Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters
The Verlains, "Tremble"
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Halff's Cranberry Sauce Or, anything from my wish list.
Excerpts from Day Nine of My Travel Journal Post Date: 11/27/04
Original Journal Date: 11/06/04 11-06-Saturday, Aquas Calientes, Machu Picchu, Cusco
In the morning, Lisa feels as sick as I do. It's sick in a different way. In a way with a fever and a headache, but it's still a lot of being sick. We stick to tea at breakfast. We rest up because we have to take a four hour train ride that evening back to Cusco. This is important. You need to know that it's a four hour train ride. It matters later. Take a moment right now to really sit and think about how long four hours can be. That's four episodes of LAX or The View or The Biggest Loser. Wow. Imagine four hours of The View. That's a lot of screeching. Anyway. The afternoon is nice. Low key shopping (what else) and hanging out and lunch. Well, lunch for Ho, Jutta and Joel. Lisa was too sick and stayed in bed. I wasn't too sick to sit with the group, but I was for sure too sick to eat. So instead I stared at their food enviously. Pan fried spaghetti and fresh avocado and fruit and so much yummy looking stuff that I almost cried that I could not eat. And let's not forget, by this point there really isn't much left in my body, if anything at all. So I am feeling weak and lightheaded and generally awful. I had a cup of tea given to me by my boy Ferma. It was good tea and it helped my stomach, but nonetheless, it was only tea. Ferma, by the way, is my buddy. When I was sick he moved me to the single room at no charge. He made sure there was always a thermos of hot water and tea in my room. He walked me to the bus stop so I wouldn't get lost. He made sure I had tea at every meal when I couldn't eat anything else. He sat and watched soccer with me when I was too weak to do anything other than sit in the downstairs of the hostel. Ferma was awesome. Simply awesome and I think he is one of the best things ever about Peru. After lunch, Lisa felt worse, and the train was going to leave in an hour or so. We really wondered if she was going to be able to take the train ride if we didn't get her some medical attention, so Joel walks her down to the medical station next to the bus stop. But they are closed in the middle of the day for no reason that I can understand. Thankfully, Ferma comes to the rescue again and lets us know that there is a second medical station closer to the train station. So I walk Lisa, who is in the kind of excruciating pain I know all too well, to the medical station. You know how, that one season on ER, there was that whole story line about Carter working in a third world medical clinic in Africa? Okay, maybe you don't remember that because most of us stopped watching ER post-Clooney (pc), but apparently a lot of you still watch the show (and that's excusable given, you know, Luka) because the ratings still reflect that. Which by the way is frightening that ER has become this unstoppable monolith or something. But anyway, if you watched the storyline then remember what it looked like in the third world medical clinic, then know that this is where we were. It'd be funny if Scrubs did some episodes where they got shipped off to a third world country. Just imagine that for a minute. So we spend some time with the doctor, who looks too young to be a doctor to me, but who am I to know? Lisa gets some kind of cursory examination that involves a stethoscope being placed on her stomach, to hear what I don't know. I am concerned that if Lisa removes clothing while on the medical examining table she will become even sicker than she already is. There is a computer from 1987 in this room. I'm not kidding. I know it was from 1987 because I had that same computer in 1987. A can of Lysol would have done some favors for this room. I mean, and really, that's me putting it lightly. But the doctor, when he is done listening to Lisa's stomach, gives Lisa some antibiotics of a questionable nature and some generic pedialite. I mean, are we really any better off? On the other hand, it was affordable, we didn't have to wait to be seen for an hour and it's probably no worse than an urban free clinic. So really, if the medications work, and it seems that they ended up working, were we really any worse off than going to a medical clinic in the US? Ponder that. Thank goodness the train we are taking back to Cusco is not of the local variety like the horrid, broken down one we took into Cusco. It's the Vistadome. What is a Vistadome? It's a train that has a glass top so that you can enjoy the scenery when you are traveling. That's great, except that we only have a couple hours of daylight left, so it's kind of useless. But at least the seats are comfortable. On the train with us:
