Although I do not eat meat at home, I cannot say the same for when I am traveling. As the old, over-used saying goes, “when in Rome ….”

In Peru, I either eat something with meat as part of the meal, or I go hungry. One can eat potatoes, tomatoes, and hot red rocoto peppers only so often before it gets boring!

This is my fifth time in Peru, and before I left the United States, I knew I would eat meat of some kind, but I also knew it would not be farm-raised, tortured pigs, chickens, or baby lambs kept in pens and slaughtered without having any kind of life fit for animals the way they are at home.

It is not easy for a vegetarian to eat in Peru, as it might be in many parts of the world, let alone if one is vegan. So, I adjust, and I must say, it has taken some practice. By now, after so many years traveling, it’s not that difficult for me.

If you are a die-hard vegan, then I suggest you do not visit Peru, unless you are renting a place where you can cook for yourself.

I adore the dishes called escribano and rocoto relleno, but most versions (served to tourists that is) are insipid. Although escribano has no meat, all rotoco relleno has some kind of chopped meat in it.

Recently restaurants have added something called “vegetarian rocoto relleno”, but I doubt that one has any flavor at all. As it is, I have to ask for “mas rocoto fresco” — an entire hot pepper I can chop up to add to any food I’ve ordered.

Years ago, the dishes in Arequipa were “spicy hot” when you ordered them. Now, they never are now, at least when you look like I do—a very white-haired, pale-skinned Americano, even if I do speak Spanish :-)

Amusing anecdote: today my husband and I want out to lunch for adobo (stewed pork in a tomato-based soup), and he asked for one with rocoto and one without. Guess who got the “without” ? and we had to switch plates!

No matter what is on offer, I can always enjoy the views. The restaurant where I most recently ate the first decent escribano I’ve had on this trip was a few miles up some steep hills (in a taxi!) to a place overlooking the valley with the city of Arequipa in the distance.

For the fifth time in twenty-eight years, I’ve been wandering with my husband through the White City of Arequipa. I do not think it has changed much; it is I who have left something of my youthful awe behind, and I’ve no idea where or when I lost it.

The first time I was here at age fifty, I dreamed of moving to the mountains of Peru, my imagination still wild and untamed. The future loomed in front of me, open with years of endless possibilities and few responsibilities to drag along side me.

Memories of wayfaring days in my twenties seemed as sharp as if I’d just thumbed my way through seven European countries with a backpack and a sleeping bag slung over my shoulders.

This trip, I’ve been wondering why I do not feel delighted to be here, filled with inspiration, exhilarated to open a journal and pour my thoughts and feelings onto blank pages. Perhaps I am out of practice. Or, maybe I just need time away from home, the United States, and the disaster that is our politics before I can feel anything.

Perchance, I ought to live a little here and not try to document every little thing. The only new thought that has occurred to me is: I feel out of place for the first time during my travels, like rain drops might feel falling in Death Valley in the middle of a 120-degree August day. Wasted.

Here I am in a city surrounded by the driest desert in the world during a cold winter, and all I can think about is a blazing hot desert located in southeastern California within the Mojave Desert. My husband and I drove through it twenty-two years ago—like the idiots we were—in mid-July during a move from the west coast back east. We were lucky to make it through alive in an old, beat-up car filled with our belongs, but no water.

I am living in a place where my white-blond hair and pale skin stands out from a sea of gorgeous shades of browns. So many hues that if I had a palette filled with colors of paint, I wouldn’t be able to recreate what I see. People stare at me as if I am a creature from outer space. This is a new feeling. I wonder if it’s just old age.

Now, why can I not sense the thrill of adventure when here I am in a foreign country where my conversational Spanish is good enough only to order food and be polite. After studying for five years, almost daily, I can read and write just fine, but open my mouth? Next to nothing comes out as it should.

Ah, but I did not set out to write about how I feel at the end of this first week in Peru. I know enough to recognize tomorrow will be different. Feelings are fleeting. I need only to open my eyes wider to the differences all around me, and see.

On one of our first days here in the city we visited a place we’d enjoyed eight years ago. It’s free, located within a long walking distance of the main plaza and shops on uneven, ancient-looking stone streets, and if you want to spend an enormous sum of money, you can purchase a 100-percent Alpaca sweater or scarf from the shop located on the way out.

Michell & CIA SA has been shipping clothing, material, and yarns all over the world for more than ninety years. There are llamas and alpacas at the little farm with a nice-sized barn area where they wander freely. Without fear, they casually approach tourists for veggie treats handed out for free.

It’s not easy to get a good photo because some of the old sweeties are so experienced they grab the greens and immediately show you their backsides. The younger ones seem to be affectionate and curious.

After feeding a few alpaca and llama, we wandered through the museum area to read huge posters on the wall that explain the history and philosophy of the company, which focuses on sustainability and fair trade.

As we exited the museum building we entered a large patio area with stairs leading back up to the entrance. Everything in Peru is built from stone—at least the buildings and streets in the center of Arequipa. The buildings are built of limestone blocks (hence the name “the white city”). Everywhere you walk history is apparent. It is a photographer’s dream.

