Dame más Cuarentena
Bet you weren’t expecting a travel blog post right now. To be fair, this probably won’t be much of a post. Despite everything that’s changed over the past month, I did very little for most of it. I’m writing this to provide some semblance of closure to this whole trip, and to give my (severely boring) side of the ongoing #StuckInPeru debacle.
Before the Quarantine
A month ago, back when life was still fun, I had my nice apartment in Barranco and a rental car. I got a little more comfortable with Peruvian driving, but I was still stressed every time I got behind the wheel. Driving in Lima is something else. I feel like there are some low-hanging improvements that could be made such as removing all humongous unmarked speed bumps in areas that are already major traffic bottlenecks, as well as outlawing using your hazards as an excuse to park in the middle of the highway. But hey, I’m no urban planner.
I had a good streak of surf before the quarantine. I took another drive down to Punta Hermosa and got some fun waves:
After daylight savings in the states, I effectively had an extra hour after work to surf around Lima:
Parking is half the battle when surfing in Lima
I was enjoying my routine of surfing, eating delicious food, meeting people, and working in favorable internet conditions.
I think this massive plate of arroz con mariscos and ceviche mixto was ~$8
At this point, confirmed Covid cases were in the single or double digits in most South American countries. I was planning on going to Ecuador, but decided to spend another week in Lima to give myself some more time to plan. I booked a more modest apartment in Miraflores within walking distance of the surf, hauled my stuff across town, and returned my rental car.
La Cuarentena
A few days into my stay in Miraflores, the president ordered a 15 day quarantine and full closure of the Peruvian border. All businesses were closed except grocery stores and hospitals. This announcement came on a Sunday night, the quarantine was to start on Monday morning and all flights after Monday night were to be cancelled.
The announcement was super abrupt, as the case numbers in Peru were relatively low at the time and life had been totally normal in the city earlier that day. I was definitely caught off guard. I had to work during the day on Monday, so I didn’t make a serious attempt to gather up my things and flee the country. Apparently, most people that did try to leave were unable to, as flights instantly got booked and the airport turned to pandemonium. This resulted in thousands of tourists being stuck in Peru, and I was one of them.
Pretty quickly it became apparent that Peru wasn’t messing around about the quarantine. There were police and military in the streets making sure anyone who was out was either getting groceries or going to the doctor. They implemented a curfew from 8pm-5am where anyone outside would be arrested. No more surfing. No more delicious Peruvian food.
#YoMeQuedoEnCasa
For me personally, quarantine life really wasn’t that bad. I was able to extend my stay at the place I was at, I had a major supermarket within walking distance, and a lot of my time was taken up by work. My life just became really small and boring. Everyday kinda felt like being snowed in except way more humid and without the sledding or interpersonal contact.
But a lot of American tourists began panicking. A WhatsApp group was created with hundreds of Americans stranded in Lima. People were tirelessly calling the embassy, raising hell on social media, and reaching out to reporters and politicians trying to pressure the US to get some planes to Peru.
For many days, this effort amounted to nothing other than a few measly articles in lesser known publications. I stayed pretty disengaged from the fray, besides checking the group thread periodically to sift through hundreds of messages for any critical info.
Thankfully I at least had a spot to hang the rings and do record-breaking numbers of jumping jacks.
It was strange seeing such a hectic city become so quiet and empty.
Eventually the embassy started organizing repatriation flights. Everyday, a batch of people would sound off in the WhatsApp group saying they got called to be on a flight the next day. The process was fairly mysterious with calls seeming to come in late at night telling people to be ready to leave early the next morning.
4 or 5 days into this process, I got the call. I gathered up my stuff, called out of work the next day, and did my best to eat through my remaining food.
Repatriation
I took a taxi to the embassy the next morning. We were stopped several times along a twenty minute drive to show travel permits and identification.
There was a big line at the embassy which lead to several buses that took everyone to a special US-controlled hangar in the Lima Airport where we waited for our plane. Everyone had to sign a piece of paper saying they’d pay the bill for the flight whenever it was sent out and for whatever it ended up costing. Not the best customer experience, but if ever there was a captive market, it was us.
Trump told me these wipes were a very promising Covid disinfectant.
Social distancing minus the distancing.
The whole process went pretty smoothly albeit with healthy doses of waiting around. We eventually boarded a normal commercial jet operated by United and flew to Dulles airport.
We landed in Dulles at around 2 am. There was no viral-screening process, they just waved us through customs and everyone was on their own to get home. I booked the next flight to Boston which wasn’t until the morning.
After failing to sleep, I drowsily walked up to the United desk and proceeded to get blasted by baggage fees. I flew around the world on this trip, and the most I had to pay (by a factor of 3) for my boardbag was for an hour flight from DC to Boston. C’est la vie.
So now I’m back in Massachusetts at an airbnb in Quincy, hilariously close to where I was living before I left the states. It feels surreal being back, like delayed onset déjà vu or something.
What’s next? Oh right, nothing.
When I started this trip, I had a tentative plan to travel for about a year. Five months into the trip, the world started melting down and the concept of international travel now seems to be dead for the foreseeable future. Of all the hardships caused by the virus, having to cut my freewheeling travel plans short is probably the least sympathetic and least important.
So any further travel plans are indefinitely on hold, obviously. And I guess that means this is the final update to the blog, at least for awhile.
Thanks to everyone who followed along, it was really comforting knowing people were watching from afar. Special thanks to anyone who reached out encouraging me to keep writing.
It was a hell of a trip.