Still Here

We are still parked in the Las Mercedes campground in Arequipa.  However there is good news filtering through. The trash collection strike is over with a city offer to pay the workers a one time bonus of $550, and also to purchase protective equipment for them. The newspaper was at pains to point out 728 employees are in the union but all 750 will get the bonus. Already the streets are clean which is lovely. 

But the streets are also empty, even Layne noticed how little traffic there is as supplies of fuel run low. It’s easy to cross streets that are usually bumper car traffic jams and there is very little horn honking for slowpokes. And yes, we still have no bananas at the supermarket. Arequipa is running on minimal tourism and shrinking propane gas supplies for cars as the miners keep the highway to Lima tightly closed. 

Police turned up in force in the town of Ica which is the center closest to the Nasca lines, a huge tourist attraction. 300 cops cleared the blockade which I suspect followed a complaint that tourism was drying up and people with empty planes had no one to fly over the lines in the desert. Money talks. However you still can’t drive to Lima and I heard a rumor blockades are in place in the mountains now which closes a very long slow winding Highway 3 between Cusco and Lima. You can still get decent coffee in Arequipa, happily even if you can’t get a bus out of town. 

A Chilean couple came through the campsite yesterday. They came north from their country through Bolivia and they showed me a dent caused by a protestor in Bolivia throwing a stone at them.  They are young and I suspect they tried to run a blockade to get that kind of attention, but I remain glad we could not get a visa for Bolivia. They left the campground for the Chilean border last night and have not returned so the highway to the south must be open I guess. It’s all rumor and innuendo around here. 

Renzo our mechanic has studied our eflex fuel system from the States that Layne brought in her luggage, he’s watched the video and says first thing Monday he’ll install it. That means GANNET2 will able to digest Brazil’s heavily ethanol tainted gasoline. We have dental appointments Tuesday and Wednesday so I’m hoping we can start thinking about leaving Arequipa next week.

Now we have to hope the road to Lake Titicaca is open so we can get to Puno, see the famous reed islands at last and get Rusty his exit papers for Brazil. The road out of here may be in sight though nothing in Peru is certain at the moment. 

Hunkering

(Hundreds of vehicles stuck in southern Peru in the Arequipa region).

A Dutch couple in a van left the campground yesterday on their way to Cusco. As far as they knew the road inland is open and they expected no problems getting into the mountains which, as they haven’t returned is good news as ultimately that’s our route out of here. There is a solo German in his van, a strapping young Aryan who climbed a volcano outside the city but who keeps to himself in the campground. He has stories to tell, including like all of us his time at the mechanic, in his case in Argentina for a total engine rebuild. I know he has lots of stories untold to us, but you can find them on his Instagram address which  he publicizes all over his Volkswagen van:

A German overlander told me once there is no place in Germany more than 28 kilometers (19 miles) from a house. Which explains the passion Europeans have for South American wilderness. When we drive these amazing wild spaces we find ourselves relating to places we’ve traveled in the US, vast southwestern deserts, canyons, endless forests, the Great Lakes and on and on. If you live on a small continent with 600 million neighbors you have to come here to breathe free, in the Americas. A Spanish father in a van was waxing lyrical about this before he drove off to find a mechanic in Arequipa to fix his Ford camper van. He feels suffocated by camping bans and limited wilderness in Europe and can’t wait to explore the US. 

Here’s a headline you want to read on your travels. “Police In Arequipa wait for reinforcements to clear the PanAmerican Highway.” 

Life in Peru continues to be chaotic on day ten of the miners’ strike. Massive lines of parked trucks on highways, ten thousand miners camped on roads across the country, food rotting in stuck trucks and supplies of propane gas (used to power vehicles as it’s cheaper), gasoline and diesel running out across the country. We’ve noticed the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables shrinking at the PlazaVea supermarket up the street and traffic in Arequipa seems much lighter than usual with a lot less horn honking from traffic jams. Long distance bus service around the country is being cancelled. 500 bus lines affecting thousands of passengers are suspended. 

We talked to our Uber driver and he said food isn’t usually a problem when Peru shuts down (!) but fuel, if you can find it, is going up in price. We’ve been tipping madly, more than usual, to try to help. He is among the 98% of the country who can’t wait for the President’s term to end next year. When she last came to Arequipa he said with satisfaction, people (not him) threw tomatoes at her. 

