Comfort Zone

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” - Cesare Pavese

So the thing about growing and pushing yourself and stepping outside your comfort zone is that, well, it can be highly uncomfortable. The last 24 hours or so have handed us our first missteps on this trip, the parts that make the good stories and make you really open up to the country that is surrounding you instead of cruise controlling through your trip. So they´re good...even if they are uncomfortable.

Thursday night we both did manage to shower (much to the relief of each other´s nostrils :) and got picked up by a local friend of Cate´s friend. He whisked us all around in his car taking us through a bunch of different neighborhoods and all along the coast which was beautifully lit up at night, pointing out beaches he went to as a kid and the place on the hill overlooking the water where teenagers would park their cars on the weekends. He also took us to a couple different places for food and drinks that probably snagged a few more stars on their ratings than the backpacker budget dive restaurants we´d been frequenting. It was interesting to see this other side of Peru. And you would´ve thought we´d found Mecca when we got to use a clean bathroom WITH toilet paper in one of the places! Don´t worry, as soon as we find a place to upload pictures there will be a whole post dedicated to bathrooms in Peru. :) At the end of the night, he took us to a late-night local food place and only told us AFTER we´d eaten the food he´d ordered for us that we´d in fact just eaten a shish kebab of beef heart.

Discomfort No. 1: Cate had a late-night battle with the shish kebab.

BEEF HEART 1 : CATE 0

The next morning we were a little tender and were supposed to be at the bus station at 3pm, so we packed up, wandered to downtown Miraflores, and hung out in a cafe. Then we caught a taxi to the bus station to get there early for our 5:30 bus. We waited our turn to purchase our tickets and when we got to the counter found out that our reservation was in fact no longer in the system, the bus was full and there weren´t anymore buses until tomorrow. Nice. After talking to a couple people it became clear that even though they had told us to arrive at 3pm to pay for our tickets, they in fact only held the reservations until 2:30pm. Interesting.

Discomfort No. 2: We loaded up our packs and trekked in the heat to all the different bus companies around to find out that all the buses were full and we were stuck in Lima for another night with no bed.

We returned to the first bus company, Cruz del Sur, and actually purchased our tickets for a 2pm bus the next day and after confirming four times when we needed to arrive, started calling hostels trying to find a bed. The first few we called were full as it was now the weekend. So we turned to a couple of friendly looking gringo backpackers and asked if they had found a place. They had and there were still beds there so we loaded down a tiny cab with our packs and selves and headed back into Lima. The boys were sweet and from Belgium. One was studying abroad and other was there visiting him for a month. We wandered down to the water and along the coast with them, grateful for some temporary male protection, even if they were only 19-year-old little boys. Then we split off, and Cate and I found a nice quiet restaurant for a pizza dinner...we decided to play it safe after the previous nights culinary tricks. We returned to the hostel and I crawled in bed planning on an early night, only to succumb to the Revenge of the Beef Heart, Part II.

Discomfort No. 3: Getting to taste my pizza for a second time.

BEEF HEART 2 : CATE & KRISTA 0

This morning we´re just been taking it easy and are heading to the bus station soon, much earlier than they recommend...just to be safe. And we´re going to test how well Dramamine works on foreign food induced nausea on our 19-hour bus ride. Should be fun!

But we´re traveling for real now, slightly off balance, floundering in miscommunications, reaching out to strangers for help, not able to jump in a car and head home when we don´t feel well, and very much, electrically involved in life.

Day 2, No shower

Yesterday, we walked from Miraflores (the district of Lima that our hostel is in) to Barranco which is a slightly quieter and more peaceful district to the south, apart from the main square which is surrounded by buildings that are all painted a bright mustardy yellow. The majority of the walk was along the ocean cliff which has been really nicely paved and landscaped and opposite blocks and blocks of glassy beachside condos. Only at one point did we have to walk down a hill, cross over a busy road, and scale up the otherside!

The day was slightly overcast and not too hot and the ocean is really lovely from above. It's the Pacific so there are waves enough for surfing and lots of kids out because it is school holidays. The guidebooks all say that the water isnt suitable for swimming due to the pollution, but that doesnt stop the locals and I think tomorrow we are going to try and find a good beach for the morning... The beaches that weve seen so far are not sandy -more pebbly - and everyone has warned us about safety on the beaches so we are a little apprehensive, but we are going out with a local tonight and hope that he will give us some insider info.

Barranco was nice. Apparently it has become a clubbing hotspot with DJs that spin all night - dance music and traditional Peruvian beats and is particularly busy on the weekends, rather than a Wednesday. We were there during the day and so just had a nice lunch. I ordered the traditional Peruvian special (understanding only that lentils would be included) and got a huge portion of beef liver...eek.

Last night, we went out for Pisco Sours, the traditional drink of Lima, made with Pisco, egg whites, and sour mix. They are delicious and pretty potent.

We both got burnt over the course of the day and woke up today with red rings around our necks. In downtown Lima today at least 3 Peruvians have commented on it, given us warnings about the sun, and one even pointed us in th direction of the nearest pharmacy to buy sunscreen. In my defense, Krista's burn is a little worse than mine, but we both look like burnt gringo's that just arrived in Peru (which we are!).

Downtown Lima today was a little shocking. We both realized that Lima is one of the first 3rd world or developing countries that either of us has been to. It really is very poor. We were mistakenly dropped off one stop past Plaza de Armas (the main plaza) and ended up close to the slums that border the city. It's an incredible area, colorful and alive and reaching up the hill behind, but it's a shanty town with homes built out of an assortment of materials - wood scraps, cardboard, old billboards - and without any ammenties, plumbing etc. The bus driver was very concerned about dropping us off so close and forcifully told us to walk quickly in the other direction.

