Peruvian Exit 21/07/16

After Alex's bout with dysentery, my travel plans changed. Cusco and Machu Pichu had to be scrubbed and I returned to Lima from Puno. I hated Lima, but it is at sea level, so no soroche for either of us: no panting breathlessness, no headache. 

Plenty of noise pollution, though. Car alarms serenade the streets all day and night; cars and buses blast the air constantly with their ear splitting horns. Taxis  blast possible clients, even if we are walking in the opposite direction on a one-way street. Alex happened upon a part of Milleflores one day where a sign listed the fine for using the horn unnecessarily; a policeman was writing tickets. The street was silent. 

Plenty of noise, white sky, carbon monoxide, but no soroche. No joy in walking the streets. Everything is so far from everything else that you risk lung cancer if you go for a long walk; and you risk being deafened by the sound of the car horns. 

But I found something lovely to do here, and that was to walk the Malecon, which I did a few times. I also had a wonderful lunch in La Rosa Náutica yesterday. 

Leaving Arequipa

The Cruz del Sur bus left just over an hour ago. Carlito had dropped us at the bus station. Alex is on a bus to Lima, with his soroche and his diarrhoea. We just had an announcement that the servicios are only for urination. Not sure what where you're supposed to deposit your poo. 

We spent two days in the area we're going through now and the final day I had a headache I couldn't shake. I was breathless and panting as I am again now, I discovered as I walked down the back to the servicios. Everyone tells us that we have to become acclimatised to the altitude, but I was still breathless when I returned to Arequipa after having already spent three days there and at higher altitudes in the Colca Valley. 

I'm sorry to have split with Alex. He's turned into a good travelling companion. I miss him already. 

Arequipa: Rarified air and Colonial Grace

I'm getting over, or perhaps just acclimatized to my breathlessness. I woke earlier than I have been lately, this morning, and walked down to the Plaza de Armas to try and get some action in a gentler light. Well the shadows were slightly less harsh than the midday black holes we experienced on Saturday, but I realize I'm going to have to set the alarm to get out in the really soft light just after sunrise. I was in luck, though, because I caught a military parade to celebrate the independence of Latin America from Spain. 

Now Alex seems to be suffering from the altitude sickness which I have just about recovered from. He's sleeping it off in the room now while I write down here in the lobby. 

  

We met Carlito from Carlito's Tours this morning and his guide, Juan is picking us up at 7.30 tomorrow morning and taking us on a private tour to Colca Canyon. Looking forward to shooting the condors and other wildlife we find. This Peruvian adventure is looking up so much since Las Islas Ballestas. If I'd been well enough to keep the blog in Lima, I'm afraid it would have been a miserable screed, full of complaints, but in Arequipa I'm up, happy and healthy, and getting a handle on the rest of the trip. 

Peruvian Week

For some reason, I haven't had the time or perhaps the inclination, to keep up the blog since leaving Cartagena. It's true that I hate Lima, and it sucked the energy out of me. It's not a pleasant place for walkers: a sprawling congested constant flow of traffic; hard to cross every street because no one stops at pedestrian crossings unless there's a policeman there directing the traffic. And it's hard to breathe the carbon monoxide soup of air. But after getting back from Cartagena, I became violently ill just after a rather tasty lunch at the La Paz cafe. I don't think that lunch made me ill because the symptoms started coming on just after leaving the café. I think I was sick before that, possibly a result of something I ate or drank in Cartagena. 

That Tuesday morning we'd booked a three day tour to the south, going to Ica, Huacachina and Las Islas Ballestas at a travel agency we passed that morning. By 5.00 p.m. that day, I didn't know whether I'd be able to travel on a bus for the necessary hours with the violent diarrhoea and the projectile vomiting that had taken over my body. Alex walked back to the travel agency to ask whether we could put off the departure for a couple of days, perhaps to Friday, until I was well enough to travel. 

