lumière des étoiles

adios
2005-07-18 12:29 a.m.

It's true, that painfully cliché adage: you get better at packing every time you do it. I'm down to three shirts, a button down and sweater or two, two pairs of pants, a skirt and various pairs of socks and underwear for the month. Listen, we're all grimy and a bit smelly on the road, so stop that "judging me" face you're making right now, young lady (/man). And make up? A tube of lipstick. There's yer make-up. This is not a fashion show.

I'm just laughing now at myself, really, remembering how I lugged a pair of ridiculous heels around Italy, only wearing them once to a fhancy club in Florence (or was it Rome?). Even last year, I remember being so distinctly mad at myself in Botswana for packing that extra shirt that I just never wore that I donated it to a local clothing drive.

As proud of myself as I am for packing well, I have the pre-departure heebie jeebies. I'm not afraid of anything per se, I'm just freaked about the whole experience and about having everything from the gas bill to school stuff taken care of for the month. But everything's done, we got ourselves a ride to the airport (you're the best, Sean), and mummy called from Canterbury to say that she's fine and having a grand old time. So what is there to worry about? Nada.

It's funny; all the advice I've gotten about staying safe in particular cities in Peru includes the perfunctory "don't advertise your tourist status or any wealth". Well who does that? I guess some people do. Maybe the warnings are for those less traveled, or those who aren't familiar with that dusty and hectic third world culture thing. I laugh at that line when I think of pictures of us in Accra, Jo'burg, Maun or even Amsterdam, all dusty and looking like the hippies we become on the road. We both have a set (or a few sets) of "travel clothes" - items that we don't wear during the year but are great for travel. They're so yellowed and fraying from having been washed and repaired so many times that we think this will be our last run with them. But traveling in these certainly doesn't scream "I carry loads of cash!", nor do our plastic watches or beaded necklaces. So I'm not too worried about advertising wealth that we don't have.

Just last night, out for bon voyage drinks with friends, we also all laughed about how tall Steve and I are, and how...um, intimidating my stride can be at times when I'm concentrating or walking fast. "Who would approach you?", a friend said after I told her about "strangle muggings" in Cusco, where an assailant grabs a victim in a choke hold from behind. "Who the hell would be able to get their arms above your shoulders?" Another friend agreed: "You look so brutus sometimes." That might hurt a girl's feelings under any other circumstances, but when it makes her feel like she's not an easy target for crime, believe me, it's a heartfelt compliment.

More traveling fun, and this might just be filed under the too-much-information category, and for that I apologize, but it's just too funny not to mention. I'm set to get the monthlies from the day we arrive in the Amazon basin to the day we leave. Why, why, why, always, when there's scarcely any running water and when there aren't any sort of disposal facilities available? In Ghana, it was when I was in the middle of the Volta region, staying with a family in a village a good mile away from any running water. In Southern Africa, it came when we were in the Okavango Delta for four days and our "toilet" was a hole Texas Joe dug in the ground. God has a mighty fine sense of humor. Oh it's fun being a girl - the stories I can tell.

Well good bye, my lovies; I'll write when I can. Our first stop is Arequipa, from there we move to Puno and Lake Titicaca, after that it's Cuzco and then onto Puerto Maldonado and Picaflor in the Amazon Basin. We'll finish up around Cuzco again, but heading into Pisac and Machu Picchu (yay!) before heading back to Lima and Trujillo a week or so before we leave. I know that everyone keeps telling me it's "terrible" that I do this, but I must: should we meet some untimely demise, our family gets it all, baby.

miss you & xoxox,