Sunday, May 06, 2001

Yesterday we decided to head to downtown Lima and Central Lima...we had no idea what we were going into. The first sign that something was up was when we got out of the cab and across the street was a batallion of police all in full on riot gear: helmets, kevlar, and shields. Good lord I thought..what is going on?? Central Lima is more Spanish Colonial and features grand vistas and narrow streets, lots of really great 16th and 17th century architecture. The purpose of our visit was to find a particular travel agency who would help us piece together an itenarary. You have to keep in mind that it's all very confusing trying to find your way around. So at first, we ended up walking in the wrong direction. Complicating this is the lack of street signs here. Apparently we're supposed to channel the names of the streets from the great incan gods...or else they were all stolen, or there was never a budget to begin with to have street signs. No matter, the result is the same: blank confusion.

We get to the end of the street (which is exactly opposite of where we need to be) and there we see tanks...notice the plural. Off to the side were a few soldiers with machine guns...and we were completely surrounded by symbols of the catholic faith. It was odd, to be sure, and I was just about ready to give up and get the next taxi back to MiraFlores. But we turned around and eventually found our tourist office.

As I said, there were some incredible buildings to look at while we were walking. Everything we passed could be considered historical...even the sex shop (which runs its own kind of infomercials Saturday nights on the local tv station). The statues, the columns, the intricate brick work in the sidewalks and roads...it was inspiring. Despite the heavy presence of police and military, everything was in a calm mood and after finishing up our itinerary, we walked the 2000 yards to the Museum of the Spanish Inquisition.

Despite the decidedly pro-catholic leanings of our tour guide, it was interesting tour. It took us through an old inquisitional headquarters of 16th century catholicism and displayed the various torture devices the catholics used to have sinners confess. Surprisingly, the inquisition lasted up through the mid-19th century (I believe she said it ended sometime around 1830 or 40). Alas, despite the valiant effort by the Church to maim and burn all the sinners they could find, I must say that sinning is alive and well in Lima.

This is where the events of the day turned heavy. The tour ended and we walked across the street to catch a taxi just in front of the Peruvian Congress (a really magnificent looking building). Taxis in Lima, if I haven't mentioned this, are really nothing more than go-karts with windows and radios. They are small (perhaps 2 or 3 cyl. engines) and all sport the same pre-adolescent horn (used to varying degree of annoyance by the drivers). Our driver picked us up and gave us a good fare to the next museum, the museum of incan anthropology and architecture (that's not the name, just the subject matter). Two minutes into the ride, the driver tells us in spanish to roll up our windows and lock the doors...and soon, we were in a part of modern civilization I have never witnessed before.

Things went from bad and impoverished (where we were in Central Lima) to absolutely depraved and desperate. People, masses of them, all caked with dirt and wearing nothing more than rags were filling the streets...digging through mounds of garbage that was collected in the streets and sidewalks. We passed a burning car...perhaps a late-60's model Ford or Chevy. To our right was a large hill covered in a maze of smallish dwellings, all crumbling and falling into one another (there must've been literally thousands of these dwellings on this hill). Off to my left I saw a dirty man chasing after a dog, with a piece of food in its mouth. It was a valley of lost souls. The energy was frightening. All around, you could here the slow shake of the death rattle...this wasn't living. It was dying...if you were lucky. Lisa and I both got the fear. The "taxi" we were in had no taxi signs...in fact, it seemed to be a regular car (although it was the same Daewoo model used by all the taxis here). This random man had stopped his car and taken us in, and like fools we had jumped in..trusting that this was a taxi.

Well, it's a fine time to realize what you've done when you're so far into it you've hit terminal velocity. Lisa was checking off street names with a map she was carrying and realized we were not headed anywhere near the museum...he was driving us off to somewhere else. What do you do in this situation? Lisa asked him, in spanish, where were going and why were going this route...which was obviously unsafe. He answered that he was avoiding traffic by taking an alternate route. Ok, this is when your survival instincts kick in. This guy was short but stocky...I thought first thing I would do is grab him around the neck and cut off his air the first moment something looked wrong. Our only chance would be to get him out of the car and take it with us...to drive out, and get to somewhere safe, if something did go down. And at this point, it was not looking good. Rubble and trash were everywhere, were in an unmarked "taxi," and every horror story I've ever heard about travelling is filling my head. It was at this moment that it broke, like a high pitched fever and sweating throughout the night: we turned onto the street the museum was on.

We were still jumpy alright, but we were throttling the heart rate. It looked as though we were going to make it, and we did. And when we got out of that taxi, it was the greatest feeling because for about 15 minutes we thought the worst was about to happen. We had somehow passed our own inquisition of sorts, without confession and without death.

Now, we're off for the second leg of our journey tomorrow (itinerary to follow). I hope none of it involves anything close to what we went through yesterday.

In contrast to that little experience, everything else has been absolutely right on. The people have been gracious and accomodating (except when driving), and I've had some quite good peruvian food. This morning, Lisa and I walked out to the artisan's market that faces our hostal and bought some homemade (by peruvian grandmothers no less!!!) tamales and some sweet stuff that I forget the name of (curse me, I didn't have my notebook with me). The dinners have been great as well, although cokes seem a bit high to me. Amazingly, no one's tried to sell me a kilo of cocaine or anything...what's up with that?!

I've had to change photoalbums to Yahoo! I like zing, but it is damn annoying if you're using anything less than a cable/T1 connection. Check out all current photos, including some photos from the incan temple we visited today.

