My Impression of Peru (Peru)

Member Name: Cammij

Product:	Peru
Date:	17/06/06 (1146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, no hassles from cops, they have plenty of Good American restuaraants and hotels

Disadvantages: Public transports, drug laws, beggars

Hello Folks, I just got back from the wonderful South American Archeaological paradise of Peru. Now I will share my impressions of it with you.

First off I love to travel and to see various Archeaological sites and then I come up with bizarre theories about aliens, vikings, lost tribes of Isreal or reptiles having built all the stuff. Peru seemed like a good trip so I went there. I didn't make it out of Lima though. I meant to go to Cusco but I only had a week and after hearing people talking about having to march up a mountain for 3 days hauling all your gear with you unless you hire an 'orse to do the hard work. That does not sound like a vacation, that sounds like some sick testing of the will that a man encounters at Paris Island when he joins the Marine corps. And to think all you get is to take some pictures of some rocks and stones since it has long been mined for treasure by private individuals. Furthermore if you think you can make the trip if fortified by some of the local produce, you are insane, having any amount of Peruvian marching powder gets you 8 years in gaol. And I doubt the jails are much nicer than the 7 pound a night hotel rooms.

Let's talk about Lima. Lima is a huge city right on the coast and you can go to the nice section of town called Miraflores and look down the cliffs at the beach made out of small pebbles. If you make it that far you are doing great because it is impossible to get around the city. There is no organized public transportation. A million private companies set up bus lines that have no real systemic plan. Combine this with the fact that there are no real bus stations, you have to either hail a bus or combi (a van overpacked with sweating people) by sticking out your arm as they slow down along the street when they see people who may or may not be trying to get on a bus. This is a horrible inefficient set up and it takes forever to get anywhere by bus, but considering it costs 17p for a ride that isn't so bad for the lazy backpacker or adventurer. Also they use their horns constantly, all you hear is incessant beeping the whole time, day or night, if you see a person who might cross a street you beep, you notice another car, beep three or four times, it is so annoying!!!! So each bus or combi has a guy who hangs outside the door of the bus and shouts out the destination of the bus to people. It is insane. You can try taking a cab, but if you do so make sure you have a pen and paper because you might get lucky and get a literate driver. There is no hope whatsoever of being able to speak to the vast majority of the locals. They speak a bizarre patois that is so fast and obscure that you will never ever learn it. Maybe 5% of the population looks and acts like a proper Spainard. These people have time and again complimented my spanish. But the "peruvians" the word the rich nice people call their compatriots simply are ignorant and uneducated and wholly too thick to know that there is other ways to speak spanish and maybe if they would speak slow and clear touristas could understand them better. The upperclass is a strange lot of people. They will refer to themselves by their ethnic origins and proudly proclaim that they are european rather than indio. I never saw such open and raw racialist conduct. I met a number or the "euros" and each of them was very concerned that I knew they were not "peruvian" (mestizo) and they spoke with such absolute hatred of their countrymen. And they are such a small minority too, maybe 5% of the population. It is a strange dynamic to witness.

The food in Peru is good. It is comical what you see. On the street I stayed on in Miraflores called Commandante Espinar with blocks of my lodging there was a Chili's, TGI Fridays, Papa Johns, KFC, Dominos, MCDs, and Starbucks (with valet parking). It was a shock to go to some far off land where they don't even speak God's own language and see so many American resstaurants. I ate almost everyday at a place called el Conquistador. It was a buffet that costs 25 sols, about 4 squid. It was lavish and elegant with all sorts of local dishes that were succulent and interesting. Everywhere else in the city everyone eats their "pollo y papas" the roast chicken and thick chips. In a poor neighborhood virtually 75% of all restaurants feature this, all the same meal, a quarter chicken, chips and shredded salad. you know how nice a neighborhood you are in by the price of this standard meal. In the worst ghettos it will be around 5 sols and in the nice area 12 sols. In China town they have some great buffets that will knok you socks off for 3 squid. And to get an egg roll on the street costs 18p.


