The Long Road North Part VI: Lima

Cool cliffside restaurant near where I stayed with Kathleen in Lima that Kathleen took me to see during an awesome impromptu walking Geology of Lima tour. That bridge? The gap there was formed because there was a dike made of a more easily-erodible material that we could trace up into the beach and up the cliffs on the other side of the road. Neato!

Lima Part I: a not-so-warm welcome

I arrived in Lima after over two weeks of travel, of which over one hundred hours were spent on long-haul buses, all the way from the southern toe of the continent in Ushuaia, Argentina (or, if you're really counting, from the Antarctic Peninsula following a two-day crossing of the Drake Passage by ship). I was exhausted. But I had booked it north in order to arrive in Lima in time to meet up with my friend from grad school, Kathleen, who was in town for two weeks teaching an Earth History course at the university. After all that travel I was very excited to see a familiar face again.

After gathering my bags from the hold of the bus that had just taken me the 49 hours across the Antiplano from Argentina to arrive there in Lima, I asked the woman at the information desk (who, in contrast to every information desk person in the whole of Argentina, was very friendly and helpful) how to get a bus to where my friend Kathleen was staying in the Lima neighborhood of Chorillos. She directed me to a bus station across the street from the main terminal, which served a brand-spanking-new Metropolitano bus line, saying it was very clean and safe. Sure enough, it was equivalent to a nice light rail line in some of the finer public transit systems of the U.S. I was beginning to think that all of the safety warnings for Lima were grossly exaggerated, or maybe relics from a wilder time past.

Lima. Looks like L.A.

The only problem was that “Chorillos” was not one of the stops on the train map, so I asked a businessman standing across from me if he knew which stop I should get off at. I showed him Kathleen’s instructions, and he lit up when he saw the name of the restaurant she said she was near: Los Hornos. Sure enough, after 20 some minutes, the bus pulled up at a station across the street from a Los Hornos restaurant, so I got off. Except it didn't seem right. I sat down inside the train stop to get my bearings and was surprised that the train stations had free public wifi, so I pulled out my phone, got a GPS signal, and got thoroughly confused. My phone couldn't find the address she had given me and insisted that the restaurant across the street was the only Los Hornos in Lima, but I knew I was not in Chorillos. I asked a passerby who confirmed that I was still several stops away from Chorillos, the end of the line station. So I hopped back on the train to the end of the line and tried again. This time my phone was able to bring up Kathleen’s address, and it looked like I had overshot the jump-off-point by two stations. Back on the bus, back off, and I checked my phone map one last time to make a mental map of where I needed to go. Five blocks down one street, jog one block left, then right and two blocks down.

I couldn't wait to get to food like this: famous Peruvian ceviche (I did get some later).

I started walking. The sun was shining and I felt optimistic and excited: excited to be in a new country, in a busy big city, excited that I’d be seeing a friend soon. I was all smiles as I walked. Kathleen had said the neighborhood was swanky, and I wondered at her definition of swanky. It looked like a seedier version of the seedier parts of East L.A., but hey, I’m in Peru! I grinned and laughed out loud as I walked past my fifth market stall with stripped, freshly-killed chickens hanging on hooks from ropes across the front. I scouted out the little stalls selling food, making mental notes of the gloriously inexpensive prices for the Menu del Días, intending to come back for lunch after dropping my stuff off at Kathleen’s place. I wondered if it had been five blocks yet, the busy market stalls made it hard to judge where streets actually were. I kept walking, and started to feel like I had gone too far, I didn't recognize the names of what street signs I could see. I decided to quickly pull out my phone and consult the GPS.

