Computer Woes, Trujillo, Peru

Diane: We left Chiclayo two days ago. The night before we left, our computer decided to take a nose-dive to the netherworld. It would not boot. It appeared to stop booting, when attempting to load the graphics driver and then went black. Although we are traveling with backup copies of almost all the software I've installed on the system, I somehow brought with me the operating system (OS) and utility disks from our previous laptop. We were pretty much grounded. I called the U.S. manufacturer, even though it appeared to be a software problem. Using a local copy of an OS installation disk and acting on their instructions, we ended up with a system that continuously installed the OS at each boot-up, only to hang soon thereafter.

Instead of a tranquil morning bus ride to Trujillo, I left that night feeling a bit jangled. I was leaving a city to which I had grown attached. I had a sleek new boat-anchor in the form of a laptop. And TM's continuous back ache was starting to worry me.

We were all reluctant to reformat the hard drive. I seemed to be the most agitated about it, so I spent the day today going from one internet cafe to another in search of an an OS installation disk and CD keys. I was hoping that someone might let me borrow an installation CD to see if I could boot to the point where I could replace the bad driver. Everybody was willing to help me, but for the most part, these internet cafes operate with pirated software. As far as I could tell, they hire technical help to install everything, get it going, and provide maintenance; but, they never actually buy much of the software. So, if the technician wasn't around, there weren't any installation disks either.

At the 6th internet cafe I tried, a beautiful young woman was running the shop. The place was crawling with pre-teen boys all playing various computer games. They were making constant demands on her time and she handled them all with grace, charm, and a warm smile. You could tell she liked kids even though they argued about how much time they had left on the computer, how much money they owed her, and when the next station would be available. In addition, since most of the internet shops here keep a gate locked at all times, she was responsible for using a key to escort everyone in and out of the shop. Amidst this frantic level of activity, if someone came in to buy a blank CD or copy one, she took time out for that. She was a one-woman beehive of activity.

Amazingly, she made time for me. As it turned out, she was the technician for this shop. Her first question to me, after I described my problem was whether or not I had a 2nd partition on the hard drive. That was the right question! I was now in awe of this young woman. She was born and raised in Trujillo in Peru, a country in the heartland of South America, a continent known for its machismo world view. As it turns out, she was toward the end of completing a University degree in computer technology. There was currently one other woman in her degree program. If I understood correctly, her group started with 150 students. I can only imagine what double standards she had faced and scared down. Several hours after arriving, I left with an installation CD, a system that would boot (yay), but would not let me login (boo).

I arrived back at our guesthouse, dispirited and unhappy. Tom, on the other hand, was bright and invigorated after a morning visit to the Huaca de la Luna, which provided amazing examples of pre-Incan relief work with the original centuries-old paint still intact!

Each successive king constructed a new set of adobe walls directly on top of the previous set of walls, thus preserving the paint over the centuries. None of the paint has been restored, just cleaned.






The guide at Huaca de la Luna evidently had a lot of details concerning what was involved in human sacrifices there. Unlucky prisoners and sacrificial virgins were brought to the courtyard in the photo below. Priests and their attendants held them, cut their throats, and collected their blood in a golden cup. Still steaming, the cup was carried into the temple for a priest to drink. Another good story, but who really knows?






With the after-glow of this amazing site still illuminating his consciousness, Tom took over the computer restoration efforts and decided to reinstall the OS using only the default settings and the CD key found on the CD. Since all of the OS installation disks here default to Spanish, I had changed the defaults in order to install an OS that would "speak" English to us. I thought reinstalling was a waste of time, but Tom was in good spirits, and took on the task. Good thing too. Within an hour, he was able to login. The rest, although time consuming, is history.