How to Get to Huaraz

Step one: Spray the entirety of your room with a flea-killing spray.  Begin to hack up your lungs despite the jauntily tied hankerchief around your mouth.  Power through because DAMMIT THERE WILL BE NO MORE FLEAS IN YOUR BED WHEN YOU RETURN SO HELP YOU GOD. Place everything you have worn during Fleamaggedon in a stuff sack to be laundered and dried in a real heat-killing dryer when you get to Huaraz. 

Step two: Walk through town with said stuff sack slung across your shoulders the way a sheep is always slung across the shepherd’s shoulders in a Nativity (how poignant is that reference?  Happy Holidays everyone!) Feel like a real Huantarina as you ignore the car driving down the mountain and start walking down the campesina way—on foot.

Step three: Fall in love with your hiking boots after you don’t slide to your death and don’t twist your ankle.  Notice a dead and bloated donkey in the chakra as you walk by.  Wonder what the protocol for dead donkeys is, but figure that the most you can really do is poke it with a stick and realize that is a TERRIBLE idea.  Remember that it definitely didn’t take you this long to walk down last time.

Step four: Finally get to the bottom of your hill.  Have a nice conversation with a Peruvian.

“I hope there is a seat for you, the bus is usually full.”

Oh, well, I hope there is too.

“Did you vote for Obama?” 

Hells yes I did—I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer, it was Obama or the Green Party. 

“John Kerry is number two, yes?”

No, Joe Biden is, but don’t worry, that’s an easy mistake to make. 

“Do you like Peruvian movies?”

Well, actually I haven’t seen one yet. 

“Don’t worry, you shouldn’t.  They all suck.”

Good to know.

Step five: Have bus arrive.  Realize the Peruvian is psychic because there are no seats available.  Explain to the bus driver that your friends are already on the bus and you have to get to a meeting in Huaraz, so por favor.  Milk the gringa thing for all its worth.

Step six: Realize that standing on unpaved roads is a non-option.  Share half a seat with the two other Peace Corps Volunteers and have the seat belt buckle ride up into your butt in a way that is so far comfortable.  Be assured that a seat will open up after the bus passes through Chavin—a mere thirty minutes.

Step seven: Chavin is not a mere thirty minutes.  It is an ass-busting two hours.

Step eight: Sit next to a Peruvian in the very back of the bus who is familiar with Peace Corps.  Discuss food and weather differences between the US and Peru for the next two hours. Become convinced that you speak Spanish fluently.  Realize that food and weather is hardly biochemistry and political science.  Stamp that ego back on down.

Step nine: Finally pass through the tunnel—the sign that paved roads are in your future, only to be stopped by a truck carting a trailer that is stalled out on a curve and has managed to occupy every possible inch of lane on the road.  Try to call someone to commiserate.  Find out there is no service and accept that you are in the middle of the Andes, no one has service, and there is no place within walking distance that has service.  Watch an ambulance with flashing lights get stuck, but decide that no emergency would be going in the direction away from Huaraz.  False alarm. You hope.

Step ten: Gather that the truck has run out of gas.  Become seriously concerned whether anyone plans to do anything to remedy this.  Internally slap yourself for thinking that none of the hundred plus people stuck on either side of the truck will realize that someone has to donate some gas to the stalled truck.  Feel like applauding when you see someone with a gas tank and someone with a hose walking towards the truck.

Step eleven: After another half an hour, wonder how long it takes to put gas in a truck.

Step twelve: Hear a rumble in the distance.  Could it be? Can it be? It is, the truck is moving.  Watch the truck driver’s smug grin as he chugs up the hill.  Have your suspicion of him deliberately blocking traffic in order to get some gas confirmed by bus gossip.  Bastard.

Step thirteen: Put in your headphones and listen to James Taylor the rest of the way.  You’re only three hours behind schedule and you’ve seen fire and you’ve seen rain.

Step fourteen: Arrive in Huaraz.  Drop off your bags.  Experience a furniture transportation miracle. Get a beer and a burger.  Take your first shower in twelve days.  Sign contentedly and go to sleep.