Patience Amongst Other Things

Patience. Is. A. Virtue.
I am still in the process of determining the full necessity of said virtue. As it stands now, every day has been a test of mine. Peru is a country that is know for its lack of timeliness; things get done but in their own time. You may have an appointment that should take place at a certain time but here in Peru there are no real set beginnings. Thus far the only thing I have seen reach any semblance of punctuality is the END of my lessons. Forget when we begin, we will ALWAYS be ending precisely on the hour.

It is common knowledge that things in Peru often suffer unexplained delays and cancellations. There are regular strike days when trains, buses, bridges, roads or anything one might consider a necessity for travel will be out of commission. These strikes are so frequent that the locals are no longer bothered by the nuisances they are intended to create; most couldn´t tell you the purpose of the strike and say that those participating couldn´t either! But for the traveler or tourist these strikes can throw detrimental wrenches in plans. I have spent the better part of the past five days in limbo due to these circumstances. We (a few friends from high school and I) have been planning a trip to the Manu jungle, which is said to be one of the most pristine in the world and certainly the best in South America. 80% of the national reserve is basically untouched and is not open to the public. Whenever we finally are able to venture to the jungle we are supposed to be able to see jaguars and all sorts of flora and fauna not even shown in the Jungle Book!! Each time we thought we had the details of our trip dialed down and that we were set to go some of these Peruvian "circumstances" would pop up and the trip would be delayed or cancelled... It got to be an hourly ordeal that I would check my email to see if we were on or off for the next day. FINALLY! FINALLY we are set, paid and booked for an eight day jungle trek! We leave Tuesday and I am so excited! I am sure many updates will follow. Also I get to spend my birthday in the jungle this year! This could get interesting!

A few other things that have changed with me during the past few weeks. Whatever fashion skills I previously possessed were promptly checked at the base of the mountain. Each evening around 5 PM I don about 16 layers of clothing in an attempt to block out the Andian mountain´s bitter winter chill. I am more recognizable as a ball of yarn for I am generally covered head to toe in knit wear. Anything, anything to keep out the cold!! And for all you saying, "didn´t you know it was going to be winter when you went down there?" The answer is yes. Yes, of course I knew it was winter but this is the most appropriate time to travel here because it is also the dry season. I also knew that it would be beautiful and roughly 70 degrees during the day but pretty chilly at night. I just didn´t know that "night" began at 4:30 PM and lasted until 7:30 AM!