My Peruvian Winter

Finally, a little bit of settlement in my current home country of Peru. I have officially not taken an international flight in five weeks and it has been so wonderful to just focus on my project here in Peru and discover a little more about this country. The project has continued to fare well; it has been just Pedro and I for the past few weeks, which has made everything less stressful, more organized, and just easier! One of our coaches, Kelly, was here for a week, and we had one memorable meeting with the CEO of the second-biggest gold mining company in Peru. He invited us to his home for breakfast on a Monday morning, and awaiting us was a beautiful “hacienda” type walled-in mansion! His “muchacha” (house maid) served us coffee, fried eggs, and avocado on his porch as we listened to and watched his monkeys – yes, monkeys – play in the trees of his very own back yard! It was so wonderful and the man was extremely intelligent and kind. On top of the nice invitation, he sent us away with a $10,000 “donation” to our program and delivered all three of us “tourist bags” to our hotel, filled with Peruvian chocolates, coffee, coffee maker, a traditional blanket, and Peruvian olive oil (didn’t know they made that here). This anecdote shapes perfectly with the welcoming and heartfelt behavior of the Peruvians; even though it is an extremely slowwwwww culture, the people here mean the best and are always extremely inviting and warm.

Another highlight of the past couple weeks was interviewing the most famous chef of Peru, Gaston Ascurio, for our program. Every Peruvian is crazy about this man, as he is working extremely hard to put Peruvian cuisine on a more international level. He is opening one of his restaurants in Manhattan in Madison Square this summer, and is looking to expand all throughout the U.S. He told us he wants to make Peruvian food as common as Japanese – everyone loves sushi and it is extremely common all over the world, so why can’t Peruvian food do the same? The main issue is simply getting the word out that Peruvian food is DELICIOUS and unique, and also ensuring that the correct ingredients are available from this agricultural nation. The interview itself was awesome just because this guy is so famous here and I felt a little starstruck, but to be honest Gaston was a little bit of an ass! Definitely didn’t fit the depiction of typical Peruvians. Nonetheless, it was a fun experience, and here is an interesting TIME article on the foodie: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1924061,00.html.

The biggest, most influential event during the past month has been the presidential elections here in Peru. Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori are the names of the moment, and the entire nation has not stopped talking about the race between these candidates in some time. Humala is an extreme-leftist former army officer, who lost to Peru’s current president, Garcia, in 2006. He has a radical image to many, and mentioned cutting Free Trade Agreements and talks with some of the country’s greatest allies. Extremely socialist, he appeals to the country’s poorer population, which greatly outweighs the upper class. He was also supposedly endorsed by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, which is enough reason in itself for the business class to remain worried and aware. His opposition, Keiko, is daugher of ex-president Fujimori, who is now serving a 25-year sentence for corruption. More right-wing and “safe” than Humala, Keiko was the obvious choice for the Lima region, but her family ties also led many citizens to distress in who to choose to run the country. Humala proved triumphant, 51.5% versus Keiko’s 48.5%, and the week following the outcome was the slowest for us business-wise that we have had yet. The business world had a literal “freak out” and reaching companies and scheduling meetings was nearly impossible for us. One reply email I received simply read: “Today is not a good day, as you know we have had elections this Sunday and things may change, nobody knows what’s going on.”

Every Minister and CEO we have met since the outcome is worried. The Ministers will be replaced on July 28^th, and everyone is wondering how the economy and development of Peru will change. Will investors keep looking at Peru in the future or turn to more politically-stable countries in Latin America? Pedro jokes the only good thing about Humala winning is how it will maybe benefit Colombia’s economy – more investment left to go there! However, we have an extremely biased view about the next President – we have only been hearing the opinions of the top CEO’s and politicians of Peru, whereas the lower class is extremely hopeful that the distribution of wealth will be more balanced, as a taxi driver was explaining to us the other day. The only thing I can concretely say is that the result honestly has slowed down business; we have seen it first hand working as an international company here in Peru.

