Peru IX: Return to the Old Familiar

The small customs outpost was clearly a punishment for the underachievers of the Aduana. It was the only building for miles and we were the sole customers, waved-in though the ink on Bolívar’s permit was barely dry. We were quite content to wait, sitting on a step watching the big Peruvian flag whip in the wind and the blue-grey Pacific crash on the empty beach. We had all the time in the world, and so did the customs officers, slouching under a canopy, scrolling through their phones. At least we had somewhere to go. Their destination could be seen through an open door: a narrow room with bunk beds.

It was nice to be back. Peru was an old familiar. This was both good and bad. It’s a comfortable feeling knowing what to expect, but you miss the excitement of not knowing what to expect. Hands down we prefer the latter. Retracing our steps is like going backwards, which is not the way we like to face. It’s one of the downsides of buying a vehicle for a specific journey: the most logical and sensible place to sell is the country it’s registered in. But we never had any qualms about returning to Colombia, in fact, it was the perfect excuse to do so. We couldn’t have known it at the time but Chile, our first choice for a motorcycle purchase, wouldn’t have been a good place to finish South America. It would have felt incomplete, a loose thread hanging all the way down there, flapping like that flag on the edge of the South Pacific.

This southernmost section of the Peruvian coast was new to us and after the first few miles of dreary farms and paint-chipped villages we reached the powdered slopes and vast ocean with its white waves rushing towards the shore.  After a shaky start, Ilo was a nice surprise. Our apartment didn’t exist, the too-good-to-be-true photos belonged to an interior design company in Spain. We’d expected a small seaside town but this port had been a major stop for ships travelling to the west coast of the United States in the pre-Panama Canal days. They would have rounded Cape Horn the wrong way, so had plenty to celebrate by the time they got here. The harbour was quieter now, with small fishing boats, fat, barking seals, and a wooden pier that hummed with activity as each day’s catch was unloaded. Surprisingly the first restaurant we went to could serve us only potatoes.

Our first night back we ordered Pisco Sours in the empty rooftop bar of our hotel. One of the nicest things about Peru is its food. After months of cake, meat, fries and pasta (cream or tomato sauce, or rosa - a blend of both), we could eat as much ceviche as we liked without breaking the bank. And we did. There were also potatoes, salads, corn with huge kernels (pigeon’s eyes, we called them) and avocados a-plenty, and to tempt our jaded pallets, a multitude of Chinese restaurants. Travelling in and out of Argentina and Chile, we’d fantasized about rice and vegetables for the better part of six months. Meanwhile, our right legs were the only body parts getting any exercise, it being necessary to throw them over Bolívar in order to get anywhere. Now with an entirely new menu on hand, eating “chifa” gave not only our tastebuds a healthy boost, but hopefully other parts of us as well.

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Turning inland we found oases with neat rows of crops and flat emerald squares of rice paddies. Higher up, a dusty town with narrow streets blocked by delivery trucks, abandoned roadworks and bowler-hatted shoppers forced us to detour onto an unpaved uphill where we got very lost. Villages receded below and the long climb began, with colours changing from brown to pink to white and grey, a rocky, almost lunar, landscape. Then we were back under the shadow of Misti, Arequipa’s snow-capped volcano. The plaza was packed with strolling families and a children’s choir sang in front of the cathedral. I’d been pick-pocketed in this very square in 2004, spending a memorable New Year’s Eve in the police station. A few nights later I embarrassed myself further by falling face down into my soup (Fran claimed I was avoiding the bill but it was merely a badly-timed, altitude-induced faint). Twice we were returned to our hotel in a police car and Fran was ready to disown me. Thankfully I’ve toughened-up since then and was now capable of buying a new front tire without losing my wallet, doing the laundry without mislaying my socks and filling-up on $3.00 three-course plates-of-the-day without swooning into my pigeon’s eyes.

The plan was to continue into the mountains but we hadn’t factored in Peru’s rainy season. When we were driving Pferdi, wet days were so few we as good as forgot about weather altogether. Now on Bolívar, we’d had more than our fair share of getting drenched. Having been warned of mudslides and road closures, we decided to stay on the flat and try again further north. Back on the Pan American Hwy, there’s few places to stop and the length of our days depended on where they were. Alternating between long stretches of desert coast, crumbling mountains and green river valleys with rare openings to the sea, the views were ever-changing and the riding glorious. We began to recognize certain landmarks, like the abandoned house with the political graffiti, the rock that looks like the Virgin Mary, and the road-sweeping crew outside that one town, daily erasing all signs of the advancing dunes. That’s either great job security or a curse sent down by an Olympian god, take your pick.

