When I got involved in South American civil rights protests (twice!)
Since I can’t go anywhere due to the coronavirus pandemic, I figured why not tell some of my favorite/most memorable travel stories. Next, when I, on two separate occasions became involved in civil rights protests in South American countries.
Ok, so this is a bit of a weird story. I didn’t plan on being involved in either protest, but, as with most things in travel (and in life), all the interesting stories don’t come from planned events.
The first protest was when I went to Peru in 2017. I was traveling alone, with a group of other American teens and we were leaving via bus to go whitewater rafting on a river just outside of Cuzco. If there’s one thing you should know about Cuzco, it’s that it’s an old Incan city, high up in the Andes mountains and with very few roads leading out of the city.
The day we were going to leave, the city seemed quiet. After spending the previous day exploring the city, the hustle and bustle had all but disappeared and there were few pedestrians or cars on the street. We walked a quarter mile from our hotel to the minibus and met the guides who would take us whitewater rafting. Normally, the drive is a little over an hour to the river, but as we were leaving the city on the main road, we noticed all these people on the side of the road holding signs. Obviously, they were involved in some kind of protest. Later, I learned that they were teachers rallying for a better salary and pension fund.
All of a sudden, we stopped and didn’t move for about 30 minutes. Our whitewater rafting guides started speaking in Spanish, and finally said to us, “The protest shut down all roads leading out of the city. We heard from a friend that this side mountain road could be open, so we’re going to try that way.”
At this point, I was bewildered. How does a protest close down every road leading in and out of the second-largest city in Peru? This must be a very large protest or a poorly planned city. Regardless, we backtracked for about 30 minutes and started climbing higher into the Andes. However, when we got to the secondary exit to Cusco, once again, that road was blocked by a huge mass of people and police in full-on riot gear.
So we waited. There wasn’t much else to do. But eventually, a glimmer of hope. For reasons still unknown to me, the protesters decided to let cars through for 15 minutes and then shut the road down again. We lumbered through and that’s when we got a good look at the full size of the mob. There were about 500 angry Peruvians with signs and banners, standing by the side of the road. Next to them, were about 15 police officers with bulletproof vests, carrying heavy machine guns and plastic crowd control shields. A spooky sight to be sure!
I thought that was the end of my South American protest days. I was wrong. In summer 2019, I lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a month. Fantastic city, great nightlife, amazing culture. But in my first week there, my friends and I were leaving our dinner when we noticed that the whole street was shut down and people were chanting in the distance.
We had to go and check it out, and it turned out to be a protest for abortion rights. I thought, alright, that’s a cause I can get behind so we went into the mob and bought a green bandana declaring our support for the protest.
However, we didn’t realize until we were in the thick of it that the protest had become kinda violent and rowdy, so we quickly made our exit and explored some of the side streets near the protest. I’m pretty sure people got arrested during the protest and we were not about to be some American tourists going to an Argentine jail.
That’s twice then I got involved in South American civil rights protests, both times I don’t think I should have. Maybe Latin American Civil Rights Warrior is a new career for me. The US State Department explicitly says to avoid large gatherings and protests while abroad, so… sorry (twice).
