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Published: October 12th 2008
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With our time together sadly drawing to a close, we returned to Lima and found a hotel that was excellent on all counts, including serving breakfast in bed. Foodwise, we moved away from the realms of Peruvian cuisine for some novelty. A good dim sum stuffing is not something I'm ever likely to turn down, and it made me realise that my last one had been well over a year ago in Hong Kong.
If someone had asked me before coming here which countries had had a large influence on Peru, I would have said Japan, mainly due to knowing of ex-President Fujimori's ancestry, however I've seen little evidence to support that. In fact the preponderance of Chinese food would suggest that the Middle Kingdom has been more influential. There has certainly been a marked absence of Japanese restaurants, and the novelty value of visiting a highly-rated sushiya in Miraflores did not outweigh the fact that it was overpriced and the chita sashimi was a close relative in toughness of an old boot.
LA Woman's 6 weeks were up all too soon, and it was the familiar miserable traipse to an airport to say our goodbyes, though this time
we do have a next date already planned - the run-up to Christmas in New York. The interim will be spent by me living the decadent backpacker lifestyle I've come to embrace, whereas she will be in a Zen monastery, so I have no doubt we'll have plenty to discuss come mid-December.
Being back on my own brought the usual attention that never comes my way in a couple, not least the regular offers of drugs. Two different groups of schoolkids accosted me for an English project, with a fixed set of questions including did I have any pets and did I believe in UFOs. It was tempting to say I had no pets because my cat had been abducted by aliens, or at least make some gratuitous reference to anal probes that would have had them scrambling for their dictionaries (surely the whole point of the exercise anyway?), but travel has made me realise that, like it or not, I'm in some way an ambassador for both my country and for foreigners in general, so I smiled sweetly and gave answers that hopefully made some improvement, however small, to their already impressive English.
I'd had enough of
Cruz del Sur so opted to make my escape from Lima with a different bus company, Linea. Their terminal didn't seem to be well-known amongst the taxi community, resulting in ludicrous fare quotes to get there that clearly had a built-in contingency. However it was a good decision to try Linea - for reasons unknown, they upgraded me to a better seat and the service level was higher in every respect, including the film selection, though plain water was still apparently too difficult to provide as a dinner drink option. In addition to the usual videoing, bag check, and pat down before entering the bus, all passengers were also fingerprinted. I'll be ready for the inevitable cavity search when I fly LAN Peru.
17 hours later, I was in Cajamarca.
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