Traveling alone is safe just not when you're me. Getting shot at in Peru by a renegade security guard.

Standing amongst two Peruvian gentlemen atop of a soaring sand dune that's nestled behind a small coastal surf riddled town of Punta Hermosa I stood. Gazing west wood into the orange glow of the ever-receding sunset I pondered. After gathering a prompt happy snap of the beautifully deserted landscape, I heard a noise that sounded like a distant truck back firing perhaps from the quarry that lay just across the way. Then my ears perked up as I heard an alarmed whistle for then I saw this little man across the way and over the ditch waving profusely and another bang. Is this mad man shooting at us?  I exclaimed to my Peruvian mates who had started to yell back to chill out, as we were only taking photos to the little man. To which the man started to propel himself towards us.

We decided to vacate quickly with our heading towards the ocean over the four-lane highway. We were all but there, one last dune lay between the highway and us which to cross would be safety. Suddenly I heard a piece of lead cutting through the air like a runaway helicopter come whizzing past. I took a fast look behind as I had started to sprint and keep my head low like the action movies I watched when I was young. The man a mere 80 metres behind had caught up and was excitedly still shooting.

Stumbling frantically down the last dune, highway insight more bullets being flung over head. We crossed the first part of the highway swiftly, whilst on the island I took a speedily peep behind and I saw a black tinted SUV had caught up with the man to who he was pointing vividly towards us. I turned back to see my mates had already started the race across the last section of traffic, I looked right and saw impending traffic, a mass of headlights like a flood of water from a burst dam surging down a river was coming. Without thinking I went for it, as soon as I started horns were sounded at alarming rates. My main concern was making it past the last lane to which a two-story bus was taking space no more than a 100 metres down the way and was closing in fast with horns flaring. Two steps into the pull over area and one jump over the guardrail and the bus that felt like a house on wheels flew past with such speed and no sign of slowing down for mere boy.  I was twenty and that happened in my first week of entering Peru alone, I then looked excitedly adventurously towards the next nine months of travelling South America.

Oh and if you were pondering why that man was shooting turns out he was a security guard for the quarry. He thought we were a part of a movement that happened a few months prior, where a large group of people came to the land that at that stage was owned by no one in particular and had set up camp like a shanty town. To which they were trying to claim it for themselves but the army and police had stepped in and taken down the camp, got rid of the people. Therefore, when this hero gazed upon the top of the dune and saw the three of us standing scanning the land, his first thought must have been to shoot and chase away. Act now think later. To which I suppose he prevailed.