Currently in
the first Starbucks I’ve found in South America on the Pacific waterfront in
the well-off Miraflores district of Lima, Peru (that’s the capital, for my
American amigos…)
My initial
trip from Salento to Popayan had been delayed by some coke-head Dutch bird
begging me to stay one extra day as she didn’t want to travel on the Colombian
buses in FARC territory on her own, which was probably fair enough- not that I’m
exactly Jason Bourne. However, she then
got a better offer of a lift from a London-based South African couple who were ‘flash-packing’,
driving through South America, so I was on my own just a day later. There are 2 things in the world I have no
time for: weakness of any form and being
f*cked about, unnecessarily, by other people.
Needless to say, that was her off the Christmas card list.
Anyway in
Popayan, after hearing some local advice, I had to persuade some people that,
despite my initial enthusiasm, overnight bus rides through FARC/ bandit
territory were not a good idea. No
matter how big and tough you (think you) are, if you have an AK muzzle up your
nostril and end up without laptop, camera, passport and wallet, you will look
like a knob for not waiting a couple of hours and going in daylight. I also pointed out that this was coming from
the guy who was quite happy to visit the West Bank, on Pre-Afghan leave, so ‘over
caution’ is not really an issue. Subsequently about 6 of us got the 10 hr bus
on Friday morning to the Ecuadorian border.
The only noteworthy thing we saw was some church built into the side of
a valley, near the border town of Ipiales, which was worth a look- even if you’re
not remotely interested in churches, which my Catholic education ensured I’m
not.
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View of church at Ipiales from road.
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| ... and from in front. |
Once we’d
had our passports stamped on the Colombian side, it was just a stroll over the
bridge to the Ecuadorian side. It is
possible to just stroll back and forth, without any checks, carrying whatever
you want, but apparently it becomes an issue when trying to leave from, say, an
airport, and you’re required to return to your arrival point to get a stamp. The Senorita at the counter there started
gibbering at 100mph, so I had to clarify that “No entendiendo nada!”, (“I
understand nothing”), much to the delight of everyone present, so she switched
to English. After a cab to the bus depot and buying some
tickets, all paid for in US$ as Ecuador has no currency of its own, it was a
straight forward 5 hrs to the capital Quito, and we got there about midnight. I’m sure this is a different arrival in
Ecuador to how Julian Assange of Wikileaks would have imagined himself
arriving. Sadly for him the only place
in Latin America he will be going is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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Border crossing from Colombia to Ecuador.
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In Quito we
headed to the Casa Secret Garden hostel, which had been recommended, and we
were let in and pointed to rooms by security guards wearing full body-armour,
with ballistic plates, which was an interesting touch. In the morning we saw the dynamic of the
hostel was that there was a very arrogant and rude Frenchman (who I actually
warmed to) in charge with a couple of pleasant, but stressed English guys
working for him- which was an unnatural arrangement.
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| Rooftop bar/ restaurant at Secret Garden Hostel, Quito. |
On the first
day in Quito we just went for a walk around the city centre, around the old
town, up some church for good views etc.
On the way back the Aussie guy was navigating back to the hostel through
some ‘short cut’, with map fully opened, extended in both arms, just in case we
didn’t look enough like tourists. I made
the observation to some girl that the area we were in, about 2 blocks from the
hostel didn’t seem the best, though I’m not sure exactly why my 6th
sense was on form. Anyway, an SUV drove
straight up to me and the smartly dressed woman driving shouted at me in
broken, but to-the-point English “This is bad neighbourhood! Get out!” which seemed like sound advice, so
off we strolled back to the main road, and the long way back to the hostel,
without incident.
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Downtown Quito, Ecuador.
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| Main Square in Quito |
That evening
there was a plan to go out to the main ‘going out’ bit of Quito, being organised
by the same old coke-head bird who had turned up in the same hostel. I very much like the idea of not having to
organise anything when somebody else is doing so, “Lead, follow or get out of
the way” is a sound policy to observe, and I hopped in a cab and followed. However, after being lead as part of a
dozen-strong procession up and down various streets, apparently on the off
chance we might bump into some friends of hers, who might be about, my sense of
humour began to strain. Once there was
then a head count of how many people wanted cocaine, and she started going up
to every single person in the street asking them for it, I definitely felt it
was time to make my excuses and just get the f*ck out of the area. Each to their own, cocaine is very much part
of Western culture, and I don’t really care what my friends do, but it
certainly doesn’t improve the quality of any company and I’m seriously not
going to end up in a South American jail- regardless of how much writing
material that may offer, in 20 yrs time!!
