Tumbes to Lima: The Wasteland of Perú (Part 2 of the trip)

I left off last at the border crossing between Ecuador and Perú, entering the town of Tumbes and making my earliest observations. Currently, we are in Copacabana, Bolivia, on the coast of Lake Titicaca. In other words, I have got a lot of catching up to do. Since Tumbes, we traveled all the way down the coast of Perú, through mostly desert (wasteland), arrived to Lima, the capital city, stayed there for a couple of days and then caught a flight over a few of the Andes, into Cuzco.

Walking into Bolvia (Peru-Boliva Border)

You know how my earliest observations of Perú were not very optimistic sounding, especially in terms of my feelings toward the people? I should rather say, I wasn't optimistic about the feelings of the Peruvians towards me; I didn't enter Peru looking to have any issues with those peeps! Well, from Tumbes, all the way to the next border with Bolivia, we received the royal "I hate you and I'm going to be the least helpful as possible treatment" from the majority of the Peruvians that we came across. We honestly couldn't figure out what the deal was. Unfortunately, I can't quite share Che Guevara's sentiment; I most certainly did not feel Peruvian in Peru and was more than happy to walk straight across the border, likely not to return, EVER.


I don't like generalizations (I try to avoid making them as much as possible), and I certainly wouldn't say that the entire people of Peru are impolite and cold, but this was simply the experience we had. There may be any number of explanations. Perhaps Peruvians are sick of tourists, or maybe they just didn't like my face. Nonetheless, during the Peru leg of our trip, we did encounter some very nice people as well. Most of them weren't actually from Peru, but there were some scattered nice Peruvians here and there. Social interactions aside, we have seen some amazing, once in a lifetime landscapes and historical sites in the Peruvian nation. I most definitely do not regret having visited.

I wouldn't include the landscapes during the trip down the coast to Lima as part of those "once in a lifetime landscapes." Most of what we saw, from Tumbes down, was dry, dead and generally awful no-man's-land. The saddest part about it is, even though I call it no-man's-land, Peru's poorest of the poor were living in parts of this territory. Lined on the dunes, in the middle of the desert, we passed by several small pueblos of shacks that had been put together by tin, cardboard, sugar cane leaves, and any other waste that could be used for the purpose. These places had no running water, no electricity, nothing; the site provoked a profound sadness in me that I still haven't been able to shake. The sum-all of the melancholy and desperate state of this place, for me, was when I was the only one in the car to notice a rotting cow carcus on the side of the desert road. Why would someone live in such a place? Simple, an over populated world that is becoming quickly exhausted of all of its resources, simply has not for the have nots. Apart from that, you can consider the political implications and consequences that have come down from years of corrupt politics and U.S., Operation Condor, backed dictatorships in Peru (Fujimori, for one) that are governing a people that they do not care for or protect. What's worse is that Fujimori's daughter, Keiko, damn near also got elected as pres in Peru. Welcome again to the Banana Republic.

January 3, 2013, Thursday: There were some sites of relief between Tumbes and Lima, I would refer to them as Oasis, perhaps mirages. During our second day of the trip, we covered a considerable amount of ground. We went from the border with Ecuador, clear down to Trujillo. Around mid-morning, we stopped in the small beach town of Máncora. For some reason, tourists, especially Argentines, love this beach. We were there for around and hour, just enough time to get nasty looks and exaggerated sighs for being indecisive about what we wanted to eat for breakfast. The beach seemed fairly nice, but it was packed with people. Since I'm not big on the beach, or the ocean for that matter, I prefer a much more tranquil spot, aware from the tourist trap madness that Máncora appeared to be. We had lunch in the city of Chiclayo. I don't have much to say about Chiclayo, but to note that it seemed like an interesting, and fairly bustling, little city with some interesting Spanish colonial constructions. We spent the night in Trujillo. I don't know much about this city, but I read that it was founded by Pizarro. We got in at night, but Trujillo had the looks of a very interesting place. The Plaza de Armas (essential every main plaza in every city of Peru is called this) looked really pretty from what we saw from the car. Unfortunately, Trujillo also managed to royally piss me off. The city has a bad reputation for noise pollution, and there's a very good reason for it. Every single driver in Trujillo, especially the taxi drivers, find themselves overwhelmed by a relentless, constant and undying urge to honk their horn as often and as pointlessly as possible. The entire night I found myself being periodically and sporadically awakened by a taxi driver that had taken the courtesy of modifying his horn to be even more obnoxious.

