Bleak

This will just be a hasty bulletin from the road. North coastal Peru is a bleak desert, and the sun is scorching. There are as many goats as people. We are feeling sad not to be in Ecuador any more. Bright spots: the border was very chill, especially in comparison to Central America, and the plantain chips are fried more, and therefore tastier.

Tonight we are in Piura, in one of the few parqueos that does not double as a chicken run.

Three hours later. We were kicked out of our previous parqueo by a smug, rude attendant. He wouldn´t hear of us staying inside the car for the night like we usually do. We drove in circles and circles around the city, looking for another parqueo that would take us. We tried lots of parking lots, and they kept saying they were full, even though they appeared to be almost empty. We thought we´d been blackballed by the Parqueos of Piura because we hadn´t paid the rude guy for the short time we´d stayed. We were imagining armies of small, speedy minions dashing around town telling parqueo owners "not the white van." We eventually found a parqueo that would take us. Guess which one it is?? Lucky us, it´s the one with lots of chickens. Even luckier, we´re right next to them.

The traffic here is nutty, too. In other cities, either the streets or the avenues had the right of way. Not here. If you want to cross a stream of traffic, you just edge out into it and hope that everyone´s going slow enough to stop before they hit you.