Speed

Northern Peru – Lima – ?, Peru

In retrospect, we probably could have biked that fast. 24 hours to cover 720 or so miles. 30 miles per hour. Maybe Richard Carapaz – the gold medal cyclist from Ecuador – could do it. 

But, whatever. We’re just happy we made it to Lima. Turns out that there is a lot of desert along the coast of Peru. And not much else. No trees. No towns. No cattle even. Well, there is an occasional town. But looking out the window it seemed like there may be some 50-60 mile stretches without anything. Just you and the baking hot sun . . .

So we’re pretty happy with our decision at this point. Which, I guess, you would expect. Isn’t that the natural thing? I think our subconscious minds are basically programmed to find things that justify the decisions that we’ve already made. (Can’t remember what book I read that talked about this. Maybe Sapiens – a book I really loved.)

If we had decided to bike that section of coast I’d be writing now about the subtle beauty of the desert and how the shape of sand is this profound thing. I’d be describing the euphoric state you achieve when biking along for hours in the baking sun. 

Nah. I’m not even close to convinced. Still pretty darn happy we took the bus.

Not that it was all lollipops and roses. 

First off, did you notice the math? We averaged 30 miles per hour. Not exactly setting any records there. So we were on the bus for a LONG time.

And the bus was not exactly luxury. We bought our tickets at the last minute, so we took what they had. What they had was two individual seats – not together. Always better to be together because at least your elbow can sneak over into your spouse’s space – or your head can loll onto your wife’s shoulder in the middle of the night. Not so when sitting next to a stranger – you have your 22.5” and that is it . . . Just to give you an idea of the amount of room we had: I couldn’t even open my 11” IPad all the way without hitting the back of the seat in front of me – which was reclined to within about 4” of my forehead . . .i

We tried to sleep – but I’m not sure I’ve ever been that uncomfortable. It was a long miserable night. 

The ride was scheduled to be 19.5 hours long – 2 p.m. Sunday to 9:30 a.m. Monday. Fortunately for us, we ended up receiving about 4.5 hours of bonus time – most of it spent idling in a little town about 45 miles from Lima. So that was fun.

This is a point to maybe linger on for a minute. Because I think it reveals a big difference between the Latin American and the U.S. psyche. During the 4-and-a-half hours of sitting there – just a few miles from Lima – not a single person complained, or even questioned what was happening in any way. 

Mind you, this was while we were sitting on a bus with one by-this-time DISGUSTING toilet facility. Two points here. First, there was a sign saying something to the effect of “No Pooping.” Good idea. But good luck with that. All fifty passengers not pooping for 24 hours . . .? Hmm. Second, by Monday morning the whole bus smelled like urine. It was not pretty. 

And still, even with that sorry state of affairs, no one was complaining. 

Contrast this with what we all know would happen in America. People would be irate. They would be yelling. They would be talking about how they were going to miss their manicure, or their golf tournament, or whatever. 

I think what this reflects is what I think of as the Latin Americans kind of having a go-with-the-flow type attitude toward life. “Oh, there’s garbage on the street. Hmm. That’s just how it is . . .”

Us Norte Americanos are maybe a little less willing to accept the world as it is. We’re much more apt to want to shape the world to the we think it should be. Probably this means the Latin Americans end up happier – not always dissatisfied with the way the world is. But it probably also explains some of the differences in the overall economies and the rates of entrepreneurism . . .

Sorry – I can’t resist adding one little story here . . .

Back to when we were in college. I was taking the bus from college – in Ithaca – to New York City – to visit Diana. There must have been a bus driver strike or something because we had a driver that had never driven the route before. Now, mind you, this was well before cell phones or anything. 

Every time we would roll into a new town the driver would stop, jump out, and call for directions. And we stopped a lot because it wasn’t exactly an express. 

So the five hour or so ride ballooned to like nine hours. Finally, we’re almost there when the driver missed a turn and ended up on an extra hour-long detour through New Jersey. 

But eventually we’re back on track – about to go through the Lincoln Tunnel . . . when the bus broke down altogether. Now we’re sitting on the side of the road for a few more hours until they get another bus out to bring us the last few miles. The driver is definitely getting an earful . . .

Meanwhile, Diana has been waiting for me at the Port Authority the whole time. She keeps asking where the bus is, but they’re telling her that it already came in. I have no way of reaching her, and it’s like 11 p.m. by now. 

Let me just say that I was pretty darn happy that she was there when I finally arrived. Because, as per usual at the time, I’m in poor college student mode and I think I had about $4 in my pocket, I didn’t know anyone else in the City, and I would have had no idea how to get to her parents’ place in Queens. 

That was a bad bus ride!

But, back to Peru. The good news is that it’s not like taking the bus meant a completely forgettable trip through Peru. No. We’ll always remember that time – that time – those 24 hours – that we’ll never get back . . .

Lima. 

Peru’s capital city is actually really nice. I don’t know why, but we had heard pretty negative things about the Ciudad de los Reyes – the City of Kings. We were only there 24 hours – because everyone had been so negative about it that we figured there was no point in staying longer – but we managed to be pretty impressed.

First off, there are these giant cliffs rising from the ocean. Reminded us of San Diego. I think La Jolla has cliffs like that. But in La Jolla there are a bunch of big mansions making it difficult to enjoy the view. In Lima, there’s a really nice boulevard with a bike path all along the edge of the cliffs. 

And then, I don’t brag up malls too often – but Lima has a pretty cool mall built into the edge of the cliffs. It’s not like the malls we think of in Minnesota – which are basically like terrariums for people. 

