Perú: The Good and the Bad
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Timestamp in British Summer Time, since that's the time zone I'm currently over. Which means I'll be landing in Amsterdam in less than an hour, and the next leg of my 2011 Walkabout will have begun.
But before I get carried away with that, I want to reflect on Perú, which has been my home for the last two or three months. It's strange to so routinely leave a place that's changed me so much, but deep down I'm looking forward to being in a richer, more comfortable part of the world... so much so, that the benefits of Perú are easy to overlook right now. But since I'm being that selfish, I may as well give a self-centred assessment of the pros and cons of being there, side-by-side.
The GoodThe Bad
Much Less Waste. This is something the countries I usually live in can learn most from Perú, and I really wish I knew about it when I was stressing out about what to do with all the stuff I needed to get rid of. It was stressful because I didn't want it to be wasted-in Peru, it wouldn't've been. Peruvians don't care if a product has a few scuff marks or if it's old; if it's useful, it will be used, and things are kept just in case they're useful.
The clearest example was when the plug for my friend's Mac laptop broke. Laptops all seem to have proprietary power connectors, and Mac ones are particularly expensive to replace. My friend and I were totally expecting she'd have to have a new one shipped from overseas, and that the whole exercise would cost well over $100. But for shits and giggles, she went to the local market to see if she could get a replacement there. And she could-not the whole power supply, but just the plug! It cost her less than one dollar, and another S/.2 (60c or so) to have it soldered on. No waste. Magic. And this sort of thing happens every day.
The one exception is packaging. Peru has the same obsession with packaging, and plastic bags, as the United States. As a result, this stuff litters the streets. But that's easier to fix than the throw-away attitude that mars the rest of the world.
The lack of reliable hot water. This was my #1 peeve throughout the country, especially when I was travelling through the extreme altitudes, and therefore extreme cold, of the Andes. Nearly everywhere I stayed, there'd only be hot water part-time, or it would only last a few minutes, or it would flow at such a trickle that it was still a difficult, cold experience to shower. Even the outstandingly wealthy household I stayed in for the last week had this problem. The one exception was the hostel cyan_blue and I stayed at in Cuzco, which had a strong, continuous flow of hot water, although there was a period of about 36 hours there when there was no water at all.
More body types represented in the media. I guess it makes sense that a culture that's been a mix of races for hundreds of years has a less set opinion of what a person is supposed to look like. So it comes as no surprise that when I watch local news programs, variety shows and soap operas, I see quite a spectrum of complexion. But there's a range of body types, too. This pleases me personally, because I'm generally more into an early 20th century, fully-figured depiction of beauty than the plastic, often skeletal body shape that dominates television screens at home.
Peruvian television is a spectacle to watch. It's loud, lively and extreme. And the compare of the nightly Hey Hey It's Saturday style program that I came across several times is an animated, mixed-race, pear-shaped woman who I definitely wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of. And she seems very popular. The current affairs anchor on a competing network would probably be told by any American doctor that he should lose a few kilos as well... I wonder what Peruvian doctors say.
Low doorways. Peru isn't made for my body type. I've gotten used to ducking when I go through a door, but not when it's at the top of stairs. I've lost count of how many times I've hit my head on a doorframe really hard. I seriously wonder if I've suffered brain damage as a result.
Pisco Sours. This is the national drink of Peru, and I really like it. The main ingredient is a liquor called Pisco-yes, that's the name of the town I lived in too, so I made sure I bought a top-shelf bottle to bring as a thank-you gift for the family I've stayed with for the last week. The daughter, who mavisgrizltits put me in touch with, told me she'd show me how to make one, but she never did. I know there are egg whites involved, though, and the bottle of Pisco I bought duty-free at the airport last night came with a recipe. Unfortunately, it seems the only Pisco available overseas is from Chile, not Peru.
The food. Lonely Planet raves about how great the food is. I disagree. It's decent on the Gringo Trail, although it can still be a challenge to find a true vegetarian meal. But even omnivores complain about the overcooked pasta, undercooked chips, and just plain fucked up pizza-the place over the road from Pisco sin Fronteras is rumoured to use jam for tomato paste. It certainly tastes like that's what they do!
Cheap!! In my experience, South America has the lowest cost of living in the world-much lower than the parts of Africa I've visited-and Peru is particularly inexpensive. Food, transport, general household supplies... all these cost about as many soles in Peru as they would dollars in Australia or the US, and a sole is worth about a third of a dollar. Now, the quality of most stuff is what you'd expect to get from a dollar shop, so in a lot of cases you get what you paid for. But still, paying the equivalent of $40 for a 1200km coach trip in first class comfort (South America is to coaches what Europe is to train) is a big win.
