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:: The Agenda
May 21, 2000
The Agenda
Guayaquil, Ecuador and Cuzco, Peru
Before I left Hartford, friends asked me what I anticipated most about this trip. "I have no expectations," I quipped. "I'm open to the experience."
I lied.
Not willfully but from self-deception. I'm sufficiently well traveled to expect the unexpected, yet I had an agenda - a romantic notion of this trip - that I was unaware of until I reached Ecuador.
Many publicized features and services of this voyage turned out to be inferior to their marketing. I've made the best of faulty plumbing, a cabin fire and relaxed customer service, but missing ports for reasons other than rough seas or political unrest put me over the edge.
When we anchored a mile from Panama's San Blas islands without going ashore, I felt cheated. But Shirley, a fellow passenger, expressed excitement over our ship's captain's speeding away in a motorboat to negotiate with the Kuna Indian chief to allow the village women on board. I told Shirley I knew a spin when I heard one. Shirley told me that appreciating the experience for what it is, rather than what I imagine it should be, distinguishes the traveler from the tourist.
Ouch.
I wasn't the only unhappy camper on board. I just found it difficult to keep it a secret.
Adam suggested I read Mark Twain's satire, "The Innocents Abroad," and then he checked it out of the ship's library for me. Brigitte gave me a meditation written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, a Native American elder, and George and Laura invited me to chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.
This isn't the trip I signed up for, but it's clearly the one I'm supposed to take. So when we docked in Guayaquil, I finally let go.
This city's renown for poverty and crime preceded my visit. But my agenda to hightail it to a more green-filled part of the region gave way to my recent epiphany. So, I glommed onto Mike and Karen instead, content to follow the adventure wherever it led. Cross-town cabs crammed with five passengers folded into one another like human origami, and a stroll through Parque Bolivar, home to huge iguanas, highlighted my day. I returned to the ship, hoping Guayaquil would one day benefit from its concentration of large banks and financial trading businesses. I also wondered what adventures awaited me in Peru.
I flew from Lima, Peru's capital, to Cuzco, an Inca city 11,500 feet above sea level in the Andean mountains. At the airport, my newfound attitude served me well as travel agency representatives were nowhere in sight. But I experienced the first of much Andean hospitality when two taxi drivers escorted me to a pay phone to make the connections I needed.
Despite my concern about "soroche" or high altitude sickness, I didn't follow advice to relax before my tour. Ninety minutes provided just enough time to check e-mails at Mama Africa's Cyber Cafe, tucked into Cuzco's central square. Running late, I skipped lunch and bolted to Hotel Monasterio, a restored 16th-century colonial seminary, national historical landmark, and my home for the night.
Panting, famished and a little headachy - the first symptom of soroche - I announced to Carmen, my guide, that lunch would be the first stop on the tour. Carmen took me to Pancha's, a friend's vegetarian restaurant, nestled within a new age bookstore. At last! Whole grains and fresh vegetable soup - a meal I didn't have to decode.
The next leg of my tour offered tremendous views and well-known ruins including Sacsaywaman, Tambomachay, and Q'enqo. Sacsaywaman, three tiers of limestone blocks fitted with extraordinary perfection, looms over the city to the north. Usually described as a fortress, its origins are uncertain. Carmen pointed out the zigzag pattern of the outer walls as evidence that the massive structure might have been a temple to the god of lightning, and so more likely, a place of ritual. She noted that the interpretation of Sacsaywaman as simply a military structure was European. "And this," Carmen added, "is not Europe."
Tambomachay, an active spring, was a ritual bathing site, and the ruins of Q'enqo contain caves believed to be altars used to house mummified and royalty.
At the end of my tour, Carmen suggested additional vegetarian restaurants. My agenda now was to choose one for dinner rather than return to Pancha's. The idea of clinging to what's familiar - even if only for the past few hours - smacked of tourist, not traveler. But by now, my head was throbbing and I still had an evening of exploration ahead of me. Besides, the food at Pancha's had been delicious.
And it remained so, the second time around.
Perhaps I'm a tourist after all.
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