- A group of German tourists sitting in the middle of the train car
- A group of four Brazilians sitting in the four seats directly across the aisle from me Four hours. Let me remind you that this train ride is four hours long. As the train pulls out of the station, the Brazilians sitting across from me begin to sing songs together to pass the time. When they begin this, I'm alll like, "Oh, look how cute that is. They're so happy and friendly. They're singing songs. Sure, they sing wildly out of tune and mostly in Portuguese and the fact that they clap along while they sing is a little bit loud and annoying, but it's nice that they want to sing some songs and enjoy life." An hour into the train ride, the Brazilians are still singing. They have now moved on from their Brazilian songs and to the entire Madonna catalog. All four of them. Singing Madonna in questionable English, with rhythmic clapping and really, really off tune. Yep. At this point it's no longer as cute and positive. It's getting a little annoying, really. But I say to myself, "They can't know that many songs in English. I'm sure they'll fall asleep soon." HA! Two hours in, we've moved on to Rat Pack songs. Who knew that apparently the entire country of Brazil knows all the words to "My Way?" And every other song every recorded by the rat pack. All sung loudly, off tune, in questionable English and with rhythmic clapping. By now it is dark and I (and, I think, everybody else on the train), would like to sleep. But we cannot. Because the Brazilians are belting it out. I wonder for a moment if they are drunk, but that can't be because we're two hours in and if they had gotten on the train drunk it would have worn off by now. No, they are not drunk. They are simply CRAZY FOR THE SOUND OF MUSIC. At some point between hour two and hour three, the German tourists have had enough of this. So how do they deal with that? By beginning to sing themselves, in full on choral arrangement, traditional German folk songs. One would think that this would cause the Brazilians to stop singing but instead a full on battle begins to rage. The Germans sing. The Brazilians sing louder. On top of all this, Zepher, Master of the Pan Flute, is being pumped through the train at full volume. The Brazilians have moved on to singing Beatles songs. So, German folk songs versus out-of-tune Beatles songs. Hmmm. Rough freakin' call. But it's not like I have to decide, because I get to listen to both of them at the same time. This goes on well into hour three on the train. At some point, I begin rocking uncomfortably in my seat. Joel looks back at me in horror. The Germans lose. Yes, they cannot outlast the Brazilians. Somewhere near the beginning of hour four, the Germans run out of steam, or maybe they just run out of German folk songs (I believe I'd heard them sing everything twice by this point). Whatever it is, they quit singing and we are left only with Zepher, Master of the Pan Flute, and the Brazilians, who are now singing Shakira. I did not know there was that much Shakira to sing. You think I'm done with this story, but I'm not. With about half an hour left on the train ride, Joel and Jutta come back to sit with me (I had taken the single seat by myself, but then people got off the train and so there were extra seats next to me). Joel looks over at the Brazilians.
It's amazing. Me
I know! Joel
I can't believe they outlasted the Germans. Jesus. Me
I totally know. It was like battle of the choirs. Joel
But one choir was so out of tune. Me
Seriously. Joel
You know who is not having this? Me
Who? Joel
Ho Lin. Me
Oh, I'm sure. Wow. Jutta
At one point, Ho turned up his headphones so loud, I was getting all four: the train music, the Germans, the Brazilians and Ho's headphone music. Me
It's just amazing that they were able to go that long. It demands respect. Joel
I just hope they really have it in them to last until the end of the train ride! Me
Yeah? Really? Joel
NO!
Oh fuck! Could they have run out of songs before the train ride ended?
THANK CHRIST! I was totally worried that they were going to run out of songs before the entire FOUR HOUR train ride was over.
You know, if you're going to sing for FOUR HOURS, at least sing IN TUNE. Joel
I cannot believe the display of stamina. They sang straight through for FOUR HOURS. They never stopped. Me
I think my head is bleeding. Joel
FOUR HOURS. AMAZING.