I had had my phone in my hand for less than two seconds when I felt the shove in the back and the hand grabbing at my phone. I stumbled, clenched my hand tighter, holding onto my phone like it was a lifeline, and spun around to face my attacker. It was a skinny guy in a white shirt, not much taller than me, yanking hard at my phone. I yelled at him. He grabbed my arm. I grabbed his arm with my free hand and started to claw at him, still yelling. I wanted to kick, but I couldn't, I was too weighed down and off-balance with stuff. Then he pushed me hard and I fell sideways to the pavement, and in the split second that my grip loosened as I started to fall, he yanked the phone out of my hand and sprinted away. I looked up, pinned on the sidewalk by my heavy backpack, and saw him run off. I yelled for help: there were people all around, but nobody did anything until he had run off.

Post-mugging: a little scuffed up, but fine (pretty sure the guy lost more skin in the scuffle than I did).

Two women slowly walked up to me as I tried to pick myself up. One helped me to my feet. She asked me what I was doing there, “It’s not safe here,” she said. No shit, I thought. They took me around the corner to a police officer, who chewed me out for being in the neighborhood. “This is the most dangerous street in Chorillos,” she said, “What are you doing here?” I tried to explain that I was trying to get to my friend’s house, but now I didn't have the address and I was too shaken to remember it. I was sure I was within a few blocks, but didn't know where. She pointed me down the road to the police station.

One of the women walked with me to the police station and explained to the officer at the front desk what had happened, then disappeared, leaving me there to fend for myself. The officer told me to wait in the back office for someone to come take my statement and file a report.

About half an hour later, another officer showed up. He introduced himself as the captain, smiling broadly. He asked what happened and I explained. He repeated the street officer’s chiding about how I should not be in this neighborhood. It’s dangerous, he said. When I explained that I didn't know that, I thought it was supposed to be safe, I was trying to get to my friend’s house, he asked for the address. I remembered bits of it, and when I mentioned part of the street name he got furious and demanded to know the name of my friend.

“It’s a center for narcotics, half of the drug deals in Chorillos happen on that street. Are you crazy? You can’t go there.”

Great, I thought.

He must have seen the look of, “well fuck, now what” on my face because he softened.

“Smile, pretty girl, it’s going to be okay,” then he reached out to stroke my back, “You’re safe now. You’re safe with me,” he said, and winked.

That did not make me feel better.

“Do I give my statement to you?” I asked, as I pushed myself away from him.
 “You want to give a statement?” the captain asked, surprised. Why the hell else would I be here? I thought. “Okay, I guess.” And he called in another officer.

After another wait while the other officer got his computer booted up, which apparently was a half hour long process, I was called over to give my statement.

Name.

“Carie? Like the song? Caaaaaaaaaa-rie, Caaaaaaaaaaaaa-rie,” the captain started to sing behind me.

Age.

“30? So young?”

Marital status.

“I’m single, too,” with another wink.

After I had given the statement and asked for a copy, the captain told me to sit down with him at his desk and excused the other officer. He then started to go through a slideshow of his photos, hikes to a waterfall, him with his shirt off in the waterfall, 

“Oh, have you ever seen a cock fight?” I was slightly relieved that he meant chickens, but the images were still disturbing. “How long are you in Peru?” he asked.
“Three weeks. I am visiting my friend,” I replied.
“My gringa, Peru is wonderful, you will see. Please don’t think it is all like this today. Peru is beautiful. I want to show you Peru.”

I thought he meant photos and I smiled politely.

“You come with me, and I will show you Peru. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to him. I mentally freaked out but didn’t know what to do. I was in a police station surrounded by police officers all of whom had guns in their pockets. I was lost. I needed help to get to Kathleen’s place. But this guy is a creep.
He whispered in my ear, “Come with me, I will show you many things.”

I jerked back and exclaimed that I thought I knew a way to track down the thief: my phone has anti-theft software installed and with a computer, we should be able track the phone. I figured that would get him to think about something other than seducing me, would maybe get me access to the internet to look up Kathleen’s address or somehow contact her and ask her to come rescue me, and maybe actually track the phone.

Pretty view from a bar in Lima at night, looking out towards Chorillos.

