Turns out my move to Cajamarca was going to be a little later than I thought, and the five Super Caja Chicas (the five of us going to living Cajamarca – we earned the nickname during field-based training) were stuck in limbo between our training adventure and our service adventure. Limbo at this point was a small room in Hostel Amigos in Miraflores with five beds and far too much luggage crammed into it. We had said goodbye to all our friends, who in various shifts pertaining to their future geographic locations, had piled all their crap into cabs and headed off to various bus stations. Saying goodbye, again, was brutal.
We’d been in Lima for two days, and had enjoyed every moment of it – hitting up Downtown, the local gay club, for the sake of our gay guy friends and it’s close proximity (we females hadn’t anticipated the number of lesbians that would also be there and I ended playing body guard against some very persistent Peruvian ladies for more than a few people); 3 a.m. McDonalds because there is nothing more delicious than 3 a.m. McDonalds in a foreign country (I hate McDonalds in the States); Starbucks Frappaccinos (I wanted a pumpkin spice latte like it was the Cup of Salvation but they don’t have them here); skyping, because we had good internet and my friend let me use her account to actually call people’s phones from my computer (SO EXCITING!); and excessive amounts of time shopping in the local Inca Market, which is where you go to get a bunch of awesome artisan touristy things (I bought alpaca slippers and socks to provide foot-happiness despite my future cement-floored bedroom, and a green alpaca sweater with a hood that is too small and has llamas all over it.) It’s not much, but I was sincerely stressed out about the potential color scheme of my future room, which prevented me from buying a lot of stuff. That sentence is really wordy, but it’s how I talk…so I guess that’s fine. I will inevitably be going back to Lima, and when I do I will buy lots of happy things.
After two nights and three full days, we finally got in a couple of cabs with our piles of crap and I fake called Alonso, the assistant to our Assistant Peace Corps Director (APCD). What does that mean? I picked up my phone, pretended to call Alonso, “told him” the license plate numbers for both cabs, where we where going, and when he should expect us to arrive. I always feel super stupid doing it because I have to do it in Spanish and I’m bad at it, plus I’m not talking to anyone, but I do it so our driver can hear, and that way we will hopefully not be robbed, beaten up, raped, or worse…if there is anything worse. It’s a good preventative technique and for whatever reason, among the Caja Chicas, I’m always the one who ends up doing it.
Happy to report, we made it safely to the Cruz del Sur bus station, waited a bit, then boarded our bus to Chiclayo, Piura. We usually take a 15 hour bus ride to Cajamarca City in Cajamarca, then take four hours worth of combis (tiny little van/bus things with no leg room) to the regional city by our sites, and then I take a half hour mototaxi ride up a mountain to my site (mototaxi = glorified go cart). However, all of our travel plans had been screwed up because there was a strike going on in Cajamarca against a mine called Newmount, which is a gold mining company from Colorado that has been draining glacial lakes and replacing them with reservoirs. People here are really pissed off because they are worried the mining companies are going to completely deplete their water source, and because a mining truck got in an accident and spilled ridiculous amounts of mercury all over the place. I’m pretty sure people died… The strike is being led by the President of the department of Cajamarca (department in Perú=State in US). Part of the strike also has to do with presidential politics. The newly elected President of Perú promised during his campaign to help the underdog, especially in issues with foreign investment. I think the President of Cajamarca is trying to see what the President of Perú is made of, since he has allowed the mining companies to start a new project. Cajamarqueñas are calling for a complete change. You can start to get the idea of the conflict. Well, I am not allowed to voice an opinion about any of this, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to guess who I sympathize with.
Anyway, point being, we could not take our usual route through Cajamarca city, and instead rerouted to Chiclayo, which meant driving straight up the coast for 10 hours overnight. Going straight to Cajamarca City would be a diagonal route to our sites from Lima. Going to Chiclayo and then to Chota (a big town/TINY city an hour walk from my future house) was going the right angle route. Straight up to Chiclayo and then dead East to Chota. Bus ride was relatively uneventful. I downed some Dramamine and fell asleep right after dinner.
