Supposedly, I should have a quiet day today. Since the excursion of the day is to go to Salinas, where I already went with Amanda and other friends on my first weekend in Cuzco. Anyhow, after class this morning, I realize there is no lunch in the house, it's all packed for the excursion (with two sandwiches, a banana, and a box of juice), so I go along anyway after I think about, since I have no other plan. We are on a small van to go to Salinas, about an hour drive from Toray. It starts to rain, and some of us in the back realize that the van does not have windshield wrappers. It is kind of scary really, seeing our driver drives without a clear vision what's ahead. The rain gets harder, what do we know, it starts to lark in at the top of the back door. It drips on my jeans. Meanwhile, it also comes in side way, it gets the back of my t-shirt wet as well. I am like thinking inside, I should have stuck with my original plan to stay in and have it easy today.
Since I am already there, there is really nothing I can do, so just squeeze in tighter to the girl next to me, and the journey continues. We arrive at the town near Salines, and I suddenly realize it is different from my last visit to Salinas. Last time, our taxi took us to the entrance of Salinas up on the hill, but this time we actually go there through a local village and stop at the foot of the hill. Turn out we are going to hike up to the other side of the Salines (salt pans). And from this direction, we don't need to pay the 5-10 Soles entrance fee. Rains are still coming down, I am sort of staying in the middle, there are bunch of more active guys in front of me, and there are some girls behind me. Raul, our housekeeper who only speaks Spanish, insist to lead me via a shortcut. I DON'T LIKE SHORTCUT! (I need to learn that line in Spanish next time!) Anyway, I follow him, and soon enough I realize the kind of dangerous ground I am standing on. I seriously don't dare to look down, the so called shortcut maybe just wide enough to fit both of my feets close together, nothing more. And the hill is REALLY steep. I feel like I would faint if I look down.
I am really freaking scared actually, just hope the shortcut will end soon. I am like, what is this? Adventure of the day! 3 days on a row, I have to have some kind of adventure to go through everyday here. I keep my eyes up on the wall, trying to hold on to the wall, or anything I can grab. Before I know it, my left hand grab on a cactus, holy shit, that hurts! Although it does not bleed, it only hurts like hell. Just a few minutes later, I catch another one (a different type - a small one) on my right hand as well. I really feel like Benny Benny, why am I following him? I should have been more careful about my surrounding and do only what I can feel comfortable to do. We finally get out of that hell of a shortcut and back to the main trail.
On this side of Salinas, the salt pans actually look more pretty, maybe because there are less tourist on this side, and the salt pans go more deeply (vertically) into the valley. The rain continues on and off... it's such a gloomy day. Back to town, a few of us went to our cafe, Ulrike Simic, I have a chocolate chip cheesecake. This is the third dessert I have tried in this cafe. I have not been disappointed once. At night, a few of us are playing some card games in the TV room, including one of the professor. It's midnight before I realize I still have homework to do, everyone goes back to their room, I am hurrying to write a passage about holidays in Hong Kong, while the professor is watching some news program, and Alan is playing guitar alone in the garden.
I think about 12:40am, I go to bed.
Photos here: Day 22