The ploy worked, and the captain called in the station’s tech guy. We spent the next hour and a half trying to figure out how to get my pone-tracking app to work to no avail, all the while the captain would come by periodically and put his hands on my shoulders and rub my back and check in. When he wasn’t looking, I tried to signal to the tech guy that I was seriously uncomfortable, help, but he gave me a clear, “dude’s the captain, ain’t nothing I can do about it” look in response. I was able to get to my email, though, and shot a “PLEASE COME GET ME!” email to Kathleen, and looked up her address.

I told the officers Kathleen’s address and said I needed to get there, but they ignored me. The captain was determined to keep me there as long as possible. He had more slideshows that I needed to see.

“You come with me. I will show you Peru. You will be safe with me. I am a police captain. Nobody will mess with you if you are with me. I have guns.” He pointed to the gun at his hip, then winked.
“My friend has waiting for me for hours. She is probably really worried. Please, I need to go to my friend,” I pleaded.
“I will take you to your friend, but only if you will visit me. VISIT ME.” He demanded. Right, because hanging out with you in the police station is exactly how I want to spend my time in Lima?
“Here?” I asked, trying to show just how little desire I had to come back to the police station ever again.
“Yes, you will visit me here. And then I will take you to see Peru. You will be safe.” He paused for dramatic effect, put his hands on my shoulders, and winked again. “El único que no será segura es tu corazón." (the only thing that won’t be safe is your heart) I looked it up later just to make sure I hadn't mistaken the unbelievably corny line. How he managed to get that one out with a straight face I will never know.
 “I need to go to my friend.” Maybe tears will work, I thought. They weren’t hard to conjure up, stressed as I was. My eyes started to water.
“VISIT ME!” he demanded, shaking me. I nodded, and the first tear fell.
 “Good. Nonono, don’t cry, wait here, I will get a car.”

I was terrified and thought about bolting, but didn’t know where to go. I had Kathleen’s address now, but I didn’t know where I was or how to get there. And running from a police station seemed like a good way to get arrested. But I also did not want to get in a vehicle with Creepy Captain. I was frozen, not knowing what to do. I hoped that he would at least get me to Kathleen’s place and that I’d be safe once I was there.

He returned, “20 minutes, there will be a car,” followed by more photo show-and-tell and stories about how Peru is unsafe but I would be Safe With Him, and I was starting to wonder after 20 mins had passed if there was a car or if I’d be stuck there forever with him when a new officer walked in.

Much to my relief, he had been assigned to drive me to Kathleen’s place. The captain escorted me, hand on my back to the door, demanding, “Visitarme! Visitarme! VISITARME!” He blocked my way out the door.

It reminded me of my bus nightmare, and I had a flashback to the movie scene with the creepy guy yelling at the girl he had locked in his basement: “Obedéceme! Obedéceme! OBEDECAME!”

But I was almost a free woman, so I smiled and said, “Si,” and he let me pass, giving instructions to the driver that if a blonde girl (Kathleen) didn’t answer the door at the address he was not to let me out of the car, and was to return me to the police station. I worried about that, because I wasn’t sure Kathleen would be home, she had left instructions that one of the kids or housekeepers would be there to let me in, but decided not to explain that point until I was in the car and on the road.

The officer drove me the three minutes to Kathleen’s door, who happened to have just gotten back from her work at the university and was standing just inside the gate outside of the house when I arrived. I was insanely relieved. The police officer briefly questioned her and Marta, the housekeeper and, satisfied that I wasn’t being dropped off at a drug den, excused himself politely and left.

Wow, was I glad to see this person (and needed that beer)!

Lima Part II: Let's try this again...

Needless to say, I didn’t go back to the police station. Marta, however, later said that she saw police cars driving past the house several times that day, which was unusual, and she thought it was hilarious.

