Lima: The Last Stop!

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  Lima, Peru
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

¡Saludos desde Lima, Perú!

Yesterday afternoon I picked up my backpack at the hostal and caught a mototaxi to the Cruz del Sur office on Avenida Atahualpa. The mototaxis are so tiny (just a small motorbike with a 1-2 person carriage attached) that I actually felt like the weight of my backpack might make us tip over! I tried to sit right in the middle. I jumped off at Cruz del Sur and checked my backpack at the luggage counter, then hung out in the waiting room and watched people stream in, all the while hoping my stomach would settle down. I was terribly afraid they´d make one of those "The bathroom is to be used as a urinal ONLY" announcements and then what would I do?!

Just a few minutes before it was time to board the bus, I stepped out onto the street to get some air and I noticed someone waving at me from within the waiting room. It was one of the ladies from my tour to Cumbe Mayo on Thursday! I barely recognized her and I told her so...she got her hair cut in Cajamarca -- very stylish! She was with her mom who also got a haircut. They are so sweet, and on our tour they were always offering to take my picture since I´m traveling alone. They also happened to be the two women who had been asking questions about Kuelap, Leymebamba and Ravesh and I kept jumping in with peanut gallery editorials! They were also booked on the bus, returning to Lima after a week of vacation and sightseeing in Trujillo and Cajamarca. They both had seats on the lower level of the bus like I did. The daughter told me that she was also suffering from a "mal estomago" and didn´t feel too great....that made me feel a little better!

We boarded just before 5:00 pm and I felt like I was in first class on the plane again! We had wide, leather seats that reclined way back (but didn´t go completely parallel to the floor despite what I had been told), leg rests, pillows, blankets, a TV for movies and dinner meal service. There were only 9 seats on the lower level...my friends from the tour had 2 single seats on the other side of the aisle. In other words, 3 seats were stand-alone with no neighbor. I really could have used one of those!
 
I got comfortable and we started rolling out of the terminal. I watched Cajamarca roll by as the bus attendant made his welcome announcement. As far as I could tell, he welcomed us all aboard, explained that there would be videos for our entertainment, dinner would be served, and there were 2 restrooms on the bus -- one on the 1st level and one at the back of the 2nd level. Then he said very clearly, and repeated himself, that the bathrooms were to be used as URINALS ONLY. If someone had an emergency he or she must inform the bus attendant so they could stop on the road. Yeah, right! Like I was going to have them stop the entire bus so I could go on the side of the road. Too bad, Cruz del Sur! Some rules were made to be broken.
 
I started out OK but things went downhill fast. My stomach was upset for the 3rd day but I was trying to distract myself for as long as possible. How many times could I disturb or crawl over the guy between me and the aisle?! I watched the movie they put on (something terrible with Nicole Kidman about invaders? A terrible flu?) and tried to read the subtitles. This only made me feel nauseous, as the bus was swinging around hairpin curves and climbing uphill while I tried to focus on little words 3 rows ahead of me. I decided to abandon the movie and close my eyes. I had the chills and shivered under my blanket. I started half-dreaming and thought, "I have to fly home tomorrow when I get to Lima, surely my travel medical insurance will pay for the change fee?" This is not logical, as they would need certification from a doctor that I have to return home immediately for health reasons. I doubt a case of the trots would qualify. (Ha ha! I just made myself laugh out loud!)
 
At 7:00 pm, two hours into our trip I finally gave in and went to the bathroom. Needless to say I broke the rule, but the world kept spinning. It was actually a very nice bathroom for a bus, much more like an airplane bathroom. I crawled back into my seat and prayed I wouldn´t have to keep excusing myself to the man next to me, especially in the middle of the night. I am happy to report that I didn´t need to use the bathroom again the rest of the trip! Aren´t you glad I am keeping you abreast of my bathroom happenings???
 
At maybe 9:00 pm the bus attendant came around to serve dinner. Although my stomach was a little more settled, I still felt awful. He gave us each tray tables and little warm tins with lomo saltado, rice, a dumpling and a cookie. Everything looked really good but it was turning my stomach. I choked down a few forkfuls of rice and I wanted to vomit. I ate two little pieces of meat and those seemed OK. Then he gave us our beverage: Inka Cola. This is the big Peruvian soft drink -- neon yellow and tastes just like bubble gum. It was cold and very fizzy and I actually sipped all of it down slowly. I think it helped the nausea a little.
 
