It will come as little surprise, then, that our 33rd day in Peru (time flies, huh?) found us wedging ourselves in the little white colectivo station wagon. We wiggled uncomfortably into place, trusting to iPod earbuds to keep us distracted long enough from noticing the seats smelled of unwashed old person and chickens. Well -- that was the case for most people. I sat shotgun.
The landscape to Huaraz has become familiar-ish. We've driven there twice, and hiked the length once. The checkered quilt of farmland faded into a wide veldt of green and gold grasses, a high steppe slit only by the long ribbon of road. To cross the peaks, we ducked into a tunnel, and switchbacked down long furrows watching political signs painted into the hillside flash by in lurid colors. Funny thing: even though its all very breathtaking, even though I would be crazy to ignore it, it's become sort of commonplace. We almost live here, in these high plains. No one bothered to take pictures.
As we neared Huaraz, we crossed a bridge which was clearly marked “Under Construction, Don't Use.” Unfazed, our driver picked his way over the rotten boards. I only really realized we were in danger when the car seized and bucked as a board behind us gave way. With grinding, grasping sounds, the tires pulled us over the gap and on to terra firma. The car behind us was not so lucky.
It was filled with the other batch of gringos, and the driver had no time to react. As he surged forward in our tracks, the front of the colectivo dropped into the gap, and swung dangerously over the river. There was a splintering noise as the car clawed backwards in reverse. It was to no avail. The car was stuck some thirty feet over the river, with six or so of our friends looking out alarmedly from the windows.
As the drivers of both cars got out, and began to maneuver a jack under the wheels, a crowd began to gather. From both directions, vans and cars piled up, and disgorged brightly dressed natives, who formed a polite press at the end of the bridge. Suggestions were yelled in Spanish and Quechua alike. Some cars began to tire of the jam, and decided to take manners in their own hands. A few trucks slewed around the bridge to a shallow bit in the river. In a snarling mess of pebbles and engine noises, they charged across. I was a bit shocked; I haven't seen a river fording since Oregon Trail.
One old Ford (the irony is killer, here) didn't quite make it out of the shallows. It wallowed in the deepest cleft of the river, rocking back and forth with a muffled watery sound like a nylon strap tightening. The driver slung his arm out the window, laying it along the deeply pitted door, and looked back at the line forming behind him. Two tractor trailers sat on the bank, glowering, and in front of him, a few colectivo drivers were sounding their horns mournfully.
Back on the bridge, a few well placed jacks and heaves from bystanders got our friends onto the next section of bridge safely. With a smooth purr, we motored off, each driver as serene as if they did this all the time. And who knows? They might.
This time, we knew just where to direct the cabs. We zipped straight to our hostal and slipped inside. The señora, whose kindly bulk filled the white wrought-iron doorway, informed us she had room only for the girls. The menfolk would have to stay down the road a bit with a friend of hers. Sketchy? We thought so, too.
It turned out to be more than fine. Our room was big enough to swing a cat in, if you're into that sort of thing, and featured four beds for the three of us: Bodie, Robert, and me. Also, the price was right, so to speak, at twelve soles per night. We handed over the leathery bills, they tossed us the keys, and we swooped out the front door. We had a date to keep with the six lovely ladies, and the renowned burger at La Brasa Roja.
If you remember the last time I was in Huaraz (that’s probably asking a bit much, actually...) we had our evening tucker at the aforementioned Peruvian rotisserie -- La Brasa Roja. I enjoyed, solo, an embarrassingly replete burger. I think I called it something like “an improbable confection,” and with good reason. Each meal is probably responsible for the death of several farm animals, and packs enough calories for a year’s hibernation. I talked of it shamelessly after my first encounter, and swayed a good chunk of our group to put it in their plans for the future. So, as you would expect, we took great pleasure in placing the same order, “El Brasa Roja, por favor” some fifteen times over. It was greasy smiles all around.
Our dinner bone was connected to our dessert bone, so as soon as we rolled ourselves from our chairs and right into the streets, eyes scanning for signs that declared sweets. How many stops did we make to sate everyone’s little cravings? I can’t remember. There was manjar blanco ice cream (the ingredients of which, I think, are only milk and sugar... literally), alfahores from a street vendor, and a sinful treat called “el pañuelo” -- a thin pastry coating on a puddle of the caramel-y manjar blanco.
It’s after gastronomical adventures like that that I feel for coma patients. After we dragged ourselves back to the hostal, the full caloric load hit our systems, and voluntary control of our muscles was gone faster than our appetizers. As our bodies grumbled and sorted through the carnage of the early evening, we moaned and palmed our distended stomachs. Eventually, for lack of something to do, I popped my computer open and searched the word “game.” That was how I discovered I owned a computerized Chess game.
It comes complete with verbal command support, like most Mac things. Nearly passed out, a meter away, I issued commands to “Dexter,” though a quick fiddle with a setting let me call it more interesting things. “Hey, Robert, pawn F2 to F3!” or, once Robert suggested it, various cursewords. That was amusing.
Robert watched me fumble my way through half of a game (I am no Napoleon), saying nothing as I moved ever closer to ‘check.’ When I quietly ordered Dexter (my computer’s proper name) to cut my losses and start a new game, Robert wanted in. And so it came to pass (who am I, Moses?) that Robert and I played verbal chess.
In the awkward, stilted syntax that Dexter demands, we slid our pieces around the board. Now and again, he would mishear, and send our bishop to A2, not E2... putting us in a very awkward situation. There was always a certain triumph in commanding Dexter to assassinate an unguarded piece. Languorous though we were, our voices were shot through with rampant glee when we ordered things like “Dexter, pawn F6 takes queen G7!” Not a few times did I think our Stanford was showing.
