The Peruvian whirlwind, part I

There’s just so much to say about gorgeous Peru, I’m going to break it up into bite-sized chunks of individual days. Starting with...

19 May 2013

Our whirlwind tour of Peru didn’t depart until lunchtime, so Chris and I started the day with a stroll – and found ourselves in the middle of a fitness festival happening right outside our hotel. On a stage in the middle of the road (which was closed to traffic), two rather camp, pony-tailed men were very enthusiastically taking an aerobics dance class, with a crowd of at least a couple of hundred women, men and children of various ages and fitness levels following each step (well, most steps). There was so much positive energy and fun in the air it was impossible not to wiggle your bum along to the music. The joy was infectious.

As we walked along the street, we passed by people playing badminton and tennis, and going hell for leather on exercise bikes. Not many shops were open (being a Sunday), so we passed the time by patting the many cats we saw along the way and hanging out at the black, stony beach, admiring the huge lesbian artwork overlooking the ocean. The coastline, which we only discovered that morning to be 10 minutes from our hotel, was the quintessential bleak, stormy, windy, misty and chilly coastline you expect to see in England.

It was just a four-hour bus trip from Lima to Paracas–Ballesteros, our first stop. We watched the scenery as it turned from built-up, polluted urban to impoverished, sparse rural, driving through almost slums within 10 minutes of leaving the city centre. There was little in the way of greenery, but plenty in the way of sandy, dusty fields and hills, and mines. And a strange haze in the sky that casts an eerie, desolate feel over everything. It was all quite apocalyptic, and a huge contrast to the beautiful, European city we’d left behind.

That first night, we went out to dinner as a group to get to know each other. I introduced everyone to pisco sours (it was my duty, really, being basically a local by then). Chris and I felt our age talking to the English kids (yep, kids) on their gap year, who smiled politely but blankly at his Lethal Weapon reference about Mel Gibson popping his dislocated shoulder back in. Realistically, they probably weren’t even born when the movie came out.

We made our way back through the pungent, fishy Pisco port to our hotel, where we (I) stayed up late watching TV and eating chocolate.

Hot tip: If you’re buying water in Peru, set aside your ethics and budget for the time being and splurge on the more expensive Coca Cola variety. Anything else tastes like chlorine and thick like soup.