The next
day, the only thing to do was to head to what an English guy in the hostel
referred to as ‘That line thing’- The Equator.
It was about 90 mins drive from Quito, and it was quite a good set
up. There also seemed to be some kind of
party on as it was a Sunday, and we could get beer there, which apparently we
couldn’t in Quito, so we got drunk on the equator, as it seemed like the thing
to do. We then got back to Quito and
discovered you can actually buy ‘grog’ on a Sunday, so we did and had a good
party in the hostel, and I considered spending an extra night in Quito.
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'That line thing' The Equator.
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| Marking the Equator, as seemed appropriate! |
Fortunately
in the morning my decision making process was facilitated by the Frenchman
throwing us all out of the hostel for drinking on a Sunday. Some of the others found this strange and
unusual as we’d been perfectly welcome to drink there the night before and were
apparently being thrown out for no reason.
However, having been a soldier for 10 years, it seemed entirely in
keeping with the level of logic I have come to expect- and I paid up and headed
to the bus depot on my own. No hard
feelings.
At the bus
depot I asked for a bus to Lima, but they said there was only one going as far
as the border, leaving in 5 minutes, so I just thought “Inshallah”, bought a
ticket and jumped on. Once on the bus, I
checked whereabouts on the border it was going, and it was a town called
Huaquillas (f*ck knows how you pronounce that), and the Lonely Planet’s only
advice was “Stay away”, so I thought that should be quite interesting as I was
the only white ‘gringo’ on the bus, due to arrive at 2AM…
During the
trip, I initially spent my time gawping out of the window at the mountainous
jungle, in between reading about Jack Reacher’s adventures in the latest Lee
Child novel. At about 6PM, roughly last
light on the Equator, we got out for a 20 minute leg stretch and some food,
before heading on into the night. I fell
asleep against the window with my arm round my day-sack (black not camouflaged)
that has my laptop, camera, passport etc in it, and when I woke up about 0130,
I was the only passenger still on the bus.
As we got into Huaquillas it was completely deserted, although well
lit. I wondered what my options were
going to be, maybe head to the border itself and find a dark corner to sleep
until it opened or maybe get filled in by some locals who had never seen a
gringo, but assumed I was an American millionaire.
However, the
2 bus drivers pointed me in the direction of a hotel, which they said would be
open, so I strolled off down the deserted street towards it. On the way, I spotted a guard dog lying
sleeping and it suddenly jumped up and ran towards me- which was nice.
On my 2010
tour to Afghanistan, I once had a guard dog charge at me and a couple of
Americans as we strolled through a village, next to our base. While I remember that particular Afghan dog
as being about the size of a horse, it was probably closer to a Jack Russell,
but I did draw and aim my pistol quickly enough to win the Americans’ approval:
“Woah man, he’s like Clint Eastwood!” Fortunately for that dog, its chain caught it
about 10 feet away from us, as I was still taking the 11lb pressure on the
first round of a de-cocked Sig-Sauer, so it avoided getting ‘Lit the f*ck up’,
as shooting a chained up dog, no matter how rabid and unpleasant, would not be
very sporting. Obviously shooting a
chained up Jihadi/ IRA terrorist would be fine, though.
The
Ecuadorian dog, however, had no chain, I had no Sig-Sauer, just a civvy Bergen and
daysack, and some positive vibes, as it got to about a meter from me, snarling
away. Thankfully, it got distracted by
something else and ran off down the road, I spotted the owner of the dog, who was
apparently guarding a hotel, and I got let in, paid $8, and got my head down
for a couple of hours.
