Mike and I made a mistake when we got there - we got off the train and hopped aboard the bus, only to discover that we should have bought our tickets in town, and tickets were not sold at the entry to MP. Now that was not so good, because it was a 30 minute bus ride back down, not to mention double bus fare. But after a bit of standing around and sort of pleading with people ("There must be way!") we were told that we could buy tickets through the only hotel at MP, which was right by where we were standing. And it was only about $7 more per ticket than it would have been had we bothered to read the signs at the bus terminal. SO no harm, no foul - except that I am sure we looked like fools.
We are back in Cuzco now, and plan to leave here and begin winding our way back to Ecuador on Tuesday (Today is Friday). We will bus it across the country like we did getting here. We did have an interesting thing happen to us when we took the bus from La Pas to Cuzco a couple of weeks ago, more ot less. It was actually pretty weird and unpleasant. We were riding on one of these overnight buses where the seats lean way back and there is a little fold out foot rest to put your feet on. When that footrest is up, you can't see the floor. So anyway, Mike and I were riding along, dozing in our chairs, and chatting every now and then about nothing in particular. We head a cat meowing, and started talking about the poor kitty trapped in its car carrier, and speculating whether the cat carrier was more comfortable than the bus seats. All of a sudden we smelled this truly awful smell. Mike said "The cat has shit its crate." I didn't think it smelled like cat poop, but then it has been a long time since I have smelled cat poop. We started giggling and making jokes about "shitty kitty" and "CAT-astrophe" and stuff like that. In the meantime, although we paid no attention to it at the time, the guy behind Mike got up and went to a different part of the bus. Mike and I tried to sleep, but it was hard with that awful smell. But there were only a couple hours left in the bus ride so we dealt with it. When the ride came to an end, Mike reached down and pulled his footrest back and I screamed out "Do not put your feet down!" There, under Mike's foot rest, was human poop, several handfuls of it. We freaked out, to say the least, and realized the guy behind us must have pooped himself, and then threw it under out seats. We could not think of any other way it might have gotten there. It was not there when we got on the bus. Thank goodness it did not get on us! That has to be the strangest thing that has ever happened to us.
After Cuzco but before MP, we went to the Sacred Valley, which is a series of little Andean towns between Cuzco and MP, all of which have their own ruins and Incan things. We stayed for several days in a town called Pisac, where we hiked up high into the mountains and visited some ruins. It was a difficult hike, especially so at over 11,000 feet, but it was worth it. We also just kicked back and enjoyed the little town. Then we left and went to another little town called Ollantaytambo. This town is actually an Incan town, and the walls of many of the buildings now in use were built during that epoch. The streets were narrow and winding, and surrounded by high walls. (We never failed to remark on how the enormous tourist buses navigated around them.) While we were there, we had another really interesting experience - we underwent an ayahuasca ceremony.
For anyone who has not heard of it, ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic plant used quite widely by the jungle people of Peru and Bolivia, as well as being known elsewhere in South America by other names (for example, in Colombia it is called yage). William Burroughs came to South America specifically to try this, and it is not something you buy in the street and take home to get high on. We went (with two American girls and a German girl) to the home of the woman who administered it to us. I have done plenty of drugs in my day, including LSD, but this was really different. I don't think I got as much out of it as others did, but it was an interesting experience and I want to do it again. It is something that really should be done in a controlled setting with a leader you feel comfortable with. The effects are hard to explain - I did not have any hallucinations, but some really odd physical sensations and spent a lot of time thinking about strange, random things. Mike had a completely different experience, as did everyone else. It was different for everyone. I was a little disappointed that my experience was not more profound, but considering how nervous I was it might have been that I needed to show myself I would not lose control and send my brain off into some stratosphere, never again to return to reality as I know it. (I was really afraid this might happen.) So that is why I want to try it again. Hopefully I will get the chance to do so, someday, somewhere.
So anyway, as the title of this post says, we are on our way home. I miss the boat and I want to cook my own meals again and sleep in my own bed, and feel the boat moving beneath me at night.
"I live in my own little world. But its ok, they know me here." (Lauren Myracle)
