Compras, parte II

The people here like to cluster same kind of shops on the same street. I suppose it's wonderfully handy if you're a local: when the first hardware store doesn't have the kind of tool you're looking for, you just pop in at the next shop. When someone tells you of a new cake shop, "on the confectionery street", you'll have no problem finding it.

The hairdressers' street appears to include nail studios and tattoo artists as well.

For a visitor, however, it can be a nightmare. You're starving and wish to find one single restaurant, but all the street has to offer is barber shops. You've left your toothbrush in the last town and would simply like to clean your teeth for the first time in three days, but there is nothing but wallpaper everywhere. I've been lucky enough to also walk down a toilet bowl street and even a dentist's chair street. Or this - costumes and party deco street. (Parties and dressing up is important in these parts of the world.)

Be different: go for the barefooted Spiderman/Santa Claus costume next time.

And what about my bikini?

Well, I finally stumbled upon my luck, when I had already decided I would not look one street further. I was knackered, disappointed and angry. I had asked at several clothes shops, underwear shops and sports shops, and walked past hundreds of other businesses.

Then one saleswoman called me from a clothing store. It was one of those little shops inside a kind of a small market hall that consisted of just eight shops on both sides of a corridor. "What are you looking for, can I help?" she asked, and resigned, I answered, "You surely don't have bikinis, do you?"

"Of course we do!" she answered briskly. She was there with a friend, both of them in their fifties. The shop was perhaps six square metres and covered from the floor to the ceiling with clothes that looked like they were all about to fall from the shelves. Eagerly, the woman pulled a plastic bag from one of the shelves, and together with the friend, they started emptying its contents onto the counter.

There was a swimming suit and two sets of bikinis. No different colours, different models, not even different sizes. Just those three, take it or leave it. The women lifted the bikini tops to hold them over my chest; that was the amount of trying on there was to do. They concluded that the black one fit me perfectly.

I left the shop with a new black bikini in my bag.

In general, I try as much as possible to avoid posting photos of people without their permission, unless they are in large groups and thus not that intimately portrayed. In this post, however, I felt like it would have been impossible to picture the topic without showing a couple of faces too.

Compras, parte I

When travelling, one encounters a stunning number of surprising things. The people look different from those at home. They speak a strange language. The climate may be completely different and the weather might do unexpected things. The houses look probably different, the food tastes unlike anything you've tasted, and such everyday things as doing sports, using the bathroom or taking a bus may leave you at a loss.

But there's one thing that surely must be more or less the same everywhere: shopping! All over the world, people need groceries, toothpaste and underwear, right? Walk in the shop, make your pick, pay, done?

Haha. Ha.

Case Study Bikini:

I had arrived in Lima just a few days earlier, and I knew I was going to visit some hot springs near Machu Picchu in a couple of days. As my next destination, Cusco, was up on the mountains and nowhere near lakes or the sea, I figured I should try to find a swimming suit already in Lima, just to be sure.

Just to be sure! After having wondered around the streets for three hours, I gave up on the other thing on my To Buy List, a sleeping bag; I was exhausted and decided that in addition to sleeping without a mattress the next couple of nights, I would also have to sleep without any covers. But the bikini was more important. I was not going to miss out on the hot springs after hiking up and down mountain paths for two days.

Typically, I assume, people in Peru and Bolivia buy everything they need from tiny stores which are just a couple of shelves or even just one stand. The most common form of it is a street vendor's stand, and it can sell anything. That is, anything within a range. The problem is that what belongs to a range might not be that obvious for a foreigner.

There's the cosmetics stand, with hundreds if not thousands of little products arranged meticulously under one big umbrella - but if you're looking for toothpaste, you'll be met with just an apologetic (or disgusted) shake of a head. There's the underwear stand with its selection of simple white cotton knickers, plush red lacy underwear and the daring lean G string - but of course no swimwear. The bakery stand has all kinds of tempting-looking sweet goods but definitely no bread. And so on.

Even when things are not sold on the streets, the indoor stores are hardly any bigger. They come mostly in a cluster of little shops, much like a market hall, but so tiny that the salesperson barely has room for that one chair that he or she sits on. They can sell fruit, or hardware, or mobile phone parts, anything. Just that the range is always very restricted. Services are possible too: I've seen several shoe repair shops that have made me take another look in astonishment, as it seems that no one can repair anything is such a confined space.

In Lima, and even more in La Paz, I also saw some more Western-style shops, with enough room for the customers to walk in and look at things. Presumably they are there just for the tourists and the richest of the rich, though. And even though I browsed through those, too, on my bikini-searching quest,  I didn't find one - or then they had a selection of just two models in horrid eighties' Hawaii-style colours and patterns.

(to be continued!)

Polícia

Whether in Peru or Bolivia - the police is everywhere.

And they have tanks.

Dos mundos

"That's something you'll see everywhere in Latin America", said my first Couchsurfing host in Cusco. "An upper-class neighbourhood can turn into a slum just from one street to another."

Often, however, the change is even more drastic: you see it from one house to another.

