by Kim Dinan
With clean teeth and bags of snacks everyone boarded the bus once again. Brian reached into the plastic bag he’d placed on the floor between his ankles and pulled out a plastic soda bottle, its contents the ungodly yellow-green color of antifreeze.
“What is that?”
“It’s called Inca Kola.” He turned the label toward me. “Everyone bought it so it must be good!” He screwed off the lid, sniffed, and took a sip. “Oh, God.” He pushed the bottle my way. “Try it.”
“I don’t know…”
“Try it. Tell me what you think.”
I put the bottle to my lips, took a small swig and choked on the sweetness. “Bubble gum.” I handed it back to him and drank water from my Nalgene to wash away the taste. “Wow, that’s…intense.”
As I scanned the bus I noticed half of everyone on board drank Inca Kola. A man four rows ahead of me tipped his bottle skyward and drained it. Then he lowered his window and chucked the empty bottle out. An audible gasp escaped my lips. My flute-playing neighbor turned to me and smiled. “¿Todo bien?” he asked.
In the front of the bus, others were finishing their drinks and snacks, balling the packaging up, and throwing it all out the windows. A moan escaped my lips. Brian glanced at me. “It’s not our culture.”
“I know, but… Oh, God.” A woman released the entire contents of a plastic shopping bag and it bounced onto the side of the highway. I buried my forehead into my arm, shielding my eyes. “I can’t watch.” Then I glanced at my bus neighbor to see what he thought of the littering. He stared out the window with a blank face and did not react at all as another bag of garbage went soaring.
The sun set, and our bus shot down curvy mountain roads in the darkness. Our driver did not enjoy braking, and I gripped Brian’s hand as our bus careened around hairpin turns at full speed. The moon, nearly full, illuminated the drop-off just inches beyond the edge of the road. Certainly we would die. Brian put in his headphones and tried to ignore it. Our flute-playing friend, unconcerned with our mortality, slept on my shoulder.
Eventually I must have fallen asleep too because my eyes opened again as we pulled into Puno, miraculously still alive. I stood and stretched my legs, waiting impatiently as the passengers at the front of the bus slowly unloaded. Next to me, Brian looked out of place holding his plastic bag of garbage. Our neighbor looked toward us and said good-bye, then dug around in his knapsack and handed Brian a copy of his CD.
“Gracias,” said Brian, pulling some soles from his back pocket and offering them to the man.
“No!” he proclaimed. “To you, from me!” He gave the smallest of bows and a wide smile stretched across his face to reveal his tiny white teeth.
Brian began to protest, but I put my hand on his arm to stop him. We needed to accept the flute player’s gift the way I hoped others would accept our yellow envelope gifts, without posturing, with an open heart. “Gracias,” I said.
Brian shoved the money back into his pocket and smiled. “Gracias, amigo.”
We stepped from the bus into the unknown streets of Puno.
Chapter 6
Puno, Peru, was a honking, polluted city packed into a cramped valley. The rebar of half-constructed buildings reached like bony fingers toward the hazy sky, and houses the color of mud sat pancaked between the mountains and Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world.
Through our hostel we booked a tour that included an overnight homestay on Amantani Island, one of the remote islands that dotted the famous lake. We were picked up by a young woman wearing kitten heels and cherry-red lipstick and driven to a boat dock. It was a clear morning and cool. The boats knocked together in the harbor. “Wait here,” she said.
She stepped off the dock and into a boat tethered to land with a frayed rope. She disappeared inside the cabin, then emerged a few minutes later and stepped onto the next boat, repeating the process. She climbed from boat to boat like they were slats on a suspension bridge.
“Do you think she’s looking for a place for us on one of the boats?” I asked Brian. “I thought we booked a real tour.”
Brian shrugged his shoulders. “What I want to know is, how is she doing that in heels?”
Finally, the woman waved her arms from the deck of a rickety old houseboat. We scrambled over the other boats to reach it and climbed aboard. Inside, a group of fifteen tourists were sitting in awkward silence. Brian and I squished between them.
A man that looked like a fox, all squinty eyed with a pinched nose and chin, boarded the boat and introduced himself as our guide. He told us that we could call him Herman. He wore a faded leather jacket and one hell of a scowl.
“There are life jackets under your seats,” he said. “And you may sit on top of the boat, but, please, no more than ten at a time.” Then Herman’s short lecture ended and we pulled out of the harbor toward the great blue horizon.
From atop the boat I watched tall torta reeds blow in unison with the wind like hairs on the head of an underwater creature. As we puttered away from Puno, I looked back at the dry brown mountains rising up from behind the city. Away from the chaos of the littered streets, Puno looked picturesque. It was a beauty that took space to see.
We endured a choppy, four-hour ride to Amantani Island. Brian and I sunned ourselves on the deck like sea lions and took in the beauty and isolation of the lake. At 12,500 feet elevation, it felt like we were floating in the sky. Jagged silhouettes of the surrounding mountains ringed the lake, and clouds were projected on the water in perfect reflection.
