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Published: January 12th 2007
You know that your four month trip throughout South America starts badly when: You have to fly a roundabout way (Philadelphia to Toronto to Lima), your flight to Toronto is delayed and you rush to the gate for your Lima flight, missing it by a measly 10 minutes. It becomes even more interesting when you find out that the next available flight is not until two days later, Thursday the 10th, and for those 2 days you have no idea where your luggage is. It gets a little better when you get to stay with very hospitable family friends in Toronto, but then gets a little worse when you arrive in Lima at 2AM, tired and exhausted, only to realize that your backpack now has a reddish stain from the bottle of wine you brought to give to the family you are staying with. After not letting you take said bottle of wine on your carry-on bag and being forced to stow it in your checked bag, it proceeded to shatter into pieces after severe mishandling at the Toronto airport.
That aside, it's been great!
My arrival in Lima marks the beginning of my 4 month trip through Peru,
Bolivia and Argentina. Lima is just one big, heavily polluted city, although the crazy drivers and colonial architecture do give it a certain charm. The mother and niece of the Villanueva family I am staying with for a few days were kind enough to take me around Lima yesterday, and the son is even taking me around today-I feel spoiled. They won't even let me fend for myself! Near the Plaza de Armas in Central Lima, I experienced my first (of many) protests snaking through Lima's city streets. At the church of San Francisco (every Latin American city seems to have a church named so) I saw some eery catacombs with bones that just seemed too neatly displayed in the underground caves. I also knew there was a serious issue while waiting for the tour to start when a Peruvian folk music take on Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" was blasting over the loudspeakers. No comment...
Last night I also had my first taste of a
real pizco sour. When I mentioned that I had had pizco once in Chile, the Peruvians became irate and made clear to me that Chilean pizco is fake and no good-I
Bones in the catacombs
Tell me the way they were arranged isn't totally bizarrehad to oblige. They sure know how to make a strong drink though. Inca Kola is Peru's answer to the ubiquity of Coca-Cola, and it's actually not half-bad, although it does taste a lot like bubble gum.
I'll be in Lima a couple more days before I head north eight hours to the town of Huaraz to trek around the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. Here's hoping I survive the town's elevation of 10,000 feet (3,000m) and the peaks, which are as high as 18,000+ feet! I'll be crossing my fingers...
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Marina
non-member comment
fake pisco??
the pisco i was drinking for 5 months was fake? I feel so cheated! bernie, i love the way your trip started...that´s the good stuff about travelling, you never know what kinda shit you´re gonna have to go through-but it usually makes for some interesting memories. best of luck! have fun!