It is officially ''over''. We left Chupa last Tuesday, and have finished debriefing...now we are currently in Lidman's home city, Huanaco. Karen flies out of here just after midnight on Friday, and I fly out almost exactly 24 hours later. We return to Lima by bus today.
I'm still learning here. I'm learning a lot of things I haven't expected to learn, not all of them I could really explain in this blog. One thing that I can say that I have learned...I am going to have to come back here. I don't know when, I don't know for how long exactly...perhaps to visit friends for a week or two, perhaps for a few months, or perhaps to live here. I don't know. There are a lot of different reasons why.
I have also learned that a lot of people have trouble understanding my introverted nature, no matter how long they're around me. I like being around people, in fact, I would have trouble not being around people for a very long period of time. But I like it in my own time, and this is what people have trouble with. I can even appear extroverted at times...then when I decide I want to hole up by myself for awhile, people think there's something wrong. If they meet me while I really want to be by myself, they believe I really don't like being around people, which is isn't technically true (though I don't like big groups at all).
I also have an independent streak. Quite honestly, having people want to escort me places here has driven me crazy. It was fine for the first few weeks, as I was wary and timid of my new surroundings, but as I grew more confident, it got on my nerves. I remember the first month, Lidman and René wanted to make sure myself and Karen were accompanied by at least one of them EVERYWHERE we went. It was fine during the first couple of weeks...but I got to the point where I just wanted to go walk around by myself, to just visit a tienda without having someone practically attached to me. I remember when we went to Puno, the first night there I wanted to use the internet, and René insisted on escorting me to the internet café directly across the street from the hostel we were staying in...and staying there until I was ready to leave, to escort me back. I found it mildly amusing at the time, but I remember when we got to Nazca, and my team somewhat went their own seperate ways during that time, how FREE I felt...just to be able to go walking around, checking out the city, having the opprotunity to think without anyone telling me where I should go. Thankfully, by the time we got back to Juliaca, Lidman had loosened up about the matter a little--Karen and I got away with going to find dinner without Lidman coming with us because he wanted to watch a soccer game. And in Chupa, I got to take walks by myself, and no one (usually) had a problem with this. But Huanaco has been a challenge for me and my somewhat short patience. Hardly any gringos visit this city (people are scared of it because it had problems with terrorist in the 80´s and 90's, so people are still scared to come here), so we're a bit of a show here. So Lidman wouldn't even let me walk the two blocks to the internet café last night because it was dark...which drove me crazy.
That's really just scraping the surface of what I've learned about myself, honestly. The good and the bad both. I could go on and on.
We have gotten to do a lot of exploring here. Monday, when we arrived, we went to a waterfall to swim in the pool beneath it, which was an incredible experience. And yesterday, we went speluking, which was thrilling (and at times terrifying) experience, and then went to a zoological center at the university in Tingo Maria. Which was terrifying in it's own right---the zoo there is not anything like it would be in the States. I felt sorry for the animals, they were in very small cages for their species, and had no habitat. The most scary was the leopard. This cat was MAD. It kept pacing...back...and forth. I was taking it's picture (not like I'd have a chance to get this close to one again) and it came close to the part of the cage I was close to...and I jumped back. I had to. This creature, had it not been for the metal bars...I KNOW it would have attacked us. I know it.
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