It’s a new backpack-stealing scam that I’ve never seen or heard of before. Be aware! Here’s what happened before my bus left the station a couple of days ago.

I was the only gringo on the bus, which is normal. I was sitting patiently in my seat, waiting for the Pisac bus to leave Cusco and was doing what I usually do: people-watching. The bus seats were full and people were beginning to stand in the aisles. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary.

I saw a group of three guys who seemed to know one another – again nothing out of the ordinary. But something seemed amiss. One guy had bloodshot eyes and I noticed that another one was staring at me.  I stared back. The third one had scars on his face. None of them looked all too friendly.

I paused, wondering what their deal was . . . they seemed like they were trying to push their way to the back, which is a little strange, because no one ever does that. Everyone just kind of stands in the ailse near the front of the bus. I turned and began to look out the window.

Suddenly, a lady behind me poked my shoulder. “Tu mochila?” she asked, your backpack? She pointed to the cubbyholes above the bus seats. I still had no idea what was going on.

“No,” I said. “Yo la tengo.” I have it.

Then I realized what had happened, just as the lady began to yell in rapid-fire Spanish to everyone else on the bus. The only thing I caught was, “son tres.” There are three.

But the three mean-looking young men who’d been crowding the bus moments before had vanished. Everyone was checking above them to make sure their belongings were still there. A Peruvian lady with a toddler reached up. “Mi tarjeta!” she cried. My card! The three had stolen her purse with her credit cards inside.

I always, always, always carry my bag around my shoulder. I don’t ever take it off and put it up above while I’m on the bus, mostly because I’m spacey and I would forget later when it came time to get off the bus. I suggest if you carry a backpack, to put it on the floor, between your legs while you ride local busses.

But mostly, just be aware of your belongings for every single second while they are not physically attached to you. And listen to those feelings you may have when something seems amiss. That little voice inside my head told me that something was not right with those three guys. I dismissed it. It was right.

I wouldn´t write about this, except I see a need for it . . . so here we go, travelers!

Be aware! I can´t tell you how many tourists I spy here in the Andes of Peru who are completely, utterly and totally unaware of themselves and their packages, backpacks and purses. Really, I promise I will find at least one tourist today while I´m in Cusco who is oblivious and I´ll take a picture. Click here for an example of how not to be. When you travel, you must be aware. Without a sense of awareness, the truth is that you´re a target for thieves.

Got a great camera and lens? That´s awesome. Make sure you don´t flaunt it around. People living in high-tourist areas often do not have the resources to buy a camera like yours. If you must sport it around your neck, do something to disguise it. I suggest slinging the stap over your shoulder crossways and push the camera to the side of your body. Then put on your sweater or jacket. The camera will be easily accessible, yet less visible between the folds of your clothing. Make sure you know how to use your camera before leaving home. I see many, many photographers with a furrowed brow who are too busy trying to figure out their settings and are unaware of what is going on around them.

Um, wear your money belt under your clothes. Yes, I still see people tromping around with their money belt latched around their waists, on top of their clothing. If your money belt is visible, you are asking for trouble.

Walk around with a sense of awareness. Thieves are only looking for the easiest of pickings. If you are walking around loudly talking to your friends, camera out, while chomping a croissant, hands full and carting around a huge pack with lots of stuff dangling from it and completely unaware of the persons in the crowded street who are next to you, then you are once again asking for trouble. Besides, those people are just downright annoying to everyone, locals and other travelers alike.

Check out the sights. Be unobtrusive in the country where you are a guest. I would say try not to wear khaki shorts at all costs, but that´s just me . . .

Matt and I decided to go to Mama Chicken´s house last night to find out what the deal is with the gringo pricing on their fabulous chicken . . . and . . . my favorite restaurant in Pisac has been redeemed, I´m happy to say.

Apparently, they do have a 4.50 sole portion of chicken – it´s an 1/8 of a chicken, a smaller portion of fries and a smaller bowl of (truly) yummy chicken foot soup. Ah, no matter that all this time they never asked us which portion we wanted. Every time we walked in, they just handed us the biggest plate they had.

Now we know. And I suppose I didn´t completely understand my new friend. She meant an 1/8 of a chicken for 4.50 soles. The smaller portion is so much better anyway! So, go to Las Gamelas Polloria for the best chicken in Pisac. They may not have a menu, but they do have two different sized portions. Now you know!

Every week, some Latin American paper runs another story about how somewhere in some South American country, some bus falls off a cliff. The bus I was on yesterday came really close to rolling backwards off a cliff and it was scary as hell. And the strangest part of the whole story happened right before I left to go to town, as I said good-bye to Matt.

¨I´ll see you later,¨ he said.

And from out of nowhere, the thought came, ¨What if I were to die today?¨ I shook the thought away, kissed my love good-bye and got on the bus to Cusco.

