Friday, October 10, 2008
Thursday, 10.2: Huacachina to Lima
The next morning, Bri and I ate breakfast at the pool at a table adjacent to Marika and Urich. (Bri had confessed to me after dinner the night before how much she thought Urich resembled Christopher Knight from The Brady Bunch, and I was unable to look at him that morning without wanting to burst out laughing. Thank God she waited until after dinner to point out that comparison.) After breakfast, we put on our swimsuits again to lounge by the pool until it was time to leave for Ica. Our blissful relaxation was hampered, however, by one of the German women from our buggy the previous day, who had taken a liking to one of the hotel’s resident parrots, and was carrying it around on her hand while squawking back at it every time it made a noise. Even if we hadn’t been a little pissed at her for cutting our sandboarding trip short, this still would have been beyond annoying, so we weren’t too sad to leave our poolside perch behind and get to the bus station a couple hours early again.
Enamored with the tres leches cake at Anita’s, we decided we would buy our bus tickets and check our bags, then head over there for another slice while we were waiting for our bus to leave. Just as we were leaving the bus station to head down to the café, though, a rent-a-cop who had been hanging around near the counter stopped us and began trying to tell us something in Spanish. We indicated that we didn’t speak much Spanish, but he didn’t speak any English, so he mimed stealing something from Bri’s daypack. We figured he was just telling us to be careful of pickpockets on the streets of Ica, so we nodded and thanked him, and went on our way.
At Anita’s, we sat at the exact same table and had the exact same waiter (who, if he thought it odd that two American girls came into his restaurant two days in a row to order the exact same dessert, didn’t let on). After savoring what we knew would be our last piece of Anita’s tres leches cake (sigh), we headed back to the bus station, stopping briefly at an Internet café so that I could look up the address of our hostel in Lima so we’d know where to direct a cab driver. Back at the bus station, we’d just settled in for the rest of our wait when the Peruvian Barney Fife approached us again, this time asking that we pay him 5 soles for “securing our luggage.” Since we’d already been through the luggage check-in process back in Lima, we knew this charge was bogus (in fact, I’m not even sure what Barney Fife was doing at the bus station—it was barely bigger than my apartment, so it’s not like it really needed policing) and flatly refused. He finally left us alone, but we kept a nervous eye on our bags for the rest of our wait, worried that he might steal something from them in retaliation.
On the bus ride back, instead of a double feature, the attendants passed out cards for a game of bingo, which I chose to skip in favor of a nap. We did get to see one movie, Chasing Liberty starring Mandy Moore, which was by far the best movie we watched during our hours of Peruvian bus travel, which is pretty sad. As we got closer to Lima, the traffic began to pick up, and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to wait until we reached the station to use the bathroom like I’d hoped. (Not that there was anything wrong with the bus bathroom, but it was a little difficult to manage while riding down the bumpy highway.) In retrospect, though, I’m glad I was forced to use the bus bathroom, because it was there that I encountered one of the most hilarious translations I’ve come across in my travels: On the trash can, there was a sign reading, “Please do not hurl the sweepings into the bin,” which was clearly translated by someone with easy access to a thesaurus.
It was dark by the time we reached the bus station in Lima, and we hailed a cab to our digs for the evening, a hostel called Red Psycho Llama. Although we’d reserved a private twin room, the guy at the front desk assured us that we’d be much more comfortable in one of the more conveniently located dorm rooms, and since they were hardly booked up for the evening, we’d have the whole thing to ourselves anyway. We agreed, and settled into our new digs, which were pretty cramped, with three bunk beds wedged into a fairly small room. (Also, the beds didn’t have blankets, forcing me to use the one I’d bought for my parents.) With no one else but us in the room, though, we were able to spread out our stuff on the beds we weren’t sleeping on.
After a quick consultation with the guidebook for restaurant recommendations, we took to the streets to Miraflores to try to find something for dinner. Our first choice, a hip coffeehouse called Café Zeta, was fairly crowded and had insanely uncomfortable metal chairs that were way more fashionable than they were functional, so we ended up next door at what appeared to be their sister restaurant, Adios Chow. After feasting on American diner food, we wandered around Miraflores a little bit before returning to the hostel.
After a quick e-mail check, I decided to take a shower before heading to bed. Although our dorm-room setup meant we had to use the shared bathroom, there was literally no one else staying on the entire floor, so again, it was like having a bathroom all to ourselves. Only I couldn’t quite get the water temperature where I wanted it, and that, in combination with once again having to dry myself with a cheap, completely non-absorbent kitchen towel, led me to make the following declaration to Bri upon returning to the room: “I am almost 30 years old. It’s time for me to realize that I am no longer a youth, and therefore should not be staying in youth hostels.” I knew I’d likely end up eating these words on a future Excellent Adventure (you really can’t beat youth-hostel prices, and some I’ve stayed in, such as Refill Now in Bangkok, have been really awesome), but at that point, I felt I’d reached my youth hostel threshold of tolerance.
Little did I know that that threshold would soon be tested again—although there were very few guests at Red Psycho Llama to make much noise (and, thankfully, no makeshift disco like at the Mildew Shanty), I guess whoever was working at the front desk, which was conveniently located just below our room, thought it would be a good idea to invite their friends over for some late-night carousing. Neither my earplugs nor my iPod (with noise-canceling headphones) were particularly successful in drowning out their excessively loud conversation, and so I tossed and turned until roughly 3 a.m., when the noise-makers finally went home.
