the mysterious "belgian" woman

i have gotten permission from the bolshevik to publish my version of this story first, even though he had "called it."  hopefully he will write his soon so that we can all compare ...

back when we were in lima: 
one night we were rather tired after a long day of sightseeing and eating peruvian deliciousness, so we wound up coming back to our hostal on the early side.  to get to our room we had to go all the way to the roof garden, and then take another set of stairs to the top floor.  at the roof garden level there was a woman smoking cigarettes sort of in the shadows.  she greeted us in spanish, and then we went on our way.

for some reason the bolshevik needed to go back down to get something, and when he returned he said that the woman had invited him (and by default, me) to a reggae show because she was traveling by herself and didn't want to go out alone at night.
obviously the first thing i thought was
1.  what a wuss
then 2.  why is this woman mackin' on my man?

but the bolshevik assured me that he made it quite clear that he had a girlfriend, that girlfriend being me.  it is important to note that one of the reasons the bolshevik was eager to go to the show, was that he had learned that this woman was from cusco, and since we would be in cusco the following week, it would be advantageous for us to talk to her (this ties back in later)  so after some prodding and some gussying up, i agreed to go to the show.

but when we returned to the roofgarden the woman was nowhere to be found.  of course, i used this opportunity to taunt the bolshevik mercilessly.  it went something like this.

me:  so where is your mysterious belgian woman?  huh?  huh?

bolshevik: she's from sweden.  and she's not mysterious.  you saw her twenty minutes ago.

me:  yeah right, like she really exists.

we waited around awhile, wondering if the mysterious "belgian" woman would return.  then we decided to go to the lobby to buy a bottle of water, and lo and behold the mysterious "belgian" woman was chatting up the guy at the front desk.

so then off the three of us went like peas in a pod.  now, i quickly decided that i did not care for this belgian woman.  she had that kind of flowy hippie dippie free spirit child-of-the-earth thing going for her that i do not relate to, nor do i particularly care for.

as we walked through the plaza the bolshevik asked her what she does in cusco.  "oh i owned a shop," she said.  "but i left that behind."  hmmm, red flag number one.

when we got to the bar, we found out that there was no reggae show.  in fact, we were the only three people there.  so we decided to get drinks and sit out on the balcony.  no big deal.  i figured we could excuse ourselves after a round or two and then be done with this woman.

the bolshevik had some trouble communicating with the bartender so then the "belgian" woman and i were left on our own.  not knowing what to say, i asked her about her shop.
"oh i make jewelry," she said, "and clothes and other things."
she pulled out some silver jewelry she had made, which was nice, and showed me some other trinkets that she crafts.
"i sold these in my shop.  well, now it is my husband's shop.  i mean, my ex-husband."
"you won't be working in the shop when you go back?" i asked.
"i'm not going back to cusco," she said.  "i left it all behind."  and she made some sort of airy motion with her hand like this was a very breezy decision.  red flag number two.

the bolshevik returned while she was giving me a business card for the shop that is now run by her seemingly very recent ex-husband.  of course, he didn't hear the part about the leaving it all behind.

while talking, she wrote down several places for us to check our while we are in cusco.  each time accentuating her advice with comments about how much she dislikes lima, and how dirty lima is, and how lima is so boring, and lima is dangerous, etc.  hmmm, odd ... then why did she come here?

the bolshevik eventually asked her when she was going back to cusco, and she reiterated that she is not going back.  in fact, she has no idea where she will go after lima.  red flag 2.5?

around this time, i began to notice that the mysterious "belgian" woman had a tendency of laughing after every few sentences.  whether or not this was a nervous tick,  a linguistic/cultural difference, or more likely a symptom of mental instability. i was not sure.  red flag number 3.

as we walked back to our hotel the mysterious "belgian" woman asked if we smoked pot.  now, i won't lie to you blog readers, back in the day i used to partake quite a bit.  but NO MORE!  luckily the bolshevik was quick enough to say something about not liking to do illegal things in foreign countries.  good save, bolshevik!

