Waiting In Arequipa

Layne has an appointment today with a skin cancer surgeon. She has two small cancers that need to be removed, no big deal the doctor said they aren’t serious.

The big deal is that until we know the process and the timeline for the surgery and the recovery time we don’t know what we are doing next. We have a comfortable spot to wait and see before we finish up Peru by touring Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Lake Titicaca before we drive to Chile.

The other issue as ridiculous as it sounds is that I have to return to Florida before November. My drivers license expires October 31st and I can’t renew it online, as I did that last time and you can’t do that twice in a row. Silly me.

So I will be marching off to Miami sometime. I had planned to go from Lima but the campground there wasn’t pet friendly but here in Arequipa Layne would be fine by herself for a week so I shall probably fly to Lima and connect to Miami and rent a car to drive to Key West and stay with friends.

You know what they say about making lemonade from lemons so I shall probably be in Key West in mid September, the height of hurricane season if all goes well. Slightly weird but necessary.

In addition to getting a Cuban mix sandwich at Sandy’s I shall have to pick up our mail, get my International Driving Permit renewed, renew GANNET2’s registration and buy a suitcase to bring back all the loot Layne has been shipping from Amazon to our friends’ place in New Town. 

It’s funny really as lots of travelers from Europe go home in summer and our Canadian friends will be in British Columbia for September. I hate flying and being shuffled around but it’s extremely convenient to be able to afford the time and money to make this ridiculous journey. Plus I’ll get to see some people I have missed. I’m not complaining. 

Layne will be fine here for a week as it’s a short walk downtown, there’s a giant supermarket around the corner, the campground does laundry and Rusty is very happy sprawling in the sun. She’s also found some cooking classes she wants to take. 

I’m ready to be out of Peru and exploring Chile on our way to Ushuaia at the southernmost tip of the continent. We are trying to plan our arrival at the Beagle Channel in early December which is the beginning of summer so we have to keep an eye on our dawdling as it’s 3500 miles in a straight line and we drive anything except straight lines. There is so much to see. 

In the meantime we are seeing the sights, reading books and trying Peruvian cuisine. Not a bad life. Saturday we ate at a fish restaurant (and got to go boxes as usual).

The tangy bright soup tasting of fish and lime to start. And then we ordered a tasting tray, too vast by half of course. Seafood rice, ceviche, and fried fish. All delicious but we ate the ceviche and saved the rest for our fridge. 

Service was weird of course, rushed impatient and tense. This was at three in the afternoon. 

After it was over he was cheerful and sorry he spoke not much English. We gave a tip which as always shocked him. I wish there were more joy and less self consciousness in Peru as they seem so shy and ashamed at not speaking English. The food in Colombia is boring but the good cheer of the people makes up for it. Peruvian cuisine is fascinating but it’s hard to connect with Peruvians. 

We wandered and bought some chocolate. 

And tried some craft beer and planned our journey south. 

We also walked past a rabbit rescue where you can also groom and board your pet rabbit. I kid you not. Note the red US style barn, our culture permeates everywhere. 

Taking a trip? Board your bunny with us. My mind is blown. 

And the water trucks. Peru is a desert. 

Not a bad day for a couple of retirees was Saturday. 

Mario Vargas Llosa

I was not hopeful when we set out from the campground for the fifteen minute stroll to the place where Mario Vargas Llosa was born in 1936. 

The museum of the Andes left me with a sense of irritated disappointment that made me wonder what kind of reception would we get here. I had been looking forward to the Andes museum and the no photography no mummies and lots of fees had rubbed me all backwards. 

Rusty enjoyed his walk not least because he’s much more relaxed when we are both together. He gets anxious when I try to take him on my own. He takes his chief security officer job very seriously while we travel. 

The temperature here at 7400 feet is slightly confusing because the sun is hot but at this altitude it doesn’t heat the air so you get the perfect climate when the sun is up with about 75 degrees. When the sun goes down the temperature plummets. We wake up routinely to 48 degree mornings. 

