Jorge Chavez and Lima
Author’s note: Jorge Chavez is the third chapter of my book ‘From dementia to adventure, which explains my reasons for travelling to Peru in 2001. Here is the first chapter, Dementing in London. You can take a look at the full index of chapters or dive straight into the jungle chapter called By boat to Iquitos.
I thank my angels for transporting my backpack safely to the baggage claim in Jorge Chavez airport and I am one of the first passengers to leave that lottery behind and stride powerfully to meet the waiting hordes of Peruvians. I had made arrangements by phone beforehand in England and my ‘driver’ was to meet me ‘in the airport’ so I hope that one of the locals is indeed waiting for me. However, I booked the hostel and the accompanying driver in Spanish and momentarily panicked and doubted my linguistic abilities.
Yet amidst the crowd vying for the attention of the gringo is a quiet man who has obviously done this pick up before. I feel like some celebrity figure as he escorts me by the arm through the Peruvians fending off dodgy looking locals like a seasoned rugby player. I pass through the locals, many of who look disgruntled at the prospect of losing an overpriced fare disappearing into the night. We enter the relative calm of the car park, I look back and can see Armando and his family heading for their car.
On the way to my tourist priced hostel, I wonder who ‘Alan’ is because his name has been daubed in red and white paint on virtually every wall and shack through the grimy grey route from the airport to downtown. It is either some original graffiti or a message I am yet to understand. The driver assures me this area is a bustling industrial area by day. I stayed in an area near Harlem in New York on my way here and Lima downtown at night also has that scary air that something nasty is going to happen. The sorts of things that make it into worst-case scenario travel books. But the difference about downtown Lima is that there are no sirens. OK so maybe the sirens in New York are heading out of Harlem but at least there are sirens.
My passage to the hostel is safe and I’m glad at the sight of a room of my own. Downstairs there is a 24-hour secure entry system and a friendly owner. I cannot trust the apparent security and wear all my valuables to bed and try to sleep despite the huge urge to go out and explore. But that is not a good idea at this time of night. I am not the sort of person to go seeking trouble as it has an uncanny knack for finding me. Like in Oz when I got run over by a tram! Sleeping after such a journey from London should be easy but the excitement prevents any real rest.
I awake and find myself gazing at the typical tourist paintings of llamas, of Cusco and of Machu Picchu. All these things and more lay ahead of me but first breakfast, as I am famished after the aeroplane delicacies. I arm myself with all my important belongings including my mugger's stash of cash to give away if the worst happens but I am barely at the door of the hostel before I get accosted. A coarse American grabs my arm as he finishes off his slow English to the bemused Peruvian hotelier.
“Plane — o, today — o to Cuzc — o.”
“Ahhh, Cuzco.” He is clearly getting nowhere fast and is relieved to discover that I can speak some Spanish. The Spanish that comes from my mouth is probably just as incomprehensible to the Peruvian as the Americans use of English. Between my poor grammar and desperate attempts to speak the lingo, he seems to understand that I am asking if the American can get a lift to the airport. His response?
“No.”
“He says he can’t help you. I think your best bet is to hail a taxi outside,” I say as I leave to get my breakfast. The American looks anxious as he contemplates what to do and I mentally wish him well with whatever adventures lay ahead of him.
My hostel turns out to be tucked away down a back street and has been painted bright blue in contrast with the dirty grey streets and there is a mural on an opposite wall that reads Ecology is Life. I can’t help but think that this is a secret code for all men and decoded should read it is ok to piss in the street as the stench of the place is something I had not planned on.
Lima, like many other cities in the Americas, has a gridiron system of roads, which should minimise the risk of getting lost. However with just two rights and a go-along a bit and a couple of lefts to do I quickly realise I am heading to an area that is off my palm-sized map of central Lima. The further I amble the more bizarre the pavement life becomes. Near the hostel, there are a crowd of men standing motionless at a newspaper stand reading the daily news behind glass cases. Further, into my walk, I am confronted by people trying to sell me just about everything you can imagine. I stand and watch a man with his weighing scales on the floor and wonder who parts with their precious soles currency to find out their body weight. Perhaps it is like some sort of strange guess the weight competition with no prize. I think of all the people in the western world that habitually weigh themselves daily standing and cursing in disbelief at the little pointer below.
The scales man certainly has a rough deal compared to the typewriter man. He sits in his fold-up chair almost looking middle class as he types up a letter that has been scribbled down on a crumpled bit of paper. The man paying for the service and the next one waiting stand and watch the nimble fingers of the typewriter man speedily typing up the letter. I wonder what the letter may be about. A love letter? A begging letter? There is a vast array of items on sale in this makeshift marketplace. Each person has their bit of material, some better than others, spread out on the pavement and has acquired something to sell, from old rubbish packets clearly picked up off the street, to American style digital watches. The watches all have their alarms going off and the little man standing next to the cacophony of beeps has yet to find the off buttons or maybe he likes the tune. They are all entrepreneurs salvaging and recycling in its purest sense, with the reward for their efforts being a hot meal at the end of the day. I dwell outside the high walls of Lima’s prison and shudder to think what life inside is like because life on the outside is certainly no picnic. I make a mental note to be the perfect citizen and to keep apologizing to anyone in uniform.