After dinner I tried to fall asleep but there was a game of Bingo! I couldn´t miss out on that! We all got game cards and the attendant called out letters and numbers over the speaker. Let me just say that my Spanish vocabulary and grammar are good on a good day, so-so on a bad day. But my Spanish numbers suck every day! I am constantly confusing 15 with 40 with 50, and 60 with 70, and many others. So this was excellent practice! At one point I had hit all the numbers in a particular row and I turned to my seatmate and said, "Es así?" and he shook his head. Apparantly you have to get all the numbers on the entire card. See how much I know about Bingo! I was one number short when five other people won! That was OK with me, as the prize was a free ticket on Cruz del Sur. What would I do with another ticket on those "Don´t use our bathrooms the way God intended them to be used" buses? The truth is I would give it to the nice daughter/mother ladies.
 
After Bingo another movie came on: Dr. Doolittle with Eddie Murphy. Ugh! And the sound was up really loud. I tried to ignore it and sleep but I wasn´t sleepy in the least. I also wasn´t feeling terrible, so overall I was grateful! Eventually the movie ended and the lights were already out, and everyone was fast asleep. The road had been rough, bumpy and very curvy for several hours but it was starting to smooth out and be much straighter (probably when we got to the coast and started heading south). That´s when I fell asleep! (with my plastic barf bag in hand just in case!) I was shocked when I woke up and saw it was 2:30 am. I watched a powerplant float by, closed my eyes and was shocked when I next saw it was 5:30 am.
 
Sometime shortly after that, music started drifting out of the speakers in an attempt to wake us gently. It was the same music we´d heard last night before the movies started: all American 70´s & 80´s tunes with Spanish lyrics...Bryan Adams, ABBA, Eric Clapton, etc. Bizarre! I opened the curtains over my window and saw we were definitely in the city. I didn´t know if it was the outskirts of Lima or Lima proper, but it was ugly and dirty and very gray. This is part of the curse of Lima´s location and climate...May through November the entire city is shrouded in a heavy, gray, fog from the ocean. I don´t know how anyone lives here with so much gray sky for so much of the year! I didn´t even want to live with it for 3 days!
 
We pulled into the Cruz del Sur terminal at 8:00 am on the dot (what happened to breakfast? I have no idea). I was off the bus with everyone else in a split second and grabbed my backpack at the luggage counter. Cruz del Sur is definitely recommended -- efficient, professional and safe! (In Cajamarca they videotaped everyone getting on the bus, then again in our seats.) The terminal was bright and clean, much nicer than Port Authority! I headed outside to find a taxi, who took me straight to my hostal in Miraflores. This was quick, as the bus terminal is in San Isidro and my hostal is in the northern part of Miraflores, the next neighborhood.
 
Miraflores is an upscale area of Lima, chock full of nice housing, shopping, boulevards with palm trees, and bordering the Pacific Ocean. It also hosts the lion´s share of backpacker hostals, which almost made me decide to stay in the city´s historical center instead. BUT, I thought about it and realized that there are sights I want to see in the historical center. There aren´t any sights to bring me to Miraflores, so if I don´t stay here I probably won´t see it! This way I´ll get to know two neighborhoods, and I definitely like being able to walk to the ocean. The hostal where I´m staying was the first one to answer my email while in Cajamarca, and I´m glad to be staying here. It is a restored colonial mansion with a grassy inner yard, outdoor terrace for breakfast (included in my rate of $15/night), shared kitchen (there´s a huge, modern supermarket one block away), a TV room, etc. The staff is very friendly too! My room is very simple but has a private bathroom and is at the back of the house so it should be quiet. Yay! Here is the hostal: http://www.homeperu.com/index.htm
 
When I checked in I asked if I could pay for an extra breakfast since I hadn´t eaten yet. I dropped my suitcase and headed out to the terrace where I was promptly served with bread, butter, jelly, coffee and milk (laid off that), tea and freshly squeezed papaya juice. Now this is more like it! While eating I met two very nice guys staying here until tomorrow. They are both from the University of Maine, doing research in the mountains near Cusco. They´re not interested in the Incas or pre-Inca cultures...they´re looking for evidence of the beginning! They are searching for how and where humankind started in Perú. In the meantime, they come across new artifacts and ruins from the Incas and other cultures all the time. They document them and move on. They are an archaeologist/geologist team from England and Kentucky. Fascinating! We talked about the Chachapoyas from northern Perú and Juanita in Arequipa.
 
