I've finally arrive to the southern hemisphere after many, many months of decision-making and planning. I'm relieved to finally be here and beginning to learn the culture, daily rhythms of life here and continuing to work on my Spanish. Unfortunately, for the latter, I have not been speaking it nearly as much as I should as often the volunteers speak English with one another. Despite this, I do think it is improving each day. Peruvian Spanish, unlike the Spanish I experienced in Argentina, is very clear and much like the Spanish one learns in school. Maybe if they didn't speak so fast I would actually understand more than half of what they are saying. BUT at least I'm understanding half.
Getting here was an adventure in and of itself. I left Pittsfield at 4:45 on Saturday afternoon and picked up the train in Wassaic. From there I arrived to NYC around 8:45 and spent a few hours at a friends apartment. A car picked me up at 3:30 am to arrive at JFK. My flight took off on time at 6:20. I had an hour layover in San Jose, Costa Rica and then finally arrived to Lima at 3:15. The journey through immagration and customs was quite painless. Upon entering the outside area of the airport I was bombarded by taxi drivers offering to take me to my destination (as Lonely Planet warned me I would be). I politely declined their offers (or maybe not so politely) and chose to sit in the airport for 4.5 hours as my bus did not leave for Trujillo until 10pm. After many hours passing the time reading, making friends with the nice waiter at the coffee shop and doing some excellent people watching (I like to think of this as my own anthropological study), I finally was ready to head to the bus station. As soon as I headed over to the crowds of people I was unsurprisingly approached quickly by a taxi driver. Wearing the sweater vest and name badge that many of the other taxi drivers were wearing, I decided to trust this fellow. I told him to take me to the Cruz del Sur bus station. After a bit of confusion, I clarified (in my most broken Spanish, as he spoke no English) exactly which Cruz del Sur bus station in Lima I wanted to go to. Which is lucky because we passed the first one on the ride and I may have feared for my life sitting there. Driving through the part of Lima from the airport to the bus station was interesting. It was clearly a seedy area of the city evident by dilapidated buildings and people idly hanging out on the streets. I was glad to just be passing through. This would be my first glimpse of the truly developing country that is Peru. The taxi driver was pleasant and we made small talk, which was the first time I felt comfortable using my Spanish. The truth is, it is better to speak it and make a mistake then not use it and never learn. But I get nervous sometimes, you know. I finally arrived at Cruz del Sur bus station and not realizing that I should bargain with taxi drivers and that you do not tip them, I paid a whopping 55 soles and tipped 5 soles. Well at least I made his evening a little better. The bus itself was lovely, much like the one I took for 18 hours in Argentina. This was a slightly shorter bus ride of 9 hours, but after little sleep it was comfortable enough that I was able to sleep most of the night. The seats lay out nearly flat into beds (bus cama) and you are given a blanket and pillo while a movie plays. We were also treated to an assortment of sandwiches (I'm fairly certain most were bread with mayonaise and rolls with ham and cheese, intersting introduction to Peruvian cuisine) and beverages. I arrived to Trujillo on time at 7am. I was not sure if I was being picked up or was to take a taxi but I chose to take a taxi to the address of the house I had been given.
Mateo, the project coordinator, answered the door to the house and told me that Fran, the volunteer coordinator, had gone to the bus station to pick me up. Whoops. I hadn't been able to check my email since Saturday. He went to the bus station and told her that I was here, as she didn't have a cell phone. What a great first impression, I thought to myself. They quickly arrived back and after clearing up the confusion all was well. More to come on the first 2 days in Peru
No comments:
Post a Comment