By the time he'd arrived and started negotiating, I had thrown up my lunch and evacuated my bowels completely, and I was feeling a lot better. Eddy, the travel agent, said that we couldn't leave on Friday because bookings were so heavy for the weekend, but we could go on Monday. That decided me; I was not going to spend one day longer than necessary in Lima. I wanted to flee as far away as possible. I told Alex to cancel the postponement. I would travel the next morning, at 7.30 as per the original plan. 

Cartagena

Friday 1/07/16

In Colombia already without a single post from Peru. Will have to catch you up on Peru later. 

Me encanta a Cartagena. Beautiful colonial buildings, tropical flowers, hot, hot, hot and steamy. Breyner sent a message to say he's on his way. 

Went for a walk on the wall last night just after sunset, ate a meal of coconut rice and drank a pina  colada that was much stronger than it tasted, and I was awake at 1 am, worrying that I hadn't left a tip in the restaurant. 

The streets were packed. Most tourists seem to be Spanish speakers, probably from other countries in South America, I'm guessing. The locals are the descendants of the colonisers and African slaves. Wish I knew a little more about the history. I think a trip to the museum is in order today. A little research to do now. 

Breyner arrived this morning (Saturday 2/07/16) and we visited the Gold Museum and the Museum of the Inquisition, and had fish for lunch. Grace to arrive tonight. 

Not a Team Player

This is difficult to try to express, and it will shock some especially in Australia, where we're known for our sporting prowess, right down from the recently deleted PM. It seems, after all this time and all these years, that I'm not a team player. I wasn't on team Australia, and I'm not going to be on any other team, either. If I go out of my way for someone, or something, it's because it's deserving; not because it tries to condemn me to death by Powerpoint.

I have played on a couple of teams in the past: I was on netball teams between the ages of 14 and 16. One was the Magpies. I was never a star player--arse too close to the ground--but it was a bit of fun on Saturdays. I never took it seriously. I knew who to throw the ball to, of course.

My team wore the black box pleats with the white short-sleeved blouses underneath, and they were my friends. We didn't win too many games, or at least I don't remember them, or the losses either. I'm assuming that's because we didn't set the world on fire. I remember the girls, though. I liked them and we shared some adolescent moments. I haven't seen most of them for forty years, but I remember them, and some of their secrets, and the fun we had together.

But I'm too old for teams now. I'm a team of one, just trying to get through this life as comfortably as possible. I'm not going to try to score goals so someone else gets the glory cup. I don't care about the cup. I never did.

I'll run (and I mean that metaphorically these days) for the ball, and throw it in the right direction--if I can remember which one that is--if the light is right, and it's interesting and fun. But don't expect me to get excited about the competition. I'll play the game, put in the game hours, but I'm not fronting up to the awards ceremony. What do those awards mean to me?

Today, an HR wonk showed me an extract from the series, "The Office" (Season 2 Ep. 2). It proved the adage that satire is always short of the mark because the target never gets the joke. It was this one.  (Just fast forward through the conversation between Dawn and the girl who's interested in Tim.) HR  used "The Office" to ask, with a straight face:"What could David have done better?" "How could Keith have prepared for the interview?". The point is, the premise is laughable, or would be if it wasn't taken so seriously. Keith puts in the hours. The Man is not paying for treasure. The man pays frugally for time, and makes a profit out of it, else Keith would be out of a job. Why make Keith jump through hoops. They employed him to do the accounts so he does the accounts.

Why should anyone else demand to know what Keith sees as his good or bad qualities. What's that got to do with the employment contract? Will the Man give Keith a raise if Keith convinces him he has very good qualities indeed? Keith wasn't employed because of his self knowledge but for his accountancy skills. Suddenly, though, it's it's an expectation that he should be able to talk about himself to be acceptable in the position. Isn't that like changing the rules after the whistle blows?

Around the World and Back Again: A Hobbler's Tale

Back in Sydney yesterday at 11.30 a.m., only 5 hours delayed. By the time I deplaned, I could barely walk.

