Journeying v. Traveling

I've realized that journeys don't have to involve an airplane or any other long trip. In some cases, it only takes a ten-minute drive to enter an entirely different world.

In my case, it involves running down three flights of stairs, hurrying across a busy street, and driving for precisely six-and-one-half minutes down the street. I get out of my car and am literally blown by an increasingly colder wind into the welcoming environment of Budlong Elementary School, which is generally in such a hubbub that I regularly wonder if there isn't a fire drill going on at the moment. (Invariably, it turns out that they're just going to recess.)

My journey means entering into an eighth-grader's world -  seeing algebra through his eyes and hearing it in gibberish, like he does, and needing to explain it in Spanish.

It means squatting down to get the perspective of a kindergartener who wants to know, "Are you a mother or a sister?" and replying, "I'm going to be a teacher," which was exactly what she was asking.

It means being there to assure a poor little first-grader that her nose is fine even though she was clowning around with Andrew and hit it hard on his head - and telling Andrew that "Your forehead is perfectly all right; it's Jenny's nose that is bleeding." It means walking into the class and getting an impromptu hug from Jenny, who seems to remember you from the other day and seems to like you.

Of course, it also means realizing that drawing toucans can rapidly degenerate into a violent free-for-all, and that Julian and Andrew need to be physically removed from each other.

A journey doesn't always mean traveling.

Hardhats and Sand Dunes

I started the day on Wednesday by hearing my mom say, "You should get up; it's 3:30." We had to leave by 4 in order to get to Page, AZ in time to go on a rafting tour of the Colorado River.

So I rolled out of bed and stumbled over to my computer. I had to write out the directions to get to Page since part of the road had collapsed and we had to take a detour. I took one look at the clock and said, "You looked at my phone clock, didn't you? That's two hours behind. It's really 1:30; go back to sleep."

Other than that minor catastrophe, the morning started off decently. We were able to see the entire blanket of stars when we went outside. We could also see the silhouettes of the elk grazing in the hotel yard.

There was a lot of "Are you sure this is the right way?" from my mom and sister when we finally did get going. I don't blame them; we had to go through the National Park in order to get to the right highway. They didn't like it very much when I said, "I don't know."

While en route, we got to watch the most beautiful sunrise over the eastern rim of the canyon. We also got to sit behind the most beautiful orange-and-white striped barriers for about 10 minutes. But other than construction and a bit of a kerfuffle at the end about which way to turn on S Lake Powell Blvd, everything went smoothly - a definite first for the Beckett clan. We even got to Colorado River Discovery's headquarters some 4 minutes early.


I am now able to boast that I have been on restricted government property heavily guarded by homeland security. However, I arrived in a bus loaded with other people who can also boast the same thing. On top of that, I was only there because CRD has an agreement with the government that they can use the access tunnel for Glen Canyon Dam. So it's not nearly as sketchy as it sounds.

This tunnel is two miles long, with several adits (windows) blasted through to the sides of the canyon. It has room for only one lane, though it is a bit wider at both ends. There are no lights inside the tunnel, and the grade is 8%. All in all, it's very interesting. I looked up the tunnel on the internet, and essentially all the government will say about it is that it is 2 miles long and not open to the public.

When we got to the end of the tunnel, Glen Canyon dam soared up overhead - 700 feet tall. We had to wear hardhats on the way to the dock for the rafts, since the government doesn't want rocks falling on people's heads. (Sounds reasonable.)

The actual rafting trip was superb. Nate, our guide, was funny and engaging. We had 18 people total on our raft, including two of the most precocious twins out there. They couldn't have been more than six years old, but I think they were five. The boy knew all about ospreys - do you? - and nearly everything else, effectively putting Nate out of a job. The girl, when questioned about how they knew all this stuff, replied in the most genuinely confused and matter-of-fact voice I've ever heard, "I read." (Of course you do. Don't all five-year-olds? I did, so I know the feeling of complete bewilderment when people ask you how you know this stuff, but most five year olds, in fact, do not read unless it's absolutely necessary.)

We stopped for a few minutes on a beach on the river. This was in order to go to the bathroom. Yes, the bathroom. They put free-standing stalls on a beach. I don't know what would possess someone to do that, but it was a good idea.

