Continent #6: The trials of Sra. Nols

Here’s an amazing fact: Hardly any women in Latin America have short hair or dress like I do, and yet not one single person has had any difficulty identifying me as amiga or “lady.” Unlike in North America, no matter what hat I may be wearing, I have complete confidence entering a women’s room and not being accosted, as far as Spanish speakers are concerned. I have had 100% the same experience with French speakers. Why do you suppose it is so hard for anglophones?

I’ve always been inclined to like Peru, and that is where we began our travels in South America. My favourite Spanish teacher in high school was from Peru, as was our Airbnb host in Madrid who gave us so much unexpected help when our car broke down (in return for the car). Plus, I had a guinea pig when I was a child—Woozy, of blessed memory. Guinea pigs originated in the Andes, although because of Woozy, I cannot think of them in the same way Peruvians do.

The most difficult thing about Cuba was the leaving of it. Not because of travel restrictions or because, like Cubans, we didn’t have enough money. It was because departing Havana airport is about as efficient as departing Hanoi. We stood in line for at least an hour to check in for our flight to Lima. Elena, the Russian speaker who finally checked us in, asked if we had an onward ticket out of Peru. I thought she might not let us board the plane, since we didn’t have one, but she didn’t seem to care. Then I stood in another line to exchange the Cuban currency we hadn’t managed to spend. They only had U.S. dollars but I was happy to take them; apparently they don’t charge 10% to sell USD, only to buy them. They were already calling our gate by the time I met T. at passport control. After exiting Cuba, we had just enough time to spend our last 3-peso notes on two bottles of water (since we hadn’t been able to take liquids through security) and get a bus to the gate. There was no time to enjoy the airport, even had there been anything to enjoy.

Once we were on the plane the flight was unusually nice. On the right we could see a beautiful sunset and on the left, our first glimpse of the Andes in Ecuador.

At immigration, the officer asked how many days we were planning to be in Peru. In the absence of firm plans, I gave him an estimate. He asked if we were tourists, I said yes, and he stamped us in. “Welcome to Peru.”

If Havana airport reminded me of Hanoi, Lima airport reminded me of Johannesburg. Although we only changed flights in Jo’burg it was a culture shock, after the cheap and cheerful chicken shack in Dar es Salaam where we’d boarded the plane. Outside, Johannesburg (and Lima to some extent) is a land of haves and have-nots, but inside the airport it’s bright with shops and WiFi. Just as well, since we hadn't been able to connect with our Airbnb host from Cuba.

Our neighbourhood was Miraflores, as central Lima is not supposed to be the best area after dark. This is what I mean about haves and have-nots. Our local supermarket had security guards (to be fair, the building is open to the elements). Cuba does not need security, but then it doesn’t have supermarkets either.

We were all set up to enjoy our sixth continent, a new one to both of us. And then T. got sick. Possibly a chest infection contracted from one of our fellow travellers in Cuba, but whatever it was, it was nasty and disabling. We’d both been pretty lucky on these travels with our health, but all T’s luck seemed to run out in Peru. So much of what follows will, unfortunately, be as much news to her as it is to the rest of you.

Of course the first day, I was more than happy just to glory in the supermarket and our Airbnb’s washing machine. Like Havana, Lima has its Malecón, a seafront walk along the cliffs. It was only blocks from our place. I could not get over looking at the map and realizing that we were directly south of eastern North America. Although we were on the Pacific coast, we were still in the Eastern time zone.

I also walked along to an excavated Wari’ site (which now includes an acclaimed restaurant). The Wari’ people lived in the Andes between A.D. 600 and 1000, long before the Incas whose empire gets all the attention. I was to be struck over and over again by the contrast with North America (and Cuba for that matter): Peruvians are, still, largely an indigenous people. About 45% of Peru’s population is indigena, and another 37% are mestizo or of mixed indigenous and European heritage. So the country looks very different from any place I've ever been before.

We’d had good experiences with the “free” (tips only) walking tours of many European cities, so I thought I’d give Lima a try. My first visit was to the neighbourhood of Barranco, which borders Miraflores. It was lots of traipsing around art galleries, as Barranco is that kind of neighbourhood, but there were also some cool murals and, looking down from the cliffs, a surf beach.

