In terms of bizarre coincidences, my life has been worryingly lacking in recent times. Especially considering how fucking trippy it was back in the US when I kept on seeing the same people over and over and over again. I've had a couple of trippy ones in the past 24-hours though.
Firstly, I don't remember if I ever wrote this one back when I first got to Colombia. But I met this English girl at the hostel I was staying at in Taganga. This little fishing town in Northern Colombia. Then, as I'm leaving Tayrona National Park and making the 45-minute walk from the first beach back to the road, I run into this same girl, going into the park. Then again back in Taganga, I run into her. We're back at the same hostel again. And if all of that wasn't enough, on my last night in Cartagena, just hanging out in the streets, I run into her again. Having just got there. And that was the last I saw of her. Or so I thought.
And appreciate that as the bird flies, Cartagena is some 1,500km from Huanchaco or there abouts. And it's been what? 6 or 7 weeks since I left there.
Well imagine my surprise as just as I'm gearing up to leave Huanchaco, guess who walks in the door of the hostel. I mean, what are the fucking odds of that? It's not like it's a huge must-see place or anything. Yet as was apparent, over the distance of 1,500km by air and considerably further by land, we had both got here from Cartagena in about the same time. And we were staying in the same hostel out of the many here. It is a small, small world. And it's a shame that I was just leaving because it would have been good to catch-up. Find out some of the things that she'd done that perhaps I'd missed out on. Also a shame seeing there is some fucking huge annual street-party happening in Huanchaco taking place tonight as it happens. Although I didn't find out about it until I'd already booked my bus ticket.
That's not even the weirdest coincidence I've had occur in the past 24 hours though.
Oh and there was also some guy... apparently we met when I was drunk the other night. I thought I'd been able to recollect the finer points of that evening. Which goes to show how much I fucking know. Because this guy sure as Hell knew who the fuck I was. So I had to pretend that I knew him. "Yeah. Wasn't that night crazy!" That kind of thing.
And as I'm never one to hide, I do like to watch the pennies. So even though a taxi from Huanchaco to Trujillo will only cost me about US$4, and will take 20-minutes, I still refuse. I still have to get the bus. Even with my giant backpack. And that bus journey, that really is something that everyone should experience in their lifetimes. Sums up Peruvian culture to a tee.
Cramming passengers on like sardines. The conductor is always jibbering something in Spanish. No idea what. But you know, for all the chaos. For all the anarchy that is this journey, they look after you.
Well they look after me anyway.
I don't hide the fact that I'm not from around here. My skin is white and pastey. My hair is blonde. I wear flip-flops, shorts, and I carry a backpack. I don't look like your typical Peruvian. And I don't try to. So even without speaking to me, people will know that I'm not from around here. And in among all the chaos that was this journey, the conductor taps me on the shoulder. And surrounded by anarchy, he patiently waits as I figure out the Spanish to tell him exactly where I'm going. A women sat next to me even helps out with language.
No one else does he do this for. Not one other person does he ask where they're going. But he sees I'm not from around here. He sees that I could perhaps be overwhelmed by the chaos of this bus. And he takes this time with everything else going crazy around, to help me out. That's what I love about the people on this continent, though particularly Peru. In the main... not always, but in the main, they will take that extra time to help you when they can see that you aren't from around here.
Especially considering their reputation in the rest of the world, they really are the friendliest people that I've ever come across. They're not all gun-toting maniacs as you'd be led to believe by talking to the typical American or Canadian.
On this unnecessarily comfortable night-bus considering the price of my ticket, I started to have a strange concern. I had the concern that for me, things were just going too, too well.
I've been overseas for what now? 16 months? Of the typical traveller that I meet, that's longer than anyone. It's very rare that I meet anyone that's been abroad for as long as I have. And yet you know something? I am the only one that nothing seems to go wrong for.
Everyone else... everyone else has at least one story. One story of something being stolen. Or a bag getting lost. Or a bus being robbed. Something has gone wrong for everyone. For everyone except me.
Not once have I been robbed or had something stolen. Not once have I had my bag lost by a bus company, or have I even lost so much as a tooth-brush. And I have spent a lot of time on buses. I hitch-hiked all through Canada without getting murdered. And you know something? I know I'm a lucky guy. I will often write about how I'm such a lucky guy. But even by my standards, I am due some bad luck.
