Advertisement
Published: November 10th 2006
Miraflores, Lima
Flowering gardens atop sand cliffs by the sea are pretty to walk through.Lima is huge and smoggy and noisy. The noise is the most interesting part: the drivers here use horns in a really complex way; it´s like a language. Long, loud honks for ¨hurry up, i´m coming up behind you and there´s no way I´m slowing down¨, a long series of short honks for ¨hey, person on the sidewalk minding your own business, do you want a ride?¨ Loud taps for ¨I´m cutting you off now, just so you know¨ - and the same for ¨I protest your cutting me off, but will do nothing about it.¨
The busses - or cars - or combis - or something, I´m not really sure, honestly - are loads of fun, if, like me, you like rapidly navigating your way through chaos. Here´s how it works - these brightly painted vans drive down the main street (crazily) and move to the right lane and slow down where there is a group of people on the sidewalk (some of these seem to be official stops, and some just seem to be understood as sensible places to wait). A person leans out of the open door in the middle of the van, and yells the destinations the
Cactus
Along those garden paths... bus is going to, among other things. As the van slows, you yell where you want to go to the guy - if they´re going there, they indicate so, and you hurry onto the van, often without it really ´stopping´, per se. If they´re not, they indicate so, and keep going. And you repeat as needed.
Today I asked directions from a man who told me to take a van to Avianca. So I yell Avianca at the lady in the van, and she goes, ¨we´re ON Avianca¨. Which was slightly confusing. Somehow, though, I haven´t gotten lost.
Today I went to the Muséo de la Nación, which is sort of an overview of all the Peruvian pre-Inca cultures. It was all right, and I have weird pictures to post, if I could figure out how to do so.
I have met some interesting people here in Lima. Yesterday I was at Larco del Mar in Miraflores, which is this sort of upscale mall built into the cliffs above the Pacific (the coastline here is huge sand cliffs that drop down to the beach, the city is on the cliffs). This mall, by the way, is ridiculous in that it
Random in a Park, Miraflores, Lima
Do you think they´ll remove this as offensive content? It´s public art, dammit. seems so out of place. It reminds me in that way of the ´conference center´in Scranton. Self-promotion, and untrue.
So, a woman came up to me, asked for the time (in English), was obviously not interested in my answer, and then proceeded to start a conversation. All good. The conversation was quite one-sided, which is fine. However, it somehow quickly turned to confusing stories about her time in the circus as a contortionist and all the lesbians who have tried to sleep with her. She kept telling me how beautiful I was, while insisting that she does not like to - oh, I can´t write this here (Hi Mom!). Needless to say it was confusing, and I´m not sure how much of that was due to the language barrier.
Tomorrow I go to Ica, which is about 5 hours south. From there I will see the Islas Ballestas and the Nazca lines, and attempt to sand board.
As soon as I can figure out how to upload pictures here, I´ll add some visual references for the above.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 7; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0444s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Eileen
non-member comment
I got Pumas on my feet.
So, I wore the shoes you gave me today and there was an entry in your travel blog!! I will pretend that the 2 have something to do with each other. Glad you are safe and having quite the adventure. Love you!