The inequity. This is the flipside of the cost of living, I suppose-the lack of a middle class. Actually, that's not entirely true, but upper middle class in Peru lives about as well as an American or Australian family that's just barely making ends meet, but with a lot less personal space. It seems the majority of people are less fortunate; as I've written, I've seen plenty of households that lack basic things like a roof or sewerage, and as I've already mentioned, hot water is a rare luxury. But in the last week, I stayed in a household that's as well off as any of my friends who did well in the dot com boom-huge, beautiful, clean house (if you ignore the rising damp) with all the gadgets you'd expect... except for that illusive, reliable hot water. [Update: Arriving there from the rest of Peru was a bigger culture shock than arriving in Europe afterwards.] What I would call 'middle class' does exist, but it's a tiny minority-far more people are just plain impoverished.
The enterprise. This is the flipside again, I guess: people have all kinds of small businesses, and they run them everywhere. Around the corner from PsF was the woman we call the Cake Lady, who sells cakes from her living room. She's also figured out she can make a killing doing our laundry for us. Pedal-powered carts selling everything from mandarins to cigarettes roam the streets, or people sell chocolate to people waiting for red traffic lights. It seems anyone can set up a stall at a local market, and people selling different kinds of goods tend to hang around their competitors, so competitive it is. And I've been able to get many small repairs done to my bags, wallet and similar items for a sole or two, with about ten minutes' wait, and they did a really great job.
Lack of privacy. I suppose in a country where people live in such packed living conditions, people worry less about privacy. Still, it feels invasive to have my passport number asked for every time I get on a coach, or check into a hostel, or make a credit card purchase. Big brother is watching. I'm glad he's staying in Peru.
Public transport. When I first got to Peru, I thought transit was fucked. Official bus routes are a new thing in Lima, and they don't exist elsewhere in Peru. Taxis don't have meters; you negotiate the price with the driver before the trip, and generally the agreed upon price is higher at night, or if you totally pack the taxi, or if you're going to the top of a big hill.
But it didn't take me long to get used to this, and grow to like it. If the taxi driver gets lost, that's their problem; I already know what I'm paying. Plenty of kombis run around functioning as buses, and they run very frequently. The collectivos are a great idea, too: they're basically taxis that have a set destination, and when enough passengers turn up to fill one up, off it goes. They're really cheap, and I've never had to wait more than five minutes for one to fill. I've actually never had to wait more than five minutes for any transport, except for buses going to other parts of the country. But even those run four, six, ten times every hour. And there's good infrastructure for all this: bus bays on the sides of freeways, ranks at bus stations, and so on. And when Lima did put in the kind of bus system I'm used to, a series of bus tunnels and priority lanes got put in downtown, and a dedicated carriageway on the freeway.
Scary coach trips. The comfort of coaches depends on how much you pay-you can have pretty much a palatial couch on wheels for less than I'd expect to pay for an ordinary rail ticket, or the equivalent of Greyhound in the U.S. (i.e. a gamble, and often pretty dodgy) for about a third of that cost. That's all fine, but some of the shit I see happen on the roads really worries me. Buses overtake on blind corners all the time. It's almost typical for them to be doing double the speed limit-occasionally, triple! The speed limits are incredibly low, but I still question the safety. I honestly thought we were going to go over the edge of a cliff on the ride from Cuzco to Nazcar a week or two ago; the bus made an abrupt and dead stop to avoid hitting an oncoming semi trailer on a hairpin, and the semi just kept on coming. The thing is, coaches go over the edge with alarming frequency-several times every year.
Friendly people. I've found that to be true for South America in general, actually, especially on the west coast. People, for the most part, are patient and kind. I haven't had any problem with crime at all, even though the attitude I keep hearing is not to take anything you'd particularly mind losing to South America... I guess I just have sufficient wits about me, and a certain amount of luck. But people were always willing to help me when I needed it, despite me knowing such little Spanish. We could use more of this spirit elsewhere.
Sanitation. This, AFAIC, is the #1 problem in Peru. I've already written about it; all I need to say now is that I'm glad I'm leaving it behind. And I just put toilet paper in the toilet for the first time in months, and it felt quite decadent-Peruvian plumbing can't handle that, so you're supposed to put toilet paper in the bin provided when you've used it. It stopped feeling gross pretty quickly, but I like the way I'm used to better.