I was determined not to let the mugging get to me. Later that evening, Kathleen and I went out with the kids of the house to go check out some of the nicer parts of Lima: Barrancos, a funky and pretty little artsy (the kids said “hipster”) part of town, and we watched the sun set over the beach and got ceviche, which I was pumped about because I love ceviche and Peruvian ceviche is awesome. The next day we went to the beach (bringing nothing with us but our swimsuits and towels so that there was nothing to steal), which was one of Kathleen’s first escapes from what she called the “Princess Palace”. Turns out that the reason she thought the neighborhood was swanky and safe was that she never left the safety of the beautiful gated home surrounded by tall walls that she was staying in except under the escort of the family chauffeur. Our beach trip was a glorious dash for freedom. We had a few more unescorted adventures, including a trip out for some lunchtime exploring, another for evening beers, and a fascinating adventure when I tried to buy a plane ticket to Cusco and it involved taking questionable taxis around town trying to find a certain bank and then handing over a fat wad of cash at the bank to a series of mysterious numbers that had been dictated over the phone and that I had copied down on a scrap of paper, hoping all the while that I wasn’t just wiring money to some gangster and would actually get a ticket (I did).

Adventures in Peruvian banking. Pretty fancy system, pretty weird way to buy a plane ticket.

But the highlight of my few days visiting Kathleen in Lima was when she asked if I’d be willing to talk about microbial evolution in the earth science course she was teaching at the university. Would I be willing? To talk to a captive audience about, like, my very favorite thing? Ummmm, let me think for half a second… We laughed at each other one night when, although we had planned to “go out” and “have fun” that night, we instead stayed in and ate bland spaghetti while feverishly working on our talks for the morning, the funny part being that we wanted to be doing that, that that was more fun for us than “going out”, because SCIENCE! We nerd partied until the wee hours of morning.

I hadn’t gotten to talk about microbes in what felt like a really long time (almost a year), my thesis having morphed to be about stromatolites = rocks, and my South America Talk Tour being all about stromatolites. But although as my friend Vicky says it’s a terrible abusive relationship, my heart belongs to the microbes. Prepping my talk was an excellent excuse to read back through way too many fascinating papers about photosynthesis and microbial evolution, and it was wonderful.

Teaching microbial evolution in Kathleen's Earth Science class

Class the next morning was fun (for me at least, not sure about the students), we ate lunch, hung out and worked in her temporary office at the university, went out for a final beer, and the next morning after a stroll down the coast we were driven to the airport together. And the driver got in a car accident right under the exit sign for the airport. Luckily we were able to get another taxi from there, but it was one of those moments. We had lunch together at the airport before saying goodbye, Kathleen flying back to her shiny new job in Chicago, me off to Cusco.

Sign on the way to the airport. Kraps crackers! Can't stop eating Krap! Oh, and watch out, prematurely balding kid, there's a pedophilic cephalopod right behind you.

Our taxi got in a car accident right under the sign for the airport. Nice.

Kathleen, thanks for letting me visit, it was great to see you!

Concepción

I descended from the mountains with a single purpose: to fulfill my promise to Frank (my Ph.D. advisor) to visit Prof. Osvaldo Ulloa at the Universidad de Conceptión. I had been introduced to Osvaldo a month prior via an email in which I was introduced to a stranger as “Dr. Frantz” for the first time in my life, and had promised to get in touch as soon as I had definite plans for when I would be in the area.

Boats in the harbor at Dichato. HDR.

People who know me and who have been following this blog have probably noticed that “planning” when it comes to travel is not my forte. “Impulsive” probably best describes my traveling (and life) style. I go where the wind blows me when passion strikes. Except sometimes; somewhere buried in my subconscious is a fastidious little German that has stuck around despite generations of dilution. The little German occasionally wakes up and freaks the hell out about the lack of a plan and then I spend an exhausting day researching, spreadsheeting, plotting, planning, and mapping until I know where I’ll be down to the hour for the next 15 years. But then, satisfied, the little German goes back into hibernation and the rest of me goes back to ignoring the plan.

