We’re pretty tired from all the activities we’ve been doing lately. In Ariquipa Naomi and I booked to go white water rafting, I went along but didn’t get on the raft in the end as had some toilet issues. Wearing a wet suit, stuck on a raft and worrying about having irregular toiletry activites is not my idea of a good time. Naomi had a little admirer, a Chilian man who worked for the rafting company, he kindly helped her put on her wet suit and also helped her take it off afterwards. He got into his wet suit in front of us so we both saw him naked, which we enjoyed.
We are still struggling with Spanish, annoyingly my plan for fluency to just leak effortlessly into my brain has not happened as I’d hoped. We did a couple of Spanish lessons whilst in Cusco, our teacher was a Peruvian lady in her mid fifties called Beni. I think it was the first time I’ve been in a class with Naomi where one of us wasn’t sitting at the bold table. Beni was impressed with our eagerness to learn and gave us a big “MUY BIEN” whenever we got anything right. Her patience was admirable as we, like remedial students slowly spelt out our names in the Spanish alphabet, getting it wrong time and time again. “A’s” incorrectly became “e’s” and “i’s” became “y’s”, my head spinning from having to use my usually dormant brain. When Naomi finally spelt her name right I looked at her with envy as Beni gave her a big “MUY BIEN.” I wanted Beni to think I was smart and confidently spelt my own name aloud, getting it wrong just the once, I beamed at Naomi as I got the “MUY BIEN” I had been craving. When Naomi managed a full sentence during a roll play where I was the taxi driver I was genuinely proud and gave her a big round of applause. Julie joined the class on day two (she missed day one due to the shits), Naomi was now utterly confident in her own abilities and at this stage was very good at spelling her own name. I caught her whispering answers to Julie on a few occasions, luckily for her Beni was too nice to have a bold chair or she would have relived her time in secondary school.
Julie was in a bad way, her visits to the toilet were at an all time high. She hadn’t eaten in days and we were booked into do the Inca trail, a four day trek to Manchu Picchu in a few days so decided to call her a doctor. A young Peruvian doctor arrived at our hostel bedroom adorning a white coat and stetchoscope around his neck, looking quite the part. He inspected her in a very professional manner and diagnosed a gastric infection, ouch. Never one to miss an opportunity Naomi asked if he wouldn’t mind us taking a photo of him. Upon her request, his face lit up and he nodded enthaustically. Hilariously, he then took out his own camera and passed it to Naomi for her to capture the moment for himself. Julie, weak from the parasite in her stomach and not eating, sat on the edge of the bed with the doctor, posing for a photo as he gave a big thumbs up and grinned. Before he left he gave all three of us kisses and bounced happily out the door. What he will do with that photo, who knows!
We had another admirer, a man who worked in the hostel and was from the Jungle. He had black curly waist length hair (nice) and every time he saw us, insisted on giving us open mouthed kisses (his mouth was open, ours not) on the edge of our lips leaving a sliver of spit across them. I became an expert at dodging the kisses after a while; my tactic was to suddenly become interested in reading whatever was near so I looked like I was in a trance like state not to be interrupted. He also once followed us down the road and into a pub, pretending it was a coincidence to see us there and that he was waiting for his friend (surprisingly the imaginary friend didn’t turn up). Sure enough, in he went for the kiss, again I managed to dodge it, suddenly interested in studying the menu in front of me, Julie also intensely read the menu and missed getting slimed on but Naomi was not so lucky.
The highlight of my trip so far has been the four day Inca trail trek to Manchu Picchu. We did a group trek with 11 of us tourists in total and 2 tour guides, Bruno and Roy, both Peruvian and clearly not their real names, but who cares? Bruno was the sensible one with vast local knowledge and Roy was the perv fond of calling us “baby” and wolf whistling whenever we were near. Julie was still recovering from her illness so walked behind the rest of the group during the trek, taking it at her own pace. Roy, a perv never to miss an opportunity recognised her weakness as a blessing and lagged behind with her. When she finally caught up with us (hours later) she told us that he had tried to hold her hand, had picked her flowers along the route, tried to snog her and my favourite, had actually walked behind her for a good while, watching her and wolf whistling at her backside. “That’s very unique” Naomi commented on his picking up technique when Julie later told us the story. It became a running joke in the camp and Julie’s morning pancakes came out with chocolate syrup love hearts drawn on them, as did Roys. Even the chef was in on it. Naomi didn’t help, telling Roy in Julie’s absence that she had come back from the trek and told us that he was her favourite guide, that she said he took great care of her and that she would like to salsa dance with him on the last night. He was delighted.
