Ads contrast with poverty on road to Peru coast

Billboards advertising glamorous apartments and other luxury items loom high above impoverished neighborhoods on the highway leading to Peru’s Pacific coast and the South American country’s wealthy beach communities.

As cars zoom by on their way to private beaches, people like Alejandro Sanchez, who came to Lima 30 years ago fleeing civil conflict in his native Andean city of Ayacucho, labor in the dusty terrain. Sanchez, for instance, sells ice cream to earn some $6 a day.

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In this May 5, 2017 photo, billboards advertising a clothing store and vehicles line the Pan-American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru. As the cars zoom by on their way to private beaches, people labor in the dusty terrain earning not enough to be able to afford any of the goods advertised on the billboards. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

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The big signs cast shadows on cannibalized cars, piles of used brick and white crosses marking the places where people died along the highway. Trash is scattered around the area where people live in homes without potable water and adequate public services, menaced by local gangs that invade and traffic in properties.

“I’m lucky to put together enough money to pay for food and the utilities on my home,” Sanchez says when asked about the possibility of ever visiting one of those beaches.

Standing on the brown, barren landscape, the billboards advertise other products the people living in this area are unlikely to be able to buy: tickets on Peruvian airlines, a Mazda roadster and dinner at a resort restaurant, along with other unaffordable luxuries such as baby formula, Peru’s finance magazine Gestion and Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen promoted by a brunette in a bikini.

Wilfredo Ardito, a law professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Peru who has studied the country’s racism, says advertising in the Andean nation underscores its great inequalities, showing “the ideal world of happiness in which everyone is white and all of those who are not white have disappeared.”

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In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising popsicles stands along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru, Friday, May 5, 2017. In the coastal regions, home to the capital Lima and most of the country's industry, the 2014 poverty rate was 14.3 percent, according to government statistics. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, Alejandro Sanchez carries ice cream for sale, along the Pan American Highway where a billboard advertises a bank, on the south side of Lima, Peru. Sanchez, who came here 30 years ago fleeing civil conflict in his native Andean city of Ayacucho, labors in the dusty terrain. Sanchez, for instance, sells ice cream for some $6 a day. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising a brand of deodorant stands along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru. Wilfredo Ardito, a law professor from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru who has studied the country's racism, says that advertising in the Andean nation underscores its great inequalities, showing "the ideal world of happiness in which everyone is white and all of those who are not white have disappeared." (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising a Mazda sports car stands along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru. Standing on the brown, barren landscape, the billboards advertise other products the people living in this area are unlikely to be able to buy or afford. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising the economic magazine "Gestion" reads in Spanish: "Success is my territory. Growing is an obligation," along the Pan American Highway where a vehicle sits abandoned, on the south side of Lima, Peru, Friday, May 5, 2017. Trash is scattered around the area where people live in homes without potable water and adequate public services, menaced by local gangs that invade and traffic in properties. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising sunscreen with a woman sunbathing on a beach stands high above a poor neighborhood of cinderblock shack homes along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru, Friday, May 5, 2017. Wilfredo Ardito, a law professor from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru who has studied the country's racism, says that advertising in the Andean nation underscores its great inequalities, showing "the ideal world of happiness in which everyone is white and all of those who are not white have disappeared." (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, workers eat lunch in the shade of a giant billboard advertising condos for sale, in a poor neighborhood on the south side of Lima, Peru, Friday, May 5, 2017. The billboards advertise glamorous apartments and other luxury items that loom high above impoverished neighborhoods on the highway leading to Peru's Pacific coast and the South American country's wealthy beach communities. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a giant billboard advertising powdered milk reads in Spanish "Feed your incredible power to learn" as it stands on a hill along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru. As the cars zoom by on their way to private beaches, people labor in the dusty terrain earning wages so lo that they would hardly be able to purchase any of the goods advertised in the billboards. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a man collects cables for resale, along with other recyclable objects, along the Pan American Highway where a billboard advertises a local airline on the south side of Lima, Peru. Below the billboards are cannibalized cars, piles of used brick and white crosses marking the places where people died along the highway. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising an airline stands along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru. The billboards advertise products the people living in this area are unlikely to be able to buy or afford. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a cyclist passes a billboard advertising a restaurant along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru. Below the billboards are cannibalized cars, piles of used brick and white crosses marking the places where people died along the highway. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising construction materials stands along the Pan American Highway where a cross marks the spot where someone was killed, on the south side of Lima, Peru. Below the billboards are cannibalized cars, piles of used brick and white crosses marking the places where people died along the highway. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising spring water stands along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru. Trash is scattered around the area where people live in homes without potable water and adequate public services, menaced by local gangs that invade and traffic in properties. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, Jose Suarez, from Cucuta, Colombia, moves his wheelchair, decorated with a stuffed animal, along the Pan American Highway lined with billboards advertising rum, lottery and mixed nuts, on the south side of Lima, Peru. Suarez, 58, said he's on a mission to reach Brazil in his wheelchair, after leaving Cucuta in January. The billboard reads in Spanish "Nothing will stop you." (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this May 5, 2017 photo, a billboard advertising a soap brand stands among trash strewn along the Pan American Highway on the south side of Lima, Peru. Wilfredo Ardito, a law professor from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru who has studied the country's racism, says that advertising in the Andean nation underscores its great inequalities, showing "the ideal world of happiness in which everyone is white and all of those who are not white have disappeared." (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Text from the AP news story, AP PHOTOS: Ads contrast with poverty on road to Peru coast, by Rodrigo Abd.

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