Reporting from Peru: a tourist's perspective

“Get out of Lima as soon as possible,” said my friend, who visited Peru last summer, when I told him I was planning a reporting trip to the country for 17 writers from the Yale Globalist.

For two weeks, as part of its annual student trip, we were to conduct interviews and research in Peru for the Globalist. As a trip leader and a co-editor for the magazine, I helped students find their sources for articles about quinoa production, intellectual property rights for indigenous people, the effects of the mining industry on public health, Peruvian surfing culture, Afro-Peruvian music, and ayahuasca tourism.

Others echoed my friend’s sentiment, advising me to spend no more than one night in Lima if necessary. Furthermore, the travel blogs I browsed focused primarily on areas more popular with tourists, such as Cusco and the Sacred Valley, home of the famous Machu Picchu.

My co-leader, Micaela Bullard, however, grew up in Lima and couldn’t wait to help a new group of travelers explore the city. We stayed at a hostel in Miraflores, a popular district of Lima, which was across the street from Parque Kennedy, where dozens of cats roam freely and snuggle with visitors. The hostel was also a short walk from Parque del Amor, where paragliders launch from the cliffs to sail over Lima’s beaches and couples watch the sunset seated on a wall mosaic that features quotes about love from Peruvian poets.

Micaela and I agreed that one full week in Lima would give the journalists in our group the opportunity to find sources for their articles. Afterward, we split into two groups: Micaela’s group explored Cusco and the Sacred Valley while my group traveled to Puerto Maldonado and the surrounding rain forest.

In spite of my initial skepticism towards Lima, I was surprised by how quickly my seven days in the city filled with activities, some planned, but most spontaneous. For example, during our last day in Lima, I spent my first hour waiting in line at ScotiaBank to withdraw cash for our trip dinners — mundane, but necessary. When I returned to the hostel, one of my fellow trip members, Gabriella, asked me to help translate an interview with a man (Micaela’s friend’s boyfriend’s friend) who frequently uses ayahuasca, a legal plant-based drug that causes hallucinations, vomiting, and, according to many who have experienced it, spiritual encounters. Since Gabriella is writing about the ayahuasca tourism industry in Peru, she is trying to collect as many stories and experiences as possible (without actually trying it of course).

During the interview at a nearby park, we were distracted by paragliders soaring above Lima’s famous cliffs. We rushed to the Parque el Amor after the interview and were soon in the air. I ended my day with an interview at Madam Tusan’s, an upscale Chinese-Peruvian fusion restaurant, where the chef brought dish after dish of fried rice, steamed buns, and noodles for me to taste (travel journalism has its perks!).

As my previous misconceptions of the city were shattered with each new experience, Lima began to remind me of the many conversations I have had with my friends at Yale about Birmingham. Sadly, many people living in other parts of the country think of Birmingham, and more broadly, the “American South,” as a strange, separate entity from the rest of the U.S. In spite of a recent string of articles praising Birmingham’s growth and naming it as one of the year’s top travel destinations — Travel Channel named the city on of “The Next 11 Great Travel Destinations” for 2016 — misconceptions about Birmingham will likely linger for a long time.

Just as Micaela was so enthusiastic to show her friends the real Lima, I had the opportunity to show my college roommate, Elizabeth, an African American studies major, around Birmingham when she visited for two weeks last summer to work at the Civil Rights Institute.  As I showed her my favorite spots in town, I enjoyed the opportunity to present the city as I see it, with its delicious food, friendly people, and beautiful neighborhoods. But I became a tourist in my own city as well. For example, the two of us attended a church service at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a reminder of Birmingham’s darker history that is too easy to forget while driving along Mountain Brook’s lush, tree-lined streets, and a place that I never found a reason to visit except for a brief school field trip that I now have trouble remembering.

Now that I’m spending less and less time in Birmingham (I was home for a grand total of five days this summer), each visit feels like a strange, somewhat alienating mixture between going home and coming to visit. Like a tourist who only has a few days to see a new city, I try to pack it all in, making reservations at all of my favorite restaurants and calling up friends from high school. But I also try to set aside time to sit on my back porch, go on long walks and read a book at Church Street. Somewhere between frantic tourism planned by the minute and lazy afternoons at home is the perfect mixture between the two.