Where I've Been: Peru

The following post is written by the brilliant Eddie Schmid, who works here at the Where I've Been HQ. Eddie recently returned from his trip to Peru and has already shared around 48969346 travel tales with me. Here's a snippet of his adventures below:

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We had just sat down for dinner with our new Peruvian friend, Jesus, and I was curious about the origins of his French last name.

"It's actually a very popular name in Peru," he said. "My grandfather gave birth to 64 children."

Jesus had been our wine tour guide earlier in the day and kindly invited us to dinner, mostly because he likes to meet new people but also because he likes to practice his English. At this juncture, I thought it reasonable to imagine he meant to say "16 children," or perhaps "anywhere from four to six children." Men "giving birth" could also be considered problematic.

But Jesus remained forthright, and his English was already good enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Jesus watched our jaws drop, and probably thought it fair to give some background to his grandfather's, erm, "experiences."

"You have to remember," he said. "At this time there were no iPods, no television, nothing."

Did Jesus just equate the act of lovemaking with listening to his most recent On-the-Go playlist? In a word, yes. I laughed until I thought I'd choke on my kebab.

He smiled. "In Peru, anything is possible."

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While promiscuity may have been the focus of Jesus' final statement, it's hard to argue with his belief in the general sense. While barely scratching the surface, Peru showed me both glaciers and desert, bustling metropolises and quaint towns, lavish wealth and unthinkable poverty. Living within such extremes, you might expect its residents to be driven slightly batty. But despite my painfully evident gringo status, I can't count one instance where I felt unwelcome--the Peruvians I met were unfailingly friendly and generous. One minute a dude might be telling you about the process of fermenting grapes and the next you could be out learning about his redwood-sized family tree.

Over the next few blog posts, I'm going to outline a bit of the marvel that made Peru one of the most rewarding trips I've taken--stories, tips, reviews--and hopefully I can convince you to add it to your list of dream destinations. In the meantime, I'll be reminiscing and thinking of the day when I get to go back--and marking Peru on my Where I've Been map.

Eddie
Where I've Been