Trujillo to Lima
Two weeks ago I took a bus from Trujillo to Lima. I had been told that the Peruvian coast was horribly boring and I was better off taking a plane. I was also suspect about these recommendations because some people see desert and see nothing but dead land. I have the same suspicion when someone tells me that a city is bad. First thing I think about is whether the recommendation is coming from someone who even likes cities. So, I took the plunge and went with Cruz del Sur bus company for the 8 hour trip between Peru´s two largest cities.
It doesn´t take very long to get out of Trujillo. It is one of the uglier cities you will ever find made from the same brown sand that makes up the surrounding landscape. Unbelievably monotonous unless someone has painted the exterior of their building or used a non-mud brick material. The worst part of Trujillo is that people surround their businesses (and homes?) with up to six meter high walls of these mud bricks. Maybe they do it to keep the sand out? Maybe it is just a carry-over from the way their ancestors built Chan Chan and other cities a thousand years ago? Plain ugly, if you ask me.
From the second floor and front seat on the bus, I was able to look over many of the walls. As we left the city behind, what I saw started to take me back to Africa. Many people live in dwellings made only from sticks and bamboo mats or tarps. Many of these are ¨hidden¨ behind the walls. This was the beginning of seeing poverty unlike any I have seen in the Americas and second only to what I saw in Africa. As significant the contrast is between landscapes in the Peruvian coastal desert and Andes highlands, the difference between how the wealthy Peruvians live in Lima versus the poor in their little shanties is even greater.
The towns and cities along the coast are separated by great areas of agriculture and desert. The ocean is never too far off to the west. The towns and cities are fairly decrepit, but far superior to the living conditions of the farmworkers whose homes are sprinkled througout the farmland and desert areas. Many of the farms are huge so I imagine they are owned by someone other than the people living in the wood huts. The barren desert is beautiful. There were gargantuan sand dunes, mountains of rock and vast stretches of blown sand. The sunlight played off of each beautifully. We drove in out of canyons and on bluffs perched above the ocean. Kilometer after kilometer of empty beaches were visible below and some of them had fishing boats and small villages right on the water. I would say that this was some of the most beautiful desert I have ever seen and I was quite happy to be taking a bus and seeing it from the top floor of the bus.
The road is two lanes which was wide until you realize the number of buses and trucks that travel this section of the Panamerican Highway. This is no USA superhighway. Just about every kilometer contained reminders about how deadly this highway and Peruvian roads in general can be. The reminders were the crosses and small memorials to all of the road accident victims. One memorial was very large (including a parking area) and I imagined the bus that may have gone over a cliff or had a head on accident with a truck. We hit one stretch where I noticed there was a lack of memorials, but this was soon replaced by one with memorials every few meters. Lots of stupid drivers in this country combined with dangerous roads add up to a lot of deaths.
About 100 kilometers north of Lima the danger of these roads became very real. On the opposite side of the highway there was a bus which had obviously crashed and was being worked on by a tow truck and crew. A second bus was being used to transport the baggage. I do not know where the passengers were located. I could tell the bus had rolled over so I presume they had been taken to the hospital prior to our arrival. It was disturbing to see.
Just north of Lima, the road is on sand dunes sit on cliffs above the Pacific. I could barely contain myself given that we had just passed the bus accident, but our bus driver went slowly and safely. The beauty of this area was eclipsed by the danger. Once we got to the outer reaches of the sprawling Lima, beauty was soon replaced by slums. It took almost two hours to get from the northern reaches to where the bus station is in the southern area. We passed right through the heart of the city on the eastern side of a skanky river and the slums never abated. Lima must be half or greater slums made from the same ugly mud that makes up its hillsides. I was once again not impressed with this city.
Tags: peru, south america, Travel
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