Coming from such a different culture with such different problems, it's difficult to understand the issues here. I can't tell if people are starving or how severe of a problem child labour is. I can't say whether poverty always means a dangerous neighbourhood, or whether a dangerous neighbourhood always means poverty. There are teenage street vendor girls with their sulky teenage faces glued to their smartphone screens, and middle-aged street vendor mothers with their three little children playing in the dirt next to their stands.

What I noticed already in Lima, however, is that it's as if there were two completely different economies existing side by side within the same city or the same country. That's possibly the case in Europe, too, but the differences are not quite that extreme.

Here, there's the first economy, where a person can buy a bagful of groceries from a supermarket for about 12 euros, take a city bus for some 40 cents and a taxi for perhaps 4 euros, go to a yoga class for 6 euros and buy a fresh fruit smoothie for 2 euros.

And then there's the other economy. For those people, taking a bus would be too expensive, so they walk. They buy their groceries from a market where they can choose the cheapest vegetables and haggle the prices down. They might have a fresh fruit smoothie when it's mango season and they walk past a tree that belongs to no-one. For those people, the other economy doesn't exist. The cable cars might float above their homes night and day, but they belong to another world beyond their reach.

Still, those people are not unemployed, or alcoholic, or homeless. They have jobs and they work long hours, and their children presumably go to school just like everybody else's. A bit of public education just isn't enough. The system we have in place works the same way here as it does everywhere: those who have some wealth tend to have it easier to gain more.

Those who have none have it much harder ever to gain any.

Lago Titicaca y el camino a La Paz

My second long bus journey: 17 hours.

Puno, Peru

At a little past five in the morning I wake up as the bus arrives in the town of Puno. We're told we'll have to continue with another bus in about two hours. I succumb to the circumstances and get myself a map of sorts copied on a piece of paper. Then I realise that Lake Titicaca is just behind the bus station.

Titicaca is a lake situated at some 3,800 metres above sea level and is almost the size of Uusimaa (and could fit nine Berlins in it). As such, it is considered to be the highest navigable lake in the world.

It's beautiful. And dirty.

The air is still cool this early in the morning when I stroll along the shore of the lake. There are people on their morning jog. And dogs, always dogs.

Elvis and Lucero, of the Titicaca Shore Bench, would like to send their greetings.

The contrasts are striking, as always.

I buy my breakfast - two rolls with avocado and salt - from the lady with a bike vending stand and get on the second bus.

After just a couple of hours down the road with the lake most of the time visible on our left, we arrive at the border. After a brief stop to have our passports stamped, we cross over to Bolivia. (The large white building is the Border Control office. The smaller one is a public bathroom.)

Cobacabana, Bolivia

In Cobacabana, we're once again told there will be a two-hour wait before the next bus. It's a happy surprise; now I'll have time to walk around Cobacabana too.

 Now, if you come on a horse from the nearby village to visit a friend in town, a part of you might find it smart to tie the horse somewhere while you're gone...but then again, why bother. (I watched the horse for a good half an hour, and while nobody came to look at it in that time, it didn't seem to bother or be bothered by anyone either.)

San Pedro de Tiquina, Bolivia

One more surprise for the day: we have to cross the lake. (Later, looking at the map I realise that the border runs in such a peculiar manner that crossing the lake is the only way to not end up in Peru again.) There are boats that have been especially constructed to carry buses. They are long and low and wooden, and quite unlike all the other ferry boats I've seen before.

Las raíces

I walk behind a woman up the stone steps of the Choquechaka street. On her head she has the typical thick, wide-brimmed brown hat. Below the hat, two long braids come far down on her back and have been tied together at the end. She's wearing a thick jumper, an apron, a wide skirt – I'm assuming it's many skirts over on another – tights and a pair of simple shoes. In the mornings it can be very cold and the attire seems reasonable, but now, in the scorching late-afternoon air, I can't help being puzzled at the long sleeves and thick layers.

Over her body she's tied a large, square cloth. It's an aguayo, or a q'ipirina, and has a very colourful pattern. It's tied at the front with just a simple double knot, and inside it, on her back, she's carrying something sizeable and heavy. It could be fruit to sell, it could be vegetables to take home, it could be a baby; I can't see inside. Then I see the bundle wiggle a little. It must be a baby, tucked diagonally sideways into the warm safety of the cloth.

Or another woman, somewhat older: wearing jeans and a worn denim cap, but carrying her two-year-old in the same colourful q'ipirina, tied the same way with a knot at the front. The toddler's not hidden though, but sitting up, and is being stroked by the woman's older daughter who's walking at her side. One day, when the girl has her first child, she won't think twice about slipping her newborn inside the cloth and going on about her day.

Like it has been done here for thousands of years.

Walking always higher up on the narrow streets and slowly leaving the hustle of the city behind, I feel oddly rootless. I can understand how the people here have a stronger sense of identity, much like the Sami people in my own country. Here, history of the forefathers seems to be whispering its tales of various times from all sides.

The buildings in their entirety are some hundreds of years old at the longest, but their foundations have existed quite a lot longer. The large stones that form the first layer of the walls are ancient. I look at a white wall and try to see through it: what kind of a family sat here having breakfast a a hundred generations ago? What were their fears, their wishes, their songs? What kind of things did they keep secret from others?