I guess going along with the desert theme, it rarely, if ever rains in Lima and the temperature is always around 75 – so they just made their mall with no roof and amazing ocean views. Cheaper to build – a lot cheaper to run – no heating, no air conditioning – and, let’s face it, unlike a mall, someplace that’s actually pleasant to be. 

We finished our stay with a trip to Lima’s giant market – which was conveniently located right next to their Chinatown. 

Umm. Chinatown. It was nice. But a key ingredient of most Chinatowns that I’ve been to is . . . Chinese people – Chinos. I guess we should have known there was something lacking in this department as soon as we arrived. Because the streets were clean. In fact, everything was clean. The windows. The doors. The streets and sidewalks. Not to overly stereotype, but that’s just part of the Chinatown brand . . . A million things crowded together in a disorganized jumble.

So how did the lack of Chinese people show up for us? We’re trying to buy some stuff for the next bus ride – the one we’re on right now. We’re at a Chinese bakery and there are sesame balls and the little custard things. Love the sesame balls – with the red bean paste in the middle. And the custard things – we once spent an hour walking across San Francisco to get really good custard things with Diana’s brother, Philip. Mmm. It was totally worth it. When they’re made just right, they’re among my favorite dessert items. (By the way – could no one tell me that I was mis-spelling the dry sandy places like the Mojave or the Sahara the last few days . . . It’s desert. Not dessert. Jeez! Some friends . . .) 

Okay, back on track. There’s no one behind the counter to give us our sesame balls and custards so we can buy them. There is someone at the cash register a few feet away – but she’s not Chinese, and, she has, apparently, no interest in helping us. We have to make the bus – so we couldn’t wait around; the upshot is that we have no dessert – note the double-s – items. There is still plenty of desert – just sand as far as you can see . . .

Diana noted afterward that if the woman at the checkout was Chinese, there’s no way she wouldn’t have just gone over to the counter and given us the items we wanted herself. Personally, I’m not sure it’s a Chinese thing so much as an immigrant thing. But whatever the case, I’m still kind of sad about it . . .

Still a mystery as to where the Chinese people were. But I guess they came to Peru originally in the mid-19th century – so maybe not that surprising that they’ve scattered to the four winds by now . . .

The rest of the market? HUGE. When we finally left to ride to the bus station, it took us about twenty minutes of continuous riding just to get out of the market area. Hawkers and stands selling anything and everything you can think of lining all the streets. I just looked it up – there are over 10 million people who live in Lima – so no wonder they have a big market. Crazy!

Well, next time we go to Lima, we’ll stay a little longer. And, by the way, in case you were wondering, the Peruvians definitely do know how to take care of their garbage and their sewage. Lima wasn’t spotless – but it was a pretty clean city. Not easy to do when you have 10 million+ people living together. Now it’s time to spread that knowledge to the towns in the north . . .

Last thing for the day . . .

Never having been to South America before I’ve always been a little confused by the geography of the continent. There are two pretty obvious features of this place. The 6,500 mile mountain range that runs from top to bottom – mostly a little ways in from the Pacific Coast. And then, east of that – what I imagine to be flattish type area that makes up the bulk of the continent; mostly the jungle area that we refer to as the Amazon. 

I guess the Andes are the result of the South American tectonic plate running into the Pacific tectonic plate. (Remember that’s how the monkeys arrived from Africa – millions of years ago when South America was a lot closer to Africa they took a raft.) I read something about when the plates hit each other it causes the mountains to rise up – like when you push on a rug and parts of the rug rise up. I guess the mountains are still growing about half an inch a year because the plates are still in the middle of their slow-motion collision. On that score, I’m glad we crossed the mountains when we did instead of like a million years from now – because they were high enough already. Add a million years worth of growth – about 500,000 inches – or about 41,000 feet – and I’m not sure we could have even made it through Ecuador at all . . .

But I digress. My question had been – what’s with the thin strip of land to the west of the Andes? Or, put another way, where did Chile come from from? After being here a few days, I have a theory. It seems like the whole area between the Pacific and the Andes is essentially a giant sandbar. The sand has blown up over time and is sometimes almost mountainous – but as far as I can tell it’s all just sand. If there are any geology experts out there maybe they can weigh in?

More on that in the days ahead. 

Tomorrow we arrive in Arequipe. Supposed to be a really cool city. We’ll see. You might have noticed that word: tomorrow. Yep, another all-night bus ride. But this time we have seats together and we managed to get slightly bigger, hopefully more comfortable, seats. Partially because this is a double-decker bus. 

Only downside – there’s always a downside – is that these buses have less cargo space. Less cargo space means Old Dan and Little Ann are not with us on the bus. We paid the steward at the Lima bus station a little extra to make sure they get on the next bus – but a little nerve-wracking nonetheless . . . (Update on this item: Diana has one of lo those little tracker things (Apple AirTag) on her bike – and she sees that it’s moving. So the bikes have either been stolen or they are on the next bus . . .)

That’s the news from Darkest Peru – where the newest Paddington movie – an action-adventure cartoon set in the jungles of Peru – seems to be all the rage . . .

Postscript. Shortly after dark we started smelling burning rubber. Within a few minutes the bus pulled over and we apparently had another Lincoln Tunnel situation on our hands – the bus was broken down. After a few hours we were told to disembark and there was another, identical, bus waiting for us. Diana says Old Dan and Little Ann passed us in the interim. Hopefully they’re waiting for us on arrival in Arequipa. But even Keanu Reeves couldn’t have saved us – if this was a B movie the bad guy certainly would have blown up the bus by now…