Not Traveling….in Gratitude and Understanding

 

Food in·se·cu·ri·ty

noun

the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.

"more than 800 million people live every day with hunger or food insecurity as their constant companion"

Definitions from Oxford Languages

 

Last year, amid the COVID-19 crisis and all that I experienced between shutdown and the inevitable life changes, I wrote a piece called What I Learned on my Coronavirus Vacation. Now it’s a year later, the pandemic has lasted longer than anticipated, and I now realize that somehow, according to some grand plan, I was supposed to be prepared for this time in our history. It’s been a wild ride, preceded in early 2019 with a premonition that many people were going to die around me, followed by what I refer to as“Covid Boot Camp.”

Clotheslines: An open window to the soul of a people

Photo: Dan King

Clotheslines are a window into the soul of other people’s lives. From a seemingly small part of life, you can observe the daily ins and outs of the culture, the things you don’t get to see as a tourist. This is part of why we travel. Not just to see the sights, hear the sounds, and taste the wonderful food. We also travel to gain some insight into how the locals live, maybe even get to meet the people. Taking a look at the clotheslines outside of someone’s home is a perfect way to gain this understanding. And many tours give you the opportunity to see that, thus allowing us to understand the social and economic conditions of a country and the people who live there. But if they don’t, pay attention to the sights you see along the way. Even an unwitting tour guide will pass a local community on the way to a major sight. Some of the places that have given me this particular vantage point I took with Grand Circle Travel (www.gct.com ) or Overseas Adventure Travel (www.oattravel.com ). And of course, many I have taken independently.

Lima: Enjoy a Restaurant with a View

Planning a trip to Peru to see the sights but don’t want to mess with the altitude of Machu Picchu? There is plenty to see in and around Lima that will more than satisfy your curiosity for archeological sites. A drive to the city of Caral four hours north of Lima, takes you through some amazing moonscape to see the oldest civilization lever discovered. Another site, Pachacámac, is about an hour outside of Lima, and is the start of the famous Inca trail. But one of the biggest treats of them all awaits you right in Lima.

Photo by Jann Segal

Enjoy some local color right off the coast of Lima

If you want to really take a drive off the beaten path in Lima visit the fishing village of Pucusan in the Pucuscana district, one of the 43 districts that constitute Lima. It is a great stop to visit any time of year, and has views which overlook all of Lima’s coast line. The amount of pelicans you will see are so staggering you will think you are in one of the Galapagos Islands.