Christmas in Huaycan and The Start of More Travels

I was back at the family home in Huaycan by noon, I had somehow found all the right buses back - it was the first time I had done it on my own and I was proud of myself.  Nothing much was going on, other than massive food preparation in the kitchen, so I took a shower and then a nap.  When I woke up David and I went into the commercial area to get some fireworks and have lunch, all the kitchen effort was going into the evening meal. When we returned I tried to help with preparations for what looked like it was going to be a massive Christmas Eve dinner, they wouldn't let me do much but I managed to help a little.  Much of the rest of the afternoon and evening was spent hanging out and talking, we drank a little beer as it got later.  Dinner wasn't going to be served until around 11 PM so there was lots of time to talk and take Christmas pictures, also friends, but especially relatives kept stopping by to say hello.  When dinner finally came it was massive, I can't even remember all we had but there was so much food that one plate wouldn't hold even a little of everything.  We ate and ate.  Before we knew it it was 11:45 PM and the fireworks were starting, so we all made tracks up to the roof top where we could see for miles around.  This was no organized fireworks display, it was all individuals who had bought them in shops and on the street.  But it was massive and went on for over an hour.  It was among the best I have ever seen.  We set off what we had bought but it was measly compared to what was going on around us.  Afterward, there was some more beer drinking, which I joined for a while, but soon was to sleepy to continue. 

The next day, Christmas, was surprisingly quiet compared to Christmas Eve, especially since the beer drinkers were still a bit hung over, as they had talked away much of the night.  David made it to the end and because he stayed around he heard many family stories and had discussions he might not have heard otherwise.  Christmas in Peru does not involve much, or in this case any,  gift giving, so there was no sitting around the tree, which they had, synthetic, opening presents. Just a lot of Felice Navidad greetings and smiles.

There had been much talk the preceding days about the new Star Wars movie, David was especially enthusiastic to see it, so around noon we all piled into a relatives' van and headed to the movie theatre in the nearby district of Ate.  The theatre, it turned out, was in a new small mall there and since the movie didn't start for a few hours, but we needed to get there early to buy tickets, we hung around the mall looking into the shops and trying out the ice cream and other snacks that were very available.  A relaxed and fun family time.  Soon it was time for the movie and rounding up everyone from the stores they were exploring was a bit of a project but we got into the theatre just before the movie started, so all went well.  We watched the movie, dubbed into Spanish, David and I had expected it to be in English with Spanish subtitles, and afterwards had a lively discussion of how good we thought it was.  David and I gave it a neutral, but most everyone else thought it was great.  It was starting to be sunset when we got out of the movie, so we piled back into the van and headed back home to Huaycan.  There we prepared  and ate pleasant Christmas dinner and had a quiet night at home.  

The next day, which was to be my last in Huaycan for a while was quiet, I did some laundry, packed and cleaned up a bit in the room David and I had been using.  

The next day David, Jesus, Raul and I would go into Miraflores to meet Jerry and Lizzie for lunch and then I would stay with Jerry and Lizzie to begin our travels around Peru.  I left the house with mixed feelings, I was excited to begin traveling with Jerry and Lizzie and seeing more of Peru, but I was also sad to be leaving a family that I had grown very fond of.  But I knew that if I stayed in Huaycan it would eventually become boring, as everyone else had either school or work every day and I had nothing to do but to wait for them to come home.  I knew myself well enough to realize that I needed more direction and activity than that and, besides, I had promised Jerry and Lizzie, before I had any idea if we were going to find David's family or not, that I would travel with them and I really wanted to see more of Peru.

So the next morning the four of us and my baggage found a cab that would take us to Miraflores, a nearly one hour trip in light traffic.  There we had a little trouble locating the monastery where I had left Jerry and Lizzie a few days before but eventually found it and within a few minutes located them.  

Jerry had arranged to have breakfast that morning with a Peruvian friend of a friend from New York City. Gonzalez is a playwright and screenwriter who grew up in Peru, studied some in the US and then returned to Peru to practice his craft, with occasional trips to the states for work.  So, we all joined in for breakfast at a nice breakfast place in Miraflores.  It was great fun listening to Gonzalez explain that his writing for the stage had to be subsidized by his screenwriting, Three or four movie scripts a year paid the bills and allowed him time to write for the stage. He said that he had established himself enough that last year he was able to write four movie scripts and already had three scheduled for 2016.  It seems that he was one of the lucky and talented once that can actually make a living in a very competitive craft.  It was a very pleasant morning, with everyone joining in the conversation.  

When breakfast ended, Gonzalez went off to a meeting, Jerry, Lizzie and I prepared to take a taxi to the bus station and David, Jesus and Raul were ready to take a series of buses back to Huaycan.  It was a mixed goodby for me, I had become very fond of the family and wasn't sure when or if I would see Jesus and Raul again on this trip.  And David had decided to stay with the family rather than travel, both to get more time with them and to conserve his dwindling cash supply.  At the same time I was anxious to see more of Peru, a land that has an often severe but deep beauty, and spend some time traveling with Jerry and Lizzie.  

So, emotional goodbye's were said and Jerry, Lizzie and I hailed a cab bound for the Cruz del Sur bus station and a bus to the southern coastal town of Paracas.