Trash collectors in Arequipa continue on strike demanding more pay, city supplied protective gear  and more respect from citizens. They currently buy their own masks and gloves and are fed up with finding medical supplies including biohazards and needles tossed into the trash by medical clinics, people and dogs (not Rusty I pick up after him always) shitting in the streets and youngsters vomiting copiously in public on weekends. You know it’s bad if it’s making headlines in the papers. Plus they are fed up with people tossing trash on streets and sidewalks and telling them it’s their job to pick up after lazy citizens. With the city celebrating its birthday in a month the trash situation is such I don’t even want to photograph it you’ll be happy to hear.  Here’s a dude watering the supermarket window display on another perfect sunny afternoon in wintery Arequipa:

We had some clothes to repair so we went to our favorite tailor, Señor Castillo on the far side of the main square. He always has a few buddies in there, in his sastreria, chatting with him as he sews, a bit like the proverbial barbershop in the States, and they were pretty relaxed about the mounds of garbage accumulating on the street.  Our repairs will be ready Saturday. Life goes on.  

What I have come to appreciate about Arequipa after so much time spent here is how normal the city is. People work normal non tourist jobs here and after I spent  time in Cusco getting submerged in the tourist economy I enjoyed being back able to  disappear into the anonymity of normal everyday life in this working city. 

They know me for what I am, a weird foreigner, but I don’t feel singled out as the object of their working lives. They are getting on with whatever they do and I am allowed to swim by  in the sidewalk crowds unmolested. It reminds me of Cali in Colombia, the city you know of as the cocaine capital of the world but we lived it as a useful city filled with services and like Arequipa equipped with a lovely campground that suited us. 

Which is not to say I can’t wait to get out of here, the pressure is building and we have to start for a border at the end of the month. Have new passport, will travel. 

We talked to Renzo who is having trouble contacting his parts supplier for our suspension upgrade. That’s more of a desire, a piece of preventative maintenance to refresh our suspension after 100,000 hard miles with more to come. If we have to do that elsewhere, Uruguay possibly, that would probably be  no problem, a bit of clunking on dirt roads and tire wear is bearable for now. But to go to Brazil we absolutely have to get our ethanol conversion installed and we are pressing Renzo to figure out if he can or cannot do it. I like him because he’s not afraid to say what’s above his pay grade but he is also a man who enjoys a new challenge.

We’ve decided that what we want to do is get the flex fuel system installed and start towards Puerto Maldonado and the Brazilian border when we can and when protests allow. For now there’s no rush as it’s still rainy season which makes dirt roads very difficult.

If we can do the suspension great, but if not we will manage fine.  We can’t get to the beach and we have to be out of Peru by August 14th and frankly I’m sick of sitting still. We are both excited to visit a new country (last visited by Layne in her previous life 40 years ago) and to see some humid Florida style jungle. Rusty likes it right here thanks…poor traveling lad.

Peru Strikes

Peru is in a terrible mess with 50,000 miners on strike, roadblocks closing highways down and travelers trapped sleeping in their cars and trucks, out of food and water unable to move according to reports in the papers.

Herman the manager walked us to the gate and told us about the national strike adding that a truck driver got killed overnight when he got run down by accident in the dark. That was the first we heard of the national strike as you wouldn’t know anything was wrong in town, stores are open and we had a bang up lunch in a steakhouse. 

We talked over our predicament at lunch but our plans for some beach time seem to be scotched. Long distance buses aren’t running and the capital Lima is said to be running low on fuel and food. Arequipa is apparently cut off by land, all approach roads are closed. And we’re in the middle of it all. The absurdity is painful. 

At the Cusco airport as I waited to come home Monday night my flight was repeatedly delayed but I saw tons of flights to Lima on the departure board. It was seven flights to Lima to one repeatedly denied flight to Arequipa. 

What I realized yesterday was that flying was the only way to get to the capital as all roads are closed so they were laying on a flight every twenty minutes to get travelers home from Cusco. Indeed my flight to Arequipa at ten o’clock at night was packed. 

The reason for the strike is about mining. Miners working illegal mines want their jobs to be made legal and above board but the government is getting pressure from the mining corporations to not give in as they don’t want the competition. I read a comment from a lawmaker in Congress that he wanted to reduce the president’s pay to three bucks a day (10 soles) as he said that’s all she’s worth. Her party got rid of her predecessor in a corruption scandal and she was vice president but the entire country hates her now with an approval rating of two percent. She’s deployed police and the military to suppress protestors and is rated as the world’s least popular leader. You read that right: 2% of voters support Dina Boluarte: 

The strike started a week ago around Lima and now we’re all going to enjoy the fruits of this chaos. It’s been a while since we got stuck in all the strikes in Central America and to find ourselves back stuck in one spot is deeply annoying. 

Oh and in an unrelated note Arequipa is filling up with trash, and a lovely sight it is, isn’t it? 

We stopped by a tailor to have some clothes repaired and while chatting I asked him what was up and he said the trash collectors thought this was a good time to ask for a raise as the city prepares to celebrate its birthday August 15th. 

