La Gringa Peruana returns.

“You’ve just gotta bend the system.”

When my new friend, Gringo said that to me on the flight from Miami, I laughed as one would when they are “in the know” and it’s so obvious, but I didn’t know then how often it would pop into my head over the following days. Gringo, as I will refer to him henceforth in an effort to keep private the details of his life he kindly shared with me, sat down in seat 3B (I was in 3A) and we immediately struck up a nice flight friendship. Advice #1 – if you want to be almost guaranteed interesting conversation with really powerful and knowledgeable people, fly first or business class. Turned out Gringo from Atlanta (so imagine thick southern accent) was not only headed to Piura right after, he had been living there for 10 years or so digging for oil. Even though the well he was digging into had prompted “waste of time” comments from the other local area oil experts, he had hit big. I explained that this would be my first time back there in around 14 years and he sort of gave a crooked smile. Piura was apparently growing quickly now, with three new supermarkets opened in the past few months. Sullana, the actual town my mom spent the first few years of her life, was sadly now bien peligroso as the #2 most problematic town in Peru with a murder once a week or so. And Colán was well, still Colán…new houses, old houses and abandoned houses. But still Colán.

When I arrived into Jorge Chavez Airport in Lima the following morning at 5:15AM, I smelled that same Peruvian smell and dustiness that always seems so familiar to me. It hit just as I exited the plane and I commented on it as I was rushing after Gringo, the all-knowing-system-bender (who was intent on getting us both through baggage claim and checked in before the masses had time to follow). He chuckled, but Gringo obviously doesn’t have the same appreciation for smells as Doug and I do.

Advice #2, if you check in early, you’ll not only be waiting a long time for your flight but you’ll also be waiting a long time for your bag to come out from the bottom of the plane….LIFO anyone? After I finally got my bag, I went through the declaration area only to have to re-check the bag in again for the flight to Piura. Gringo was still in the baggage area when I left and indicated that I go ahead without him. I then booked it to security for the last flight and got stopped because I had a nail file in my back pack. The Peruvian security at Jorge Chavez Airport couldn’t care less about my bag and water bottle full of liquids, but when they pulled my backpack aside and went through it, only to pull out the nail file, my security lady looked at me and shook her head vigorously. “It’s not even sharp,” I pointed out in English. I didn’t know how to say sharp in Spanish. “No, no,” she replied and threw it into the plastic bin along with all the other abandoned small nail clippers and “weapons.” One must assume they have had problems with nail files in the past so I can’t fault them for taking away my nice metal one. My apologies in advance to all the people I spend time with at the end of the month that may lay eyes on my gnarly toe nails.

Got to the gate to Piura early and re-opened Naked Economics for another few pages before Gringo came strolling up to me. “They lost my luggage and I had to fill out a bunch of forms.” He seemed in pretty good spirits despite the loss though and we continued chatting more about his oil rigs in Piura, which eventually evolved into showing me pictures of his wife, 6 month old daughter and his new amphibious plane he was buying and naming after his daughter. As we began boarding, Gringo saw me getting in line for the back of the plane (they had split the fliers into two groups) and promptly gestured at me, asking if I wanted to see if we could switch my seat to the front. “Sure, it would get me off the plane earlier, but I really don’t mind that much.” All it took was a “sure” before Gringo meandered up to the desk and asked the attendant to switch my ticket to row 2 from where I was currently sitting in row 13.

The last flight was easy and an hour and a half later, I was in Piura and hugging my parents “hello.” Gringo met them quickly before continuing on his way and a “wave me down in Colán if you see me and I can show you my oil rig!” Mom, Dad and I then hopped into a car with a family-trusted driver, made a stop at Vea, one of the new supermarkets in Piura and loaded up on more food and odds and ends we needed for the house. The trip back to Colán was a little wild. I will never get used to Peruvian driving and even though it wasn’t as bad as Lima driving, it was still pretty crazy. We were going 140km per hour at some point on a little 2 lane highway, passing trucks and pedi cabs along the way. At times we were on the dividing line in the middle of two cars on either side of us making a pass. I tried my best to look outside more than ahead of me, trusting that our driver knew what he was doing and the best way to navigate (he did). Unfortunately, the very little I remembered of Piura had not stuck with me and what I saw outside was kind of shocking.

