From a more technological point of view there is also a fundamental difference between the philosophies of the two languages.
Perl subscribes to "there is more than one way to do it"; Python is all about "there should be only one way". The latter is what made Java such an insipid and annoying language to develop in. Python is probably saved from this only by its much better standard library and generally smaller verbosity.
Personally, if I had to choose from the two, I would still choose Python because of the gentler learning curve, and because I hate forced indentation/whitespace slightly less than Perl's type sigils.
But if you can choose any language, try one of those newly popular "modern" languages - finally get down on your ass and learn Haskell (as I should), or Kaya, or LISP (which, as one of the oldest still in use today, is more "modern" than almost anything that has seen light ever since), or Ocaml, or even F# or something. (Any one of these can also show you that OO is not the only way of abstraction, or the best way, or, god help me, even a particularly good way.)
The moon is made of green cheese. -- John Heywood