Did you know!?

Did you know that I’ve now completed my 7^th week as a Peruvian? Sure enough. Nearly halfway done with my program and absolutely no idea where the time has gone. Week after week I blog about how quickly this semester is going and how it’ll be gone before I know it, and yet every new week that comes it blows me away all over again how sneakily time passes me by. That being said, I’ll do my very best to come to terms with it this week so that you don’t have to hear about it all over again in my next blog. (Sneak peak: going to BOLIVIAAAA this week for “Spring” break so I have no doubt I’ll have some crazy stories to tell from that adventure!)

I added this picture because I'm trying to look intriguing
and I'm hoping it'll make you want to keep reading.

Were you aware that Cusco is home to the variety of spider commonly known as the tarantula? Well for a good 6 weeks living here I was blessedly unaware. But, of course, such heavenly ignorance can’t last forever and so last weekend I was ripped out of my fairytale. But I’ll start at the beginning.

So last weekend I made a friend (yes, hard to believe but true) from London named Simon. He had been in the Cusco for quite a while, but had somehow failed to visit some of the coolest spots in the city. Seeing as it was his last day in Peru and it would have been a true crime to let him go without fully experiencing the oldest city in South America, I decided to show him around to some of my favorite spots. First we went up to Cristo Blanco, a large statue of Christ that overlooks all of Cusco, where we ended up staying to watch the sun set over the city. Absolutely freaking gorgeous.

 The next of my favorite spots around the city is a huge set of ruins called Sacsayhuaman, which one usually is required to pay 70 soles (about $20) to see. Seeing as neither of us were about to pay that much, but we did both really want to check out the ruins, we decided to be a wee bit sneaky. Long story short, we ended up navigating our way past a guard and through a fence until we were able to enter the ruins and do some sneaky exploring. Eventually we made it to the very top of the ruins and were able to catch a glimpse of a spectacular view (check out da photo!).

Our incredible view of the city from the ruins.

And now the part I know you’ve all been waiting anxiously for… the arachnid. As we were making our way back into the city, we began hearing a little froggy chirping on the side of the trail near a big stone wall. Me, being Hannah and always feeling the need to see and touch things, decided to try to find it. At this point it was quite dark, so I used the dinky flashlight on my even dinkier Peruvian phone to investigate. So there I was, searching around with my head quite close to the ground due to the dimness of my flashlight, trying to discover the illusive amphibian, when I saw it. There, right in front of my face was a furry, eight-legged creature that couldn’t have been much smaller than the size of my palm. Ummmm… yikes!

Needless to say, that was the end of my hunt for the frog. I uttered some completely clean and appropriate phrase like “holy fudge!” or something along those lines, and Simon and I proceeded to book it down the hill and away from the spider as speedily as possible. Since, you know, spiders have been known to chase people and all that stuff.

After this incident, we decided to go back to the bar where I work to grab some drinks to calm our nerves (you know, soda and stuff like that) and witnessed an Irish couple’s honeymoon. Which involved them coming to Cusco, staying at the cheapest backpackers hostel possible, downing a few (several) drinks, and dancing on the bar! I mean I don’t want to stereotype or anything… but did I mention they were Irish?

And then this past week we took a trip to Puerto Maldonado, which is a town in Eastern Peru in the Amazon! We went for a class, so a large part of the journey was spent doing the whole educational thing (what the heck is that about?!) but lots was learned and we even got to do a tiny bit of adventuring.

One such adventure occurred in the indigenous town of Infierno, which directly translates to “hell.” And yes, it really was that hot. We arrived in the village early in the morning to find that typical to Peruvian fashion, everyone that we were supposed to meet with that day was gone on some holiday or something. Clasico. But we weren’t about to waste a whole day, so we asked if there was anything we could do to help out around the village.

Self-explanatory.

 Not minutes later (perhaps the fastest anything has ever happened in Peru ever) half of the group was outfitted with machetes, and the other was given instructions to pick up brush and throw it over the cliff into the river. Because of my massive muscles and neverending energy, I made sure that I was among those to be gifted a machete. The rest of the day consisted of us hacking away at the understory of the Amazon jungle so that the medicinal herbs that the town was growing could thrive. Best anger management therapy ever – honestly they should probably start prescribing that shit it worked so well.

Seeing as it’s the Amazon and all, occasionally you would cut into the ground and massive killer ants would start swarming everywhere, or you’d step on a leaf and a ginormous spider would peek out to say hello, but thankfully no tarantulas so we’re all good. We made it through the day a little less hydrated, with a few more blisters, but none the worse for wear.

After our day of practicing forest management like bosses, we returned to our hostel and played volleyball in the pool with a balloon. Not too shabby.

