Rides with strangers

Yesterday, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

I am not totally sure what exactly was going on, but everything just felt completely wrong. Physically, I was exhausted. It felt as if there was a large anvil resting on my chest, making normal breathing a virtual impossiblity. My head pounded, my glands hurt, my throat ached.

I chalked it up to all the traveling I had been doing. After all, I had just traveled from Copacabana, Bolivia 23 hours by bus to arrive in Lima and take an overnight flight to Miami, followed by a shorter flight to Philly to surprise my dad for his 60th surprise party. In the end, I just couldn´t miss it. Then after the party, I had rented a car, driven the three hours to Brooklyn to surprise my grandparents. I figured I might as well, seeing as how close I was. So after the three hour drive back, followed by the inquisition of American airport security and two flights to arrive back in Lima, I just couldn´t face another 23 hour bus ride back to Bolivia. Plus, John wouldn´t be back to Cuzco, Peru from his Machu Pichu treking till Friday night, which meant that we wouldn´t be seeing each other in Bolivia till at least Saturday night or Sunday morning at best. So I chose, (wisely, though not all that economically) to fly to Cusco, at least putting me closer to seeing John and saving myself 14 hours on a bus. After all time is money.

So the physical exhaustion I sort of understood. I was back at altitude. I had been living in the same clothes for over a week. I had taken buses, trains, planes, cars and foot all over the northern and southern hemisphere. I was beat. But that didn´t explain my emotional state. I sat there on the edge of the dorm room bed, looking around the room biting back my tears. I wasn´t alone and crying definitely would have attracted looks if not questions. And that I just couldn´t handle at 6:50 in the morning. The bed across from me was unmade and I wondered how early its occupant had risen to depart for his or her next destination. The bed next to it was also vacant, but a sleeping bag and small backpack told that he would be back later in the day. A girl with dark curly hair looked frantically through her bag as if she had misplaced something of extreme importance and in the other two beds, I could make out the tops of two sleeping head, a young man I had met the day before and a crop of white blonde hair that could have belonged to either a boy or a girl. They were all traveling alone, just like me. Only unlike me, they probably weren´t waiting to meet back up with their travel partner. I wasn´t really traveling alone. Not this time. And anyway, being alone could not be the reason I felt this sad. I just didn´t get lonely like that. It wasn´t in my "fiercely independent" nature. It had taken years to even consider myself part of a we.

So what was it? Was it the quick trip home, the disruption to this time abroad, far from credit cards and convenience stores and traffic lights? Was it the look on my father´s face when he saw my brother and I standing in the restaurant as we yelled, "Surprise!" His eyes filled up and he just stood there, dumbfounded, shaking his head. Or maybe it was having seen my grandparents in their varying states of fragility, overwhelmed with joy that I was there and immediately equally saddened that I wouldn´t be staying more than one night before heading back to places they were sure were more dangerous than their apartment in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. I even speculated that it could have been this feeling that I have been having these last few weeks as I talk to my friends living and working or volunteering in communities around the world. This feeling that somehow this travel is self indulgent and egotisitical and that I would have been better off setting up camp in an underserved community, volunteering for the year rather than galavanting off to broaden my own horizons.

But none of it specifically felt like what was wrong and I wasn´t about to spend another day wallowing in my exhaustion and self pity, while John was off having the adventure of a lifetime. I was way too competitive for that. So I picked myself up, showered in the luke warm, electrically heated shower and wished for the third time that I hadn´t given all our soap to John. I donned my uniform for the week and headed out to see some of the ruins I hadn´t had time to see on my first visit to Cuzco three years earlier.

I had been told the day before that there were ruins to the south that were less touristy than the ones heading northeast to Machu Pichu, and since I had seen many of the must see attractions previously, that sounded just fine to me. So after a leisurely breakfast, a second coffee at an outdoor cafe, some internet time and reading half of my new novel set out to find the bus heading to los Urcos. In theory, that would allow me to head to the town of Tipon, famous for its cuy al horno (baked guinea pig), from where I would take a combi (Peru´s version of a guagua) and arrive at the archeological site of Tipón.

After walking for well over an hour and getting at least six sets of directions that got me no closer to the bus terminal for los Urcos, I finally arrived at a dusty parking lot with three small buses. They were obviously local buses as packages, lugage and large plastic and cloth wrapped sacks were being tied to the roof and about 40 Peruvians sat waiting patiently aboard the bus for the last remaining seats to be sold before departing. I boarded the bus and sat down next a man in his late forties. A baseball hat covered wavey hair and as I sat down next to him, he smiled a wide toothed smile that showed off the gold encircling many of his front teeth and deepened the smile lines around his eyes.

