Traveling During a Peruvian "Paro"

Peru is usually a very friendly and politically stable tourist destination.  But sometimes Peruvians get mad at their government, just like everyone else.  When they cannot get the government to take their grievances seriously, sometimes they resort to protests called a huelga (strike) or a paro (stop).  The goal is to stop all transportation in a certain area to force the government to negotiate.  Protesters block all major roads with broken glass and rocks, burn tires at the road blocks, and throw stones to break windows of all vehicles attempting to "scab" the strike. Most paros are 24 hours or 48 hours long and announced ahead of time so people can plan accordingly.  Sometimes the paro doesn't go well and becomes extended indefinitely. 

The Panamerican Hwy blocked by a semi-truck at the Cañete paro.

This is not something they do lightly.   Tear gas is used frequently on crowds, and it is not unusual for policemen to shoot and kill protesters.  Recent paros have largely been about foreign-owned mines contaminating water sources and exploiting the local workforce, but there is a paro now in Cañete protesting the construction of a second prison, which locals believe would increase crime rates even more than the first prison did.

When transportation is stopped, it is stopped.  Buses and cars form lines kilometers long behind road blockages made of broken glass and rocks.  And you can end up sitting in a hot bus at the roadblock for the entire length of the paro, be it 24 or 48 hours or more.  The roads are filled with pedestrians, because everyone now has to walk wherever they need to go.  It is important to note that Peruvian paros do not prohibit traveling on foot. Depending on the paro, they will sometimes even overlook motorcycles, mototaxis, and bicycles if they use the backroads.

What's a traveler to do if he or she is stuck in a paro?  One has two simple choices:  keep moving ahead or stay put.  If you can afford the time, I would recommend finding the nearest hotel outside of the strike area and enjoying local attractions until it is over.  Traveling through a paro is not entirely pleasant or risk-free.

In September 2011, my kids and I were traveling from the Lima province to Arica, Chile when the bus stopped in Moquegua and told us it wasn't moving on because of a paro ahead.  We could either sit in the bus, get a hotel room in Moquegua (at our own expense of course) and finish the trip the next day, or continue traveling on our own.  After consulting my kids who mostly voted for "adventure," we decided to try to push through the paro.

I asked around and found a taxi who would take us to the edge of the strike zone in a town called Camiara.  He told us that all we had to do is walk about 30 minutes through the strike zone, and there will be taxis on the other side of Camiara.  He even promised us that he would call the other taxis on his cell phone once we got there. That sounded easy enough, so off we went. 

When we arrived at the strike zone, he tried calling somebody, but there was no answer. In hindsight, I think he would have promised anything to get us into his taxi.  Live and learn.  Our taxi drove on the shoulder past kilometers of buses and cars waiting in line to get us to the actual roadblock.  We got out with our wheeled luggage and started walking around the broken glass and rocks.  Eventually, the debris was too thick to walk around.  We had to lift our luggage off the road entirely and guide the kids carefully over the debris.  After about 20 minutes we got to the other side of the debris field into Camiara.

There were no taxis waiting for us.

There were buses of hundreds of angry protesters shouting and chanting.  There were crowds of travelers camped out on sidewalks and parks, waiting for it all to be over.  It turns out the paro was not just in Camiara, but all the way to Tacna, the last Peruvian city bordering Chile, about 83 kilometers away.  Eighty-three kilometers of desolate desert.  Everyone told me to spend the night on the street in Camiara and wait for the paro to be over.  But we didn't leave the nice city of Moquegua to be stuck in a small town with no hotels; we had voted for "adventure."  I'd like to say we bravely went off into the desert, walking.  That was our intent.

Actually, we only took five steps towards leaving town before we saw a car going the same way.  I waved it down and asked if he could take some passengers to Tacna.  He said he would for 100 soles for our party of 2 adults and 3 children; we took the entire backseat of the car.  This is about double the usual carfare to Tacna, but beggars can't be choosers.  We were lucky to have met this guy to begin with.  Price gouging is a pretty regular phenomenon in Peru, after all.   Also he asked for the fare up front, which is very unusual in Peru.  Here, you always pay when you get to the destination--except during a paro, apparently.

Because the main Panamerican Hwy was blocked by protesters, the driver took mostly backroads that he happened to know quite well.  We were lucky he had been "scabbing" all day long to make an extra buck and knew exactly where the road blocks were.  At one point, one of the dirt backroads he had taken earlier in the day was in the process of being blocked when we reached it.  He quickly plowed right through before we could be stopped.  Going through the way we did could have resulted in an accident, but we were lucky.  Again.

The car we were in was already carrying 3 adult passengers and 3 kids.  Along the way, we saw so many desperate people walking and needing a ride that the driver decided to squeeze one more adult into the backseat with us.  She was an older woman who had been walking since dawn through the desert from Camiara.  The kids moved onto our laps, and away we went, packed like sardines.

About seven kilometers outside of Tacna, there was a new roadblock with rocks and burning tires.  There was a small mob of protesters threatening to break the windshields of all vehicles that attempted to pass.  Every single car taking passengers dropped everyone off and u-turned.   I tried to get some of my money back since we didn't get all the way to Tacna, but that was unsuccessful.   Mostly I just wanted to lodge my grievance.  Now I understand why he wanted the money upfront; we were paying him for the attempt to transport, not for successful completion of travel since he knew that could not be guaranteed in a paro.

I put the littlest kid on my shoulders, everyone else took a piece of luggage, and off we went walking on the desert highway.   It was hot, but fortunately, we had packed plenty of drinks in Camiara before we left.  One of my kids didn't have good walking shoes, but other than that, we had a pretty uneventful walk for about an hour.  I was very glad to have packed lightly.

We came across an empty taxi venturing out of Tacna to check out road conditions ahead.  After telling him about the road block we had just come from, we pedestrians begged him to give us a ride back to Tacna.  Again at double the normal prices, he relented, and again, we all packed in like sardines, squeezing as many people we can into the vehicle.   He got us all the way to the entrance of Tacna, where there were marchers with banners.  We walked past the marchers; once inside the city, there were plenty of local taxis.  There was no paro inside Tacna.

Going across the border was different.  There were no buses, only a few colectivos (shared taxis) who would take us to the border crossing itself.  They said we would have to look for Chilean colectivos on the other side of the border, that no Peruvian vehicles were allowed to cross during the paro.  Again, for double the normal price, we hired a colectivo and pushed on.

Once in Chile, of course, everything was normal.  It appeared most Chileans in Arica didn't even know about the huge disruption to transportation on the other side of the border.  We got to our reserved lodging late, but we got there.  We were lucky we didn't have to go through any protester/police confrontations.

In summary, it is entirely possible, though somewhat risky and expensive, to travel through a paro.  Depending on how large the strike zone is, be prepared to do a lot of walking.  Here is what I would recommend:

1.  Travel light.  Walking for kilometers and kilometers with heavy luggage is a pain. 
2.  Bring snacks and plenty of water for your walk.
3.  Bring comfortable walking shoes.
4.  Bring lots of money to bribe "scabs" to give you rides whenever you can, piecemeal-like.
5.  Avoid large protesting crowds, because they attract police, and that usually doesn't go well in Peru.  Tear gas bites. 
6.  It is easier to be robbed on foot, so don't take out any electronics unless you absolutely have to. 

Having a vial of Felix Felicis wouldn't hurt either.