Continue to Day 15: Lima
The next morning, Bri and I ate breakfast at the pool at a table adjacent to Marika and Urich. (Bri had confessed to me after dinner the night before how much she thought Urich resembled Christopher Knight from The Brady Bunch, and I was unable to look at him that morning without wanting to burst out laughing. Thank God she waited until after dinner to point out that comparison.) After breakfast, we put on our swimsuits again to lounge by the pool until it was time to leave for Ica. Our blissful relaxation was hampered, however, by one of the German women from our buggy the previous day, who had taken a liking to one of the hotel’s resident parrots, and was carrying it around on her hand while squawking back at it every time it made a noise. Even if we hadn’t been a little pissed at her for cutting our sandboarding trip short, this still would have been beyond annoying, so we weren’t too sad to leave our poolside perch behind and get to the bus station a couple hours early again.
Enamored with the tres leches cake at Anita’s, we decided we would buy our bus tickets and check our bags, then head over there for another slice while we were waiting for our bus to leave. Just as we were leaving the bus station to head down to the café, though, a rent-a-cop who had been hanging around near the counter stopped us and began trying to tell us something in Spanish. We indicated that we didn’t speak much Spanish, but he didn’t speak any English, so he mimed stealing something from Bri’s daypack. We figured he was just telling us to be careful of pickpockets on the streets of Ica, so we nodded and thanked him, and went on our way.
At Anita’s, we sat at the exact same table and had the exact same waiter (who, if he thought it odd that two American girls came into his restaurant two days in a row to order the exact same dessert, didn’t let on). After savoring what we knew would be our last piece of Anita’s tres leches cake (sigh), we headed back to the bus station, stopping briefly at an Internet café so that I could look up the address of our hostel in Lima so we’d know where to direct a cab driver. Back at the bus station, we’d just settled in for the rest of our wait when the Peruvian Barney Fife approached us again, this time asking that we pay him 5 soles for “securing our luggage.” Since we’d already been through the luggage check-in process back in Lima, we knew this charge was bogus (in fact, I’m not even sure what Barney Fife was doing at the bus station—it was barely bigger than my apartment, so it’s not like it really needed policing) and flatly refused. He finally left us alone, but we kept a nervous eye on our bags for the rest of our wait, worried that he might steal something from them in retaliation.
On the bus ride back, instead of a double feature, the attendants passed out cards for a game of bingo, which I chose to skip in favor of a nap. We did get to see one movie, Chasing Liberty starring Mandy Moore, which was by far the best movie we watched during our hours of Peruvian bus travel, which is pretty sad. As we got closer to Lima, the traffic began to pick up, and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to wait until we reached the station to use the bathroom like I’d hoped. (Not that there was anything wrong with the bus bathroom, but it was a little difficult to manage while riding down the bumpy highway.) In retrospect, though, I’m glad I was forced to use the bus bathroom, because it was there that I encountered one of the most hilarious translations I’ve come across in my travels: On the trash can, there was a sign reading, “Please do not hurl the sweepings into the bin,” which was clearly translated by someone with easy access to a thesaurus.
It was dark by the time we reached the bus station in Lima, and we hailed a cab to our digs for the evening, a hostel called Red Psycho Llama. Although we’d reserved a private twin room, the guy at the front desk assured us that we’d be much more comfortable in one of the more conveniently located dorm rooms, and since they were hardly booked up for the evening, we’d have the whole thing to ourselves anyway. We agreed, and settled into our new digs, which were pretty cramped, with three bunk beds wedged into a fairly small room. (Also, the beds didn’t have blankets, forcing me to use the one I’d bought for my parents.) With no one else but us in the room, though, we were able to spread out our stuff on the beds we weren’t sleeping on.
After a quick consultation with the guidebook for restaurant recommendations, we took to the streets to Miraflores to try to find something for dinner. Our first choice, a hip coffeehouse called Café Zeta, was fairly crowded and had insanely uncomfortable metal chairs that were way more fashionable than they were functional, so we ended up next door at what appeared to be their sister restaurant, Adios Chow. After feasting on American diner food, we wandered around Miraflores a little bit before returning to the hostel.
After a quick e-mail check, I decided to take a shower before heading to bed. Although our dorm-room setup meant we had to use the shared bathroom, there was literally no one else staying on the entire floor, so again, it was like having a bathroom all to ourselves. Only I couldn’t quite get the water temperature where I wanted it, and that, in combination with once again having to dry myself with a cheap, completely non-absorbent kitchen towel, led me to make the following declaration to Bri upon returning to the room: “I am almost 30 years old. It’s time for me to realize that I am no longer a youth, and therefore should not be staying in youth hostels.” I knew I’d likely end up eating these words on a future Excellent Adventure (you really can’t beat youth-hostel prices, and some I’ve stayed in, such as Refill Now in Bangkok, have been really awesome), but at that point, I felt I’d reached my youth hostel threshold of tolerance.
Little did I know that that threshold would soon be tested again—although there were very few guests at Red Psycho Llama to make much noise (and, thankfully, no makeshift disco like at the Mildew Shanty), I guess whoever was working at the front desk, which was conveniently located just below our room, thought it would be a good idea to invite their friends over for some late-night carousing. Neither my earplugs nor my iPod (with noise-canceling headphones) were particularly successful in drowning out their excessively loud conversation, and so I tossed and turned until roughly 3 a.m., when the noise-makers finally went home.
Continue to Day 15: Lima
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]