On a lighter note, the past two weekends have been filled with (surprise!) traveling. Pedro and I took advantage of having a rental car and took a road trip to the small coastal town of Paracas, about three hours outside of Lima. We found a modest, perfect hotel right when we got there, located directly on the beach with an awesome balcony and view of the ocean. A majority of the time was spent relaxing in the sun with cervecitas; even if there wasn’t much to do, it was so nice to get out of the exhaust-filled metropolis of Lima. The Thing-to-See in this area are the Ballestas Islands; tourists take a powerboat to get close to these islands famous for their penguins and sea lions, and also the fact that they are painted completely white from bird poo called “guano”. I have never seen penguins or sea lions in their natural habitat so was super-duper excited. However, when we woke up on Sunday morning to catch the boat, we and many other early-risers were disappointed to learn there had been an earthquake in the ocean near the islands so all tours were closed for the whole day! Bummed, we instead took the car through the Paracas National Reserve, which is basically a vast stretch of sand next to the ocean. The crazy thing about Peru is the range of terrains and temperatures throughout the country. Here we were, driving through the desert, when earlier that morning we were meant to sport our winter coats while snapping pictures of real-life penguins. Not to mention the various mountain ranges, beaches, and jungle that make up the rest of the immense country.

The desert of Peru!

The following weekend was spent in the second-largest town of Peru, called Arequipa. We flew down for some meetings on that Friday and Monday, so of course stayed the weekend to explore. Since being in Peru I had heard many great things about the city – that it was a neat, organized, colonial-type town with a constant clear view of the Andes Mountains. It was again nice to be outside of gloomy Lima (winter in Lima = no sun EVER, not exaggerating), and the air was extremely dry and fresh in the high altitude of the city. The meetings were really interesting – one with the oldest chocolate company of the region, another with the largest exporter of Alpaca fiber. Alpacas are members of the “camelid” family, very similar to llamas, and only found in the Andes region of South America. After this meeting we received a tour of the grounds, met some of the Alpacas (so cute, except for the spitting pregnant one and the one that jumped on top of Pedro), and learned how their fur is processed and made into knitted items. Extremely expensive and rare, Alpaca fur coats can cost up to $1000!

Typical business meeting playing with animals

That Sunday, we woke up early to catch a private mountain-biking expedition next to the famous Misti volcano outside of Arequipa. A driver took us to the top of the mountain range paralleling the volcano, and when we began our decent on bikes we were around 15,000 feet above sea level. I couldn’t walk without becoming extremely out of breath, and biking on any level but downhill was one of the most excruciating activities I have done! At many points it was pretty intense mountain biking through rocks and sand, and I could understand why our guide made us suit up head-to-toe in padding. The four-hour bike ride was exhausting but beautiful; the whole time we had a view of the snow-capped volcano sitting right next to us on one side, and an overhead view of Arequipa on the other. I wasn’t able to move that night or the next day, and luckily we were headed back to sea-level Lima for a little bit of a breather.

Mountain-biking in Southern Peru!

I’m writing all of this from Café Havanna, an Argentinean café situated on the coastline of Lima, so I’m looking out on the ocean and have seen about 10 paragliders flying past me in the past hour. It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I am trying to chill as much as possible because I caught an unforgiveable virus last week and have been out-of-commission for the past five days. I haven’t been so sick since I can remember, and the doctor told me it was most likely from something I ate in Arequipa. I can’t remember because I was so hallucinatory, but I think he said something like 9/10 tourists get a virus from the food or water here in Peru; I guess it was just my time. So I am taking it easy and trying to enjoy my last three weeks here in Peru. Pedro and I found out this week that this is our deadline, and we are continuing the Latin thang with our next placement: Uruguay! I am beyond excited because I wanted to stay in Latin America, and yet Uruguay is a different vibe completely from Peru or Colombia. More influenced by Argentina and Europe, it will be a nice, fresh change, where I can learn about a whole new culture yet continue practicing Spanish. Definitely more to come on that subject – until next time/country!