The blowing with the wind is fine for me, but when it comes to interacting with other humans things get tricky. If I’m told to be somewhere on a certain day at a certain time, I almost always manage (within a 20-60 minute buffer), but in the absence of someone else planning my life for me, I usually don’t have plans past the immediate present.

Osvaldo = Good Geobio People

Anyhow, all that is to say that I contacted Osvaldo less than 24 hours before I would be arriving in Conceptión, having decided all of 2 minutes prior that it was time to move on from Chillán. Luckily by the time I arrived Conceptión, Osvaldo had responded that, yes, it would be fine if I randomly appeared at his office to meet with him.

I am so glad I did (Frank is always right, Frank is always right, Frank is always right).

Unexpected treat in Concepción: the full-buffet breakfast including juices and cereals and cold cuts and *cake* (the first time I'd had anything other than toast for breakfast all month) at my hostel.

I wandered around most of the Universidad de Conceptión campus, thoroughly lost despite having downloaded a google map to my Kindle and written down Osvaldo’s office information from the internet. But I finally found the building that matched the “new building” and Oceanography keywords that I was working with, told the receptionist who I was looking for, and was immensely relieved to find I had arrived in the correct place. As I waited for Osvaldo to return from an errand it occurred to me that I had only a very vague idea of what the person I was looking for looked like--from his university profile photo online. But when Osvaldo walked in the door, big smile on his face, I knew that he was the geobiologist I was looking for.

Concepción was hit hard by the 2010 earthquake. Nearby beach towns were devastated by the resulting tsunami.

Most of the geobiology people I know are good people, one of many reasons I love the field. Osvaldo threw the geobiologist bell curve in the “awesome and nice” direction. Within about 20 minutes of conversation, he had me seriously considering applying for a postdoc position with him, and that is a hell of a feat, given that I went on this trip in part to temporarily escape having to apply for postdoc positions.

Lota. One of the poorest towns in Chile, but you can't beat that view. HDR.

Frank always says that there are three key factors to consider when choosing a job: the people, the location, and the work itself. And, “You usually only get to choose one, so prioritize.” Something I find incredibly difficult because all of those things are deeply important to me. But the six years in L.A. (where I loved the work and adored the people) taught me that location is something I can’t compromise on. 

I inherited a deep need to be in the mountains from my mother, one of the other reasons for this trip: I went crazy in L.A. and I’m making up for missed mountain time. But Conceptión is only, like, a two hour bus ride from world-class snowy mountains. That’s like a bad day in traffic in L.A. The people seemed wonderful (Chilean + geobiologist was bound to be a winning combination). As for Conceptión itself, it’s a medium-sized city, a little rough around the edges and not particularly scenic, but the university campus itself is beautiful and there are stunning places very close by.

Now I just have to decide if the work is what I want; there’s a potential for it to be exactly what I’m looking for, but I need more information and time to think about it. Exciting regardless, and gives me hope that I actually may want to be employed again in the not-too-distant future.

I <3 Chile.

I began next morning by dropping off some laundry (clean laundry for the first time in a month!!) and buying some emergency clothes since all of my clothes were filthy and needed laundering. Then I headed off for my first excursion: the abandoned coal mine Chiflón del Diablo. Osvaldo had suggested it as an interesting day trip, and I was sold when he told me that the mine actually went out under the ocean. 

After an hour and a half local bus ride I arrived in Lota, one of the poorest towns in all of Chile, crushed by the evaporation of the coal mining industry that had previously barely supported it but attempting (somewhat successfully) to rebrand itself as a tourist destination. I followed signs through residential streets to the mine, hoping to find some of the area’s legendary seafood along the way. Alas, in the end I came up empty and had to be satisfied with a granola bar I had been smart enough to stash in my purse beforehand.

The miner's housing at el Chiflón del Diablo. HDR.

Immediately after paying the tour fee I was swept along with a very nice Chilean family also there for the tour by our guide. Our guide spoke broken English and occasionally translated a bit of what he was saying. Between translations, I desperately attempted to pick out words from what sounded like very interesting and dramatic stories he told to the family. 