The next day we took our bus back home through the mountains to Cusco. Ten hours of daydreaming and staring out the window at the rainforest and the Andes surprising made for an incredibly relaxing day. Until I simply couldn’t bear it any longer and decided to attempt going to the bathroom. Okay, I want you to imagine two things for me. First, imagine a winding mountain pass complete with loads of switchbacks and hairpin turns. Second, I want you to imagine going to the bathroom in an airplane just as turbulence starts to get bad. Got those two things in mind? Okay, now combine those two situations and that is exactly what it’s like to go to the bathroom in a bus in Peru.

(Artsy) view from my seat on the bus!

However, after I had fallen my way down the stairs to the lower level and somehow managed to open the incredibly sticky door and finally relieved my bladder WITHOUT peeing on myself too much (just kidding), I looked out the window of the bathroom to see one of the most amazing sunsets of my entire life. But actually it’s a bummer I didn’t take my phone to the bathroom for a little pee music because I so wish I had a picture. It was spectacular. With reds and purples lowering itself behind the snowcapped Andes mountains… impossible to describe.

So the moral of the story is… going to the bathroom on buses isn’t always bad because sometimes you can see pretty things and stuff out the window. The end.

And that, somehow, brings me to the sentimental section of this whole deal. My friend Simon (the guy who I survived being attacked by a tarantula with) wears this little silver necklace that says something along the lines of “it all depends on where you look.” It brought me back to all of the times when my mom preached, “choose where you focus your camera lens!” or my dad told me to “defer judgment!” Despite the countless amount of times that I rolled my eyes and angstily said, “Okayyyyy mom I get it already,” with this little silver reminder of all of the times I had been routinely told these things growing up, I realized that there was actually something truly meaningful behind these phrases.

I love Cusco, but it’s ridiculous. Every single day is chaotic and unpredictable and completely beyond my control. At any given moment if I wanted to I could find a million things that would absolutely drive me crazy, but I just don’t let myself go there. And I don’t think that’s unique to me, or Cusco, or Peru. That’s the secret, I think, in being happy no matter what unreal situation you’re in. Of course, sometimes it’s harder than other times to seek out the positive things and truly focus on them, but the optimist in me would like to believe that it’s never impossible.

So I guess I’m not writing this down to remind you all that happiness is always possible, but more so that I can put it out there so that you all can hold me accountable. Yeah, sometimes life is hard or boring, and sometimes it decides to throw you a few more punches than you deserve, but if you can seek out the silver linings, the positive things, the beauty in your everyday life, happiness will come to you.

And here's a picture of a cute doggy loving life just to brighten your day!

So yeah, probably not quite as entertaining as most parts of my blog, but an epiphany worth sharing. Yeah, I miss my family and home and my friends at school more than anything, and sometimes living in this crazy unpredictable city is nothing short of terrifying, but at the same time every day is a new adventure here and every day there are new things to see and learn. And that’s freaking fantastic. 

That Devil Time

Some ruins that we randomly happened across in the
forest last night during our explorations.

I’m here to do you all a very huge favor. I’m here to debunk a myth that we’ve all been fed since day one, a myth that I refuse to allow to continue to propagate. I’m doing this because I all care about you, so please pay heed.

Time does not fly. 

Nope, it sticks with you, walks beside you, chats with you, laughs with you. And then one day, you’ll be minding your own business casually walking along when you realize that Time has done it again! It’s snuck up when you least expect it and shoved you in a wormhole and now days or weeks or months have gone by and you have no idea how! It’s a sneaky devil, to say the least. It hangs out with you all day every day, and lulls you into a steady routine in which you can’t imagine that it would every do anything to hurt you, and then BAM! It’s done it again. And you suddenly realize you’ve been living in freaking Cusco, Peru for five weeks.

 

Wut!?!

So moral of the story: Beware of the sneaky devil named Time, because he WILL sneak up on you just when you least expect it.

However, despite my frustrations with Time’s mind games, I really have been soaking up every moment and taking advantage of muchisimos opportunities, and so I have quite a few stories to tell and this blog is going to be a long one. Feel free to stop reading at this point, it’s fine. You’ll be missing out, but whatever, see if I care. Really. Just try me.

Estoy Empleada!

Making friends with a sloth!

First and foremost in the realm of seized opportunities… I am now officially a Peruvian bartender! Friday was my first night of work at an Irish hostel-bar called the Wild Rover. And it was an absolute blast. It’s really mostly for fun and a few discounted drinks, so I won’t be working much more than once a week or so, but I have no doubt that there will be many crazy stories coming out of that facet of my life here. Essentially it just gives me the chance to meet a thousand awesome people from a thousand crazy places all in a night’s work.

