Perilous Peru Part 1 – Living in Lima

´Don´t let people see where you keep your real money,’ my lunchtime companion, a local, tells me. ‘I keep my wallet in here,’ he points to his breast pocket, ‘and pay from here,’ dips his hand in another pocket. ‘And don’t let them see your camera.’ Later, he says, ‘See that bridge? Don’t go past there. That is a not good place. Keep this side only.’

Lima is constantly evolving. There are police everywhere, directing traffic, securing buildings, telling you off for not obeying the dancing green man at pedestrian crossings. A few years ago it wasn’t safe to walk the streets. Now, provided you keep your wits about you, a traveller can navigate the blocks around central Lima without too much trouble.

Once I got over my fear and began to explore I realised how steeped in history the city really is. All along the crowded, narrow streets, people duck in and out of half-sized doors to go about their twenty-first century business, but to the outside world, facades are being regenerated, revealing their post-colonial heritage. As the city gets cleaned up it also gets a makeover. Museos dedicated to art and Lima’s heritage are popping up on every other street corner and every time there is an earthquake another piece of Lima’s past is uncovered.

History, religion and politics are everywhere. The Monasterio de San Francisco for example gives you a taste of the city’s Spanish roots and Moorish flavour, which over time has been watered down and sanitised, only to be rediscovered and resurrected in modern times. Inside this and other historic buildings the Peruvians have uncovered layers of murals covered over with mosaics, and later covered up with plaster, but no one knows why. Teams of experts are working to not only restore the original murals, but to piece together their history, including why particular figures weren’t just covered over, but scratched out, erased from history.

Beneath the Monasterio visitors can tour the catacombs. Once housing only the bones of those belonging to the order of Franciscans, later they were reserved for select key figures; later for the order’s benefactors. Many of the remains have been repositioned and shifted, decorated and preserved, upturned by earthquakes and excavated by experts, now piles of bones and skulls, some scattered, some neatly arranged. Earthquakes and the restoration process continue to uncover Peru’s hidden history.

As creepy as I found all this, the Museo de la Inquisicion was more so. Sadly the Lonely Planet’s promised ‘multilingual guide’ only spoke Spanish, but the wax-work depictions of the inquisitors at work told me pretty much everything I needed to know about torture and how to perform it. It was as if everything in the seventeenth century was about excess. Artworks, devotion, torture. Nothing was done by halves.

As well as getting my history and archaeology fix, I got to see real life nuns not just in the wild, but in
action! Priests, too, taking confession (they have open confessionals here), and blessing people from across the other side of the room. Not being religious myself, I find religion fascinating. It’s like this whole other world that defies logic, rationality, and yet that’s the whole point.

At the Santuario de Santa Rosa de Lima I even got to read about the extreme and bizarre lengths Santa Rosa went to in her devotion, including keeping her chastity safely chained up (she threw the key down a 15 foot well), telling her mother to piss off and leave her to worship thank you very much, and then tying herself up by her hair to keep herself awake for all but two hours of every night (apparently sleep took away from her time spent in prayer).

None of this should be surprising in a city where most of the population is declared Catholic and churches abound. Even seismic activity (or rather, where something is spared from seismic activity) is attributed to the hand of God, and dotted all over the place are monuments to places where one pillar has remained standing where others have fallen.

Lastly (or firstly) I took in some of Lima’s artistic culture, at the Museo Del Banco Central de Reserva Del Peru, which housed artefacts from different ages and different origins from all around Peru. Despite their differences, Peruvian art all shares a certain roundness, or squatness, the closest to which I’ve seen was at the Minoan ruins in Crete.

And now I’m kicking back for the last few hours before I join up with my tour. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to write and post in the coming weeks, but be assured there will be adventures aplenty.

Until then, Buenos Dias, Amigos.

