I’d chosen the homestay option as it was slightly cheaper than a hostel and meant I’d have my own room. I was also interested by the idea of staying with this woman and her young son, to whom I had said I’d speak English. The Wasi Center was a little walk from the main drag and when I arrived there was no sign of the woman I’d emailed and instead I was greeted by her husband, son and two tiny, jumpy dogs. There are dogs everywhere in Peru, whether clothed and leashed or hanging in mangey gangs on street corners. I have become accustomed to this, though it’s also meant that I appreciate it even more when I’m somewhere which is dog-free. As such I was not a fan of the homestay’s twosome. The husband quickly locked them in a back room and, although he seemed to have been expecting me, he made no attempt to explain the whereabouts of his wife.
I do not want to sound like a whinger, though this week is my holiday from work and will form some of the last memories of my time here. I can’t afford to splurge, but neither do I want to be uncomfortable for the week. The homestay would have been fine if I was backpacking, or even just staying a couple of nights, but I just wasn’t sure I’d cut it for the seven I had ahead of me. No running water meant washing with a bucket and jug, and tricky washing up and food prep. The kitchen itself had no worksurface space and, apart from the table here the only other outside space was the yard. I did try though! After an afternoon on the windiest of beaches I returned to wash the thick coat of sand from my skin. Unfortunately washing just didn’t seem to be a practicable option here, and I was still sandy the next morning.
I had told the husband I’d look for something else (apologising profusely and feigning a dog phobia in my awful Spanish) and before heading back that evening had a trek round to find an alternative. The party hostels on the main drag have ‘posh’ dorms, swimming pools and green spaces, attracting the western backpackers in their Ray Bans and aviators, mussed beach hair and wallets of dollars. This is not just an assumption – I bumped into my aviator-ed American friend from the bus who responded, when I asked about the cost of his hostel, that he had no idea…
I wandered further back from the malecon, across a dusty expanse and up asmall pathway, where I found a cluster of options, with rooms situated around small, open spaces. I also discovered Blu Hostel, another option I’d been in email contact with and who had promised me a room, if I wanted it. I won’t bore readers with the details of my efforts at trying to gain entry here, which involved being directed to a building site to look for an Alex, switching around of phone sim cards and batteries with another construction worker, failed calls to Lima and returning to my original informer to be told I could try an Eduardo.
After the dejection I had felt on Saturday, I am pleased to inform that Sunday saw the most perfect of starts. After a trickily prepared breakfast at the homestay I bid the husband farewell (the wife never materialised…) and the dogs good riddance and headed back to the Blu Hostel area. I am writing this in an airy, open living room with comfy seats, accompanied by Camillo, the owner’s son, watching cartoons on a flat screen TV with cable. I’d met Camillo on Saturday, when I’d called in at the house, asking about a room. He had had told me that his mum was surfing though he thought there was a room available, and to go and find her at one of the surf shops in town. Finding Victor’s Surf School was another challenge and Paula was in the sea when I arrived, so I’d decided to call it a day and returned to the homestay. The following morning, however, I caught her early having left the homestay after breakfast – in fact, she was still asleep! – and she indeed have a room available. Everything improved from there: the room was a dorm, which she promised I’d have to myself, the bathroom was clean and had a shower, the house is lovely with a spacious kitchen and little outside yard with a hammock. Paula herself couldn’t have been friendlier, taking my market-bought bags of food from me as soon as I arrived and putting them in the fridge, telling me to use the chest of drawers and make myself at home. So, a little pricier perhaps, but most importantly, far more homely than the homestay.