A Day in Lima

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Alex

I awoke the next day just in time to get the free breakfast from the restaurant next door that gives the “Flying Dog B & B” it’s second B. After that I went back upstairs and sorted out moving to a double room for that night. I was told I could move in to it at midday, so I went back to my room and slept for another hour. I got up at 12 and, as I started to pack my bag in preparation for moving to the double around the hallway, I met the other guy who had stayed in my dorm that night, a Spanish guy named Alex. We had a bit of a chat and he told me that he was just going to wander the city for the day. I asked if he minded if I tagged along, which he said was fine. I dropped my bags off in the new room, met up with Alex in reception and we headed out.
After getting a coffee we went West to the beach (turns out I had been walking South the day before). Paraglyders were jumping off the cliff, which we watched for around half an hour and Alex, a keen photographer, got some pictures. We wandered the city for about an hour and had a two course lunch consisting of chicken wrapped in a corn-made wrap and a dish of seafood and rice at a little restuarant for 7 Soles each. After that we jumped in a cab and went in to the old city.
Lima’s old city has the arcitechture and general vibe of any European city. The difference is that once you cross certain boundaries, such as the train line, you are straight in to some of Lima’s poorest slums. These are all brightly painted so as not to be an eyesore next to the grandness of the city centre. We visited the church of San Fransisco and took the English tour, which included going beneath the church in to the catacombs where thousands of Lima’s people had been buried in centuries past. The tour guide told us that the bodies were initially put in to graves and covered in sand and lime, which mean they decomposed quickly. When there was only skeletons left, they were put in to one of the wells - ten metre deep holes that stored all the bones. The sight of these wells, still filled with the bones of thousands of people, was slightly gruesome. As we were about to depart the crypt our tour guide told us to look down. “You can see the way the floor is divided up, because these are graves too. We’re walking on thousands more dead bodies that are yet to be excavated.”
Alex and I had a beer at a cafe and walked around the centre a little more. We were stopped at one point by a group of two girls and two guys because one of the girls asked Alex (who was 35 and had greying hair and beard) whether he was my dad! He told her that he wasn’t and when she found out I was Australian her face lit up and she started chatting away to me about how much she loved Australia and especially our music. Apparently Something With Numbers’ biggest fan lives in Lima!
We got a cab back to Miraflores. Traffic meant that it was a 45 minute trip and the combination of a day’s walking and the beer at the cafe meant that I slept the whole way. Alex was meeting some friends for dinner so we said our goodbyes and I went to reception at the “Flying Dog” to organize a cab to the airport for later that night. I read for a while, went to the supermarket and bought a big bottle of water, had some dinner and then met Miguel, the cabby, who took me to the airport.
Ten o’clock is apparently rush hour at Lima airport, as the entire arrivals board was taken up by flights that had arrived within 20 minutes of each other. I waited for half hour before walking out the gates came The Northern English (former) Waitress from Newtown cafe. We went back to the cab, awoke Miguel who was dozing in the passenger seat, and headed back in to the city. After showering, the Northern English traveller and I went out and had a beer, then went to bed.

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