Now that we have our schedule set for Peru, we're in the process of setting up a tour in Ecuador. If anyone has any recommendations, let me know! Also, I highly recommend the current hostal we're in: La Casa de Los Sanchez. We have a beautiful room with a large private bathroom, a balcony overlooking the artisan's park in MiraFlores, fridge and TV all for $20 per night (so it's $10ea.). The people have been especially friendly and helpful as well. Ciao.

Sunday, May 06, 2001

Day 1/Monday: Depart for Pisco (3 hour ride) from the Lima bus station. Arrive Pisco and stay in the Hostal Posada Hispana.

Day 2/Tuesday: Have breakfast and head to the bay. Excursion to the Islas Ballestas by boat. In the evening, depart to Nazca by bus (4 hour ride). Arrive and stay at the Hostal Estrella del Sur.

Day 3/Wednesday: Fly over las lineas de Nazca (35 minutes) and have a free afternoon. At 10 PM, depart to Arequipa (10 hour ride) by bus. Bus will have comfy seats, toilet, TV and heating.

Day 4/Thursday: Arrive Arequipa and transfer to the Viza Hostal. Have a free afternoon to visit the city and the Santa Catalina Convent.

Day 5/Friday: Excursion to the Colca Valley, stay at Chivay Town.

Day 6/Saturday: Visit the Colca Canyon, return to Arequipa and depart for Puno by bus.

Day 7/Sunday: Arrive Puno and transfer to the Hostal Cofre Andino.

Day 8/Monday: Excursion to the Eros and Taquile Islands, stay at the Amantani islands on Titicaca Lake. *These islands are man made of reeds and float in Lake Titicaca. The reeds are replaced at the top as the wear from the bottom.

Day 9/Tuesday: Return to Puno and the hostal.

Day 10/Wednesday: Transfer to the train station, depart for Cuzco at 8 AM (12 hour ride). Arrive at Keros Hostal.

Day 11/Thursday: City tour and tour of the 4 nearby ruins.

Day 12/Friday: Excursion to Machu Picchu with a guide.

Day 13/Saturday: Return to Lima by plane from Cuzco.

Day 14/Sunday: Depart for Quito, Ecuador by plane.

Follow us on the lonely planet map and read about the places we are headed.

That's the complete itenerary. If we find Internet cafes we will post but it will be hard. I am bringing a journal to write down all my thoughts experiences, etc. so I can share them as soon as I can get my hands on a keyboard. The trip above including the flights, buses, hostals, food, tickets, guides, sightseeing is cheaper than a roundtrip ticket to Rio so we opted for this itenerary. I think it is a blessing in disguise because I want to hit Carnaval in February so a good time to head down would be end of December, travel around Brazil and end in Rio for Carnaval, etc.

I am excited to get out of Lima and move around. We went to Central Lima yesterday and now I know why we were told to stay in MiraFlores. Downtown is surrounded by tanks and MP's in riot gear as all of the government buildings are there. The street we were on, Jirón de la Union (9th row last picture and 10th row first picture), is packed with tiendas with just about everything you can imagine. As I crossed one of the streets headed for Infotour, our travel agency, Al spotted two men holdiong two small furry packages and he drew my attention to them. They were holding small caramel colored cocker spaniels (I think). The dogs had just gotten their hair and were very young. I almost started crying because they had them in sacks. One of the men handed me a small little fella and as I held him his little head wobbled around as he tried to raise it and focus on my face. He had little dark brown eyes and they were so sad. I wanted to buy them all but I didn't know what to do. I wish it was easier to transport animals back to the states. It was very difficult to give them back. Al followed my experience by telling me that I couldn't save all the animals in the world and it was part of life. He was trying to make me feel better but it wasn't working.

Downtown is very dirty and it is clear as you ride toward the Central Highway parallel to Calle Tacna that even thoughts of South Central LA are pipe dreams for these limeños. There are expanses with people living under tents literally sleeping on garbage, cars on fire, what looked like a makeshift BBQ pit built from a front fender of a car. Nonetheless, I saw smiles. It was sobering to say the least and a little frightening as we were in cab headed what was perceived to be the wrong direction until he turned around. If you come to Lima, do not go near here and make sure you communicate with your taxi driver to take an alternate route even if it costs more. We were lucky nothing happened. I can tell you though that I was pretty scared, one becuase I thought he was driving us to some hidden venue and two, because I had never seen such poverty. It really makes you be thankful for the life you live, Mastercard bills and all. I think Al is delivering a descriptive piece on this experience.

Other than that experience, everything else has been relatively peaceful. Last night we went to a restaurant right by our hostal and 3 or 4 times in a row we had street kids with reed flutes and drums playing loud Ande's music and they all played the same song. They then take the time to go around and get money. After a while it was a little frustrating, especially when I am trying to decipher the spanish the waitress is speaking, order in Spanish and translate for Al. I couldn't hear a thing.

This morning we got up and headed across the street where a bunch of Peruvian grandmothers were having a bake and craft sale. We ate some tamales and a sweet mixture called rapañote or rancañote, I can't remember, but it seemed to have bread, brown sugar, syrup, little flecks of cheese (maybe feta) and colored sprinkles. It was good but very sweet. It was fun to try food that was actually made by limenños. The lady told us in spanish that it was an ancient candy that their ancestors have made for centuries. I thought that was pretty cool.

Once we had a little food in our bellies, we met with the travel agent and got our itenerary. We then headed for some llamas (3rd to last row, first pic is the best!) and the Peruvian hairless dog (4th picture) they had on the premises. I love animals so I probably spent more time in that area than anywhere else.

I think that about covers it. There are tons of new pictures so be sure to check them out.