(A Story from Peru)
My absolute favorite thing about Peru was the dogs!
Okay, I admit it. I’m a dumb American Girl with way too much empathy when it comes to animals, who wanders around parties making friends with cats and dogs like a drunk SnowWhite. If you end up dating me, you will just have to accept that I will forever love my cat more than I love you, just like my parents have had to accept that when I go visit, I am really there to see my dog. That is just the way that it is. I LOVE every single dog, cat, and llama I have ever crossed paths with.
AND THERE ARE SO MANY DOGS IN PERU!
Seriously, Peru is filled with dogs. Most of them are strays, mutts who live on the street and eat out of the garbage, but some are well loved street dogs who patrol their neighborhood and make sure wayward hikers know all of the best places to sniff, who then go home to their soft beds. None of them were aggressive. When you research staying safe in Peru most of the blog posts suggest that if a dog approaches you to pick up some rocks to throw at it if it gets aggressive. I did not meet a single aggressive dog while I was there; one dog that hadn’t learned that you don’t play by jumping on tourists but even he was gentle.
The other twenty-somethings I was traveling with, and me of course, all watched the dogs from our bus windows and would stop to pet the dogs while we waited in lines lamenting that we couldn’t take every single one home with us. There were some convoluted plans to try buy they involved a lot of spoons and a substantial bribe to every airport security guard in Cusco. We each had a different dog we ended up bonding with but the lament we all shared, “why can’t I bring this dog home?”
My dog was in Cusco. We met the evening of New Years Eve. I had been up and doing things for at least 15 hours by that time and I had at least 6 more to go if I was going to make it to midnight. So, I ventured out of the hotel, alone, to find a safe place to get a cup of coffee. My tour guide had told us every time we ventured out not to buy food from the street vendors, including coffee, because that food was “not for us.” I knew there was a Starbucks somewhere in the square. The adventure of trying to find that on 3 hours of sleep and a full day of exhaustion behind me is another story for another time… because I honestly don’t know how I managed it.
A couple of shots of straight espresso in hand I made my way out of the square in the general direction that I thought the hotel was only to realize I wasn’t 100% sure where the hotel was, and it was starting to get dark and crowded in the city.
“Don’t die today,” I hummed to myself. I was pretty sure I had come down this road, so I set off with purpose. In my experience the best way to avoid dying in a strange city is to; 1) never stop walking, and 2) go whatever direction you are going like you know exactly where you are going and are late to get there. If I didn’t make it to the intersection before the light changed I would cross the other direction and work my way back around to the street and direction I wanted to be going. When you are a woman and are alone in a city you do not know well and do not speak the language it is better to not give anyone the opportunity to approach you or to think you might be lost. It is unfortunate that we live in a world that is dangerous and you have to think about those sorts of things.
I crossed a street, still heading generally the right direction, and came to a corner with a big golden dog sitting by the wall. The dog looked at me and gave me a puppy smile, where they wag their tail panting happily. I did what you are not supposed to do with stray dogs and reached out my hand, touching the top of the dog’s head. Yeah, I’m sure he was covered in diseases and germs and other unsavory things from digging around in the trash. I pet the dog. I had pet almost every street dog I came across in Peru. Dogs in Machu Picchu, dogs that ran up the trails in Ollantaytambo, dogs at the train station. I pet the dogs!
Most of the dogs allowed me to pet them. That was a lot of what they wanted. One dog in Machu Picchu, who was covered in mud from running up the mountain in the rain just to be where the tourists were, rested his head on my knee while I was waiting for the bus and I rubbed his ears until he fell over onto his side fast asleep, still breathing, I checked. The dog in Cusco took my petting him as an invitation to go for a walk. He hopped up from his resting place and set off down the street with me. Sometimes he would stop and sniff then, upon realizing I had continued walking, come hurrying up and walk beside me. All the way to my hotel. Once I got to my hotel, he wagged his tail and turned around to wander back up the street.
This dog walked me home every evening for three days. Now, before you get all cynical with me, this dog was clean, or as clean as dogs ever are, and when one of my companions offered him food, he sniffed it then just continued leading us down what we started referring to as his street. I do not know what this dog wanted, he accepted nothing I had to offer, but I wanted to take this dog home with me! And a dog, much like a large stash of coca leaves, was one of the things I knew they were not going to let me take back to the states with me.
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