses, but no luck as of yet.

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Sophia tries her hand at photography

Then she demanded silly faces.  How'd we do?

We are getting ready to pack up for our trip to Bolivia.  It feels funny to be leaving just after moving, but we will have a lovely place to move back into.  Once we are back some time in January, we will be staying put for five full months.  Hooray!