Perú has been on my mind lately, I'm not sure why. But it's clear that there's a pearl or two begging to be recorded. I should clarify, there are two Peruvian chapters in my life so far. The first was the summer of 2006, when I had the incredible opportunity to travel to the "Land of the Inkas" for a three-month internship with the Department of State. I know! Who does that?!
I actually kept a blog at that time, called "Walking With Inkas", which you can choose to read at any time. I'll also be republishing those posts here as separate pearls - because each experience I had there truly qualifies as a pearl - and probably writing a few new memories of that time.
But this particular pearl has to do with the second Peruvian chapter, in which I returned to that extraordinary country for three-and-a-half weeks in the summer of 2008. This time, I brought one of my closest friends, and a favorite travel companion. We'd already had some adventures before this trip, and I'm sure we'll have more (in fact, we're waaaay overdue, chica!), but those three-and-a-half weeks were something special in their own right!
It was on this trip that she earned the nickname "HubbyBubby", which will serve as her alias on this blog. This was in part due to the fact that I was going to be married a couple weeks after our trip and since my real Hubby wasn't joining us, she was my stand in. There's another story about the name that I think I'll save for a different pearl, though. How's that for a cliff hanger?!
Naturally, I became WifeyPoo. To this day, we still address each other as such, prompting strange glances from our significant others.
There's a favorite moment of mine (one of many favorite moments) from that trip. We were arriving in Cuzco, where we would stay a day before heading off to hike the Inca Trail. We were very excited, since this was one of the primary reasons we'd come to Peru! As we exited the airport with our tour group and were looking for the shuttle that would take us to our hotel, we saw an incredible billboard that just about summed up our thoughts to a tee:
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| HubbyBubby (right) and me in front of the Nescafé bill board. |
It's a Nescafé billboard saying, "WAKE UP - live every moment". Can you see the bliss emanating from the woman's smile as she savors her coffee experience? As an aside, that look is exactly the feeling that I try to savor with every coffee I drink.
It's the look that says, "Don't rush me as I drink this. This coffee is more than just a drink, it's a pause in the business of the day, it's a strong flavor that will linger in my mind long after my mug is empty, it's a recording of this moment in time." It's exactly why I will never stop loving coffee, and why my passion for coffee is so intertwined with my passion for travel. So, if I ever ask you to have coffee with me, what I'm really saying is "Let's have a quality moment and appreciate our time together."
That being said, there's a variety of coffees out there, and I try my best to drink the good, fair trade, quality roasted, fresh stuff as much as possible. That's when I'm at home. When I've traveled to Central or South America, it's been Nescafé all the way. Why? Because that's what I'm served!
I was as shocked as could be when I first started my internship at the Embassy in this country that produces some of the best coffee in the world, and I learned that the stuff in the cafeteria was instant sludge. For awhile I resented it, thinking that it was akin to eating Californian cheese in Wisconsin. Gross. Eventually, though, I came to embrace it, and now I associate Nescafé with my Latin American travels, just as I only put sugar in my coffee when I'm drinking it outside the U.S. or at my Nicaraguan in-laws (that counts as foreign coffee in my book).
I'm sure there's an economic lesson in there about imports and exports, but we'll save that for a rainy day. The point is that in the unlikeliest of places, you can find that reminder to stop a moment and take it all in. And that's what HubbyBubby and I did, that very moment.
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| We're holding imaginary coffee mugs. |
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