Okay, so what about real estate?  Well, I saw very little for sale, and inquiries resulted in no returned calls and very little information.  I found it odd, but I didn’t put much stock in it at the time.  After all, we were going to have a whole month in Peru to find out if we liked it, or not.  Later on I found this to be the normal outcome to my questions.

From the North our trip took us down the coast to Paracas where we stayed at the Hotel Paracas resort on the Pacific Ocean.  A beautiful place, with a day trip out to the Ballestas Islands to view marine animal life.  The resort was very nice, reminding us of the hey-day of jet-set travel in the 60’s.  Outside of the resort, though, the area offered little that interested us, so we didn’t look for real estate information here. 

The next stop was Nazca with it’s enigmatic Lines.  Nazca is a very nice small town.  The Nazca Lines didn’t fail to impress when we flew over them.  They are really only visible from the air.  This is a very dry place.  Marks in the desert floor last for centuries and so do the mummified people!  A nearby cemetery lends a certain eeriness to the trip as we visit the remains of the people who first built a civilization here over a thousand years ago!  Nazca was very interesting, but too small and remote for our tastes as a place to live, even though another hotel could fit in here easily.

Next up was Bolivia, which was originally part of Peru before establishing itself as a separate country.  There are similiarities between the two countries, but we were to find out that there are vast differences as well.  There had been problems reported with the “campesinos”, or village folk as far as blocking the highway between Peru and Bolivia.  We encountered some of that as we left Lake Titicaca.  The roads were blocked with scattered huge stones like a mine field, totally impassable except for where the military had cleared a path.  La Paz is an interesting modern city that is built in a large deep bowl in the ground which is actually lower than the surrounding “altiplano” or high plain.  Here we found another type of problem that completely scratched Bolivia off our list of places to ultimately live in South America.

Over the past few years, there has been a movement among the village people to become more outspoken, and more physical about asserting their rights. That came to a head for us as we attempted to go to Tiwanaku, the ancient civilization of Lake Titicaca, and the altiplano. We were blocked from advancing, and our driver was taken out of our car, and given a whipping by one of the local village chiefs. This is a customary form of punishment, but it was misplaced, as we were not attempting to do anything other than drive down the road and there was no “crime” committed. It was very unsettling for us to sit by and be unable to do nothing as we were outnumbered 100 to 1. We watched as our driver, who was just doing his job driving “turistas” around, was hoisted up and held in the air by ten men and then spanked three times of the rear end with a belt.

There are two sets of laws in Bolivia, one for the Indians, and the other for non-Indians.  Although, this is the way it has always been, if Bolivia is going to move forward, and become a more modern country, this form of segregation does more to harm the people than it does to empower them.  Bolivia has some deep seated problems that aren’t going to be solved soon. Many of these problems revolve around the development of their natural gas reserves. A recent vote was affirmative for development, but Bolivia has fiddled around so long that their market, Chile and Argentina, have for the most part moved on without Bolivia.  Although our money went very far here, eight bolivianos to the dollar, and they have a young and growing work force, the political climate is going to hamper real advances in business.  Needless to say, we didn’t look for real estate in Bolivia, and breathed a sigh of relief when we left, and returned to Peru.

The ancient capital of the Incas, Cuzco, was our next stop and it is a vibrant city. We could easily picture ourselves living in this clean city, with its great Inca heritage and wonderful mix of Spanish colonial and Inca architecture.  The people here are friendly, very intelligent (many speak three languages—English, German, or Italian were the popular languages other than their native Quechua language and, of course, Spanish), and are very willing to do business. I inquired about business laws, such as-- do you need a Peruvian partner in order to do business in Peru?  The answers were the characteristically vague ones that I had become used to in Peru.  I basically came away with the answer that, yes, you do need a partner from Peru, but that could be a silent partner, or even just a corporation set-up with Peruvian nationals who do not actually work in the business.

Answers to questions about real estate met with the same success as they had in Lima.

Cuzco’s built in tourist trade to Machu Picchu, makes it a slam dunk for a business location.  People from all over the world come here, and the need for services like an American style hotel with a restaurant would fit in here.  A small boutique hotel, with a nice lounge and restaurant seemed just the ticket in this city.  Many of the hotels here are very nice, but since the tourists coming here are going to be short-timers in Peru as hiking the Inca Trail is at most a five day trek, then the comforts and style of an American bed and breakfast or boutique hotel would be greatly appreciated.  Anyway, it could work in Cuzco, we would just have to crack the “foreigner factor” a little better.

No trip would be complete without a trek up the Inca Trail.  We had an outstanding local guide, who informed us ancient history that doesn’t appear in the textbooks concerning the Spanish, and the Conquest of the Incas.  Machu Picchu is astonishing, and just like everything else that we saw in Peru, it is bigger than we thought it was going to be. 

It is the jewel in the crown of a magnificent trek through other Incan ruins such as;  Winay Wanay, Intipati, and Sayacmarca, to name some of the more significant and beautiful ruins that adorn the ancient stone stairs of the Incas. 

Peru offers opportunities at any of these areas we visited.  We ranked Cuzco as the best place to have a good chance of success, with Trujillo/Huanchuco being a neat place to live and work although it has fewer tourists.  Lima really needs some lodging in the middle range, and the large population and international airport could insure success.

Peru doesn’t quite have the same business orientation as Argentina or Chile, but it does have strong tourism draws that could compensate for some of the short comings of doing business in Peru.  I know that I would have to do some more significant, serious work on getting answers before proceeding with any venture.  This is especially true since many people were rather curious as to why an American would want to own a business in Peru when it is the USA that they want to do business in themselves.  All in all, though, Peru has many great attributes and although we didn’t find our place this time our trip was a complete success.  We will certainly return!

Ciao,

Mark and Karen McInerney

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