To start, the coast of Peru is desert and Piura is way up north in Peru, much closer to the equator than Lima is. Everything up here between cities looks very, very dry and barren. The area is also mostly flat so when you look out in the distance you see dying trees and lots of dust. What struck me though was the amount of garbage lying around. We easily drove by two areas of absolute garbage carnage in the 45 minute drive, with people, goats and stray dogs all milling about in it. It’s certainly not something that’s foreign to Lima either, so I’m certainly aware of its sad existence, but seeing it so closely while at a stoplight was depressing. On one hand, it’s a poignant reminder that we have to take care of the places we live in. The U.S. is eons ahead in that sense and for the most part, you can drive around Boston without seeing trash everywhere. On the other hand, it was vivid evidence of growth and change. As strange as it might sound, the increase in trash is partially caused because of the economic growth of the country. You have people becoming less poor, with more ability to buy stuff but no increased education on proper ways to dispose of stuff when it’s no longer needed or wanted. So part of the solution is more education and incentive to facilitate keeping streets clean. Lima, for example, during its growing period, has actually hired more people to clean up the streets and as a result, you have parts of Lima that are clean and very nice to walk around in. Piura is in a growing phase and hopefully with the help of good government incentive and appreciation for cleanliness, it will eventually get cleaned up too. For now, the city is ugly and honestly, the drive to Colán was ugly too. I was reminded then of what Gringo said earlier. “You’ve gotta bend the system.” Nothing moves forward unless society breaks from its norms. The successful drivers of change are the people going against the “system” and that made me appreciate the small improvements, even those I didn’t have the context to notice.

With the unpleasant scenery in mind and tired from the trip, I arrived at the house in Colán kind of down. I know…I’m in a house on the beach, it’s 80 degrees outside and I am feeling down? Hard to explain, but ceviche, meringues, sweet empanadas, coffee, “hello, I miss you” emails to Doug, some catch-up with the family and a nap on the hammock in front of the waves definitely helped to bring my spirits up.
My first day at Colán finished up with arroz chaufa, a visit from my mom’s uncle, who everyone calls El Chino even though there’s not a bit of Chinese in him, and his wife. Oh and I got a guitar! Tio Lucho convinced some borachos to sell one to him. We’re not sure to what extent they knew they were selling anything. It’s a pretty classical guitar so I have to get used to the wider neck, but it was a wonderful surprise to have something to play on while I’m down here.

My parents had thought Gringo was very nice when they met him at the airport but when we mentioned the real name of Gringo to the rest of the family, they were more impressed. His name is apparently well known and they all had good things to say about him, having heard he was buena gente.

The night ended by 10PM with a chilly ocean breeze and crashing ocean waves.
I woke up this morning in a daze. I had no idea what time it was but it was finally light out. I say finally because during the night, I must have woken up 7 or 8 times when a big wave came crashing on what sounded like my window (really it was below the house, but man, the ocean is loud at night). Each time it was dark out and not knowing what time it was then either, I flipped over and prayed that light was coming soon so I didn’t have to keep lying here in the dark, eerie wave crashing nighttime. Weird, right?

I maneuvered myself out of my top bunk bed and wandered into the living room. I heard my Dad cough from the outside bungalow in back. I wasn’t the only one awake. I turned on my computer and glanced at the clock. 7:10AM.

Unfortunately, coffee wasn’t brewing already and I, frankly, didn’t feel like making it myself. So I opened the door to the porch and took in the foggy high tide skyline until my Dad came in with his computer. A few minutes later Mom came in and started making breakfast sandwiches with the eggs and fresh bread from yesterday.

After breakfast, I went for a walk with Mom, Dad and Lucho towards the newer part of Colan (to the left, facing the water). The houses over there are newly constructed and quite nice with little gardens out back. They’re also more setback from the sea and thus more protected from the ocean’s beatings. Dad and I turned back earlier once he realized that he hadn’t put sunscreen on the back of his neck and I decided I would have to pee really bad in about 10 minutes. As we turned around, my tio Jose flew by us on his jet ski, waving. We reached the house and his wife Ursula and the kids (my cousins) were out front chatting with neighbors. When I came out again, Ursula had a life vest ready for me to try out the jet ski for the first time. I hopped on while Jose pushed me and it along in the water and then climbed on in front of me. I held on to Jose tightly at first, scared I might fall off but quickly got comfortable. The feeling of the wind and navigating around the fishermen and boats in the water was just amazing. We went all the way down towards the end of the beach and there was Gringo’s boat. I laughed when I saw it and Jose circled around it to see if Gringo was around to say hi. I didn’t see any familiar faces though so we headed back and past the house to the other side where my abuelita’s old house was. The house was actually being repaired, a nice contrast to the vast amount of abandoned and destroyed foundations and collapsed roofs surrounding it. That part of Colán doesn’t even have shore anymore, which is so wild to me since only 20 years ago when I was just a little girl, there was just as much shore to walk on as there is at the house we’re staying at now.

We sped back and Jose asked me if I wanted to try driving the jet ski. I had a moment of panic and passed on the offer and then 5 minutes later took it back when I realized I was acting like a scared toddler. I switched with him, clipping the emergency clip to my life vest while he got comfortable in back. He quickly walked me through the controls and off we went.

