Peru

Peruvians are a fun bunch of people. Say the words, parillada or cerveza/ fiesta and you’ll have everyone’s attention. Peruvians like good food, wine, and crazy late nights and mornings. Peruvians will drop whatever they’re doing and throw a full-scale feast just for the hell of it. Afterward, everyone gets drunk and hits the bars, then the clubs. It’s a great time.

The population is about 100% catholic and, because of the religious homogeneity, they’re barely aware that other religions exist. Younger people are generally less coneravtive and Christ-conscious than their parents though which makes travel a lot more fun.

Peruvians aren’t very uptight and are curious about foreigners and foreign ideas. But as forgiving as they are of all that comes from the Gringo World, make no mistake: Peru is the Best Country in the Universe! Especially after a few drinks of Pisco, the national brew that Peruvians claim Chile stole.

Racially, it’s a mixed country with little tension between the groups. Still, as in almost all Latin America, the whitely are the ones with the money and power and try to ape first world fashions and lifestyles. Life is correspondingly harder the darker the skin of their rest.

Still, regional differences are huge. Traveling into the countryside is literally like going back 50-100 years in time. Peruvians in the mountain villages make their own clothes from their own wool, brew their own hooch, go weeks without a shower or bath, and believe that every white man that passes through must be a doctor or know something about medicine. Don;t get too glib with your Lonely Planet’s medical section…

Men there still rate women as either equal to or lower than the livestock and feel that they need a beating once in awhile to keep things in order. This is perfectly healthy Peruvian machismo and quite acceptable in rural Peruvian culture. Men often joke or brag about it after a few drinks.

The jungle is divided between the parts that have been completely raped and the parts that haven’t yet been touched. The towns and cities are dirty, poor, and ugly generally, with a lot of narco-trafficking gangs, logging companies, and oil pigs moving in to take more and more as fast as they can.

However, there are actually still tribes in the Peruvian Amazon that have no contact with the outside world, and assuming they’ve guessed what’s in for them when we reach them, they’re understandably hostile.

M.J Lloyd was born and raised on a small farm in rural Ohio. At the age of 18 he hit the road to Alaska with a meager savings and no plan. Over the next 2 years he wandered in search of real answers and a livable life. The journey has taken him through three continents, various loves, battles with the loneliness and insanity of the road, and extreme poverty. Though the lessons haven’t been easy, he has learned much from the trail, and has reached a much happier and more peaceful understanding on the nature of his life.

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