Lima to Huaraz

Has it already been a week in this country? Or should I say has it only been a week? At once it seems like I just got here and also like I´ve been here forever. The concept of time loses all meaning here. Which is just what I needed from my trip...

The above picture is really the only interesting thing I could find in Lima. Yeah, not the most exciting city. Traffic in the big cities are controlled by the police in major intersections. Pedestrians seem like an after thought-no traffic lights for them and the police completely ignores them. You just kind of have to watch the traffic and jump out on the street when you see an opportunity.

I´m travelling with an Israeli girl named Rikki and as she doesn´t speak any Spanish, I´ve become the translator with my pigeon Spanish. I must say though, the first day in Peru made me really proud of myself. It turns out I can understand a whole lot of Spanish and speak enough to get by. Within a few hours of landing I figured out that ¨cuadras¨ are blocks and the address Av. San Juan 2576 means that the place you are looking for is in the 25th block. It may not be much of an achievement if you´re used to this kind of city planning, but I´m not, so let me enjoy my little achievement please. Thank you.

We managed somehow to walk all around Lima and even got on a little ´collectivo´ which is sort of a minibus they stuff as much as they can. More on that when I write about Huaraz and the north. The first collectivo (above) we got on was quite an experience as the guy who hangs out the door and yells the destination to people waiting outside (the picture should be quite familiar to the Turks among you) took quite a fancy to us. He kept muttering all sorts of praises and salacious remarks in Spanish, most of which I didn´t get (probably better that way) and told us when we got off ¨Goodbye babies¨. It was quite hilarious.

Long story short, 1 day after we got to Lima, we made our way to Huaraz, which is the central location in the north where all the beautiful treks are run from. I was a little shocked to see this at the bus terminal:

Horrible picture, but if you look closely you will see the book ¨El Castillo Blanco¨, ie the White Castle, by Orhan Pamuk, the recent Nobel prize winner for literature. Who would have thought...

Having thus been shocked, we got on our 8 hour bus drive to Huaraz which was quite interesting. Vendors kept getting on, selling all sorts of stuff, like blocks of cheese, pastries, corn on the cob (they´re giant and they´re called choclitos, we have to buy some and cook for ourselves) empanadas etc. They would get on and only get off at the next stop. The toilets didn´t work, the movie shown was ridiculously loud, but the scenery was just beautiful. We drove through giant walls of sand on both sides of the bus.

Well I´m being thrown out of the Internet cafe, so will have to continue another time...

Go East...

I know I know... Long time no blog. And so much did happen in that time. Travels to South Africa, Pesach, Yom Haatzmaut... So much to write about and so little time. I should really pick up my story where I left off, but as I sit here in some dark room in a hostel in Huaraz, Peru, all I can think of is the time I am spending in South America and how, if I don´t record it right now, my rapidly disappearing brain cells won´t allow me to do it later. So, with your permission, I will skip over South Africa for the time being-however difficult that will be for me (and certain South Africans among you)-and come back to it at a later date.

Before we set on the road though-I should say a few words about the above picture. This was a really yummy cake that was made for me before I left, by my sister, ever the thoughtful. She wanted to make sure I knew where home is, you see. And so I made sure to eat the¨"E" of the cake... Along with the yummy raspberry and pastry cream filling of course...

On to the trip... At the airport in Israel was a display of a whole series of posters commissioned by the state for the Independence Days of yesteryear. It´s really a cute little exhibit, showing what was on people´s minds at different ages of our nation. I wish I had had more time to look at it. Here´s to hoping they display these somewhere more easily accessible for everyone to see.

I got to Peru after a series of gruelling flights. The first leg, to New York, was at midnight and having slept about 3 hours the previous night, I was thoroughly convinced that I could fall asleep. But the flight gods had different plans... Not one minute of sleep on said flight. I happened to sit next to an Israeli girl who was also flying out to Peru, which in itself isn´t very shocking as far as coincidences go. What was a little eery was that we had the exact same pair of trekking boots on and she also couldn´t sleep a minute of the flight. Anyway. Got off the plane at 4:30 am. Zombie mode. I had 10 hours until my connecting flight so I decided to make it to downtown Manhattan.

It was about 6 am when I got into the city and there were people out and about everywhere. People IN SUITS, WALKING TO WORK, AT 6 AM!!! Do they have nothing better to do with their lives, one would like to know. Apparently some people believe in being a productive member of society. Huh.

After spending some time in the city with a friend, I made it back to Newark and met my travel partner Rikki to fly out to Lima, Peru. By this point I had been awake consecutively for 41 hours. That flight took 7 hours. I actually managed to sleep some of it, but it still took me 2 more days until I adjusted to a normal sleeping pattern. And once I did, we missed no time to mess it up again! We travelled 8 hours this morning on a bus from Lima to come to an amazing part of Peru where the Andes can be seen in all their glory. It is very high here (a whopping 3,090 m.) and we are having a little bit of a problem adjusting. Some dizziness, some nausea and a lot of exhaustion. So as much as I´d love to write about Lima and our trip to Huaraz, I really must go and see about that sleeping pattern... So I leave you now with a teaser picture of the Cordilleras Blanca ("white mountain range") and hope to blog again real soon.