{"id":5608,"date":"2020-01-20T17:11:59","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T01:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5608"},"modified":"2020-01-20T17:11:59","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T01:11:59","slug":"unexpected-general-st-martin-peru-01-18-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=5608","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected – General St Martin, Peru – [01\/18\/2020]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Peru is not necessarily what you expect it to be. Well, unless you\u2019ve been there before and you expect it to be a little dodgy, a little dirty and involve a lot of very long bus rides (oh so many bus rides). It\u2019s also a great place to get really cool handy crafts, but the only llama you\u2019ll see unless you go on tour are the super fluffy toy alpacas that they sell at the markets (I now own one of those, three seasons in South America, I developed a sudden need for a fluffy llama in my life.)<\/p>\n

The buses we\u2019ve been trundling back and forth on to various markets of all sizes in the last few days have waded through tight and busy streets surrounded by buildings that in some ways reminded me strongly of the landscapes I see in the post-apocalyptic video games that Amras and I play; all fallen brick and browned white-wash. Even the patches of green -while well cared for \u2013 look dusty and somehow neglected under the grey-washed sky. It\u2019s sobering really, because as you\u2019re sitting there bored on the bus, you can\u2019t help but realize that this is the way the vast majority of the world lives \u2013 in this dusty, somehow sorrowful, unfinished feeling state.<\/p>\n

We are so so lucky.<\/p>\n

Of course, after several days of doing nothing but riding buses through what felt like nowhere to<\/em> what felt like nowhere, if we didn\u2019t see something<\/em> of actual interest soon we were going to go a little bit crazy.<\/p>\n

One of the most amazing sites that you can see in Peru without having to take a tour inland (in which case the obvious choice would be Maachu Picchu), is the Candelabra. Carved into the hardened soil of the hillside just outside the harbor to General St Martin, it soars over 800ft high and bears a sharp resemblance to the world famous Nazca Lines. Historical theorists claim that it was carved as a marker for sailors as early as the year 200BC, but no one is really sure that it isn\u2019t older than that, and no one is 100% sure that that was it\u2019s original purpose. Like the Nazca Lines, it remains one of the earth\u2019s mysteries. When you see it on the wall (and it\u2019s not actually that easy to spot at first), it reminds you a little of giant child\u2019s drawing, as if some alien toddler got loose with the family lazer-pen and decided to scribble on some walls.<\/p>\n

It was\u2026breath-taking.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, you are just going about your life, and you can be completely bored and blah about everything and something unexpected comes along and makes you realize just how awe-inspiring the world can really be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peru is not necessarily what you expect it to be. Well, unless you\u2019ve been there before and you expect it to be a little dodgy, a little dirty and involve a lot of very long bus rides (oh so many … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grand-south-america-antarctica-2020"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-1ss","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5610,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608\/revisions\/5610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}