Peru 2: Pasamayo and ALT 64

Oct 5, 2011, 7:53pm, on two hard mattresses, Eco Truly park, Chile

So what does 1 hard futon + 1 hard futon = ? Twice as hard. My hips did not like 1 futon, so will try 2 tonite – if all else fails there is my supersmall backpackers thermarest I can blow up.
Just had cold shower with lights on – yes I'm learning. I tried another shower stall to see if the pressure would be better – there was just a small piece of plastic pipe sticking out of the wall. When water came half pouring out the wall, I realized the pipe was broken off, but you could sort of jam the pipe back in to get most of the water to come out the pipe. Tomorrow I will try shower stall #3.

Looks like there is just two volunteers here at the moment – me and Mica from Japan – although another arrived around lunch – Eliza from New York – yippeee another English speaker who knows some Spanish.

Mica and I spend the morning in the huge kitchen making lunch – huge sinks, tiled walls/floor, palapa roof with sky lights – nice and airy. Santa is the head cook today – we chop endless veggies picked from the garden. One veggie looks like a green parrot (sans wings). At one point I went out to collect lettuce for the salad – doesn't get much fresher than that. Lunch appears to be the best meal of the day here. Breakfast was a very simple but nourishing type of quesadilla – melted cheese inside a type of pancake/crepe/flatbread.

Eliza is feeling sick from her long travels from New York and requires some meds from a pharmacy. I offer to pick some up in the nearby small hamlet of Pasamayo – she wants to come in with me since she too is looking for an internet cafe as well to let her family know she arrived safely. We head out down the dusty road, past fields of corn and stinky water viaducts (sewer + irrigation combined), and eventually reach Pasamayo. I find batteries, but there is no pharmacy nor bank. There is one internet “cafe” - by that I mean there is someones house with a locked gate instead of a front door – inside a 12 year old unlocks it and for 40 cents/hour, you can use one of the computers on some tiny desks. Three or four other kids are playing video games in front of some TVs. I cannot connect my netbook, so am soon using Google Chrome in Spanish. The keyboard has an '@' sign above the 2, but no key combo will produce it, and we cannot log in to our web mail accounts without the '@'. The “boss” comes over and helps us – ALT 64. Ah yes, ALT + keypad numbers will generate any ASCII character – I knew ALT 32 will give a space (handy if space-bar busted), but I'm not Data and I didn't have an ASCII chart handy.

Apparently another new arrival today has been roped in as the new yoga teacher – if I wake at 7am tomorrow I will try out some Peruvian yoga – hmmm, downward dog – would that be perro debajo?