“Horrible”

Other great news… I have officially rolled my R’s in casual conversation for the first time ever! It may or may not have been when I was calling my host brother names, one of which was “horrible,” but no me importa. I might forever have a horribly American accent, but I’m at least one step closer to not sounding like a complete idiot (ha).

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The ingredients needed to move a Peruvian rock:

1 massive boulder

10 willing people

9 endless feet

2 exhausting and tense hours

We moved this thing from the orange-ish
pile of gloves... so like no distance
at all.

And that’s not a metaphor. This week’s service project involved the reorganization of a school yard so that it would be safer and cleaner for the children attending the school. This reorganization, for some ungodly reason, involved the superhuman feat of moving a boulder from one side of the yard to the other. Clearly necessary.

All ten of us would push with all of our might and prop it up as much as we could, then we’d shove a rock underneath, and repeat until it was supported enough to roll it over a little. Two hours later we had moved it to where it needed to be. A morning well spent…

BUT despite all of my dramatic hysterics, it was a beautiful sunny day with an incredible view from where we were working and I made myself a doggy friend and it was nice and stuff. J

Cuy

Who wants to chow down on some
teeth?! Anyone??

And the cherry on top of my excellent two weeks was this past weekend. It was my friend Erika’s last couple of days before she had to go back to the states after ten weeks of volunteering, so we decided to make it a good one.

After having the absolute privilege of holding a sloth, we decided to head down into the valley to try some of Tipon’s famous delicacy: guinea pig. Is everyone picturing the cute little furry face of their childhood pet right now? The way his little nose twitched and how he had that spot right behind his ear? Got it now? Yeah? Well I ate his cousin. And he was absolutely delicious.

But in all seriousness, cuy (the Quechua name for guinea pig because of the little squeaks that they make) is quite tasty. They bring the entire animal out, head and all, and you just kind of dig in! I didn’t go as far as to try eating the head and whatnot, but I did try a lung and I must say it was quite scrumptious.

The Magic Dog

One of the more adrenaline pumping highlights from this weekend occurred in a small town called Huasao. This is a town that’s famous for its shamans and mystics, so we decided to wander through it in hopes that someone (or something) would pop out of a random hole in a wall somewhere and tell us our fortunes. Didn’t happen, but a girl can dream.

Dalton looking a wee bit embarrassed after the incident,
and you can just barely see the dog in the background!

So as we were walking down the main street, we kept seeing doors that seemed somewhat magical, so we would jokingly be like “ah! There’s definitely magic behind THAT door!” and such things. We were having a great time, making light of the fact that no shamans had appeared before us yet (dammit), and walking off all of the cuy that we had consumed earlier when suddenly someone seemed to forget that we were joking about the magic doors…

Now, just so everyone is clear, my dear friend Dalton has the worst luck in the world. Some might say he’s clumsy, some could some other things (Sorry Dalton) but really he just has the worst luck. He’s been bitten by a dog, then the subsequent day surrounded by a pack of dogs, he’s gotten food poisoning, his host family had a death in the family, the list goes on. I have faith that his luck will turn, but unfortunately not in time to save him this past weekend.

So anyway, back to the door. Dalton, for some reason believing that there was indeed magic behind one particular door, and also believing that it was somehow okay to go push on that door to see if it was open (now looking back on it, I’m beginning to think a shaman most definitely jinxed him) decides to go and see for himself what magic was present. He pushed the door open not more than three inches or so when suddenly out burst two viciously snarling dogs running at full speed. Right at us.

Despite the fact that we all nearly died from sheer panic, we soon realized that the dogs were only posing as death’s personal henchmen and we began breathing again. As I had time to reflect on the faces that I had witnessed just as each one of us thought that we had met our end, I realized how funny looking my friends are. Just kidding, but actually I would have killed to have snapped a picture at that exact moment because I’ve never seen five faces with such a petrified and absolutely flabbergasted look in my life.

So in love with this place. 

In conclusion, as much as this might come as a surprise to many, Peru still rocks. What gets me the most is how literally every day comes with a new and crazy experience that I could never have predicted. Some are good, some are bad, some are scary, but the point is that every single day I get to experience something new to me, and that’s my favorite part of this whole ridiculous experience. So in the spirit of continuously seeking out new horizons, I’ll leave you with a quote from John Krakauer:

“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” 

Where Everything is Possible, but Nothing is Sure

Peru: where “everything is possible, but nothing is sure.” For example, it’s possible to take a taxi home fairly easily, but you MIGHT run out of gas on the way. Or you can take your phone on the bus, but it’s POSSIBLE that you’ll never see it again. Or you can have a casual conversation with your family around the dining table, but your host brother COULD make fun of you relentlessly for your weird accent (Yeah, I’m talking about you, Luis).

Granadilla: the weirdest looking and best tasting
fruit I've ever had.