Past the bathrooms was a wall of petroglyphs - images cut into the rock by ancient and not-so-ancient peoples, including both Native Americans and cowboys who didn't know they were defacing a future National Park. (Joy says, "It's only fair for them to leave their marks, after risking their lives to explore the river." But I think it's a case of "Kilroy was here.")


Before I go on, you must understand that the water released from Glen Canyon Dam is a steady 47 degrees Fahrenheit year-round, since it's released from the very bottom of Lake Powell. We went wading in the river, and our feet quickly felt like blocks of ice. But the coldness showed its value when Nate hauled a bag full of cans of lemonade out of the water and passed them around.

The grandeur of the canyon is not something that can easily be described, or even photographed. It's too big, and too red, and too full of history. There's a deep, pervading sense of silence even when the motor of a raft is running.

We went around Horseshoe Bend and saw people up at the top taking pictures of us. They looked about three millimeters tall. I'm sure we looked just as small to them. Nate had us all yell "Hello!" on the count of three, but I don't think they heard us. The people camping on the other bank sure did, though!

On the way back, I decided to sit on the pontoon (we were allowed to!) instead of in the raft itself. My mom told Nate to try to get me soaked with the spray coming from the bow of the raft, but he didn't seem too interested in doing that. Until the end, when a huge wall of water came up to meet me and I had only enough time to close my eyes and mouth before being thoroughly drenched. He looked ridiculously pleased with himself before apparently remembering that this type of raft tour promised that no one would get wet.

 Let me tell you: 47 degrees is cold, even on a hot day. By that time we were back at the tunnel - and air-conditioned buses. I thought I would be grateful for the air conditioning; in reality, I could not feel my feet because they were so cold.

We entered the tunnel and were zipping along when we saw the one thing no one in a one-lane tunnel wants to see: headlights. Since they had come almost two miles and we had just started, the bus began to back up until the tunnel widened enough for the car to squeak past.

We headed back to CRD headquarters and were pleasantly surprised to see that we had a free Bistro lunch. We were, nevertheless, glad we had packed our own lunch as well, as nothing gets you quite as hungry as a large expanse of water and a tremendously hot sun. They also gave us directions to get to the kayaking place.

I wouldn't say that the kayak tour on Lake Powell was necessary, but it was fun. Our mom has always said that she will never get into a kayak or canoe; she hates them and they hate her. But this time she did get in - successfully, no less - and proceeded to kayak a distance that distance-challenged Joy says was either 2 or 4 miles. I, myself, have no idea how long it was, because on the way there I was busy trying to just keep my kayak straight. (I was the only one, besides the two guides, who was in a solo kayak. Everyone else had a partner.) On the way back, I was busy squinting with one eye because my sunscreen had gotten in the other and I was having a painful allergic reaction.

Lake Powell is a water-filled canyon. Since it's warmed by the sun, the water on top is about 78 degrees - a welcome difference after the river water! The deepest point is about 400 feet. We were in an area that was only about 100 feet deep. Therefore, I put the camera in a dry-bag that was strapped to the kayak. There was no way I was going to find it if it happened to drop over the edge.

We stopped for about half an hour to swim by a little island - really the top of a canyon formation. Joy somehow managed to drop one of the cameras in the water. We are not sure how this happened, since it had been secured around her neck. She rescued it immediately, of course, but it was effectively ruined. (Incidentally, this is the same camera that has been living on borrowed time ever since she dropped it a couple of years ago into a small, water-filled receptacle generally found in powder rooms and NOT in kitchens.) The SD card was fine, though, and I was able to save all the pictures we had taken. Later, when I tried to take it apart and see what was wrong with it, I found it water-logged and rusted. Even without batteries in it, it electrocuted me twice. (Is that supposed to happen?)

Anyway, we tried to go into Slot Canyon, but there was too much gunk in the water. One of the other kayakers said it was like trying to paddle through chocolate soup. We turned around, and stopped by another island to rinse out the kayaks and get the nasty-smelling goop off of ourselves.

By this time, we were starting to get the hang of kayaking. None of us flipped over! We even managed to not be the last ones.

