Hey Gringo
Trip Start
Feb 27, 2009
1
54
73
Trip End
Sep 13, 2009
Lima, Peru
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Firstly I'll say this - at the moment as I'm now sitting in Puno in southern Peru, I'm finding it incredibly ironic that I'm in a country where I'm desperately concerned about where I'm going to get my next hot shower yet I've no problem finding somewhere to write about that fact on the internet and broadcast it back to all you sorry lot! An indicator of how technology is bounding forward even in the most undevelopped of countries.
Yup...I get off the place at the midnight hour still no wiser as to my prospects of lodging in the big smoke that is Lima in Peru - the former capital of the Spanish empire in southern Latin America. Read any guidebook and speak to any novice and you're quickly advised that Lima is notoriously dangerous - especially downtown Lima - second only to walking through Bogota's seediest quartiers or flashing a wad of 100 dollar bills in a Rio favela
Lima Main Cathedral
.After eventually getting through the neverending immigration queue which even the locals have to endure, I got out of the trap door that is the international arrivals hall and went straight to an authorised taxi desk which would set me back $10 more than risking my life and walking out into the jungle of a car park where I'd be lept upon by the more routine taxi driver plying his trade. It was now 1 in the morning and the taxi weaved its way through seedy industrialised suburbs where dodgy looking men and scantily clad women where perusing the street corners. No doubt pimps and their produce.
What red light?
The taxi simply ignored the red lights as I was expecting - I'd read that it was dangerous to sto at a light after dark for fear of robbery and hijackings. About 20 minutes later the driver curiously pulled up along a KFC is what seemed like the dodgiest of street corners - a paved street crossing a delapidated avenue which was under renovation (recuperacion in spanish). A lot more recuperating to be done I can tell you. The driver I presumed was clearly lost. I wasn't happy about being left in the car unattended with a few late night "amigos" giving me a dodgy eye
Plaza des Armes,LIma
. There was a street vendor asleep selling snacks from a tricycle of sorts - blaring latino style tunes from a ghetto blaster. The taxi driver returned to say we'd arrived.Over my dead body we'd arrived. I'd booked a trip with Intrepid Travel - a well reputed adventure travel company - not the local terrorist organisation or drug cartel. Not in a position to argue I was out on the street. I was thankful in many ways that the hotel was only 10 steps from the corner, thankful in that once past the security guard I would no doubt be relatively safe. Not thankful for the fact that the hotel was shite hole, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
What do you mean it's not on the computer?
My reservation that is. As expected my phone call a few days earlier was as successful as Princess Diana's drivers skills in a tunnel. Thankfully the adorable girl on the reception was good at the "ingles" and more luckily there was spare rooms available - only of the "matrimoine" variety however. I had no wife but this didn't seem to matter.
The room itself was basic but adequate
Government Buildings, Lima
. But it corridor to find it crossed back towards the notorious street corner and lo and behold by room was the corner room over looking the street seller and the blaring music and the sirens of police cars steaming along the Avenue Emancipation which was in "recuperacion". I could only liken the experience to one thing - when Tom Hanks was a little kid in Big staying in a dodgy apartment in downtown New York hearing gun shots. There he was curled up in the foetal position nursing himself to sleep. Still, earplugs in and I was out for the count.
Monday 22 June 2009
I was awoken 4 hours later by a phone call - something about desayuno - later discovered to mean breakfast. I was ina daze. Managed to get the message across in English that I didn't want any. I went back to sleep and eventually was awoken at 2 in the afternoon by the same receptionist from the night before wondering if I was OK. She'd just arrived in and her colleagues clearly thought I was dead. So I took the hint and got up.
I was meeting the rest of the Intrepid Group tomorrow but decided to work up the courage to open the curtains and discover that all of sudden deathville had turned into a pedestrian street teaming with locals and only locals - not a gringo in sight
Plaza San Martin, Llama on Head
. The main square was just two blocks away as it happened. The place was transformed in daylight. So I headed out and got some cash in the cash machine without being mugged, took in the cathedral on the main square and had a lunch of charcoal chicken on a side street and basically got back to base before dark and was back in bed before you could know it to beat off the last of the jet lag. Impressions of Lima still were not great - while I didn't feel in ay way threatened in down town, it was down trodden and clearly one of those "could've been" cities. It could've been a latin american Barcelona - but alas due to its history plagued with economic depression, unemployment and terorism didn't quite make it.
Tuesday 23 June
Today's the day - I meet nuuuuuuu friends. I get up earlyish - well 3.00 in the morning precisely having slept as much as one possibly could and still keep the heart ticking. By the time proper morning arrived I decided I needed new Kyacks and socks as I would run out over the next two weeks on the Inca Trail. So I walk into one of the shops that reminded me of something straight off Thomas St. in Dublin - all the more scary in that I'd understand the staff even less here
Franciscan Monestary
. Credit card transactions are only authorised here with a passport so had to pay with my well earned cash. Back at the hostel I meet the first of the group. It will be a group of six only - quite small but that's OK.
So who have we got then - bizarrely - small world and all that we've got Aisling from Longford - an english teacher, working in South Korea - in her mid 20s - lovely and jet lagged to the hilt much like myself. We are then joined by #3 and 4 of the group - a Florida couple in their mid 40s - later transpires they're older - so you'll get a kick out of reading this Lisa and Eric. Lisa also a school teacher.
The final two who turn out to be Paul and Gillian from Brisbane are running late.
We meet up with Cynthia our tour guide for the next two weeks - former rebellious tom boy who sneaked out to a concert when she was under age and was caught by the police and returned home where she got a battering by her parents with a belt with three spikes - she kindly informed of this at lunch today. She says it was the best thing that ever happened her and she is now a successful tour guide as opposed to a single mum like all her cousins who weren't fortunate enough to be battered with the leather fixer. Cynthia is lovely. She takes us on a tour of downtown that evening and the catachombs in the Franciscan monestary where the general public where enterred right up to recent times - though the Fransican community itself are still buried in the skull and bone ridden dungeons. Amazing. Lisa is devoutly catholic in that kind of Irish way and is in her element. She also takes us to dinner where I eat the most amazing Chifa dish - chifa being a mixture between chinese and peruvian cuisine. It is a beef stir fry of sorts but infused with lime, tomatoes, soy and oregano. To die for. We also explore Plaza San Martin, home to a statue of Saint Martin de Porres - intersting because resting on the head of the virgin mary in the statue is a llama - there was a mix up in language at the time - llama is the spanish for flame - the more conventional representation of the holy spirit but the artist at the time not being spanish took the english version and topped Our Lady with a llama. Highly giggle worthy me thinks. The llama is still there.
The square is also home to the hotel Bolivar. Noteworthy in that it was closed down about 10 years ago for tax evasion. The long standing staff members though began to sell the hotels famous Pisco Sour (the national drink) outside the hotel doors and used the proceeds to pay off some of the bills and reopen the hotel under their ownership. Half the hotel is now operating again. It is Lima's first hotel and splendid inside. You can stay for next to nothing as its location in downtown Lima is unattractive. Most tourists flock to the safer, affluent, seaside suburb of Miraflores. For a mere 2 yos, we got to sit in the hotel bar sipping a Pisco Sour as Cynthia explained the itinerary for the next two weeks - it is going to be AMAZING.
On my iPod
Badlands - Bruce Springsteen