For 11 nights I just kept all of my valuables, including sometimes significant sums of money in my tent. That's a fucking idiotic thing to do.
And my excessive luck has almost started to worry me. Because I hear all these stories from people. People whom have been travelling for considerably less time than I have. And I am just long, long overdue for some bad luck.
I don't ask to be mugged. They're going to pray on the vulnerable. And quite frankly, I don't care if you've got a gun at my head I'm still going to punch you in the face. So it's not like I'm a soft target for someone. But why hasn't my bag gone missing on a bus. Or why haven't I had my mp3 player stolen. Because I am pretty lackadaisical when it comes to security right now. And I don't want to jinx it or anything. But I am really, really due some bad luck. And on this bus journey, I was almost convinced that this was the time. My bag was going to go missing.
As it was, I was in a seat next to this beautiful Peruvian girl that really didn't have any respect for the usual invisible barriers that you'd respect sitting on a bus next to someone that you've never met. And my bag was one of the first to come off the bus when we arrived.
Why? Something bad is going to happen. Something bad has to happen. I'm due. I'm long overdue. And I'm just waiting because the longer it takes, the worse it'll get. But right now, my luck just keeps on running. And it really can't last forever, which is kind of worrying to me.
I slept a good 6-hours on this journey. It really was a comfortable bus seeing as I bought as cheaply as I could. But light finally started seeping in through the windows at about 6am. And seeing as I'd been pretty unconcious since we'd left Trujillo, it was kind of bizarre after weeks and weeks of ridiculous heat and beaches, to wake up to snow-covered mountains.
Not just peaks, but whole mountains were covered in snow. That was something that I didn't expect being this close to the equator still. But it was bizarre. Some mountains were snow-covered. Others were completely green. There was no in-between. It was one of the other which made for a slightly peculiar but very, very spectacular landscape.
Oh and if you didn't already know that you were in the mountains, you found out that you were at altitude by way of the bags of crisps in your bag had burst from the air-pressure.
Note to self. Don't take bags of crisps into the mountains.
It wasn't long after light emerged that we were driving through the city of Huaraz. And seeing as this was at about 6:45am, there was one Hell of a lot of activity in this city already. One Hell of a lot of activity. Everyone was already up. The markets were all open. There were people just sitting there on the pavement. I don't know why at this time, but people in this town really didn't want sleep.
And that translated into hordes of locals waiting at the bus station to pounce on what foreigners they could to get them into their hotels, into their taxis, onto their tours.
This bus had been different to any others that I'd taken in the sense that there were a butt-load of white people this time. I don't know why all of a sudden I was on a bus with a load of whitey's. But there they were. Though with my bag coming off first, luckily, I was the first white to face the masses. And they really are fucking wasting their time on me.
I knew the hostel I was going to, I don't take taxis anywhere that is walking distance, and I am not willing to pay for tours. So it wasn't long until I'd managed to shake them all. Though the prior warning to this from Lonely Planet was appreciated.
Judging by the way that the others looked, they probably will have been able to wangle a bit of cash out of them. They looked so green and lost it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Out on the streets you know you're in a good place when you can walk with your backpack and feel safe. And I had a map and for once wasn't going to the cheapest hostel that I was aware of. Instead I was going to this place because it was run by this English expat according to Lonely Planet. Provides bacon and eggs and English newspapers in the morning.
Lonely Planet are a lying bunch of cunts.
The English expat opening the door sounded like Ozzy Osbourne. Perhaps I'd woken him up. But that's still not an excuse to be talking like you're brains are fried. I got here at little after 7am. And I still haven't seen any bacon and eggs or English newspapers. Because although I never thought that I'd say this, I do kind of miss the English tabloids. Mainly for the fact that it's hard to gage exactly what's going on with particular stories in England.
I go on the BBC website once or twice a day. So I get a basic overview of news. But I really don't know what's going on with the whole John Terry, Wayne Bridge, Ashley Cole thing. I just get a very, very vague overview. So I was looking forward to that. But I am yet to see my English newspapers. Or my bacon and eggs. Although other than that, it is a nice place. With camping allowed which is something I'll consider to save a few pennies if it looks like the rain will hold-off. Something that I'm told that it won't.
