Wednesday, April 19, 2006
What I learned in Peru:- Incan stone cutters are incredible!
- Carry toilet paper with you at all times.
- There´s a difference between 1st class buses and the daily variety - in addition to the SERVANTS who bring you food & blankets, the most important difference is that 1st class buses have bathrooms! also the 1st class buses don´t stop and pick up passengers along the way, so the isles aren´t crowded with people and packages.
- Bus seems to be the major mode of transport for most of the population, as a result we always see children on the buses. The children are ALL really well behaved!
- There is actually a small black population in Peru, it´s on the coast south east of Lima (everyone who meets Kepfram seems to assume he´s from there).
- People sweeping the streets wear masks (due to the dry & dusty air?)
- We´ve seen several adobe fences that look like corrals but without any doors - seems they are built to keep animals out, not in...
- Sheep and cows are not the only animals that are herded - we´ve also seen people walking down the road herding llamas and even pigs.
- Terracing of fields seems to be an Incan inspired tradition
- Women still use cloths to bundle their children on their backs, I´ve seen several bundles that are completely covered but by the concealed shapes seem to be sleeping children.....
- The porters from the Inca Trail walk around with INCREDIBLY sized bundles on their backs, and hike most of the trail wearing sandals made from tire tread!
- Little boys and grown men alike pee in public.
- Kids on the street often ask for gifts of pens or pencils, not just small change.
- Sales technique here is VERY aggressive - we actually witnessed a shop keeper THROWING merchandise at a customer who was leaving her shop after buying something - she then proceeded to run after him actually expecting him to buy the sweater she´d hurled at him..... Also, whenever we arrive in a new town there is a sea of people there to meet the bus trying with offers of accommodations. When we´ve already had reservations it doesn´t seem to make a difference "What´s the name of your hotel?" (I just get rude and tell them again that I´m not interested, but others we know have been tricked into getting rides to hotels with similar names to the one they´d planned to stay in....)
- April 9th was election day, out of 20 some presidential candidates the 3 front runners include a conservative woman, an ex-president with a record of deep damage to Peru´s economy (with a dramatic increase in the poverty rate during his presidency), and the leading candidate a populist former military man with some questionable platforms and a fascist leaning family.... ahh what choices..... (There will be a run off in a month or 2 to decide between the top 2).
- You can run for congressional office on a platform such as "2 time world Karate Champion will put all his energy to work for you" (we seem to have misplaced the photo proof of this somewhere in the sea of pictures we´ve uploaded to flickr, so that is paraphrased, but really not too far off....)
- If you want your house or wall painted, get someone to put up a political advertisement on your property (this is really a guess, but considering the number of clearly personal property we saw with a huge variety of slogans and names painted, it seems like the most likely explanation).
- Illiteracy here is high - depending on who you read it´s 10% or it´s 40% - I´m inclined to believe some the higher statistics, and imagine that there are many semi-literates as well. As a result the election ballots consist of a choice of symbols representing each candidates party instead of the candidates names names.
- Poverty here is documented at over 50% - you can see it most clearly in the construction of the settlements that fall on the outskirts of all the towns and cities. In the mountains the houses are mostly adobe, but on the sandy coast they are often made of nothing more than reeds woven together to make walls....
Ellie and Kepfram, 11:41 AM
