Week One: Lessons in Trust and Tolerance
As the airplane slowly makes its ascent, the faint coastline begins to disappear into the foggy gray clouds that cover Lima. Maddie and I had rushed through customs after a delayed flight in Miami, but everything had turned out okay. We were aboard our last flight and the anticipation of approaching our destination was growing.
I turn and look out the window. The smooth cloud layer stretches flatly across the landscape until sudden, brown mountains protrude sharply above the fog. It is a magnificent sight, so surprising, abrupt, and unlike anything I have seen before. I continue to stare at the Andes as if their unique and surprising appearance was a magnet gluing my eyes to the window. As I take in the faint outlines of terraces carved expertly into the hillside and stare down on the closely-knit villages, this first new experience seems to set the scene for my whole trip. The extreme and beautiful mountains are preparing me for the countless moments I am going to be surprised by. Not one event will be normal or boring for me. Everything will be so wonderfully fresh, original, unknown, and, in a good way, frightening. I know, as I gaze appreciatively out of the thick airplane window, that I will never forget seeing these beautiful mountains for the first time. I sit back in my seat and assume that it will be hard to forget anything about the adventure on which I am about to embark.
We land in Cusco, lug our huge backpacks off the carousel, and head outside to look for Andy, a graduate student with the program that is supposed to be picking us up. We see a Peruvian man standing with a sign that says our names. We approach him.
“Andy?” Maddie asks.
“No, me llamo Javier,” he replies.
From this point, we are forced into using and understanding every Spanish word we have ever learned. Javier speaks no English and after ten minutes of desperate broken Spanish, we understand that there are protests going on throughout the country of Peru and all major roads are blocked. We are also told that instead of Andy, a man named Pedro is coming to help us. Maddie and I must trust that Javier knows John Janovec in some way if he had a sign with our names on it.
We get a hostel room at the Tullumayo and eat lunch on our own in the city. Javier joins us again when it is dinnertime and we talk about our favorite movies and what we do for fun. Javier knows no English words, yet he does know the names of several American actors. When we return to the hostel, Pedro is waiting for us with another man named Royce, who speaks English and a little more Spanish than Maddie and I. We discover that they both work with Andes to Amazon and are going to help us get our bus tickets to Quincemil.
Another two days are spent in Cusco, filled with sights of hundreds of protestors burning tires and chanting. I admire them. They are fiercely showing the government that they have an opinion and are not afraid to profess it proudly.
By 4 p.m. on our third day, the demonstrations have subsided and the city is back to normal. Javier helps us to the bus station with three mattresses, peanut butter, and a toilet seat, (all things requested for the house in Quincemil). He shows us to our exact seats and we thank him for helping two American gringas so kindly and selflessly. We begin what we are told is going to be an eight hour bus ride. I drift in and out of sleep and watch the movies The Odyssey and 300 in Spanish. Maddie wakes me up after the bus has been stopped on a one-lane, mud road for about a half an hour.
“It’s one-thirty in the morning…” she says to me, some confusion in her voice. If the bus ride was supposed to take eight hours, we were already an hour and a half late. A sinking feeling slides into my stomach as I begin to believe that we passed Quincemil while Maddie and I were sleeping. Eventually, the bus begins to move again as we continue to daze in and out of deep sleep. I see outlines of a river and wake up multiple times as the heavy bus crosses many rickety bridges. Maddie checks her watch again. It is now five o’clock a.m. with no sign of our destination.
To our relief, we arrive in Quincemil within another 30 minutes and are happily greeted by John, Dawson, and Kyle. It is a huge relief. They help us to the project house, and we gratefully fall into bed.
My body is exhausted from the countless hours of travel, yet my mind a buzz with new thoughts. I have spent a total of three days in Peru and I cannot even comprehend everything I have learned. As I let my body sink into my mattress, I realize how the mountains I saw from the airplane were only the beginning. I now know the importance of open-mindedness and adaptation. It was necessary for Maddie and I to become comfortable with the idea of staying on our own in a foreign city after only being there for 20 minutes. Because of this unknown experience that was thrown at me, I will react with tolerance and patience the next time I am in a situation that requires quick adjustment to something new. I am so grateful to have witnessed the protests in Cusco. I learned in my first moments in Peru how to adjust and be trusting that everything is the best it can be.