But our adventure was far from over. We had parked on the beach of Lake Powell. Beaches mean sand, and lots of it. We had to drive uphill in all that sand. Being Becketts, we got stuck. In all of two seconds a man in an SUV drove up, attached a rope to our axle, and tried to pull us out. We were still stuck. One of the ladies in our group got a delighted, evil grin on her face, asked to borrow our camera, and proceeded to take pictures of our mishap. Eventually, of course, they got us unstuck, because obviously I am sitting at home writing this.

On the way back, we had to wait at construction for 30 minutes, waiting for the pilot car to come get us and lead us to through the construction. We were just happy it was on the way back, not on the way there. We had barely made it as it was!

We did manage to see the sun set, though. It was spectacular, even though it wasn't really over the canyon.

Finally, our longest day on vacation ended. By the time I had finagled the waterlogged SD card into saving its pictures, I had been awake for 22 hours. That is why I am posting this now, instead of then.

And that, gentle reader, is how NOT to do a rafting tour. I suggest going on one, but not quite like that. Later on, I'll post my list of ways to have a great vacation, Beckett style.

Mercy in the Mundane

I fully intended to write a post about yesterday – yesterday. And I fully intended to write a post about today – today. But it looks like yesterday’s post will be written today, and today’s post will be written tomorrow. 

Yesterday was a day full of God’s guidance and provision. Sometimes guidance is best seen in the little things – those things that come to fruition in a short amount of time, and there isn’t much opportunity to wonder why things happened the way they did. That doesn’t mean that little things have more guidance; it just means it’s more obvious. 

Little things happened all day yesterday. First, we woke up late – which never happens, especially out here where everything is two hours earlier than we’re used to. We had been planning on visiting the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, but 3 hours one-way seemed a little bit much. (Even for overambitious souls like ourselves.) So we decided to stay in the Grand Canyon National Park area for the day.

Secondly, we decided to take the free shuttle bus to different lookout points farther out on the south rim. This bus line had been closed when we tried to get on it for the past few days, due to nearby lightening storms. But yesterday it was open, so naturally we visited all nine points.

Thirdly, around the third-to-last point, I started feeling sick. I don’t do well in intense light or high heat, so I was feeling faint. I had black spots encroaching on the corners of my field of vision. I had to get back on the bus right away and head back.

Fourthly, I felt better after we got on the bus, so we saw the remaining two points. When I started feeling weird again, we left.

And then everything became apparent. There were nasty lightening storms where we would have been had we gone with our original plan. So they closed and evacuated the entire West Rim, which we had just been seeing. My sickness let us see absolutely everything we wanted to, before it got dangerous to be out there.

Then it rained. It was the first big rain of the monsoon season, complete with fantastic lightening and even more impressive thunder. And we were safe, all because we had woken up a little late, and I had felt sick.

It doesn’t sound so wonderful when it’s typed out in cold, black-and-white letters, but we nonetheless saw the kindness of God very clearly yesterday, in the little things. In uncomfortable situations. In the orchestration of a day so perfect we could never have planned it that way ourselves.

Helicopters and Sunsets

There is simply nothing like a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon. We went on one yesterday - our first helicopter ride ever. It made the Canyon come alive and become 3D. Before that, it looked so much like a painting or real-life photoshop that it was unnerving. (Incidentally, I think that's why people don't mind getting so sickeningly close to the edge: it just doesn't seem real that there's a 4,000 ft. drop beneath them. My mom says that it's a case of "shinny, shinny, shinny, shinny, bump, bump, bump, splat.")

We took off from the Grand Canyon Heliport, flying over Kaibab National Forest on our way to the canyon. A few minutes into the ride, the canyon became just visible over the trees before suddenly unfolding before us in all its glory. We swooped over the South Rim and over the mighty Colorado River, which looked like a shining green ribbon.

Flying over the canyon, we saw many different formations, most of which we hadn't been able to see previously. We saw the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers. The Little Colorado is the bright turquoise.

Then, we flew over the North Rim, seeing how much greener it was than the South Rim. There was a clearing where we could have seen wild buffalo, had they chosen to show themselves. But they didn't.

Finally, we flew right over our hotel, and back to the airfield. It was a wonderful experience, and I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to really experience the canyon. I'll check back in tomorrow and let you know if a rafting/kayak tour is a must as well, or if it's not absolutely necessary.





