Heading to Southern Peru

Up at 5:30am to get the bus to Arequipa.  It was a very interesting trip through a variety of colourful towns and driving by fields of maize, grazing cows and sheep.  Peru is, strangely enough, a country where acriculture has increased as an economic activity.  While agrarian pursuits form an increasingly small percentage of a most Western countries' GDP, this does not appear to be the case for Peru.  In fact, their farming methods are still decades behind with manual tilling of fields (including women in traditional dress - knee socks, skirts, shawl, hat and braided hair) de rigeur in most regions. 

Chatted to a lawyer-judge on teh bus whose English was very good.  He was the first professional I´d met in what seems to be country of subsistence farmers and abject poverty.  The other main job seems to be selling junk food and other comestibles at local markets and bus stations.  At the latter location, women shout behind the fence, arms extended through the barrier holding their wares for sale: breads, cups of jello, bags of juice etc. 

Such simple life, however, lends itself to a rather charming countryside.  Fields with houses made of mud bricks and Inca fences packed on the sides.  The bus is also filled with curious faces at the sight of a gringo (i.e. me).  Most are friendly, but I really must improve my Spanish in order to more fully appreciate their warmth.  (BTW - the onboard entertainment consists of mainly 80s b-movies eg. Dolf Lungrin, translated into Spanish, as well as Peruvian Musak, a combination of various 50s American pop songs and homegrown ditties, the words to which many female passengers seem to recognize).