Compras, parte I

When travelling, one encounters a stunning number of surprising things. The people look different from those at home. They speak a strange language. The climate may be completely different and the weather might do unexpected things. The houses look probably different, the food tastes unlike anything you've tasted, and such everyday things as doing sports, using the bathroom or taking a bus may leave you at a loss.

But there's one thing that surely must be more or less the same everywhere: shopping! All over the world, people need groceries, toothpaste and underwear, right? Walk in the shop, make your pick, pay, done?

Haha. Ha.

Case Study Bikini:

I had arrived in Lima just a few days earlier, and I knew I was going to visit some hot springs near Machu Picchu in a couple of days. As my next destination, Cusco, was up on the mountains and nowhere near lakes or the sea, I figured I should try to find a swimming suit already in Lima, just to be sure.

Just to be sure! After having wondered around the streets for three hours, I gave up on the other thing on my To Buy List, a sleeping bag; I was exhausted and decided that in addition to sleeping without a mattress the next couple of nights, I would also have to sleep without any covers. But the bikini was more important. I was not going to miss out on the hot springs after hiking up and down mountain paths for two days.

Typically, I assume, people in Peru and Bolivia buy everything they need from tiny stores which are just a couple of shelves or even just one stand. The most common form of it is a street vendor's stand, and it can sell anything. That is, anything within a range. The problem is that what belongs to a range might not be that obvious for a foreigner.

There's the cosmetics stand, with hundreds if not thousands of little products arranged meticulously under one big umbrella - but if you're looking for toothpaste, you'll be met with just an apologetic (or disgusted) shake of a head. There's the underwear stand with its selection of simple white cotton knickers, plush red lacy underwear and the daring lean G string - but of course no swimwear. The bakery stand has all kinds of tempting-looking sweet goods but definitely no bread. And so on.

Even when things are not sold on the streets, the indoor stores are hardly any bigger. They come mostly in a cluster of little shops, much like a market hall, but so tiny that the salesperson barely has room for that one chair that he or she sits on. They can sell fruit, or hardware, or mobile phone parts, anything. Just that the range is always very restricted. Services are possible too: I've seen several shoe repair shops that have made me take another look in astonishment, as it seems that no one can repair anything is such a confined space.

In Lima, and even more in La Paz, I also saw some more Western-style shops, with enough room for the customers to walk in and look at things. Presumably they are there just for the tourists and the richest of the rich, though. And even though I browsed through those, too, on my bikini-searching quest,  I didn't find one - or then they had a selection of just two models in horrid eighties' Hawaii-style colours and patterns.

(to be continued!)