Well I am back safe and sound from Peru, and it's good to be home.
I left on October 4th to go up to LAX, to catch my plane early on the morning of the 5th. I left LA on the morning of the 5th and arrived in Mexico City for a three hour stop over. So in Mexico City i had to go through customs, which i did not expect. That was fine except for the brief time, approximately 45 seconds i misplaced my pass port. It is amazing how quickly you can experience terror. Luckily I left it at the check in counter to customs, and the agent there found me and gave it back to me. So customs went fine and i sat down and waited and waited until my flight boarded for Lima.
I arrived in Lima at about 10:30 p.m. on the 5th, went through customs there, which was surprisingly easy and walked out to see Javier waiting for me. It was so incredible to see him in person again, I wanted to drop everything I was carrying and run over and just bend him over and kiss him ala the end of WW11 photo. Though being in Peru I chose to do the wiser thing and just gave him a hug, which he was a little surprised by, i don't think many men hug in public in Peru. Well we got a cab and headed to my hotel. Javier had found one for me for about $20 bucks a day which is good. Now i had booked a hostile about six weeks earlier, but found out a few days before my trip that the hostile I had booked with no longer existed. Luckily Javier found this hotel. We got a cab and headed toward the hotel which was in Mira Flores, the safe tourist area.
We checked into the hotel, dropped my bags on the floor and......... Well let me just say that it was wonderfully. It was slow and tender and hard and sweaty. It wasn't rushed, and it was just so familiar and right.
The next morning we got up and went out to explore Lima. I found Lima to be a very big, loud city. Lots of traffic, lots of honking horns. Very crowded. I of course was pegged as a tourist, so was barraged at every turn with, "do you want to buy this", or Hey mister can you help me out with this...", or, I know where you can get this...".
I spent the next three days in Lima with Javier, seeing different things, going to the movies just having a great ol' time. I booked my flight to go to Cusco to leave on the 9th. Cusco is where you go to see Machu Pichu. Now Javier was unable to go with me to Cusco so I was gonna be on my own from the 9th to the 15th.
On the morning of the 9th, i went to the airport to catch a local carrier to fly to Cusco. The flight was fine, and the hostile i booked with arranged for a taxi to pick me up and bring me to the hostile. I checked into the hostile, went to my very small room and went straight to sleep. It was the first good sleep I had had since entering Peru.
After my very restful sleep, I got up and went out to explore Cusco. Well Cusco reminded me a lot of a border town. People everywhere trying to sell me stuff on the streets, or asking for money. The shops all seemed to have the exact same merchandise, and the prices were expensive. Now i know that bartering is part of the culture and it is actually built into the price, but i suck at bartering. So I just felt like I was getting ripped off at every turn, so consequently i just stopped even trying to buy stuff.
So there I am walking around Cusco on my first day and it is beginning to get dark. Now everything I read about Cusco said that you do no want to be walking around alone after dark, as Cusco is not as safe as Lima. So I decided to head back to my hostel. Now being the very inexperienced world traveler that i am, I did not have the address of my hostile. I just had the key to my room which had the name of the hostile on it. So I hail a taxi and ask to go to the Hostel Torcasa. So I get in the cab and the guy is driving around and after about 3 minutes or so he says, "do you know where it is?". Well no I don't and he doesn't either. So I get out pay him 3 soles for the "ride", and hail another cab. "Donde esta Torcasa Hostel?", No he didn't. So there I am asking taxi drivers, locals, tourists, police officers everyone; if they know where the Torcasa Hostel is. No one knows, and better still it seems that no one has even heard of it. Now it is officially dark I have no idea where i am, I can't find my hostile and i am beginning to panic. I stop into a very upscale hotel to see if they can help me. The man at the counter was very nice, he looks in the phone book, no Torcasa. He calls information, no Torcasa. He asks some of his co-workers, NO TORCASA. So thank you very much for trying and back out on the street. Finally after about two hours of searching I had a moment of inspiration. I went to an Internet cafe, looked up Torcasa Hostel on the Internet, bim, bam boom. three minutes later i was back at the hostel. Thanks to modern technology.
