Boldly going where local folks go all the time...

So, I have an adventurous tale for you. It features me, the intreped seeker-of-water-slash-bioarchaeologist. Yesterday being Sunday, I decided to use my time by going south in search of undisturbed water systems. I couldn't find a decent map of the area (Lonely Planet has never heard of these places, and the museum has detailed maps for Moquegua but not the valleys south). I spent a dizzying time on Google Earth, and then received advice from Bruce and Yumilex and Marcos at the museum. They decided my best bet was to get water at the Sama bridge, then backtrack to the town of Locumba, and perhaps proceed to Tacna and then the mouth of the Sama river from there. This involved hitting three different rivers at various points. I had a hand drawn map in ball point pen in hand and was feeling good, so I headed down to the bus depot.

I wasn't actually looking for a bus. I was looking for a car. There are two kinds of colectivos here. I told you about the mini-bus sort of colectivo. The other kind is essentially a personal car which drives back and forth between places, carrying passengers. This is fairly informal, but there's a set price that all drivers charge to go to Tacna - 20 soles (about $7).

I told my driver I was only going to the Sama bridge. As it turned out, I got out at the Camiara Bridge, which is the river that flows through Locumba. Somehow this made more sense to me. I got my sample, climbed up the bank, and found another colectivo (of the minibus variety) which took me to the sweet little town of Locumba. Along the way we had a slight delay when we ran out of gas, and the driver grabbed a 1.5L pop bottle full of gasoline out of the back and poured it into the tank. That took us the rest of the way up the hill. Hooray.

Locumba has a few paved roads, a very pretty church next to the town plaza, and an enormous and professional looking soccer stadium (priorities, doncha know). A walkway led down from town to the stadium, and several of the townspeople gathered at the top with their chairs and their snacks to watch over the stadium walls. I walked on down the path and over to the river and took my sample, feeling mighty good to be outdoors and near a river.

When I got back up the hill, there was another collectivo in the plaza, on its way to Tacna. This was working out perfectly!!! I hopped in, and after a brief stop at the local police academy (where we were picking up visitors after family day), we headed off to Tacna. Along the way, we passed the Sama Bridge, where the river was very very low. This was a potential problem. The mouth of the Sama River was my goal for the evening, and it was likely to be much lower there. But, I was smooshed into the back of a colectivo, and had a vision of my goal, and I kept on riding to Tacna.

From there, I found a local bus going to Boca del Rio (the mouth of the river) which is also a popular seaside resort town, according to my Lonely Planet. I had fabulous visions of a seafood dinner and an evening walk on the beach to the mouth of the river for my sample gathering.

Yeah. Well. It didn't really work out that way.

We got to Boca del Rio about 7pm, and it was full on dark, and totally shut down. There was nothing resort looking about the place. About now I asked about when the bus was returning to Tacna and found out that it wasn't going back until the next day. Okay, well somehow I still thought that the cute and resorty part of town must be just ahead and I'd stay on the bus until we got there. Yeah. So the bus stops at the town just north of Boca del Rio, called Vila Vila. There are no hotels of any sort in Vila Vila. There is one restaurant. It sells sandwiches. The sandwiches are french fries and sliced hotdogs on hamburger buns. That's the menu. So, not being a meat eater, I had a french fry sandwich while trying to figure out what to do. (It was actually not bad.) My bus driver had helped me out with a few choices. I could sleep on the bus. I could sleep in his living room (this actually seemed to be a very innocent and helpful offer). Or, I could wait on this random street corner he showed me where a guy with a car came by every night at 8:20 to take people to Boca del Rio. I decided on the third option.

But, while waiting there, I bought myself a bottle of water. The man there told me that a bus going to Tacna ran by town on the main road at 8pm, and would stop for passengers if I got there in time. So much for the guy with the car. I booked it back uphill to the road, caught the bus, made it to Tacna, found a car to Moquegua, and was back in town by 11:15pm. Whew! What a night!

The whole thing was a bit silly as far as the water fetching project (other than the first two stops, I got no samples and probably they wouldn't have been worthwhile anyway given the low river level). But it was an adventure, and it all came out well. Everyone I asked for directions or help was truly nice to me. I really have never felt threatened in Peru. It's a great country.

Livin' the traveller's life,

Karen