--AG

Pretty in Peru

Adventure Girl sets off solo

Today I head to Peru, first stop: Lima. This is where it gets hard. I’m on my own for the first few days before I join my tour. I don’t know the language and I can’t always rely on finding someone who speaks English or who can navigate my clumsy charades. My Latin American phrase book has been better than nothing, but not much.

It’s odd. I’m not worried about keeping my own company for these few days. I’m more worried about how I will feel when I’m bunked in with a bunch of strangers. Over the last few days it’s been great to have a companion, someone to find my feet with, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have done half those things if I’d been on my own, but I did crave time out.

In a social situation I can’t properly relax. I can feel my energy being sapped just from having to stay alert, remaining aware of the other person, or people. I can’t get lost in my own thoughts.

For the months, weeks, days, leading up to this trip, I’ve been running from being alone, filling the gaps with social networking and online communications, telephone calls and socialising, all the while craving stillness, quiet, calm. But whenever calm came, instead of relief, panic set in, and I rushed to fill up the gaps, as though I feared the same void I’d just craved.

Part of the excitement of this trip is the opportunity to rediscover the calm, the quiet, the feeling of being so lost inside myself that I never want to come out. It’s in this space that I recuperate, that the depression finally lifts, rather than being temporarily diverted. Because that’s what the constant interaction has been – a distraction, a diversion, never a cure. And if I can find space again, perhaps I will rekindle my creativity, and in the quiet, bring my inner worlds back to life.

The hardest part of being on my own isn’t being alone; it’s worrying about safety. People keep saying ‘be careful in Lima, be careful in Peru,’ but they never tell you how. I have to somehow be prepared to be a victim of opportunistic crime, but not expect it; (‘that’s asking for trouble’). I’ve got some contingencies for keeping my belongings safe, and according to the Lonely Planet, the best way to keep safe in Lima is to take a taxi door to door, whereas in Boganburbia it was keeping my phone by my side. I ummed and ahhed about activating Global Roaming on my iPhone. In the end I opted against. I didn’t trust myself not to maintain my reliance on social network interactions. I knew I needed to force myself to go cold turkey, even though it means I’m also disconnected in an emergency.

Strangely enough I haven’t missed it. I’ve missed the convenience, but not the weight of feeling as though I need to be constantly plugged in. I even felt a sense of disappointed obligation tracking down Wi-Fi, just because I knew I had to let people know I was okay. Sure enough, after my first bout of correspondence and an appearance on Facebook, I began to feel the itch, the discomfort when my access was cut off again, and craved hopping back online. That’s when I knew I’d made the right choice limiting myself.

I’ve only regretted my choice once, and that was this morning at the airport. It was my first real moment alone, and having queued for almost two hours to check-in, I had an hour or so to kill before boarding. Clutching a handful of pesos, I sought out a payphone, but couldn’t get through. I panicked, feeling like I had to find Wi-Fi, I had to get online, had to connect. All I really wanted was to hear your voice.

Now I’m on a plane, listening to my iPod, reading a novel when I’m not writing this post, and marking out the places I want to visit in my Lonely Planet guide. This is my chance to make the trip mine.

Skipping the pages on shopping and night-spots, I’ve marked out the Monasterio de San Francisco, famous for its creepy corpse-filled catacombs and the Museo de la Inquisicion, where according to the Lonely Planet, ‘visitors can explore the basement where prisoners were tortured’ plus a no-doubt tacky ‘waxwork exhibit of life-size unfortunates on the rack or having their feet roasted.’ If I get time I also want to check out the Museo Larco which has an impressive pile of pots (growing up with a potter has left its mark) showing pre-Columbian erotica, and spot some Peruvian pyramids. My kind of stuff.

I also know it’s only a snatch of my kind of time before I meet up with a bunch of strangers to begin a whole new set of adventures.

