After two weeks exploring beaches in the Mancora area, I was ready to move on. I bought a bus ticket and, four hours later, I arrived in the dusty, desert city of Piura. Here I stayed with a Peruvian student named Gabriel and his family, all of whom spoke little or no English. The first night we went to a mall to eat and watch Madagascar 3 in the cinema. Being in the mall felt weird, as I was not used to the bright neon store signs and polished tile floors. My accommodations the previous 2+ weeks had been very basic with little technology other than standard electrical lights. Even Gabriel’s house has no floor. Instead of a floor, there is just the ground. Not dirt, but what looks like limestone.
A couple days after my arrival, we took a bus for an hour to the nearby town of Chulucanas, where we stayed with one of Gabriel’s friends for the weekend. His friend’s family was hosting a couple parties there, one was for a kid’s birthday, and I can’t remember the other occasion. The house we stayed at had no floor or windows, and the walls were unfinished. I asked Gabriel why the house was unfinished, and he said it was because the owners could not afford to complete it once they started building it. Even though the accommodations were basic, I had a great time hanging out with these Peruvian families and enjoyed their hospitality.
Spanish Update
My Spanish still isn’t where I want it to be, but I am making progress. On more than one occasion, I’ve had other English speaking travelers tell me my Spanish is good, so that makes me feel great. But I still can’t follow what locals are saying unless they speak slowly. Even then, there is still a lot of vocabulary I don’t know yet.
Media Update
The hunt is on for a new netbook. I don’t like blogging on public internet computers. I would like to include some kind of photo with each blog post but I don’t want to bother editing/sorting photos in the internet cafes either. I need the privacy of my own screen and keyboard. The blog is effectively suspended. The netbook also provided me with Spanish lessons, entertainment on rest days, and most importantly, the internet, which connects me to my family and friends in the outside world. Again, I don’t like the internet cafe computers. Rarely are they fast; usually they are slow and frustrating, especially in the coastal areas and smaller towns.
aaron travels the world 