Lounging in Lima
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2004
1
38
88
Trip End
Feb 01, 2005
Lima,
Peru
Monday, June 21, 2004
Who said "Parade"?
Emily and I seem to stumble across random parades everywhere we go. Day 1 netted us with a blood donation parade, headed by boy and girl blood drops and followed by Litte Miss Blood Donation and then a zillion banners. Every organisation, school, business and taxi driver must have their own banner for participating in x number of parades per year.
Miraflores
Emily and I staying in the posh suburb of Miraflores which is quite nice, with lots of places to eat nearby, although I think that my appetite got lost in the mountains and I`m reverting to 2 meals a day (like in Thailand, but I don`t think I`ve shed any kilos yet!)
01 Scary Bones
. Miraflores is on the coast and our hostel is about 5 blocks from the top of the cliffs. There would be an awesome view of the Pacific with waves rolling in if the smoggy fog that descends on the Peruvian coast at this time of year decided to rack off. Emily and I used our choice of cinemas to go and watch Shrek 2 at the massive cinema at LarcoMar, a big shopping mall built into the cliff which, at the top of the cliff just looks like a park and lookout, until you delve into the depths.
Lima Nightlife
I fear that I am turning into an old woman. We were all set to go out for a big Saturday night in Lima, sampling some of the famed nightlife, and we got as far as Pizza Hut and decided that our beds were calling. It could have had something to do with Emily puking up fluorescent yellow Inca Kola that morning and then having another spew before dinner where she managed to get most in the loo, but also some on her pants. We are still not sure as to the cause of the vomiting, but it`s just something to put down to travels in a foreign and poor country. (Personally I blame the Inca Kola - and I´m just going to stick to Coke from now on).
Since Saturday kinda died for us, we had to go out Sunday night to celebrate my 5 month anniversary of travelling. We went to Barranco, the supposedly hot centre of Lima nightlife with 2 Sams from our hostel. To our dismay it was dead and we settled on a bar with a table of other gringos (Charlie, Ben and James) in it.
Our waiter, Marco, was only too happy to entertain us, and as we were the only patrons when our tables joined force he hung around the edge of the group. As all the boys are on their way to Brazil, I decided to demonstrate a bit of samba and how easy it is to them so I got up, wiggled my backside and that was it. Marco then said "you know samba, so do I" so with a little bit of convincing and a change of music, he was up doing a massive big samba dance, complete with quite a number of pelvic thrusts. He was so into his dancing that he didn`t see everyone else rolling about on the floor. We got another demo later on without even any encouragement. I told him that he needed to go to Brazil.
As the bar didn`t pick up at all (and me neither!) we took off to a club that had been recommended by some psycho chick one of the Sams had met and gone with to. We were pre-warned that most of the girls in the bar would be working, so there were some sleazy old gringos there dancing with the gorgeous young Peruvian chicks for how much I don`t know. It was good to get dancing again though!!
Bizarrely, at about 2am the dancefloor lit up and 2 guys wearing leopard fur loin clothes and 2 girls wearing leopard fur tops and skirts pranced around the dancefloor in some dance move. After a break, they had changed into some traditional costumes and were whirling about the floor. They then danced a mock fight between the male and female of the couples. One of the girls went up to James and started putting her arms around him, which `enraged` her fella so he was dragging her back to the dancefloor and then she came back and one of the Sams beside me reached across, put his arm around her and pulled her towards him (and me) and pushed the guy away. She ended up sitting on my knee while Sam was `defending` her! Very funny, especially when the girl hooked her leg around her fella`s ankle and tackled him to the ground.
Spanish Inquisition and Catacombs
Emily and I had to venture out and see some sights rather than spend the whole time in front of the TV and DVD player at the hostel, so we started off with the Spanish Inquisition museum in central Lima. For a start, it was free, and then we got a guided tour in English! We were joined by Mark and Becky who we have been running into most of the way down to here. There is always such a big deal about the Spanish Inquisition being able to punish people, but it is interesting to note that only 32 people were executed in 250 years, and of these, 16 confessed just before sentence so were garotted instead of burned at the stake. However they were killed basically for being against Catholicism or converting in name but not practice. First they were tortured to confess using either water down the throat, the rack or being hung up on a pulley. If they confessed during torture they would get a punishment which could be between 50 - 250 lashes or something more community oriented. Natives were never trialled by the Inquisition, except they were stuffed when they got to the criminal court and were killed that way.
After that gory information and seeing some dummies all dolled up in torture gear, we were off to the San Francisco museum and catacombs. The guide was a Hugo Weaving type character from The Matrix and was intent on whisking us around and answering our questions of "That chair is missing a carving" with "It was robbed". There are lots of murals around the courtyard, although most people are missing heads and one guy is bizarrely licking the leg of another.
We were most interested in the catacombs, a burial ground of approximately 25,000 people who wanted to be closer to God so they preferred their corpse to be chucked in a hole under the church, covered with limey stuff and then uncovered a year or so later with only a skull and femur bones, and maybe some pelvic bones if they were lucky to survive the lime treatment. The bones were then put together in nice patterns in the tombs. The femur bones formed lovely V shapes and a well looking thing had a lovely arrangement of skull bones in a circle with layers of femurs and then more skulls. I was never aware that they exceeded flower arrangement with bone arranging in the church.
Tix
Five days was way more than I wanted to spend in Lima, but I had to change my flights and some dates. I am now much happier with my route around the world and fly from Bogotà to Madrid, Barcelona to London, London to Sofia return and then supposedly back home via Bangkok and Singapore however the chances of that actually happening are probably quite slim.
What I Learned
* I`m not going to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. You have to book at least a month in advance and only 160 tourists are allowed on the 4 day trail each day, so I`m going to try and maybe go to Choquequirao instead.
* Lima has the slipperiest footpaths - con cuidado when it is wet.
* I don`t deal well with taxi drivers trying to con me early in the morning after a long night on a bus.
