Yesterday, a national bus strike went into effect due to the Peruvian governments raising of gas taxes a shocking 5 percent, effectively stranding us in the north. We had planned to take an overnight bus from Piura to Lima to be on track for our flight to Cuzco, and now things have been drastic enough to force us to fly at a disgustingly inflated rate. Strait up bad luck. No one knows how long the strike will last, and often there are roadblocks and demonstrations on the highways, so we´ve at least cleared ourselves of those stresses and are flying out tonight.
We managed to get a mototaxi out of Lobitos down the rough dirt road to Talara, a huge oil refining and fishing port, and got a regional bus to Piura. On the way we passed through our first semi tropical area and it even looked like it was going to rain for once. Piura is the travelling hub in the north, but as I mentioned before travelers seem to get stuck here for some reason. Ironically, that is what has happened to us, but were making the most of it anyway.
We picked the Hostal California, I think for no better reason then the fact that I randomly had ¨Hotel California¨running through my head all the morning before, so it was fitting. The place is bare and hot as hell, so we needed something to do.
Piura is actually a pretty nice city, an oasis in Peru´s largest desert, and we found much to remind us of America. We wandered into a shopping mall strait out of anytown, USA and marvelled at the South American style of western brand consumerism. There was a movie theater playing Avatar, alas it was sold out and probably the coolest thing to do in this town, literally. The mall was air conditioned and offered everything you could find in your average target.
We found a couple unapologetic American luxury brand knock offs, including ¨polo shirts¨with the nearly the exact same logo save for a rider with a whip instead of a crop… we also found “Apology¨instead of “Anthropologie¨. There were tons of surf clothes, which is definitely the youth style as all the kids wear Rip Curl or Billabong. Our finest and most surprising discovery was finding a t shirt that said ¨East Hampton¨from a ¨preppy style¨company called university club. This was pretty bizarre, we had to take a picture. I have to admit, wandering around this wierdo mall was probably way more entertaining then any movie.
Our time in Piura is short, but it´s been a surprisingly refreshing break and return to ¨civilization¨. Weve been living as virtual cavemen the last few days and needed a shower anyway. We hope the bus companies are successful in lowering the gas prices but the strike may well go on and plague us again when we return from Cusco in a week. Viva la Revolucion…
