Peru: Pensive Impressions

Hi, everyone.

It's been three months since my Peruvian adventure, and I haven't yet written about the trip. That's been on purpose. It's not that I haven't had any thing to say - the trip was amazing - but I had to figure out what to say. This was a different type of journey that I'd ever taken. It's taken quite a bit to process.

Peru is very different than other places I've traveled. It is beautiful - there's no question about that: lush rain forest, murky swirling rivers, dramatic skies, brightly-clad campesinos and campesinas, sheer grey rock cliffs, vapor waterfalls plummeting to tumultuous rocky pools; glowing and tanned-faced children with mesmerising brown eyes; wooly llama and alpacas ascending rocky paths with surprising agility; sad-eyed artists with calloused hands displaying vibrant paintings that pulsed with life and hope. It is a land of unbelievable contrast.

The contrasts, while aesthetically beautiful (really - there's very little about this place that's not aesthetically mesmerising, in a good way) --are, for me, at least, psychologically riveting. I was staggered by the poverty and beauty that not only coexisted, but were unified.

Let me explain: we flew into Lima. We drove via taxi from the airport to the center city. On the way, I saw hills in the background, rising out of the polluted haze. These hills glowed with flat patches of pastel color, as if it were a painting in which Van Gogh's broad oil strokes met Monet's soft colors. It was beautiful. I wondered what this was? We drove closer. Then I saw-- these were shantytowns. Like in City of God, or any documentary about South America's urban poor. I was stunned, and a little disturbed, I have to admit, to realize that I'd found poverty-abject poverty-beautiful.

So I suppose my impression of Peru is that it is many-layered. Beauty covering poverty covering beauty covering more poverty. I've never seen such coexistence. So it's taken some time to process the contrast, and I'll be writing the story soon.

It was an amazing trip.