I wasn't feeling too good after the helicopter ride, and, interestingly enough, it wasn't motion sickness that did me in; it was too much heat the day before. But it turned out for the best, anyway: since we were all tired and took a nap, we could stay out to watch the sunset. It wasn't spectacular, and it wasn't what we thought it would be. However, it was also over the Grand Canyon, so who are we to complain? It was great.

Joy said something interesting yesterday. She compared Solomon's temple to the Grand Canyon. Keep in mind that Solomon's temple was only about 111,650 cubic feet, but a rough estimate of the Grand Canyon is around 386,115,840,000,000 cubic feet. That means it's roughly 3,458,269,950 times larger than Solomon's temple. And then she referenced this verse:

"Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?" Isaiah 66:1.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” Isaiah 6:3.

"grandness" vs. "Grandness"

We went to the Grand Canyon today. For the longest time, it seemed like we were nowhere special - just following a plain paved trail in the middle of a dry and fairly mundane desert forest. (It's mundane because if you've seen nine square feet of this desert forest, you've seen every other square foot of it on earth.)



And then, ahead of us, we saw a wall of rock, and a gorge opened up ahead.

 Let me tell you this: pictures just don't do it justice. It really is grand.

Typical "Foolhardy Person"

The National Park Service says to stay at least 6 feet from the edge at all times. I have no problems with that, being as terrified as I am of heights. (It's a useful fear to have, so I think I'll work on reducing it without removing it entirely.) But other foolhardy souls seem to delight in getting as close to (or beyond) the edge as possible. It's a horrible feeling to see a human being precariously close to a plunging gorge. My stomach did weird flips the entire time anyone stood more than 1 foot from the edge.We knew that it's instinctive to grab at anyone falling, and we didn't want to be taken with someone if they did fall, so - outstanding humanitarians that we are - we hightailed it to a different part of the area as soon as anyone got too close.

And I realized that that is exactly the feeling I get when I know that someone is willingly, knowingly, and actively pursuing the drop into Hell. However, in that case I do what I can to bring them back, or at least I try.

There is simply nothing like bigness to impress upon your mind the awesomeness of God. The sheer size of the canyon is overwhelming, but to realize that the Being that created it is so big that He's sizeless is something Grand indeed.

Of Tourist Traps, Velveeta Cheese, and Edgar the Elk

Greetings from Arizona!

Yes, that is my picture. And it's not even the Grand Canyon - it's Red Rock State Park, just past Sedona.

I suppose you can gather from the title that yesterday was full of very different experiences. It began at 6 AM, since our internal clocks have an annoying tendency to not let us sleep past that time regardless of vacations. It didn't end until almost 10PM here - midnight at home.

 It's fitting that I should have called this blog my misadventures. Of course, we took US Airways here. But they're going through a merger and they sent us up and down O'Hare (bags in tow) until we finally managed to get to the right gate. That doesn't sound so terrible, and it isn't, but O'Hare is not small. Furthermore, it is NOT self-explanatory.

So by the time I got on the plane I was glad to just sit down. I know you're expecting a list of what went wrong with our flight, but there were no real problems and we arrived in Phoenix safely. Our stuff was flown with us, but we didn't see it in Phoenix. Joy has never been on a "moving sidewalk" (you know those flat escalator-type things at airports?). So my mom decided that she would walk alongside and Joy and I would walk on the moving sidewalk. It reminded us of the suspender joke, which, if you have never heard, you can ask us about when we get back.

The gist of the thing is that we arrived in Flagstaff undamaged and undaunted. AND with all of our stuff, which is a real bonus.

So far, so good. Even the car rental went off wonderfully. And we only got semi-lost on the way to the Walmart (nor really lost, just a few panicky minutes), and the Subway was delicious and we found everything we wanted to buy at Walmart except apples. (Incidentally, this is where the Velveeta cheese comes in - we're planning on living on PB&J sandwiches, and cheese sandwiches, if the food here proves prohibitively expensive.)

We drove through winding roads with absolutely no guardrails and enormous dropoffs on the way to Oak Creek Canyon - a state park some thirty minutes south of Flagstaff. On the way there, we saw rocks that looked like a Moorish castle in Spain. We couldn't get to Oak Creek Canyon, though, because there had been tremendous fires and there was danger of flash flooding. So we passed that up, and went through Sedona - THE most tourist-trappy place I've seen in all my born (and unborn) days. It really looked like somebody photoshopped a nice background onto a travesty of shops and 50's diners.

