Getting to Ancon

 

AIght, update on my current situation. So, I decide to take a trip to Ancón. Ancón is a beach town that’s about 25 miles from downtown Lima but get this… it took about two hours to get here.  I’ll break it down step by step.

1. The ride out here took should have only cost me between 50-60 soles. Which is about 15ish dollars but I was having a hard time finding a cap to bring me out here so I decided to take an UBER which because of surge pricing was about 100 soles or $25. I learned a couple of things from this drive out here.

a.       I will NEVER drive in Lima. Imagine New York traffic except with no real rules and an absence of stop signs and stop lights and a presence of markets on the side of the highway. So imagine endless swerving and cutting people off and getting cut off, cars stopped for no reason on the side or middle of the road. I promise you there were about ten times when I was 100% certain we were going to get into an accident.  I have to give it to the homie Marcos Joel who drove me out here and I definitely slid him an extra 20 soles ($5) because I mean man! 

b.       The disparity between rich and poor in Lima is insane. I spend most of my time in what I thought was a middle to upper middle class neighborhoods but now I see that those neighborhoods are upper class to VERY upper class relatively speaking. On the ride out here I got to see the other side of Lima. The super poor side. 

c.      I also got a chance to see a more suburbanish side of Lima. One with huge mall looking areas and big Costco like stores. Again, the traffic at those places was absolutely horrendous. 

2.    2. I was a honestly a little worried when we were approaching the town, because I expected a really nice town on the water or some non run down looking streets then we got to the area and nope. Then my guy Marcos Joel (Uber Driver) was like… yeah we’re here. I had been in contact with the guy running the hotel so he came out to find me and took me to the hotel. Upon arriving to the hotel, I soon realized that I’m the only person in this hotel… it kind of gives me a bit of a ‘The Shining’ feel now that I think about. Anyways, the hotel is really close to the water and like most of the city looks a little run down but I’ve got a nice bed and warm water so what more can I ask for! Maybe functional internet?!?!? But ya know that’s why there’s mobile hotspots. 

         Where that black car is, is where Marcus Joel dropped me off. 

3.     3. I'll l have a separate post with more photos and more about the city, but I’ll describe it briefly. Ancón is a fishing town in a Bay that at some point people tried to turn it into a destination for tourists and such but for some reason really fell off/didn’t take off. Imagine Miami in the 70s/80s as you’ve seen in Scarface or Miami Vice and imagine what it’d look like today if there was minimal effort to keep it updated. That’s Ancón. There are some BEAUTIFUL condos overlooking the water and apparently now it’s a place where people summer. However, most of the buildings appear to be vacant. There’s also an interesting mix of Yachts (there’s a yacht club) and fishing boats. I’m staying about 4 blocks from the water and could probably best be described as an area with a bunch of foreclosed homes (not well maintained buildings, grass that needs to be cut and stray dogs… Well, they appear to be strays but Peruvians in some cities let their dogs roam free during the day and they come back at night) It seems like now a spot for people to come to and chill on weekends, they have a bunch of venders, restaurants and some stores. There are a ton of families and kids so I feel super safe. (Don’t worry my guard is still up)  

 

Aight… next post will be with more specifics about Ancón.

My Daily Life in Peru and Random International Living Pensamientos (thoughts)

 

In this post, I’ll answer another question and give you some of my random thoughts about “living ish” in another country.

The other question that I’ve been getting is what do you do all day. That’s changed somewhat over the past week as I enrolled in an online Spanish class but overall it’s been about the same.

8ish: wakeup and walk around the corner to get fresh bread.

8:30ish: cook a couple eggs, eat with an avocado, with aforementioned  fresh bread (yes I brought seasoning salt)

9ish: I study Spanish (it was Spanish with Paul but recently I started an online class) until about 11 or so.

12:30: I’ll decide I’m hungry enough for lunch and go out in search of a “menu” (most restaurants have “menu of the day” basically 3 or 4 things that they cook and offer for lunch)

2: I’ll do private Spanish lessons for two hours.

5ish: for the next couple of hours, I’ll walk around/halfway explore a new area/try to take care of anything I need/want to do.

8ish- I’ll get a snack/watch TV/talk with the roomies until I get sleepy. Curfew is at 9 so that really puts a damper on what one can do.

SO pretty chill life which is just how I like it.

Part 2: Things that people told me about that I didn’t think about/appreciate.

1. Fresh Bread… It’s amazing and yes it goes bad in a day or two but it’s HELLA good and if I’m not mistaken the majority of the world eats like this.

2. "Organic/Ugly Fruit” For the most part everything you eat here from the local markets is “organic” because they can’t afford to farm with hella pesticides. It’s a privilege to be able to manipulate crops.

3. Living on your own... (not with parents or a significant other) is not the norm. The overwhelming majority of people here live in co-habiting situations, whether that’s with parents, or with a partner. I imagine it’s this way in most of the world and the US and Canada are the exceptions and not the rule.

That’s all for this post.

Decision: I’ve decided to travel to a different place every weekend just to check it out. Peru is a BEAUTIFUL country with lots of different landscapes so why not check it out!