This museum operated by the Arequipa Regional Government is in league of its own. Rusty was welcomed and made a fuss of while we discussed the author’s works as we waited for the previous tour to get done. I took Dan’s advice and bought “Death In The Andes” and our guide suggested his autobiography “A Fish In The Water.”  I’ve got some Andean literature to get through now.

The house belonged to Vargas Llosa’s grandfather and he was born there because his father insisted his mother go to be with her family for her confinement. He lived here for a year and has no memory by his own account if Arequipa which makes this museum something of an oddity to my mind. Another modern oddity is the talking hologram wherein the Nobel Peize winning author welcomes you warmly and cheerfully. 

Young Mario was born here and a few months later his father vanished for eleven years before reappearing and making his life hell by essentially kidnapping him and making his son live with him in Lima. 

“The City And The Dogs” (also known in English as “The Time Of The Hero”) published in 1963 brought him fame but his life till then had more twists and turns, many different jobs and varied settings than my own so my hat’s off to him. He also prided himself on writing everything, including his Nobel acceptance speech by hand on sheets of paper. Like this: 

Free his birth the family moved to Bolivia encouraged to make the move to silence the malevolent chatter about his abandoned single mother, and he lived a life of joy and privilege in Cochabamba with many friends and a whole bevy of uncles aunts cousins and friends. Arequipa was merely his place of birth. 

His fondest memories of Peru, he says are the wild north coast around Piura where his family moved, the multicolored sands of the desert and the ocean breaking on endless beaches. I found that sentiment quite striking inasmuch as Peru today sells itself as a land of mountains and ruins and Incas and all the advertising we know with llamas and bowler hats and Machu Picchu. Below is a scene from “The Green House” which in his youth in Piura was a bordello. In the story the villagers attack the whores instigated by the village priest: 

We walked through the house stopping in each room to watch a brief video (in Spanish though I believe English speaking guides may be available) about some aspect of his life. It was nicely done and I found interesting but in a way it highlighted how little of Arequipa is in Vargas Llosa. 

His has been an interesting life and just reading his Wikipedia biography will give you a taste of his prolific writing as a journalist, his many down to earth odd jobs to keep himself in funds and his winding political path through life. 

He started out leftist appalled by the poverty on display in Peru after World War Two (and today as far as I’m concerned). He supported Castro in Cuba until Castro locked up a popular Latin American poet and that sent Vargas Llosa in another direction. He says nowadays he opposes dictatorships of any kind but in 1990 he ran for Predidebtvif Peru on the right wing ticket. He lost to Alberto Fujimori who ended up on the run and in exile in Japan accused of appalling corruption so perhaps it’s just as well Vargas Llosa lost. 

He has dual citizenship now and mostly lives in Madrid where he says Spain gave him the platform to make him famous and he spends months at a time in Peru visiting his family. 

He’s won a couple of awards too. 

And as our guide pointed out he is the only person from Arequipa to win the Nobel Prize, seen here in holographic form accepting it, and reading from his hand written speech. 

It was an interesting visit and despite our inability to slow down stop and pause and view things at our leisure it was well worth while. 

I’m not sure what young Rusty thought of the tour but he sat patiently and laid down quietly during the videos and was praised for his perfect manners. As usual. 

And do we three wandered back to the campground through the leafy back streets of Arequipa. 

Funnily enough the leader of the guerilla movement known as “Sendero Luminoso” (Shining Path) whose name is Abimael Guzman was also born in Arequipa. Some say the reason there were no terrorist attacks here during that protracted civil war was owing to the fact that he had a soft spot for the city of his birth. 

The Shining Path were a ghastly bunch of thugs who killed 70,000 people they say and tortured and terrified absolutely everyone. Guzman was a university professor who spent decades planning his uprising but in his Maoist ideology forgot the critical component of a winning revolution: winning the hearts and minds. They slaughtered at will and thus terrified every single Peruvian and ultimately thanks to some solid police work he was caught and arrested and is finishing up his worthless life behind bars. But he sure left his mark on this country. 

