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Published: April 9th 2006
Well, plenty of sunshine anyway, enough to get me sunburnt THROUGH THE FOG in only a couple of hours. You think you´re safe with SPF 100 sunblock and the traditional layer of Lima fog, but no...
Still wearing the clothes I arrived in a number of days ago, as I put in all of my laundry to be done, and arrived too late to pick it up on the following day. Now everything is closed for the elections, including all of the laundromats, so I´ll just have to wear dirty stinky clothes for another day. I can´t even go and buy new clothes, because all of the clothes stores are closed as well! Nothing ever happens during elections in AUstralia (I guess that´s because no one really gives a damn), but here, everything comes to an absolute standstill. I have taken a vox pop of the public, and it seems that the new president could potentially be any of the 26 or so candidadtes lined up for the top spot. In terms of getting their face in the public eye, Ollanta, Alan and Lourdes seem to be winning the race, but public opinion varies widely. It could be anyone.
surfboards
Miraflores, PeruI have taken the wise, but more expensive decision to base myself in the seaside suburb of Miraflores dor the duration of my stay here in Lima. Everyone that knows me will know that I certainly didn´t choose this place for my love of the ocean - au contraire, the beaches here are possibly the only Peruvian example of a beach consisting entirely of boulders - another Morrissey-esque beach to roll around on. Nonetheless I chose to spend much time here, mainly because every time I go into the park to read or have a picnic, locals want to use me to practice their english, and after half a year living on a spanish-speaking continent, I don´t think my english is even up to scratch anymore (it´s actually on par with my spanish now - hence the occasional spelling mistakes and ramblings...).
But I digress. What has happened since the last posting? (let me check the last posting first...)
(later) Now I´m up to speed with my own travels. Well I managed to not barf on the plane over the Nazca lines (hey , I take my small victories where I can get them), which I am sure you
are all glad - and very surprised - to hear. Believe me, I got pretty close, especially onthe tarmac when I saw how small the planes were. Perseverance, and the fact that I paid $40US for the flight spurred me on into the back seat, nervously clutching my camera and vomit bag - both seemingly essential to my well being at that point in time. Ended up only using the camera, to the great relief of my fellow passengers (and no doubt the owner of the plane also).
The lines? Oh yeah, those - they were pretty good, I guess. Interesting when you think that the local people who created them had so much spare time from trying to earn a living out of the poor, dry, stony soil to bother creating these huge geopglyphs for gringos to ooh and aah over centuries later .... mindblowing. The plain looks like the surface of Mars, or the gibber deserts of central Australia, barely a living thing in sight.
After landing safely 30 minutes later, I jumped on the first bus to LIma, deciding to forego the delights of the big pile of guano that makes up the national park of
Paracas, even though I was dying to see a blue-footed booby. Perhaps after the return journey to Lima I can spare a day to do the tour.
After the architecture-fest I unleashed on you in the last blog, you´ll be happy to note that of all of the pics I post this time, none of them has to do with spanish-style carvings. Actually, I have pulled the camera out very little since arriving in the capital, preferring just to try and relax for a few days with my book (Catch 22) and the beach. But no matter how hard I try, I just can´t even out those damned tan lines...
Next post probably from Lima (if anything happens), or from somewhere in deepest, darkest Chile...
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