Hell in Lima

    Mere and I recently finished our first meaningful experience here in Peru, working on a farm/eco-village near a small town called Oxapampa. I say meaningful because we actually spent our first two weeks in Lima, which was far from meaningful—except in the spiritual sense of learning how to embrace suffering. Even locals were surprised to find out we spent that long there. It actually wouldn't have been too bad—noisy, crowded, a little dirty, maybe—if it weren't for all the devastating occurrences that befell us. So I'll leave the eco-village to a later post, and focus on Lima here. Here's the catalog of negative experiences, in ascending order:

1. Mere got sick. Stomach bug

2. A week after recovering, she got sick again. 

3. Then I got sick. 

4. Mere's laptop was stolen out of a LOCKED locker in a 10-person dorm in our hostel on our second day.

5. Five days later, Mere was walking down a busy street with phone in hand. A motorcyclist ran a red light, drove right by her, and swiped it straight out of her hand. She ran after him, but to no avail. At this point we're down a laptop AND a phone.

6. Just when we were starting to accept our ordeal, remembering that it could easily be worse—we even started reading the Book of Job for consolation and wisdom, no joke—Mere was alerted by her bank that there had been a large wire transfer from her account. We were devastated to find out that ALL of her money had been emptied. Everything she had saved for our trip—gone just like that. Apparently, the guy who robbed her had gotten into her bank app, and the bank wasn't competent enough to do any additional verification before parting with it. We also found out that he was on her facebook account, impersonating her and soliciting money from her Mom. God knows what else he did before we were able to cut it off.

    So instead of a relaxing start to our journey, it was full of stress, and we had to extend our stay in Lima, not to enjoy ourselves, but to spend the next few days between the police station and calling the bank, trying to get a coherent answer about how to get the money back.  Whew, what a stressful experience. We left Lima uncertain about what would happen with the money—we had to await a forgery form in the mail to our home back in the states, then send someone out to get it and fax it to the bank—but confident it would be returned eventually. A month later as I write this, we still don't have it, and aren't as confident. But we still hope. And in the midst of it all, here are some ways in which the whole ordeal has benefited us. In ascending order:

1. I was long due for a good cry. My cheeks are still salty.

2. We still did get to do some fun things, like eat ceviche, which is delicious, and other good food, and see the famous Puente de los Suspiros. 

Our first night in Lima. This was my first time having Ceviche.

Standing on the Puente de los Suspiros (Bridge of Sighs) in Barranco

3. Being forced to make do with less is always a character-building experience. We have had to confront the possibility of losing that money permanently, and envision what that would mean for us. Luckily, we didn't lose anything from my account, which is hopefully enough to get us through our travels, but it's still a huge loss, and having to accept it, at least temporarily, has been strengthening.

4. We encountered lots of really nice and friendly people along the way. Immediately after she was robbed, she was surrounded and comforted by random locals, and taken to a safe location. The hostel gave us a nice discount after the laptop robbery. Even the cop tried to be helpful. There were also lots of nice guests in the hostel, like this young man.

This man, whose name I will leave undisclosed, is from Florida, but don't hold it against him. He helped us through the hard times with lots of moral support, and even taught us about cryptocurrency and block chain along the way. In fact, it was his complaining that I haven't written that spurred me to finally publish this post. And because of him I might turn this blog into an NFT. Kidding. But at least I understand what that means now, kind of.

5. Mere and I made it through together, still have each other, and still love each other. Despite it all, our relationship is actually in as good a place as ever.

    As I've mentioned elsewhere, I am a big believer in the cycles of all things, and the one way I could comfort myself was with the reminder that the series of fiascos in Lima eventually had to end, and that brighter days were ahead. If I believe in hell, it's as a temporary state here on Earth. I'm not sure if we were being punished for something, or the universe was trying to teach us something, but it felt like a period of hell to us. And yet again, we were acutely aware of how much worse things could have been, and slightly embarrassed at our privilege to even be so upset about losing luxuries that the majority of Peruvians don't have, while we still have enough to continue living abroad. It helps to see things from that perspective, but it still hurts, because we lost something we had expected to have, and no matter how privileged someone is, loss always hurts. 

    The tides finally started to turn for us outside of Lima. We took a 12 hour bus through the Andes to the small town of Oxapampa. We were completely surprised to find that it had originally been a little Austro-German settlement; I admit, I was a wee-bit delighted, having German roots myself. German names were everywhere, like a bar called “Vater Otto” (Father Otto), as well as other references to German culture. There's even a monument dedicated to “the colonists” in the middle of the town square. Apparently, the Austrians and Germans were recruited by the Peruvian government to settle there, and according to local lore, the they and the indigenous Yanesha people of the area got along grandly, although of course I have trouble believing that. The town was founded in 1891, so you don't hear the language spoken anywhere really, although lots of signs are written in German for the sake of being cute for tourists. Because of the altitude, and maybe the Austro-German culture as well, it was turned into a prime spot for cattle ranching, and somehow hamburgers became the delicacy of choice there. Of course that's not good for the planet, and Mere and I are supposed to be vegetarian, but we definitely had to try them—and they were fantastic. 

Yes, it was big. Mere and I are mostly vegetarian at home, but we've been making quite a few exceptions here in Peru. Not only is it really hard to eat vegetarian for every meal, but part of traveling is experiencing the culture of a place, which of course includes the food. That's our justification.

Manakins in Lederhosen

Signs praising the German colonists at a breakfast place

    It's also beautiful there. We spent a few nights in the town itself in an airbnb that we would later keep returning to on the weekends because the host was so nice and welcoming, and we made friends with a couple who were long-term guests there. Finally, it was time to make our fashionably late appearance at Tierra de Bosques, where we'd be building houses, digging ditches, farming, cooking outside, and living in a tent for the next five weeks. I'm sure some would say that sounds like their own version of hell, but it was exactly the escape we needed.