We drove through Sedona and found ourselves in the most beautiful assortment of red rocks imaginable. Naturally we pulled over to the first available lookout point and took entirely too many pictures.

And then we drove three hours to our hotel. It rained. Poured is more like it. I'm not sure why, but I thought Arizona was arid and hot. I have been thus far pleasantly surprised.

When we got to the hotel, there was an elk in the front yard, munching on grass. I named him Edgar Elk, personally. For some reason elk running amok is perfectly normal here. They let them graze all they want on the hotel grass, but the manager watches to make sure they don't get too close to the road. "When they do," he said, "I just shoo them back." There are so many weird things about that statement.



Now I am in my nice, cool hotel room. It's much too fancy for the likes of us, but we've made up our minds to enjoy it thoroughly while we're here. (Speaking of fancy, why do we need two sinks in one hotel room? His and hers?)

Of Canyons Grand and Memories Old

“It was hard work, took a long time,
but I dug it myself, with a pick and a shovel.
If you want to know what I done with the dirt,
just look south through a clearin’ in the trees
at what they call the San Francisco Peaks.”

- John Hance, early Grand Canyon guide

We never went anywhere much when we were little – first we were too busy trying to survive in a gang neighborhood, then we were too busy enjoying the safety we had outside the gang neighborhood. We would go to museums on free days, but, except a trip to the Field Museum to see the Titanic (and touch it, in my case – I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to since I couldn’t read yet), we went nowhere.

That has changed in recent years. We visited relatives when Joy got out of college, and then again in 2012. We did something unprecedented last year and gallivanted off to Carlsbad Caverns without seeing a single relative. Now we’re off to the Grand Canyon – something Joy has wanted to do since she was little.

I tell people we’re making up for lost time now that we can appreciate things. That’s not strictly true; I’ve been able to appreciate things as long as I can remember. But since I didn’t have the endurance required for a full afternoon at the zoo, I would have died at the Grand Canyon.

We’re hoping that it’s as grand as we’ve been told. (If not, I’ve just spent the last week packing – or, more accurately, yelling at my sister – unnecessarily.) We’re hoping we don’t fall over and go kaput from the heat. (That’s the scientific term – “go kaput.”) We’re hoping we can survive after waking up at 3 in order to go kayaking on the Colorado River. We’re also hoping that we have air conditioning in our hotel room.

Above all, we’re hoping that we don’t run out of gas, or get abducted by aliens, or get lost in a Native American reservation, or anything else that we almost did last year. 

(No joke, not even the aliens - we arrived in Roswell during the alien festival.)

Reverse Culture Shock

I’ve officially been home for a little more than a week, and I’m already experiencing reverse culture shock. There are things that I never thought about that are so entirely different from Ecuador that I’m constantly either annoyed or awed.

Such as:

• 38° is cold. I do not understand how everyone here thinks it’s not.

• I can now flush toilet paper. For so long it’s been drilled into my head that I can’t, that I feel like I’ll get caught whenever I do. My mom and sister have been subjected to frequent whoops from the bathroom because of it.

• I have realized that traffic lights are by far the most inefficient method of controlling traffic. Traffic circles make so much more sense. I never thought I’d say that, but there it is.

  

• People really do use the elevator to go to the second floor. I suppose I get annoyed because at 8,370 feet above sea level, I practically climbed a mountain and literally climbed 135 steps in order to get to my classes every day. (Unless I took the bus, in which case it was only 85 steps.)
  

  

• Everything is sweet here. I went to a restaurant the other day with my extended family and realized that my sister couldn’t taste the way the breaded shrimp was sickeningly sweet. She’s used to it; I’ve gotten used to salty things being salty (and just salty) and sweet things being significantly less sweet than they are here.

• I’ve come to the conclusion that lemon juice on my popcorn just doesn’t taste the same as lime juice.

• My mom has never had a tree tomato, and I have the niggling feeling that it’ll be hard to find a tomate de arbol anywhere around here. (Any suggestions?)

• There are no palm trees here. In Ecuador, it was a weird feeling not seeing pines. Apparently I got used to that, because now I feel like there’s something missing when I don’t see palm trees.

• Potholes, while not found exclusively in the States, were not something I missed.

• It’s fun to drive my own car, even if I do have to sit in traffic.

