Birkie Fever – Arequipa

Lima – Arequipa, Peru

When we left off we were on the bus from Lima to our second city of eternal spring (I think Medellin was the first . . .). Our bus had broken down and was replaced with a new bus. And we were a little worried about the bikes – which were on a different, later, bus.  

In the end it was all fine. We made it to Arequipa even if we were about 2.5 hours late. And, I guess because we were late, the bikes were waiting for us. 

I will say that I don’t recommend taking two overnight buses within a three day period. Exhausting. Took a two hour nap – which was more like a coma – after we arrived, and then slept about ten more hours last night. 

Of course, Diana was fine. She spent the time that I was napping yesterday walking around the city. And she’s walking around again now – while I use the blog as a good excuse to relax a little. 

Diana’s been like that as long as I can remember. Shortly after we married she was doing her residency at North Memorial. They used to work the residents to the bone. 24 hours on, 24 hours off. She would be up all night and then would just go about her normal business – probably throwing in a three hour run – on her days off. 

Let me share one of my favorite Diana stories from that time. She’s working 24s at the hospital. I don’t remember what rotation she was doing – but basically she was on call; the residents were supposed to sit in the hospital and wait for their pagers to go off. If the pager went off the residents would go to wherever it was they were supposed to go in the hospital. Well, Diana saw this as a big waste of an opportunity to exercise. Her solution? Rather than sit in the call room, she went outside and was running laps around the hospital. 

All good. Until her attending – the senior physician that was in charge of her rotation – saw her. He demanded to know what she was doing and made her go back into the hospital and wait for her pager to go off there . . . Me? I would have been horrified to be busted like that. Didn’t bother Diana a bit. I think she just went back to her run-around-the-hospital program on her next rotation . . .

Arequipa is a nice town. It’s a lot like a number of other Spanish colonial cities that we’ve been in. Antigua in Guatemala. And Puebla and Oaxaca in Mexico.

I guess there’s a good reason for that. 

We took a little “free” walking tour this morning and the tour guide told us that the king required Spanish colonial towns to have the same pattern: central square with government offices on one side and big cathedral on the other. They all seem to have central fountains and this archway type architecture on the buildings that provides cool overhanging space. Oh, and don’t forget the cobblestones. You have to have the cobblestones if you want to be in the Spanish colonial club. 

There are a few distinguishing characteristics of Arequipa though: earthquakes and volcanoes. I guess Arequipa has more earthquakes than just about anyplace on earth. And the Arequipa skyline is replete with volcanoes. But we didn’t experience either of these things – no earthquakes – at least that we could feel – and too cloudy to see the volcanoes. Which is what happens when you’re in Peru during the rainy season I guess . . .

We did go to Mundo Alpaca – Alpaca World – though. It’s kind of like Disneyland – except with llamas and alpacas substituting for Mickey and Mini. It’s kind of funny. Some British guy came to town like a hundred years ago, saw all the llamas and alpacas – and decided to create an international business selling sweaters and stuff. The family eventually opened Alpaca World as a way to draw people to their store: ”Come see the llamas and alpacas – for free . . . Oh, yeah, we happened to be selling $250 sweaters – but that’s just a coincidence . . . Oh, you want to buy one? I guess that’s okay . . .”

I think we’re both pretty eager to get back on the bikes. Other than the 30-40 miles of riding we did touring Lima, we haven’t done much other than sit around on buses this week. Not our style . . .

Tomorrow we climb back on to Old Dan and Little Ann again, head down to the coast and then we start making our way toward Chile – and the Atacama Desert. I guess it’s the driest place on earth – outside of Antártica or something. 

Which brings me to one other topic that I’m hoping someone might have some ideas for us on. We really need our camping gear again because there aren’t necessarily hotels all over the place in the desert and in Southern Argentina. And we like to camp where we can and Chile and Argentina are supposed to be good for that.

But here’s the problem . . . Over a month ago we went to a DHL store and mailed our camping gear from Medellin, Colombia to a friend in Santiago, Chile. All good – except it never arrived. DHL has contacted us about half-a-dozen times to ask for “additional” information – all of which they already had . . . They have not been very clear on what the problem is, but they seem to be indicating that the customs people in Chile are holding the package up. We don’t really understand what’s going on – and the folks at DHL are super unhelpful. 

Does anyone have any ideas for us? Anyone know some muckety-muck that works at DHL? Lots of blog points for anyone who can help . . .

Last thing I wanted to talk about today is the American Birkebeiner – the Birkie. The Birkie is a 50-kilometer (31 mile) cross country ski race that runs from Cable to Hayward, Wisconsin. The event is a big part of our lives. We’ve both competed for years – and I’ve actually completed the last 30 Birkies in a row. We have all kinds of traditions that go along with the Birkie. The big pasta feed the night before. The nervous energy of a bunch of people preparing for the same big thing at the same time. The post-Birkie broomball game.

So it’s kind of a big deal for us to miss this year’s event. It’s been a low-snow year in the Midwest, which is kind of a bummer. But we’ve enjoyed following the progress recently, and we’re happy to see that there is now enough snow to run the full course.

I want to take a moment to talk about events like the Birkie more generally. I think sometimes we have a tendency to discount community traditions like this. “Oh, that’s just a ski race.” Or, “It’s just too complicated. All that rigamarole for just a few hours of skiing.” Or, and this is the one that I really think misses the mark: “I enjoy skiing by myself a lot more . . .”

Doing things together is such a big deal. Community traditions are so important. The world is divided enough right now. We see it down here in things like the Day of the Dead, or the upcoming Carnaval in Ecuador. These are the things that define a culture and create community. And they are the things that you miss when you’re on a trip like we are now.

So without getting to wishy-washy, wishing all of our friends – and daughter Ellie and her boyfriend, Jacob – good luck this weekend.

Birkie Fever 2025!!!