Wandering Aimlessly

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Maps? They´re for Suckers

I slept til 4 in the afternoon and then decided it was time to go immerse myself in this city. A brief conversation at 11AM that morning with the British couple who were checking out of my dorm involved them pointing in a direction and saying that the ocean was “15 minutes walk that way”. So “that way” I headed. After 15 minutes I was not at the beach and the outline of high-rise in front of me told me I wasn’t about to hit the beach any time soon. I turned around but decided to go back on a different street, so as to try and cover a bit more of this new city. After 10 minutes walking I thought I heard the ocean, so headed in the direction of the roar. Turned out to be the roar of cars. Once again, I turned around but walked along a different street to cover more of the city.
It will come as no great surprise that 4 or so hours later, I was hopelessly lost. No, hopelessly isn’t the word, it implies that I had a hope in the first place. I had left the hostel with no map, no phone, no idea of the hostel’s address or even what it was near so I couldn’t even jump in a cab and I spoke absolutely no Spanish. I guess the term would be stupidly lost.
I eventually found an internet cafe and decided to try and google maps my way out of the pickle I was in. I found the address of the “Flying Dog B & B” and put my current address - “Av 28 Julio” in to the program and was told that I was 35 minutes away. By car. That wasn’t right? Eventually I asked the woman next to me for help. After a few minutes of Spanish-English-nowhere-gettting, she opened google translator. I typed in “Where am I?” and “How do I get to my hostel?” She finished up her time on the internet (I paid two Soles for both of us - roughly 70c Aussie) and she took me by the arm and started walking with me. That was how I met Mariella.

Mariella

Mariella was a middle aged Peruvian, missing one of her front teeth, starting to go grey and was wearing a grey tracksuit. She was possibly the most beautriful woman I’d met in Lima.
It turned out I was only a couple of blocks away from my hostel. When we arrived I said thank you and took out my wallet, which she pushed away “No, no”. So I tried a different tack - “Cerveza? Vino? Food?” I motioned eating, to which she broke out in a huge smile and took both my hands. I guessed she meant yes. So we went to a restaurant across the road called Rustica (I think it’s actually a chain restaurant) and ordered some food and beers. Despite me speaking no Spanish and she speaking no English, we actually had a pretty good chat. I learned that she had a son named Dominic who was in Manchester playing football (whether for City or United I don’t know) and I told her about my travel plans. At the end of the night she gave me her email address and a phone number.
“Lima, Trujillo, Lima, Santiago, Lima,” she said - a rough version of my itinerary.”Lima,” she made the phone gesture with her thumb and finger. “Mariella!” I promised to call and we said our goodbyes, “Amigos,” she said. Feeling much better about Lima and slightly more confident in my ability to get around without speaking the language, I went to bed.

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