Life As Canvas

Today is my last day in South America. Today I hop a plane across an ocean to touch down in Barcelona. Then I’ll get in a car and drive into France. The idea of being in France by tomorrow, and the fact that I’ll only be there for a few days, doesn’t really register in my head. I feel like some kind of jet-set woman… yes, just going to France again. (This will be the 6th time in France and the 11th time I traverse the Atlantic!) While I’m there I plan to eat a very juicy steak and maybe a tarte aux fraises or some mousse au chocolat. Or both.

Then, back to Barcelona and from there to Thailand, where I’ll try to put to use some of the things I’ve learned here in South America…

1. If the guy in the market tells you 10, you can probably get it for 6.
2. Put your bag on your knees in the bus and hold on to it.
3. Watch how much the locals pay when the money guy comes around.
4. Sickness is but a part of the trip.
6. Always carry toilet paper.
7. Always carry small change.
8. Watch out for the local girl who smiles sweetly at you while eyeing your bags.
9. Hostels often aren’t the cheapest or most ineresting way to go.
10. Try not to expect anything. Just go with it and appreciate the experience.
11. Don’t plan everything. Hazard can be your friend.
12. Rainpants.
13. Be alert but not afraid.
14. That crazy activity? Do it. Who knows when you’ll have the chance again?

Anyone have one to add?

I know what pesky bureaucracy is, having lived in France. But the Peruvian post office? I never thought I’d make it out of there.

I strode down the streets of Lima with a smile, my cardboard box of llama products and other knick-knacks under my arm, thinking about the city and the way the guides always say it’s ugly. But Lima actually has its charms. Must learn not to listen to guides. Glad I sold mine to a guy in a hotel. And there, beyond the pigeon-filled square with the big, sparkling fountain, beyond the president’s house with the guards and the tanks out front, there was the post office, looking sharp. I stepped in optimistically, hoping the line wouldn’t be too long. The line, as it turns out, wasn’t long at all, but the procedure itself is a doozy.

First, the frowning woman behind the counter had to open my meticulously taped box to be sure I wasn’t being bad.

Then, I had to have it re-packaged, which meant going outside to one of the stands where I paid a girl to actually sew it into a cotton sack, a big Frankenstein seam running down it’s belly. This took a good 15 minutes.

Then back into the post office to have it weighed. “126 soles” (40 bucks!) said the woman, still unsmiling.

“Address it,” she said.
“Do you have a pen?”
” No.” So off I went, to pay for the one-time use of a felt pen at the same stand outside.

Back into the post office. She then wrote “126 soles” on the box with her nonexistant pen, breaking my polite American smile.

“Photocopy of your passport,” she said.
“I need a photocopy of my passport?” I repeated, laughing at this ridiculous process.
“Sí.” She wasn’t laughing.
“Where can I…”
“Outside.”

Okay, okay. Outside I went to make a photocopy and then back to the post office. I waited in line, rallying my confidence to talk to the woman about this 126 soles business.

“Hi.” I slapped my copy on the counter, “Do you have anything less expensive?”
“No, no.”
I paused.
“Anything… slower?”
“Sure, at 99 soles, but it’ll take 30 days.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, then.” Then she actually grimaced and shoved some papers over for me to fill out, still not offering her pen.

Back outside to buy a pen.

Once I’d produced my work she took it, processed it, and stamped it. She gave me a paper, pushed my box aside, and said, “Go pay on the other side.”

A line. Waiting, I hoped it was the right one. This lady did smile a little and took my money, stamping my paper and sending me off out in to the daylight yet again. Ahh it was finally done. Looking down at my receipt, then, I noticed she had stamped it with the word “Cancelado.”

I hope that means “paid.”

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