Heading Down the Hill

5.35.11

It’s a Wednesday evening and my head is spinning with the million TO DOs I have been scratching down all week. TO DO in the library, TO DO for my English classes, TO DO for my own sanity. And now that the sun has long set, the library is closed for the weekend, and tonight’s meeting was cancelled, it is what TO DO before I head down to Chiclayo tomorrow.

It’s a 4am bus tomorrow morning, which always gives me mixed emotions. For one thing, it just sucks to wake up at 3:15. And I find that the many things I hope to accomplish once I arrive in Chiclayo often keep me up worrying the night before an early trip down. On top of that there is the inevitable hungoverish feeling of getting to Chiclayo at 7am, already having been awake or in a hazy, uncomfortable sleep for the past 4 hours. There is forever the question of the hostel: will my room be ready right away so I can sleep until 9? Or will I have to huddle on the couch on the 2^nd floor common room and snooze there? Ah, the trials and tribulations of traveling before the sun comes up.

I have to tell you the truth, though, that I’ve never really had a problem waking up for the 4am bus. The excitement I usually feel about getting to Chiclayo to skype or shop or just eat a pizza usually gets me out bed and the need to get a good seat on the bus (second row back, beside the window) always gets me out the door. And once my painfully American backpack is tied up on the roof and I’m comfortably (sometimes) scrunched into my window seat, it’s smooth sailing from there.

Of course when I say “smooth” I mean that metaphorically. There is little I would describe as “smooth” about this trip. But it is surely one of the many wonders of living in Bolivar: a warm bus driving slowly through the early morning picking up familiar faces all the way down and piling them in almost without limit. About a month ago, I found myself halfway to Chiclayo with a policeman on my lap (there is only a minor Vassallo exageration in that statement) driving in a bus made to seat 17 but filled to the brim with 26 people inside and 4 more riding on the roof.

The radio, if you’re lucky, is usually bumping the usual Peruvian cumbia music, a happy go lucky kind of beat that I have come to love, but usually the sleepy passengers stay quiet for much of the trip. Except, of course, for the occasional “borracho” (drunk) who has been up drinking “canaso,” a bootleg sugar cane liquor, since the day before.

And there is a point when you eventually say, “alright get this large policeman off of me” or “please, let this drunk dude get off in the next town,” but, for at least the first 30 minutes, it is an adventure, as almost all things are here in Bolivar. It is part of a completely unique and always interesting experience that I feel so lucky to be having here in Peru.

Of course, I do still miss home. Like crazy, actually. It’s already been a month since I was there eating Ledo’s pizza on the couch with Laur, sitting on the steps of the Met with Megs and bombing through the 2-story Forever 21 at Montgomery Mall with Mols. Ah, that was the life. But I brought back to Peru so many wonderful memories with everyone, so many conversations and so much laughter. I feel lucky and blessed to have shared my trip home with all of you and appreciate so much your love and support.

I truly wish I could share every moment here with you all- from the crazy bus rides to the busy days in the library to the quiet Sundays when I do nothing but knit. But instead, just know that I am thinking of you always. Through every moment of it. And that in some way, you are all a part of this experience too.

So much love to everyone back home!

Liz