-AG

A Chilean Adventure

Adventure Girl sets her sights on Santiago

I am sorry to be leaving Santiago after only a few days. The Chilean people are playful and irreverent. They seem proud of their city and want you to like it, too. Wherever you go, someone takes you under their wing, whether it’s to make a cup of tea (when you attempt to ask for bottled water), teach you a Chilean phrase (when you inadvertently tell them they’re fat and you’re pregnant), or let you into a private party uninvited (in our case, after we attempted some sight-seeing and found ourselves trespassing).

Narrowing down our choice of adventures has proved another challenge. My travel companion and I aren’t quite on the same page when it comes to priorities for activities and sight-seeing (my love of serenity conflicts with her love of bustle), but the net result is that I probably pushed her to do things she wouldn’t normally (like trekking up the side of a mountain, rather than taking the funicular at Cerro San Cristobal), while she has taken me to trendy nightspots and pushed for us to get let in uninvited where I’d ordinarily shrink away, defeated.

So far we’ve come to some pretty spectacular compromises. Like every self-respecting Australian tourist, we headed everywhere wearing our boots and backpacks, phrasebook and Lonely Planet in hand, and still managed to successfully gatecrash a promotional party at a converted convent, fire not-quite paintball rifles at an almost-gun club meet, and score free drinks while dragging a group of Chileans into a debate about where we ought to go next.

‘Valparaiso! You must go to Valparaiso!’

‘No, no, see Vina del mar.’

‘He only says that because he comes from there…’

Later we dined in the QV of Santiago and saw Chile’s answer to Mr Bungle-meets-Interpol at a student-ish nightspot. (Tip: when in Chile if you look like a lost tourist, stare blankly at people and smile, they will let you in places no matter what you wear).

The next day we climbed the mother of all creepy Jesus hills to see the Virgin at Cerro San Cristobal, before hopping across the less savoury part of town to the Cemeterio General, only to discover Chileans know how to do death in style. There’s nothing gaudy about these enormous art-deco inspired crypts. Most are labelled with simple inscriptions and subtly overgrown greenery, and with one exception (which I managed to track down and photograph), the cemetery is not at all creepy, but warm and serene, so that you forget about the proximity to so many bodies, except as people who were loved and remembered and who you’d quite like to spend an afternoon visiting (though I’m not sure I’m sold on the Coke vending machines and ice-cream vans parked inside).

Still, that saw us through a few jet-lagged days followed by late-night dinners with crisp Chilean vino and local musica before we parted ways early this morning. 

I never made it to Valparaiso or Vina Del Mar; I didn’t want to risk getting stuck too far from the airport, considering I was flying out at 9.30am, and Latin Americans seem to go on strike fairly regularly, closing their doors and leaving you stranded. Besides, there’s plenty to do and see in Santiago…on this trip anyway.

-AG

The New Adventures of old Adventure Girl

So this is it.

Looks like I am actually going. Like really, actually going. After all the angst and doubt and doubt and angst. F**k it, I'm going.

Better than that, I'm going with barely a few days to plan, to pack, to panic....

No. No time to panic. This is the best way. I'm going to f**cking do it!!!

Galapagos, Lima, Incas, Amazon, Iguaza, the works. Well, almost the works. Minus some stuff, but you can't do EVERYTHING. Not in one go, anyway. You want to leave something to go back for. Leave yourself wanting more....

I have so much to do in just a few days, it seems crazy. Am I insane? Or just adventurous. Either way, this will be a crazy adventure. And I need this. I may never get another opportunity.

Stay tuned for adventures galore...

...as long as I don't get raped, mugged, murdered, or just lose my Internet connection again...

-AG

Someone else's slippers

Adventure Girl learns a lesson in friendship

‘Does this mean I’m dumped?’

In relationships, there are commonly accepted ‘rules’. There are statuses like ‘single’, ‘in a relationship’ or ‘f-buddies’. You form a ‘relationship’, you break up, and sometimes you make up. You have ‘the talk’, assign the appropriate label from the drop-down menu, and alert the rest of your social network via Facebook. All of this is clearly defined. We even have laws and ceremonies dedicated to officially sealing two people together.