I think that it was quite impressive that within 20-minutes of the bus getting in, I was back in bed again. I know that I had 6 hours sleep overnight. But I'm more of a 10-hours per night kind of guy. And with the altitude going from sea-level to mountain over the space of one night, I'm not taking any chances in exhauting my body. I learnt the hard way about that back in Bogota. So I was right back in bed and slept about another 4 hours.
I don't know if it was the altitude. Or perhaps that I had a large cheese pizza before leaving Huanchaco. But in those 4-hours, I had some fucking crazy, and frankly quite disturbing dreams.
I never normally remember my dreams. And if those 4-hours were anything to go by, thank-fuck. Because they were bizarre.
Just laying in bed though, I could feel the altitude. The air just felt thinner. I felt myself breathing more desperately than I had been previously. So I really won't be taking any chances with the altitude here. Not after Bogota. And with Bolivia to come soon, I want to get myself as used to altitude as possible.
Concious again, I go for a quick lunch that is extoritionately expensive by my Jew-type standards, before getting to an Internet cafe, where the second coincidence happens.
I'm looking at someone's profile that I'd met in Huanchaco. There's this American guy that continued from Huanchaco to Huacachina a couple of days ago. He was considering Huaraz but decided against it. And he'd already been to Lima. They're two places on my list. But apart from that, we are on a scarily similar route right now.
Huacachina, Nazca, Arequipa, Cuzco and Lake Titicaca in Peru. Then onto La Paz in Bolivia. Both of our schedules become vague from here. But both of us are going to be heading South through Argentina. But both of us are thinking of stopping in La Paz, or possibly Sucre and learning Spanish for a couple of weeks. We could even end up in the same fucking classroom. So what would be amazing here, is if I didn't run into him again.
For now though, he has got probably a week or ten days ahead of me. So for now he's like my scout. Finding out the best places to go, and the best places to stay. So I was on his profile. Just keeping up with what he was doing. And I click on this girl who he's recently become friends with, because having just been in Huanchaco for over a week together, there would be a fair chance that I know her too. And I'm too fucking lazy to write down people's Facebooks and emails and stuff. I've got too many friends already.
But I click on this name. And her profile comes up. So I click on the picture to see if I know her. And you know who it was? It was only the girl I'd spoken to about a week earlier, that had just spent a year teaching English in Chile. The one with all the contacts that I needed. What are the fucking odds? So I've now messaged her and I hope... hope she gets back to me. Because that really could influence how I spend the next 12 months of my life.
That though, is not the weird coincience. What is even more weird, is that we also have one other friend in common. Remember that this girl is American. Well she also knows a guy that I haven't spoken to in probably 5 years, but for almost 12 months, we were both on the same shift together as full-time lifeguards at the swimming pool that I worked at back in London.
Now that is fucking weird. I'd had some incling from his Facebook updates that at some point in the past he'd spent some time in Chile. But this guy I know from London, 5 years ago. This American girl knows him from Chile. And now I know her from Peru. Now what are the fucking odds of that?
It is a small fucking world.
Nevermind that though, I just really want her contacts in Chile. Because that really could impact how I spent my next year or so.
And I hope that all these coincidences weren't what caused it, but then I go onto find out there there has been some big, fuck-off earthquake in Chile. Raising tsunamis and all the usual crap that's going to become common-place as global warming kicks in. Though people still act shocked about it.
There were two things I was thinking as I was reading about this on the BBC website earlier. The first being that thank-fuck I'm in the moutains now with a load of errant tsunamis raising havoc. Even if I doubt that they'll even reach Peru. And the second was that this could be great for me. Because this could really put-off any potential English teachers that were thinking of going to Chile. Which could mean that it's really easy for me to get a job.
Sorry to sound insensitive because I really should be acting all sad and dejected right now like everyone else. Not that that will help anyone. But this earthquake could be really great for me! It could almost guarantee me a job this Winter.
You know, for years I've been preaching about how bad global warming is. Cursing American's for their environmental retardations which were causing it. But now come to terms with the fact that we as a species are unwilling to chance our ways, you really have to take what you can from each natural disaster. And this one really could be good for me and my career as a professional bum.
There's not much point acting all sad, because well, that's not going to bring anyone back to life. And perhaps all these homeless, dispossessed and dead people can take comfort in the fact that I might now be able to add English teacher to my resume, and not even be lying. Unless of course all of the English schools got washed away. But then it really wouldn't be funny now, would it?