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It happened on my way home. As the bus crossed the high mountain pass just east of Cusco, heading back toward Pisac, the Peruvian police randomly stopped us and asked the driver for his credentials. I think it was just a routine check, nothing serious. Then the driver and the bus conductor (the guy who takes the money) both got off the bus to talk to the police. After a minute or two, the bus began to slowly . . . slowly, then a little faster . . . roll backwards!

Everyone on the bus noticed at the same time. Everyone looked up and kind of sucked in their breath with a quiet, collective panic at the exact same moment - because we were rolling backwards toward the edge of a sheer cliff with no driver in the driver´s seat!!

Forty sets of eyes instantly shifted to the person closest to the driver´s seat – a traditionally dressed Quechua woman who was loaded down with a manta full of something strapped to her back. She couldn´t move very easily.  

She moved like lightning, despite her heavy load, toward the driver´s seat with her hands in front of her, as though she were going to dive under the dash and try to find the brakes with her hands. Her body language told me that she didn´t know how to drive a car. My stomach began to sink. Everyone was quiet. No one had thought to scream just yet.

Then, from out of nowhere, the driver came running and jumped onto the bus and set the parking brake. It happened just that fast. One minute everyone on that bus was fucked and the very next second everything was suddenly OK again. Life´s like that sometimes.

Luckily for us, there was a separate driver´s door on the left side of the bus, so he could just hop in and not be blocked by the crush of riders standing in the front of the bus. Luckily for us, the bus hadn´t gathered so much momentum that the driver couldn´t still jump on. Luckily for us, Peruvian bus drivers are accustomed to jumping on and off a moving bus. Lucky for us.

Happy Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere! I’ll be down here in the Southern Hemisphere celebrating the Autumn Equinox.

I think a picture of kittens is in order as a celebration and example of the fecundity of this day. Here’s me and Mr. Yin (yellow) and Ms. Yang (dark).

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When the bus seats get filled here in Peru, they keep on cramming the people in anyway. They’ll cram people in all the way up to the bus door. And the most annoying part about it is that about five seats back, the bus remains completely clear and open in the ailse. Normally, if I were one of those standing, I would simply push my way to the back of the bus so that I could be as far away as possible from the front door, not to mention the front windshield with no hand holds.

But if you have to get off the bus at an earlier stop than the bus station, your best bet is to stick close to the front. Just the other day, Matt and I had to ride for ten harrowing minutes in the front of the bus from Coya to Pisac. It was just a short ride. The bus was crammed, but they waived us on anyway. The conductor accidentally closed the bus door on Matt’s fingers. Neither of us had anywhere to hang on except the emergency exit in the ceiling of the bus.

All I could see besides the driver and the pavement in front of me was the bus speedometer, which was broken. The driver was flooring it too, passing other busses and cars and he had to squeal to a stop at one point to avoid hitting a dog. I felt like a monkey with my arms all stretched out, short as I am. I held onto the cracks in the emergency exit for dear life.

The bus came to a stop in Pisac. I was one of the first in line to get off. Just then I looked one last time into the bus windshield. Hanging from the rearview mirror was a little stuffed monkey, arms stretched above his head, just like mine had been.

 . . . . all this time we’ve been paying nine soles for a quarter of chicken and fries. It’s good, but it always seemed a bit expensive to me.

 The other day a girl was walking down the road, pushing a bicycle cart. Just as I was about to pass her, we were coming upon a slight incline. I grabbed the back of the bicycle and began to help her push the bike and cart across the little footbridge and up the hill. I wasn’t paying attention and my foot went through the slats of the footbridge and I fell all the way up to my knee, hand still on bicycle.

Luckily, I didn’t get hurt at all. The entire situation was funny to me and I couldn’t stop laughing as I stood there up to my thigh caught in the footbridge. I couldn’t stop laughing as I climbed out and I certainly couldn’t stop laughing as the girl and I finished pushing the bike up the hill.

She stopped to make sure that I was all right. We ended up talking (even though we barely could understand one another) and walking all the way to Pisac. She’s a nice girl. We sort of became friends on our walk. We got to talking about restaurants.

I told her that my favorite was Las Gamelas Polloria. Her eyes lit up. She said in spanish, “Isn’t it a great place? And only 4.50 soles for a quarter chicken!”

Wait. Just. One. Minute. They always charge us nine soles for a quarter chicken. Ah! Gringo pricing has struck once again! I’ll go back, for sure, but this time, I’ll do some more bargaining, even if I need to take it up with Mama Chicken herself . . . .

Is it possible for New Age principles and humor to live in harmony? I´m not sure, but I´m willing to give it a try. Maria, my roommate here in Peru, and I discussed this topic this morning after our morning Andean spiritualist yoga class. We decided that New Age spirituality is a valuble paradigm that we both embrace whole-heartedly, but that many New Age practitioners and spiritualists tend to frown upon the insertion of humor into the mix.