Personally I prefer Vargas Llosa’s story and I think I might start digging deeper into his books. I’m not sure why but he has never previously grabbed me. Today he may have got me. 

Arequipa Art

We went to the museum of the Andes to check out Juanita, the mummy of a 14 year old Inca girl killed as a sacrifice and dumped on the slopes of a volcano near Arequipa 500 years ago. She was found in excellent condition by a German archeologist called Johan so they named her “Juanita.”

I got this photo off the internet because…sometimes Peru gets too much. We walked to the museum and lined up to pay our five bucks each to get in and then they said you have to take a tour ahd admission doesn’t pay the tour guide so you have to give whatever you think is right. Oh and by the way Juanita isn’t on display as she’s off in the lab getting touched up. Oh and no photography. Good lord!

Years ago we went to the glass artist Chihuly’s St Petersburg gallery and when we walked in I saw a sign I’ve never forgotten. 

Early on he understood the value of free promotion. Whatever you think of phone cameras and posts and all that Chihuly the successful businessman had a lesson for anyone seeking attention. Let the photographs flow. A lesson not learned in Arequipa. I was bummed all round. 

We went to an Italian pizzeria for lunch but the pizza oven fires up at five so we had a plate of pasta, not bad but too heavy. 

There was another museum nearby and we walked over fighting our incipient carb coma. We walked past some churches to get there. 

The central museum has free admission thanks to its benefactor, the central bank of Peru. and photography is allowed. 

St John of God is a big religious figure in Arequipa and there is a hospital named for him. It turns out he was a Portuguese soldier turned nurse, giving care to the destitute. He died in 1550 aged 55 after an incredible life growing from being an abandoned orphan to traveling the world as a soldier. 

Apparently when the Spanish built Arequipa they had the idea to build a bunch of churches in order to fend off a series of natural disasters, including the usual drought earthquake and volcanoes. 

They also wanted to use art to illustrate facets of the new religion they brought with them. So there was tons of religious art created in Cusco and Arequipa. This below is an illustration to help explain the mystery of the trinity to the heathen Inca: 

On a less spiritual plane there were banknotes and coins from Peru’s history. They had silver and copper coins on display from independence in the 1820s when the Liberator Simon Bolivar helped create the republic. 

And once again a portrait of Umbria’s most famous citizen. In this case St Francis is pictured not taming wild animals but carrying a skull. 

Layne usurped the kids’ display. 

They also had some pre Inca art on display. It was a sample of the stuff we’ve seen in museums down the coast. 

A sea bird with fish in its stomach. 

I find the detail and the expression produced on these pieces are quite surprising. On this sea lion you can see a mischievous expression. 

The floor was a piece of art in itself: 

Not art, just a hole in the sidewalk being used as a trash can. Mind where you step. 

This early model Sprinter van is waiting for new brake pads to be sent from Europe. Johan tried to get local brake shops to make new pads but they said they aren’t allowed to. I never expected that so I’m glad we have spare pads onboard for GANNET2. 

Brita and Marcel from Hamburg. They sold everything and backpacked the Pacific Crest Trail. Then a friend of a friend was selling the van in Uruguay  so they bought it and have driven Brazil, Paraguay,Argentina and Bolivia (which country they did not enjoy owing to very unfriendly locals). They are driving to Chile to sell the van to find other Germans before they fly to Australia to continue backpacking. In Germany she was an office manager in a doctor’s office and he was a car mechanic, and we had a long enjoyable evening trading stories from the road. 

Marcel also introduced us to his SKOTTI collapsible barbecue which also has a gas adaptor to use any type of gas bottle. Hmmm…it’s on our list. 

It’s them and us in the campground for now. Nice people.