Friendships aren’t so clear cut. The boundaries from ‘acquaintance’ to ‘colleague’ to ‘friend’ to ‘BFF’ are more subtle. They are also more fluid.

Friends can step into your life suddenly and intensely, or they can shift gradually into focus and back out again. A friendship can become strained, or a shared experience lost, causing distance to stretch between you.

Where a friendship does come apart, there is rarely a single event you can point to as the end. You don’t ‘break up’ with a friend; you just stop calling, but this can mean you both drift away, assuming a slight on the part of the other, when they are thinking the same as you. Leave it too long and the silence stretches into awkwardness and you may never know if they felt wronged or just got busy.

And if your friends are friends with each other (you may recall my post on mixing friends from a few months ago), there’s a whole extra layer of grey to worry about. There are issues of confidences, sensitivities when discussing one friend with another, entire areas of taboo which can place a strain on that friendship, too.

Post-rift, it gets more complicated. Social gatherings can become awkward when there is an issue left unresolved, especially when there is no rigid boundary or expectation that you will take sides, as you sometimes divvy up friends when a relationship dies.

With so much murkiness, it can be difficult to know what is reasonable to expect from the other person, and what they can reasonably expect from you.

There are rules, but we don’t speak of them. There are expectations, but we don’t acknowledge them, except as we navigate their fragile borders… oops, she got pissed off, I won’t do that again. And sometimes by then it's already too late.

Forgiveness is important, but for me it’s one of those paradoxes. The more you care, the more you are prepared to let things slide, but something can hurt more because you care so much. And then you get the flip side, where you let things go because you don’t care enough, or you forgive less because it's not worth the effort when you can simply walk away.

In the absence of defined rules, it can be more difficult to acknowledge jealousies and rivalries, slights and injuries. You suck it up and you move on, together or apart. You withdraw, or you extend, but it is all unspoken, at least between the two of you.

Most of the time when a friendship does end, it’s like an old jumper pulled out of shape, or worse, a borrowed jumper, stretched until it fits neither of you. You accept your time has come and gone, the season has past, you slip it into an unused drawer.

And when that happens I mourn its loss. Others come along and fill their place, but it’s never quite the same shape, like wearing someone else’s slippers. A lesson learned too late, or sometimes not learned at all.

-AG

So you think you can cross-dress? A straight guy’s guide to getting into her panties

Will she love it, will she freak, or will she just hate that you have better legs?

As a straight guy, the idea of cross-dressing has always interested me. There’s something very tempting about the thought of sliding into some soft silky girly undies. In fact the thought of that flimsy material straining against my package and fishnets hugging my calves and thighs makes me positively shudder with delight and go weak at the knees…

(Ok, ok, putting my brain back online).

We now all know that I like it, maybe you like it too, but will she like it?

Perhaps if she’s a little dominant, the thought of you emasculated like that will be a turn on (maybe that’s why you like it). Maybe she’s vanilla and will freak out, running away, sobbing and screaming. Or maybe, just maybe, she’ll be jealous because you look much sexier in a garter belt than she does.

Putting all of those ifs aside, let’s assume you’re prepared to take the risk and give it a try, hoping against hope that she isn’t as vanilla as she seems (after all you can have vanilla all your life; why not sample some of the other flavours before you die?)

First you need to work out what to wear (decisions, decisions… I’m sure that cellulite wasn’t there this morning…) Do you secretly borrow some of her stuff and surprise her? (If so, avoid the expensive designer ones as you will most likely stretch them beyond repair.) Do you go to a lingerie shop in your local shopping centre and enjoy the speculative glances from the sales assistant when you ask for something for your girlfriend who’s about your size, and oh incidentally does this colour go with my eyes…? Or do you head to a sex shop, where (assuming you choose the right one) you will get lots of help, be able to try most things on, and find a range of absolutely delish corsets – uh, I mean, find some really great stuff.