Amantani Island came into view, a small six-mile-wide blip of land in the great span of lake. Terraced hillsides rose up from the shore, and fluffy white alpacas dotted the slopes above the water. Beyond the boat dock a splattering of bright-roofed houses greeted us.
We stepped onto shore, and a group of Amantani Island women crowded around us like day traders. Herman doled us out, pointing grim-faced at each of us and then snapping his wrist at our assigned hostess like he was shooing away flies. Brian and I were assigned to Veronica, a ruddy middle-aged woman with a streak of dark hair and pensive brown eyes. Clearly she did not want us, larger groups were more profitable, but Herman had dealt the cards. So she turned and gave us a broad grin anyway and pushed aside whatever disappointment she felt from our too-small party of two.
We introduced ourselves in broken Spanish, and Veronica smiled and waved us forward. Then she turned on her heel and marched up the hill toward her home.
She ducked through a tangerine door, and we followed her into a courtyard. Behind her stood a small adobe house with a patched tin roof framed by flowering pink trees.
“Welcome,” Veronica said to us, gesturing toward her home.
A man emerged from an arched doorway. Two little girls were giggling behind his legs. “Soy Diego,” he said, introducing himself. He squatted down and pulled the girls in front of him. They kicked at each other playfully but would not meet my eye. Diego nudged them and they both raised their heads, their dark eyes dancing, and whispered their names. Then they screeched in glee and bolted back into the house.
Veronica rolled her eyes in mock exasperation—kids these days—and then showed us to our room. Inside it, two twin beds were pushed against opposite corners, each stacked high with woolen blankets. Veronica hugged herself and mimed a shiver. Between the beds stood a single wooden table and two candles. Veronica pointed to the candles and then toward the ceiling. “No luz,” she said.
We dropped our backpacks on the beds and followed Veronica into the kitchen where she ordered us to sit and eat. She served a simple meal of quinoa soup, potatoes, and an unidentifiable but tasty root vegetable with cheese that she cooked over a rudimentary stove. Brian and I ate around the table with Diego and the girls.
We’d been traveling through South America for two months, and our Spanish was better than it had once been, but we still labored through ou
r lunchtime conversation. Spanish was not Diego’s first language either, as the native language on Amantani Island was Quecha, so we conducted the majority of our communication with hand gestures. Diego told us that eight hundred families lived on the island and that the men grew food by hand and the women cooked it. His girls kicked in their chairs next to him and eyed us mischievously. What did they think of us, strange foreigners that showed up in their lives for two days and then disappeared forever? Did our presence make them curious about the world beyond their island?
When we were done with our meals Diego walked us to the town square to meet Herman and the rest of our group. There were two mountains on Amantani Island, Pachatata and Pachamama, Mother and Father Earth. And there were ancient Incan ruins on top of both. Diego pointed at the trail that led to the peak of Pachatata and then waved his arm toward Herman to indicate that we would climb the mountain with him.
We wound our way toward the sky. The vertical trail, combined with the altitude, had me panting. A man rode by on his horse and shouted, “Taxi,” then laughed and galloped away. Alongside the trail, women sold handicrafts, and weathered old men offered soda, snacks, and single cigarettes for purchase. Children, too young to have such a job, hocked colorful bracelets made of thread.
The people of Amantani Island subsisted almost exclusively on the food and materials they reaped from the island. It was a system of community collectivism, and they shared the burdens and bounty. Yet tourism had quickly become an important part of life for families in the village. If the children of Amantani hoped to receive more than a grade school education, their parents had to send them away to the mainland. The school, board, food, and supplies were more than most of the families could afford. But tourism brought the soles, and the soles paid for school. So the people of Amantani sold what they could to the tourists.
The view from atop the mountain was spectacular, and the sky glowed a crushing shade of blue. Over the water, a full moon rose in the evening sky.
On the climb up I’d grabbed four small stones and stuffed them in my pockets. Now I pulled them out and bounced them in my hand. Island tradition stated that if you circled the ruins atop Pachatata four times and left four stones as an offering, Father Earth would grant you what you wished for.
As I walked around the top of the mountain, I laid the stones down and whispered the same wish I’d prayed for in bed at night, wide-eyed and terrified before we left Portland: to discover what it was that I was out here looking for.
From a bench of loose rocks, I watched the moon rise over the water. In the foreground my eyes followed Brian as he made his own circumnavigation of the mountain peak, each time squatting down to leave a stone. What did he wish for as he placed his stones on the ground? Lately I’d been so short with him, so cold, wrapped up in my own internal ping-pong match, grappling with a gut-level prodding that questioned our relationship. But from this distance my heart ached for him. He was mine, the one thing that rooted me on this circuitous trip around the world.
The sun had set when we arrived back at the town square. Veronica’s girls were waiting for us on the church stairs. They stood when they saw us and guided us back to the house as the last wisps of twilight drained from the horizon. As we wound through the narrow streets toward their home the littlest one slipped her hand in mine. Charmed, I glanced over at Brian but his eyes were fixed on the bleeding sky.
I turned my attention back to the island. Silence had wrapped her arms around the evening. Had the cards been different it could have been me to grow up on an isolated island protected from the rest of the world by miles and miles of water. Who would I have become if that had been my fate? And who was I now because it wasn’t?