Drinking in peru. Relative to South America it is expensive to drink in Lima. A beer usually cost 7 sols in a bar which is only a pound ten or so but seems expensive. Beer is no cheaper in the markets or gas stations either. They have these drinks called Pisco sours which aren't bad. Apparently back in the day the colonists tried to set up vinyards and the homeland got scared and tried to tax them out of business, and they made inferior grapes that they distilled into Pisco. There are a few bars around and they hours are strange, and days they are evn open are tricky. The neighborhood called Barranco is the nightlife spot and downtown Miraflores where they have an italian restaurant district called Avenue of Pizzas. Unfortunately the beggars are too well aware of where the tourists go and you have aggressive children, filthy, grabbing ahold of your clothing wanting money. Trying to see if they can get into your pockets. Not cool. Some other kids, out at 3am, try to get alms by juggling three tennis balls in stopped traffic. It get tiresome, it is so lame the three tennis balls. You want to tell them to learn a new trick. I watched a guy give some kids a big bag of apples and then the kids amused themselves by smashing the apples against a wall one by one.

I went to a place called Ciudad de Dios, one of the worstest ghettos in town. many volunteer doctors go there as it is full of medical clinics. Apparently the medical clinics in some cases are fronts for brothels where they charge about 3 pounds for their service. It is a scary place.

There are lots of cheap souveniers all over. There is a big park in Miraflores where merchants congregate to all hours of the night selling alledgedly alpaca blankets and hats and silver or leather trinkets and stuff made by indians of stones and whatnot.

The strangest thing that has ever happened to me while travelling went down out in a suburb called Sucre. We got invited to a party for internationals and we went out to this gorgeous mansion. We did not know but everyone was gay and by our being there we implicitly were saying we were too. They were very touchy feely and I did not like that. But such wonderful people. I steeped outside to get some air and there were a bunch of kids 15 to 20 years old standing outside trying to look like a street gang. They looked me over, I am 6 foot tall and 235 pounds of power with tats all over my body and my shaven head. I have a 3 year old beard with 15 braids hanging down about 35 cms. I don't look like a nice person and if you want I can send you a picture. Anyways these Peruvian kids inform me that they are the Ku Klux Klan of Peru and they don't like me. I kindly asked them if they were the Imperial Knights or the Ku Klux Klan or the Christian Knights of the KKK. I ended up giving them a good instructional lecture on the Klan. I had been an undercover cop at one time and had helped infiltrate hate organizations in America so I really took these kids to school. If they want to make fools of themselves I wanted to help them do it in best form. Not a single one of them would have been allowed to join the organization they liked so much. Apparently there are lots of people in Peru that follow fascist views and claim to be nazis and whatever else. I wonder if they know that their social betters have refined hatred against them in a far more refined and subtle form. Like I said it is a weird place.

I went to a big museum on Bolivar place. It was something Herraras, before you go there check which days it is closed. It was a phenomonal collection organised by epochs or whatever. They had a separate gallery consisting entirely of pornographic pottery. Yes, for real. This people are descended from perverts. I have to keep this review sanitary, but they made so much pottery, functioning pots, cups, tea kettles and so on that were in the form of people doing stuff that I don't think about much at my age. Then they little descriptions poorly translated in english state what is usually rather obvious and describe exactly what the figures in the pottery are doing. It was bizarre.

I don't think I will ever go back there. The people are really just so ugly to look at and you can't really communicate with the people you incidently meet. I can find enough of people like this is Surrey that I don't need to fly half way across the world to find more. My friend Peter Surmised it for them thee best, a Peruvian asked him "Have you seen any ruins here" and he replied, "Yes, this whole city of 11 million people is all ruins"

Oh, I should state one positive thing about peru. You can buy packs of 5 ciggies. They cost 1 sol which is again like 17p. It is nice if you have a young kid like my 11 year old Jake that just started smoking and you don't trust them with a whole pack of fags so you just give them a five pack in the morning and another one when he comes home from school. This way if a teacher or other meddlesome adult takes his fags you aren't out the whole pack, plus it fits nice in his pockets since he is such a slender runt (probaly cus his ma Judy couldn't give up fags during his gestation period)

Summary: Lima Not a very nice place for holiday