February 22, 2012

Just a few notes to tell you about yesterday's challenges. I am not living up to Alegria or Joy; my pollyanna self that finds the joy in everything. Perhaps this is because of my troubling asthma but perhaps you will understand when I tell you just what the day was like.

It started early. We hadn't had a real meal the day before having been on buses for twelve hours travelling to the mountain town of Huarez, Peru. This explains why I was hungry. Jim and I walked several blocks into the centre of town. At the first restaurant, after receiving a menu, we sat for another twenty minutes before getting up and leaving. At the second restaurant, for Jim, I pointed to the continenal breakfast that was listed on a sign and then I pointed to the regional breakfast that was listed underneath it for me. After a half hour, a plate of trout and frenchfries arrived. Since this didn't look like a bun, I assumed it was my breakfast. A minute or so later another breakfast arrived. This one had two brown lumps and some potatoes. I flipped over one of the lumps and there were the little teeth, little eyes and four little little feet of the guineau pig. Certainly took my appetite away.

Jim thought we should try to arrange for our flight from Lima into La Paz and we found the local agent. After sitting with her for an hour, she told us to come back in at 12:30. We went out on the street to round up the cash only to discover that it was War Tuesday in Huarez. Apparently this is not nearly so bad now since several years ago the police outlawed the throwing of used engine oil. I still found it awful. The streets were clogged with gangs of young people armed with water buckets. Explosions kept going off. Most of the shops were closed and most people not enjoying the battles could stay home but we had to get money from bank machines and return to the travel agent. Then the airline was on lunch break and we had to return to the travel agent a third time at 3:30. Eventually the police shut down the war, we got our plane tickets and had supper. Then we stopped at an internet cafe so that I could update this blog. Suddenly I was violently ill, probably from the delicious supper.

Hence ended another day of travel.