The real point of interest, though, was our guide, a Peruvian-American. His family had left Barranco when he was a young teenager, as the Internal Conflict of the 1980s spread to Lima. He was quite open about the fact that his family entered the U.S.A. as tourists, and then illegally overstayed their visas (this, and not sneaking across the border, is how most people become illegal immigrants). Eventually, his mom married an American and they got permanent residence in the U.S. I imagine that nowadays, people fleeing violence in other parts of the world would not get so easy a reception, but it was fortunate for his family.

He told us his story while we were standing around La Ermita de Barranco, which must once have been a beautiful church. Sadly, it suffered damage in 1940 in an earthquake (a common danger along this fault line of the world) and has been closed ever since. Our guide wondered aloud why the Vatican didn’t just shell out for repairs.

Guinea pigs excepted, I felt that I should try some Peruvian treats. So I snacked on Inka Corn (a success) and tried Inca Cola (kind of bubblegum flavoured; less of a success). I even tried ceviche, a marinated raw seafood dish which is a specialty of the area. This was one of many occasions on which a little Spanish was a dangerous thing: The waitress asked if I wanted picante, or spicy salsa, and I said “Sí, picante.” But she took it as “sin picante.” I think I would have preferred it with! 

As I mentioned before, I was thrilled to be consistently recognized as female, and Señora Nols became my go-to name. I found that it was easier to spell my name this way in Spanish, plus, Spanish speakers could then pronounce it in a way I would recognize. 

Like the walking tour of Barranco, my trip down Javier Prado Este would not have appealed to T., even had she been feeling well. It is a crowded and busy major road, and it was very hot and sticky. Probably if you arrived in Lima from North America you would be shocked by all the honking horns and the aggressiveness of the traffic, but believe me, it's nothing compared with Vietnam.

Lima has something called the Metropolitano, but it isn’t a metro—it’s a bus system with special lanes. It is very hot and unbelievably crowded at rush hour, but it’s still the only rapid transit Lima has. I made my way via the Metropolitano and a local bus to Javier Prado Este with one goal in mind: the Museo de la Nación.

Lima’s museums, inconveniently, are scattered around various suburbs, and most of this one seems always to be closed. It does have one permanent exhibition on the sixth floor that I was determined to see, about the Internal Conflict (1980-2000) I mentioned earlier. This exhibition is the product of Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and is called Yuyanapaq—Quechua for “to remember.” (Quechua is one of Peru’s official languages.)

Except for a leaflet in English, the exhibition is all in Spanish, so there was a limited amount I could get out of the text. The real value is in the photographs, though. These document a period in which two groups terrorized Peru, provoking, in turn, extreme violence by government forces trying to root them out. The better-known group was called Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), whose goal was a Maoist peasant revolution completely reconstructing Peruvian society. Another group, known by its Spanish initials MRTA (Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement), were Marxists who did not kill as many people, but were involved in some notorious events. Among these was the takeover of the Japanese embassy (an episode on which Ann Patchett’s novel Bel Canto is based).  

Journalists who were later killed in a massacre in Uchuraccay, January 1983. The photographer, Octavio Infante, was also killed.

It is probably not surprising that the very people these revolutionaries supposedly represented were the ones who suffered the most. The violence was centred around Ayacucho in the Andes, and 70% of those killed during the Internal Conflict were Quechua speakers. Many people fled to Lima during those years, which in turn led to shantytowns and a growing crime problem. Others, like my guide’s family, fled Peru itself. The crisis is called an Internal Conflict because it is really a war between the terrorist forces and opposing forces from the government. Human rights groups estimate that as many as half of all the casualties have been at the hands of military and police.

Mothers of the "National Association of Kidnapped, Detained and Disappeared Relatives of Peru" 

Both Lima and Peru are doing better these days. Peru is still a poor country, but it’s trying hard. 

On a breezy Sunday afternoon everyone in Miraflores and Barranco seemed to be walking along the Malecón. I joined them, from Larcomar (a big, generic shopping mall built into the cliffs) across the Villena Rey Bridge to Parque del Amor.

Along the way, I was offered, but declined, surfing lessons and tons of helado (ice cream). There is no shortage of activities along the Malecón de Miraflores.

Beach volleyball

Paragliding

I was starting to worry about T. We were scheduled to fly to Cuzco, over 11,000 feet above sea level, in two days, and I didn’t think it would be a good idea with a lung infection! But thanks to that blessed dentist in Arusha, she still had some amoxicillin that seemed to be killing it off. Random antibiotics is not a good idea in the developed world, but for travellers, it’s any port in a storm.

