My Traveling Companions…
Personaje #1 - Bus from Huanúco a Lima - Dilgan
All waking moments on my bus ride were filled with chatting with a guy named Dilgan who is a journalist that writes about traveling in Peru and it's culture. He really liked to talk and he really liked me. It started out cool with chatting about Peru, but it soon got slightly more uncomfortable when he did everything for me, tried to convince me love will most definitely overcome all differences between cultures, told me I should meet his parents and stay with them and start working with the kids in their neighborhood, asked me a million times if I could see myself living in Lima, Peru, tried to get me to have a drink with him and see the sights tonight, put his necklace on my wrist so that I would have a remembrance of him, told me how my face was nice, sweet, open, natural, honest, etc, gave me many ways to contact him and tried to make me promise to do so. NO LIE!. He definitely knew that I had a boyfriend this whole time. (Just so you know, aaron, i mentioned that right off the bat when things got weird.) AND he was definitely 30-35 years old.
The best part about this situation was that towards the end of the trip, when he looked away or bent down the old lady next to him and I would make confused faces at each other because it was getting really ridiculous. She would shake her head slightly at him, and then he would pop back up and keep leaning over the aisle to talk to me.

Personaje #2 – Central Parque in the Miraflores District of Lima - Ricardo
I was walking around parque central and an old man started telling me about the music that we were listening too. He was about 70 years old and had thick glasses that made his already wide eyes look rather insect-like. He was friendly and a little odd, but for someone of that age I at first thought that rather normal. We talked about his travels in Peru which were a spiritual journey for him, about ancient indigenous rituals, and the time he spent in the States while we were in the park. He asked me if I wanted to get a coffee (not weird due to his age) and I suggested that we go somewhere where I could try a pisco sour (which I liked a lot). We did, and then he proceeded to talk to me for around two hours about metaphysics, how his spirit has separated from his body on many occasions, and about his spiritual journey.
As Ricardo and my conversation progressed, I explained to him that I believed in God and felt led by his spirit and not by communicative waves from other persons as he did. Nevertheless it’s really hard to try to discuss something with or dissuade someone who believes so strongly in an experience that they have had. He believed that persons are controlled by their situations, and if I asked him what then was the purpose of life, he would respond that we can learn to control our situations. If I asked where the communication between humans comes from and what causes the situation, the answer was always that it just exists and we create it ourselves. It was frustrating to only be able to offer him an oral testament that I have a personal relationship with God and feel content and “in contact with” who I am and what I am doing because he believes that these sentiments are a part of my “journey “ to further realization of human interconnectedness via spiritual communicative waves. To summarize the rest of this story, there was also some talk of his belief that humans actually originated from a people group from another planet who used all of their brains but didn’t want our human race to be as smart as them so they limited the our use of our brains by setting up mental blocks. The exploration of the separation of body and soul is a way to move beyond these barriers.
I found it strange that Ricardo is the second person within about three weeks with whom I have had an extended conversation about metaphysical, new-age spirituality. (I met a lady apprenticing with a Shaman on the plane here.) I don’t know if God is trying to teach me about this so that I can better respond to people like this in the future or what.

Personaje #3 – Walking on Sunday morning in Lima to Lancomar (big Americany mall - Victor
I was “befriended” again by another guy on the street who at first wanted to know where a medical clinic was. I didn’t know so, naturally, he started talking to me about his life and myself. I asked if Lancomar was down the street ahead (my mistake) and he proceeded to escort me to the mall and talk to me for another half an hour. He sells Nissans and wants to do so in America when he has enough money to purchase his visa ( or some such thing). Luckily, I had already had coffee so when he suggested this I could say no. We talked about Latin Jazz and classical music and dictators and terrorism, and I don’t think I’m going to use the email address he gave me. He was a flirt who actually asked me if I liked guys who told the truth to girls or ones who told them nice-sounding lies.

Personaje #4 – Boarding flight to Quito, Ariel
As I boarded the plane to Quito, I asked the guy behind me whether the flight had food. He said yes and made some joke about the small quantity of it. After the flight, he then started chatting to me as we waited for our luggage. He was from Argentina, used to live in the U.S., used to play soccer and now is a soccer coach. He gave me his number in case I had questions while I was in Quito. How much good an Argentinean is going to be for answering questions about Quito, I don’t know, but it was a nice gesture.
I think that I must have a sign on me that says please take me places and do nice things for me or something like that. God sometimes has weird ways of taking care of me.