The 2018 Blog / June 20, 2018
A lot has been happening in the past week that I can’t wait to fill you all in on. Some good, some bad, some just straight shitty (literally). 💩 Being that this is my first (hopefully of many) long trip abroad I’ve been inspired to write about all the shitty things about traveling but are so worth it compared to being back in the states right now. Yes, I’m seeing all the articles about Trump removing the US from the human rights council in the UN, or supporting the seperating of immigrant families, or expecting us American’s to view him like the dictator Kimmy over in North Korea. WTF is going on back there?!?!. Anyways this list of (the translated title)
“Things that suck about traveling, but are still 100 times better than being in the United States”
will hopefully give some insight into my thoughts and some of our past experiences this week.(Also, only continue reading if you are okay with multiple poop jokes, I’m looking at you Dad! Proceed at your own risk because I’ve been in a weird mood writing this)
Honestly, this doesn’t even have to be a problem for me. Truely fullfilling my ambition to live minimilistically and wear only the same two outfits everyday has been quite satisfying. But a blessing can be a curse at the same time when you realize that Marco (you’ll find out who Marco is later on) sees you in the same outfit everyday for four days in a row. But you know what’s even worse? When you have to retire one of your favorite whitey tidies due to the all powerful travel poop gods. Yes you read that correctly, Rest In Peace White Nike Spandex. You will forever be in my heart.
Wowwwww those sweet sweet beautiful thrones that i have come to love and spend way too much time on. As we all probably know by now, I am a true bathroom connoisseur and let me tell you, South America is not the place you are going to for a great bano experience. So lets start out with my first rant:
Rant 1: Why tf can i not throw away the Toilet paper into the specified toilet?!?!?
Yes, you read that right, everywhere in Peru does not allow for you to throw away your toilet paper in said toilet (one restaurant even had a sign in the bathroom telling us ‘don’t be a dumbass and throw the toilet paper in the toilet - a g g r e s s i v e)! And if you say were to decide to throw said toilet paper into the toilet you risk a hurricane poo poo overtaking the floor of your bathroom because apparently the engineers in Peru couldn’t figure out how to properly create a drain that would be able to flush down the paper! So you are left to gracefully dispose of the poopy paper in the trash can next to the toilet with all the other poopy papers from everyone else! YUMMMM (:
Toilet Rant 2: You thought the poopoo paper trash can was bad, well whats worse is when you don’t even have anything to put in said poopoo paper trash can!
And yes, that means most bathrooms in Peru don’t come with the luxury of toilet paper. And when you do find toilet paper it’s like finding the golden ticket at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. But yes, this did turn out to be a Major problem for me especially when I got the nice travel 💩’s. This led to a nice fiasco of me sending an SOS text to Sarah at this Chinese restaraunt where she would then come to my rescue like the knight in shining armor she is and save me with the few napkins left on the table. Come on Peru, i know you can do much better smh
Yes travel sickness and altitude sickness are a real thing! Sarah and I have both experienced this first hand now, and let me tell you it hasn’t been pretty. The 101 degree fever, or the waterfall flow of 💩, we both have had our fair share of sickness. But Sarah has been taking it like a champ, I mean look at this girl go:
She took it like a champ. But let me also mention, that one of the biggest differences in the ER was the fact that when they prescribe you an IV, they make you get all the drugs on your own. That means, I went to go get the IV drip tubes, the bag, all the different vials. No chemistry had prepared me for this moment. (JK the DIY IV wasn’t that bad, they ended up mixing everything, but still weird that they expect you to get everything.
Sarah here - notice the TWO bandages on my arm? The nurse had a real hard time inserting the needle the first time around and had to dig around a lil bit because he got the needle in the vein but then twisted it and it came out of the vein....so then he pulled that one out and got a new needle, and put it in the SIDE OF MY WRIST??? I tried to twist my hand to show him the really nice veins on a more normal part of my arm but the dude insisted and after a little pinch it was in, and I drifted off to sleep while the medications (which I double checked the legitimacy of with my doctor aunt (thanks Aunt Lisa!!!)) did their magic. Thanks a billion to Jonny for holding my hand and getting me bread and Gatorade and generally being a trooper with my frail health lol.
This has been a real dossie so far. Really, I kind of feel like first grader sitting through Marcus Weck trying to teach orbital theory in Organic 1. Like for the brief few moments in Quilotoa at our hostel when it seemed like everyone and their mothers only spoke English. Wow, i felt like I had a PHD in descriptive English. (Yes i know that isn’t actually a thing, and yes I know my English level is still at that of a 4th graders) but i was able to use so many words to describe whatever I wanted! You forget how much you take that for granted.
