Fire Water

Sunday October 18th

This weekend was eventful. On Friday I went to the water park, where they have fountains lit up with crazy lights, and the water jets move around and… well, it’s hard to explain. They even had one show where the water almost made a wall, but not completely because it was moving and changing all the time, and there were lasers projected into the water, and even a hologram/video type thing where it showed all kinds of different dance styles of Peru! It looked like there was just a normal video happening, but in the water! It was very cool.

I have lots of pictures posted on facebook, here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=248166&id=504727002&l=ede46a50a4

I went there with Ruth and Victor, and Daniel showed up at the end. Then we went out to eat. I had fries, they had tons of chicken.

On Saturday we went shopping for beads. It was amazing. Then we ate and then we went for one last thing in the “centro” (the sketchier part of the city). Ruth bribed me into going got church with her by saying that if I went to church with her she wouldn’t have to take me all the way home before going to church herself, and therefore we would have time to go buy some of the jewellery bags she had been telling me were perfect for me. So I agreed. We got the bags and a bunch of jewellery displays (all matching, in hot pink!), and I had to borrow money from her to buy the jewellery displays because I ran out. Then, we couldn’t get a cab. We had to go to another area to get a cab. Ruth was walking soooo fast to get to the place where we could take a cab that I almost lost her! Then we jumped in a cab so quickly that the taxi driver asked if we were ok and if someone was following us. Then, shortly after getting in the cab, we were stopped in traffic and two guys tried to get into our cab! They came at us from both sides and tried to get in and then started yelling at us to open the doors and banging on the windows! Luckily, everyone had their doors locked, so they couldn’t get in. Ruth was really shaken up and got out her pepper spray afterwards. I was ok, but only because they didn’t get in! They apparently thought that the white girl would have something worth stealing, although all I had of value was my camera in my purse (no money, no credit cards or bank cards, no passport), and about $200 worth of tagua and jump rings and jewellery supplies. All small beads. I think they would have been very disappointed if they had robbed me and had gotten several kilos of beads. But Ruth had more stuff worth stealing, I’m sure, so it would have been worse for her.

After all of that, the taxi dropped us off at the church. By the way, I was almost robbed on my way to church…the first time I had gone since my last trip to Peru, and before that it had probably been a decade! I found that amusing.

So, church was no my cup of tea, as expected, but it was kind of interesting to hear Ruth preach, and I met some people I had heard about before.

Then we went to a movie, the Mongol, which was kind of terrible. It was in another language, but had Spanish subtitles, so that was cool, because that way I could understand everything so much better than if the Spanish was dubbed in! But it was a very strange movie. Long and boring and anticlimactic, cutting away from scenes just as they seemed to be getting interesting and skipping ahead years or even decades into the future. Also, strange fight scenes with tons of blood spraying out of bodies in massive quantities every time anyone was cut by a sword.

Then we all went home to bed, exhausted. It was such a long day! I left the house at noon and didn’t get home until after midnight! I was so tired, but it was a really good day.

I bought so many amazing things!! I got a whole set of jewellery display racks (earring holder, necklace holders, bracelet holders, ring holder, etc), and 50 bags to put the jewellery in after I sell it (beautiful indigenous material on them), tagua, stone pendants, quartz, wooden pendants, and tons of jump rings! I found some new beads I had never bought before, which had been one of my goals, and got a good amount of tagua, especially pendants, which I felt I needed more of.

So, it was a successful day of shopping! And thank goodness that we didn’t get robbed!

Today I didn’t leave the house. Everyone went and did church-related things and I stayed home, sorted my beads and took some inventory, and watched tv.