La Barranca is located just north of a river that comes down from the Cajamarca area. On the other side of the river mouth, about a 5 minute walk along the beach, is another little town called La Boca del Rio. It's smaller, more serene and a little nicer than La Barranca and is in the process of having a hotel-club-restaurant complex built in it. The buildings are up and functioning and the road is under construction. Next they will bring power lines to the town.

I went to La Boca del Rio with Roger, a peruvian who has been living in New Jersey working in real estate. He's planning on building a similar club-hotel-restaurant complex in one of the towns in the area. He was very impressed with what was happening at La Boca, and even more impressed with how cheap the land was; only 3 soles/sq. meter which is something like 30 cents/sq. foot. It's not surprising that people are developing land that is so beautiful and so inexpensive to buy. So far it doesn't seem to be hurting the small but successful fishing economy in the area.

Here are some pictures of Guadalupe. I just got a new camera so none of La Barranca till next week.


The view from the roof. You can see the roofs of the market stalls.


and the other way...


The internet cafe I'm in right now.

This week the community at La Barranca continued to grow and develop little by little. More families are showing up and another little tienda opened. People have begun painting their houses and putting up shades and there are even some trash cans on the beach.

The beauty of this little town and what sets it apart from just another beach party is that it is a tight-knit and very open community. There is nothing but friendliness here.

There's a distinct difference between the way people drink here and in the states. When a group of people drink together they open one extra big bottle of people for the group at a time. The first person pours some into a little glass, then passes the bottle to the next person. They drink their portion, fast or slow as they want, then when they're done, the pour out the foam and last un-drunk drops of beer and pass to the next person, who then repeats the same process. Depending on the group, it is sometimes necessary to toast when taking a drink, or for men to pour a drink for women.

Besides any intentional or symbolic meanings that this has, it serves the function of ensuring that everyone in the group has more or less consumed the same amount. On a more subjective level, drinking from the same cup and from the same bottle also serves to reinforce unity and a sense family within the group. This may be a small cultural detail, but for me it encapsulates a lot of the spirit of the culture here.

All in all travel time was easily more than 28 hours. It took me about another day of sleep to get over the jet lag. I flew from SFO to Houston to Lima, then after going through customs, took a LAN flight to Chiclayo. Pierre met me there and we took a bus to Guadalupe, then a mototaxi to the family house. The next day I went down to the beach at La Barranca. On monday I came back to town to use the internet and shower. I stupidly left my camera at the beach, so no pictures until next time.

The first things that struck me about the Lima airport was how clean it was, the lack of security insanity, and the lack of trash cans. The are three bins: paper recycling, glass, plastic and metal recycling, and organic waste compost. I only saw Lima at night from the plane, but judging from the sprawling landscape of orange lights, the place is huuuge. I also noticed at least seven boats (or possibly oil rigs) just sort of chilling off the coast.

When we were leaving Chiclayo for Guadalupe by bus, we passed a lady with a cart that said "dios es amor," I thought that was pretty cool. The buildings and vehicles are very colorful. A lot of the buildings are in a strange state of incompletion, with rebar coming out the top of the walls. In Guadalupe there is always music playing somewhere and its usually amazing. The kids are into this guy named nigga, I see them watching videos at the internet cafe. Generally reggaeton and kumbia and accordions and horns and over the top singing/rapping are the style, with the occasional traditional flute remix thrown in. There's an electronics repair shop smaller than my closet down the alley from out house that plays the best music ever, often quite loudly.

The area where Chiclayo and Guadalupe are is a sort of desert interspersed with rivers which are surrounded by green and lots of large scale agriculture. From what I could see from the bus it looked like mostly rice and other grains, although down near the beach there's a patch of onions which are totally delicious. Something I'd like to look into is how much and what kind of fertilizers are used in the area.

I have a feeling the hip waste management at the airport is a bit of a show for the tourists, cause everywhere else I've been there's trash pretty much just lying around. Interestingly, almost every house has its own water tank on the roof. The food is really delicious, although I've only eaten with the family I'm staying with. Sunday morning for breakfast we had fish that were caught that morning off of the same beach we were staying at, sooo fresh!

There is so much to say just from the first impressions. I'm leaving a lot out so if anyone has any questions about anything I could elaborate. For a second there comments weren't working but now anyone should be able to make one.

I'm available by email at noah (at) harkin (dot) net and flamingheads (at) gmail (dot) com
If you want to leave me an insulting and/or drunken voicemail you can call 1 888 579 0208 then dial 3101515183.

Peru: Numero Uno

This entry will be a little short and sloppy because I mostly just need to get this thing off the ground and I haven't really taken the time to organize all my notes yet. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a better written account.

I'm staying at a place called La Barranca, Peru. It's at the beach due west from Cajamarca. Its a little village where a bunch of families from nearby Guadalupe come every summer basically to party. The reason I'm here is to study the community aspects of it, hopefully I'll be able to learn something that will be applicable back home. I'm also hoping to be able to give something back to the community by doing a little project to make things a little more sustainable and ecologically friendly. My ideas so far are a composting toilet, planting some fruit trees near the river, and setting up trash, recycling and/or compost bins. If anyone has any ideas or input I'd be really grateful.

My favorite spanish phrase I've learned so far:
"Todo los barrios, todo el gente, todo el mundo son una cosa!"