My First Tour in Peru

From the first perusal of Peru, you notice a difference. There’s no simpler word. In a few kilometers the change is so apparent, it’s hard not to compare. You spot the buildings first, homemade brick constructions, all incomplete with rebar poking up from four corners of the roof (an unfinished house apparently isn't taxed). There are few cars, just taxis. The people I see in the bus terminal are darker and more indigenous appearance, and their faces look like they have had to work hard all their lives. The border crossing building is tidy and shiny, ambivalent to the country it serves, an image of the Peru that could be but is not.

Let me clarify this image. The streets aren’t crawling with beggars or stinking of garbage or filled with gun-wielding poor. The city functions and people work. By now I’ve learned that the greatest difference between our world and this world is opportunity, whether it be opportunity to work, buy, or do what you like. We eat bananas because we can, they eat them because they grow in their climate. But nobody begs. Instead, everybody sells. When our bus pulls into Moquegua to pick up passengers, ladies swarm the bus selling corn and cheese and shrimp. One lady just repeats over and over in her shrill voice “Hay chicharrones!” (I’ve got fried port rinds!).
The bus was as cramped as hell since Peruvians are for the most part pretty short.

It also got dark incredibly early (5am) due to the strange arrangement of timezones. Travelling from Argentina to Chile was a one hour difference, and then travelling north to Peru is another hour back. So for an east-west traversal less than the width of Saskatchewan, we went two hours back to the future. The guidebook was the only source of the rumours that night buses in Peru can be dangerous, and true or not, I was glad to arrive in Arequipa after a long day on the road.

The next shock was the cost. We were careful to get a licensed taxi to our hostel selection. The driver was very friendly, brimming with pride of his city and pointing out all the local sights as we passed through the narrow, stone streets. Our hostel was full, so he took us to another that he recommended that was also much cheaper. After this ten minute drive, I paid him 5 soles, about $2, and he went to give me change. Unbelievable. The double room we get at the hostel was about $9 per night. It didn't seem to make any sense.

Peru certainly trumped my other two destinations in terms of food. The selection and flavours were a lot more interesting if you stray away from the standard chicken meal (chicken places are everywhere): quinoa, llama, stews, soups, stuffed peppers, and potatoes everywhere. Eating was closer to what you’d expect an exotic trip to be. But by and large the best thing about Peru was the fruit drinks. Most restaurants sell them, and often there are stands set up. For 3 soles you’ll get a huge glass of thick, blended fruit that is divine. They also give you the pitcher with enough for a second glass. I've never "had enough" of a fruit smoothie until I came to Peru.
I have no guidebook for Peru, so Arequipa was a game-time audible I had called after hearing about it from other travelers. It’s a fairly large colonial town with a big church like they all have and a large convent. The reason most people come is to take a trip to the nearby Colca Canyon, regarded as the deepest canyon in the world by some stretch of creative geology. I signed up for a two-day tour, parting with Eric and joining a group of Canadian engineers from Edmonton for my first exposure to tourism in Peru.
There was no shortage of things to see on the trip. Our guide showed us llama and vicuñas, explaining the difference between their wool. We learned about the geology of the area and hiked to a mountain cemetery. We tried cactus fruits and walked along the canyon edge, learning about terrace farming and Inca history. The highlight was a lookout in the canyon situated right above a condor nesting ground, where the giant, majestic birds swooned in the morning thermals, close enough that they even looked large in my camera pictures.
But the beauty of the exotic location is marred by reality. It’s rare that you aren’t surrounded by other tour trucks crawling with cameras. Every stop has a small collection of seemingly the same women who sell the same assortment of llama-wool sweaters, hats, and gloves for whatever price you can barter them to. It isn’t infrequent to stop at a lookout and see kids dressed up in traditional garb while holding a baby llama. Tourists would snap pictures and give them a sole or a candy. I got a beautiful shot of this girl dancing in the main square of a little village, but that begs the question: why on earth is this girl dressed up and dancing in the square at 7am?
It leads you to wonder what the real Peru is. Is it the small town I saw from the bus the other day, a mess of pedestrians and street vendors? Or is it the hundreds of foreigners snapping pictures of condors? If ladies dress up in traditional wear everyday to show off to visitors, is it any different than dressing up in traditional wear to work the fields? Is the real Peru safe? Is it just as beautiful? There is a real tourist route in Peru that is much more obvious than Chile or Argentina. Here, people are on 2-week organized tours to the big five stops, and after that, as they’ll tell you, they’ll have “done” Peru.

There’s a lot of good from all this infrastructure. All the tour guides go to school for tourism and are very professional and speak good English. In a country where the currency is so cheap, it’s more cost effective to go on tours as opposed to do-it-yourself, and the range of tour agencies and operators employs a lot of people. And when you can get a full meal for $1, it’s obvious that a high-value $2000 adventure vacation for a working North America brings prosperity to many people in Peru.

In the end, I can only think to how I began this story: it’s just different here.