The mine is famous for its inhumane working conditions, and there was an inescapable air of sadness inside. Our guide was terrific, and I really wish I had been able to understand him better, but in addition to his stories he had a very good photographic eye and took photos of us along the way. It was awkward: do you smile in pictures at a mine that crushed the lives of so many people? It felt a bit like taking selfies during a concentration camp tour. It was fascinating and I was very glad I went, but I was also very relieved to breathe fresh air once the two-hour tour was over.

At el Chiflón del Diablo. Do they count as selfies if someone else takes the photos?

I went out for beer that evening with Osvaldo and his lab group—a really fun bunch of folks. When I returned to my hotel I was still hungry, went in search of a quick snack (I had a hunger for empanadas). That explains how I ended up in a karaoke bar (they promised that they had empanadas). They didn’t have empanadas (liars!), they only had expensive appetizer platters, but by that point I felt famished and the free Pisco I was given at the door had kicked in and I ordered and ate the entire giant appetizer platter by myself. And then signed myself up to sing “House of the Rising Sun” since, hell, I was there, and obviously somebody needed to start the karaoke party. And then got talked into doing a duet of “Easy like Sunday Morning” (really? Haha) with the bartender. And then went home and crashed hard.

Osvaldo picked me up the following morning to go with him, his son, and a friend to a beach cleanup, which he had mentioned on my first visit with him and thought sounded like a nice way to see the area. What I didn’t know was that the beach cleanup was at the site of the old Marine Science lab, where Osvaldo used to have his lab and which was demolished during the 2010 tsunami. 

The battered shell of the marine research lab post-tsunami. HDR.

Driving through the town (Dichato) and hearing Osvaldo’s stories about the devastation, the homes destroyed, the businesses devoured, the corpses washed up on shore, was heartbreaking and surreal. But what really hit me was arriving at the research station, a place that reminded me so much of the Wrigley Center on Catalina Island or even more the Marine Biology Lab at Woods Hole, and seeing the ruins:

The half-standing lab benches. 
The sea tables with broken tiles.
The sun-rotted shelves that had once held bottles of media.
The pieces of a kelp mural on a crumbled wall.
The debris filling a basement that had once been a culturing facility but now looks like a scene out of a WWII movie, of a bombed shelter, chunks of concrete and metal making an ugly shell out of what had once been a home to world-class science.

Mural still visible on a remaining wall of the destroyed Marine Science lab at Dichato. HDR.

Unsurprisingly, two of the graduate students who had been at the lab when the tsunami hit were traumatized, one never returning and the other returning only after years in therapy. Just seeing the aftermath, three years later, was heart-wrenching.

The 20-some students who had arrived for the cleanup made quick work of the beach. They filled at least as many trash bags full of chunks of rebar, pieces of roof, and lab tiles as they did with the more typical Styrofoam, glass, and cigarette butts. Picking pieces of research lab out of the sand was a hard feeling.

Universidad de Conceptión Students at the Dichato beach cleanup. HDR.

After the cleanup, Osvaldo took me to see his home on the beach in a spectacular spot overlooking the ocean in a quiet village just outside Dichato. We had excellent seafood at a local restaurant as well as “cold tea” which is secret code for white wine, which the restaurants aren’t technically permitted to sell. A breathtaking part of the world, but the homes on stilts and tsunami warning signs were a constant reminder of the horror the region had so recently been through.

Boat on the beach of Dichato. HDR.

I returned to my hostel, stricken by the things I had seen during the two days in Conception, but also impressed by the resilience of people like Osvaldo who had to rebuild their lives (and labs) from scratch after the devastating earthquake and tsunami, and like the residents of Lota, rebuilding and reinventing their lives following the shutdown of the industry that once supported them. Respect.

The next morning I returned to my beloved mountains with a bug in my brain about the possibility for making Chile my home for more than traveling trip through planted.

More photos from Concepción in the Picasa album.