Marilyn Helms: Peru is full of surprises

In May, two other Dalton State College professors and I traveled to Lima, Peru, to plan a DSC study abroad trip for March 2013. International experience is vital for today’s students as part of their resume.

An important reason for learning about another country is to help you learn about your own country. DSC’s Office of Study Abroad is interested in adding a study program in South America to add to our ever-growing list of study locations. Our first thought was to consider Argentina, but our key contact who served as translator, guide, bus driver and all-around resource unexpectedly passed away last year of a heart attack at age 38. During our discussion, Professor Fernando Garcia, who teaches management courses, recommended we consider his home country of Peru as an alternative to Argentina. With his contacts and local knowledge of the thriving and growing Peruvian economy, we quickly agreed. Professor Sharon Hixon from DSC’s School of Education and I joined Fernando on the pre-planning trip to scout hotels, safe areas for students, appropriate tours and activities, and business and education contacts for the trip.

One plus in choosing Peru is the six-hour direct flight from Atlanta and only a one-hour time difference (and no time differences in the spring when our daylight saving time matches their time zone). This is a plus for a short-term trip since jet lag and acclimation can be a problem flying east or west for long distances. Peru is bordered by Brazil to the east and has a thriving tourist trade as many want to see the Incan empire and Pre-Columbian America. Machu Picchu, the Incan ruins, is also on everyone’s bucket list. The country is safe and luckily no shots are required from the Centers for Disease Control for entry. Food is plentiful and inexpensive. The only caution is to use bottled water to drink and brush our teeth.

Peru is a market-oriented, developing country with performance tied to exports including copper, gold, zinc, textiles and fish meal. The country trades heavily with China, Brazil, Chile and the United States. Check the label of your latest purchase of Lacoste, Nautica or similar polo shirts and you’ll probably see a “Made in Peru” label.

We arrived in Peru at midnight on our first night and our cellphones found the local connection. We were told to turn off all the data packages to avoid an extremely expensive cellphone bill but calls and texts were relatively inexpensive and we also found small shops offering calls to the U.S. for an even cheaper rate and most hotels and restaurants had Wi-Fi capabilities.

Our first night was a family home stay which proved difficult with our intermediate Spanish fluency. Next we stayed at an inexpensive hotel, remote and far from attractions for the students. Our third day, after touring many hotels in the area of Mira Flores in the city, we found appropriate, safe accommodations for students near many busy shops, stores and other options for evening exploration. In the city were a number of restaurants and fast-food chains from America. We saw one of the many casinos where Joran van der Sloot was alleged to have met and killed a Peruvian college student. We are warned about crime but it felt very safe in the area.

Other tasks on our pre-planning trip were to contact colleges and universities about hosting our group and offering lectures on the culture and history of Peru and helping us arrange site visits and plant tours. The business groups want to tour local businesses and meet with entrepreneurs while the education students want to interact with teachers and even teach a lesson in English to Spanish-speaking Peruvian middle or elementary school students. We even found a private school that meets both our needs and the school has been the subject of a Harvard Business School case. We enjoyed our meetings and work to develop a list of activities for our students.

We also spent time meeting with travel agents regarding the side tour at the end of the trip to Machu Picchu. This is a one-hour plane ride from Lima and will require one or two days to scale the Incan ruins. We also took three open double-decker bus tours — one hour-long tour of the Mira Flores neighborhood and area which included an Incan ruin; a four-hour tour of downtown Lima which showed historical buildings and the Larco museum, where we viewed Incan and pre-Incan artifacts; and finally a three-hour tour to Incan ruins of the temple of Pachacamac, or the temple city of the sun, an archaeological site just outside Lima which included a tour of the waterfront as well as travel through various cultures and poorer neighborhoods of Lima.

We debated the best tours for our students that would provide an overview and an education of the area. We were also introduced to the Incan hairless dog, the Inca Orchid, which has a residence at each historical site. The dogs wear coats all day to protect them from the morning chill and to also protect them from sunburn in the late afternoon. While not selected by the Obamas, this hypoallergenic dog is recommended as an appropriate choice for individuals with allergies.

We tried the great Peruvian rotisserie chicken — Pollo a la Brassa — with the spicy yellow sauce made from the Aji peppers called Aji Amarillo. We skipped the local delicacy, cuy, which is roasted guinea pig, although Professor Garcia claims it to be excellent as well as the cheviche, or raw fish marinated in lime juice. Fernando couldn’t get enough of the sweet yellow Inca Cola, more popular than Coke Zero, and the chica morado, a sweet purple non-carbonated drink made from boiled blue corn and apple peelings.

We toured two local shopping areas near our hotel so students could experience the service and retail culture. Jockey Plaza was a modern shopping center and we enjoyed eating in the cafeteria of a large grocery store so we could try other Peruvian dishes and enjoyed the many varieties of potatoes. We visited the grocery to learn about other foods, and in particular to identify the many fruits we had enjoyed. We especially like the tuna fruit from the cactus.

At the mall we noticed cars parked in one area that had their windshield wiper blades extended. These customers had requested a mobile car wash and clean-up from employees pushing small carts with pressure washers and supplies. This seems a great small business idea and service for shoppers. At Larcomar, another shopping center by the Pacific Ocean, we enjoyed the food court, seeing Peruvian handicrafts including rugs and scarves made from the soft hairs of llamas. We even took in a movie with Spanish subtitles to practice our Spanish, which did improve greatly toward the end of the trip.

I’ll return to tell you more about Peru after our Dalton State College spring break 2013 trip.

Marilyn M. Helms is a business professor at Dalton State College. She welcomes your comments at mhelms@daltonstate.edu or (706) 272-2600.

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