Day 3: My Layoff Contingency Plan

Much like all of my coworkers, I constantly hear rumors of my employer moving many of the people in my building to the area around Cincinnati, Ohio. Unlike most of my coworkers, however, I don't really stress about it because I have a contingency plan in the event of that happening: I'll work on a farm in South America. Vanessa has already given me the thumbs-up to come work on her 30 hectare corn farm and live on the ranch and on the third day of the trip we headed out to the land to take care of some business. Well, actually, they took care of business while I toured the facility.

I woke up at around 9:00 that morning but was extremely tired still, most likely from the fact that I'd had two hours of sleep the day before and was a little travel weary. After a breakfast of sausage, bacon, and the typical continental breakfast of cold cuts and cheese, we drove out to Paullo (POW-yo) where their farm is located. On the way, we drove past the ruins at Sacsayhuaman (sounds like 'Sexywoman"), which is where the Incans fought one of their many battles against the Conquistadors. But I'd been there the previous trip and since the ruins hadn't changed in hundreds of years and tourist attractions weren't part of the trip objectives, there was now reason to stop again.

We did stop, like on the previous trip, on the road that overlooks the Sacred Valley to take some pictures. For some reason, the girls were obsessed with taking pictures of everyone jumping off of the rocks in the turnoff, so I obliged. After being winded, we continued down to the farm, which was about a half-hour long trip on a dirt road that went through the Sacred Valley to their farm house, which was a small church purchased by their Arab grandfather in the late 1800's along with 100 hectares of land. He was told that there was treasure located on the land, which is why he purchased it. I got the whole history of their family during that drive, about how their grandfather immigrated from Palestine to Peru and became wealthy selling imported fabrics on trips around Peru on foot. He eventually settled down in Cusco and bought huge tracts of land in many areas around Cusco. Their father went to the US to get his education and lived here for 20+ years before returning to the land to fight against the dictatorship government that wanted to expropriate all of their land. Their father eventually won the battle by splitting the land up between himself and the siblings so that they didn't have more than the 30 hectare size that was the maximum.

Their father was a well-respected person in the community, but there had been family issues and their uncles were no longer on speaking terms with them and since their father passed away two years ago, the girls have had trouble with the workers, the community, and the family, which is why they want to sell the land now (anyone interested? ;o). Their father had given some of the workers land to build houses on and now they have people living on the land that don't want to do any work and threaten them on a regular basis. One of them even told his dogs to attack their mom, who suffered dog bites and was getting rabies shots every day while I was there. The workers that they do have left are lazy and sleep on the job when they are not there to supervise.

The farm is just beautiful, however, and I can see why they don't want to leave it. We spent a few hours there getting sunburnt at the high altitude and touring the house and the land. They have a few hundred fruit (apple, plums, peaches, etc.) trees in an orchard next to the house and 30 hectares of corn growing outside of that. Because of the rain, the weeds in the orchard grow extremely fast. I told them I'd take a weed-wacker to it if they wanted me to, but they decided that I can do that next time when I start working down there :o) . According to Vanessa, each hectare produces 30,000 corns on the cob, all of which is sold to exporters who sell it to Japan. The corn that they grow is different then what we have. Each kernel is mammoth in size and a corn on the cob (usually eaten with cheese!) is basically almost a whole meal.

After checking out the house, Vanessa and I went for a walk down to the river next to their land. I borrowed one of their dad's Stetson cowboy hats for effect, and also because I was getting fried in the sun and didn't have any sunscreen! Vanessa told me that corn was related to sugar cane and you could actually chew on the cane, which was sweet like it is with sugar (though the corn wasn't ready to chew, judging by the fact that my weak jaw couldn't quite get a bite out of it).

After our walk and after taking care of some admin work on the farm, we drove back out into inhabited territory (Pisac) and had lunch at a place called Ullrich's Cafe. The food there was all grown in a greenhouse using clean water or hand-made using fresh, organic ingredients. Despite the temptations, I stayed away from the salads and had some home-made pasta with chicken in a spicy, paprika-style sauce along with a vegetable quinoa soup and a brownie for dessert. For $4, this was quite a meal and one that I could get used to, for sure!

Feeling fat and lazy, we headed back to Cusco to get ready for the evening, which would be our first night out on the town. One interesting thing about being at their house is that there are all sorts of noises outside their walls all day and all night. In the morning, you hear people on loudspeakers saying something over and over again. In my mind, it was the police telling you to come out with your hands up, but since I don't really speak much Spanish, I just ignored them and started thinking about what I would tell the local police when I was being questioned in jail. After going on and on in my mind, I decided to ask the girls what they were saying. I guess I was a bit off because they were just locals walking around with carts saying that they would buy recyclable bottles from the residents. :o/

At night, every few minutes, you hear whistling. This caught me completely off guard and I couldn't even think of a story to go along with that. Apparently the security guards in the area cruise around on their bikes or on foot with whistles, which they blow every few minutes to let any would-be theives know that they are around and on the lookout. I don't really understand the logic in that, but I guess it works!

Before the trip, I had set trip objectives and one of them was that I didn't want to hang out with tourists, whether it be at ruins or at discos at night. The girls had agreed that this wouldn't be a problem, but I guess something got lost in translation because when we went out on Monday night, we headed right down to the tourist dance clubs, the same place in fact that we had gone to four years prior. I told them that the ratio of tourists to locals was unacceptable and I was mildly disappointed about that. In retrospect, I guess this is what locals do - hang out with tourists. I guess that would be the reason why all of the girls' boyfriends are always foreignors! The music they played at Mama Africa (our top destination during the week) was really no different than what I would hear here in the states - hip-hop, some dance music, and every once in a while a Latin song. I was kind of hoping to be learning salsa, merengue, or some other Latin dances that I didn't even know about.

Given the environment and my poor attitude, I settled into a couch and drank my happy-hour (it was 11:00pm) mojitos. I actually do like the music that they were playing there, but it just wasn't what I was expecting, so I eventually softened and got up to dance with all of the Argentine tourists (summer vacation for them!) with their Converse shoes. I ended up dancing with some other local girls that were there while Vanessa and Kira hung out with some guys from Nebraska that they met.

Once I was done for the night, I sat down and talked to one of the guys who had actually moved to Lima and was working there sending Peruvians up to the US ski resorts to work. It was interesting talking to someone who had made that move and we talked about his experience and what not. One thing that was interesting and that I realized later was pretty accurate was about the girls in Peru. In the US, if you meet someone and hit it off, you take the girl out for dinner, on a date, whatever to see if you really like each other or if it was the beer talking. In Peru, however, if you hit it off with someone, boom: you are now boyfriend-girlfriend, no dating necessary. I hate dating (obviously), so this is my kind of place :o) !!

Yusteen, It's amazing how much you sweat when dancing at 12,000 feet (gross)!