Mar­ket In Perú

Trav­el­ling is always an adven­ture. Whether you are across the world or just across town, there are lit­tle anec­dotes to be told. Let’s share them!

I’d like to ask a few trav­ellers to tell me their best anec­dotes on the road or abroad. On top of my mind, I’m think­ing of:

Gail, who back­packed around the world quite a lot (and visit her for her great pic­tures!)
Renny and Diane, who always seem to be explor­ing awe­some places in Nor­way
Blue­fish, who is get­ting to know Den­mark with her Euro­pean hubby
Max, my favorite Por­tuguese girl
Linguist-In-Waiting, who trav­eled to Europe last sum­mer
The Spit­ting Ves­sel, who seem to know so much about the world
Seraphine, who has just been in Costa Rica
An Argen­tin­ian fam­ily in Water­loo, Canada, who is bound to have some anec­dotes! I´m sure the Zieglers fam­ily, also from Argentina, has some cool sto­ries as well.
Agnes at her Cos­mic­Tree­House, and her love for India

Mean­while, here are a few of mine.

• In Lima (Perú), we took a taxi to go to the bus sta­tion. The ride was smooth, we were jok­ing around with the dri­ver, when sud­denly, the car stopped in the mid­dle of the free­way. Ooops. No more gas. For­tu­nately, a cop was nearby and got us into another taxi, while mak­ing sure we were not ran over!
• In Mon­teverde (Costa Rica), every night there were a sloth in a tree right in front of the hos­tel. We took many pic­tures and noth­ing would dis­turb it! It just moved slowly from tree to tree, just a few meters from us. I had never seen one in the wild like that and found it quite cool.
  
• At the Boli­vian bor­der, when one of the migracíon offi­cer took my French pass­port, he asked me if I was a descen­dant of Napoleon Bona­parte. I was not sure whether it was good or bad and smile mys­te­ri­ously. Then I got my exit stamp. Phew.
  
• In Are­quipa (Perú), we heard a guy scream­ing “caramelo con leche” all day, from the busy street down­stairs. Even­tu­ally, we saw him: dressed as a green Santa Claus, he was stand­ing in the mid­dle of the traf­fic, sell­ing can­dies. For the first two days we were at the hos­tel, he worked (i.e. screamed “caramelo con leche” on top of his lungs) until 10 pm. Our last day in Are­quipa, we went to see him. He was a very friendly guy who had been work­ing sell­ing can­dies for over 20 years! Just imag­ine, stand­ing in the mid­dle of the traf­fic every­day for 9 or 10 hours, sell­ing can­dies for a few cents… We bought some and they were deli­cious by the way.
• So far, our longest bus ride was over 16 hours, to cover the 1,000 kilo­me­tres between Lima and Are­quipa. We left at 6 pm and arrived around 10 am the next day. The scenery was awe­some but sit­ting in a bus for so long is dif­fi­cult! That said, we have done worse: 30 hours between Arica and San­ti­ago in Chile in 2002, 48 hours from Ottawa to the Mex­i­can bor­der in Texas in 2003, and 3 days from Syd­ney to Perth in Aus­tralia in 2003.

So, write about your best travel story, whether it´s a three pages adven­ture or a two-line anec­dotes, and let´s share the world together!

I´ll send a post­card from wher­ever I am to the best ones.

Have fun!

Related arti­cles:

1. The Food Saga: The Sweets
2. South­ern Hemi­sphere: Lima, Perú
3. Por La Car­retera — Arequipa
4. Perú To Bolivia
5. The Food Saga: The Chicken Era
6. Faces of Antigua