dogs

oh god how do I write this. on sunday may 16th, both of the dogs were killed in an awful freak accident. i don’t think i can write the story here, but it’s unbelievably hard to lose them both at once. they’re gone and we miss them more than any words can say. life is so different now, sadder and quieter and emptier. it’s been a month now and we’re still crying and grieving but we are also starting to think of finding another rescue puppy to take in. maybe sometime this summer. and we’ve still got my parents’ two sweet and lovely dogs to lick our ears and console us. but of course no other pup can ever be quite like cuddly little emmylou or our beautiful wild inga. we miss you an awful lot, girls.

here, now

We’ve arrived in Maine at last! Got in to Boston mid-morning (beautiful snow falling all around) and made it to Gorham in the afternoon, after about 23 hours in transit. Feels like a miracle that we made it here. Dogs didn’t enjoy the flight, but are still alive and are now in high spirits. Today we went to SEE the house for the very first time! It was mostly just as I expected it, after seeing photos and videos. But I was really struck by how BIG and cold and messed-up it is. It’s like a maze that just goes on and on. The walls are basically totally uninsulated and it was bitter cold today. And it is a mess! A beautiful, rambling shambles. There is so much stuff left behind by the previous tenants; in the ruins of the upstairs ell apartment, the bathtub is filled with baby clothes, a large old beige computer monitor and a smallish plastic christmas tree. The fridge and freezer are still filled with stinking, eight-month old food. In other rooms their traces are fainter, just cigarette burns and half-painted walls. It’s weird and a bit creepy but oh, it’s ours, and filled with possibilities. The room that might be my studio is huge and has six windows and a beautiful peaked ceiling. The dogs went nuts running in the yard, Inga was careening around, crazed by more open grassy space than she’s ever seen in her life.

Back to Buenos Aires and then onwards again…

Finally back to our house in Buenos Aires for just two short weeks. So good to see the dogs after such a long absence! Inga didn’t recognize us, and thought we were tired, stinky burglars with large backpacks. Chris and Courtney had been dog/house sitting while we were gone, they were excited for our return because it meant that they could leave town and start their own big South American adventure. We were very excited to be on home ground and have good long hot showers in our own bathroom, wash our clothes, clean our blisters, eat good food, sleep long hours and generally regroup for a day before beginning the next leg of our crazy transformation.
Immediately after touching down in Buenos Aires, we had to start planning our attack for packing and cleaning and moving overseas! I had to catch up on a bit of work, so Mike handled most of the paperwork and bureaucracy related to bringing our dogs to the United States. We bought some boxes and bubble wrap, packing tape, and started furiously sorting and packing EVERYTHING in our house. We wanted to ship some boxes via container freight, but were uncertain whether it would be prohibitively expensive or impossible due to impenetrable mazes of paperwork and typical Argentine bureaucracy. As the designated Expert Spanish Speaker of the house, it fell to me to handle most of the phone conversations and paperwork surrounding this scary and stressful task. We basically had NO IDEA how to go about doing this. Everyone we talked to said “I can’t tell you what to do, you should talk to someone else.” Our bargain-priced shipping agent said “I’m not sure what you need to do, maybe you should talk to the people in the port.” We ventured down into the strange world of the shipping port in person, and the people in the port said “Your shipping agent needs to handle this for you.” When we said that our shipping agent had sent us to the port in the first place, the port agency told us to go see a public notary. We begged them to give us a recommendation for a notary who could help us; when we went to see that notary, they were perplexed by our needs and said “Tell your shipping agent to call us.” When we called the shipping agent, she said “I’ve never heard of this notary, I don’t work with them.” Ultimately, NOBODY would advise us about what we needed to do and how to do it, nor how much it would cost. And all of these conversations were in Spanish which made them 10% more confusing and frustrating! We could’ve gone with a full-service shipping agent but we didn’t want to pay for it so we’d chosen someone who gave us a rock-bottom price and offered absolutely no service other than giving us a cargo spot on a boat. So, despite great adversity, we did cobble together a terribly vague idea of what we kinda imagined that maybe we could try to do in order to get our stuff shipped. Nothing to do but try it, hope for the best, and see how it goes. After much labored sorting and organizing and packing and taping and bubble-wrapping, we had 38 small cardboard boxes plus one bike in a cardboard box, ready to go. We hired a van and driver to pick it up and drive us and our cargo down to the shipping port. It’s a strange no-man’s-land out there, beyond the edge of the known city, a kinda fascinating maze of mud roads and container stacks and shipping warehouses, populated by truck drivers and stevedores, shipping employees, forklift drivers and team captains, almost exclusively big burly industry men. Normally, shipping agents handle this side of the business and they all know the warehouse managers by name. We were the only disoriented and confused gringos in the whole port. We got totally lost driving around this maze and our poor driver was very patient as we made phone call after phone call to locate our specified warehouse complex. When we got there… bad luck, it was 11:45 and the whole place closes down for 2 hours for lunch break. They wouldn’t even let us through the door to drop our cargo. So we had to pay our driver by the hour to sit outside the door in the van with us for two long hours, waiting for all these guys to finish their lunch and let us in. When they finally got around to dealing with us, of course we were missing important papers that nobody had told us about… there were more phone calls and more hours of delays… finally we were admitted and our cargo weighed… in a giant warehouse filled with pallets of wine and flat-screen tv’s, we met a customs agent who ripped open a few boxes to make sure we were really exporting personal effects, not contraband. Bla, bla, bla, more hours of paperwork and confusion, finally after about 8 hours we got home with a stack of papers in spanish, to show that we’d left all our goods for shipment!
Then on to packing the suitcases and cleaning the apartment, farewell dinners and despedida parties, last dates with friends and a few quiet moments to enjoy our beautiful neighborhood and quiet terrace for the last time ever! Wednesday, March 3rd we left home at 5:00 pm with two dogs in travel crates and six suitcases, never to return again…

Lima, Peru

Last stop! Lima, Peru. We just had two-and-a-half days to see the capital city of Peru. Caught a morning bus from Paracas to Lima, arrived mid-day. Our hostel turned out to be incredibly beautiful, a huge old colonial house in the fancy Miraflores neighborhood. We were so lucky to find such a cheap, beautiful old place!!

our beautiful hostel in Lima

hostel in Miraflores

The neighborhood of Miraflores is pretty fancy and international, a world away from Camana or Cabanaconde. We were near a beautiful park, lots of fancy looking private schools and homes in old colonial buildings, some big stores like Falabela and Plaza Vea, some interesting art galleries and cultural centers.

paper sculptures. centro cultural, Miraflores

nice garden. American high school, Miraflores

I think at this point in our journey we were simultaneously trying to enjoy our last days of traveling and freedom, and also looking forward to our imminent move with tons of excitement and anxiety and muchas ganas de hacerlo, YA! (that is, a great desire to get this thing done already!) We had some beautiful walks around the neighborhood and passed some nice afternoons writing postcards over coffee, reading and working quietly in cafes, shopping in artesan markets and eating DELICIOUS foods. Miraflores has lots of good food to offer! We had sushi, yakitori, snails, green tea ice cream and other delights at a Japanese place near our hostel one night. Saturday we ventured into downtown Lima, which was a kind of long cab ride, we had to take the highway. It’s a whole different onda in the center, more old and colonial, much more gritty and crowded and busy. We visited the famous Chinatown, got some delicious street food (sticky buns with pork & cabbage inside, fried rolls and crunchy things) and tasty cans of lychee juice. Visited the huge Mercado Municipal nearby. Had to wait for the restaurants to open for lunch so we wasted twenty minutes and a few quarters on the slot machines at the casino on the main peatonal in Chinatown. It was the day before Chinese New Year, so the barrio was really busy and festive and we got to see a parade with lots of loud drums and dragons passing by.

The butcher section of the mercado municipal. Lima, Peru

lunch counter. Mercado Municipal, Lima

parade in Chinatown

A few weeks have passed now that I’m writing this… my favorite memories of Lima are that beautiful hostel, walks around Miraflores on sidewalks shaded by huge trees, admiring the colonial mansions… eating a donut and drinking lots of iced teas (both are rare delicacies for an Estadounidense in South America!)… generally trying to take it easy for a few short days after a long series of adventures! … and lots of conversations with Mike about the end of our South American exploits and how soon we’d be moving back to Maine, what we expected and hoped for in our new lives, nervousness about the big move, hopes and dreams! Big stuff.