We have to leave Peru by August 14th at the very latest so we’ll miss the party but there are lots of flags for sale to start the celebrations amid the trash collectors’ strike.  

You can imagine how all this is affecting morale but we are safe and comfortable enough until we can move again and that’s what really matters.

It’s all part of the joy of travel. 

I was really looking forward to road testing our transmission but I’m trying not to get annoyed about all this. It’s just one more country giving us a special welcome.

Saqsaywaman The Falcon’s Fort

As 16th century ruins go Saqsaywaman (various spellings are encouraged) is a pile of rocks in a field at the top of a very steep hill overlooking the city of Cusco. 

The thing about this place, translated approximately from the Quechua as Falcon’s Fort, is that it was built by the Incas and when the Spaniards arrived in their capital of Cusco they resisted from their fort high atop the hill. 

After the Spanish subjugated the Incas they disassembled their buildings and used the masonry to build their own city. It’s said the Spanish architecture of old Cusco is built on Inca masonry pillaged from these locations. 

If you ever wondered why the  Coliseum in Rome looks half built it’s the same sort of theft. After the fall of Rome the residents figured there was no good reason to let that splendid masonry go to waste so they too used it. But the Inca walls that remain appear indestructible: 

They are set at a slight inward angle and it is their most famous feature that most puzzles people. How did they get these giant rocks, up to 200 tons apiece into place and so tight you can’t even slide a blade between them? And there has never been an earthquake strong enough to knock them down. 

If you’ve belong to the flat earth school of thought by all means attribute this construction to aliens. There are similar ruins at Zimbabwe in Southern Africa and in the days of apartheid white politicians in Rhodesia refused to countenance the idea that black savages could have built the Great Zimbabwe so aliens have always had their appeal as culprits. However the truth is blacks in Zimbabwe and browns in Egypt and Peru had the capacity to build like this. 

I found this article persuasive but be aware it is full of advertising so you need patience:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-americas/unravelling-mystery-behind-megalithic-stone-walls-saksaywaman-001470

According to a builder who has done his own experiments one way to build like this without mortar is to create a frame with wood and put the frame on a suitable boulder then chip away until it matches the wooden frame. I’m cutting to the chase here but read the article for the full details. 

Then slowly haul it in place and plop it where you want it. The Incas had time and man power so the fact that the method is painfully slow is no reason for it not to have worked. 
The point being that by the time the Spaniards in their armor had clanked up the hill, a half mile straight up from Cusco in the valley, they faced an impenetrable rock wall. 

Possibly built by bored aliens. Perhaps the same aliens that didn’t scribe the Nasca lines near the coast. 



You can hire a guide but I just wanted peace and quiet. 

I have read about this place and I enjoyed the opportunity to wander round, make some photos and be alone for a while. 



















Just about every heathen landmark in Latin America has a Catholic symbol planted on top as though to show who is now boss. 

This is a wall on the approach road where the modern lack of patience and care shows: 

The walk up from the square is about half a mile and the elevation is 500 feet roughly which doesn’t sound too bad. But for all that  I was guilty of slowly puffing my way up, lots of young people headed to the ruins were pausing every bit as much as I was. I am no longer used to 11,500 feet altitude. They were having a parade as I started my plot uphill. They do that a lot in Cusco, celebrating history and stuff. 

There were thank god toilets half way up. At 25 cents a total bargain and beautifully clean. 

You keep thinking  you’ve got to the top but you haven’t. 

If I looked down that (below) from the driver’s seat I’d refuse to take the plunge with GANNET2! But the walk up was satisfying. 

I confess after I toured the ruins I took a cab back down the hill to the square at the center of town. 





Cusco is conventionally beautiful and well preserved but it feels like Disney with the addition of dust catcher sales people in your face all the time. They’re like gnats and overwhelming. 

I know this is a tourist town and people need to earn a living but I can’t stand it when I politely say no thanks and they keep coming, ignoring my polite no. 



They were celebrating in the square talking loudly about the founding of a women’s college in Cusco. Then they trundled around a papier maché likeness of Simon Bolivar negotiating Peru’s post colonial status.

My evening flight back to Arequipa was at 6 pm getting me back to GANNET2 around 7:30 including the cab ride. As always LATAM airline screwed up the one hour flight to Arequipa with numerous delays and I got home at 10:30. 



The tour ended with shepherd’s pie at Paddy’s Irish pub on the square. It about finished me off. 

Oh and the reason for the day trip by myself? 
Good for ten years with 50 pages so lots of traveling to do. My thanks to the consulate in Cusco. Oh and I got my sneakers cleaned: 

Home sweet home: