Saturday, 28th November, Peru: driving days
I’m sitting at the Ecuadorean/Peruvian border as I type. Waiting for a $1.50 fried chicken and rice to be cooked, as Mike wrestles with the bureaucracy of getting our beloved Russian into new lands.
There are little things about our day to day which don’t make it to print, because they are either forgotten in the days it takes me to write the blog, or because they have become so mundane, so quotidian, so damn normal in this migrant life of ours that I don’t think to write them down.
One such story which falls into the former camp is of me singing at the top of my lungs to Michael Jackson’s “I just can’t stop loving you” (female part) as we drove into Cumbaya, outside Quito, a few days ago in the dark. (We try not to drive in the dark, but often some setback or other – unforseen oil changes, poor roads, donkeys in said roads, etc – mean that we don’t make it to our intended destination before the sunsets. Foolish.) The traffic slowed as we reached a light, and only after I’d belted out “just tell me what else would I dooooooo” that I realised I not only had a pedestrian audience, but that he was clapping along with me. I often think about what would be my audition song if I found myself in the hell of an X Factor audition, and I’m not sure MJ would get me through to the next round. I’m more of an Elton John girl, myself. In fact, a vast Oregon wheatfield was treated to a particularly rousing “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” where I did both Elton’s alto and George’s Greco-North London tones with gusto and expert accuracy. Really, I’m wasted in that sidecar.
Mike has a dance move – all shoulders – which he sometimes treats me to on the road. I’m not allowed to ask for it (then it is strictly denied) but with a judicious bit of DJing (maybe an uptempo salsa track, or a boppy bit of Jamiroquai) he might just be lured to wow me with his slinky torso. I live in hope.
Food’s arrived now. Fried fish and rice. What happened to chicken? I’m sure my Spanish isn’t that bad… I’m taking the gamble today and eating the tomatoes. The first vegetable (fruit?) that’s gone into my gullet in days. That’s one of the really tough things about life on the road. The routine of the grub is intense. Chicken and rice for lunch everyday.
The other thing which I haven’t mentioned thus far is how filthy our faces are at the end of a day’s driving. Mike’s eyebrows look like they have been kohled on, like a clown. I have just wiped the sleeve of the suit across my face and blackened the part I wiped with. The diesel burning vehicles here belch black smoke out, and if we are trapped behind them, it can sometimes be hard to breathe. My hands are permanently filthy, nails get black by the end of a long day on the road.
Depressingly, it’s starting to get hot again. We have descended from the heights of the hills and are getting lower and lower as we near the coast again. This is, of course, the equator and its tropics, my sweat glands have had a nice break, but now it’s time to get real again. Real sweaty.
It’s later in the day now. Things got bad once we crossed the Peruvian border: the sides of the roads were soon littered with junk – plastic bags, plastic bottles, general garbage. A wasp flew into my face on the drive and left the stinger in my face. Much flapping and not happy. Then, half an hour later, Mike too got stung, twice. On the leg. Again, much flapping. Thankfully, we didn’t crash.
To top it all off, the road at one point became a ford. A deep ford, crossed by a river of thinly disguised sewage. He paused, revved the engine, and we headed to cross it – as Mototaxis and small cars were doing before us. I thought I’d film the traverse on our little HD camera. The depth was much more than it first appeared. The sidecar was flooded, the camera died and we were left sodden in stinky water. (which is why I have no images of the Peruvian border to share…)
I love Peru.
