Peru Reflections

It took us forever to get home. We left for the Lima airport around 7 pm on Friday, and didn't pull into our apartment parking lot until 1:30 pm on Sunday. This is what we get for being cheap.

Now that we're back in New Mexico, we're hitting the ground running. But first, I want to record some Peruisms that we experienced throughout our trip:

1) Horns, whistles, and car alarms Ahh, the streets of Peru. More like: Ahh! The streets of Peru!

As in the other Latin American countries I've visited, vehicle drivers use the car horn for all kinds of communication, not just the cautionary kind. Taxi drivers honk to say "Hey, pedestrian, do you want to be my passenger?" and also "Hey, driver of other vehicle, I'm inconveniently sneaking into your blind spot, working on turning this two-lane road into at least a 6-lane. Hope you are good at driving stick, or else you will surely bump me just by getting into gear once that light changes;" and also "Hey, anyone who is on the street in any capacity, doesn't it seem a bit quiet?"

No, taxi driver, it does not seem a bit quiet, because for some reason there are two or three traffic control police at each stop light, blowing their whistles as loud as they possibly can. Why, you might ask, is a traffic controller necessary at an intersection with a stop light? I. don't. know. My best guess is that Peru is trying to lower their unemployment rate. Not that it's hard to believe that Peruvian drivers disregard stoplights without a crazy whistle-blower waving his/her arms. Actually, come to think of it, the drivers now just disregard the stoplights AND the police.

Finally, car alarms. You know that series of car alarms that kids' toys have? The one that cycles through every version of car alarm you've ever heard in the U.S.? That recording is the car alarm on all vehicles in Peru. And they're all sensitive. There's a random school band practicing in the MIDDLE OF THE STREET today? Well, that dang trumpet is in just the right range for all of the cars to feel personally attacked. A kid playing soccer with an empty, plastic pop bottle accidentally sent the bottle flying into that car's back tire, and now the car is ANGRY.

I'm telling you, walking my butt into a New Mexico grocery store without bells and sirens ringing in my ears is heavenly.

2) Soap and toilet paper In the States, I was no germophobe. I wash my hands after using the bathroom and before cooking, and that's pretty much it. I am experiencing some major soap-loving culture shock now that we have returned, though. Just glimpsing the soap bottle as I walk by the kitchen sink is enough to get me lathering up. Ahh, my hands smell so nice! And my fingernails are so clean! And I don't have to carry around baby wipes anymore!

The lack of toilet paper in Peruvian restrooms was not nearly as difficult for me to handle; it's not very inconvenient to carry TP around with you. But after adjusting to always tossing the stuff in a trashcan instead of into the toilet, I feel very spoiled to have the privilege of doing just what a million signs over the last few weeks have begged me not to do.

3) Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" The areas of Peru where we traveled are pretty heavily populated with tourists this time of year. And so to show the tourists a good time, Peru has commissioned every single Andean windpipe player to learn "Sound of Silence" before learning any traditional Andean windpipe song, or any other song in the universe. On every train, in every bus station, in every market stall with windpipes, this is the tune. OK, kid, you've got that one conquered? Now let's try some ABBA. Really, I heard so much windpipe over the last few weeks, but I can't say that I heard a traditional Andean song played on the windpipe the entire time we were there.

4) Salad I was warned before the trip that I would miss vegetables. As a salad lover, I fully expected this to be true, but it wasn't. I guess I usually crave veggies after I eat something especially unhealthy, and that just didn't happen a lot in Peru. That said, I did eat salad pretty regularly our last week in Peru, water skeptics be damned, and didn't have any problems. Stomach of steel!

5) Being a tourist Our touristy trip was not the excursion Alan and I had originally discussed. We fully intended to do a homestay for 3 weeks or so, and then tour around the country on our own, making the trip a solid 5-6 weeks. Because of life, and because finding homestays in Peru is not as simple as it is in Europe, our plans changed pretty drastically.

On our Europe trip, Alan and I were very pleased with ourselves that we traveled the way we did. We could snicker at the other tourists: The guy in the khaki shorts and blue visor, making no attempt whatsoever to blend in, photographing - no, FILMING - every square inch of every single cathedral he visited. The woman who completely overpays for a piece of junk souvenir. You know, the "inferior" travelers. But in Peru, our travel snobbery had no legs to stand on. I was the one duped into buying a $16 "baby alpaca" sweater that is surely 100% synthetic ("I knew alpaca fleece would be cheaper in Peru, but I had no idea it would be so cheap!"). Alan was the one walking around with a huge camera, taking 500 pictures of the same damn pelican.

And yet, we enjoyed ourselves. I've returned with lots of anecdotes for my classroom, and lots of memories for myself. I am sure that had we stayed with a family, we would have understood the Peruvian culture much better, I would have worked on my Spanish much more, and we would have walked away with a great experience. But traversing the kind of landscape that Peru has takes a lot of time, and we're not at all unhappy with the experience we did have. Yay, tourism!

That's it for now. Goodbye Peru!