I sat on the bus, overheating in my tank top, wondering how so many people could be dressed in long pants or skirts and long sleeved wool sweaters, babies tied to young mothers´backs in brightly colored blankets. "How much does it cost to ride the bus?" I asked the man next to me, figuring it was better to have the price before the money collector attempted to collect from me the fare plus the local gringa tax.

"Where are you going?" he asked fiddling with two gold sol coins in his lap.

"To Tipón."

"I think it´s either 1.50 or 2 soles to Tipón. It´s 2 all the way to los Urcos, but I can´t be sure when the price goes down. You going to Pikillacta too? What about Andahuaylillas? Lots of nice birds there."

"Well, right now I had planned to go to Tipón. Do you think there´s time to go to all three?"

He shrugged and I nodded as the bus roared to life and we pulled out of the dusty parking lot onto la avenida de las culturas.

As it turned out, Sebastian was a wealth of knowledge and by the time we reached Tipón, I had learned a ton about the local region, the archeology, the Incan history and why I was better of getting off in Andahuaylillas with him and then working my way back to Pikillacta and Tipón. He seemed nice enough and when he told me that he collected kids for a living, that sealed the pact. He either collected them as prisoners in his basement for child slave labor, or the guy was ok. I decided to take the risk and as we got off the bus in the small cobblestone town of Andahuaylillas, I sent up a prayer to universe to protect me.

Of course, before getting these so called children, we had a must visit to the local catholic church, for which they are quite famous with the tourists. There we met two tour guides in training, who were only two happy to offer up a bit too much information on many of the patron saints, Mary and of course, the saint of tremors, who protects societies from earthquakes. (Too bad that saint doesn´t live in San Francisco. I would feel a whole lot safer then.)

Luckily for me, Sebastian really did have a job escorting children from school to their homes for 2 soles a day per child (not a bad job considering how hard it is to make a sol around here). As we approached a long white van, not unsimilar to the guaguas of Nicaragua, the colectivos of Bolivia and of course, the combis of Peru, I could see the kids already waiting around the van. They ranged in age from five to sixteen and all of them immediately decided I was their "profe" (teacher) and that on the ride down to Pikillacta, I could teach them something about the states, my life, my hair and of course American dollars.

We were old friends by the time we reached the ruins, children grabbing me by the hand to pull me this way and that, to show me the left over Incan houses, churches and schools. They had all been to the site a million times before, but never with a celebrity with hair like Shakira, a shiny nose ring and a digital camera. I was a hit, which of course, was just fine by me. Spending a few hours with eager children is right up my alley.

My sour mood long since forgotten, we took turns taking pictures among the ruins, first Sebastian with the kids, then me with the kids, then all of us with one of the kid snapping the picture. They found me yellow grasshoppers and small, black, slimy snails that I begged them not to smash on the rocks for fun. I was having such a good time that I completely forgot that they would have to go home to their houses. This was an unauthorized field trip by Sebastian, and there was no way he wanted to lose this job. So with exaggerated kisses, hugs and teary good-byes, they left me standing among the Incan ruins, blue skies spotted with billowy white clouds and long, thin cacti curling up toward the sky.

I smiled and sat down on a set of steps to eat a luna bar, thinking how fortunate I was and then realizing that it was after three, thought I should start my trip back to Cuzco. So much for Tipón and the laguna. Oh well, there was always next time and you never knew when that might be.

I reached the street and stood between the white line and a drainage ditch, poised to flag down the buses as they headed from Urcos back to Cuzco. I knew how to flag a bus, a wave with one finger and I was ready. When the first bus passed me by, full and waving back, I didn´t give it much thought. It was early and surely the next bus would stop to pick me up.

I think it was probably the fourth bus that passed me, all smiles and waves, when I finally decided to begin walking toward Cuzco. Moving in the direction of my final destination couldn´t hurt. As the fifth bus passed, my dark mood slowly returning, I realized I would have no choice but to hitchhike. So offering up yet another prayer to the universe, I began holding out my hand to buses, cars and trucks alike. Someone had to be heading to Cuzco and have room for little ole me. After all, people rode on the tops of trucks here and the sides of buses. Surely someone would push over to let me in their van.

Finally after 15 minutes and measured breathing, a truck with a tarp covering it´s cargo pulled over to the side. I ran to catch up with it as a young boy about 20 opened the door, "Where you headed?"

"Cuzco?" I pleaded as I began to climb the steps to the truck.

"Well, we´re headed to Manu," the driver said, "but we can drop you at the crossroads."

As the expression goes, beggars can´t be chooser, so I settled for the 5 kilometer ride to the intersection and hoped that someone else would be as nice on the next road. The two men, carrying thousands of kilos of coca leaves were headed to Manu to drop their shipment and offered to take me, that is if I was interested in changing my plans and spending a few days in the Jungle. They assured me they´d be back by Sunday, but didn´t seem to mind much when I politely declined.