• Speaking of which, it’s actually nice to see orange construction cones again, as opposed to ones striped with black and sickly yellow. (Another thing I never thought I’d say: “Orange construction cones! How lovely!” Traveling abroad does weird things to you.)

• Air pressure was something I never noticed until there wasn’t any. Now it feels like I’m being squashed wherever I am.

  
  

  All of which, of course, mean that I'm ecstatic to be home, while at the same time missing Ecuador quite a lot. 

Home

Home.

It’s a funny word, made up of less than five letters but encompassing so much. 

It means family, hugs, and kisses. It means a balloon that says “WELCOME HOME!” (which was supposed to make my sister more visible but ended up being the last thing I noticed). 

It means my own bed, and sleeping in all the way until 8 o’clock in the morning.

It means a can of real American spaghetti sauce. It means eating a real apple for the first time since I left this place nine weeks ago.

It means my church family and more minute-long hugs than I’ve ever had there before in my life. It means people who have followed my journey on Facebook because it was practically the only way to.

It also means 19° Fahrenheit, but I don’t care because my family is here.

It’s not my comfort zone anymore, but it’s comforting. It’s somewhere where I can make my own fun without having to spontaneously plan it ahead of time. A place where I can play my own piano (finally!) and squeak out a couple melodies on my own violin. (Squeak is the right word.)

A place where I am finally needed.

Home. It’s a wonderful place.

95 Things

Disclaimer: The problems that this post is about have all been resolved (more or less) satisfactorily.

I have been in Peru for only a week, and I’ve learned and experienced a crazy amount of things, in this order:

1. It is possible to get off one plane, go through security, retrieve your bag, leave and re-enter the airport, re-check your bag, go through security (and forget that you have a bottle of Gatorade, but they let you keep it), go upstairs, find a gate, and get on your next plane in less than an hour.
2. My big green suitcase now has only one wheel.
3. Gringos can be really, really annoying. This is even though I myself am a gringa here. But gringos, especially retired ones, tend to complain for hours about everything, including not having real milk to put in their tea ON THE AIRPLANE.
4. The Cusco airport has no security. Literally none.
5. The bathroom has water only in the toilets. There is no soap. Hand sanitizer is a wonderful thing.
6. There is a really cute kid at the airport. Cute enough so that you want to adopt him and keep him in your carry-on. And you privately name him Pepito.
7. Every flight at the Cusco airport is announced over the loudspeaker. That’s how small it is.
8. Dried strawberries are wonderful.
9. Do not assume that a tour guide that gets in the van from the airport is legit. He could be trying to scam you.
10. Just because said tour guide has a bazillion brochures and fold-outs, it does not mean that he’s 100% real.
11. Sometimes offers too good to be real are too good to be real.
12. It’s always a good idea to ask for time to think it over.
13. Sometimes you don’t realize the wisdom of that until after you’ve made a down payment of $100. Or until after you put the disclaimer into Google Translate and it says, “This document is not for accounting use, and must be exchanged for a bill of sale and/or invoice at the time of payment. It is worthless without an authorized signature and seal.”
14. It is physically possible to feel your stomach drop when you realize you’ve been hoodwinked.
15. Hey…every picture on the walls of our hostel room is crooked.
16. The Tourist Police of Cusco are in the Plaza of Túpac Amaru.
17. Guys like John Villafuerte Huanca (the guy who was trying to get us to use his tourist company) are described online as “slippery merchants.”
18. We can shake visibly from nerves and stress just as much as if we were freezing.
19. Down the street from the hostel, there’s a bronze fountain of a naked woman pouring water out of a pitcher. She’s lit with strobe lights.
    
20. Fireworks can go off at any time of day or night. Sometimes it sounds like someone dropped a match into a box of them.
21. Sometimes it’s easier to understand people about important things in Spanish than in English.  Case in point: “the other way is to go to the TURISM POLICE, they know very well how are do this king the falls contrat with the visitors so they have to lost time with the POLICE and to do the gestion with the denuncia” Whatever that means. What has a king got to do with anything?
22. The top bunk is really squeaky.
23. There are only 80 liters of hot water to divide among three showers. When the last person gets in, she will scream since the water is so cold.
24. You can’t beat a free breakfast with three courses.
25. Machu Picchu tickets cost $23, not $70.
26. There are fake guinea pigs made from alpaca fur at the market. They’re the cutest things since bunny slippers.
27. We’re too poor to buy Ramen noodles. So, buying the ingredients to cook a meal that costs, total, $4, will yield a lunch that tastes like it cost $4.
    

