On the 6th of December 2003, when I should have been Christmas shopping, I was nursing a king-size hangover after a works Christmas Do, so I sloped off to the cinema instead.
I’d already read Touching the Void, an amazing book & was eager to see the film.
In the 106 minutes that followed a massively influential seed was planted.
Peru!
I’d been in a relationship that had recently broken down. I wanted to travel, but didn’t want to just booze my way around the globe (as fun as that would be), so I looked at various volunteering possibilities.
I sold my campervan, most of my worldly goods & my house & enrolled on a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course. I wrapped up my job at the British Library, a job that I loved (in contrast to most people that I met later on in my travels, who had left jobs that they hated), bought a round-the-World ticket (£891 & pushed it to within 8 miles of the limit), packed my bag, a flurry of last-minute-stuff & on the 4th June 2004 I jumped on a flight to Lima (& somehow got upgraded to First Class, something that has never happened since).
The views were unreal over the endless Amazon & then over the Andes, which looked huge even from up in a plane. Then we entered a big black cloud & landed in Lima.
6pm & it was pitch black!
I was expecting mountains & llamas; I got a limping chaos traffic jam & smog!
I hadn’t really done my homework.
I was born & brought up in the Lakes, before a string of house moves (32 up to now) landed me in Leeds: A small & rather civilised city compared to the 12 million folk who squeeze in to Lima’s stretching boundaries. However, after a very short time I really felt at home & there was something about the place that I really, really loved.
I struggled so much with the lingo. (Spanish is spoken in all of Latin America, along with local dialects, apart from Brazil which is a Portuguese speaking country).
With no formal lessons, I naively thought that it would just “click” with me being surrounded/immersed in it. How wrong I was!
If I had been perhaps 4yrs old, maybe, but for the first 3 months it was just a world of confusion. One BIG problem was the fact that I couldn’t (& still can’t) roll my “RRRRRRR”.
This would come back to haunt me.
Lima is a place that most travellers only pass through, on their way to more exotic/loftier places.
Peru is divided into 3 distinct regions; the coast (which is also a desert), the Sierra (the Andes) & the jungle (Amazon). If you walked inland from the Pacific & headed west you would cross all three regions & experience 3 very different climates/landscapes/people/foods/cultures.
Lima itself has a really strange microclimate, affected by the Humboldt current, so that in summer it is cloaked in grey cloud (a bit like a Redcar sea fret!)
It never really rains & it never really shines, yet travel for an hour to the hills outside of Lima & you’ll be basked in sun. In summer it is hot & sweaty, in winter it is cool & humid.
(An Englishman with a fascination for the weather!)
The food is a well-kept secret; Over 365 national dishes & a national obsession.
“Have you tried., have you tried.?”
I noticed that people would even get animated about food after the heaviest meal & if you want to start a conversation with anyone, food is a good bet!
So many things fascinated me that would just seem normal to most locals.
Especially the transport system.
(Which I won’t go into now, another time.)
Sandboarding on huge dunes, looking for giant shark’s teeth with an ex-grave robber in the desert, white-water rafting, surfing (badly), dog sleighing, 75hr bus rides, TV interviews, mountain biking & many other amazing (& sometimes confusing) experiences.
The thing about Latin America (especially in Bolivia) is that the key is to be flexible; otherwise one would quite quickly go mad.People are late, buses/trains knock all the time, road-blocks/strikes are common, things are postponed/cancelled without reason, but if you go-with-the-flow, it all (kind of) works out.
I worked as a volunteer EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher at a Lima Orphanage.
It was a life changing experience.
I left Peru after 3mths to go travelling round Bolivia, back to Peru, Argentina, Chile, NZ, Australia, and Indonesia & although I had planned to go round SE Asia & China, I decided that Peru was where I really wanted to be. As one can only go one-way on a round the World ticket, I flew back to Blighty for a week, sold some more bits & bobs, re-packed & flew back to Peru.
I had big ideas (& big hair, having grown dreadlocks. They had to go, job prospects are not good for teachers with dreads), but as I didn’t have many contacts (the key to finding a job), I really struggled & at one point I was juggling 6 different part time numbers & spending more time on buses commuting, than actually teaching.
I survived on a daily diet of 5 bananas, 5 bread buns, a tin of tuna & a packet of supernoodles (grand total ~£1). I ran every day, I was fit & lean (& knackered), I had very little in the way of material items, not much opportunity to travel (apart from my daily expeditions on the buses) I was genuinely happy _
Not better, nor worse than my old life in Blighty, just different.
Then I met Lina.
A lass I fell for hook-line-&-sinker. After 5 weeks I proposed, at least I think I did, as there are 3 words that sound very similar in Spanish; casar (get hitched), cazar (go hunting) or casa (a house).
After popping the question, there was a l-o-n-g pause.
“Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?”(Had I asked her to go hunting?)
“Yes, I think I am”
She said “Si”!
All of this rambling may not really seem like a Daring Deed, but after returning back to Blighty in 2006, I have struggled to settle.
Peru kept drawing me back & was always a big part of my daily thoughts.
I worked shifts in a Brewery for 7yrs & also did some volunteer ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teaching at a local community centre.
Teaching is something that I really, really love. Shifts were something that I definitely didn’t love.
Although we travelled quite a lot, after a while I felt that careerwise, I wasn’t really going anywhere & my itchy feet became even itchier.
The little Nipper, Valentina came along in March 2014, awhole new adventure & a very steep (but enjoyable) learning curve.
Then after 8 years of nagging/sulking, Lina finally gave in (which makes me look/sound like a bad husband) and we decided to “give it a go” & head back to Peru, with the bairn!
We agreed that it was a case of now-or-never.The Nipper being of an age where a move wouldn’t affect her development, as much as it would, if she was at school.
Tickets booked, notice handed in, enrolled on CELTA course, start making lists.
I left work at the end of October & then did my CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course in November, a very intensive 4wk Language Training Course & my first full-time course since leaving school (a l-o-n-g time ago).
Anyway, as the New Year approaches, we are busy packing, re-packing & trying to get our bags under the magic 23kg.We’ll be leaving for a new life in Lima on the 2nd January!
No job to go to, but feeling optimistic (hopeful!)
Hoping that more Daring Deeds will follow.
Regular-ish updates on the blog too.
Watch this space _
Feliz Navidad y próspero Año Nuevo a todos!!!
Johnny, Tadcaster, 26/12/14
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