Tumbes

Tumbes, the first decent sized town south of the border is an hour north of Swiss Wassi campground, on Google maps that’s just 25 miles away.

It is not a pretty or wealthy town, a desert of dusty and wrecked streets, wild traffic and oblivious pedestrians is more like it, and there was only one reason to go there yesterday. 

They say 115,000 people live here just twenty miles from Ecuador and 800 miles from Lima the capital of Peru. We read the city is named either for a tribe of people called Tumpis who used to live here or their chief Tumba, or even possibly the place is named for a plant that grows in the desert called a tumpi. In short no one seems to know. 

The city lives on the north bank of the Tumbes River and there is a sort of cement boardwalk set back a bit from the water possibly as a defense against flooding even though the river looks innocuous. On our way north we passed a billboard calling for a general strike on the 19th to demand clean water for all. 

We plan to be snug in our Swiss compound that day as there have been plenty of blockades on our journey already. I suspect, judging by the quantity of toilet paper, dog food and milk we purchased we may be here a couple of weeks. Rusty wouldn’t mind one bit. 

Anyway, Tumbes on Tuesday is the theme here on this page today, so let’s go back to the city that did not bring us huge amounts of joy. We parked in the supermarket parking lot and had lunch at the self serve buffet lunch place. It was rather odd food not well cooked, a mixture of greasy Asian and rather odd stews and grilled meats with no flavor but it got the job done. The shopping itself was rather odd, not many vegetables except tons of odd looking potatoes, unripened tomatoes and freezer burned spinach. Check out the potatoes, which were first developed and grown in Peru thousands of years ago:

And this is a modest supermarket collection of tubers (prices are in soles, four to the dollar). Weights are in kilos. Across Peru there are apparently hundred of varieties in dozens of colors and uncountable shapes. Like this bulbous thing:

We bought some weird inky black corn as an experiment but Layne could not find canned garbanzo beans. We found pita bread and were planning to make falafels as the English travelers Mati and Sammy had taught us. 

These speckled things are called olluco (“oy-you-co”) and according to Google are typically eaten mashed or boiled with llama meat in a stew. We passed on them. 

I didn’t think much of guinea pig in Ecuador and I doubt llama steak is in my future as I’m told it tends to be gamy and tough which to my delicate tastebuds doesn’t sound appetizing. Food aside we had some rather tiresome experiences in Tumbes. I met a boy of probably ten begging in the supermarket parking lot which made me feel crappy. “Why aren’t you in school?” I asked as I handed over our Ecuadorean dollar coins lacking soles, as we did. He shrugged and skipped off to an empty future. 

The supermarket had only two check out lanes open so I girded my Peruvian loins and read my Kindle as patiently as I could. It took forever. 

Then we went downtown to find an ATM to get some currency. Need a tuk tuk? There are lots of them everywhere going in all directions at once  which makes for hectic driving. What the flying saucer is hovering over the end of the street, I don’t know but we fit under it.  

We found Scotiabank and Banco Nacional which reportedly charge no ATM fees. Our people back home at First State Bank of the Florida Keys have been really surprisingly useless at authorizing our cards for use in foreign countries. We call, they say okay, and then our cards get refused. That happened yesterday. 

I stayed with the van across the square where I miraculously found a parking spot. There were some shady people wandering around eyeing it and we felt that leaving GANNET2 alone might not be wise. The next thing Layne texts me is the ATM has eaten her card. So she’s at the bank trying to get the staff to give it back and I’m half a block away protecting our home. What a day. 

So she had to call First State Bank in Key West to get authorization for the third time to use it in Peru and once again they said no problem. Meanwhile the Peruvians had to go into the ATM to get her card back. It took two hours to withdraw $300 in soles (“so-lays”).

We got out of town onto the PanAmerican Highway southbound and looked for a gas station that might not sell sand with the fuel. We found one and as I hesitated to choose a pump as the languid attendant stared at me passively, an asshole in a car slipped in front and took the pump. We drove away. At the next one the attendant was so slow, Soviet style I just pumped the gas myself. I was no longer in the mood to stand around waiting.

The kid wanted 15 soles so we gave him 20 ($5:50) as he washed with a will. 

We had planned to buy some purified water in the village of Zorritos near the campground but it was after five so it was closed which was not a big deal but this quick shop turned into a six hour ordeal.  The glamor of overlanding.

To wrap up the day here are some pictures of the road I snapped between Tumbes and Swiss Wassi coming and going.