Sarah here again lol, hi - I had my entire hospital experience using google translate and passing the phone back and forth with the doctor. It started with me stumbling into admissions and handing my phone to the receptionist with my already prepared translation of “hi i’ve had a fever for three days, a headache and swollen throat, and diarrhea please help” and she passed the phone around to like three people and then led me to the emergency room, where they took my temperature. In my armpit.
Luckily, I’m not that horrible with directions, but I have kind of felt like a small useless puppy tied to the leash by Google Maps trying to navigate this city.
ANYWAYYSSSSSS, after my gracious father had gave me every possible warning that I was going to get murdered, mugged, beaten, have my stuff stolen and everything else I have been extremely careful. Making sure to tie my bag around my feet any bus i go to. With already one close encounter of a stolen bag (I definitely scared that man off (jk honestly lucky we got away safe)) I’ve been on edge to not let anything out of sight.
Hola, it me, Sarah - Yah, this is true, so after hiking Laguna 69 with what turned out to be the beginnings of a fever (!!! This explains why I was so out of breath, I was thinking damn I’m just really out of shape lol), I passed.the.f.out. on the bus and whaddaya know, some rando decides to try to grab my bag. Thankfully Jonny saved the day and swatted him away, while I slept, completely unaware of everything.
Hmmm, you might be reading this and just thinking now “WTF is wrong with you Sarah and Jonny” but honestly you’re probably right in thinking that. But in the end y’all are the ones that let us on this idiotic journey with no plans (; Love you mom and dad! But anyways, back to the story about how your boy (and gurl) almost got schemed out a big chunk of money:
Alright.. Well firstly on the first day in Huaraz, we were really excited to go on this trek called the “Huayhuash Trek,” a 81 miles 8 day trek across the most beautiful region in the Andes Mountains. We walked around and talked to several different tour companies offering these types of tours as we couldn’t do it on our own and we also wanted that emergency horse for good measures. (Yes, an emergency horse in case something happened, or someone got lazy) *COUGH* *COUGH* *SARAH* (only saying that because sarah told me she would fake an injury so the horse would carry her the entirety of the way. )
Anyways... We then settled on what seemed to be this very professional company called Galaxia Expeditions. They spoke English, gave us a reasonable price and were the most professional company we had found.
When the time came around for us to leave for our trek on Saturday, we went to drop off our stuff Friday night and they told us that they had to push back the trek a day. Reasonably, we obliged, but only to find out later that day how sketchy this company really was. The guy at the hostel told us these horrible stories.
So at that moment, Sarah and I put our heads together, faked a plane ticket out of Lima, Peru went back in there to confront “Marco,” the man who sold us the trek and told him that we couldn’t do it anymore because they changed the date and it conflicted with our flight. Marco proceeded to try to convince us to do every other short hike they had and then eventually told us to come back later. We came back in a few hours, where he proceeded to tell us that he needed to talk to his boss... OKAY MARCO, WE THOUGHT YOU WERE THE BOSS YOU FOOL... but we obliged.
The next day, we went back to talk to him and the boss like they told us. BUT AGAIN WE WERE TOLD TO COME BACK THE NEXT DAY.
ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS MARCO. STOP PLAYING US YOU PLEBIAN AND GIVE US THE MONEY
At this point Sarah and I were getting pretty antsy. Luckily though, I had sarah who was like the terminator and demanded the money. She really caught me off guard like that. Great work Sarah. So Marco told us to come back tomorrow cus the boss was too hungover after the football game. (Sarah here, this is false, I legit just sat there looking scared while Jonny did the arguing because I’m small and shy lol).
THAT NEXT DAY we walked back in to get our money back and meet this boss baby. HOWEVER, to our surprise, (or lack of surprise) this boss didn’t exist. We talked to the same Marco without any boss around. Marco first tried to convince us that they needed to take 50% of the money because of cancelation, which later went down to 10% and finally when I went full Lawyer mode on his ass Marco pulled out his wallet and gave us all the money back! Including an extra 80 sols that he thought we paid him extra (i like to think of that as an 80 sols apology for being a douche and holding our money hostage for four days.) But ill take what I can get.
Despite the hardships, atomic numero dos’s, marcos that try to rob us, theirs, theifs, language barriers, or interesting public health tactics traveling has sure as hell been worth it so far. And probably sure as hell beat living in the US at the moment. Well anyways, I have a solid 1 star trip advisor review to write for Galaxia, so until next time! ✌🏼
Originally published June 20, 2018 / See the Lima gallery