It’s the beginning of my fourth week here and things are in full swing. Classes are happening, relationships are forming, and I have even once or twice recognized random people while walking around downtown. This is real life.

A few recent highlights:

Tramposo:

My 9 year old host brother Marcelo absolutely loves games. Monopoly, indoor soccer, uno, tennis, you name it. He’ll play it. He also recently discovered that I have chess on my computer (double whammy, technology AND a board game all wrapped into one!) and so he has been wanting to play it quite a bit. Wanna know how I learned the word “cheater” in Spanish? THIS KID.

My favorite little tramposo and his cousin. 

In monopoly he counts the wrong number of spaces so he won’t have to go to jail, in Uno he just straight makes up rules, in chess NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that it’s on a computer and fairly hard to cheat, he’ll press down on the mouse as my hand hovers over different moves so that I move to the wrong place. And yet, despite all of this, he’s my favorite little dude ever. When I walk in the door after school he’s so pumped to see me, when we watch TV he always makes sure to turn on the English subtitles (it’s the little things), and when I speak Spanish to him he’s never-endingly patient.

He’s a crazy little booger but I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better host family.

Brichero:

So for those of you who are blessedly unaware, in Peru there’s a certain type of person who is known as a brichero. Essentially, these are locals who prey on un-expecting foreigners and start relationships with them mostly so that they can gain access to any resources like money or whatnot that the foreigner has. If you’re interested in learning even more about bricheros than my stellar explanation can provide, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRk6dvRLngA

My cute little Peruvian phone!

So anyway, on Thursday night (we didn’t have class on Friday, Mom) I was out at a hostel-bar with friends, minding my own business when this Peruvian woman came over and started talking to me. We were chatting it up, talking about our respective countries and sharing stories, having a good old friendly cross-cultural conversation. She was speaking in English, I was speaking in Spanish and feeling pretty proud of myself, it was great. And then I started to realize something...

She was NOT a she. “She” was in fact just a dude with excessively long hair and very womanly features. My powers of observation are clearly up to par.

I don’t know how your experiences in bars have been, but from my fairly limited experience I’ve noticed that guys don’t usually just casually chat with girls without having ulterior motives. Call me crazy, but that’s what I’ve observed.

So anyway, with my incredibly honed investigation skills, I began to realize that this Peruvian chick…. errr I mean chico was very possibly hitting on me. So with my equally honed skills of not being socially awkward, I excused myself to go to the bathroom and didn’t return. Well played, Hannah. Well played.

But the story does not end there! I try to avoid featuring my social awkwardness as the main point in my tales, as much as humanly possible at least.

Donaldo and his bag of coca leaves

Let’s flash forward about 48 hours. My friend Dalton and I are sitting on the fountain journaling and being cool and whatnot, when we happen to notice an oddly familiar looking Peruvian with unnaturally looking long hair. And with him, there appears to be a very much NOT Peruvian woman with whom he was getting pretty cozy with (PDA is everywhere here). Dalton and I have heard plenty of stories about the infamous bricheros, so we decided to get a closer looked. We noticed (conveniently) that there was an empty bench next to theirs and so we (inconspicuously, I might add) ran over to claim the territory. And it was him! The brichero had found his prey, and her name was not Hannah Eckert.

And there you have it folks! The story of how I successfully navigated my first encounter with a brichero.

Coca:

For those of you who are as naïve as I was, coca leaves are the source of cocaine. Alone they’re very harmless and act more like redbull than coke, but they’re illegal in most countries because of what you can make out of them. But not here! Nope! Because this is Peru and they do what they want.

A beautiful Cusquena sunset over the colonial
Spanish buildings.

So one of my professors is quite the coca head (haha, get it?) and invited us to a speaker on the benefits of coca leaves a couple of weeks ago. Being the dutiful students that we are, we all decided to attend. After drinking coca tea, eating coca bread, and consuming some kind of coca soda that was green, we were ready to go. A mere hour after the scheduled time for the chat, a very old hippie guy finally emerged and began speaking. For an hour and half. In Spanish. And I don’t know what I was expecting out of a speaker who is an expert on the coca leaf, but he talked at approximately a million miles an hour and I couldn’t understand anything except the occasional “oja de coca,” “redbull,” and… yeah that was just about it. So that was fun.

Then yesterday we were all sitting in our class on Indigenous Amazonian Peoples getting ready for it began when I accidentally let out a teensy little yawn. Very small. And immediately Donaldo was ready with some coca leaves for everyone! He’s a regular boy scout he’s so prepared. And to make matters more exciting we’re going to be travelling to the Amazon for three days later this month with him. It’ll be interesting to see how the saga of the coca leaf continues…

So that’s my life! Basically just full of drugs and Peruvian men. What more could a girl ask for?

Hasta luego!

Hannah