Peru01 : Funny Vinaigrette

[Yesterday - In Transit]

Here in New York it is around 3pm, though my body thinks it nearly 8. I've so far eaten two very bad meals, watched a terrible film (Paul) and an amazing film (Jane Eyre), sat next to a sweet helpful person, a weird self-help person, a french couple joined at the tongue, and several cute peruvians. Waiting on tarmac to take off for Lima, a baby two rows back is beginning to forget how much it wants to ball all the way to Peru and I'm trying to remember my original motives for making this trip.

*

Waiting at border control in NY I was accosted twice by officials. New Yorkers in uniform always look like they're from CSI, so I then felt like an extra on their film. 'May I see you passport, ma'am?' I think the border staff were bored, and playing games with the girl in the pink scarf.

My flight connection was ridiculously tight - reclaiming baggage and hurling it back at a quiet soul by a hole in the wall, any hole, sprinting with elbows hard at work, humourless security officials scowled more than usual when in panic I reached into the x-ray machine to get my bag out. No dawdling here, not least because as I crashed through check in, a round woman looked up and drawled, "hm, someone's musty." Oh help, I am sorry. That'll be your east coast humidity.

I wonder how it looked, a curly girl pounding marble floors, flying in flip flops with backpack straps fluttering like streamers, but I made it to the gate with time to spare, then the smell of fear sloped off and found someone else to play with.

The whole thing makes me eager to get to Lima, but entertained by this journey, terribly glad I have a small pack of wet wipes to hand.

*

[Today - Hostel in Lima]

Breakfast, in a cellar café that has forgotten how mood lighting can enhance eating pleasure, we work out universal communications that equal coffee and eggs. Trying to remember not to lisp my S's here. Grathias. The few moments before you really get going, you are - frustratingly - your only jet-lagged frame of reference, and then a boy quietly leaves a vinagrette bottle in front of me and walks away. Dipping my finger in and tasting it is the only way to work out that's the coffee, and that tips into there, and those words mean this, and thankfully the sounds up there imply Fiorella's arriving and she will ease me out of this disorientation.

These are the moments before you go out and start discovering, loaded with anticipation, apprehension, wonders and curiousity.

I don't feel at all brave, and yet sitting here with my funny vinaigrette my adventure has tentatively, quietly, already begun.


{Today's Soundtrack: Great Lake Swimmers - Where in the World Are You Now}