28. I can use Spanish subjunctive mindlessly only when I’m angry, and on the phone with John the Con. And even then I completely missed it because I realized too late I had used the informal “you” form, which simply isn’t done with people you don’t really know.
29. It is, regrettably, completely possible to feel exactly like the toilet on this sign:
    
30. The Tourist Police person is really nice to us, and gets things done very efficiently. He’s not so nice to sketchy tour guides: he threatens them with tickets.
31. John’s promise that we’ll get our money back (not including the bus ticket, guide, and transportation to the station), gives us enough of an adrenaline rush that we’re perfectly happy for a good hour.
32. There is a supermarket next to the tourist police.
33. Eggs don’t have to be refrigerated here, either.
34. There are booths upon booths of dog sweaters at the market.
35. Taxis are perfectly safe, even when they’re flagged off the street. They may have uncomfortably small back seats, but they’re safe.
36. Every single taxi driver is an unofficial representative of his own unofficial tourist company.
37. “Ya la tenemos” or “Ya lo tengo” (We/I already have it) works wonders with getting people to stop trying to sell you things.
38. Alpaca tastes like very tough steak.
    

39. Given the opportunity, Natalie can spit lemonade all the way across the table.
40. There are two Asian girls sharing our hostel room for the night. They really do bow when they leave the room.
41. It is always a good thing when John the Arrogant Blatherskite comes calling early, so that you’re just underprepared enough to not be really nervous.
42. It is possible for four college girls to make a grown man shake from fear.
43. Being sadistically ruthless in getting your money back feels entirely too good.
44. Taking pictures of a shyster when you’re pretending to calculate expenses is probably illegal. We did it anyway.
45. The Western Union at the Plaza de Armas has a better exchange rate than most places.
46. Jailli, pachakutik, llakta, and taki are all common things. (Yay for Francisco’s class…ish.)
    

47. Carnaval did not end here until Sunday night. We learned that when we had everyone throwing water balloons at us, and tons of carnaval foam sprayed at us.
48. There is no Daylight Savings Time in Peru, so I won’t have a smidgen of jet lag when I get back.
49. Taking a picture with an alpaca costs money.
    

50. There are really neat ruins in and around Cusco. A city tour consists in seeing the majority of them.
51. Beware of cute kids selling llama keychains. They will do anything to get you to buy them. (I was strong, and didn’t buy anything. I felt like scum, though.)
    

52. Real alpaca is cold to the touch. Fake alpaca might look cool, but it’s not cold.
    

53. White rice is not the best when it’s the consistency of tacky glue that’s been sitting on the shelf for a year.
54. The Hunger Games 2 movie is really exciting. So exciting, in fact, that Alex and Natalie went to bed about a quarter of the way in. (Liesel and I stayed up until a little before midnight.)
55. Waking up to an alarm for the first time in three days makes us all fairly grumpy, even if it is for 6 o’clock.
56. It’s best to put water in the coffee so you don’t use up all the milk and have to ask for more.
57. People love us on our tours because, though we’re the youngest tourists and are from the States, we still speak Spanish and are genuinely interested.
58. We are nerdy enough to feel like we’ve died and gone to heaven when we see old stones just sitting there doing nothing.
    