As I finally let my eyes close for the rest of the night, or morning, more precisely, I could not wait to experience what was to come. 72 hours of time had already changed my outlook and the rest of the six weeks was going to cast me into the complete unknown…but I was beyond excited.
I turn and look out the window. The smooth cloud layer stretches flatly across the landscape until sudden, brown mountains protrude sharply above the fog. It is a magnificent sight, so surprising, abrupt, and unlike anything I have seen before. I continue to stare at the Andes as if their unique and surprising appearance was a magnet gluing my eyes to the window. As I take in the faint outlines of terraces carved expertly into the hillside and stare down on the closely-knit villages, this first new experience seems to set the scene for my whole trip. The extreme and beautiful mountains are preparing me for the countless moments I am going to be surprised by. Not one event will be normal or boring for me. Everything will be so wonderfully fresh, original, unknown, and, in a good way, frightening. I know, as I gaze appreciatively out of the thick airplane window, that I will never forget seeing these beautiful mountains for the first time. I sit back in my seat and assume that it will be hard to forget anything about the adventure on which I am about to embark.
We land in Cusco, lug our huge backpacks off the carousel, and head outside to look for Andy, a graduate student with the program that is supposed to be picking us up. We see a Peruvian man standing with a sign that says our names. We approach him.
“Andy?” Maddie asks.
“No, me llamo Javier,” he replies.
From this point, we are forced into using and understanding every Spanish word we have ever learned. Javier speaks no English and after ten minutes of desperate broken Spanish, we understand that there are protests going on throughout the country of Peru and all major roads are blocked. We are also told that instead of Andy, a man named Pedro is coming to help us. Maddie and I must trust that Javier knows John Janovec in some way if he had a sign with our names on it.
We get a hostel room at the Tullumayo and eat lunch on our own in the city. Javier joins us again when it is dinnertime and we talk about our favorite movies and what we do for fun. Javier knows no English words, yet he does know the names of several American actors. When we return to the hostel, Pedro is waiting for us with another man named Royce, who speaks English and a little more Spanish than Maddie and I. We discover that they both work with Andes to Amazon and are going to help us get our bus tickets to Quincemil.
Another two days are spent in Cusco, filled with sights of hundreds of protestors burning tires and chanting. I admire them. They are fiercely showing the government that they have an opinion and are not afraid to profess it proudly.
By 4 p.m. on our third day, the demonstrations have subsided and the city is back to normal. Javier helps us to the bus station with three mattresses, peanut butter, and a toilet seat, (all things requested for the house in Quincemil). He shows us to our exact seats and we thank him for helping two American gringas so kindly and selflessly. We begin what we are told is going to be an eight hour bus ride. I drift in and out of sleep and watch the movies The Odyssey and 300 in Spanish. Maddie wakes me up after the bus has been stopped on a one-lane, mud road for about a half an hour.
“It’s one-thirty in the morning…” she says to me, some confusion in her voice. If the bus ride was supposed to take eight hours, we were already an hour and a half late. A sinking feeling slides into my stomach as I begin to believe that we passed Quincemil while Maddie and I were sleeping. Eventually, the bus begins to move again as we continue to daze in and out of deep sleep. I see outlines of a river and wake up multiple times as the heavy bus crosses many rickety bridges. Maddie checks her watch again. It is now five o’clock a.m. with no sign of our destination.
To our relief, we arrive in Quincemil within another 30 minutes and are happily greeted by John, Dawson, and Kyle. It is a huge relief. They help us to the project house, and we gratefully fall into bed.
My body is exhausted from the countless hours of travel, yet my mind a buzz with new thoughts. I have spent a total of three days in Peru and I cannot even comprehend everything I have learned. As I let my body sink into my mattress, I realize how the mountains I saw from the airplane were only the beginning. I now know the importance of open-mindedness and adaptation. It was necessary for Maddie and I to become comfortable with the idea of staying on our own in a foreign city after only being there for 20 minutes. Because of this unknown experience that was thrown at me, I will react with tolerance and patience the next time I am in a situation that requires quick adjustment to something new. I am so grateful to have witnessed the protests in Cusco. I learned in my first moments in Peru how to adjust and be trusting that everything is the best it can be.
As I finally let my eyes close for the rest of the night, or morning, more precisely, I could not wait to experience what was to come. 72 hours of time had already changed my outlook and the rest of the six weeks was going to cast me into the complete unknown…but I was beyond excited.
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