Lima

---

Lima´s mass transit is about as different from San Francisco´s as you can get.
From the airport we took a minibus to Miraflores where the Sisters of Mercy own a house.

These buses are owned by a private business and leased out to local people.
A team of 2 guys will rent the bus (usually an old Toyota with seats for about 10, made in the 70s or 80s) for about S./30 per day.
One person drives while the other hangs out the slide door, shouting at pedestrians to ask if they want to get on. He also collects the money (S./ 1 for a short journey, 2 for longer).
They drive along prescribed routes (there are people who sit on street corners all day counting buses to monitor the performance) throughout the day, trying to make money.

There are big buses as well, and the taxis are run along a similar system (a business owns the cars, the drivers rent them).

This system is incredibly effective, and could be easily and cheaply adopted in Dublin to help mend our dysfunctional transport system.

Apart from that, Lima was nice from what I saw.
Of course, I was in one of the more desirable tourist areas, and the system is such that wealth will stay within each community to improve it. This is great for community solidarity, but it means the poor areas stay poor with little transfer of wealth.

In the morning Emer & I went for a walk along Reich´s part (named after Mary Reich, who discovered the Nasca lines).
There are steep cliffs of red-brown clay in light-weight, crystaline formation that drop dow to the see. They are fertilised with water from sewage treatment plants so grass will grow, in order to prevent soil erosion.

There are many football pitches at the top and bottom of these cliffs, and people go surfing in the sea (the waves are about 3-4 feet high and pretty clean, though the beaches are quite stony).
On windy days it is possible to paraglide from the cliffs.
You jump off (with an expert to fly the craft) and go up above the high rise buildings and the cliff face.
The cost is $50 for about 15 minutes. In Ireland, a parachute jump from an airplane, also taking about 15 mins, would be the best part of $500.

---