I try my hardest not to take myself or my spiritual practice too seriously. This includes meditation, yoga, prayer or ceremony. I understand that in order to get the most out of any of these things, that I have to have a modicum of sincerity about the experience and practice. But that does not mean that I have to take myself so damned seriously. 

That´s when I remembered the heyoka of the Native American cultures. The heyoka is the sacred clown, the one who shows the folly of humanity through his constant joking and insistence on doing things backwards. The heyoka teaches us not to take ourselves or the details of life too seriously.

One night recently I returned home fairly early from a neighboring hostel´s bonfire party. Javier was already at home and surprised by my early return.

¨What made you come home so early?¨ he asked.

¨Well, when they started drumming for world peace, I knew it was time for me to get outta there,¨I said.

Javier stared at me for a minute and then said, ¨Oh Anna, you´re just not . . . spiritual enough.¨

¨Yeah,¨I replied. ¨It´s true.¨

Then we both erupted in a peal of cackles, like a couple of witches. I suppose we heyokas have to stick together.

I knew it when I stepped out of my favorite quiet cafe and counted fourteen tour busses lined up on the cobblestone street of the Pisac square. Any doubts I had were immediately erased from my mind when I saw a gaggle of blonde girls run past me, loaded down with plastic shopping bags. One of the trio squealed, ¨So, like, where´s our bus anyway?¨

The rainy season in Peru is officially over. Peru has two seasons only – wet and dry.  Most books you read and people you talk to will tell you to come to Peru only during the dry season. Well, here´s my insider tip: I highly recommend visiting Peru during the wet season, mostly because the ´wet season´ isn´t really all that wet.

When I arrived in late December, everyone I knew in Pisac talked about how dismal the wet season was going to be. That´s when I also found out that everyone I knew planned their vacations from January through March – all the local bed and breakfast owners, the cafe owner and even alot of the shamans. As far as people I know, it´s been sort of a ghost town around here but I´ve still enjoyed this place immensely, even though I´ve missed my local friends. The cafes were still open, as were the hostels and don´t worry – there´s always a multitude of shamanic medicine available here.

The friend I´m house-sitting for comes back in two weeks. The new school year began for the children of the Andes yesterday morning – many of them wore uniforms and shiny dress shoes. The epic water balloon fights of school vacation have officially come to an end. And – no matter what the media says about the economy – the tourists are back in force.

January and February were not all that rainy here in the Sacred Valley. Most days began a little overcast and misty, but after a couple of hours, it would be all blue skies and puffy white clouds. The mud dries quickly around here. I only wore mud boots once during the entire rainy season. There was only one night where it rained all night long and maybe two days of solid rain – every other bit of moisture was intermittent and even enjoyable.

The best part about visiting Peru during the rainy season is the lack of other tourists. During the months of January and February, it seemed as though I spied a fair number of khaki-covered, lens-toting tourists. But now that March has arrived and the tour busses are backed up down the narrow streets, choking everyone with noxious exhaust fumes, I can tell that the droves of sightseers have officially arrived.

Honestly, I´ve begun to avoid the market even more than normal. All the restaurants are packed. The local B&B´s are over-booked. My friend Rosie says that the American tourists are the ones who spend the money. And so, in a way, I´m glad that the dry season has returned. The people I know who have businesses here are about to flourish once again and the vendors who sell their wares will once again have buyers.

But I feel so very lucky that I´ve had a chance to experience this beautiful place when it was just a little quieter than normal . . . !

I ducked inside the first place I found that had a bag of potato chips when I arrived into town. Potato chips in Peru are made from Peruvian potatoes, and even though they are made by Frito-Lay, they taste sooo much better than their American counterparts. I knew better than to get an entire bag because I’d be tempted to eat them all.

I grabbed the .50 centamos bag. I knew it was .50 centamos because that was the price printed on the bag. This is a rarity as nothing in Peru is ever marked with a suggested retail price because the local economy is run by way of bargaining.

I handed a one-sole coin for my chips to the traditional Qechua lady behind the counter. She handed me back .30 centamos.

I held up the potato chip bag with the printed price of .50 centamos and pointed to it. She gave me the correct change.

“Olvido,” the lady behind the counter said dryly. “I forgot.”

I don’t think she meant any malice, but I also don’t think she forgot. It’s just the way of the typical Peruvian vendor. They try to make a little more here and there where and when they can from the hordes of gringos who come tromping all up and down and through their homeland. I don’t mind if sometimes I get charged “gringo prices,” but I do try to be aware of scams and price gouging, however small it may be. It’s always my goal to pay the normal, local price for things, or as close to it as a gringo possibly can.

It’s up to the individual to cultivate the ability to bargain effectively, gringo or not, and when in this area you have to be alert. It’s not unusual in Peru for receipts to have addition errors, so it’s a good idea to double check the addition on hand written receipts. Every time I’ve found one, the error has always been in favor of the vendor. If you find an error on your bill, be nice and point out the error. It very well could have been an honest mistake.

Or not.