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| View out of my bus from Arica-San Pedro de Atacama; I've never been so happy to see next to nothing out of my window! |
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Be mindful, y'all - this is a long installment. What can I say - spending 48 hours in transit means a lot of things happen to you.
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It was a fleeting 24 hours in Lima, Peru. I arrived about 40 minutes later than expected - being slightly confused about where to put my luggage through the scanner and having to explain to the Immigration officer why I was only staying in Lima for 24 hours contributed to that - and was met with an arrivals gate more intense than the scene at Heathrow at the beginning/ending of Love Actually. My hosts had said to look for a sign with my name on it - now, I had put in fresh contacts back at the Ft. Lauderdale airport, and I couldn't find my name anywhere. Very aware I looked like a tourist (did my bewildered, darting eyes, or huge backpacks give it away?), I tried to play it cool. I wandered around in a horseshoe 4-5 times, waved the same shady "taxi driver" off the same amount of times, and finally found Beto, the driver sent my by AirBnB hosts. Phew!
After apologizing (apparently he'd been waiting there the whole time...lies!), we stepped out into the warm Lima air. He gave me very stern instructions to WAIT HERE, DON'T MOVE while he brought the car around, and after a pleasant car ride where he too admonished me for only spending 24-hours in Lima (his words: Chile?! You go to CHILE next?! What is there in Chile?! They don't have any ancient things to look at!...my thoughts: think of a good lie to tell anyone I meet before I leave why I'm only here for 24 hours to avoid any more unpleasantness), but also gave me a nice driving tour of the city, and showed me to the most glorious room in a wonderful apartment. I thanked him, collapsed onto the double bed which felt seriously incredible after the airport chairs, floors, and plane seats, plugged in my laptop, flipped on Seinfeld, and fell fast asleep.
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I got up to explore Lima a bit before Beto came to take me to the bus station - I needed some Nuevos Soles to buy snacks for my long journey [thanks, study abroad experience!], so I dressed in my most local-looking outfit and headed to the ATM, which was adjacent to the gas station where I loaded up on water (why don't we sell giant bottles of water in the US?), Inka-Cola (it's vacation, it doesn't count...right?), and a can of Kryzpos (Latin America's answer to Pringles). Even though it's winter, I felt the adjustment my body had made to Milwaukee winters over the past 4 years, and shed layers down to my t-shirt. On my way back to the apartment, I passed a few local bodegas, saw a sign for fresh papaya juice, and couldn't resist.
"Tienes jugo?" I asked the woman behind the counter. I need to learn how to ask for things more politely in Spanish, I think to myself. She nods, I pay, and plop myself down at the only table in the place, only to be met later with a pitcher of fresh papaya juice. HELLS YES. I sip my f'ing awesome juice and crack open Cheryl Strayed's Wild on my phone.
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2 hours later - 2 PM
"Desculpe, pero tienes un impresora? Hay mi boleto, pero.....no esta...."
I trail off as the Cruz del Sur counter agent nods, whisks away with my passport, and prints me my bus ticket so I can actually get on my bus. Thankful she understood my poor Spanish, I happily bounce toward the queue to board. Instant despair ensues - I have to check my huge backpack! But surely the agent must know the meticulousness with which I packed and fit everything - including my other day pack - into this bag! I sigh at myself for not knowing, and try not to make a scene in the middle of the bus terminal, unpacking and repacking the essentials into my small daypack. My grey t-shirt now a shade darker with sweat, I check my bag, nod at the gate agent, and flop into what I didn't know was the wrong seat.
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2 hours later, in the right seat - 4 PM
I'd just finished watching - no, reading the subtitles of - Imitation Game (the headphone jack on my seat didn't work, but I was too embarrassed to let my seatmate know that after he so nicely helped me figure everything else out, for instance how to recline my seat, so I just sat there in silence, pretending to be hearing everything in the movie), and cracked open my Inka Cola. Yep, it's like 4 times sweeter than Coke, y'all. And a dark Mountain Dew color. But delicious, and necessary, nonetheless.
Night starts to fall, and the steward comes around with dinner - dinner! - and beverages. I settle in for a good sleep. Let me tell you, these seats are what I imagine business class on planes was like when only the upper class flew. So. Nice. I flick on the first episode of the Serial podcast, and close my eyes, letting Sarah Koenig's voice lull me to sleep.
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5 hours later - 9 PM
We pull in to Nazca, Peru, and my kind seatmate gets off. I thank him for everything, and we wish each other well. My new seatmate is first a younger-looking guy, but then he switches with an older man - they know each other, along with the attractive woman 2 rows ahead, who turns out to be the girlfriend of my original seatmate - who asks me in Spanish if the bus gave out headphones. I respond only with a puzzled expression, say, What?, instead of Como? or Que? like I'd hoped to, and the older guy says, "Ah, English," and translates for me. After he settles in, I fall back asleep, never to know if he got his headphones or not.
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10 hours later - 7 AM
We're shepherded off the bus for the first time, to put our baggage through an x-ray machine. I see a sign telling us they're checking for child, arms, and drug trafficking, as well as fresh produce. I wander around in kind of a stupor for 5 mins, stretching my knotted-up body, wondering if I can pet the stray dogs all around (I don't), and get back on the bus.
My new seatmate and I fall into a wonderful conversation for the remainder of the ride to Tacna (the border town) - I find out he and his 2 friends are Argentinian ("from Salta, in the north, not Buenos Aires," he's quick to clarify), though he's ethnically Lebanese, and runs a sheesheh resto-bar in Salta. He shows me photos of his home, neighborhood, different hookah pipes, and then photos and videos from the PanAmerican Jiu-Jitsu competition that they're returning from (this was some seriously cool stuff). I show him photos of my home, my dog, my friends at a restaurant in NYC. We chat about their visit to the Nasca lines, we wonder how people in the desert get water, we take bets on how long it will be until we're off this f'ing bus (it was a nice bus but damn, I'd lost feeling in both buttcheeks like hours ago). We agree to share a colectivo over the border with his friends, which I'm very thankful for because while I knew this was my next step, I had no idea how I was going to finagle that ride.
