#7 - Jeremy, Ganador

Some people are just lucky.

Our first full day in Lima, Jeremy was one of those people.

We were all walking through a plaza in dowtown Lima, when we stumbled upon a man working with spray paint, sponges, and fire (best part? When he pulled out the lighter and a can of spray paint, flame-thrower style, and looked over his shoulder at the armed guard with an ¨I´m going to do this no matter what, so...¨ expression) . So, naturally, we stopped to watch. Being an enterprising artist, the man showed off the painting (which really was amazing considering it was made with spray paint) and offered to raffle it off, one sole per ticket (exchange rate is roughly 3 soles to 1 american dollar). Jeremy went in, along with a few others. Then, just to make it interesting, the man offered to add in four more tickets if those already in the hat paid one more sole. He then pulled a few tickets to eliminate people (this guy knew how to work a crowd). Finally, the artist asked Maureen to pull the winning ticket, which was Jeremy´s - the first one he bought.

#6 - Airport

Waiting for Team Chile´s flight to come in at midnight.

#5 - Common Ground

After meeting up with Jordan we had some free time to waste before picking up Team Chile from the airport. We only got badly lost once while finding our hostel, so we spent the remainder of our time at a prayer meeting at Jordan´s church. It is so comforting to be surrounded by like-minded people, especially at the Throne. And it´s even more eye-opening when you realize that even though you may be speaking a different language than the person across from you, you´re hearts are in tune with each other, and the same Ear hears and understands every word, spoken or not.

#4 - Scandal

Jordan´s host mom thinks

that I am quite a scandal,

traveling with boys.

Really, she asked me ¨Are the other two (Beth and Maureen - Team Chile) girls?¨ with a very disapproving look on her face.

#3 - Like Fish Among Seagulls

As if the first eight hours weren’t enough for us, we booked our twenty hour bus trip to Lima the next day. We had breakfast (peanut butter on whole wheat bread and oatmeal blended up and put in a juicebox) on a park pench in the main square and then spent the morning at the beach, but all too soon we had to head back to the bus station.

We soon realized that our backpacks were giant neon arrows pointing us out as gringos. The street was packed with the moto-taxis, all eager to offer their services. Taxi drivers are pro-active in Guayaquil, so we weren’t too surprised at first, but soon there was a horde of men following us up the street yelling “Taxi?” “Mancora?” “Amigo, Taxi?” The words “overwhelming” and “persistent” come to mind. Jeremy described it as “Being a fish in a flock of seagulls.” I don’t think I could have put it better myself.

#2 - Connotation

Tumbes, Peru is a border town. It is no stranger to backpack toting wanderers, even the ones that arrive after midnight exhausted and disoriented from six hour international bus trips. I speak from personal experience.

We originally made reservations at a hostel in Zorritos, about half an hour outside of Tumbes, but because of our late arrival, we opted to try to find someplace closer to the bus station. Easier said than done, we soon found out.

For starters, although it is plastered all over the city, the word “hostel” meant nothing to the men working the desk at the bus station. At this point I really just wanted to brush my teeth and fall asleep. Enter Jeremy to save the day. Roughly translated, he said something along the lines of :

“We’d just like somewhere inexpensive to stay, sooner rather than later.”

All well and good. But they were giving us some pretty funny looks. It took me a minute to realize the connotation attached to two young people traveling alone together asking for a cheap room late at night.

Oops.

My natural response, of course, was to insist :

“Two beds. We need two beds. Or two rooms. Two rooms is great. Two beds though, that’s important.”

The men laughed, but one appeared to know of somewhere that fit the bill. So he hailed us a taxi. I use the term “taxi” loosely. It was a motorcycle with a bench attached to the back, covered with a sort of vinyl tent. We learned the next day that they’re the most common form of transportation in Tumbes, but at midnight it looked pretty strange. It was our chariot to real beds though, so I climbed in without complaint. The surprises kept coming though, as not only Jeremy, but the man from the bus station as well, crammed themselves onto the bench with me.

Not only did the bus station man come with us in the taxi, but when we got to the hotel, he and the taxi driver both climbed out and came up to the room with us. We confirmed that it did indeed have two beds, and paid both the taxi driver and the hotel clerk, and the bus station man and the hotel clerk left. The taxi driver stayed behind to try to convince us to let him take us island hopping the next day, which we were obligated to decline several times before he left and I got to brush my teeth. Finally.

#1.5 - ¨I Used to be a Cage Fighter...¨

This story doesn´t really have a set place on the Peru timeline. It began before departure, but continued for the duration of the adventure.

To begin:

My parents were a little nervous about me travelling around South America, in a small group, mostly by bus, without reliable means of communication, and without much of a plan. So naturally, excellent daughter that I am, I tried to set their minds at ease. I think the facebook message read something like this:

¨Don´t worry. I´ll be with boys. Older boys. Two of them. Jordan´s practically fluent and Jeremy used to be a Marine. Between the two of them I´ll be fine.¨

In hindsight, the majority of those descriptors probably made the situation sound worse, especially coming from their teenage daughter. What can I say? I tried.

I was semi-joking when I told my parents about Jeremy´s stint with the armed forces. I knew he had originally planned to be a Marine, and that he had spent his freshman year in ROTC. If something went terribly wrong, I´m pretty sure he could have handled it, but I said it mostly to make my parents feel better, not because I was counting on Jeremy to be the body guard of the group. Apparently, he took his role a little more seriously than I did.

We ended up going back to the Donoso house (Jeremy´s host family) for awhile between when our bus was supposed to leave and when it actually left. During that time, I was sitting on the floor in Jeremy´s room, probably talking to myself, ¨helping¨ him repack. He was digging through a desk drawer on the other side of the room, when he asked me:

¨Would you feel better if I had this [pulls out 7-inch switchblade] on me? Because I´ll carry it if you want, but I used to be a cage fighter, so I can also protect you that way.¨

At that moment, a litany of questions started running through my mind -

Why on earth would anyone need a knife that big? Do I look like I need protection that badly? Are we really expecting to have problems big enough for that kind of weaponry?
Am I the only one not worried about getting robbed/kidnapped/shanked?
Ohmygoodness, what the $%&(! are we going to do if something does happen?
And, most importantly,
What the blazes is a cage fighter? *

I assured Jeremy that the machete was unnecessary, though it was thoughtful of him to offer. But, of course, I couldn´t let the cage fighter comment pass, so it became my fallback and motto for the rest of the trip. For example:

¨I think we´ll have to cross the border at like 11pm.
- That´s okay, you used to be a cage fighter.
¨Are we sure we want to ride the bus that late at night?¨
- Yeah, it´s okay. Jeremy used to be a cage fighter.
¨Will Jeremy be alright by himself for two days in Cuzco without any means of communication¨
- Of course. He used to be a cage fighter.

Nothing happened, thankfully, that required Jeremy´s cage fighting skills. But, strangely enough, as much as I teased him about the comment, some small part of me did feel a little safer knowing someone was not only concerned about my well being, but ready means of ensuring it.

* Cage fighting - ¨is a full contact combat sport that allows a wide variety of fighting techniques and skills, from a mixture of martial arts and non-martial arts traditions, to be used in competitions. The rules allow the use of both striking as well as grappling techniques, both while standing and on the ground. Such competitions allow martial artists of different backgrounds to compete.¨ - wikipedia.org