59. We may talk in English amongst ourselves, but we switch to Spanish immediately when talking to anyone else. Sometimes this is a bad thing. Case in point: Alex walks into someone’s picture. “Oh,¡perdón!” she says. He looks confused, and says, “Oh, uh. Sí, sí. Grahsiahs. Um, I’m done.”
60. Francisco’s class ONLY comes in handy on tours of Peruvian ruins.
61. The Incan drainage system was fantastic.
62. The history we learned in Ecuador is enough to make us able to give educated guesses on tours.
63. Alex calls the Pachamama the “Papamancha.”
64. Cute kids in the background can take all the attention away from the presentation of how thread is made and dyed. As in, people sit there and take pictures of him.
65. The Peruvian government is trying to build an airport on top of part of the Sacred Valley. Apparently that is how dumb governments can be.
66. Cornflakes and strawberry yogurt for dinner is the best meal we’ve made here so far.
67. The internet in the hostel has ceased to work for me.
68. A German is rooming with us. She was in Ecuador for a while, hiked the Inca trail with her boyfriend (who then went back to Switzerland), and she’s leaving for New Zealand in the morning. Talk about a world traveler!
69. Waking up at 4 AM makes us even grumpier than when we had to get up at 6.
70. Scrambled eggs in Styrofoam cups, alongside cornflakes and yogurt (also in Styrofoam cups), are a perfect complement to cheap bread smeared with weird strawberry marmalade.
71. We have John scared enough that he comes to drop off the taxi and our bus tickets exactly 6 minutes after the agreed-upon half-hour time frame begins.
72. The exchange rate is 2.8 soles per dollar. John owes us $2. (He paid the rest earlier.) He pays us with 6 soles. That means we get more out of him than he told us originally. AND we didn’t have to exchange it ourselves.
73. The station for the train to Machu Picchu is in Cusco, but, due to flooding during the rainy season, we have to take a bus to another train station. The taxi to the station takes about 15 minutes. The bus ride is 1 hour and 45 minutes long. The train is another hour and 50 minutes long. The bus ride up from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu proper is yet another half hour. All told, we travel four hours and 20 minutes to get to Machu Picchu, arriving at 11 o’clock AM.
    

74. Liesel sits next to a kid named Mauricio on the train, and gets hit on for the full two hours. She’s 19; he’s 16. He doesn’t even have decent pick-up lines. And his uncle “sneaks” a picture of her, which she definitely sees.
75. We look at the bus prices and realize we’ve been royally ripped off by The Jerk.
76. The guy from John’s company doesn’t know who John is. (Always a good sign.) We get the tour guide anyway without having to pay more.
77. What we paid in terms of “bus tickets,” “guide,” and “taxi,” comes to about what we thought we would spend on just Machu Picchu originally. So it’s not SO bad.
78. 60° F is now considered very cold. I have no clue how I am going to survive in Chicago.
79. What I always thought was Machu Picchu is not, in fact, Machu Picchu. That’s the name of the complex, sure, but the mountain in the back is Huayna Picchu, not Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is a squat little mountain behind the ruins.
    

80. About 20% of what’s Machu Picchu today was restored before UNESCO declared it a world heritage site.
81. The first guide in Machu Picchu was a 10-year-old kid.
82. The water in the Incan channels feels slimy.
83. It is so much better to go on Spanish-speaking tours. The guides’ English is almost unintelligible.
84.  People here are RICH. They can pay to go to Aguas Calientes to get lunch, where the cheapest sandwich is 16 soles and a drink costs a lot.
85. The bus gets really close to the edge on corners. It also slides in the dust.
86. I get to sit across from Mauricio (see #74) on the two-hour train ride back. I’m antisocial enough that he and his cousin both fall asleep.
87. John came through with the taxi to pick us up (he wasn’t there, but there was a taxi waiting), so we’re permanently done with him. 
88. People throw up in the street in Cusco. And it is possible to walk past and dry-heave on an empty stomach.
89. Nearly all restaurants close at 9, regardless of if their signs say they close at 10. If you get to the cheap one at around 9:05, you will be politely thrown out and have to go to the more expensive Inca-Azteca spaghetti/pizza place. (That doesn’t sound like a pizza restaurant, does it?) 
90. I can get "deals" in the markets because I'm a student and speak Spanish. Whether the deals are deals or not, I do not know.
91. We can get take-home boxes from the cheap place, and reheat noodles in margarine on the stove in the hostel for dinner.
92. Every bit of stuff I have fits comfortably into my two suitcases and my backpack, provided I leave my too-big pajamas and my split tennis shoes. 
93. The Western Union will take damaged American bills, to trade them out for soles.
94. The fruit salad topping we have every morning has been described by the Brits staying with us as looking "like dog sick." Descriptive, at the very least.
95. After seeing Machu Picchu, I feel like I can go home having done everything I wanted to. 

So, that's what I've learned and experienced since coming to Peru all of five and a half days ago. It's been what we call a "learning experience" at my house. Regardless of its challenges, Peru has been worth the effort and frustration.