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6 hours later - 1 PM
We de-bus in Tacna!!!!! I've never been so happy to get off a piece of transportation before (except for that time I thought there was a hijacker on my plane coming home from Brussels in 2010). My new Argentinian friends and I make our way through the terminal, and with the help of an oficer de seguridad, find a legit colectivo to take us across the border. We cram into his car after getting all our documents in order, and we're off! Lorena & Franco plug in their headphones, so I follow suit, again to my friend Sarah Koenig and the Serial story.
We stand in line to exit Peru, then drive a little further through no-man's-land to the Chilean border control, and stand in another line. I can't help but think how much friendlier all these border guards are than the ones we have in the US. A smile and a "Buenas dias!" goes a long way, my US border guard friends. Just sayin'.
After the 4 of us process through, it's back into the colectivo to motor on to the Arica bus station. Knowing mis nuevos amigos y yo have to part ways soon, but not too soon (my bus wasn't until 10 PM and theirs turned out not to be until 72 hours later), we purchase bus tickets and then share a cab to the center of town to a McDonald's. FREE WIFI! I cave, and order my usual from when I used to frequent McDonald's on a weekly basis after skating practice 13 years ago - a plain cheeseburger & medium french fries. I swap the Sprite for a coffee this time, though.
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9 hours later - 10 PM
I'm on board my next bus that will take me to San Pedro de Atacama. I've said goodbye to my Argentinian friends after they walked with me 30 mins from McDonalds back to the bus station (I seriously can't believe how lucky I was to have met them - I'm forever thankful), loaded up again on snacks and water, enjoyed a cappuccino at the adjacent cafe to where I purchased my snacks, and chatted IN SPANISH with a lovely woman who just happened to sit down near me. Her name was also Maria, and I referred to her as my Peruvian auntie in my mind.
This time, I have my own seat and the lower level of the bus to myself except for one elderly fellow in front of me and the slightly-creepy steward who kept bringing blankets and pillows and asking me if I was okay. I soon realized I was sitting directly above the bus heater, started sweating, and peeled off down to the base layer. I considered taking off even my socks, but all I needed to do was unzip my botas and get a whiff of that situation - never mind. I put Serial on to distract myself, and it worked. Next thing I know I'm freezing my nubs off, Sarah Koenig is leaps and bounds ahead of where I remember her leaving off, and we're being shepherded off the bus again, in the middle of the night.
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Around 3 AM, somewhere in northern Chile
Now, because my Spanish is shaky at best, I didn't actually know we were being shepherded off the bus for another x-ray checkpoint until it was almost too late. In the 3 days I'd been on the continent, I'd just been taking my cues from those around me, and the old dude in front of me wasn't moving. Eventually, creepy-steward-guy comes down to tell us to get the F off the bus - okay he's not that mean - so I jump up, knock my phone on the floor which rips the earphones out of my ears, and throw on as many layers as I can while stumbling off the bus. I toss my bag on the conveyor belt, and shiver alongside the rest of my fellow travellers for the next 7 minutes or so, and at first signal, rush back into the comfort of my seat, which now is stone-cold. I pull out the rest of my layers I didn't have time to put on before, including my SmartWool socks (good purchase, self) and will myself to be warm. I pull the curtains closed on the window to try and block out the cold. I wonder if I'm rather ill-prepared for this trip, and if I'm not as tough as surviving MKE winters has made me think I am. With my trusty Serial back in my ears, I drift off to a cold, uncomfortable slumber again, this time cross-legged in attempt to conserve as much body heat as possible.
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Around 8 AM, in the Atacama Desert (according to Google maps)
I wake up to sunlight struggling through the pulled-tight curtains. I notice that a seat a row back on the other side of the aisle is strewn with a blanket and pillow, and is reclined, though there's no one sitting in it. I wonder if the creepy-steward watched me sleep before he slept...then readjust my thoughts away from that and toward the natural beauty outside my window. For the next two hours, I pass the time listening to Serial while trying to maintain my 98.6 deg. F body temperature - the heat is now full-blast again, and the sun is coming directly into my window, but the window itself is still stone-cold. It's a pleasant journey, though I can definitely feel the altitude here (2,407 meters, or 7,900 ft). I take a pump of my inhaler [thanks, Miami Skating] - that's better - and watch the desert landscape rush by while Sarah Koenig tells me more about Adnan Syed's twisted case.
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10 AM - San Pedro de Atacama!!!!!!!!
I'm so happy, I almost fall off the bus. I realize I've lost my checked bag tag to receive my backpack, but creepy-steward just winks at me and passes me my bag. Whew.
I make my way to the bathroom, then to the bench on the street just outside the little station to sit and wait for my taxi to my next AirBnB. I'm late arriving here, too, so I worry I've missed my taxi, but my hostess told me to just sit and wait until he showed up, so sit and wait I did. An hour passes, the desert sun now high and Mary now sweating, deciding that if the taxi didn't come in the next 10 minutes to wander aimlessly to find the main plaza. I didn't know what I'd do once I got there since her house was allegedly a 15-minute walk outside of town, but maybe it'd be a start. Maybe....OH! Here's my taxi. I hop in, apologize for being late, and 10 minutes later arrive at the most adorable adobe house I've ever seen.
I am finally home, I think to myself. I did it.
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