La Marina lighthouse

She thought oranges sounded good, so I had a conversation with the most local of the fruit sellers who stand on every street corner. This lady saw me coming so I ended up with kilos of mandarins and apricots, but I did manage to decline a plastic bag, and she agreed that that was best. Whatever was coming out of my mouth may not have been Spanish, but it definitely wasn’t English!

Lima is supposed to be a foodie capital, but I still wasn’t getting it. T. finally felt well enough to go out for a meal and we got some seafood paella, but it was only O.K. At least it wasn’t a ham and cheese sandwich. Between Cuba and the supermarket, that felt like all I’d been eating. I was also disappointed by the national drink of Peru, the pisco sour. Chocolate pisco, on the other hand, was a revelation. 

I went to the Chocolate Museum as part of another “free” walking tour, this time to central Lima. If you’re ever in Lima, I wouldn’t bother with this tour. It was five hot and sticky hours starting with the Metropolitano, which I’d already negotiated myself. Besides talking about how important it was to tip her and how other visitors had let her down in the past, our guide mostly kept repeating the same thing: that Catholicism was from the Europeans, in contrast to the Inca religion. Now, I didn’t know previously that La Catedral de Lima was formerly the Temple of the Moon, but I didn’t have to be told four times either. I could have walked from the Plaza San Martín along the pedestrianized Jirón de la Unión by myself, and not spent as much time hanging around or going in shops.

Iglesia de la Merced

We did reach Plaza de Armas in time to see the changing of the guard. This ceremony seemed to go on for a long time. At one point, I confess to wondering why they were playing a Simon & Garfunkel song, then realized that of course, Paul Simon used the melody of “El Cóndor Pasa” for his song “(If I Could)”. 

Our unhelpful guide then lost half the group on a walk to the central market, scolding us after her apprentice (I can’t imagine what he’s learning) finally found us again. I blame myself for not bringing a map and having to follow her around everywhere. We finished the tour in Barrio Chino (Chinatown), where she told us that there are no longer any Chinese people. This seems unlikely. There are Chinese people absolutely everywhere, even a South African township. 

Whatever you think of China as a power, if there’s one thing you can count on finding in this world, it’s Chinese—both people and restaurants. The particular Peruvian version of a Chinese restaurant is called a chifa, and every neighbourhood has one. Maybe we would have had better luck there.

For the record, I did tip the guide, not because she guilt-tripped us but because I don’t believe people should work for nothing. If you’re reading this, Claudia, here’s another tip: Try not being such a ditz!

T. braved the bus system and returned to Javier Prado Este with me on our last night in Lima. She was determined not to miss the Hard Rock Cafe, as we had in Chiang Mai. Like other things in Lima, the Hard Rock Cafe is inconveniently located, this in a big mall miles from anywhere. It was a simply awful journey at rush hour, which in Lima lasts till 10 P.M. I knew this from the taxi driver who’d brought us from the airport—a helpful, English-speaking guy who charged us a fair price and didn’t try to change it when we got to our destination.

I wish I’d called him for our return taxi to the airport. Instead, I got the bright idea to again use my little Spanish, and ask the driver who brought us back from the Hard Rock to pick us up in the morning. He was there promptly (for “Sra. Nols”) but that’s all that can be said for him. He ripped us off and then turned out not even to have a proper license for the airport—so as we got out of the taxi, he was being questioned by officials. I hope he paid it all in fines.

Here’s another fact: Some taxi drivers are going to rip you off. Not all of them by any means, and you can try to avoid it, but at some point, as a foreign visitor, you are going to overpay (meters are unknown in most parts of the world). Marek Bron of https://www.indietraveller.co calls this type of experience “the angel’s share.” He’s comparing it to the small percentage of every barrel of whiskey that inevitably evaporates during the distilling process. In order to get whiskey, there is always a little bit that just disappears into the heavens. Getting ripped off by taxi drivers is that part of the travel experience.

Or, as our much more tippable guide O. in Cuba put it: The first few drops of every bottle of rum are poured out “for the saints.”

The rainbow flag of the Inca empire (not gay pride!) and the Peruvian flag

Next stop: Cuzco!