This is it I guess. I mean, what do you do after you name your blog “fromperutoyou” and then you leave Peru? I have so enjoyed sharing our adventures through this virtual venue, and I am really going to miss writing it. It has been an amazing year. Unforgettable to be honest.
Locals riding on top of a truck's cargo on their way to somewhere on the cheap.
The ubiquitous Tico, a car never meant to be driven on roads.
The back side of PumaWanqa.
Me in the blazing hot spring pool at Lares, a three hour drive from Cusco.
So, on one’s last day in Peru after 11 months here, what does one do? A hard question to answer in the general sense but I can tell you what I did.
After waking up and getting my bags ready and placed by the door I headed down to San Pedro market for breakfast. The market had been emptied of vendors all last week for "cleaning." This is the euphemism for "getting rid of the hordes of rats" that live in the market. Ick. While the image of rats in the market is nasty, the reality of all the displaced vendors clogging the streets around the outside of the market was almost worse: it was utter chaos. So it was a nice surprise this morning to discover that the de-ratting was over and the market had been reassembled. I headed down to the lower level of the market and ordered myself a steaming hot bowl of chicken and rice soup.
San Pedro Market "food court"
I sat at a communal table, the early morning light shooting searing beams through the iron bars and onto the concrete floor. My plastic flowered bowl arrived full to the brim with soup and a whole chicken breast lurking just below the surface. It was served with a colorful dish of uchucuta (hot sauce) on the side. It’s funny to watch people eat here. Peruvians in Cusco are normally very polite and rarely touch their food with their hands. Things are different in the dark recesses of the city market. My neighbors at the table were stabbing their meat with their low-rent cutlery, suspending it above the steaming broth and then slowly turning it as they gnawed away at it with their teeth. The soup also had a Peruvian variant of ch’uñu, freeze dried potatoes, called moraya. I liken the taste of moraya to the smell of goat hooves. After one bite I decided to focus more on the chicken.
I couldn’t leave the market without a tamale. I ordered one from Doña Rosa, my weekday tamale lady who, on a Sunday morning, didn’t recognize me. Amazingly, or maybe predictably she tried to charge me 2 soles for what normally costs 1.40 soles. The rules and prices and laws are all up for discussion in Cusco.
This is an aspect of South American culture that I both like and abhor. It makes for a more mellow vibe, but it also forces you to let go of expectations and assumptions. Nothing is ever for sure, but sometimes you are pleasantly surprised by an unanticipated triumph. If your expectations are low, then everything is a win.
I brought my second tamale back to Centro Tinku to share with K’Ori, Jean Jacques’ golden retriever. She was pleased, to put it mildly. While getting my bags together my friend Miguel showed up to switch out a pair of pedals that we got mixed up while I was picking up a bicycle. I was leaving for the airport at 10:00 and he showed up at 9:57.
The flight out of Cusco was as stunning as ever. In this dry time of year the grasses covering the mountains are a monochromatic brown, punctuated by black and gray rock outcroppings and cliffs. We flew directly over the ruins of Tipon and then turned out of the Cusco valley to the west. Even though I was reading a great book I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the wildly wrinkled landscape. The lighter brown outline of roads winding their way around the ridges, valleys and peaks looked like the backdrop from an episode of the Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote.
Landing in Lima after leaving Cusco is always a shock. It is a vast, congested, and fast paced metropolitan complex. I went straight to the gentrified neighborhood of Miraflores where I attempted to return some camping items that Krista had bought in April for her trek with Isabel. The lack of customer service or, really, the disdain for the customer was almost funny. Needless to say they grudgingly allowed me to return a pair of pants but only for another piece of merchandise. Sheesh.
Ceviche, octopus and fish skewers.
Miraflores as seen from La Rosa Nautica restaurant.
I decided to leave Lima with a better taste in my mouth and I knew just what would do the trick. There is a restaurant, visible from the top of the Miraflores cliff that juts out into the surf of the Pacific on pilings covered with barnacles and seaweed. I had a lovely walk down to the shore and got a table pressed right up against the window and ordered my pisco sour and a plate of ceviche and grilled octopus. Sitting in the surf, eating the freshest of creatures from whence they came, I watched surfers ripping up wave after wave. Up behind me above the shore paragliders sailed back and forth riding the updrafts of the wind coming off the ocean.
Beautiful seabird outside the window from my table.
It’s going to be a bit of a shock to be back in Maine, but I am ready. In my last days in Cusco I became more and more aware of the dangers there that I don’t have to think about in Maine. Earthquakes. Floods. Traffic accidents. No airbags or seatbelts. Food borne pathogens. Theft. Pollution. But I also thought about the delicious flavors of the vegetables. The warmth of the people. The extraordinary beauty of the landscape. The intact remnants of the civilizations that somehow managed to thrive in such a wild landscape.
Once you visit a place it becomes a part of you. Cusco and I know each other pretty well now. I hope we can be reunited before too long.
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