After the Inca Trail
06/23/10
At 4:30 a.m., we entered the silent streets of Cusco, finally having returned from the Inca Trail…sort of. We were hours late, a result of the train stalling twice and then having to catch two separate buses. Again, Cusco Explorers did not live up to its contract. Instead of dropping each person off at their hostel/hotel, our driver booted a group of foreigners off the bus on some random street, in a town that we did not know our way around, where not one person, one car, was in sight in any direction. After a 30-minute walk we spent lost, cold and confused with stiff, overworked legs from the Inca Trail and headaches from lack of sleep, we managed to find our hostel at 5 a.m. When we woke up later at noon I was ready to have a one-on-one meeting with Cusco Explorers between the manager’s junk and my fist.
“Good afternoon,” the front desk clerk said to us as we walked down the stairs. I looked over at a tourist laughing while using the one free computer at our hostel. At all hostels, there should be a trap door below the lone computer chair that opened up into a pit of fire if anyone uses the one free hostel computer for Youtube videos. She was stopping me from an angry email I had to write. Yes, it was one of those days where I had trouble finding my Zen. I felt as though the entire town was in on my suffering in my confused, enraged state of mind.
“What are your plans for today?” the clerk inquired.
Oh paw-leassee. As if she did not know. I knew it though. I knew the entire city was in on it, my suffering, in cahoots with Cusco Explorers and hiding the groin region of their leader from us. As if she could not tell from the look in my eyes that I was looking to punch someone I had never met before in the junk.
“Can I help you?” she asked. I suddenly realized having an internal monologue to myself was not helping the situation. I had walked up to her, rested my hands on her counter, then looked up at the wall aimlessly behind her and began thinking to myself. I had my sunglasses on and likely appeared to be looking her directly in the eyes without speaking.
“Yes, we are just waiting for the computer,” I said, not realizing I was asking for her help with waiting. I decided to continue speaking, even though I had failed to communicate properly all morning. “We need directions to get to an office to discuss some business.”
I nodded quizzically. She did not nod back. I hoped I had communicated our situation in a way that let her know that I needed to punch someone in the junk, but in all likelihood, I said it in a way that suggested I was looking to discuss some business.
“Do you know the address?” She asked. I did not know. The computer was not free and I was too impatient to wait. Instead, I removed my glasses, threw my hands up in the air, as if this body language communicated my entire diabolical plan. I still did not receive a nod. Grumpy and with new motivated, we headed out on the town looking for a massage instead of a stranger’s junk, though my thoughts lingered.
The town looked friendly enough, with happy locals getting dressed up for an important festival, including a smiling vendor that sold me a bottle of water. Though, I knew, underneath it all, all these people were also in cahoots with Cusco Explorers. The water cost me money, money that was likely lining the pockets of the estranged manager, protecting his junk from my fist.
In a restaurant, I saw a tin cup that claimed to be collecting donations for a children’s band. The money-snatching oppression was without end. Yes, the owner smiled and thanked all the locals and tourists who deposited their change. On the outside. I’m quite confident he was calling each donator a jackass and laughing at us. On the inside. He was probably texting the manager’s junk all about it.
“Ha! Donations! Yeah right!” I chicken clucked to Boxie-boo. “I bet he also wants to drop us off on a random street in the middle of the night.”
“A whu?” she retorted. Apparently, she had trouble understanding my angry, bird-like mumbles. I found myself feeling silly, so I grabbed the change from my pocket, then through it in the jar…before I realized, these people were so good, they even had Boxie-boo in on it.
Throughout the day, we accomplished very little. I looked like someone´s great-aunt after three strokes had toddled me, my face unable to lift up into its normal position, appearing to be suffocating from my own clothing. I was foaming at the mouth with the thought of Cusco Explorers, all the insiders taunting me in the city, my eyes bloodshot and red as if I had injected heroine directly into my eyeballs. I enjoyed the afternoon no more than I would enjoy a diagnosis of penis shrinkage. Then I felt nothing. A sleep state. I found myself tempted to light my hair on fire, find the address of Cusco Explorers and walk into the office: Look what you did to me?