- let me interrupt the story for a moment to tell you that right outside of lima is a tall mountain with little houses all along the side.  from the look of it, i would assume the houses are rather meager and the people who live in them rather poor.  back to the story -

the mysterious "belgian" woman began to tell us that lima is so dangerous and such a terrible city and it isn't safe to go anywhere.  she explained that she and some friends had gone up the mountain to the little shacks in order to buy marijuana, and then after they purchased some marijuana they were stopped by a scary man with a gun who was shouting about them being "on his turf."  but after giving him some of their newly purchased pot, he let them go.  thus concluded her story of how dangerous lima is.  red flag number 4.

i don't want to sound prudish, as i do believe that marijuana should be legalized, but i think it is unfair to say that a place is dangerous, if you knowingly and purposefully go looking to buy drugs (typically sold by drug dealers) and are then upset that the criminal activity you are partaking in is happening in a "bad neighborhood." aren't you guilty of making the neighborhood bad?  would it have been a bad neighborhood had you not been consorting with drug dealers? i'm just saying.

anyway, eventually we made it back to our room. alone.  not knowing what the bolshevik was thinking about this whole encounter, i tried to keep it light.

"she was odd, no?"  i said.
"odd?" the bolshevik replied, "she was totally crazy."

phew.

so i then told the bolshevik the story of how this woman had confided in me that she had left her husband and her store and her whole life behind.  now let me tell you, the bolshevik usually does not enjoy gossip, much to my dismay.  usually, when i have a good piece of gossip, he isn't the least bit interested.  but he was really into this.  suddenly we were discussing potential reasons for her sudden departure, wondering who in the relationship was to blame.  then, we realized that when we get to cusco we can actually go to this shop and meet this guy!  obviously, we will not mention the mysterious belgian woman, but we can sniff around for clues.  maybe we can even ask some leading questions like "who made all these trinkets?"   i am curious to see if he is visably distraught, or if there are any signs that he may have be abusive.  the bolshevik thinks he is a wife beater.  not a tank top, but a violent spouse.  i personally think she is to blame, being a flighty flake type person.  only time will tell.

. . . to be continued in cusco

the blogging competition OR couples who blog together stay together

if you examine my list of links, you will see that my beloved bolshevik has started his own travel blog.  actually, he started it over a year ago and just never wrote anything in it or published it.  but that is neither here nor there.  the point is, now the bolshevik and i are in a bit of a blogging competition.  when we witness something interesting or something of note, one of us needs to "call it," much like you would call "shotgun" or "not it."  i have tried adding punching into the act of "calling it," but i think we will keep the punching to when we play Man on a Horse with a Sword.

anyway, the other night we had an interaction with someone who i will refer to as The Mysterious Belgian Woman.  now, i tried to "call it" as my story, but the bolshevik said that since it was he that initiated the contact with this woman, then he gets first dibs on the story writing.  fine.  so now i am waiting on the bolshevik to write his version so that i may write and publish my version.  just to make it more interesting, there will be a part 2 to The Story of the Mysterious Belgian Woman once we arrive in cusco next week.  oooooh, stay tuned!

barranco: all easy listening soft jazz covers of the 80s, all the time

let me tell you something, dear blog readers.  lima is a 3 day city, 4 days max.  we've kinda run out of stuff to do.  but that hasn't stopped us from having a fine time.  yesterday we ventured out to the suburb of barranco, which is a very pretty little town built into the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean.  pretty nice, right?

after walking around for several hours the bolshevik and i went to this little restaurant with patio seating and a fantastic view.  they also had happy hour.  turns out that translates in spanish.  as soon as we sat down i noticed that an odd, sort of bossa nova style version of Madonna's Like a Virgin was playing.  well that suited me just fine.  i heart the 80s.  then when i received my cuba libre, which turns out is just a fancy name for rum & coke, i noticed i had an 80s themed stirrer, complete with portrait of the rock band Queen!  (the bolshevik's stirrer just had the name of the restaurant.  lame!)

as the night went on, we heard covers of The Cure, A-Ha, Tears for Fears, Pet Shop Boys, etc.  at first we thought it was some sort of novelty group doing these cover songs, but then we heard a commercial in between songs and realized it was actually a radio station.  now let me interject right here to tell you that these covers were not actually good.  oh no.  they were not fun interesting takes on already well-known, well-crafted pop-songs.  they were slow, emotionless versions of already inoffensive songs.  it was as though someone thought "oh i like Sade's Smooth Operator but how can i make it a little less provocative and less in-your-face?"  and apparently there is an entire radio station in peru devoted to this.  thank you, peru.

but my favorite part of the evening was when a young girl walked up to our table selling candy. she was in what i thought was a sort of girl scout uniform, but later the bolshevik explained it was a catholic school uniform. anyway, thinking that she was some sort of peruvian girl scout, i bought some candy from her. then she was suddenly quite taken with our drink stirrers. (our drinks were empty at this point so don't worry, we were not contributing to the inebriation of minors) and of course the girl didn't speak any english, so the interaction went something like this (i will translate for you)

girl: what are those?

