A Dirt Road

The scent of smokey pine wafts up the undulating dirt road that traces one of the hills rising above Huaraz where I’m running. The sound of the city permeates the wide valley. Cars honk, construction machines churn and grind, and dogs throughout the city bark an incessant chorus.

The stones beneath my feet stir and clink as I descend, trotting back and forth down the switchbacks. I like it here. Life is simple, and people live more by necessity than pleasure. I pass two young children, no older than 7, waiving sticks at a small flock of sheep to coax them up the dusty road. They stare at my bare arms, pale, unlike theirs, a beautiful golden brown. My cheeks are rosy from the sun peaking out beneath the swelling clouds that portend afternoon rain.

I gaze down upon Huaraz, its dense, cement and brick buildings – its kinked streets. I love the countryside, but I also love learning the city – the shortcuts that lead from the center up to the house in the south-east part of town. I can barely spot my current dwelling in the sea of related rooftops, its reflective silver-panels beside a clothesline that sports tiny dots of pink, green, blue and white, like hundreds of others nearby. A colorful cemetery dwarfs the city from the south, a stone boarder encroaching like the inevitable rain. A handful of small black bodies run across the concrete schoolyard beside the house.

I love the nuances of the culture. I love riding the bumpy school bus through the city, and getting lost in the “Mercado” amidst the dangling cow ribs, sweaters, trinkets, and dried goat heads. I haven’t quite adapted to some of the local customs surrounding meals, but certain aspects suit me well, like eating the large fruit salad breakfast that Luis prepares. I want to rebel against traditions like never preparing raw fish in the evenings, but other things I want more of, like having soup with every dinner. I hop over what looks like a sheep skin.

When people ask me the inevitable questions like how long I’m staying, I respond with vague answers.

“I don’t know, I’d like to bring my dog to Huaraz; she would love it here!”

Maybe one day I will end up building something more permanent here. But in the meantime, I cherish the smell of smoking pine, the barking chorus, and the clinking stones beneath my feet.