Peruvian People

"On the outside the house is clean, because we do the dishes indoors."

I'm trying to figure out exactly what it is about Peruvians, or South Americans in general, that makes them so different to the rest of the Earth's populace. It is a quality that you find in each person's soul upon knowing them for at most five minutes, and it is something that makes it very easy for me to want to spend more and more time in their presence. Taking the easy way out one would simply say, "It's their passion!" and while this is obviously a part of it, it's not the whole story. The quote above is the gist of a saying told to me by a new friend, Roderigo, and I think it plays a large part in this South American 'quality' that I'm trying to put my finger on. Peruvians keep going no matter what. Through illness, sadness, hardships, windy days, or family quarrels, keeping energised, busy and having fun is key. Some could think that this determination to move forward produces a superficial society, especially in Lima, but this train of thought is not well thought out, because it is in the small quips of time and fast conversation between the raging push forward that I have found out the beauty and depth of South American people. The idea is that people deal with whatever is on their minds within themselves, because their problems are not their entire reason for existence. When people don't make their problems everyone else's, there is a lot more time to get to know them as a person - and in true South American fashion - have fun. So in the midst of the fast pace of life here, the fast speak, traffic, hand gestures, judgements, all of it, you get to a solitary moment with a new friend where they share something about themselves with you that lets you into their world, and then as abruptly as it started it ends and you keep moving forward with only one difference, you have gained one more person to ride the tidal wave of South American society with.

Another thing that contributes to this South American persona is the strength that family holds here. Although family life may be trumped by 21st century living, the idea that your family is most important sets in place the mindset that, first of all, you take care of the people who you hold close to you, and second of all, you can be confident with any endeavour in your life and personality because you know that you'll have your "family" to support you. As a friend and traveller, falling in the midst of these kinds of people gives you the protection that family would. You are taken care of and the people around you inspire you to be confident enough with yourself and your taken path to enjoy yourself in your surroundings.

The last, and most important thing, is their obvious passion. This paired with their almost nationalistic love for their country makes for a powerful yet dangerous combination. On the one hand, their passion is contagious and is anything but discrete, which is a great quality in my eyes because you will always know what a South American thinks or their opinion on a matter. You find yourself inclined to agree that Peruvian food is the best food and it's the most beautiful country and it has the best sunsets! On the other hand, this passion can be blinding; blinding from the beauty of the rest of the world and from the need to grow outward and develop as a nation. But this problem stretches much farther than any thought in my 1 month in Peru should encompass.

Intro.

On my 18th birthday I will have been alive for 6570 days. Out of those I should have been present in an institutionalized education facility for 2448 days. In 2011 I was given the opportunity to go to Peru on an exchange program. Up until that tender age of 15 I had not travelled out of Africa since ten years before. I expected so much from my experience that I didn't receive, yet was gifted with so much from it that I never could have thought possible. New sights, new smells, new tastes, new sounds, new friends, and most importantly, new knowledge. the travel bug hadn't just bitten me, it had infected me from head to toe and every day that I sat in a classroom it felt like if I didn't get up, run out the door and fly straight away to anywhere else the bug would spread consume me limb by limb. I've learnt so much inside the four walls of a classroom that I will be ever grateful for, but when I think of the amount I learnt and gained in just two and a half months 10 000 km away in another place, I find myself questioning whether or not it was worth it, or the right place for me. The knowledge that so much more to learn lay within travelling and life experience outside of those walls and the hundreds of pages in all the textbooks has become too much for me to bear. This is the main reason that I have decided to spend one year travelling.

I am picking up where I left off almost three years ago: Peru. From there I will go to Colombia and stay in the capital city Bogota for five months, hopefully picking up a lot of Spanish and a reasonsble amount of cash to fund the rest of my trip. From Colombia I will cross the  Darién Gap by boat to Panama, from there I will be catching buses through Costa Rica (a visit to the Sloth sanctuary is definitely in order), Nicaragua, El Salvador, to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, then on to Cancun, Mexico where I will meet up with my family for a few days. From Cancun I will make my way up to the USA and meet up with a friend and road trip from LA to Seattle, catching a bus from Seattle to Vancouver for two months. Along the way I hope to be staying on organic farms and learning a thing or two about this way of life.

I have 19 days left until I leave the West Coast of South Africa for the West Coast of the Americas. I am writing this more to prove to myself that I can do it and to remember my trip by, but for anyone who reads it I hope I can carry this story across with words and photographs as it means everything to me. And if anyone who does read this has any advice for a young, wide-eyed traveller, please don't hesitate to throw it my way. One more hisory exam and then the journey begins.