Travels of a Dodo

i am pretty tired. today we woke up at 5am to do a tour of machu picchu. most people wake up early because they only let the first 400 visitors go up the neighboring peak of waynapicchu to have their brilliant photos of them with machu picchu in the background. we stood in line just like everyone else, and we waited patiently for tickets (although the people behind us were less than patient!), and we got them. there was a little snafu-ing of the train tickets back, but all turned out well. many a mangled itinerary turns out just fine, despite the lax attitude and forgetfulness of south american tour agencies. finally arrived back here at 10:30pm.

touching story: after a few days of being away, i went back to a spot that is hard to reach up on the slippery steps of Resbalosa to look at the glove-mitten combos that were being offered by an old woman. i looked through all her stuff, but either the mittens didnt fit, or they didnt have a hueco (a thumb hole). i wanted green, but i settled for red mittens without a hueco and she said, you come back in an hour and i will have that hueco for you. in an hour’s time, not only did she have that pair with a hueco, she had knitted a new pair of green ones, my size, with a llama, just for me! i was so touched! i wanted to hug her, but i think that would have been inappropriate, so i just thanked her profusely. yay!

funny story: sometimes i think my spanish is bad, and that–by virtue of being an american– i shamelessly revert to solving problems by throwing money at them, and other such superficial, insensitive things. HOWEVER! sometimes i see instances that prove that maybe i am not that bad… i was waiting in line for the train and some teenage girls were waiting ahead of us, trying to buy a snack for the train from a stand next to the line. they asked for the toblerone bar (a chocolate), and the woman said, “Nueve soles.” [nine soles]. the girls didnt want to pay that much, so one of them says, “Five” (in english), and the woman refuses. after a few haggles with five, they try a higher price: six. “Uh, how do you say six in spanish?” “Seex? Seex.”. the woman at the stand was non plussed, but took the offer for the candy anyway. Then one of them goes, “I wonder if it’s still good?” the woman at the stand starts to open it to show them, and one girl says to the other, “I don’t want her to touch it!”

Hooray America. Anyway, I saw Seex and her pals on the trail the next day. i’m sure they enjoyed their candy bar.