This couldn't be a day of wholly good news though. And for some reason, and it's a reason unbeknown to me, I seem to really be a great councillor. People always come to me when they have problems, and I don't know why that is. It's not like I'm sensitive now, is it?
I suppose that you can pretty much guarantee that I'm going to tell you the truth. However hard it is to hear. But apart from that... man I don't know. But people always come to me with problems. And today I had this girl message me on Facebook. And I wrote I think the longest fucking message I have ever written replying to this. It took me fucking hours. And this was in an Internet cafe as opposed to on my laptop. And my God. Undoing all the good of today, just as I'm about to click send, my fucking computer crashes. I could not fucking believe it. So I kind of lost it a bit with the poor kid working in the Internet cafe. Must have only been mid-teens. And I don't know Spanish well enough to swear in Spanish yet so he won't have even understood what I was saying.
But having got it out of my system, I then went to another Internet cafe, and had to start the whole fucking thing all over again. So despite the fact that I arrived before 7am this morning, I'm yet to really get the chance to see too much of Huaraz having slept for the first 4 hours, and spent the next few doing my good deeds as a councillor. So I really haven't been able to get myself too organised for... well, anything.
You come to Huaraz for one reason. Trekking. And that presents a problem to me, in that I do not have, and am not willing to pay for the necessary equipment that you need to go it alone. And I sure as Hell am unwilling to pay for a guide.
Now Huaraz as a city is very Peruvian. Markets. Buildings that wouldn't look out of place in a slums. I even saw a women walking a sheep like it was a dog earlier. But as I tried to draw a picture of earlier, the surroundings are fucking spectacular.
Considering the places that I've been in my life, to say that this is the most spectacular setting for a city that I've ever seen is a bold statement. Juneau in Alaska is one that immediately springs to mind to rival it. But it's pretty fucking spectacular, put it that way. And it does nothing to detract from the guidebook statements claiming that the surrounding Cordillera Blanca is "one of the most amazing places on the planet."
Would it be stupid to be here, on its doorstep, and not go trekking off into the mountains?
Absofuckinglutely.
But with the constraints including the money involved, they really do not make it an easy environment to appreciate. At least not for someone that enforces the financial restraints that I do. So on arrival, I was hoping to see enough of this city today, and to find out about one particular day-trek that I want to do. Unguided and under-equipped, I don't fucking care. When have I ever gone hiking and taken the necessary provisions? If you don't hear from me in a while, then Laguna 69 might be a good place to start looking. Lonely Planet calls it a two-day trek. But they're a bunch of pussy's. I plan on doing it in one. But unfortunately today with the amount of time I spent on the fucking Internet, I really haven't had the time to do... any preparation.
So tomorrow, again, will be a day to see the city and prepare for this day-hike. Because I refuse to be here and see nothing but what I see from the city and the bus windows. And then the next day, I plan to at least see something of the Cordillera Blanca. Even if it's not the typical 4-day trek that most people do. Or the rather more ambitious 12-day trek, at a cost of over 1,000 Soles, that a person in my dorm here is doing.
Or is it US$1,000?
Either way, I'm not fucking paying it.
And after that, with little on offer in Huaraz in my price range, I think it will be time to move onto Lima.
An expensive, not especially enjoyable city from what I gather. But it's the capital. You have to go there. Just like you wouldn't go on holiday to England and not visit London. Or on a trip to France, you'd make sure to fit in Paris. When you're in Peru, you go to Lima. And I know a few people that live there that I've met over recent weeks. So it'll be good to be reunited. Although with the exception of if I decide to work in one of the hostels there to fund my stay, I don't anticipate spending more than 3 nights in Lima before it'll be off to Huacachina and the rest of the itinery that I detailed earlier.
And unlike Huanchaco, I don't plan on hanging around in Peru from this point forward.
And you know what I've realised. Being white in Latin America, I get a lot people staring at me. Particulary with my hair in the state that it is. And I think that I finally know how it feels to be a beautiful girl. Because I have people staring at me. All day, everyday. It's like I finally understand how it feels to have people looking at you all the time.
And you know something? It's awesome. I'm never going to feel guilty about getting clocked perving again. The attention's great!