Well, after breakfast I took a much-needed shower and did some laundry in my sink. I now have enough clean underwear to last the rest of my trip! My socks, on the other hand, are not in great shape but I´m not going to worry about it now with 2 days left! After doing laundry I was happily surprised to see that it was sunny out! Not a cloud in the sky and bright sunshine everywhere! So I grabbed my daypack and my sunhat and headed out to see Miraflores.
 
I walked down Avenida Arequipa towards the heart of Miraflores and the ocean beyond. My first impression was that it is a lovely, upscale neighborhood with nice houses and many schools. Then I went to see some ruins (below). After my detour to the ruins, I continued walking on Arequipa until I got to Parque Kennedy at the center of Miraflores. This is when it hit me that I´m no longer in the countryside or a small Peruvian city. I was overwhelmed to see McDonald´s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Payless ShoeSource! There was non-stop traffic and car alarms. I felt depressed, knowing that my true Peruvian experience is officially over. This shouldn´t have surprised me, as Lima is the size of New York -- 8 million people! It has over 1/3 the country´s entire population. And I´ve only seen one little neighborhood of Lima.
 
Anyway, my detour was to a very interesting site just a few blocks from my hostal. It is called Huaca Pucllana, and it is the ruins of a ceremonial site from the Lima culture who lived in this area around 200-700 AD. They were entirely dependent upon the sea for their survival, and were eventually wiped out by the Wari tribe from the highlands. This is a fascinating pyramid, which was built entirely of mud and seashells. The Lima people mashed it all up with their feet, then patted it into bricks, then lined them up vertically to create rows. They call it the library affect, because the bricks look like books lined up on a shelf. Here is a picture:
http://pucllana.perucultural.org.pe/puclimb.htm I asked our guide if the ruins erode at all with rain and she responded "It basically never rains in Lima. Ever." That is how they were able to build their structures out of mud and they survived thousands of years! Unfortunately this site used to be over 3 times the size it is now, but much of it was destroyed by construction companies. It is a strange thing to see these 2,500 year-old ruins sitting next to apartments and offices and restaurants in the middle of Miraflores!
 
Well, when I left the Huaca Pucllana it was definitely time for lunch. I walked down to Parque Kennedy (and had the city culture shock described above) and found a restaurant in my guidebook. It was middle-eastern food and it seemed to settle pretty well. I just had small strips of steak, hummus and some plain pita bread. And the restaurant was able to break a 100 sol bill for my 14 sol lunch! Another sign that I´m in the big city.
 
From lunch I kept strolling further south along Parque Kennedy (passed by an excellent outdoor photo exhibit showing earth images taken from space -- definitely want to spend more time checking that out!). I kept walking down Avenida Larco until I reached my final destination: the Pacific Ocean! On the one hand, it was exhilarating to look out on the big, blue ocean and feel it´s wind from high atop the cliffs of Miraflores. On the other hand, the beach itself and the waves crashing on it were downright ugly. There´s a brown froth in the water and the sand is dark brown, almost black in some places. My guidebook says some Peruvians surf here in the summer (we´re now in winter), but it´s not recommended as the waters are polluted. Duh!
 
Still, it was refreshing to look beyond the waves and see the ocean, especially on a rare sunny winter day! I felt lucky. And I was fascinated by the mall where I´d ended up: the Larco Mar. I´ve heard of and read about this mall ever since I booked my trip to Perú. I didn´t have a strong desire to go there, after all Peter and I are mallrats at home so what´s the big deal about going to a mall here in Lima? But there´s a difference: this is an outdoor mall built into the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Very cool! They have the usual stores plus a cineplex. I may just spend Wednesday night at the movies before my flight at midnight. Otherwise I was dismayed to see sooo many gringos at the mall, typing away on their laptops with WiFi at the Starbucks, or eating at the Ruby Tuesday´s, etc. Hello, Arequipa or Cusco or Cajamarca, take me away!
 
From the mall I strolled back to the hostal slowly and stopped at the supermarket to pick up some small eats for dinner...just some yogurt (not settling well) and crackers and a banana. Ugh! I am hoping this stomach business ends soon, as I have never had such troubles before, not even in all the places I´ve traveled to. I´m trying to hold off taking the Cipro I have with me, as it has caused a few people I know some pretty yucky side effects. I believe in mind over matter, and this WILL be gone TOMORROW! Tah dah!
 
That´s my report for today, I hope you enjoyed exploring Miraflores with me! Tomorrow we are going to historical (central) Lima to see the sights there. Or, we may end up sitting in Parque Kennedy all day with a book, who knows! Stay tuned....
 
Hope everyone had a great long weekend!
 
Love,
Kim

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