Travel the World!: The Ramblings of a traveler

Ok, then. As expected, boredom has set in a bit. Not about living in Lima and traveling Peru, mind you, but the bothersome task of writing about it… So I will now, in an effort to also bore you, ramble on about all kinds of things, interspersed by genuine pieces of information. I am not, however, a monster. So I will put all relevant information in red parentheses. Feel free to skip everything you’d like.

(A few weeks ago the Mistura (a giant food festival) took place in Lima. The fair was composed of many food stands offering mostly Peruvian, and some Mexican specialties. The range was incredible and left nothing to desire. From Ceviche to Chifa (peru-china-mix) to Churros and alcohol they had everything. Five hours spent on the grounds and it wasn’t even close enough time to experience everything.) Of course I clearly don’t have enough money either to try all I’d like, but that’s my problem, being the poor student that I am. The Mistura also included a big stage with live music.

While I happened to be there, a Peruvian punk-rock band started playing. Yeah Peruvian punk-rock… With ingenious lyrics like “I like my dog! My dog is my best friend, way better than cats! I love my dog!”. Catchy tunes, though, so I threw myself right into the mosh pit.

Granted, it felt more like being the teacher in a class of 5^th-graders. Peruvians are just waaay to small… Seriously, I must have walked into well over 20 people by now. Not because I don’t pay attention. I look around and stuff. But they are just so small that there are a lot of blind spots for me… It’s like Gulliver’s Travels down here.

After the live act ended it was straight to the pisco tent. (The prevalent alcohol in Peru is pisco. There is a raging battle between Chile and Peru who invented Pisco and who’s the real owner of it. It is a spirit made out of grapes and similarly strong as whiskey or rum.) Officially the Mistura closed at 10:30 pm, but at least in the pisco tent nobody seemed to care… And so, the music, dancing and of course drinking went on until the early hours of the morning, while the rest of the grounds was laying in silent darkness. You shouldn’t drink pisco neat, by the way. The usual mixtures include ginger ale or lemon juice.

(Another highlight in Lima is the Parque de las Aguas. A park, as the name implies, that sports a variety of fountains, including the 120m long Fuente de la fantasia which has a laser and picture show projected onto it. Other highlights are a music synchronized fountain that let’s people try their luck to get to the center without getting wet all over, and a tunnel made out of water jets. In total the park contains 13 fountains (all of which are illuminated by night) and is one of THE best places in Lima, as far as I’m concerned.)

To get to the park, as with all things in Lima/Peru, you have to take the bus. Recently I have realized how much I adapted to living in Lima. While riding around Lima for the sake of a friend’s visitor he mentioned in no uncertain terms how noisy the city is. I think his exact words were

“Jesus Christ! How can you live with all that fucking honking and yelling going on!?”

Well, you just ignore it. It becomes white noise. A continuous backing track to your life in Lima. I didn’t even notice all the noise until our visitor mentioned it. While we’re talking about traffic and such,

here’s a quick pop quiz for you guys:

What width differential between buses and road are acceptable in Peru?

(a) just wide enough so two buses can squeeze by each other, if one stops at the broadest passage of the road

(b) wide enough to barely avoid taking out each other’s side-view mirror

(a) and (c) are correct. Good on you, little Sherlocks! You guessed right (except for you Tina, I have no idea how you could have possibly gotten that wrong)!

I am genuinely amazed but also disturbed by what are considered safely accessible roads for buses. Let me elaborate a bit on (c). This weekend we went to the Huaraz, a small town in the Peruvian Swiss (so named for the similarity between the country sides). Part of that trip involved a bus trip to a nice hiking trek. During the ride came a time when the bus was passing a lagoon. The road was about 15 meters higher than the body of water, and (I shit you not) the difference between driving on a road and taking a swim in a lake was about the width of a hand. This is only one example of many to be found in Peru.

(Okay, let’s talk about the trip to Huaraz. As mentioned, it’s a village in the Andes. The second day was going to be the weekend’s climax. A trip to the Laguna 69, situated 4700m above sea level. In order to prepare ourselves, the group did a shorter hike up another mountain to yet another lagoon. You can never see too many mountain lagoons, though, so it was fine. The hike to lake “Willcacocha” was nice and easy and lead through a few mountain villages. Nearly all people wore traditional clothing and were busying themselves in the fields. Young, old, and very old. The lake itself ended up being somewhat of a disappointment. It was more of a dirty old pond. The view from the top made up for it, though, and the trek itself was nice as well.)

