My Favorite Bar in AQP
While La Tradición is up there, I don’t go there enough to justify calling it my favorite bar in Arequipa. And while I go to Deja Vu a lot, I don’t like it. El Balde would be my favorite bar in AQP. It’s on San Francisco near Forum, Deja Vu, etc. The music is funky, anything from Led Zepellin to The Gorillaz can be spinning. The art deco is killer. They make huge cocktails served in buckets – 1 litre or 3 litres! The Torito is Red Bull and pisco (which is disgusting), so I get one litre of Red Bull and cheap gin for S/. 18 (about $5 USD). That’s a whole can of Red Bull and a lot of gin!
My First Mugging in Colombia
SUMMARY: I tell a few stories about crime and danger in La Candelaria, including my first mugging in Colombia. I have decided to find an apartment in a different, safer neighborhood. Because I am a big pussy. Sections include Perpetual Begging, The Brick Incident, My Easter Sunday Mugging, and Leaving La Candelaria.
After staying in La Candelaria when I was in Bogotá last year, I was convinced that I’d live in the neighborhood if I ever moved to Bogotá. After a week in the neighborhood this time, I’m convinced I won’t stay. The bums, drug dealers, shadetree operators, thieves, scoundrels, and sketchballs are too much for me to take. I’m leaving.
Perpetual Begging
Not only am I harrassed for spare change by panhandlers, I’m also offered drugs daily. It’s always a persistent sell. They try to shake my hand or call me “my friend” and ask where I’m from. They run the line about the bus or food or whatever. One time a bum stood in the middle of the street and acted like he hailed me a taxi that was going to stop anyway. Then he asked for a tip. … Read more
The Final Word on Bricheras
SUMMARY: After one year in Peru, I discuss my final impression of what it means to be a brichera. I categorize them as Type 1’s or Type 2’s. Sections include My First Brichera!, Type 1,and Type 2.
Well, I’ve written extensively on the phenomenon known as bricheras in Peru. You can freshen up by reading these posts: Amigos and Bricheras and The Brichera Scowl and the Second Date. I’m now leaving Peru, so I thought I ought to share what I’ve learned. Plus, I scored a one-night stand with my first bona fide brichera during my last week in Arequipa… Read more
Racism in Peru
This post won’t deal with the deeply ingrained racial issues Peru has between its white, mestizo, and indigenous classes. This post will only detail a couple tales of how black / African descent is portrayed in Peru.
To put things in perspective, one should understand how many blacks are in Peru. In Arequipa, there are effectively none. I must have gone a two- or three-month stretch without seeing a black face at least once. I read and hear that there are more in Lima. I recently spent a week in Lima and, while you certainly couldn’t go a month without seeing a black face, there are much fewer than I’d anticipated. In one week, we might’ve seen a couple dozen black people at the most. Chincha is the historic Afro-Peruvian community and, while I never visited, Damien did and said it’s a lovely town. But only about 25% black.
On to the stories.
Around mid-October, one of my street’s security guards asked me who I was going to vote for in the upcoming US presidential election. I told him I don’t vote, but I was cheering for Barack Obama. He said “NO!” and waved his newspaper at me. He implied that a black president would be a disgrace.
My second week in Camaná, I caught up with the group of friends who all work at Hotel San Diego. We were all talking shit in their room and getting ready to hit the beach. Somehow the subject of my being American came up. One of them said, in heavily-accented English, “Yes, but you have your fucking nigger president.”
And at the celebration of my old basketball team’s city championship, a running joke of the night was how my mom is having sex with the black Barack Obama.
While the whole world seemed to have been cheering for Obama, it certainly wasn’t the whole world.
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