COOLEST THING EVER. I went jet skiing in PERU! Wee!

Now that the jet ski is officially my favorite summer toy, I’m absolutely hooked. I drove around with a huge smile on my face for maybe 10 minutes until Jose and I switched back around so we could go pick up some other family members on shore. As we got to the spot where my family was walking, Jose drove around in tight figure 8s, using the motor and ocean movements to scare away the sting rays buried in the sand below. Sting rays are prominent in the northern part of Peru and in low tide, you have to be careful going in since it’s easy to step on one sunning itself in the warmer, sun-kissed sand. I have thankfully never gotten stung but I do vividly remember being a little girl and running into the water in low tide, a boogie board in hand, while my mom, tias and abuelitas all shouted at me to “ten cuidado con las rayas!” Sting rays renowned enough here to make people avoid stepping on them at all costs and a common rule is to avoid entering the water during low tide. Of course, morning low tide is a nice time to be on the jet ski since the water is still pretty calm. So when you enter in low tide, you just have to drag your feet in the sand and the rays will usually hear you coming and scatter away.

Jose gave Alyssa and Travis got a quick tutorial on the jet ski before they took off, Travis driving first since he was already experienced. By that point, Dad had already driven the quadrimoto to where we were and gave Mom and Lucho a ride back while Jose and I walked. Upon arrival at the house, Dad asked if I wanted to take a ride on the quadrimoto and visit Gringo’s compound, which I had seen while on the jet ski, much further down the beach. I was curious to see it up close so Dad and I went towards the big boat that was floating in the distance.

As we got closer, we noticed lots of activity around Gringo’s compound on the shore. There were two serious construction tractors, a truck with a wench, a huge jet ski and a crew of people. Turns out they were in the process of taking the boat out of the water for some repairs. It took about a half around and some serious horsepower to get it out, but once it was out, Dad and I gave a quick wave to the boat and Gringo recognizing me said “Hey, Vanessa! Give me a few minutes and I’ll get you guys on here!”

Excited that we would get to board, Dad and I hopped back on the quadri and drove towards the entrance to the compound as the boat was being pulled in. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a ladder accessible to make it easy for either of us to board and I didn’t have shoes on to go wandering around the compound. Getting up involved a bunch of guys literally lifting me up on to the deck, followed by a second heave for my dad. Hah! Gringo gave us free reign to explore while he continued to observe the pull-in. I’ll spare details except to those that ask about it when I’m back in Boston, but it was quite an experience. We then got treated to a couple beers and good conversation at the next door Sunset hotel and bar by Gringo and a few of his friends.

It must have been three hours before Dad and I returned since our arrival was greeted by “geez, took you long enough to get back”. We gushed about the boat and beers, Dad being the most excited about the heavy machinery used to pull the boat out. My Mom and Alyssa started laughing after the third time Dad said “and TWO BIG TRACTORS AND A TRUCK” in the middle of another story segment until my Dad pouted. If they had seen it, they probably would have been just as excited.
Coming back to reality, it took one glance in the mirror to realize that I was totally sunburned. Serves me right I suppose for thinking SPF 15 would be enough protection for my first day and 4 hours in peak sunlight.

We had a delicious lunch of fried fish with rice and tamales verdes. The food settled a bit and then Alyssa, Travis and I decided it was time to work out. Armed with on-the-spot exercise moves, Alyssa and I started by positioning ourselves on the front porch while Travis dilly-dallied on the computer for another 10 minutes. We started with some jumping jacks to warm up and then went into into a few chair sits against the wall, squats and forward bends on one foot (I don’t know what the real name for that move is). Alyssa and I thought we took great initiative by our impromptu workout but judging by the looks of passersby, we must have making quite the spectacle of ourselves. Apparently people don’t work out while on the beach in Colán. We continued anyway, laughing anytime someone walked by us and unabashedly slowed down to stare. Travis didn’t help in our efforts for acceptance. He came out and started doing squats with a ridiculous smirk on his face, causing Alyssa and I laugh even harder and look even less graceful. We then topped of our work out by returning indoors for some arm exercises “armed” with the most fitting natural weight we could find…mangos.

“Alyssa, I like your mangos,” I said jokingly, bending sideways to give my left oblique a much needed stretch, mango in left hand. Alyssa doubled over and that was the end of our work out.

Tomorrow we are going to Chino’s for lunch at 1PM. His house is over by where my abuelita’s was and it should be interesting to explore the old area by road.

The sunset tonight was gorgeous and the ocean is at high tide again and under our house crashing away. It took a little while, but I’m starting to feel more at peace here.