Chiclayo, Peru April 19-21, 1979
Michel and I set out for Peru yesterday. It was a grueling all day journey. We had to go back to Loja to get a bus from there to Macara, an all day ride.
We got to Macara fairly late, and although there’s precious little there we did manage to find a cheap, but clean, place to stay for the night.
Macara: this is not the pension where we stayed!
And we crossed the border yesterday, uneventfully. Peruvian border officials don’t seem as concerned about gringo travelers as they are in Ecuador or Columbia – they didn’t ask about our plans or whether we had onward tickets. And so, we are in Peru!
Early this morning we headed for Chiclayo, the largest town in northern Peru, and a bit of a travelers’ hub (ie. it’s on the ‘Gringo Trail’). We got a ride in an open truck with four or five goats, a very pregnant woman, several locals (Ecuadorians and Peruvians), and a few other gringos. We all perched on wooden slats fixed across the back of the truck, fairly high up, over the goats, so our legs were dangling at their head height. A few of them nibbled at our feet, but apparently didn’t find them very appetizing (small wonder). The rocky road made for a bumpy, uncomfortable ride on the hard wooden boards, and it was hot and muggy, which didn’t help.
If you didn't want to sit above the goats, you could
stand back here with the guys...
Before long we passed into a very dry-looking but still mountainous area where the trees, twisted and grey, looked like they hadn’t had water for years, and probably wouldn’t know what to do with it if they got it. Once in a while a few green leaves decorated a branch or two, standing out for their greenness amid the grey.
Much to our surprise, after such an easy, friendly border crossing, we were stopped several times at ‘control points’ manned by what looked like soldiers with impressive looking guns. Our driver, Luis, was clearly familiar with the routine (he must do this – with his goats? – often. After asking the gringos for our passports, and the locals for their ID papers, he handed them all to the border guards, who spent an inordinate amount of time transcribing information – presumably names and numbers – into big ledger books. Each time we stopped at these check points we waited, in the heat, with the goats, and the flies, and the pungent, acrid goaty stench.
And these weren’t the only stops we made. We stopped just as often to let someone on, or off. This would take some time, as several of us had to slide along the bench seat to let someone off without them having to drop down into the goat hold, and then there was the inevitable passing to and fro of sacks and baskets. And then there was the bridge stop, where we waited while a half-dozen men banged away at the wooden planks of an old trestle bridge, replacing only one or two of them, but taking their time to do it in the heat of the noon-day sun. We waited almost an hour at that stop.
Not long after that we stopped for ‘lunch’ at a bamboo and stick cabana in the middle of nowhere than only served meat. So I had a cola and crackers, with a bit of rice pudding for ‘dessert’.
Just when we thought we might be going to get going again our driver decided he needed to fix the truck’s engine. As I watched the radiator being lifted out I realized this might take awhile… A few hours later another ‘carro’ came by, this one covered, and without goats, so the wooden slats were low enough that we could brace our feet against the floor – a huge improvement in comfort. And so we were off again.
The landscape became even drier, almost deserty, and rolling. A young indigenous woman got on and smiled at me. I smiled back. A few miles later her hand finds its way to my knee, then up my thigh. I move my leg and use a little elbow to dissuade her advances, wondering how many women here are lesbians. Given the macho-ness of the men I can’t say I would blame them.
We drive though several irrigated areas where rice, corn and yucca are grown – fantastically rich, green areas, especially in contrast to the surrounding desert. And in these areas the houses are generally newer, often made of cement instead of mud and sticks. This is ‘progress’!
Finally we get to Chiclayo, where there are lots of hotels and pensions. We find a good one, clean, with hot water! The next morning we were drinking our favourite Te Huyro*, in the Deli Tulli, our favourite café, when we were approached by a young Swiss guy with a very sad story. Apparently he had just spent ten days in an Ecuadorian jail for having no entry stamp. He said he was ‘treated like a monkey’ – “they took their fun of me”, and released without money or clothes.
So over the last eight days he’d managed to hitch here from Quito with no money and little food, and was now on his way to Arrequippa to get some money he said was there for him and to Lima where he could go to his consulate. His English was poor, and his Spanish, despite having spent four months in South America, was almost non-existent. His story was a little garbled: although he said he’d been in Peru before, he asked us if it was cheaper than Ecuador. He also talked about having traveled in Iran and Turkey, with no money, and about how the men here in South America have ‘no money in the pocket’ because their give it all to their women – the ‘Maria Culture’ he called it. Michel gave him 225 soles, mostly just to get him to go away, but of course he came back, this time with freshly polished shoes.
He started ranting again. I asked if he was hungry. He said yes, it had been days since he’d eaten, and he was having problems with his stomach. He wanted a salad, but agreed to my suggestion of (and offer to pay for) eggs and toast as more digestible fare. He ate the eggs, but not the toast. After more ranting he left again, ostensibly to go to Lima to his consulate, but about half an hour later he was back, having bought a pair of underwear, which he showed us, to keep himself warm. He made it clear that he had paid 225 soles for them. We didn’t give him more, so he went off again, but was back in an hour. “You’re still here” he said to us as he sat down for ‘a cup of tea’. By this time we’d asked our waiter if he knew this guy – if he was a ‘regular’. The waiter said “no, I thought he was a friend of yours.” The rant continued, of course, and I wondered about this guy’s state of mind, how he manages to live, and what will become of him.
Meanwhile, Michel and I are now waiting for a bus to Cajamarca....
Note: Te Huyro was a wonderful tea from Cuzco that I drank pretty much every day. And... it’s still available, as I found on an internet search. It comes in many flavours. I mostly drank te negro (plain black), but the te negro canela (black tea with cinnamon) was very nice as well. You can get it through a site called ‘Lumingo’:https://www.lumingo.com/categoria/marcas/te-huyro/c/te-huyro?fbclid=IwAR2oHmiumMSqshCjzQrTQ7q4rQ1gC80odPT0xwRTMpKju8Jf_ouvmLQIGMA
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