Piura, Ayabaca and the Coast – 2014
This one was sort of my bad. Andrew and I were in Cusco and trying to decide where to go next. I wanted to see a coffee farm while we were in Peru so I did a very minimal bit of research and determined there were coffee farms in Piura. Very simple. Next, we flew from Cusco to Piura. This is where it gets tricky….
So, sometimes you have a place that is a province. The province is a larger geographic area composed of cities and other designations…and sometimes a city shares the same name as its parent province. There are coffee farms in the province of Piura but…umm…there are no coffee farms anywhere near the city of Piura. The distance we would have to travel to see one was significant. It didn’t matter, because while in Piura we found out about a cloud forest called Bosque de Cuyas that was a bit closer. I had been to a cloud forest before in Malaysia and it was amazing–I love insects and bromeliads–so this seemed like a good opportunity to see another. We temporarily scrapped our coffee farm plans and bought bus tickets to a town called Ayabaca. Overall, a fortuitous error, Ayabaca ended up being my favorite part of Peru despite not being what I was looking for initially.
All sorts of crazy shit happened and we ended up almost being stuck in this town for eternity due to the fact that we ran out of cash and the only ATM in the town would not take our evil foreign cards. Thankfully, the bus company let us leave despite not having funds, and we paid them back once we reached the city.
Some of these pictures are from the city of Piura, most are from Ayabaca and the journey there, and there are also a few from the beautiful beach towns of the Peruvian coast.
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- Not even TACTMCYMA…No idea what this means but I appreciate their enthusiasm.
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- The last person we met in Piura inexplicably gave Andew a cactus before we left. Too bad Andrew’s not interested in women; they could’ve had a thing.
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- Vultures scrounge through garbage and the remains of a dead dog while a pedicab driver rests in the background. Bienvenidos a the Peru those food programs don’t show you.
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- Grandpa Pedro walks along the sidewalk with his head down while a woman peers out the door of a dingy restaurant. They both ponder their meaningless existences in this dust bowl hellhole of a town. As for me, I’m in the bus listening to N’Sync and smiling at 110% as usual. I have never felt sad or lonely in my life.
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- I feel like we came across a disproportionate amount of cemeteries while wandering through Peru. Unfortunately, though we entered some, we weren’t prepared enough to authentically enter a Peruvian grave and experience eternity like the locals.
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- Our bus a foot and a half or so from these cow-like creatures that were on the edge of this switchback road. I literally closed my eyes and held my breath during parts of this trip up the mountain. I told myself I’d had a good life and I was entirely satisfied and happy to be dying while exploring. Unfortunately for us, we lived and now are back in a modern Western-culture society.
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- As we got higher the dropoffs from the switchbacks became steeper and it started raining more.
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- The mystic Peruvian hornless unicorn grazes on the side of a mountain. Ethereal and haunting, I could see this spot quickly being monetized an becoming a tourist location, but unfortunately the locals want to settle for an authentic life that doesn’t resemble a premise-less reality television show.
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- Hesse-like late night arrival and rainy streets in Ayabaca. People come here to visit some church/saint they think will help them. I don’t know why we came here really.
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- Elementary school in the clouds. A scene of diversity is painted on the wall. Mysteriously, there are no dark-skinned characters present and even the person that looks like he would represent the Peruvian has lighter skin than most Peruvians I met. At least they are correct in teaching their students that all Asians wear pointy hats and have no eyes when they smile. ^__^
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- The Cheesecake Factory of northern Peru.
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- A cloud person points at a regular person with his pants tucked into his bright blue socks. This is an indigenous style crime that will likely be punished by ostricization from Cloud Level 1. A stray dog to the right watches, unamused. Dogs are kind of like the referees in this cloud village–they oversee life and only bark when something is amiss.
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- The stray dog followed me internet cafe and sat at my feet. One of his bones had been broken and was sticking out of the skin on his leg, so he wobbled on three feet while following me around town. I didn’t know how to help him. Now I know how my parents feel.
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- A cemetery in the clouds…well…then…I don’t know where the people could possibly go when they die. Maybe we need to get past this whole idea that heaven is in the sky and anything like Earth.
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- Chilling inside the previously-mentioned cemetery, hope it wasn’t disrespectful or nothin’….
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- A tired horse tries to wipe the mud off of its feet before entering a building with mud floors. It’s the thought that counts. Like most people/horses, he doesn’t have the awareness to realize he could easily break away from whatever he is chained to, enabling him to gallop off a cliff and end his miserable horsezistance.
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- Two cloud people talk about the pros and cons of using dirty water to cook everything they’ve ever made.
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- Andrew shares a drink with three morning-drunks that hassled us until we came into their shop to take a picture they’d never actually get to see. Not even joking, this seemed like it was probably the highlight of their month. Not many foreigners in this town.
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- There were colorful political ads painted on buildings all over the countryside on the way up the mountain and in Ayabaca itself. I didn’t know the current political situation to say whether they were relevant or old advertisements.
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- One girl wonders who the gringos are, the other looks for a hair stylist. The donkey is not intrigued by our presence; he is busy daydreaming about what it’s like to be a zebra.
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- This is the closest thing I got to a handjob while I was in Peru. Just kidding, that’s not even really funny. A beetle with a built-in bottle opener trots along my hand looking for the keychain he should be attached to.
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- Journey up to Turtle Rock…bring the hookshot.
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- Dream-like plant in the cloud forest of Ayabaca. When I touched it I felt my health improve by 50 percent.
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- Watching my laundry dry and quietly being thankful I was born thousands of miles away from this abysmally tiny beach town.
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- We followed this promising path to the water and watched as the ocean swallowed our favorite merciless glowing fireball. I dove under the water to drown myself in despair but unfortunately I’m extremely athletic and talented at swimming…and so I live on to share my sad tales of a resilient desperation. Surf’s up, bros.
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- Another non-glorious dustbowl. Looks desolately and desperately like the last, right?? This town was interesting, just not in any sort of way that makes you want to stay longer.