January 4, 2013, Friday: We shot out of Trujillo bright and early. It was a hilarious exit of the city because Fausto, the driver, decided he would also partake in the random, for no reason, honking at everybody and everything. Coming from the perspective of a passenger inside the vehicle, and not someone trying to get some sleep in the middle of the night, this was just hysterical! We had a great time honking and yelling our way out of Trujillo. There isn't much to say about the rest of that day's trip down to Lima. We sped on through the rest of the desert and the scattered cities and pueblos amongst it. Stopping at gas stations was always a heart-dropping experience, as gas prices in Peru are even higher than in the states (almost $5 a gallon). Not far from Lima, still in the middle of the desert, "Dagummit, blow out!" We lost our right rear tire, but Fausto masterfully steered us to the side of the road without problems. The scary part was the tire blew right where there was a group of indigenous ladies waiting for a bus; they scattered quite quickly.

By late Friday afternoon, we were getting dropped off on the side of the road in Lima. This in itself was a sort of terrifying experience, as I have never been to Lima, and I was to one who calculated, based on a Google map on my tablet, where we should be let off to catch a taxi that would be the nearest distance to our hostel. Fortunately, my calculations weren't off and we didn't land in a mugging zone or get charged a hellacious cab fare. It was pretty tough saying goodbye to the guys, they were great fun and we had become good friends during our long trip. We stayed in a section of Lima called Miraflores, which could only be described as "the neighborhood of Peru's have-muchos." To be quite honest, I haven't seen a neighborhood that upscale in Latin America, since Argentina's Recoleta district. The good thing about it was it was a very safe and convenient part of Lima to be in. We quickly located a decent hostel, got some advice on where to eat and helped ourselves to some of the most delicious sandwiches I have had in a long while (Mine was shredded chicken with pineapple and a delicious combo of ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise).

January 5th, 2013, Saturday:
We explored Miraflores and the Historic Center of Lima. The highlight of Miraflores? We went to the market to check it out and I decided to treat myself to a jugo (pure juice), after which enjoying, I was promptly charged the gringo price of 7 soles, around $3 usd, chalk another one up to Peruvian hospitality. Around midday, we caught a Metrobus to the historic center (apparently Lima's recently inaugurated electric bus transit system), which worked really well. The historic center's plaza is called, you guessed it, La Plaza de Armas. It has some very impressive Spanish cathedrals, but they were closed for some reason. Nonetheless, it was breathtaking to be in that Plaza, it's one of the biggest I've seen and the buildings are beautiful. Very near the plaza is a preserved Incan wall, that the Spanish managed to not destroy and a small museum with an excavation site of some interesting Incan ruins. We then took a short walk to the cathedral and convent of San Francisco de Asisi; this guy got around (I think he has a convent and cathedral in every major city in South America). I am generally under the impression that once you've seen the inside of one huge Spanish colonial cathedral, you've seen them all, but it wasn't the case with this one. Part of the tour was a trip down to the catacombs of the cathedral. The foundation that restored the cathedral and convent to open it up to the public as a museum of sorts, got the bright idea to unearth the remains of all of the clergy buried in the catacombs and set the bones out for display. We're talking about literally thousands of bodies worth of femurs, skulls, etc. It was after introducing us to the remains that the tour guide decided to tell us that the four, not so big, pillars that are in the catacombs are what is holding up the entire structure. Thank you, now get me the hell out of this place. We wrapped up our visit to Lima, going back to Miraflores to spend the evening on the "beach." Lima actually is a coastal city, but I felt bad for the Limeños upon seeing their beach. It was probably the rockiest seaside I've seen, it has these huge river-rock like stones in the place of sand. Nevertheless, people were surfing, hanging out and seemed to be having a lot of fun. The next day, we caught a 9am flight out of Lima, bound for the mountains, Cuzco and Machu Picchu!