Tomorrow I shall endeavor to see with new eyes again. Not with the eyes of a young girl waiting for the next thrilling adventure while still living one, but with the vision of an elder who has earned her place in the world, no matter the language spoken, the country, or the weather.

Arequipa is called the white city. The mountains Misti, Chachani, and Pichu Pichu surround the city, which is located on the edge of the driest desert in the world. It is a fertile valley here, but we are living at an altitude of a bit more than 2,300 meters (for readers in the U.S. that is 7,661 feet).

First day in Peru — off to the Camilo Mercado! I had to buy a hat to protect my face from the sun. (My straw hat at home was too big to fit in my carry on bag.) We admired all the fruits and vegetables on the way to one of the hat stalls. I wish we had such markets where I live.

Finally found some hats, but alas, not big enough for me!

I was blessed with a very round head, and Peruvian people on the whole are very small, so I turned around to look what was across the aisle, and there it was. The perfect, adjustable hat with space to let my ponytail or braid flow out the back. You’ll see it in some photos later (but we haven’t taken any of ourselves yet).

Wandering further, I discovered several stalls selling potatoes. With watering mouth, I turned away—I’d no kitchen in which to cook. In the mercado you can find more types of potatoes than anywhere in the United States. This was just a sample.

Still had time to kill, so we headed up to the San Francisco Plaza (took a taxi, because believe me, by now the altitude was starting to get to us.)

With sunhat on my head, we wandered here and there people watching. Nearby there is a jeweler we’d noticed years ago, so I stopped to resize my rings—aging tip: your fingers might get a little thinner than they were fifty years ago :-)

I never used to miss deadlines during my previous writing lives. In the beginning of my writing career I was a news reporter responsible for three features a week—education, seniors, and health.

I also had to cover breaking news (which regularly interrupted work on features), visit the police station to write a quick police blotter, help write cutlines (captions) and headlines, and just in case I wanted to go home, I had to stay and proofread the dummy layout in the days before computers.

Did I mention I was a single mother who had to go to bed at 9 p.m. and wake up at 2:30 a.m. to write a feature story due in the morning?

My daughter cut her teeth on City Council meetings late at night and learned to sit quietly on the floor coloring pictures for a few hours. Still I never missed a deadline.

Covering news was hardcore training, and it made meeting deadlines in the corporate world six years later seem easy. Deadlines never really mattered in high-tech land. I’d meet one, and then they’d realize they wanted to add a new feature to a product release, and I’d have to go back and rewrite, add, edit, and delete material (without enough reasonable time to meet a new one).

Still, I met whatever deadline was imposed.

Suffice it to say I didn’t get a lot of sleep during the nights I slept under my desk for a few hours to meet deadlines that should have been impossible.

I’ve discovered in my creative writing life that I dismiss self-imposed deadlines with abandon. I miss deadlines I’ve set to submit to open calls. No guilt. But, this morning I woke up and thought, I must post something! I promised some of my readers I would.

Apparently, after three days of walking outside rather than sitting at a PC writing, some level of guilt has kicked in. Either that, or I just have that itch. I must write! I haven’t written anything at all until now—not even in my journal.

Since I’ve got lots pictures already, I’ll begin posting. That’s the only deadline that’s important to me right now. Keep my promise. I will share pictures daily, as long as I get at least one hour alone and reliable Wifi, even if I don’t write much of anything. Here is a pic of my arrival. I almost missed it getting my phone out of the bag!

By the way, I am not missing the United States at all—or the news—and since this is the first chance in eight years I’ve had to be out of the country, the news is the one thing I plan not to check for the next month. Be back soon :-)

On A Journey
The sun is setting 
O’er the mountains comes
Long rolls of thunder 
Like the feat
Of far-off drums
Or tread of many feet.

The nearer trees are gleaming wet
With the late rain
Like tear-drops from a heart
Eased of its pain
The scene slips by ― ‘tis bearing me
Away from this ― away from thee!
—Lilian Stockton Allen Edmonds
    Undated, c. 1905-1920

Greetings from Waving From A Distance. As I head out for adventures in Peru after being gone for eight years, I am reminded of my grandmother’s words about travel.

I wonder to whom she wrote the poem, On A Journey.

Based on some poetry I discovered in her earliest journals, it would appear she went through a “forced” separation from a man with whom she was deeply involved.

I have no way to know for sure, but it’s possible that her parents “sent her away” in order to break up the pair, which was not uncommon during the first decade of the twentieth century—if the family did not approve of the match.

On the other hand, she might have written it in the year 1920, after she had her third miscarriage and “went away” to a sanitorium (as they called such a place for women’s recovery in those days).

On A Journey tells me Lilian the elder was deeply in love with someone—whether it was my grandfather or someone she knew before marriage. I know neither where she went to nor for how long.

What I do know is: I will return in five weeks after some time away from writing about forgotten poems. While I wander, I will share with my readers photos of Peru and perhaps brief thoughts.

I intend to wander aimlessly thinking only of the present, not the past, as I enjoy my “Dolce Far Niente” time—literally—the sweetness of doing nothing.