Text and illustrations by Isao Makino
In the spring of my 21st year, I traveled abroad for the first time. My destination was Peru in South America. When I was in elementary school, my favorite homeroom teacher was transferred to a Japanese school in this country, and ever since then, I had been turning my globe and dreaming of traveling there. It was a solo trip that I set off on a whim, without even booking a single night's accommodation, thinking that as long as I had a passport, I'd be fine.
When I arrived in the capital, Lima, I was left alone at customs, which only accepted Spanish, but with the help of the flight attendant from my plane, I managed to enter the country. The only Spanish I could speak was "cerveza" (beer). As I left the airport, I saw a group of taxi drivers huddled behind a wire fence, so I picked out a friendly-looking one and asked him to take me to a hotel.
Although it was a taxi, it was a junk car with no meter or anything, the seats were torn and the springs were exposed. The bumps of the road were felt directly on my buttocks, so I was crouching in the back seat the whole time. We were kicking up dust and going at an incredible speed, so I looked at the speedometer to see how many kilometers we were going, but the needle was stuck at zero and not moving.
But actually, I really like this kind of haphazard feeling. Perhaps judging by my appearance, the driver took me to a cheap hotel called "Hotel del Sol."
A book had recommended that I eat ceviche in Peru, so I tried it at various restaurants, but I guess the one I ate at a street stall was bad, as I got sick and was bedridden with a high fever soon after arriving. Looking back, it was risky, but I was young.
Once my fever subsided, I bought a tour from a travel agency with a Japanese employee and set off on a few days to see the ruins of Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines. During that time, I barely spoke to anyone and just stared out the train and bus windows, but the scenery of the majestic Andes mountains and sky, which remained unchanged no matter how long we drove, was simply amazing and I never got bored of it.
The most unforgettable of all was the highland railway to Cusco. As we traveled through the rugged mountains, the sun gradually began to set. I was sitting in a booth, and across from me were a middle-aged American man and woman I'd just met, happily chatting. Eventually, the sun set, and the train began to move silently across the completely dark highlands. Suddenly, a man in flashy clothing and a hat appeared and began playing a local folk song on a charango.
The passengers listened and gave tips, but when a large moon emerged from the shadow of the mountains that seemed to reach the heavens, they all turned their gaze to the view outside. The mountains, illuminated by the moonlight, floated dimly in the darkness. And then, suddenly, the train lights were turned off, and the surprised passengers all let out a whoosh, and the dark interior was left lit only by the moonlight streaming in through the windows.
At this point, a skilled charango player began playing the well-known "El Condor Pasa." The excited audience clapped their hands and kicked their feet in delight. Some even stood up and began dancing. I was overjoyed. Most of the audience were foreign tourists, so perhaps the performance was intentional, but I didn't care.
When I arrived in Cusco late at night, it was cold even with a jacket over my sweater. The air was thin in this highland city at an altitude of 3,400 meters. I went to a bar in the station square and found the man and woman who had sat across from me on the train already enjoying a drink together.
I sat alone at the counter and ordered a liquor called Pisco, which came in a strange bottle shaped like a face from an Inca ruin, but instead I got a sweet cocktail mixed with a raw egg, which I couldn't drink at all. I got another drink and maybe even had a sandwich or something. Feeling drunk, I left the bar thinking it was time to head back to the hotel. Suddenly, under the dim streetlights of an alleyway, the same man and woman were embracing each other and passionately kissing each other repeatedly.