It happened like this: the United flight Cancun-LAX was delayed about an hour. If it had been on time, I would have had a two-hour window to catch the connecting flight, LAX-Sydney. The delayed arrival, though, was not the only problem. All passengers, even transit passengers at US airports, have to collect their luggage, go through customs, and drop off their luggage again for the next flight. For me, this involved hauling the 23 kg dead weight off the corral and lining up to go through customs (removing boots, loading everything on the belt to be scanned). Then I had to go to terminal 7. (Terminal 7 now is to me like Winston Smith's room 101: my greatest fear.)

Terminal 7 was at least one kilometre from the terminal I where I deplaned. Add to this the fear that I knew I was very late. (I didn't know that my connecting flight was delayed because, of course, even though the terminal in Cancun and LA promised wifi connection, there was none. United informed me that the connecting flight was delayed via email, which I was finally able to access when I arrived in Sydney.)

Despite the delay in the connecting flight, I was still very late. Though very old, I almost ran, dragging the dead weight behind me, trying to negotiate dawdling family groups on the footpath in front of me. A much younger Australian woman, much longer of leg, left me in her dust as she whooshed past toward terminal 7.

I finally reached the baggage drop-off desk. A woman said: "Oh, you're too late." I said: "No I'm not. United was late." She looked at my boarding pass and said to another woman: "Her baggage is already checked in." Then she said that she would take it to the baggage loaders to get it on the plane. By that stage, I just wanted to get rid of it, and if she'd said, you can't take it with you, I wouldn't have been very upset. From there, it was a dash to the boarding gate, where boarding had only just begun.

I had wanted to stop, get something to eat and use the "restroom" but I wasn't going to risk missing UA389. (My previous experience of United, on the shorter haul flights, was that they don't provide free food. And what they sell, at inflated prices, is faux food: crackers, chips, nuts, prepackaged noodles, etc. I looked forward to a 15-hour fast; as it turned out, UA provides free airline "food" and soft drinks on the longer hauls.)

After I wedged myself into the window seat, I realised there was a new pain in my right knee (my good one). Raising the right leg, lowering it, leaving it bent with foot resting on the floor, and walking on it, all gave me pain. A large silent man, who communicated with me by pointing, sat next to me. (I thought that maybe he could not speak when I saw him signing to a little girl on the opposite side of the plane.)

The large man usurped the armrest and as the flight progressed, items of his clothing moved further into my space and wedged me nearer to the window. He snored a bit, farted a bit. Such are the joys of air travel. I didn't know if I'd ever be able to get out to visit the "rest room", so I determined to try to hold it until I saw the woman on the aisle get up, and then I'd broach the subject with the man. If the woman did move, I missed it. Must have nodded off a couple of times, since it was way past my usual 10 p.m. lights out by the time I boarded the plane. Finally, when my self-control was about to give out, I asked the man if I could get out.

When we landed in Sydney, the large silent man began chatting with the woman on the aisle. Not sure why I wasn't blessed with his vocalisation during the flight, but this is just another of life's little mysteries.

I got out of the terminal and my very good, very patient friend, I learned later, was waiting to pick me up, as she had promised she would be. Only, I tried to ring her, but the useless Austpost travelsim was not working. I asked the Pacific islander sat outside the terminal on the same bench as me, if I could use his phone to make a call, as mine wasn't working. I offered him $2. But I'm not sure he understood English or what I was suggesting for the $2. Then I thought: Shall I cry now or put it off until I get home?

I tried the phone again and I managed to get through to my friend's number, but only to voicemail. I wasn't sure if my friend was at the airport, or where she might be. I knew if I were in the wrong spot, I wouldn't be able to walk to the right spot. (When I got home, I got her email telling me where she'd be.) Please forgive me!

So, I'm very sorry to have burdened you with this detailed exploration of the last flight of the journey; I'm sure you also have your tales of torture by long-distance carriers. However, I want to log this experience, so that it becomes something I can refer to in future. We forget these things; we spend minutes and hours, and days of our lives going through these unpleasant (or pleasant) experiences, and I want to remember them.

Not to savour them, so much, as to be able to account for the time spent and the way it was spent.