Back to Lima, Visiting Relatives, Jerry and Lizzie Arrive

On any trip it seems that so much happens every day and my default is always to be part of what's happening rather than stepping back and writing about it, good thing I never choose to try to make a living as a writer.  Anyway, I left off as the five of us, David's Father and stepmother, his brother Ali, David and I were waiting at the Andahuaylas airport for the plane to Lima on the 17th of December.  It is now more than a month later and I'm finally getting time, I hope, to update this blog.  This month has been challenging, interesting and exciting with times of boredom, tension and fear, mostly on the bus rides, in other words just another month of life.  Thank goodness that pictures are now dated so I have at least some clue of what happened when.

We had had such a great time in Huinchos that no one really wanted to say a final goodby, and, so, saying goodby went on till the very last moment, when we just HAD to go through security and board the plane.  The flight back to Lima was blessedly shorter than the bus ride up to Andahuaylas had been and it gave us an very different view of the Andes, and explained a lot about why the bus ride had taken so long.  There are virtually no east-west valleys and so the only way across by land is up one mountain and down the other side, repeated endlessly.  

Upon arrival in Lima we were picked up by an extended family member with a car.  It was a packed ride back to Huaycan with all of us and baggage but we made it, arriving tired and happy to reunite with the rest of the family at the house.  The next two days we spent mostly at the house doing laundry and settling back into a routine.  

That didn't last long however, in the morning of Friday the 20th two other cousins of David's, who lived in another part of Lima, called Sirco, stopped to meet and visit with David, and before the visit was over we had agreed to go back with them to Sirco for the afternoon to meet the rest of their families.  Ali, whose cousins they also were, was assigned to go with us to be sure we could find our way back.   It took several bus transfers and about three hours to get to their neighborhood, but we arrived safely and began to meet their families.  It soon became obvious that we would not get back that evening, they were cooking and it was already late.  After some hesitation they asked if we would stay the night and we agreed.  It was a relief to me as I was already to tired for another three hour bus trip back.  So the dinner became a party, complete with beer, dancing and lots of conversation that lasted into the night.  We were led back to another relatives house where we slept the night and were fed breakfast in the morning before heading back to Huaycan.  We would probably have stayed longer but I was scheduled to meet Lizzie, my friend from NYC, at the airport late that night and her boyfriend Jerry the next night.  So I had to get back to the house, change and head into the hostel in Lima where we would all stay when they arrived.

It was a quick turn around at the house, I took as shower, packed a bag, ate lunch and was back on a series of buses, this time with Raul as my guide, in about two hours.  Somehow we got on a bus that took the long way and it seemed to take forever to reach central Lima, but we finally got there about 5 PM, at which point poor Raul had to get back on a bus and head back to Huaycan while all I had to do was walk the few blocks from the bus to the hostel.  After I got to the hostel and checked in, I connected to their wifi to see if I had any important email, and it was a good thing I did.  Lizzie's plane had been so delayed that they put her on the same flight the next day, so I didn't have to go to the airport that night.  I realized that I would have a full day to rest up, so I ate an early dinner and went to bed with nothing to do until late the next evening.  

The next day was as laid back a day as I'd had since first arriving in Peru, I slept in, ate leisurely, took a walk and a nap before taking a taxi to the airport that evening.  The arrivals area of the international airport in Lima was a bit more chaotic than usual as the arrivals board which announced the scheduled arrival of the planes was not working, so there was no way of telling if the plane you were waiting for had arrived and you had missed the person you were looking for or if the plane had been delayed.  Lizzie, who was to be the first to arrive, was on a flight that was about 2 hours late, but I didn't know that and was a bit worried that I had missed her but I still needed to be there to meet Jerry who was scheduled to arrive just after midnight.  So, I tried not to worry and just kept looking at people as they emerged from customs.  Finally, about 1 AM I saw Lizzie emerge, she explained that her plane was very late and that Jerry would be out in minutes, she had run into him going through customs.  Soon we were in a cab back to the hostel, to check them in and get some sleep.  At this point I was not the only one who was tired.  

The next day was Monday, December 23 and I had promised to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with David's family.  At first we had hoped that we would be able to have Jerry and Lizzie there as well but it turned out that there would be over twenty relatives for Christmas Eve at their small house so there was no room for them.  Instead they ended up staying at a Carmelite Monastery in the Miraflores district of Lima.  This happened because a college friend of Jerry's had entered the Carmelite Seminary in the US and when he heard we were going to be in Lima made arrangements with the priests there for us to stay.  So the next afternoon we took a cab to Miraflores and moved into the monastery.  That evening we had a pleasant walk around Miraflores, an upscale residential and business district of Lima, and then dinner at a small Italian restaurant.  We walked back to the monastery after dinner and retired for the night.  I got up early the next day, Christmas Eve, and took a series of buses back to Huaycan to be with David's family.  I later learned from Jerry and Lizzie that they met several very friendly, but busy, it being Christmas, priests that day who showed them around a bit, answered their questions and arranged for them to visit one of their parishes in the slums.   When I next saw them, apologizing for having abandoned them, they said that they had had a wonderful holiday