Hey everyone. So this past week and weekend have been very rejuvenating, and not when I expected it. Things have a way of happening like that, when I need them to and not always when I want them to. In relation to that, I want to thank everyone for their support, either through comments or outside conversations we’ve had.
So I’ve always wanted to celebrate Day of the Dead in a Spanish-speaking country, and last week I got to do just that! On Tuesday, November 1, everyone who is taking Spanish classes at Proyecto Peru went with the Spanish professors to an older cemetery near the Plaza de San Fransisco. I enjoyed visiting the tomb of writers and artists. The tombs here aren’t like what we have in the U.S.: They are buildings with separate graves inside. That was the main thing we did for our excursion; after that we refreshed ourselves with some things that people were selling in the square and dolls made out of bread. The next day, I went twice to Mercado San Pedro, once to satisfy a fruit craving and another time to buy a bread doll. They told me it was a horse, but everyone else said it was either a doll or something else. In any case, I did not come prepared for the dilemma buying an artistic construction of bread would present: How does one eat a beautiful bread doll? Several people have told me that when they were kids, they played with their bread dolls–muñecas, or juajuas in Quechua–and let them grow stale. Well, that’s what’s happened to mine, so now we’ve got to find a way to sweeten it up again.
I also had a very refreshing conversation with a Spanish professor from SUU who is part of this study abroad program about the things I am struggling with in my internship. It really helped to get insight from someone outside of but familiar overall with things. From this conversation we, and especially I, have a plan of action that I am looking forward to carrying out. I’m learning how much I have to learn about being proactive. My friends with whom I am doing this program have taught me a lot about this skill as well through relating their experiences. They are not just any friends to me, especially after two months of living together. I am extremely fortunate to share this experience with them.
Speaking of which, it feels much more like the group we were before because Annie, the girl who had to go home for knee surgery, has returned and is again light on her feet. I don’t anticipate anything getting easier, from learning how to find happiness in traveling alone to figuring out how to walk the line between being proactive and being overbearing at work to dealing with members of a culture that loves to help and look out for others, sometimes to a fault–but the people and the conversations I have mentioned will help me finish this masterpiece, this experience that cannot be beat by anything else thus far, the way it deserves to be finished. But oh how I hate talking about finishing something so incredible and sublime.
As far as sublime things go, one of the most sublime, serene, and beautiful places in Peru for me has been Lake Titicaca and the islands on the Peruvian and Bolivian sides that we’ve visited and hiked. There’s always this profound, lasting, real tranquillity there that I do not recall feeling anywhere else in a very long time. It seems to radiate from the lake not only to the islands but also to the mainland, both Puno in Peru and Copacabana in Bolivia. I could have stayed an extra day or two in Copacabana; to me it felt like Peru but with less hype and thus more enjoyable. It was quite easy to get around, too: It was all dirt road, with one small exception, so the location of various things was more straightforward. I really hope the pictures will do it justice.
The hostel I stayed at was unlike any hostel or hotel I’ve ever stayed at. It kind of felt like camping. It was like a house that was converted into a hostel. Instead of it being one building designed for luxury and comfort, there were different rooms along a garden path, and then a common area where people hung out and ate. In the nearly twenty-four hours I was there, I met and made acquaintances, if not friends in some cases, with everyone, and it was just what I had imagined or hoped for in any kind of travel situation. One of the best parts was when I was coming back from eating out. My stomach, which has had issues off and on since I tried to purify the water down here, was currently unsettled, to put it nicely, and I was fed up with being alone and not finding anyone who wanted to do the things I was doing or who would invite me to do things with them. I met an Argentinian couple who were also going to my hostel, and we walked together and just talked about various things–it was more than the usual “Cuidado” (careful), “De frente, no más” (straight ahead), and then nothing else. The hostel is called Suma Samawi, and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Copacabana. I don’t want to make any conclusive judgments about the other hostels because I only know the one I stayed in, but from conversations I overheard, the names of the other hostels made them sound more touristy, more generic. This one where I stayed felt like the rest of the town: legit, genuine, unassuming.
I think this past weekend was good in part because it wasn’t planned very well; thus the important things to do prevailed and those that weren’t didn’t happen. One thing we did–those of us who had booked it through Bolivia Hop–was take a boat out to La Isla del Sol–the Island of the Sun. I still don’t get what’s so special about it; we were just given a map and told to hike from one side of it to the other. I hiked with a few people from Germany, but nobody commented on anything out of the ordinary about the island, and after an hour’s hike we were sailing back to Copacabana to cross the border back into Peru. Crossing the border was cool. I’ve always wanted to cross a land border, and this weekend I got to do that. This proved a bit more complicated than I had thought it would be. For instance, I knew that it is required for Americans entering Bolivia to purchase a $160 visa, but I didn’t know until the day we were traveling by bus to the border that they also needed a bank statement, two copies of my passport, two copies of a photo of me, and an exit ticket–I should have known they would need the exit ticket because that’s a more common thing. As it was, I was able to use the computer in their office to provide all the documents, and I eventually got through to the Bolivian side without further trouble. Because crossing back to the Peruvian side proved much simpler–stamping out of Bolivia and stamping back into Peru–I paid more attention to my surroundings. As sundry as they might seem, it’s a big deal for me. We walked up a hill and crossed a random, quiet street. We descended the other side of the street, passed beneath an archway, and found ourselves back in Peru–just like that. I returned home at five yesterday morning and went about my usual daily activities of school and work. To finish off, I will note that work yesterday was rewarding: I spent an hour trying to help a kid fill squares with synonyms of given words and then helped to host a game of Jeopardy in which we quizzed the kids about how to say different categories of words in English. While there were gaps in what I was shooting for as far as productivity and involvement, we’re getting there!
I am happy that I still get to end these posts with leads into what will happen next–of course, I can’t predict the work week the same way I can predict the weekends–but in any case, I still have the better part of a month to go, and a lot can happen in that amount of time. Next, I look forward to writing you from the sweltering jungles of Puerto Maldonado–in the Amazon!
Traveling in Peru 