Some impressions from my first week in Perú.
First, about getting out of Ecuador – leaving the hotel at 4:40am having not slept in a couple of days, I made the 5 o’clock bus to Loja. But the 7am bus from Loja to the border never showed, so I had six hours to wait until the next one. I spent the time wandering around trying to stay awake – sleep deprivation can be pretty trippy – in that dreamlike state, not totally sure what’s real and what’s imagined. Who needs drugs?
I’ve added a few more photos to the Loja post from that morning that you may find amusing.
It took three hours to reach the border and I’m glad I paid my fine ahead of time, since I wouldn’t have wanted to hang around Macará any more than needed. It felt sketchy and transient, like most border towns. As it was, the Ecuadorian police didn’t even look at my $200 receipt – but I guess it was in the computer. Crossing the river into Perú, there was nary a computer in sight! Hmm, interesting first sign of what’s in store. In a very simple structure, a kid barely old enough to shave and sans uniform wrote my details in a log. Perhaps they later copy the logbook into a computer, who knows. Then across the street to have the police do the same thing. No bag search, no questions, nada. One of the easiest border crossings I’ve had on this trip. Hallelujah!
Bus pulled into Piura about 9:30 at night. Took me a while to find a decent hotel room, there seems to be a gap between cheap/grungy hotels and fancy/expensive places. Finally found a room with a window (a surprising number of hotel rooms in Latin America don’t have windows out to the street, which makes me feel like I’m in prison). Piura is a small city, decent enough, didn’t feel dangerous at all even at night. But not that attractive, either. Although I love cities, I’m experiencing culture shock being back in one after 2 ½ months in Vilcabamba. All the honking and chaos is a bit overwhelming after so long in tranquility.
After not nearly enough sleep, I headed out the next day for points further south. There seems to be an amazing range of high quality long distance bus companies. All the buses I’ve seen are quite comfortable which bodes well for those long distances I have coming up. And there is good security even on the economy lines – checked baggage, for instance. I’m finally learning that nobody sits in their assigned seats – it ends up being first come, first dibs on the best seats.
I caught one for Chiclayo, three hours south and closer to the coast. The journey took us across the Sechura desert – dry, flat sand as far as the eye can see, punctuated only by occasional low shrubs. Markedly different from the Andean highlands I’ve mostly been in for the last six months. Arrived in Chiclayo about 5pm, much preferable than arriving after nightfall. There’s a better range of inexpensive hotels here than in Piura, although so far I’m noticing the prices of things in Perú are a bit more than in Ecuador. Uh-oh.
I’m happy that the weather is no different than what I’ve had for the last few months – warm and sunny, spring-like. I know I have to, but I’m dreading heading south – for the further I go from the equator, the less this will be true.
I’m back in a country that communicates through honks – drivers are constantly tooting their horns, even when no obstacle is ahead. It’s a curious (and annoying) form of communication. Things generally seem brasher and louder (touts and beggars are more insistent, for example) than in Ecuador, although I realize it’s impossible to judge an entire country based solely on a couple of days spent in these random towns. I’m sad to have left the pedestrian-friendly confines of Vilcabamba – here, as in most of the rest of the world, the automobile is valued higher than human life. I’ve also returned to a land of casinos – as in Colombia, there is one on every corner.
I usually forget to bargain down the price of hotel rooms, but here I remembered – and the guy immediately dropped the price. Amazing when that works! Trying to cut back on the carbs, I bought a bottle of wine instead of beer. I asked the proprietor why the Argentinian wine was so cheap when it was the best wine in the shop, and I think he told me the local equivalent of, “it fell off the back of a truck” (i.e., he paid no taxes).
Turned on the TV tonight to discover Project Runway – in English! Oh, I’m in heaven. You just can’t dub Tim Gunn and keep his flamboyant charm.
Both Chiclayo and Piura have tons of those three-wheeled motorcycle-taxis running around in addition to the normal yellow cabs. I wonder why some places (small towns in Panama & Guatemala, coast of Ecuador) have them while other places (Colombia, rest of Ecuador and Central America) don’t.
Perú is meant to have the best cuisine in all of Latin America. I’ve already had some deliciously cheap seafood, and there is a string of cevicherias on one street that I intend on trying tomorrow.
continue reading the rest of this post (and view the photos)…