Actually, let’s take a step back. Before you get to what to wear (the fun part) you might like to sound your partner out. The last thing you want is for the poor girl to walk in on you unexpectedly wearing her undies and makeup.* If it was me, I would talk to her on a quiet evening at home, perhaps after a glass or two of red to relax (her, not you – you need all your wits about you), share your fantasies, and find out what turns her on. I’d gently open with how hot you think her undies are and how you’ve always been curious about what they would look/feel like on. If she’s not vanilla she may suggest you try some on as a joke. This is the crucial point. If you agree and she doesn’t freak, you know it’s ok to start suggesting where to get stuff; if she does freak, you can always pass it off as a joke (preserving your poor bruised ego).

Say you do end up trying things on. Be honest and tell her how it makes you feel (sexy is a good adjective here). If she’s understanding, the fact that you so obviously enjoy it should make her much more open to the idea.

And it that goes well, you could even go shopping together.** And if it doesn’t… well, you live and you learn.

Above all, have fun exploring.

--Tiger

*Under no circumstances should you start giving her tips. Even the most reasonable and understanding girlfriend may lose her shit at that point.
**Make sure you both get something sexy; it’s no fun if she doesn’t get spoilt a little as well, and who knows, you might get matching colours.

Recipe for disaster... Part 1 – My Best Friend’s wedding

So your eternally single Cold Date* has finally got himself hitched. You’re over-the-moon happy for him (and her), even if it means you rarely get to see him because he still hasn’t crawled out from under the new-love covers for air.

The problem is you met him through your ex.

It was all a long time ago and so far you’ve managed to skirt around all those awkward ex-encounters such as birthdays and bar mitzvahs, but then comes The Wedding.

Obviously, this is a biggy. The groom was in your bridal party as a mutual friend, but in the post-break-up friendship war, you won. This makes you the equivalent of his Best Man.**

This could be a recipe for disaster… or a whole lotta fun. I’m going to try for the latter. Here goes.

Ingredients

You (alone)

Your ex (also alone)

A room full of people you barely know

A room full of people your ex barely knows (most likely the same few people)

Free alcohol (essential)

A dance floor (people willing to dance are preferred, but not essential – see Method)

Method 

1. Drink
2. Find people to socialise with. Typical openers include, ‘How do you know the bride / groom’, but you can also ask what people do, for pleasure, for pain, or for best effect, both***
3. Drink some more (very important)
4. Find some dance buddies
5. If there are no dance buddies to be found, apply steps 1 and 3 to your potential partner(s) until they agree to dance (this has the added advantage of making you look like a really good dancer compared with them)
6. When all else fails, play the Adventure Challenge Game (see below)

How to Play

Set challenges to earn points. Points can be lost as well as won. The object is to make it home with a positive score.