We eventually found the Plaza de Armas where a worker's demonstration was about to begin so we scooted off and toured the Catedral de San Francisco (I think this is right!) and its catacombs and went to the Museum of the Inquisition.

We've booked a bus to Cusco for tomorrow leaving at 5.30 PM and getting in at 2PM the next day!! I think we're both looking forward to being in a slightly smaller city, being settled in a place for two weeks, and are both excited for the projects that lie ahead.

Oh and the title of the post is true. Neither of us has showered since we arrived in Peru (which makes our last showers the morning of the 24th). The hostel's bathrooms are the kind of bathrooms that make you feel dirtier for having used them, so we've been avoiding but today I could smell myself, so I'm off to brave it now......

We arrived in Lima late last night . Wayruros Backpackers hostel is sort of a casual affair, half outdoors, and graffit from previous guests on the walls - a majority of whom seem to be from Israel. Our room upstairs has about 4 bunks, 8 beds. The only occupants when we arrived last night were two men..one of which looked like he hadn´t planned on staying at the hostel, had just drunk too much and wrapped himself in towels. Also his mattress was covered in plastic so we assumed there might be a chance he´d stayed at Wayruros before and wet the bed. We were both too exhausted to mind much and slept really soundly albeit with our backpacks an arms reach away.

This morning, things were a lot brighter. We had delicious coffee and tea and fluffy rolls with jam and butter that the hostel provides, got some good advice from Dayro, the hostel do-everything teenager who´s English rocks and we´re discovering Lima by foot.

Too, phone is working now thanks to my wonderful father and a very calm and collected person at Verizon.

Goodbye Sweet South!

It's past midnight. We leave tomorrow at ten - wake up is at 7. Krista is sitting at the computer making our INCREDIBLE contact sheet, weeding out contacts we deem necessary as it gets later into the night! I've updated and "neatened" our itinerary (it's still full of gaps and pretty ugly!), but we're going... Tomorrow we fly to Lima and stay there for a couple of nights before our volunteering in Cuzco begins. We're staying at Wayruros Backpackers Hostel at the beach - the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima- and they've promised a man with a sign at the airport. Oh man with a sign, see you soon in the land of summer.

Farewell/Fundraising Party!

THANK YOU!

To everyone who came out to see us off,
asked about our plans,
bought a raffle ticket,
drank "peru punch",
contributed,
and left us crazy tips!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
You guys are amazing,
and I hope you had as much fun as we did!
We raised over $700!

Fun-draising!

The flights are booked. The vaccines have been injected. The visas are being issued. We have contacted far-flung friends of far-flung friends seeking couches and advice and have been devouring guides for South America, Africa, India, and New Zealand.

And we have also committed to two of the three volunteering stints we have planned, in Peru and Kenya. (Still trying to decide on a program for India, suggestions welcome!)

We'll be volunteering with the Global Volunteer Network, which pairs you with local a NGO (non-governmental organization) in the area who is more in tune with the needs of the community. In March we'll be working with a local organization called Maximo Nivel for two weeks in Cusco, Peru. Cate will be teaching English to locals, and I will be helping in a health clinic for low-income families.

In Kenya, we'll be working with Volunteer International Community Development Africa for two weeks in May. Cate will be assisting in an orphanage, teaching, encouraging and caring for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. I will be volunteering with an HIV/AIDS program helping with both prevention and treatment of patients.

And so, we've also begun in earnest...fundraising for these programs. Volunteering programs charge fees for food and lodging during your stay, administration, and a donation to the community. We've done a lot of research and found that GVN offered some of the more affordable options while still allowing for a meaningful, effective volunteering placement.

And now I have a confession. Fundraising makes me squeamish. That's right, I'm signing up for 4 years of blood and guts in med school, but fundraising makes me squeamish. My American, hyper-individualistic self-reliance dictates that not having saved enough money or worked out some sort of scheme to pay for this myself constitutes a failure. However, after some of the experiences I had last fall and what I hope to experience on this trip, I'm trying to re-think the value of doing everything on my own. As Bill McKibbon writes in his book Deep Economy (highly recommended), "We don't need each other for anything anymore. If we have enough money, we're insulated from depending on those around us-which is at least as much a loss as a gain."

The italics are mine. I'm not promoting a dependence on others but suggesting that maybe a little more interdependence, a little more connectedness might be okay. You see, Cate and I could go on this trip all on our own means and have, as I'm sure we will, amazing, life-changing experiences and return home with the dust kicked up in our souls and a new, fresh brand of inspiration to get us going on our lives. And that will be great, for us. But how much more could be gained if we can parcel out the ownership of this trip? If a community of people is invested in our trip and we can return that investment by sharing what we see and learn? We will get to share the connections we make in the global community and also illuminate how some of our choices in the USA affect other people around the world. And hopefully that dust-kicking, soul-stirring inspiration will be transmitted to many instead of just two.

And so, in this post-modern world, we're reaching out to our community, which is no longer necessarily defined by a geographical location, but are all those people who have come (or are yet to come!) into our lives and have helped shape and support us. If you're interested in "investing" in our volunteering experiences, you can do so here. And if you have children, check out our Fairy Trail Adventures postcard subscription service from Nie, the travel fairy. We hope to repay you in sharing in something larger than us or this trip and in passing on some knowledge, awareness and inspiration.