I seriously thought about coming home early the next day, and if wasn't for the fact that I would have had to change two planes, plus the fact that no one in Cusco had heard of Aero Mexico I think I would have just chucked it all and left. So the day after my getting lost fiasco i go to a local travel agent to book my trip to Machu Pichu. The travel agent booked my trip for the 17th, leaving in the morning and returning the same day. On the morning of the 17th I was to meet the travel agent at my hostel, who would take me to the train station, where I would meet up with the tour guide and proceed to Machu Pichu. So that morning i meet two tourists from Germany who are checking into my hostile because there trip to Machu Pichu was canceled due to 26 kilometers of railroad track being washed away in the previous nights rain storm. Well that just sucks. My travel agent meets me at the hostile to tell me that the Machu Pichu trip couldn't happen but he could arrange for a City tour for me for no extra cost. Yeah I don't think so. I have seen this city on foot already. I had been places where the locals were looking at me thinking, 'what in the hell in this gringo doing up here'. So I said no thank you I would just like my refund. No problem he would be back in an hour. Well three hours later; I call him and say hey what's up. He informs me that he is on his way to my hostile at this minute. Fine no problem. He gets there and gives me $70.00 of the $120.00 I paid him for the trip. He informs me that he would not be able to get the rest until he spoke to the train station but that he would definitely have it tomorrow, and be at my hostile at 10 am. O.k fine.
The next day.... 12 p.m. no tour guide. So I go to his office, asking where my $40 bucks are. Big sob story about train station, no money, many refunds etc. So I am in his office yelling at the guy that i really don't care about his other problems my concern is the money he owes me at this moment. I guess the yelling did it, because the money he owed me "miraculously" appeared. The bottom line; 8 days in Cusco, 15 days in Peru, and no Machu Pichu.
Back to Lima on the 16th. Now while I was in Cusco I was talking to Javier, who informed me that he thought it was best if we, he and I, just stayed friends, no more, i.e. no sex. Well OK if that's how you feel, sucks for me but what you gonna do. So he picks me up at the airport. My plane was two hours late, because of weather I had to sit on the runway for two hours. Just a nice final farewell to Cusco. We go back to a hostile in Mira Flores, which is fine, and check in. Then wow... I guess i can get use to this just friends thing. Though he makes it clear that we are just friends and there is not going to be a "future us". Well o.k., in the back of my mind i really always knew that the prospect of a longterm Javier and I was not really going to happen. After the "welcome back" sex, we went to get something to eat, saw a movie and then decided to go to a local bathhouse to relax. That was nice, though they didn't have a jacuzzi, the steam room felt wonderfully after so much walking in Cusco.
Whilst there i noticed a very nice looking man in the sauna with these very cute glasses on. We sort of played with the eye contact thing, I am not very good at picking up the signals, as i have stated so I wasn't sure if he wanted to do anything. He left the steam room and I went out to the lounge and talked to Javier. Meanwhile the man with the glasses walked by and I pointed him out to Javier, who said go for it. Maybe I thought. -side note- Me being in the bathhouse in Peru was like sensory overload. Me and all those Latin men, OH MY GOD!!! My other "problem" was that my gaydar seems to fail around foreign, i.e. non American men. (even with American men sometimes) Meaning that most non American men appear gay to me. Now this isn't a problem in the bath house, but out in the "general" public it can be. Back to the hottie in the glasses. I went into the room area and saw the hottie standing by the wall. So I stood next to him and a few minutes later we were nudging each other and making small talk. Well after much motioning and pointing we went into a room. Unfortunately his English was only slightly better than my Spanish, which is terrible. Well, Alvano and I had a very nice time.
So Javier and I, Alvano and his friend all left the bathhouse at the same time, and with Javier's gleeful intervention, Alvano and I exchanged e-mails and numbers. Alvano did give Javier and I a ride back to my hostile.
I was do to leave Peru on essentially the 19th, which was two days away. I tried to get a hold of Alvano on the 18th with no luck. Javier and I went to a movie on the evening of the 18th and had dinner, then I went back to my hostile with Javier insisting that i call Alvano. I got back to my hostile and saw that he had written me an e-mail. I tried to call him, it was about 10 p.m. but no answer. The next day, I got up and tried him, with the same results no answer. At about 11:30 I tried one more time and luckily I got him at work. I told him that I was leaving to the airport that evening and wondered if it was possible to see him. He said that he could meet me at my hostel for lunch in about an hour. Cool.
So at around 1 p.m Alvano pulls up and we go to lunch. It was really nice, he is a very nice man. After lunch we go back to my hostile for a proper good by, and the woman at the front counter would not let me bring him up to my room. I was pissed!!!!! So we decided to go back to the bathhouse, "the scene of the crime" if you will, and "say good by". A few hours later he dropped me off at my hostile, I got packed up and met Javier downstairs, and finally arrived home at about 4:30 p.m. on October 20th.
It is good to be home. All in all I had a great time. Javier will try to get back to the states in a few months where we will remain "only good friends", which is fine, and i will continue to talk to Alvano.
Well that's it, next time i travel outside the US I think I might need to go with a tour of some kind, or at the very least maybe only stay for 7 to 10 days.
Thanks for reading
Frodo