Besides rootless, I feel oddly responsible for the Spanish Conquest over four hundred years ago. What would stand here now, had we Europeans been less greedy and selfish? Yet, it's staggering to see how much of the old customs, language and culture are still alive in the everyday life of the Andean people, despite the fact that they have begun to receive any governmental support only in the last decades. In the Cusco region, more than half of the people learn Quechua as their mother tongue. The religions of Christianity and Pachamama live side by side and overlap. Where else in the world has a subjugated culture been able to stick to their roots even that much?

I pass the last houses, walk through a small forest and across a field and arrive at what are nowadays called the Temple of the Monkey and the Temple of the Moon. No one can say for sure what they were originally called, for these places stem from times even before the Incas. There is not too much left of them; only a disorderly-looking collection of vast stones, and some caves that have been closed from the public. Still, it's possible to discern some things, such as the figures of important animals that have been carved into the crude stones. The sun is setting when I climb to the top of the Temple of the Moon and kneel down next to a specially shaped stone. It's carved on both sides into the shape of two steps, and it's what was used to tell the time a very long time ago.

I lay my hand on the stone and reach out to those people hundreds or thousands of years before this moment. Someone has touched the stone then just like I am now. Someone has been where I am, and has seen the last rays of sun disappear behind the mountains just like now.

So short is human life; so few sunrises and sunsets behind the mountains; so much we forget, so much is lost.

And the stone stands.

Buen provecho

For a vegetarian, Peru is unfortunately not a culinary paradise: all the traditional dishes consist of mostly meat or at least a lot of egg and milk. I don't eat that much in restaurants anyway while travelling, but of course it's always interesting to try some of the local delicacies.

Cooking just for myself is rather dull as well (and weird, after cooking for years for at least four people). I really haven't been able to conjure up much inspiration and have lived off pretty much the same dish throughout this journey. Its main ingredients are quinoa and avocado, two yummy and super healthy things that are quite unecological (and in some cases, unethical) when bought in Europe. But here I can eat them as much as I desire!

To prepare the daily meal: Cook quinoa, slice a whole ripe avocado, and cover it all with a big green salad, coriander and lime juice. Repeat ad infinitum.
(This version has a little fancier look to it as it was made for a host.)

To be honest though, I have not felt like eating much for weeks. I haven't had much appetite ever since I arrived in Lima, but I feel like the altitude sickness might have made it even worse. On many days I have eaten only a little fruit, which luckily is available in abundance. The markets and street vendors offer a plentiful selection of fresh vegetables, herbs, fruit and nuts. I've made sure to eat at least one chirimoya, the little sister of guanábana, per day.

Chirimoya, tumbo, tuna and pepino.

Salineras

After having felt, at times, horribly lonely and out of place in the midst of (other) young Gringo Trail backpackers during my group trip to Machu Picchu, I was immensely grateful for one Couchsurfing gentleman named Kris* to accept me in his home despite his worries of it being too small to host anyone. Indeed it was tiny: the room pictured below worked both as his atelier and a kitchen, and behind it, there was just a small windowless bedroom. The roof leaked, there were no windows to look out of, and after a few days I noticed that even the walls were kind of make-shift structures. But none of that mattered; it was a lovely flat and I spent some happy last days in Cusco before leaving Peru.

Kris told me of some salt works that are located about two hours away from Cusco and suggested we could do a day trip there as he had also never been. I had no idea what to expect but was eager to go. We first spent some time in the little town of Pisaq, then jumped onto another minibus, and finally asked several locals for the way to walk to the salt ponds.

Once again, a walk up a hill. I am finally beginning to have less difficulties at these outrageous heights – at least this time my altitude-sick lungs beat the lungs of a smoker...!

We arrived at the place close to dusk, but there were still a few people working, piling or carrying sacks of salt. The contrast of the white ponds with the red hills was magnificent.

The Salineras are not really an attraction but a working salt factory. Salt has been collected in this area for thousands of years. We talked to a worker who explained the principal of the works: salty water runs downhill into the large ponds, where the water is left to evaporate and the salt then collected.

Kris had bought some roasted but non-salted peanuts on the way, and he insisted in cracking some hardened salt from the side of the pond and grinding it between his fingers onto the peanuts. While I was frightened of being caught in mid-theft, he was giddy with joy. Salt straight out of a salt pond!

(Finally, a photo of myself on this journey! Note, I am no selfie-ist.)

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*)Kris is no Peruvian name. When asked about it, he said his parents were just weird that way and that his brother was actually called Klaus, although that might have been just him taking the p*ss out of me.

Amores perros

I dedicate this post to my dear friend Sirje.

Dogs are everywhere.

Small dogs, big dogs, happy dogs, sad dogs, ratty dogs, bad dogs, young dogs, fun dogs, old dogs, hairy dogs, hairless dogs, toohless dogs, earless dogs, tailless dogs – and very often, ownerless dogs.

And a lama.

Market dog.

Lake Titicaca dog.

Corner shop dog.

Hike trail dog.

Village dog.

Machu Picchu dog.

And a lama.