Over dinner we talked in choppy Spanish with Diego. A candle flickered on the table between us. The light from the candle cast shadows on Diego’s face and carved deep caverns of darkness beneath his eyes. He could not have been much older than Brian or me. I wondered what Diego wished for when he lay down stones for Pachatata, and I wanted to ask him if he was happy, but I knew that the weight of the question would be lost in translation. Maybe it was a luxury to worry about being happy. I looked around at the dark kitchen, the low fire burning in the hearth, and the food in my bowl grown by Diego himself. Maybe Diego never questioned the purpose of his life because he was too busy going about living it.
• • •
The residents of the island were throwing a party for the visitors. After dinner, Veronica brought us traditional clothes to wear to the event. We dressed in the outfits—a big red skirt and white top with hand-stitched flowers for me and a gray poncho trimmed in rainbow colors for Brian—and set off to the party. We navigated through the village by moonlight, the girls silently leading the way on a dirt path beaten into the earth between stone fences.
We entered a large room with harsh florescent lighting. At the back of the room some locals hocked beer and Coca-Cola at exorbitant prices while a band with a big drum and flutes played with enthusiasm. As Diego twirled me across the concrete floor of the only building on the island with lights burning, I could not keep the grin off of my face.
On our walk back to Veronica’s house a few hours later we followed the girls as they led the way once again. By the light of the moon we hiked through a field, over a rock wall, and past the occasional stray horse. The moon hung full and brilliant, and our footsteps barely rustled the grass. Exhaustion overcame me, heavy as a winter coat, and for a moment I envied the girls and the solid comfort they must have felt at returning home to crawl into a familiar bed.
Back in our room, I burrowed into my single bed and pulled the heavy blankets up around me. Outside, the world was silent and still. A slit of moonlight fell through the window and illuminated a patch of concrete floor. When I closed my eyes I thought about how beautiful the birth of the evening had been up on Pachatata Mountain. In the darkness, I remembered Brian walking contemplatively around the mountaintop, laying stones, wishing for whatever it was he wished for.
My heart suddenly ached to bridge the gap between us. I longed to crawl into bed beside him and run the warmth of my body against the warmth of his. I wanted everything to be like it had been back before we’d closed some door between us. “Brian?” I whispered, “Brian, are you awake?”
The darkness was so sure of itself, so uncompromising. The moon so steady in its glowing. I waited for his voice to fill the space between us. But in the bed across the room I heard him gently snoring.
• • •
In the softness of morning, we sat in Veronica’s small kitchen. She served us a single pancake with jam and a hot mug of coffee. Then Brian and I returned to our room and packed our bags.
From my place on the bed I turned to Brian. “I think we should give Veronica and her family some yellow envelope money.”
Brian finished folding his clothes into his bag and nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“How much should we give her?” I asked.
Brian said, “Everything in the envelope. We’ll refill it when we get back to Puno.”
From inside of my backpack I pulled out the yellow envelope and removed all of the bills. Then I found my wallet and did the same. There were no ATMs on Amantani Island, so we were carrying a larger sum than usual. I counted out what I thought we’d need for our ride back to the mainland and put the rest in a pile for Veronica.
My uneasiness over giving money kicked in again. Veronica had already been paid for hosting us through our tour company, so she wasn’t expecting us to give her money. I hated that I didn’t have the ability to communicate the gift. If I’d been able to explain about Michele and Glenn, the yellow envelope and the three rules, then I would have been excited to give the money to Veronica. But as it stood I worried that, taken out of context, the money might offend her. I did not want Veronica to interpret the gift as a handout or as some kind of judgment on her life.
Brian picked up the money and shoved it into his pocket. “Let’s try not to worry about what Veronica will think. We’re supposed to do what feels good. This feels right, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does.”
Out in the courtyard we thanked Veronica and Diego profusely. Their two sweet girls emerged sleepy-eyed from the house, and we got down on our knees to say our good-byes. Then Brian shyly passed Veronica the yellow envelope money. We did not know how much it cost to send the girls to school on the mainland, but we hoped that the money we were giving covered a good portion of a year.
Veronica glanced at the money, surprised, and then grabbed Brian in an enormous hug. “We’re rich!” she yelled, or she may have said, “You’re rich!” Her words were hard to interpret amidst the excitement. I glanced at Veronica’s family and then at Brian who stood still buried in Veronica’s burly hug and figured she was right either way.
I embarrassed myself by bursting into tears at the scene, though I wasn’t sure why I cried. Perhaps it was the pride I felt in giving Veronica the money or my frustration at the language gap that left me unable to properly explain who it was truly from. It could have been the inequity of it all, how a relatively small amount of money could mean so much to Veronica and her family, yet Brian and I used to regularly blow that kind of money on a night out in Portland.
Or maybe I cried because, as I watched Brian give the money to Veronica, I saw a flash of vulnerability that I hadn’t seen from him in a long while. We were learning to bear ourselves for the sake of the yellow envelope, but we were not allowing ourselves to open to each other in the same way.