In this first article in my new topic luck during travel, I will talk about my experience in Peru. In 2009 I went to Peru with my High school. This was a life changing trip, and I became travel addicted. However we were also lucky during this trip.
On Friday morning we left Lima and went to the dessert. At the beginning of the afternoon we arrived at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. The girls were told to stay in this restaurant while we, as the boys, were going out to collect some essential stuff for our camping trip in the dessert.
Bullet hole in taxi
Standing next to the road in the middle of nowhere in the beginning of the dessert we tried to find a taxi. Finally we found two taxis that were willing to take us into the centre. This was the start of our adventure. We put us self down into the taxi and realised that the back window contained a bullet hole. The stories from the taxi driver confirmed us that this area isn’t the safest in Peru.
In the centre it was essential to stick together. Not really aware about the amount of danger in those cities. We were still happily walking around and be fascinated with such a local market. The market was crowded, noisy and contained a mixture of smells of fruit, vegetables and fresh butchered meat. We found in the end all the stuff what we needed and went back to the taxi driver.
Happily on the market
Arrived at that taxi driver we realized we didn’t have everything so our guide went back to a shop to buy some other materials we needed. In the mean time the taxi driver took a truncheon out of the car and walked around the car while he moved the truncheon around in the air.
Luckily our guide came back soon and we were able to go back to the restaurant just outside of the village. We safely arrived at the restaurant and in the end only our alcohol for cooking was stolen. I didn’t realise we were in such a dangerous situation till we told our story. But even then it all looked quite normal. This all changed one year later when I read a news article about a group of students who did a quite similar trip as us. This group got robbed in the same dessert, bullets were fired and one of the teachers was hit in his knee. After reading this story I realised we were quite lucky that day.
