Raging Debate Over Peru Continues on Travelojos

Peru has taken a real beating lately on Travelojos. It all started a couple of weeks ago in a post about travel writer Jens Porup’s harsh characterization of the country. Since then Travelojos readers have weighed in both for and against Peru.

While most readers said they believed Porup’s assessment of the country was unfair, there were some who agreed with him.

One commenter, Josie, said Porup’s allegations against Peru were all true and added a few more of her own. She said she’s been working as a researcher there for five months now and believes, among other things, that:

• the taxi drivers are dishonest,
• robberies are rampant,
• the nationalism is insane,
• the racism is horrid,
• Lima’s air is disgusting, and
• the driving is exceptionally dangerous.

All of this was too much for commenter, Carmen Tomas, who said:

This comment is completely and utterly absurd; to attempt to apply these vicious stereotypes to all people within a single nation and claim it is authentic because you have spent a few months in the capital city is offensive, malicious and deeply, deeply racist. For those of you who do travel to Peru or spend any time living here, use the same common sense as you would in any country, region, district, city or neighbourhood anywhere in the world and you will not fail to enjoy yourself.

I’d like to know just what exactly Josie is doing in a part of the world that she so obviously despises. Far from being an effect of culture shock, this seems to be an unreasonable attempt to demonize the entire population of her HOST COUNTRY where she is no doubt directly benefiting from living in.

Get out of here and leave it to those of us with open minds who love Peru and its people.

As with any country the world over, and especially in the developing world, there are of course problems in Peru. But to say that these occur solely as a result of their being in Peru and to imply that Peruvians alone are the instigators of these problems? This is nothing short of ludicrous, shoddy and prejudiced slander borne of a completely narrow minded attitude. Not only that, the comment seems to focus entirely on problems within Lima, yet the author applies this to the rest of Peru … a city of 8 million people is not a microcosm of an expansive country a further two times its size of population, neither is any minority of malicious people within that city.

In regard to Josie’s “it’s all true” acclamation of Jens Porups deeply questionable and prejudiced opinions about Peru, I would like to highlight the following, notwithstanding that Jens should be thouroughly ashamed of such prejudicous and irresponsible musings.

The water is poisonous in certain parts of Lima where the river Rimac has become polluted as a result of there being no proper waste disposal system, and upstream from Lima at the town of La Oroya where there is a high concentration of smelting plants. Other rivers in Peru and the Amazon have been polluted by the actions of foreign mining, and gas extraction companies too due to poor waste disposal, but these are far from being exclusive problems to Peru. Unfortunately there are many parts of the developing world where people are without safe drinking water due to pollution. For those, such as Josie, who have the privilege of affording bottled water in Peru, this is perfectly safe to drink, and I would be more concerned about the fact it is sourced from melting glaciers.

Moreover of Porup’s thoughts, when visiting a country in a different part of the world for the first time, surely he must be aware that diahorrea is not an uncommon occurrence. Aside from this inevitable problem that is borne from alien microbes in a foreign climate, many Peru restaurants have meticulous hygiene standards, and it goes without saying that they almost uniformly serve absolutely delicious food. Be prepared for adjusting your stomach wherever you travel abroad; not just in Peru, and even Colombia.

With regard to Josie’s other opinions, I would like to say the following in response.

As with any multi-million population city in the world, people do get robbed in Lima every day, an unfortunate occurrence that thankfully rarely involves any incident of injury or death. To say that robbery is exclusive to Lima, however, and moreover that it is more regular here, is tremendously naïve, a stance supported by no statistical backing that I have ever seen.

Peru is a poor country where taxi drivers are constantly competing to make a living. The un-metered system of taxiing means that they may attempt to charge more where they can. There is a simple solution to this, however, which also goes a long way to solving the problem: Don’t accept what you do not think is a reasonable fare and go to the next taxi driver. You are in no way obliged to travel with the first taxi driver you come to. What is more, there are several taxi drivers who make an honest living by providing a secure service – try typing “taxi seguro lima” into google. Taxi prices, even when inflated, are most reasonable.

Moreover – and it is terrible to say – that misogyny is and has been present within every country on earth all throughout human history, not just in 21st century Peru, and so this can hardly be described as a national trait, no matter how unacceptable a practice this is in any country.

In addition, I would point out that human beings both Peruvian and non-Peruvian, can often lie. And that nationalism has reached insane levels not just in Peru, but also elsewhere around the world. how can you possibly go so far as to say that this is just a problem in Peru?

Yes! Lima’s air is disgusting! For around 7 months of the year it is affected by the interaction between the Antarctic Humboldt current and the El Niño tropical current, causing huge swathes of clouds to form around the city, but this phenomenon disappears in summer. The pollution, as with many cities in the world that both have and have not yet developed efficient systems of mass transit (Bogota, Santiago, Los Angeles) is indeed very bad. In Lima these syncronised occurances are an unfortunate combination, though you can by no means lay the blame for the geographical position of Lima on the entire Peruvian people; please refer to the history books for that particular folly.

Moving on throughout your comment, the statement about racism is inconceivably hypocritical; how can you possibly say that “the racism here is horrid”? All racism is horrid and to single out Peruvian “mestizos” as being particularly racist is, in itself, a completely racist statement.

Traffic problems exist on every mountain road, not just in Peru. Are you actually saying that people are driving manically because they are Peruvian? And that Peruvian drivers, alone, are retarded? And that every single Peruvian in the same position would do the same thing? And that all non-Peruvians would slow down? Perplexing.

Photo by thejourney1972 (Via Creative Commons)