Talor: Rolled into Lima in the late evening, and it was cold and dark. As we passed the usual crowded streets, fast food eateries and casinos on the main street, it seemed like any other large city. Exhausted from a very long day of travel, we found a comfortable enough room with a shared bath at the Hostel Malka in the pricey, but safe neighborhood of San Isidro. We passed out thinking, “Tomorrow is another day...”
Woke up to a gray day, and we were hoping for the sun to show itself, but that was not to be because Lima is covered by a perpetual fog 24/7, nine months out of the year and so everything looks drab and boring. