After dumping our bags in our assigned dorm, Amanda, Holly, and I rejoined our new hostelmates and headed out the door. Cramming into a few passing cabs, we made a beeline to Cusco’s piñata district, where it was rumored that shopkeepers had immense supplies of premade angel gear prepared for that night’s festivities.
Along with Anthony and the Brit, James, we were joined by a friendly gaggle of guys and dolls from around the globe, including Stuart, a sarcastic and wildly flirtatious Irishman; Andrew, a pensive, soft-spoken German on summer break from university; Nate and William, two hilarious stoner dudes and rugby extraordinaires from Liverpool (whom I never could keep straight); and Lara, an excitable Portuguese model type who chattered on about the makeup and hair products she’d scored in town.
The group was surprised to discover that (a) we were American, not Canadian, as they’d speculated, (b) we had dared to venture beyond the standard Caribbean or European destinations, and (c) we’d taken an entire year off work to visit mostly third-world countries.
“Wow, guess for Americans that’s a pretty big deal. Seems like your countrymen are a bit closed-minded about this sort of travel, yeah?” Nate said.
I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or offended, but before I had a chance to argue, Anthony belted from the front seat, “Hey, you know that I’m American too? From Queens, in fact, which makes us neighbors, ladies!”
“Oh, please don’t hold that against us,” I joked as Anthony grinned and made a dramatic dagger-through-the-heart motion.
Luckily, the taxi soon pulled to a stop on Avenida del Sol, where we began our hunt for ethereal accessories. After scoring enough heavenly couture to ensure our entry into the party, we returned to Loki to transform ourselves from hostel misfits to celestial city dwellers. Decked out in full regalia—sparkly gossamer wings, dramatically painted faces, and the one dress we each had brought along—Amanda, Holly, and I fluttered through the frosty night air. Joined by a winged cast of hundreds, we crossed Fallen Angel’s gothic threshold and entered a netherworld of Heaven-, Hell-, and Purgatory-themed rooms in a designer venue that could’ve rivaled any back in the Manhattan.
Upon arrival, we were immediately swept into an underground brick lair bathed in crimson light and filled with a trippy assortment of heart-shaped leather couches, zebra-striped pillows, and wrought-iron candelabras. Winged porcelain pigs dangled from the ceiling above glass-topped bathtubs, which doubled as tables and aquariums filled with live angelfish. Neon cocktails in hand, we followed the crowd of locals, expats, and fellow backpackers through a maze of darkened hallways to the dance floor. A three-story aluminum Adonis stood watch as half-naked drag queens doused in glitter, feathers, and miles of theatrical kohl eyeliner playfully taunted the partygoers.
Forming a tight-knit circle, we danced for hours, taking breaks to refill our drinks or battle the endless lines for one of two avant-garde bathrooms: Evil, which was represented by a tangled mass of barbed wire, thorny roses, and pierced-heart brocades, and Good, which was coated floor-to-ceiling with shattered mirrors and bathed in an eerie powder blue light.
Returning to the dance floor after refilling my drink, I heard Holly shouting my name from above. Looking up, I saw her strutting her stuff onstage with a dozen drag queens. Well, this is a surprise. Although I’d gotten to know Holly a lot better during the months leading up to the trip, her boundless energy and free-spirited nature never ceased to impress me. If this night was any indication of how our on-the-road lives would be, I might never want to return home.
“C’mon, you crazy angels! Get up here and dance!” Holly shouted to Amanda and me.
Laughing hysterically, we locked hands with Holly and heaved ourselves onto the platform. Hopping, spinning, and twirling our way into the night, we returned to the hostel only after every feather had fallen off our celestial bodies.
An evil sun cackles overhead. Giant tumbleweeds of jagged metal and glass sweep across the barren wasteland. Brian appears riding an oversized saguaro, a mournful expression in his liquid eyes. Suddenly his face smears and melts across the cactus branch like a Salvador Dalí clock, forming a puddle of mirrors on the sand. I open my mouth to scream, but the words crumbled to dust as they pass through my parched lips.
Bang, bang, bang! Squawk! Bang! Squawk!
