Arequipa - or How to get all the credit for someone else's good deeds

PEOPLE OF THE WORLD!

I have just changed my plans!
But even before we get into that, here's what I started writing in my diary this afternoon:

That's it. I'm leaving Arequipa. I'm confused and lost and kinda scared and what's worse, I'm al ready nostalgic. End-of-trip kind of blues. I got one week left. And I reached that point in my journey. Like, you land in a big city and you start traveling, further and farther away from your point of origin. In my case, more and more to the West, crossing the border over to Peru. But, today, I had reached the fatal climax, when you can no longer go West, for each extra mile will have to be traveled again in the opposite direction. Back to La Paz, back to that same airport that dropped me off 4 weeks ago.

At least, that's what I thought.
So, back to the PEOPLE OF THE WORLD!
People, I have changed my plans. I'm have faced the fatal climax point, and I decided to defy gravity and continue my impossible journey WEST-wards. To the next town, called Ica where there are the worl'd highest sand dunes. Sure, you may think it's nice for pictures. But hell no, backpackers arrived there in the early 1900 and figured out how awesome it would be to slide down these huge dunes with a buggyboard. That's right, a surfing board. And so now there are jeeps waiting for you down the dunes, ready to pick you up and drive you all the way back up, where, guess what, you can slide down again. ALL DAY. And I met this american couple who told me about going up to the dunes at night and looking at the stars while... eating a sandwich (How I met your mother reference, watch the tv-show...). OK, that's not all. Or kind of is, but I mean, I've been traveling with this couple we met in Cuzco, Veronika (argentina) and Friebie (germany). And they're awesome. But you know, after a while, people need air, and I felt like today was the day, that maybe they needed to be on their own again. Third wheel at what not. But, listen to this. Today, we went to the bus station together. I EVEN BOUGHT MY TICKET back to the border of Bolivia. And they bought theirs for Ica (well first Nazca, the city of those gigantic animal line drawings). But tonight, 36 minutes before my bus was leaving, they convinced me to stay, as we were having dinner at an all-vegetarian-place. I said fuck it and here I am, still in Arequipa.

Funny side story, as we were sitting in that restaurant, we met two elderly british women, whom we asked if the food was any good. After which they asked us if we were going to Bolivia. I thought they wanted some advice. But when I told them that I was returning there, she took out 40 Bolivianos (not the people, the money) out of her pocket and gave them to me, said "Could you distribute these to beggars when you're there?". She explained that she found those bills in her pocket long after she had crossed the border to Peru. And she figured she might as well do something good with it. I was really touched, and even surprised by her trust in me. So I decided to ask for her address in London and I'll send her a postcard with a funny little review of my new mission on earth (for the coming week). It reminds me of that book, You shall know our velocity, about two young guys who try to travel the world in less than a week and give this huge amount of money to people in need. Not because they were saints, but because one of them had received this money in a way that made him feel guilty, and he decided to do something good with it. As for me, I'm just a passer-by in someone else's good deed. Except I get all the credit :P

Yalla, that's all for now.
Tal has got his funk back, and a mission, and awesome travel companions.
What else can a free man want?

People of the world,
sweet dreams.

Tal Benisty