Gone South

I've never known many homes. Travelled to quite a few places but only lived in a few. Toronto, Hangzhou, and now Huancayo. Quite the oddball collection of cities but one thing is common throughout - it sucks leaving any of them.

I've mentioned how ugly Huancayo is. After a month here, that opinion hasn't changed but the underlying beauty I associate with it has expanded even more. There's something to be said about being familiar with a place. Something about walking down the street and having friendly faces say hello to you. Something about knowing exactly which buses to catch and where to actually get off. Something about understanding how much things should cost, like a taxi or kilo of fruit, and not worrying about being ripped off. Something about not having to say you're staying at a hostel and only passing by for a couple of days.

But even the ends of these lines eventually come. And as always on my last days anywhere, I'm in a mad rush to do a hundred different things at once. I find myself strolling down the usual streets one last time, partying in my favourite haunts, snapping photos of the everyday common, and getting a last whiff of the beautiful mercado.

For some strange reason, I also feel the need to say thanks and so long to the local internet guy, the girls at the corner shop who always sold me water, the dude who tailored a suit for me, and other similar daily characters. You really get attached to the little stuff once you've been anywhere for a while.

But all those previous goodbyes are minor compared to parting with all the people you've grown so fond of lately. "Don't ever tell anyone anything. If you do, you start missing everyone." On my second last night, we're having another bonfire on the roof and I'm looking at everyone realizing we'll never quite hang out in this context again. It's the same difficult truth that I've come to deal with with my buddies from Hangzhou. Gone forever are the late nights at the Plaza, the manic dancing, the warm buzz off calientes, the rounds of assassins and sardines, the cake binges, the weekend trips, the pachamancas, and such. Yea, we might meet up in the future but only for a few days at a time and unlikely all together. But at least I'll probably see them. I don't know if I can say the same for my spanish teachers, local friends, host families, colleagues at the medical centre, or the boys at Inabif. That's an even sadder reality.

Now with my backpack strapped on for the first time in forever, I find myself waving adios to the few that remain and to Huancayo maybe forever. I've been asked many times if I enjoyed the travelling portion or the living/volunteering portion of my journey better. It's a fruitless question. But when I first lost my tooth and thought I'd have to go home for surgery, I know it was this segment that I was most upset I might have to miss out on. I guess my intuition was right. It's been a phenomenal month here.

Tribadigine love in the city of Villagetown always. Getting pisced from the day we were born from the vagina of a cave.