Wrenched back to reality by thunderous concrete drilling and a seemingly deranged rooster, my eyes shot open in a panic. For a moment, I had no idea where I was, until I spotted Holly across the room, sound asleep on the bottom bunk of our communal dorm room. Perched on the wooden ledge by my bed was a large bottle of water, a small plate with a butter knife, two rolls, and a side of jam, along with a note from Amanda: “Thought you might need this. Down the street using the Internet. Meet you in the Loki café at noon.”
I pushed the note aside and pulled my scratchy wool blanket over my face. I didn’t know if it was the rum punch hangover nipping angrily at my head or the haunting visions from my dream, but I suddenly ached to be back in New York in Brian’s warm bed instead of fighting queasiness in this freezing cold dorm. It had been months since I’d broken the news to him about going on the trip, but the vivid details still came rushing back to me.
It was a typical Saturday morning in the city. Brian and I were nestled under his comforter, engaged in an intense game of rock/paper/scissors to determine whose turn it was to battle the winter chill for bagels and coffee. Even though he lost, I agreed to go with him. But only if we could stop by the pet store to visit my favorite Maltese puppy, a three-pound ball of fur that Brian dubbed the ultimate testosterone drainer. As always, he relented but reminded me that slobbery, ugly bulldogs were much funnier and insisted we also visit the dog park. “Okay, fine. But I’ll need to borrow my favorite fleece to keep me warm,” I countered, referring to Brian’s softest sweatshirt.
Strolling along the East River holding fuzzy gloved hands and giggling at the ridiculous knit outfits owners forced on their pets, I’d felt a sudden flutter of sadness. While not all of our recent memories had been Norman Rockwell–worthy, I still couldn’t bear the thought of losing Brian. If only I could’ve stopped time, locked the moment in a life-sized snow globe where the two of us would always be together, giddy and in love, kissing on a bench with glittery snowflakes swirling around us.
I’d tried to talk to him about the trip on several occasions, slipping it into conversations about summer plans or one of the endless talks about our future as a couple. But it’d always been easier for both of us to brush off the seemingly far-flung notion until it got closer to becoming a reality. It wasn’t until Amanda and I checked off the “not renewing” box on our apartment lease agreement that it hit me: I was really going to do this. I could not in good conscience keep my plans from Brian any longer. The toughest conversation of my adult life needed to happen, and fast.
All that week, guilt and sorrow clung to me like the dark swirl of dirt and flies that perpetually trailed Pigpen in the Charlie Brown comic strip. The dread and despair mounted until finally I couldn’t keep the truth bottled up any longer. Midway through dinner that night, I blurted out my decision to travel, casting my half-eaten egg roll back into its box in disgust as if it were somehow to blame for our impending pain and suffering.
Brian’s face turned to stone, his cornflower blue eyes hardening to slivers of coal. Deliberately staring at a vague point across the room and not directly at me, he calmly and icily stated that he guessed we were over for good. My temporarily tough exterior withstood the piercing blow for about .003 of a second before it shattered into broken sobs and pitiful gulps. The damage was done. I’d smashed my fantasy snow globe to bits, forever casting the smiley Brian and Jen figurines into a depressing puddle of broken glass and counterfeit snowflakes.
Blame it on my overwhelming state of distress and shock, but my sorrow quickly morphed into frustration. Why did I always have to play the bad guy? How many years would Brian let this relationship drag on before he made a decision? Did he ex
pect that our problems would miraculously solve themselves? Why did the entire weight of figuring “us” out always fall on my shoulders?
Before I knew it, we were head-to-head in an epic battle, with childish hissy fits, hysterical crying, screaming, and outright emotional breakdowns lasting well into the night. But despite all the logical reasons why we should’ve just ended things on the spot, somehow, by the time dawn broke, we’d negotiated a peace treaty, dictating in rather ambiguous terms that we’d stay together until I left for the trip, take the summer to reevaluate our relationship, and make a decision when I returned to New York between South America and Kenya.
“Oh, my God, Jen. What time is it? Where’s Amanda?” Holly groaned, pulling me back to my present state as a fallen postparty angel.