• (+ 5 points) If you look waaaaaay hotter than your ex
• (– 10 points) If he looks waaaaaay hotter than you
• (+ 2 points) For every compliment received from people who knew you ‘before’ on how great / young / slim you look
• (+ 10 points) If the same people complimenting you say to your ex, 'Oh, yes, you look um, good too....’
• (– 20 points) If this scenario happens in reverse
• (+ 5 points) If you speak to your ex before he speaks to you
• (+ 2 points) For every member of the groom’s family who offers to help you overcome this hurdle
• (– 5 points) If you let them
• (+ 3 points) If you discover your life is waaaaaay better than his
• (– 10 points) If you discover his life is waaaaaay better than yours
• (+ 5 points) If you realise your ex is ridiculously boring and wonder why you ever dated him, let alone married him
• (– 8 points) If he thinks the same about you
• (+ 25 points) For every person who confesses to you that they got ‘stuck’ talking to your ex until you came along
• (– 25 points) If they say the same to him about you
• (+ 2 points) If you can get the Mother of the Bride to dance
• (+ 8 points) If you can get the Father of the Groom to dance
• (+10 bonus points) If they are the kind of dad who wears his serious face for all occasions
• (– 2 points) If he is secretly a giant teddy bear
• (+ 2 points) If you manage to drop into conversation how young / hot / talented your current lover is
• (– 10 points) If you do it badly (e.g. Him: ‘So how have you been?’ You: ‘OMG you should SEE my new lover, he/she is AMAZING… SOOOO much better than YOU…’)
• (– 2 points) If his current lover is also young / hot / talented
• (+ 10 points) If he mentions this repeatedly in a way that lets you know he/she is really old / overweight / ugly / stupid
• (+ 10 points) If she IS old / overweight / ugly / stupid
• (+10 points) If she is pregnant
• (– 10 points) If she is pregnant and you want to be
• (+ 25 points) For every family member of hers currently living with them
• (+ 5 bonus points) If it is her mother
• (+ 12 points) For each boundary set when your ex gets protective / judgemental / annoying / flirtatious (e.g. Him: 'Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a water?' You: 'I'll have another vodka, thanks. Make it a double', or Him: ‘So… are you staying nearby?’ You: ‘Yes, with my new lover, Cassandra’)
• (– 20 points) Regretting the consequences of the boundaries you chose to set (e.g. when you have to be escorted to your hotel room by the groom’s family, or when you wake up beside some stranger named Cassandra who you think may have been at the local, but you’re not really sure)
• (+ 50 points) If Cassandra is hot
• (– 100 points) If Cassandra has no teeth
• (– 25 points) If you wake up naked in  your bed (alone) with your $400 Ted Baker dress crumpled on the floor, your make-up halfway down your face, and all of your jewellery still on, including your glasses
• (– 150 points) If you wake up naked in your bed (with toothless Cassandra) in the same scenario.

Result

If nothing else, by playing the game you get a night of free booze, a chance to catch up with some old friends, to perve on a Ghost of Boyfriends Past, and more importantly, see one of your oldest and bestest friends get happily hitched in a way you never could.

Happy gaming :)

-AG

*Similar to ‘Bromance’ but for a guy and a girl
**She-Broman (?)
***Tip: if you get stuck with people who are particularly boring, you can always try the ‘Dom/Sub’ guessing game, or make up lives for them. That way, when you smile and nod you don’t have to feign amusement / interest.

Tiger Tale Regales... on being THAT guy

A short response to being THAT girl from Tiger Tale

Let me preface by saying I’m a geek and a nerd. I take pride in my geekiness and childlike delight in old cartoons and dressing up like a fool. Let’s be honest, I can and do work out. I can dance, I’m socially adept, but I still never quite feel like I have reached the pinnacle that others seem to effortlessly attain.

I like to call myself an extroverted introvert. For those that don’t know what I mean, it’s someone who will occasionally be the life of the party, regaling others with anecdotes and soaking up the adoration, but then you won’t see them for months, or if you do manage to drag them to some social engagement, they end up being the moody one in the corner because their social batteries haven’t yet recharged.

I understand the urge or the drive to be THAT person, the one who’s sought after, the one the girls want and the boys want to be, but I don’t want it all the time. I recently attended a very good friend’s engagement party. I was a member of the 'bridal party', so to speak, and was dressed as such. The theme was Burlesque Casinos and I was resplendent in my pin stripes and cufflinks with matching braces and Panama hat. It was a blast. I danced through the room lavishly spending thousands (we had lots of play money provided) on roulette and standing at the end of the table surrounded by stunningly dressed young women with a mountain of chips in front of me. It was like a scene from a movie.

It was fun. For that one night I was the guy in the spotlight. I had the nice suit, the pretty ladies on my arm, and the wad of cash to support it all. But the next morning I got up after a night spent alone and put on my 8 bit gamer T-shirt to become that nerdy guy again, so I guess yes, it was a nice break from reality, but eventually I had to come back to earth and just be me again.

Yours,
Tiger Tale