My last week in Arequipa

Last Sunday night Chelsea and I boarded a bus and came back to Arequipa, and then spent two days working hard on a report for FONDESURCO. On Wednesday, I spent a good portion of the day translating the report for PRISMA, the first organization that we worked for. Cam Nelson wrote it in English, and I translated it into Spanish. After we finished with that, we finally let off some steam and spent some hours just relaxing. That is, if you can call trying to figure out how to buy tickets for everything in Cusco relaxing!

The major battle this week was obtaining train tickets from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes, the small city in the valley below Machu Picchu, where all the tourists arrive and stay. There's only one train company, PeruRail. And so I spent some time looking at the times and prices online, and decided which days I wanted to go and return. So on Friday (9 days ago), click, click, click, enter personal information and #'s, click, click...denied. I'm not super surprised, my credit card wasn't accepted before when I tried to purchase bus tickets with a Peruvian bus company. So the two girls of our group each tried their credit and debit cards, and nothing. Then Carly e-mailed her dad, who was at the time still in the US, and he tried several cards to no avail. (I guess our American credit cards just aren't good enough for them?) So I did what any sensible person would do, and called customer service.

"Hello," I say, "I'm having trouble reserving and paying for my train tickets online, it won't accept my credit card."

"Oh, ok, let me help you with that."

"Thanks. I would like to reserve my tickets for two weeks from now, (etc., etc.)."

"I'm sorry sir, we don't make reservations on the phone."

"...uh..."

"The only way to make reservations without buying your tickets online is by sending us an e-mail," she says.

"Ok, I guess I'll do that."

So I did. On Friday, 9 days ago. And since it is the high tourist season, (we sure planned that well...not. Next time you spend three months in Peru, don't choose to do your tourism in the same month that all the European tourists, as well as plenty of Americans, do theirs!) I decided to keep trying to reserve tickets another way in the meantime. Carly's dad arrived last weekend in Lima, and they went to the PeruRail office in Lima to try and reserve tickets. It turns out that the office in Lima is purely for freight and cargo, nothing for tourists. Chelsea and I, meanwhile, tried to visit the PeruRail office here in Arequipa. Yeah, you guessed it, it's only freight there as well. So where can you reserve tickets? Only in Cusco, of course! I mean, why on earth would tourists want to reserve their tickets any longer than a day or two before their journey, especially during high tourist season? Agh. So on Thursday, I called a number that the office here in Arequipa gave me to make reservations. Which happened to be the same number I called before.

"No, I'm sorry sir, we don't make reservations on the phone. You must send us an e-mail."

"I sent you an e-mail last Friday and you haven't responded. I'm worried that by the time you make me a reservation, there won't be any tickets available."

"The employee that reads the e-mails and makes the reservations only comes in every other day. Please wait until tomorrow, and if you still haven't received an e-mail, call us back."

"Uh, ok..." And then I'm thinking, "the only train company that services the, arguably, most well-known tourist site in all of South America only has one employee that receives the e-mails and makes reservations, even during the peak tourist season? I don't get it."

Well, later that afternoon, I finally got a confirmation e-mail. Yay! However, Chelsea did not, and I sent our requests in the same e-mail. That one is still a work in progress. Sometimes I just don't get the Peruvian systems...but whaddaya do?

The rest of the week we worked on this and that, and relaxed. On Friday, we received some great news from our supervisor at Freedom from Hunger that we should take whatever money we had left from the advances, which money we could only use for hotels and travel that had to do with the work, and apply the rest of it to personal expenses, as long as we recorded what we spent it on so that they knew where the expenses went. That was some fantastic news. After applying it to costs I had personally incurred, it turns out that I haven't had to pay for any hotels, any taxis or buses, or any of the internet booth costs from when I arrived in Peru to when I leave for Cusco to spend a week touring! That was a great blessing.

And on Saturday, Chelsea and I had another great blessing. We went out to lunch with one of the FONDESURCO workers that we got to know during our work, named David Álvarez. Chelsea had had a discussion or two about the Church with him before, and he came to church with us two weeks ago. While we ate lunch, we talked about several things, but we also talked about LDS beliefs for quite some time, probably an hour and a half. He is interested and curious, although not ready to think about converting. But he likes the ideas of eternal families, and he wants to come to church every week. A fortunate coincidence is that one of the members of the ward knew him back in high school, and we hope that that will provide some fellowship for him. He was going to come to church today, but in the end couldn't because of a family commitment. But it was an enjoyable discussion, and we've passed his information onto the member he knows, as well as the missionaries. We'll try to stay in contact with him.

Today we went to church and received several warm goodbyes from the members, as we told them that it was our last Sunday here in Arequipa. We've been fortunate enough to attend the same ward for 7 of the last 9 weeks. Chelsea and I watched a movie to help the afternoon pass a little more quickly, and then I repacked all of my things, and left at 9:45 pm to catch my bus to Cusco at 20:30 horas. You know...10:30 pm. Er...wait. You'd think that after thinking in 24 hour time since I've been in Peru, I would've caught that. However, I didn't - I looked at the time on the ticket earlier this week, thought it was 10:30 pm, and never looked again. So, lesson learned! Check your ticket and your military time calculations twice! I had to buy a whole new ticket, because the first was missed and wasted. They wouldn't apply any of the money I had already spent to the new ticket. Oh well...at least they had one more ticket for tomorrow. It was really fortunate for me.

So now I'm back at the Hostal Ginza, where we've been every weekend for the past 7 weeks or so, and during the weekdays of two weeks as well. It's kind of like our pseudo-home, as they've become our friends here, and even gave us fridge space and kitchen privileges long ago. And tonight I'll sleep here for the last time...for the second time.

I'm looking forward to an interesting week in Cusco and Machu Picchu, and will, of course, send along a long-winded report on my experience afterwards!