Across the street sits a tiny little cab decked out with flashy rims, waiting for us. The young driver is jamming in his seat along with the rhythmic “umph, umph, umph” of the dance music blaring from the speakers loaded in the hatchback. The hood of the cab sports a graphic of the Tasmanian Devil with flames. The interior of the cab is covered with a glitzy cloth in honor of Senor De Huanca, of course, but that’s the only similarity to the average Cusquenian cab.

I have a lot of respect for this kid’s cab. In a town where just about every taxi is exactly alike, Dante and his disco-mobile really stand out. We tell him that all he needs are disco balls and a van and he could start his own new kind of specialized tour company that caters to the party crowd. We jam through the streets of Cusco. Dante is such a personable guy that we get his phone number so he can be our regular cab driver. We ask him to pick us up later in the day at the same spot.

He returns promptly at 1PM and rocks us right back to the bus station, where we begin our adventure to Quillabamba . . .

 Nilton is an artesano. His jewelry is AWESOME. He makes all this stuff by hand and his designs are nothing like anything you will ever see anywhere, except maybe Cusco, but even then, his work stands out among all the rest. And I´m not just saying that because he´s our friend.

In an effort for shameless promotion of a friend´s work, click here or go to photobucket.com/artisano to look at some of his stuff.

I will be bringing home some of his jewelry for myself. When you see it, you will want some of this work. I promise. So, check out the link and if you want me to bring something home for you, I will. It would be best if you want something that you paypal me at the address listed on the contact page of my website. I will charge only Nilton´s prices, which average about 35-45 USD per piece, usually less, depending on how complicated it is or how rare the stones are. Also, he uses exclusively South American stones, most of them are Peruvian.

If you wait until I come home and you want to buy something, I will be bringing extra, but I will also be charging extra . . . and I´m not going to bring too much back with me. I have other things to do than become a jewelry seller, but I do really like Nilton´s work and want to help out a fellow artist.

Again, you will never see this kind of handiwork in the states and you will never see it at this kind of price, either, so order up! I´m leaving Cusco in less than two weeks, so hurry.

Stalking them has become a new fascination of mine – the longer their lens the better. It can be difficult to be covert, but I´m getting the hang of it.

Seriously, though . . . This guy won´t have a camera or a backpack for long. Neither is secure on his shoulders. Easy pickins for a theif. . . Don´t be this guy.

¨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.

• wander in unannounced at the dentist´s office and book an appointment for the next business day.
• find an old plastic Pepsi bottle filled with snake oil (that would be snakes and oil) at the market for 1 sole.
• walk into a vision center, get an exam on the spot and pick up your new glasses three hours later.
• find an alarm clock, camera battery and a mouse trap in an electronics/home repair center that´s 10 times bigger and better than Home Depot.
• fit in a chiropractic session.
• Hike into ¨The Temple of The Condor Heart¨ for a good cleansing and then randomly meet a shaman everyone´s been telling you about. (That admittely, was before lunch.)
• order 1000 business cards. (ok, I just met with the guy today and have to go back with a design later . . . )

I still didn´t find the face mask with three faces that I´m looking for. My coffee shop was closed, as was my hippie chai shop. And no kids asked me if I wanted my boots shined today.

I feel productive.

Apparently, when the transportation strikes first began,  the protesters would hide on the edges of highways and throw big rocks at passing traffic. But, after several busses were hit with rocks and subsequently fell off of sheer roadside cliffs, killing everyone on board, they´ve re-vamped their stategies. Now they block the roads with huge rocks or cut down giant eucalyptus trees to stop the flow of traffic. I´ve heard also about riots and fighting in the streets of Cusco on occasion.

So far, the strikes have not directly affected me, as I usually stay close home. The strangest thing of all about the strikes are that, believe it or not, they are actually scheduled events. This is very helpful and considerate of los paros in my opinion, because at least it gives people a chance to make alternative arrangements.  Most of the time we find out the day before about an impending strike from Ulreke´s, the local ex-pat cafe.

One day when we went to Ulreke´s for breakfast, we noticed that there weren´t very many vendors set up in the market, which is usually packed. There was a military truck parked in the town square filled with soldiers in full riot gear, guns and sheilds ready. Although there were children scrambling all over the hood of the truck, there was an unsettledness in the air.

Ulreke, the cafe owner, came to take our order. She informed us in a very matter-of-fact way that the neighboring city of Calca was demanding Pisac´s solidarity in their strike over a land dispute with the jungle provinces. Any shop or vendor caught doing business by any of Calca´s protesters were promised to receive broken store windows and smashed stalls and merchandise. Ulreke just shrugged her shoulders and said, ¨If los paros show up, then we´ll just lock the doors and the shutters and we´ll have a party.¨

And about 25 Calca protesters did show up that day, brandishing broomsticks and chanting in the streets. No broken windows or looted market stalls to speak of – in fact, most of the vendors kept right on selling their food and wares. 

Today there was supposed to be a strike, but it was cancelled. There´s talk that it may happen on Wednesday instead, but everyone just kind of shrugs their shoulders and says, ¨who knows?¨ I´ve noticed a bit of a lackadaisical attitude in local people and tourists alike regarding the strikes. The issue at stake this time is a bigger one: the people are angry about possible government privitization of water. With such a bigger issue looming on the table, it will be interesting to see if strike days remain business as usual.