“She went to an Internet café, but she’s going to meet us in…like…forty-five minutes,” I said when my brain finally registered the numbers on my sports watch. “But look, she left us a minibreakfast,” I added, willing myself to roll off my lumpy mattress.
Crossing the room with the water bottle and plate, I plopped down on the floor next to Holly’s bed. As we gnawed on the crusty loaves, I recounted the details of my insane dream, a ritual I’d bestowed on Amanda every morning during our postcollege Europe trip. Holly nodded with polite interest, good-naturedly analyzing each scene from my subconscious. While there was not a doubt in my mind that taking this trip was the best thing for me, I still really missed Brian. I knew that Holly understood that on a personal level, and just having her there to listen to me was a surprisingly huge comfort. By the time we’d sopped up the last of the jam, I was ready to face a new day on the road.
As luck would have it, our arrival in Cusco had coincided with the frenetic conclusion of Inti Raymi, an age-old festival that paid tribute to the sun god—and in modern times made Mardi Gras look like a small-town homecoming parade. After meeting up with Amanda, the three of us joined the thousands of Peruvians and tourists from around the globe pouring into the Plaza de Armas, where an array of dance performances, colorful demonstrations, fireworks, and live music began at dawn and lasted well into the night.
Amanda, Holly, and I sat cross-legged on the stone steps of a church on the edge of the plaza, enveloped in a crowd of local families who happily made small talk with the American girls next to them. Mobile merchants shimmied through the tightly packed bodies, hawking cotton candy, postcards, and much-needed hot chocolate. Between the mystical aura of the city and the warmth of its people, the girls and I were truly enchanted by Cusco. As we raised our flimsy cardboard cups of cocoa and toasted to a successful first few days on the road, I started to feel better about my separation from Brian. With Amanda to my left and Holly to my right, I was more certain than ever that I wouldn’t have to walk the lonely road alone.
Our first week at Loki felt like a freshman orientation in the Andes. We spent almost every day exploring Cusco with our new friends, cross-referencing travel guides to ensure that we wouldn’t overlook a single historical site, crafts market, or restaurant. At night, after the warmth drained from the valley along with the sinking sun, we’d combat the cold by dancing to a live band at one of the town’s gringolandia outposts like Mama Africa, Ukuku’s Pub Cultural, and Mythology.
When exhaustion and the biting chill of a high-mountain Peruvian winter caught up with us, Amanda, Holly, and I would trek back to the hostel and pile on every stitch of quick-dry fabric we owned, plus a fleecy barrier of alpaca sweaters, hats, and gloves we’d snatched up at the Inca market. This was necessary to avoid getting frostbite in the meat locker of a dorm we shared with five random dudes, one of whom could awaken the entire room with the resonance and pungency of his epic-length farts.
But after we spent a week touring through religious monuments, taking hikes and horseback rides through nearby ruins, and going on day trips to the Sacred Valley, our Peruvian vacation started to lose its luster. Awakened yet again in the predawn hours by a bunkmate packing up his gear with all the delicacy of an angry hippo, the girls and I dragged ourselves to the breakfast room to grab some freeze-dried Nescafé, order a grilled cheese smashie (a fantastic creation involving a sandwich press and lots of butter), and discuss the current state of the union.
We were sitting around the table, silently making headway on our food, when Holly pointed out that we still had about 350 days left and, more immediately, the Inca Trail to climb. She figured we might feel better prepared for it if we checked ourselves into a nearby guesthouse, one that advertised private rooms, hot water—and no gaseous earthquakes rocking the top bunk at 3 a.m. Also, it wouldn’t serve us to catch that nasty virus that was sneaking into the bunks at night and felling backpackers like wounded antelope—especially right before hiking the trail. Unfortunately, not long after transferring to Niños Hotel down the road, we discovered that we hadn’t moved quite fast enough.
But we’re supposed to start the hike tomorrow,” I lamented to the doctor as I sat next to Amanda on her bed. She was burning up—and her high fever hadn’t broken in days. “Do you think there’s even a chance that she’ll be healthy enough to go?”