The second day started extremely early. 5 am. How is that a time to be awake for anyone (or anything, for that matter)? So at 5 am a herd of zombies made their way to the bus. Groaning, moaning and occasionally exhaling in pain when hitting something in their way because of a lack of general awareness. Before Jack and Jill went up the hill (yes, I made that reference) I bought a few coca leaves. Now that is altitude sickness prevention done right. Chewing the leaves sets free some chemicals that help against the low oxygen in the air. Chewing leaves that are prohibited in Germany and most of Europe makes you feel like a badass and a cow at the same time. I can honestly say, that was a first for me.

The hike itself was really fun, and at this point I have to mention Jessica and Ingrid (two of my Mexican roommates). First of all, after not finishing one, respectively two previous hikes with the group, conquering this (arguably hardest of all) treks was going to be a huge challenge. And I have to pay my respects to both of ‘em because they fucking made it. Yeah, baby!

Second, and more importantly, I have to say thanks. Thanks to Jessi and Ingrid taking a bit longer than the originally set deadline I got to enjoy the fantastic scenery around me for an additional hour. Good move, girls ;-)

(The hike to Laguna 69 was just great. Nature really gave all it had on that walk. Up there the weather is a fickle mistress and accordingly we walked through fog, rain, wind and sunshine. Each of the phenomena giving the trek a different feel, from mystic to amazing. The landscape itself offered a lot as well. Green meadows with colorful flowers, with rivers running through them gave way to a mountain trek with waterfalls and astonishing rock formations. All leading to the Laguna 69. A lake with water so icy-blue and clear it was almost surreal. All surrounded by snowcapped mountaintops. A scene so beautiful as only the greatest painters could envision.

Sunday was then spend in a more relaxed fashion. Two hikes a weekend are quite enough. So on the last day we took a stroll through Huaraz. The town is really nice. The obligatory plaza the armas (which usually serves as main square) a few churches and lots of small streets with even smaller shops.) Since up to that point I hadn’t spent all of my budget the day turned into a private little food orgy. Strolling through a market street where they sold everything from chicken to bikes to televisions to electric guitars, I ate mango ice cream, and had a fresh orange juice. Then I ate couple churros and had the possibly weirdest drink of my life: passion fruit, milk, honey, banana, and something else. It was so thick, it basically doubled as a full-fledged meal. Don’t ask me how much I was overcharged. But you can bet, that if you’re a gringo they will assess you and then make up a price they think you rich folk might still be willing to pay. That’s why you don’t get prices on menus a lot of times. Same goes for taxis or the bus.

(The pinnacle of food experience in Huaraz was the “Pachamanca”. The word is Quechuan (native language of indigenous people) and means earth pot. The food (different meats, camote, yucca, tamales, potatoes, and corn) gets wrapped up in leaves and is then cooked between hot stones and covered under a pile of earth. The taste was incredible. I also visited a tiny archeological museum, but it’s really not worth mentioning. Neither is Pachacamac, the biggest archeological site in the district of Lima. Everybody tells you about it and it’s supposed to be so interesting, but I just don’t get it.) It’s a giant area of desert with a few stones still lying around and a heavily reconstructed “temple” that may or may not have looked anything like that originally. No information, no nothing. BORING.

Overall I did not travel that much over the last few weeks, because of school stuff and especially the mid-terms. I should not have bothered learning and instead gotten out of Lima. The time for an exam is set to 2 hours. Not for a single one of them did I need more than 30 minutes. “True or false” questions in every exam and in one case even a crossword puzzle… What the hell? Then again it kind of follows logically, when one teachers only purpose seems to be giving us texts to read and then leaving us to our own devices. Another who only talks about his world views using his subject as a launching pad, and a few who don’t know English well enough to ask clear unambiguous questions. There is a reason why I only address one of my teachers as professor. The others, in my opinion, are not qualified to be addressed as such regarding the way they teach. The Psychology of Communications Prof. is great, though. Easily one of the best courses I’ve had. Here or in Germany.

And now, for the few of you who might have read the whole shebang: Good job. Respect. I, in your place, would not have done that.

For everybody else: Get a grip, lazy. It’s like 2.5 word pages. How much time do you really need to get through that?

Cheers, till next time!