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| Huaquillas, as seen from my 'modest' hotel room. |
In the
morning I took a stroll around, found an internet café to check in with the FaceBook
Ops Room, and then went about crossing the border. Like anywhere else in the 3rd
world, there was no shortage of helpful fixers, of the ‘Dell Boy’ mould who
could sort out my exit stamp, get me over the border, and no doubt put me on a
donkey all the way to Lima. Between
them, I managed to get my passport exit stamped, and then walked over the
border.
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| Just about to stroll into Peru- in pursuit of a razor! |
On the other
side of the border I was taken by cab to the town of Tumbes, where I could get
a bus all the way to Lima. I was having
a good chat with the cabby in Spanglish, and he said he’d been a ‘soldado’ in
the Peruvian army, and he was loving the fact I’d been to Iraq and Afghanistan. There is some kind of bond between all soldiers
around the world- if they’re not actually shooting at each other. Once at Tumbes he took me to the bank where I
could change my US$ into Peruvian ‘Sols’, and then he dropped me at the bus
station. As I went to pay him, he
smiled, took a 50 Sol note from my hand, jumped in the cab and drove off- and I
was a bit slow to realise what he’d done, as I was still doing the maths and
translation in my head. We’d agreed
US$5, which is approx. 15 SOL, but he’d played the ambiguity, ‘lost in
translation’ card and taken the 50, before I realised. I think I couldn’t quite believe another
soldier would do that- especially with the fact I was twice his size and,
generally speaking, people don’t f*ck around with me.
Unfortunately,
another reminder that no matter how street wise you may think you are, there
are scum all over the world who can be that little bit quicker. Rather than sulking though, I just had to put
that down to an over confident ‘intercepted pass’ and I was metaphorically
looking over my shoulder at the guy racing down the pitch and scoring a try
behind me. Sh*t, happens, lesson
learned.
Anyway, I
then got my ticket and waited to get on the bus, which didn’t go until 3 that
afternoon. The bus to Lima was a big,
double-decker, which was reasonably comfortable and I just looked at the ‘desert
meets the ocean’ landscape in the North, until it got dark, slept all night,
then read Jack Reacher’s adventures in the morning until we got to Lima about
lunchtime. One thing, if nothing else, I’ve
learned from the army is the ability to be patient, and just sit and wait for
things to happen- like arriving at your destination. However, I will say that long journeys are best
done, hungover with no sleep, as you will go out like a light, and feel fine at
the other end. ‘Concurrent activity’, ‘Anticipation’
and all that other rubbish officers like to say.
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| Desert meets ocean, in Northern Peru. |
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| Desert meets ocean, about an hour or so North of Lima. |
Once at Lima
there was a Senorita with a clip-board at the bus station who was organising
cabs, and for some reason she looked at me and assumed I was an English
speaking tourist, needing one… Anyway,
she sorted me out with a cab to the Miraflores district, where there was a
hotel that had been recommended to me.
She wrote down on a piece of paper that it was 15 Sols. I then confirmed with the cab driver, who
could speak good English, the exact address, and he started playing the ‘mis-hearing’
game like his mate in Tumbes, and was saying that it was 50 Sols: once bitten, twice shy. I grabbed his arm and dragged him back to the
woman with the clipboard and confirmed that the price was still 15 Sols, which
it was. I then gave him a quick introduction
to me that began with “Listen in, d*ckhead!” I explained that I’d been f*cked over in
Tumbes, and then explained that if he tried the same thing, I would do to him
what I wanted to do to the other guy, which he seemed to ‘comprenday’ quite
clearly. He then drove me to my hotel,
and took his 15 Sol very gratefully.
Despite my
first impressions of Peruvians, I have come to really like Lima and Peru- even if I have not
yet ventured far out of Miraflores the American/ Western , Diplomatic
area. There is a spectacular waterfront,
with people paragliding at all times of the day, every day, and there is that
capital ‘buzz’ that I always enjoy- even if the weather is a bit colder and
greyer than my ideal. I also enjoyed the
Cervice fish meal, and thoroughly recommend it.
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| Lima- Miraflores waterfront, onto the Pacific. |
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| Miraflores waterfront. |
Right, next
priority is to get to Cusco/ Machu Picchu, one of the wonders of the world, by
Saturday morning… As England are playing
rugby, and apparently there’s a bar there where it will defo be on!