Past box-like shacks, tall woven fences in the middle of a wind-blasted nowhere, and back up towards Atico with its neglected beach (sadly no choice but to stop there), we moved on to the Nazca valley, trapped in a dull, pounding heat. Later in Ica, crawling through traffic-choked streets, it was almost impossible to believe our lovely pandemic respite was only a few kilometres away. Again, we declined to disturb the memories of our four months there. It was time to stop. Paracas, with its seaside atmosphere and lunches of octopus and cold beer, was the rest we needed. Our exploration of the surrounds was less successful. The villages were dull, a herd of goats crossed with an impatient driver almost got us killed, and riding past builders’ yards and over fields to Inca ruins led only to a “Closed for Cleaning” sign. (Least we deface a sacred stone while her back was turned, the lady with the mop watched and waited till we drove out of sight.) Packing-up Bolívar that last morning, the slack-jawed twelve-year-old sprawled permanently in the lobby armchair was still watching TV. His baby brother, having better things to do, tottered about on tiny toes trailing a loose nappy. We were barely out the door when it was locked behind us and a piece of paper slapped on the glass: "No Hay Atención”. Thus ended our holiday by the sea.

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The chicken farms are always a good indication that Lima’s getting close, and closer still the white condo resorts tilting down towards the water. Traffic was the usual chaos of horns blaring, wrong exits and near-misses. We were beginning to look decidedly derelict so went clothes shopping – an occupation I decidedly dislike. I got a haircut too, and emerged looking a little less like the Wild Woman of the West. On leaving, we headed once again for the mountains but our exit was long and painful. The barrios began at street-level but rose at an alarming grade to the top of treeless dunes, with huddled houses rising out of mounds of rubble. It was the saddest, most depressing neighbourhood, a hell on built on sand.

Outside, in fields and fresher air, green scrub and cacti followed, and bizarrely, resorts with AstroTurf lawns, colourful plastic playgrounds and half-built condo developments with swimming pools. Stony hillsides gave way to higher mountains with a couple of hamlets clinging to their sides. We’d had a late start, the traffic caused further delays and now the uphill was steep.  It began to drizzle. We were 144km from our destination but there was still a 4,600 metre pass to cross. Several dips in the road, fortified with extra concrete, had water flowing. On our left a small river gushed with bloated rapids. Each time we came to a crossing, the water got deeper. It was 3:00 PM but the sky was getting darker. At higher altitudes it would only get worse. Listening to the locals would have been a good idea. We decided to turn around.

Several hours earlier I’d told Lima this was goodbye, really, but here we were again. Worse, what looked like a simple road on the map linking mountain to city, was in reality a suburb of broken streets, kamikaze tuk-tuks and dead-ends with little drifts of sand. Finally, in Chancay, we found a small hotel inside a half-built gated community, without a gate. It was empty except for one employee: a kid barely out of his teens, but one who could’ve taught many a hotel manager further south a thing or two. With Bolívar safely parked in the Sala de Eventos under a bunch of deflated balloons, the kid phoned in our dinner order for delivery and waved a generous hand in the direction of a cooler in the corner. Helping ourselves to two beers we retreated across the street. Parking our tired behinds on the sidewalk we gave a great sigh. Beyond the front wall, rush-hour traffic was heading north on the Pan-American, while behind, the peaceful dunes changed into their evening colours. We’d been driving all day, spent hours leaving the capital, climbed a mountain, crossed a few streams, returned to the city we’d already said goodbye to umpteen times, left it again and ended up less than 80km from where we’d started. Isn’t life on the road grand!

The setting sun over the islands in Chimbote’s bay distracted from the shabbiness of the town, and in Chiclayo we discovered a lovely historical centre we’d missed before. Bolí spent two days getting a friendly service at Piura’s Royal Enfield dealer, its motherly ladies in the front office sternly instructing us not to pay more than $2.75 for the taxi. Unforgettable though was Piura’s maternity hospital: it had large iguanas roaming the front yard. I imagined all the little Inca babies popping-out, taking their first look and quickly retreating back inside. We were winding down. In dark churches and cafes of polished wood, not far from the burial grounds of the Lord of Sipán, we looked back and thought of how much, for all its faults, we really liked Peru. We remembered people we’d met over the years: Walter, the doctor in Chachapoyas, our California friend’s family in Lima, and Janette and Juan Carlos, the hotel owners who gave us a home during the first lockdown. Even the old woman who set her alpaca on us, I forgive her. But not the alpaca. We’ve spent more time here than most other countries, so shouldn’t feel sad at leaving. After all, our farewells so far haven’t fared so well. And that’s another thing we’ve learned here: saying goodbye doesn’t mean you won’t be back.

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