Peru: What They Don’t Tell You

“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey.” – Babs Hoffman

Often when recounting stories of travel, most stories highlight the great things; the things that make others say “Wow” and “I can’t believe you did that” and such. The stories don’t typically mention the things that make travel difficult.

I’ve been fortunate in my travels to not have any serious problems; some close calls yes (taxi pulling over over in the middle of Colombia at midnight, on a dark street for an uncomfortable amount of time that left my head spinning in fear or having to escape a waiter that offered Lauren and I a mint tea on the rooftop of a Moroccan restaurant only to find out we were the only ones up there, with him and no, we did not want to look at his grandmother’s handwoven rugs).

The story for today isn’t one of danger, but of inconvenience. We selected a private Airbnb in Cusco that had bedrooms for the three of us and had great views of the city and that it definitely did. We were told the internet was at a certain level and it is, sometimes, in the living room. Again, not horrible, but inconvenient. However, we were not told that we would only have running water from 6am to 9am. Think about how many times in a day we use water in first world countries and we don’t even think twice about it. We just turn the faucet and out comes drinkable water. Here, in this neighborhood, that’s not the case. The water tank gets filled once a day and once it’s gone, it’s gone. Since it’s not drinkable, we have to boil it, so that adds another layer. This morning, we woke up early to get the assembly line going. We had two pots of water and a kettle boiling. After the water was boiled, we poured it into large glass beer bottles and once the glass bottles were cooled, we transferred the water to plastic bottles. We also got a quick load of dirty laundry going in the washing machine. Having a machine was definitely a plus.                                            

However, here’s how not having running water has impacted us the most. I mentioned in my last post that two of the three of us were experiencing stomach problems. Let’s just say it is tragic when we can’t flush in these circumstances or wash hands (I’m adding hand sanitizer to the shopping list now). We are fortunate that we have two bathrooms. One bathroom has been designated a number 1 bathroom. The other bathroom is designated as the number 2+ bathroom, where the door stays closed and the window stays open.

This morning, Lauren woke up to running water all around the house because in our attempts to try and wash our hands, we didn’t turn the faucets off. However, before she turned those off, priority was to flush toilet 2+ and then turn off the faucets.

I realize how fortunate we are living in North America and how privileged our daily standard of living is. We take it for granted until we are put in situations like these. While this makes my life difficult while traveling, it is daily life for many people around the world and it is still an improvement for others that have no running water or electricity. Traveling puts things in perspective and I appreciate that.