The trek itself was hard work, but great. We got up most mornings at about 4am and were walking by 5am. After the 4 days, we were knackered but still went out on the piss when we got back to the town. We hadn’t slept in 24 hours so were wrecked but persevered. Julie stayed in bed as was still recovering from her illness (she’s lost about a stone, so jealous), so Naomi and I took to the local nightlife scene. We found some local hovel and hit the dance floor; I did my shuffling from side to side whilst rhythmically punching the air in aerobics class type move. I did this over and over, occasionally looking down at my feet for some variation of the move. It’s my worst nightmare to somehow have to watch myself dancing without the music and without the blinking lights. I don’t think I would ever go out again.
Cut to a few hours later, I was sitting at the bar drinking a cocktail (my sixth) surrounded by two local Peruvian men, as tall as my elbow making shapes out of paper in order to win my affections. I was a little confused at this strange exhibition of an ‘origami off’. I looked across at Naomi who was surrounded by at least 5 guys (some hot) all hoping for their chance with her and then back at my two Peruvian weirdos stood in front of me intensely concentrating on folding shapes into their paper dinosaur and paper rose and wondered where it all went wrong. An Irish guy came over to me then to tell me how hot my friend was (happens all the time) before noticing this exhibit before me. “Nothing unusual happening here” I told him as I shrugged by shoulders whilst one of the men trotted his dinosaur over the air in front of my face like a child would do with a toy. “Muy bien” I told him. I have to admit that the rose beat the dinosaur hands down but even if these men had the ability to literally turn water into Jack Daniels and I was not happily married (as I told them), I would not be interested. Full marks for originality though.
Me and the dinosaur man.
The Rose.
We’ve been generally lucky with the standard of accommodation so far, usually getting a private room for just the three of us. Only bad place so far was in Cusco where I was drifting off to sleep when I heard a loud gnawing sound. “That’s a fucking rat” Naomi said but she was wrong, it was numerous fucking rats. We told reception and a round Peruvian man as wide as he was tall and with no English came up to have a look.
“There are ratas in the room” I told him as I made a rat face and clawed the wall beside me (Beni would not have been proud of my attempts, no “MUY BIEN” here).
He found where the noise was coming from and said “no problem”.
“There is a problem” I told him “there are ratas!”
“No problem”
He shook his head when I asked if there was another room available. So, with “no problem” and no other rooms we had to try and sleep with the rats running all over the room. I turned off the light and lay there, eyes wide open waiting for the sound to start again. Sure enough within minutes I heard a loud gnawing noise from under my bed. I jumped up, turned on the light and stood on my bed. Naomi did the same. We got our walking sticks (from trekking) and began randomly stabbing the heaps of clothes on the floor with them and saying “Where are you fuckers?” which surprisingly didn’t make any difference. I didn’t get the “We’re under your backpack” answer that I wanted. I ended up hopping into bed with Julie over the other side of the room, which may have looked odd to anyone that was not us as there were two spare, empty beds, but I had a false sense of security then and managed to get some sleep. No doubt some other backpackers were shown to that very room after we left because why not? There was “no problem” after all, right?
We are now in Bolivia. We got a night bus here from Cusco. I was sitting beside a young (not unattractive man). Naomi saw him, gave me a grin and a nod as if to say “go for it”. There is something quite unsettling about sleeping next to a strange man on a bus and waking up almost face to face, him asleep with his mouth wide open, snoring and breathing heavily into your face. He also had his elbow jammed into my side, causing me great discomfort. However, in true Irish fashion, I didn’t ask him to move it but instead quietly hated him in my mind. That’ll learn him.
Quote of the week....
Pissed, playing draughts with Naomi (also pissed) and she says: “This is very like a game of draughts”.
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