I wander back around towards the main square and settle on a restaurant that seems comfortable and that has Peruvians sitting eating inside. I breeze through the menu trying in desperation to remember the Spanish translations. Guidebooks can limit your choices at times but often that bible stitched to your combats does come to the rescue. The recommended dish ‘Lomo Saltado’ appears on the menu. Soon I am washing down a breakfast fit for dinner with a huge milkshake type coffee that has a cute little liquid coffee pourer. In front of me is a plate consisting of rice, meat (nothing more specific), onions, tomatoes and best of all, chips. I almost grew up in a chip shop where my Mother worked for most of my childhood and teenage years and although I am not a connoisseur of wines (they are either red or white) I do know good chips when I see them. My feast is complete with some spicy pink stuff that I mix into the mass and am instantly a happy man. I could easily eat this every day, I think to myself and tick off food as a problem solved.
If bananas and milk were the sustenance of life for me in Oz then Lomo Saltado will be in Peru. After the niceties of my order with the waiter he is becoming increasingly intrigued by my lone presence and I can see him out of the corner of my eye edging towards my table.
“How are you?”
“Excellent,” I say still with a huge pile of food in my mouth.
“Where are you from?”
“London, England” as if there is some village around the corner called London that he may get confused with.
“Can I change some money for you? You have dollars?” His kind gesture crosses over the line that has kept our exchange enjoyable. These are junctions you reach where if you continue forward you run the risk of being run over by something you couldn’t see. On the other hand, if you hang back you may miss a great opportunity over the road and no traffic may pass. From this point onwards I decided to show warmth to those who show it to me but to use my intuition as to whether they are genuine. So I decided to compromise and give him a twenty-dollar bill to change.
“Is that all?”
“Yes thanks, you are very kind.”
“I like to help foreigners as there are many people here that are after your money.” And with that Julio disappears out of the restaurant to change my money with one of the moneychangers that stand on the street with huge wads of dollars and soles in their hands. He returns with my first collection of soles notes and a few coins. He may have taken his cut but I have my new notes and in relative terms have lost little in money to my new friend and gained quite a bit from the conversation that follows. I spend most of the morning in the restaurant drinking milkshake coffees and talking about the contrasts between life in Lima and in London.
Once in the beautiful main square I sit and absorb the atmosphere and quickly become a source of intrigue and fascination. Some not so genuine ‘travel agents’ would love to take me to their office, some girls then want to do likewise yet appear to be under the instruction of some sinister guy at the corner of the plaza. I stand head and shoulders above the Peruvian crowd, and with long blond hair, I am hardly inconspicuous. A middle-aged man approaches me and asks me to stand with my arm around his teenage daughter whilst he proudly beams and takes our photo.
“You are a gladiator,” she says quietly and shyly. I’m not sure if it is a question or a statement and I can see my picture sitting in pride of place on their mantelpiece. In between the shoeshine boys pestering me two teenage Peruvian girls approach me.
“May we sit with you to practice our English?”
“Of course,” intuition gives me the go-ahead. Patsy and Maliaca then take great pleasure in laughing at my Spanish and me at their English. The feeling of having an unseen escort leading me around Peru continues when they offer to take me to the catacombs, one of the sights of Lima. To my surprise on our exit from a fascinating site they each give me a present. Patsy hands me a necklace and Maliaca a keyring of a guitar that has Peru written on it. I‘m glad that I had not held back at the crossroads and trusted my intuition and am touched by the girl's gesture, as the items must have cost them a fair bit. We part with fond smiles and the kissing of cheeks. On the way back to my hostel I realise that I am being followed by a man that is just taking too much of an interest in me. He doesn’t appear to get the message when I walk around and around a newsstand with him following my every step so I jump into a taxi and leave Mr Weirdo behind.
I find myself in some amazing yellow taxi dodgem ride and my driver is trying to start up a conversation with me.
“I love dancing,” he says with a huge smile across his face.
“And football…dancing and football,” a conversation you would not normally have with a London cabbie. My attention however is on the road and not on our conversation. The roads are chaotic in Lima with the only rule of the road being whoever is ahead has right of way. Road markings and traffic lights are almost extinct (or never existed in the first place) and the bigger the road the wider the melee of cars. Yet no one ever seems to crash or even hit bumpers, not like they do in England anyway.
Taxi drivers tank along within inches of their rival, with one arm held out of the window and any number of fingers in the air signalling to those on the street how many seats are available, yet they don’t crash into any of the number of cars on all their four corners. Perhaps the cars have these invisible cushions that come from some Peruvian magic. Whatever it is the feeling of running the gauntlet quickly and rather surprisingly starts to feel safe. The one thing that takes a while to get used to is the blaring of car horns. They beep to let other drivers know they are there. They beep to let people on the pavement know they are there, they beep if they feel like it and they beep if someone steps out of line in the ordered chaos of Lima’s roads. At the bus station, a small shoeshine boy who eagerly wants to try to polish my open-toed sandals greets me.
“Where are you from?” he asks with his chin on his chest.
“England.”
“How long does it take to get there?”
“Well, by plane it takes about 15 hours.”
“No by car.”
“By Car?!”
“Yes, how long?”
“By car, it would take you six weeks maybe.” I roll off a figure that is as hard for me to estimate as it is for him to comprehend and his brown eyes follow my every move in the bus station as if I am from another world. And maybe I am. I manage to purchase my ticket to Pisco from the counter and say goodbye to my little friend. I return to my hostel to collect my stuff for my first bus journey in Peru.
Did you miss the previous chapter?
Can’t wait for the next chapter to be published? Join me as I head by boat to the jungle city of Iquitos
Neil Mapes Bio
Marathon runner, sea swimmer and aspiring dinghy sailor. Social entrepreneur & founder of Dementia Adventure, currently leading Green Hive in Nairn, Scotland.
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