After a week spent back in Cusco fixing up Doris, the truck I would be using for the next few months, I finally met Stu, fellow crew member and driver, possible drinking buddy / shoulder to cry on / pain in the backside. We had a two day transit back up to Lima where our first tour was starting.
It did not take long before the shenanigans began. Trying a different route out of Cusco, we found ourselves in narrowing streets with colourful banners hanging lower and lower above the tarmac. “Ping, ping, ping” went the banners because Doris’ house – the back part of the truck- was too tall to fit under them and they got caught and cut on the truck. Looking out of my side mirrors, I saw streams of red, blue, orange, pink, and green flags, flapping off Doris, as we shamefully, but still in a fit of giggles, drove through the local area.
Winding up and down valleys, the views out of the cab windows were spectacular. As well as the usual ‘getting – to – know – you’ questions, it was easy to dip into the odd ‘deep – and – meaningful’ because of the magical scenery in front of us, even though Stu and I barely knew each other.
With dinner time approaching but no reasonably sized town near on the map, we stopped at Santa Rosa, a one street town with no restaurant signs to be found. Walking up the street we saw a large table in a door way and peeked in. An old lady looked at us before I asked if it was possible to eat here. She told us what the only thing on the menu was and I assured Stu that the dish was usually nice. We sat down and started to comment on our current situation. I then heard something. I instantly grabbed Stu’s arm and had an expression crossed between shock, excitement, and disbelief on my face. After telling him to shut up so I could hear the noise again, I was still unsure if there could actually be what I thought there was. Letting Stu in on the secret, he said we just had to get up and check. Creeping through another short door way into the kitchen area where the old lady was prepping our dinner, there they were, guinea pigs running around on the floor, at least four or five or them, squeaking away as they scuttled around, stopping to munch on the odd leaf of lettuce dotted around.
There were also dogs, cats, and a parrot that bit a chunk out of Stu’s finger, all hanging out in the kitchen. When I took my camera out to take a photo of the guinea pigs, the lady informed us how they were not pets like the other animals in the room, but rather something that would be dinner one night soon.
The dinner was delicious and we had jelly for dessert, something Stu and I both enjoy and that is easily found selling in plastic cups by Peruvian ladies in any town. We drove a little longer before deciding to pull over for the night, and as we did so, Doris died.
I slept quite well on the tiny bed at the back of the cab. When we woke up, we ate some cereal on the side of the road watching the sun come up over the valley we were in, and then Stu got his overalls on, crawled under the truck, and quickly figured out that an air pipe was cracked. It didn’t take us too long to hitchhike into the nearest town, get the pipe bronzed, find a lift back, for Stu to put Doris back together again, and for us to make our way to Lima.
