Cuzco is great, I love the city, I love my family and I especially the cheap taxis and the cheap snacks (and beer). Every once in a while though it goods to get out of the place that you love, like I left Burlington for Wooster and like I left Wooster for Peru. In my current period of life though I needed to leave Cuzco for a bit, to truly appreciate it and to find different cheap beer. Despite this necessity I find myself, at the tail end of my 2 week excursion, really missing Cuzco, the familiarity, and my mom who never lets me go without a full stomach. In two days I will be back in Cuzco and even without the beach and sun of Lima or the rural comfort of Sibayo, I'll be happy. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself though, Sibayo and Lima are not very far in the past and I am neglecting to describe my experiences in either.
Sibayo is a small, very small, rural town in the mountains of the Colca Canyon region. High altitudes, no housing heat and the wind funneling into the mountain-surrounded town means that I spent the majority of my nights in 6 layers, a sleeping bag and with my hands stuck up in my warm armpits...a bit sweaty gross but oh so necessary. I lived mainly with a 44 y/o woman, her sons and husband would be by occasionally but they worked and had school so I got to fill the "mother son time". In the village of Sibayo though "mother son time" meant backbreaking manual labor so while the 2 other female SIT students in my village got to cook a bit and mostly relax, my 5'11" frame was taken advantage of by my host mother. Each morning I would rise, eat fried trucha (trout) for breakfast, grab a little Soviet flag style sickle and hack at grass for a few hours in order to feed the Cuy's in the "Casa de Cuy"...and I did not even get to munch on the plump little buggers. Days of grass cutting, trout fishing, herb gardening and walking up and down cobble streets put me to bed each night by 8 pm, leading to my best 5 days of sleep in quite a while, the one positive coming out of not having hardware stores.
After 2 days of manual back breaking the SIT group from the high altitude towns, 8 of us in total, converged to hike to La Estancia, the alpaca herding community much higher in the mountains, about an hour away by foot. Hiking in altitude is not an enjoyable experience in the least but the beautiful scenery, the crossing of a rickety wooden bridge and the use of a slingshot/whip to throw rocks into the canyon made it pretty much all worth it. By the time we got to La Estancia it had begun to rain, go figure, and we were forced to observe the enormous alpaca population only briefly before returning to our beds or rock floor as a more accurate person would call it. Before leaving the alpaca farm, on impulse, the 3 men in the group plus our male director decided to hike/rock climb a nearby peak to get a better view of the surrounding area. After a few slips, a couple scares and a number of deep breathes we made it to the top and got a chance to experience some of the most amazing sights i have seen
in my long life. In order to appreciate it even more we gave a coca leaf offering to Apu, the mountain spirits, and descended the mountain hoping that our offering would stop a rock slide or a lightning strike or a cactus prick. The rest of the night was spent eating bread, drinking coffee and, by the light of headlamps, playing card games like Spit and the mid-west favorite Euchre. The next morning it was time to chop wood for breakfast, which the two countries boy could do, not so much our Philadelphia native friend, and then return to the alpaca farm to bless and shave the long-necked mammals. After a bottle of wine was splashed on the herd in a blessing to Apu and Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) we got to take a stab, almost literally, at shaving an alpaca. Not to brag but I think I found my hidden talent, after all those years of trying different sports really all I had to do was try alpaca shaving. When the alpaca was trimmed and looking fresh we began to hoof it back to our villages, an enjoyable down-hill hike with the prospect of a softer bed at the end of the trail.
On my last day in Sibyo I met up with the two other SITers in Sibayo and with the guidance of one of their host father and my host brother we marched an hour into the canyon to a site where we were met face to face with a young mummy, curled up and marked off in the side of a mountain. The mummy's name was Juanito and he was a young Incan child who had been sacrificed to the gods. Meeting in person the shocking realization that this was a common practice, that communities believed so utterly in their gods and their god's power to change their lives that they would kill one of their own, a child no less, was something that I will be working over in my head for a while to come. It was a nice trip though, hot, sweaty and required a lot of stair climbing but rewarding none the less. On the way back from our visit to Juanito we were met in the road by a younger cow wandering quite a bit behind his owner. Quickly remembering my sisters story in Africa about being headbutted by a cow into mud and taking into account the fact that to my back was a cliff into a raging river, I managed to plant my feet and stick my arms out just in time to catch the cows head as it bucked towards my chest... phew, thanks Lindsey.
The next morning it was a plate of trout, lots of goodbyes and an 1.5 hour ride back to our bus in Chivay. Leaving Sibayo had its ups and downs, I was heading towards Arequipa and Lima, two warmer cities where we were to be set up in hotels with heat, comfy beds and the opportunity to avoid a sickle and tall grass. On the other side though I loved the freeing feel of a town cut off from the rest of the world and, although I will deny it until I die from here on, I really liked eating 6 fried trout per day.
Last night I had a dream that I had randomly run into my sister on the streets of Sibayo during my time there. It was not expected and completely perfect, we had a classic Casey and Lindsey verbal interaction and she gave me priceless advice about how to go about making it through the rest of my time living in a foreign country. When I woke up I still had the feeling that I had seen my sister, that she had really been there and that it was all just another part of my Peruvian Adventure. By the time I realized that it had just been a dream it didn't really matter because I had already internalized all her advice and come to the realization that no matter what, whether I spend my nights freezing cold, stuff myself with a food I don't quite enjoy, crush my spinal chord under a bag of freshly cut grass or nearly meet a freakishly strong animal's head with my chest, I am progressing through life in a way few people get a chance to and enjoying myself every step of the way so why dwell on those little inconveniences that will probably set me up in the long run for something better, a good story, a toughened stomach or a chance to make a first date laugh. So, once again, I say thank you Lindsey!
alpaCasey
No comments:
Post a Comment