Honesty reigns supreme for the Ribatron-don. When I do not get what is promised to me, especially in a written contract, a distaste enters my mouth that resembles monkey droppings. At night (above), while we walked around Cusco, my rage howled like a baby after being told he can never suck a nipple again. I simply wanted a ride to my hostel, not to be lost in a city I barely I knew at 4:30 a.m.
Thankfully, the culture of Cusco invaded my ear drums, healing my soul. I snapped out of my ridiculous conspiracy theories and began enjoying the wonderment of the festival that was growing around us.
Walking with the pace of a turtle with an oversized shell, the streets of Cusco were packed for pre-Inti Raymi celebrations. We inhaled the smell of popcorn and frying meat, passing through locals wearing colourful ponchos. Street performers spray-painted gold stood statue-still, only moving for drops of change. It was a Halloween-like scene with goblins and witches, the streets crafty with salespeople, guitarists and women tapping shoulders with wooden boxes selling chocolate bars to the gathering crowds. It was a pickpocket’s dream, so I was sure to wear my hidden money belt and keep one hand on my camera bag. It turned out, this was a smart move.
Another parade had formed, its drum beat penetrating my skin and into my heart, fueling me with needed life. Firecrackers popped and echoed, turning the cobblestone into orange lightning. Trumpets all tuned differently blasted. Young mother´s backpacked their babies within their ponchos. The rainbow flag of Cusco swayed. Bronze instruments pointed upwards at the sky. No manager’s junk was punched, no Youtube watching backpacking fell into a pit of fire, but I still had a blast. It was a sight of moving music and colour, where we searched and bartered our way, in time, for an Inca massage - a must after the Inca Trail, costing 25 Soles per person for an hour and a half, which is about $9 Canadian.
For our massage, we entered a room that smelt of hockey equipment, surrounded by draping red curtains and a red massage table. Solo flute music fluttered in the room. Paranoid about my camera and wallet, I placed them through the face hole to ensure I could always have them in view. My paranoia rang true, as later in the night, we met up with Fabienne who told us her camera had been pick pocketed. After returning home to Canada, I emailed her a DVD with all my photos from Peru. There are few things worse that losing photographs traveling and I experienced this in Thailand, as you may recall, but for a different reason.
The massage was just what we needed, starting from our head, releaving me fully of both my exhaustion-caused headache and my urge to punch junk.
“How you doing, babe?” I asked, through the swaying curtains. The festivals drums slightly penetrated the wall, the flutes smooth over top of a backdrop of rhythm.
“Ohh wahh ohhh wahh,” Boxie-boo responded, too relaxed to communicate properly, unless she confused me for an ancestor of Fred Flintstone. It was yabba dabba do-errific. Boxie-boo never underestimated the power of carefully worded nonsense.
While on the table, all my sore areas were concentrated on - neck, upper back, mid-back, arms and feet. When she began massaging my caves, pain shot up my legs and into my back. Painful at first from hiking. Then lessoned. I relaxed, possibly too much. After massaging my thighs, she pulled my arm over my back, massaging my triceps, before gripping my wrist and shaking, my hand flapping back and forth over my bootae. It was as if she was signaling I farted. No comment.
Boxie-boo continuously moaned, mixing cavewoman gibberish with the post-poop giggles of a baby. The party outside continuously creped in with the backdrop of drums; a rhythm that crawled against my skin where gentle hands kneaded into my muscle. I began to feel loose and flexible, so much so that one wrong step would result in my own foot slipping into my bumhole. Then they were finished, the world around us beaming, slowing time: Relaxed, at peace and rejuvenated.
We treated ourselves to a dinner, a three-course meal for 20 Soles each, capping of the night watching the parades pass by, women swaying in circles and dancing, followed by drummers and blasting trumpets.
That´s all for now.
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