Landing at a foreign airport at 11:00 pm is never a good way to begin a trip. For a country to schedule five such arrivals at nearly the same time is just plain stupid. Do they think tourists will be impressed by waiting in line an hour to clear customs? ... that people will think ”Look at all the people trying to get in the country. I'm lucky to be here.“ The only good I got out of the wait was a warning not to drink the water.
My hostel had sent Christian to pick me up from the Lima airport. He was a young professional, not a cab driver. It was the first time that I ever had an English speaking person as my first contact in a Latin country. The wait at customs was soon forgotten as Christian told me about Peru... a good start after all.
When I arrive in a country in the daylight I usually take a local bus from the airport. It pretty much follows a straight line to the city center taking two or three times as long as a cab ride ... for a tenth or a hundredth the cost. When you take a cab you twist and turn so often you often wonder if you are going in circles. Probably you are just avoiding traffic. At night, with no sun as a reference point And no traffic on the streets, you are at a complete loss as to where you are going ... a much bigger worry than the crazy guy who just got on the bus.
The Kokopelli Hostel was a great find on the internet. The rooms were newly furnished and the staff was the friendliest I have ever encountered at a hostel. The actual owners seemed to be available all the time. Every night they presided over activities in the rooftop bar.
It was fairly quiet for a place just a block from a couple of Lima’s busiest streets. Those street were along side of Parque Kennedy in Miraflores which is the upbeat, tourist area of Lima. The park was a great place to be day or night. About a half mile down the street was Lima’s oceanfront parks. I spent a lot of time in those two places doing nothing ... a lot more time doing nothing than I usually do.
Lima sits high up on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It sounds like an ideal setting but it isn’t. Because the city is squeezed between the ocean and the Andes Mountains it is almost always shrouded by a thick cover of clouds. Cool winds off the cold ocean currents collide with the mountains but are unable to flow over their heights. Clear days are rare and didn’t occur while I was there. With no sun and a constant wind even 65-70 degree days are a bit uncomfortable.
The city’s seven million people are spread out for miles along the base of the mountains. Traffic was terrible even though car ownership is still low there. Over half the vehicles on the road were taxis or busses and yet the streets were jammed. No traffic laws are obeyed by anyone. Speed was of the essence. Lane changes required but a car length plus a meter. A horn honk replaced a look at blind corners. At night we never stopped for a single red light or stop sign. A young cab driver ask me if I liked the way he drove ... Sure! Yeah! Right!
The old heart of the city is referred to as Lima as opposed to Miraflores or other named neighborhoods. A busy commercial walking street joins two major plazas. On one, Plaza de Armas, stands the seat of government and the Cathedral. Nearby San Francisco church was the most interesting place I visited in Lima.
Museo de La Nacion, is located nowhere near anything ... unless the cab driver drove in circles to get there. It is one of the worst history museums I have ever been in ... and I visit every one I possibly can. It is a huge modern building of good design with practically no exhibits.
As you may have gathered by now, Lima does rank as a recommend city in my book.
Other than sitting in parks, the only real fun I had was going to a bullfight. It wasn’t fun watching a bull get tormented and killed. Nor was it fun watching 12 year old matador get knocked over five or six times by a bull and finally carried off ... he couldn’t kill the bull because he wasn’t strong enough to drive a sword in deep enough to kill it.The fun was the drunks I sat with to watch the fights. The liked me just because I bothered to come to the fights. They loudly proclaimed me their amigo. Equally loudly they wondered why I didn’t drink wine with them from their leather pouch. ”Well if you don’t drink, do you like girls?“ ”Yes. I got my ticket from a girl I met here.“ “Way to go man.” And this cycle was repeated between each of six fights as though it had never occurred before. I tried to ask about the fight rituals but lack of my Spanish or their lack of English or their lack of sobriety interfered. Meanwhile their wives sat on their hands wishing they weren’t there.
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