Fish And Chaos

I feel lucky to be securely parked this week not expected to drive anywhere as celebrations fill the city outside the walls of our campground in Arequipa.

PlazaVea the local supermarket is proud to be celebrating the “White City’s” 485th birthday August 15th, next Friday. Arequipa is known as the white city owing to a tradition that no longer really applies of whitewashing the buildings. We are parked behind the wall below, at the Las Mercedes campground and comfortably secure it is too, even though it is right in the middle of the city and convenient to walk to the Plaza de Armas. This week walking is an especially good thing as the streets are clogged and noisy. 

We do get traffic noise of course, and lots of it in this Peruvian city. Drivers have no patience courtesy or self control so if traffic is held up, say owing to a slow passenger mounting a bus, all hell breaks loose on the horns. A blaring horn is the equivalent of a medieval lance piercing everything that stands in its way. Inside the compound wall those excruciating sounds carry, exquisitely. 

We took off for a walk to get some lunch after we settled Rusty comfortably aboard GANNET2 on his bed on our bed with windows open and doors ajar. We are planning to leave Arequipa a week from Sunday and drive for Puerto Maldonado across the Andes, a river port close to the border with Brazil. We expect the drive to take four easy days passing through some spectacular scenery above 14,000 feet. 

Meanwhile we are trying to cope with a city in the throes of the equivalent to Fantasy Fest when everyone from everywhere descends on Arequipa for its birthday. It is very peopley and I’d be fine taking off tomorrow but I’m outvoted by Layne and Rusty. Below, we passed a lost dog notice “my family is crying for me” so I will keep an eye out. 

A sample of the chaos below on Cruz Verde (green cross) Street which is always busy with buses but this week they are outdoing themselves slowing cars and drivers  don’t like it. The horn symphony is heard in full force. 

No one was unloading this truck. It was just sitting there unoccupied hoping buses could get by; so far so good. I wish I had the balls to park like this. 

Check out the continuous flow of buses. I read the Trump administration is rescinding all those pesky clean air rules so pretty soon you can enjoy the sweet smell of third world diesel exhaust as we do. 

Lunch was thirty bucks including a hefty North American tip. We had the complementary fish broth to start, with seaweed and onion and it’s quite refreshing especially with a squeeze of lime. 

We decided to have mussels for a starter…

…I had Chinese style fried rice (arroz chaufa they call it in Peru) with fish…

…while Layne had trout which looks salmon pink in the Andes, all washed down with a jug of lemonade under a warm winter sun in about 74 comfortable degrees. 

You can see why dawdling in Arequipa appeals. So even though I boldly state I’m ready to move on I can readily admit I’m not suffering by dawdling. The holiday traffic is not something I’m keen to dive into in a 21 foot 9400 pound Promaster. 

I grew up driving in Italy so I know how to be aggressive but I’d much rather sneak out of town at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning as the locals nurse their hangovers. 

I caught a glimpse of some wildlife resting on my leathered skin in the afternoon sun. 

I sat outside the supermarket while Layne shopped and I saw a nostalgic sight, an orange VW identical to my late friend Giovanni’s first car  which got us into all kinds of trouble in Italy in the 70s. He sold it because he thought it was a gas guzzler which says something about how different cultures guzzle gas.

A slow plod home with a few fruits and vegetables to replace those hijacked at the border and we only had laundry left to drop off. 

7 kilos (15 pounds) for twelve dollars ready for pickup  the next afternoon.

Arequipa is the easy life. Hot showers reliable electricity and lots of grass for Rusty to roll in. Why leave? 

And on a slightly different note my blogging app has died. I used Blog Touch for years and was happy to pay a modest sum for the advertising free pro version. Then a few days ago it stopped working so I sent the developer in Eastern Europe somewhere a note and he told me it has died a developers death as Blogger made it impossible to continue. 

I was panicked but I have discovered Blogger’s editing page has got a lot better over the past decade from the first days I tried to use it, when I found the Blog Touch app was so much better. So I am adapting to a new writing format which for a rigid Aspergers type like me is a bit of a trial.  I hope the pictures and words look pretty much as always but I am doing a little experimenting as I go. 

I don’t think there are many people still blogging so I don’t know how much longer technology will accommodate us few hold out eccentrics especially people like me who despise AI, and I am also not a fan of the doltish combativeness of most social media which I want none of on my page. I am happy I don’t need money from this page so I write for myself, advertisement free,  not to please anyone, except you fellow  eccentrics who take the time to read words and look at still pictures. Long may it last.