These buses have bathrooms, but you’re only allowed to pee in them, and I’m always so afraid I’m going to need the bathroom for more than it is equipped. The five Caja Chicas have discussed the use of a “poop sac” as a crisis tactic, but those buses do switch backs and I’m really not sure I’m that skilled. We’ve also discussed throwing it out the window that is always left open in the bathroom. I had to be the voice of reason and suggest they just tie the bag tightly and put it in the trashcan. They didn’t think that idea was as fun until I asked how they’d feel if they were on a sidewalk and got hit in the face with a fast moving bag of feces. That put it in perspective. Because I am hoping to avoid use of said “poop sac” and accompanying dilemma of “to throw or not to throw”, I usually down Dramamine before dinner and hope I pass out before my body decides it wants to make space. Worked like a charm, although my effort was almost null and void when the steward guy was going to wake me up to play bingo…luckily my friend was sitting behind me and caught him before he poked me awake. That’s a Peruvian issue though, zero respect for sleep.
Ten hours and a dire need for a poop-friendly toilet later, we pulled into Chiclayo at 5 a.m.. When the head of Peace Corps security, Enrique, arrived to pick us up, we found out that all the roads to Chota were blocked and closed because of the strike. So, we hung out in Chiclayo, in Hostel Amigos, with absolutely no idea how long it would be before we actually got to go to our sites. We call this "Getting Peru-ed". This applies to many a situation, and is often used in tandem with "I just got Peace-Corps-ed". Waiting for an unknown length of time in the wrong place far from your destination due to another strike in Cajamarca was a perfect example of "getting peru-ed".
I tried to make the most of it, but struggled a bit on the first day. I did a lot of sleeping, and freaking out. Anxiously waiting to get to site, coupled with a heavy case of PMS, was turning me into an absolute psycho and I had a less than pretty freak out on skype to my mother. That heavy weight was still trapped in my chest, only now it was accompanied by the chaotic fluttering of panic. PMS plus preexisting anxiety is like a shut down of all forms of transportation that go anywhere other than the capital city of Worst Case Scenario.
Next day, after wandering around, taking a deliciously hot shower, and eating a terrible dinner of whatever Peruvian’s interpret to be Asian food, I did whatever an of-age PMSing American female would do, I walked to the nearest tienda (read: hole in the wall) that sold alcohol and bought myself some boxed red Gato wine for a grand total of $3.70. Compared to all the other wine they have around here, boxed Gato might as well have been a vintage merlot.
We went back to the hostel and up onto the roof where we found some of our Environment Peace Corps friends who were heading to their sites that night. We also happened to encounter two handsome Canadians drinking beer. Turns out these guys were Canadian biologists who decided to ride their motorcycles from Canada to the southern tip of South America and had made it to Perú in about a month. We Peace Corps Volunteers, a little starved for home, started interrogating them about which states they had been through in the US, each person irrationally desperate to hear if these guys had ridden through their home state. We all hung out for a while chatting, and I think the most clutch statement made all night was when one of the Canadians stated in a slightly weirded out, slightly admiring tone, “You guys sure know a lot about parasites…” We all laughed pretty hard at that. I think we freaked them out a bit...especially when we told them they could get parasites from walking barefoot in the sand...
That evening on the roof put me to ease a little bit, because it reminded me that I’m on an adventure, meeting random and interesting people, and it’s supposed to be fun. I love those kinds of moments, chilling on a hostel roof and running into some guys doing a Canadian rendition of Motorcycle Diaries. Wish I had something really exciting to report from that encounter, but there was merely some much needed flirting (almost all the guys in my training class were gay), and I gave one of the guys a pair of extra, and crappy, headphones I had taken from my bus ride to Chiclayo because his had broken. He kept telling me how sweet I was, and that was enough for me. :)
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