We started the party circuit around nine, I think. X-treme Bar, that perennial den of haggard backpackers and expats, was already thumping away down the street. With a communal sigh, we slipped inside. At the far end of the polished wood bar, two Europeans with accents as bedraggled as their hair talked in some language that required more grunting than I thought fun to listen to. The barman, a stoic man who slicked his hair straight back, cleaned some glasses absently with a rag. Though the samba music was blasting loud enough that we had to lean in to place our orders, the whole scene would have fit in fine at a stamp convention, old folks’ home, or RV fair. It was that exciting.
Beth and I treated ourselves to “Coco Locos” -- my excellent choice, by the way. They tasted a lot like coconut / mango juice, and did not taste anything like alcohol. This led to more Coco Locos, until Beth and I were leaning into each other and screaming things we usually would not in a deserted bar. Well, me not so much... but Beth was really off her rocker at drink number two.
We passed the time with awkward confessions, darts, and giant Jenga. I still remain unconvinced that darts is a fun thing to do with your time, unless of course, you are drunk. If you’re a bit sozzled, you’re just constantly pleasantly surprised that your hand and brain are still getting along well enough to send the dart to its addressee. Giant Jenga, of course, is the best party game I’ve ever seen. Especially for Stanford students. Everyone remembers they used to like Legos, and becomes a temporary architect. Maybe because we had fuzzy fingers; maybe because we’ve never actually taken engineering classes -- either way, the buildings eventually teetered and fell. As they did, everyone’s hands would shoot up from the couches, and reddened faces would yell “Jengaaaaaaa!” It was most embarrassing when the offender was sober.
Somebody floated the notion that we were bored. This seemed to stick with a lot of us, and we had a[n unsteady] look around. The party was just us, and showed no signs of picking up -- even from the two grumbling Teutonics in the corner. Guidebooks suggested that if we were going to blow the joint, there were only a few places to go. By some referendum, we picked “Tambo,” and corralled the troops into the long walk to the club.
It was cold outside, but we did not feel it much. Alcohol does that. With Bodie forging ahead, a mite unsteadily, we navigated the unsure seas across Huaraz. A dozen or so cross-streets later, we wobbled in front of what appeared to be a recently remodeled Mayan Temple. The concrete was distressed fetchingly so that the walls looked ancient, and a deity of unknown origin glowered down, huge and menacing, from over the doorway. We climbed a long, vomit-yellow stair to reach the club floor.
All of Huaraz was there. Everywhere, Western clothes, haircuts, and cell phones. It was almost a warp back to the States. Of course, it was still Peruvian -- most people looked distinctly Incan, and judging from the pleasantly puzzled looks of the dancers, the music was too loud and Latin to make sense to anyone. There was more overpaying for fermented liquids, and we took to the dance floor. As a conspicuously large island of white, we got our awkward on for a solid thirty minutes. At one point, a bit laughably, Bodie & Robert went to go ask some muchachas to dance; they had heard anyone with an American passport is never rejected. Turns out, they heard wrong.
When we finally broke camp, we were convinced (it wasn’t difficult at this point) to visit Vagamundo. Bodie swore up and down that his guidebook recommended its quiet atmosphere over anything else in Huaraz. It was supposed to serve food and liquor, and though I was not interested in imbibing anything else, spaghetti sounded like a fantastic idea. When we got to the dilapidated establishment, an unsteady looking red building in a strange back alley, we brushed the plastic gate aside and sank gratefully into the thick leather chairs in the lobby.
A mysterious man with too much cologne set down free drinks on the table before us, nearly shouting “despiertense!” (“wake up!”). We cast hazy eyes about, and polled the group. People who hadn’t succumbed to sleep in the leather depths were jonesing for their hostal in a big way. After a series of smiles to the overly scented man, we took our leave, trooping out into the late, late night. We walked the girls home, then retired ourselves. Sleep came quickly.
We had a lovely brunch at the California Cafe the next day. As the name promised, it fairly reeked of West Coast, and was owned by a man who dressed only in sunglasses and black. Proper pancakes, omelettes, and crepes were on the menu -- in English!!! We enjoyed the taste of home immensely, and lounged on the couches in a homesick stupor for a couple hours, content to browse the library on the other wall and take advantage of the free broadband. Facebook, normal Gmail, YouTube -- suddenly as available as if we never left. I checked the stats on my blog. Harrumph -- I’m still a lone voice in the wilderness.
I took the rest of the morning to call my airline, and arrange for a later flight home. Endless wooing b my roommate had gotten me to cave in. I am, as of now, going to join him for a trip to Macchu Picchu. After an intricate “...press ‘1’ if you’re a human being...” sort of system, I got a man named Raul to change my ticket, for the low, low price of $500. This Macchu Picchu thing better be worth it.
After a quick lunch at a pizza place, we got word that bus tickets back to Chavin were sold out. To make it back, we’d have to take taxis. Everyone wore their grumpy face; this meant more soles disappearing from our pockets. A good deal more.
At the taxi depot, we packed ourselves into three colectivos, and were all set to go when the driver started making conditions. As the two other cars sped off into the sunset, we had a long argument with the driver about whether we should allow his uncle to come along on our laps. In the end, we had no choice, and Becca got to share the trunk with a wizened fellow who smelled distinctly of green onions.
Robert stole my iPod for the ride back, so I was left reading Good Poems, by Garrison Keillor. As we descended into Chavin, I read John Updike’s moving tribute to his car-clipped dog -- “Good Dog.” It was at about at that time that the car in front of us hit a stray. The dog rolled under the carriage of the car, then popped out the back undamaged. Everyone in the car breathed a sigh of relief.
Good dog.
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