Thank you for reading. 

Arequipa Again

We got up and on our way at eight but we hadn’t far to go as the border with Peru was just up the road.

The process took two hours and lots of standing in line but we got through it in good order as usual. We had been worried Peruvian immigration might be upset about us coming back so soon but I explained we’d gone to Chile for spare parts and could we please have 30 days as we’d only used 60 of our initial visit. They normally give you 90 days but expect you to stay out of the country for another 90. We’d done 60 and been out for 20…I guess it helps to speak some Spanish as she gave us 60 days, which was very cool of her. We hope to be in Brazil in a couple of weeks. 

The customs guy got a bit confused as I had a new passport since my last entry and I had to pull out my canceled passport and explain I had renewed it. I’m not a mechanic or a plumber or handsome but I am handy with communication  (if you know Red Green you know what I mean). Rusty’s entry papers were no trouble at all after that but when the inspectors checked our vehicle they were focused on him having his papers. Every inspector who came by GANNET2  saw Rusty and asked if he had been checked in…You never know what will grab their interest  which is what makes border crossings exciting. Last time they took his cookies and never checked his entry permit  but this time they took a sealed package of cooked ham while letting Layne keep the cooked hot dogs we use for treats for Rusty.  It’s all so random at the border.  

So off we went and I’ll tell you it isn’t nearly as thrilling when you know what to expect down the road ahead, but it was still satisfying to have made another successful border crossing  in good order . We got gas at $4:30 a gallon, a buck cheaper than Chile’s heavily taxed regular gas. We went up the coast for the glorious ocean views before turning inland to Arequipa.

But the road down to the coast was also spectacular in its own desert way. I love driving so I have no idea how I survived twenty years in Key West at the end of one solitary highway. 

But first, lunch, at a cost of $6:75 each including apple juice outside the port city of Ilo. 

The beef broth soup had beef potatoes and noodles and was delicious.

The main course was beef though we might have liked fish there is no menu: you get what you’re given. Thus we were set to continue to Arequipa four hours away  on a lovely afternoon drive.

It soon became obvious thanks to Google Maps’ time/distance calculations we would not arrive at the campground before dark. The clock went back an hour when we crossed the border but sun sets at 5:35 in Peru. We don’t normally drive at night but needs must when the devil’s driving. It’s a great saying but I’m not sure what it means…

The tunnel was barely tall enough for the truck ahead of us. 

The sign is a public service announcement from your friendly Peruvian trucker and it says don’t use your cellphone while driving as your family is at home waiting for you. 

The ladies onboard swept back the tarp and waved and smiled at us but I liked the hand photo. 

He was excited to get back to the campground and started whining when he realized where we were, grass, privacy and cool night air. He was happy.

Dinner was late but he woofed it and passed out. 

Ready For Peru

 It took all day but by four thirty we had Rusty’s exit papers allowing us to head to the border. However we decided to spend another night in Chile and deal with the border Thursday morning. Crossing in the evening might lead us to driving in the dark so even though the border is open twenty four hours we planned to cross Thursday morning. So we spent the night back at the airport.

It took a few trips to the agriculture office, the first to drop off Rusty’s new health certificate and for the bureaucrats to check the paperwork.

Then we went away to wait for the email. Layne did some last few bits and pieces of shopping for stuff we can’t find in Peru and then we went back to the beach to wait to here from SAG, the agriculture office. Then we went back to pay $35 when I got the email but they said I had to go back a third time at four to get the permit. Had I u aerators I could have paid and got the permit at the same time but I goofed. 

On the way we saw a couple of bicycle cops ahead of us come across a double parked car holding up traffic. It was for those times when you ask yourself where are the cops when you need them? 

Back at the beach we met a couple in a small Fiat van from Uruguay. He emigrated from Germany speaks fluent English and has been a musician wandering and making a living he says since 1973. Somewhere along the way he met a Colombian woman who had relatives living in Uruguay so she went to live there to escape the chaos that was Colombia. Now they are traveling around a bit to see more of South America and their goal is to make money, he playing music, she making street art, as they go. 

They went into town and at four we drove back to agriculture, got the certificate and we went to the airport to spend the  night. 

Bolivian tankers waiting load fuel to help gas stations in their landlocked country stagger through another few days of keeping fuel shortages at bay. Bolivia barely functions. 

Loading rope. I know not what for but it looked intriguing.