At the intersection, a group of men standing by the side of the road, urged me not to wait with them as it made their chances of a bus stopping even slimmer and I was sure to get a ride from a truck or car passing by. "Everyone´s real nice round here," they said in a local accent eating the ends of their words. "You can go with jus bout anyone." They nodded and laughed and I continued on my way, wondering if they were laughing at me or with me, knowing full well what my father would say if he saw me here.

I walked slowly in the afternoon light, Tipón´s ruins on the far side of the corn fields, a weeping willow completing the scene. For some reason as I came across a field of wild purple flowers along side of the river, I felt a pressure in my chest I can only describe as sadness or melancholy. But not the bad kind, the kind that makes you feel that much more alive and I breathed the air in deeply as more cars and trucks passed me, with no intention of slowing, let alone stopping.

A bus passed me then, full and waving and as they went by, I thought for sure I saw the men who had urged me on. They were on their way home. But I guess they had worked all day and were tired, really what had I done that I couldn´t walk a little longer.

Finally, just as I was starting to wonder if it really was a four hour walk to Cuzco, a large blue truck pulled over into the shoulder, the passenger door swung open and I ran toward my ride. I would not arrive in Cuzco in the middle of the night, freezing, starving or possibly abducted.

The driver was one of those non descript ages. He could have been 30 or he could have been 60, with deep creases next to eyes and a big puffy winter jacket. The cab of the truck was decorated with hanging amulets, a Jesus, a Mary, maybe Saint Christopher, the protector of travelers. As I sat on the far side of the truck, backpack on my lap, hand on the doorhandle, Wilbur began to tell me his life story. A truck driver for more years than he cared to remember (that did nothing for my age calculation), he had done the trip from Arequipa to Cuzco, carrying water for the Coca Cola company so many times he could do it with his eyes closed (I hoped he wouldn´t).

We had the same conversations I always have with locals. What was I doing here? Where was I from? Why did I speak Spanish so well if I was from the U.S.? And of course, where was my husband. That question, one that normally offends me, as if a woman could never be traveling alone without someone there to protect her, for some reason in that moment, I answered, "Oh he´s back in Cuzco. Didn´t feel that well today after his trek to Machu Pichu." Strange as the guy had done nothing out of the ordinary but make small talk, and yet I knew for some reason, it was important for him to think I had a husband. Someone waiting on my safe return.

We drove in silence then, as we passed the signs for the famous guinea pigs baked to perfection, piles of batteries being sold roadside and stray dogs, sheep and cows that wandered out into the street at will.

After the better part of an hour, Wilbur remarked about his insatiable thirst and, we pulled onto a side street before I could think of a good reason why I could not stop for a chicha. I had had chicha before, a sweet corn and fruit drink that sometimes came with our menus of the day and so was at least relieved he hadn´t ordered a beer or pisco sour before continuing to drive me the rest of the way to Cuzco.

So you can imagine my surprise when an elderly, bent backed man set a glass of foamy yellow liquid before me, easily the size of two pints of beer. I pushed the glass to the middle of the table, waiting for our smaller glasses to come. Wilbur laughed, pushed it back toward me and told me he would have his own.

I sipped slowly, watching the women sipping the same foamy, yellow liquid, as they sat on the dirt ground by the fire. By now, Wilbur had had his shoes shined, finished half his chicha, ordered a second and was talking about a trip we could take before he had to head back to Arequipa with his empty truck. He suggested that we meet the next day at two at a plaza on the far side of town and I mentioned John again, swirled my 3/4 full drink and pretened to not understand when Wilbur encouraged me to drink up. With a luna bar for lunch, and breakfast a distant memory, I was in not hurry to drink this alcoholic version of chicha.

Finally, Wilbur stood up and motioned for me to follow. I suggested he go on with out me, but Wilbur, Peruvian "gentleman" that he was, would hear nothing of it, opened my door and as I climbed up, disappeared around the back of the truck. I sat in the cab, wondering what he could possibly doing for so long and fiddled with the seatbelt. I wouldn´t put it on this time, just in case I needed to make a quick escape.

We drove up the bumpy road, rounded a corner past a local market and avoided a bicycle cab, two fighting dogs and a truck full of orangeds as we headed back to the main road. It was mintues before I realized I was holding my breath, and as I let it out slowly, I realized that Wilbur was no longer talking.

Abruptly he pulled over to the side of the road, indicating a blue sign, "The bus will stop here and take you right to Cuzco center." I nodded and pushed the door open quickly before he could change his mind.

"Thanks! See you!" I cried the door already closing as I hit the pavement. He pulled away as a Combi pulled up yelling destinations I did not know. I smiled and squeezed myself into the van, my knees touching the woman facing me. I didn´t care where we were headed as I looked out onto the crowded street. I was safe, my dark mood a distant memory.