Travel Days (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador)

I was reeling after my luck getting to see Morales speak when I headed into Peru. Time constraints put me into Cuzco on my first day after driving past epic mountains, brown homes and llamas everywhere.

My luck continued because the morning I woke up in Cuzco I heard bands playing and lots of music. I followed the sounds to the Plaza Del Armas, the main square in Cuzco where a huge celebration for the Day of the Crosses was taking place. This involved people dressed up in traditional clothes dancing from probably over 30 different ethnic groups. It was incredible.
They had costumes of these scary white clowns with whips to huge feather headdresses to sparkly dresses to streamer hats to knitted face masks and assaults of color everywhere. It was such a cool introduction into Peru to get to see all this and not in a touristy situation.

Cuzco was nice but a bit touristy for me, so after going to Machu Picchu, I headed on an overnight bus to Lima. It began innocently enough. It was a rough night though. To get to Lima from Cuzco you have to take a very windy bus that goes around and around these hairpin turns. Throughout the course of the night I think over half the bus threw up. Normally that doesn't bother me but the sounds of people retching and the smells in the tight quarters of the bus made me so sick. So you would think that I would be excited to get off a bus in Lima, but Lima is supposedly really dangerous and just a strange city in that there is no central bus terminal. You can't trust any taxis, since anyone can buy official taxi stickers on the street. So I risked it because what else was I going to do and took a taxi to a random international bus terminal. From there I found out that in 10 min I could be on a bus to Ecuador and not have to stay the night in Lima. Momentum builds and I wasn't thinking clearly so I jumped on the bus and out of Lima.

A second overnight and all day bus ride delivered me to Guayaquil, Ecuador. This is the biggest and also the most dangerous city in Ecuador. I arrived at about 5pm. Not wanting to take another taxi (the city is having huge problems with taxi's taking single passengers from ATM to ATM and then killing them in the end) I lucked out though because I had only heard about this later from a fellow traveler. I walked to the bus station and booked another bus at 11pm to Quito. So much for not having anymore travel marathons I thought as I waited in this bizarre combination between a shopping mall and a bus stop.

I bought my bus ticket and asked to store my bag with them. The guy told me that was fine and to come around to the back. He charged me a dollar, which granted isn't that much, but it is comparatively to a 9$ bus ride, but what could I do? I knew he was cheating me, but I really had no choice. Then he grabbed me by my wrists, and this is a big, strong, nasty man, and pulled me up to him and forced me to kiss him. What do you do in that situation? All I could do was push him away as best I could and laugh it off because he has my bag and I didn't want him to do anything to it. I was really feeling the effects of being a woman traveling alone here, arriving in sketchy cities and having to put all my trust in a taxi driver as well as feeling exploited in a situation like this. And granted, it isn't that bad and I have been through a lot worse, but it is just never a good feeling. It was sort of a double-whammy that he both forced me to kiss him and charged me for the bag, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad if he had just done one of the two.

But 65 hours later I arrived in Quito where I am now and the thought of getting on another bus makes me want to puke. At the same time, I am the happiest I have ever been and the last few days have been amazing too. I have gotten to practice a lot of my Spanish, meet a lot of nice locals and best of all, I have no plans. I am excited to get to Colombia, but it has been so fun to just show up at a bus station and book the next bus, none of this has been planned and this is my best kind of travel, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind. It isn't easy, but it helps me learn to trust in myself. Every time I arrive in a new place I have to make a decision. Do I want to trust a taxi driver? Should I risk it and try to walk? Should I ask someone for a recommendation for a hotel? Do I try to make friends with the other traveler around and see where they are going or if they want to share cab? Should I just get on another bus to another city? Where do I want to go? Should I look for a place in my book or just ask the driver to take me to a cheap hotel? Is it safest to try to sleep at the bus station?

It's not easy but I love it, the sheer freedom of travel. I am enjoying being alone and choosing not to travel with other people and I just feel happy, free and in my element.