“Well, I think injection will improve her within a few hours, maybe a day,” said the doctor. “But I think maybe it is no good to do this hike.”
He turned to glance at Holly, who was in the other bed, curled up in the fetal position. “She, maybe, can go. You have take this Cipro already?”
“Yeah, last night,” Holly moaned from her bed.
“Then probably fine for tomorrow,” he said. “I will inject medicine in your friend, and if she does not feel improved, she should stay here.”
As the guy rustled around in the old-fashioned black doctor’s bag sitting on the nightstand, Amanda tried to roll over to look at me. “What’s happening?”
I sat down on the side of the bed and pulled Amanda’s hair up over her head. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We found a doctor and he’s just gonna give you a little shot to make you feel better.”
Her eyes suddenly grew enormous, and I almost smiled. Even in her late twenties, she was still afraid of needles.
“I’m gonna go out later to get some of the supplies he’s recommended to make you and Holly feel better. She’s got food poisoning or something, and he’s not sure what you have. It’s probably some bacterial infection. We don’t know yet.”
I stood up and moved across the room to make space for the doctor. Paper crumpled as he removed a syringe from its packaging.
Abject fear registered on Amanda’s face. “Do want me to hold your hand?” Holly asked quietly from her bed.
“No, you’re sick, too. I’ll be okay,” Amanda said. Ignoring her protest, Holly got up and walked over to Amanda, placing one hand on top of hers.
The man inched down the waistband of Amanda’s pajama pants and swiped a path of alcohol against her right butt cheek. As Amanda scrunched her eyes shut, Holly squeezed her fingers to comfort her.
“That needle is new, right?” I asked the doctor, who paused to scowl at me.
“Of course, yes. Now relax muscles,” he said to Amanda.
She flinched, and I held my breath until he withdrew the needle. When it was over, Holly retreated to her bed and crawled back under the covers.
The doctor gave me a few instructions, plus a list of liquids and medicines that I should buy to help my friends feel better. By the time I pulled the front door quietly shut behind me, both of them were fast asleep.
In the middle of the night—or actually, very early the next morning, I heard the sound of someone slowly getting up in the darkness and turning on the shower in the bathroom. I squeezed my watch and stared at the glowing green dial. Saturday, 4:51 a.m.
When Amanda emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later, both Holly and I were wide awake.
“How are you feeling, sickie?” I whispered. “Do you think we need to reschedule?”
All three of us knew the reality of the situation: there could be no rescheduling. Because
of the intense restrictions on the number of hikers allowed on the Inca Trail each day, we had to go now—or wait until we traveled around the world next time.
Amanda took a deep breath. “Well, I know what my mom would say. Don’t push yourself. You may feel better now, but you’ll make yourself worse if you try to do too much. Let the girls go ahead.”
I looked at Holly and gave her a sad half smile. Oh well. Even though Holly had started to feel better last night, there was no way that we’d hike the Inca Trail without Amanda—or push her to try to go with us. Even though we’d been planning this for several months, it was better to make sure everyone was healthy. We had a whole year ahead of us; surely there would be greater challenges to face, more Latin American mountains to climb.
Holly opened her mouth to say something, no doubt to try to make all of us feel better about the whole thing. That’s when Amanda cut her off.
“But c’mon, when have you ever known me to play it safe—or listen to my mom, for that matter?” She grinned. “Better start packing, ladies—we’re gonna be late.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Holly
INCA TRAIL, PERU
JULY
I was living out another one of my dreams: trekking through the Andes Mountains with my friends on a mission to see the sacred ruins of Machu Picchu (also known as the Lost City of the Incas). Ever since I’d studied Peru in high school history class, I’d wanted to go to that place where mysterious jungles kept stone temples under cover and Incas had worshiped the sun. I expected my first experience on the Inca Trail to be more mystical than commercial. But from the moment our tour bus arrived and our stiff hiking boots stepped down onto the trailhead, Quechua women enveloped us, pushing everything from wool hats to hiking sticks to candy bars into our chests, insisting that we needed them to survive the journey.
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