me: they are for drinks. they are for, how do you say "mixing?" (then i mimed mixing with the stirrers)

girl: [blah blah blah unintelligible spanish]

me: i'm sorry, i don't understand

girl: [blah blah blah more unintelligible spanish]

me: i don't speak much spanish

and then dear blog readers, that cute little peruvian girl scout girl grabbed my freddy mercury drink stirrer and walked off with it! i would have protested, but she really was cute. and she seemed so taken with the drink stirrers. she was beating them together like drumsticks as she walked away ... possibly to the tune of a lounge lizard version of Tainted Love.

the power of ten (and puppy row)

i have a deep dark secret, dear blog readers.  and that secret is that i hate the metric system.  that's right!  i lived in England for 6 months and i refused to learn any part of it.  i pride myself on this.  in fact, one day i was bragging to the bolshevik about how instead of learning what my weight was in kilos, i asked my mother to bring over a scale in pounds.  that's right, i made my mother travel across the pond carrying a non-metric scale.  and i will never forgot my amusement when one of my british flatmates weighed himself and was utterly confused when he found out he weighed 145. he didn't even know what that meant because he was brainwashed by the metric system.

needless to say, the bolshevik thinks i'm a bit stubborn and possibly crazy.  but those are just some of my more lovable quirks!

why am i telling you this?  yesterday when we were exploring the city we found ourselves in an area that most likely isn't for tourists.  first, there was an area dedicated solely (no pun intended) to shoes.  not selling shoes, but stall after stall of various shoe repair shops.  there were even sneaker workers, shining up sneakers.

then, and this was my favorite, there was the area that we now refer to as "puppy row."   it was an entire block of people standing on the street selling puppie.  the gentleman above was even "double fisting" it, with a puppy in each hand.  one man even had a sack of puppies.  like santa!  if you look closely at the picture you can see a man in the foreground holding a puppy, with a box o' puppies at his feet, then there's a man to the left holding two puppies, and a woman on the right towards the back also holding a puppy for sale.

and finally, getting to the point, further on in this commercial wonderland there was a woman who had a digital bathroom scale, and for a small fee you could stand on it and find out your weight.  the bolshevik felt that i was the perfect candidate for such a service, since i like to weigh myself daily.  but i scoffed at the idea, explaining that her scale was probably in kilos.  unacceptable!  so now, yet another money making scheme is for me to import my own digital scale in pounds and slowly convert south america to the preferred anti-metric system.

lima: city of thieves

everywhere we go people tell us to watch out for scam artists, thieves, pickpockets, rapists, banditos, and machete wielding gangsters.  and wouldn't you know it, lima is no different.  this morning at breakfast while i was working on my novel, i looked over to see a robbery in progress.  this turtle had nearly succeeded in stealing my hello kitty wallet right out of my bag!  ay dios mio!  mira las tortugas!

man on a horse with a sword

the bolshevik and i have created this game ... it is similar to punch buggy.  whenever you see a statue of a man on a horse with a sword, you have to shout out "man on a horse with a sword!" and then punch the other person.  it's a bit wordy to say, but it's more fun than you'd think. and trust me, these statues are plentiful.  sometimes, if i say it without thinking it comes out as "man on a sword with a horse," which would be rather painful.

a regular parade

when i was a kid, i spent a lot of time with my grandparents at their house out in hampton bays.  one summer day we were driving through town and we happened upon a parade.  there were baton twirlers and marching bands and guys from the local elks club, etc.  as we watched the parade go by we started to wonder what the reason for the parade was.  it wasn't memorial day or 4th of july or any of the other typical parade-inducing holidays.  then when my grandfather asked a passing policeman "what is this parade for?"  the policeman said, "oh you know, it's just a regular parade."  then the rest of the day we pondered what a "regular parade" was.

you may find it hard to believe, but every time we go to a south american country, the bolshevik and i are welcomed with a parade.  true story.  for instance, when we went to buenos aires last fall we were awoken the first morning by singing in the streets.  when we looked out our window we saw thousands of people parading down the main avenue, throwing flowers on the ground as they passed.   later we found out it was actually a funeral procession for a beloved folk singer who had recently passed away,  but why get caught up in the details?

anyway, today was our first day in lima and we had breakfast on this cute little garden cafe on the roof of our hotel.  we could hear marching bands parading down below.  when we walked to the main plaza we saw all these different groups of dancers and musicians in various costumes.  obviously, they knew we were coming.  south america hearts us.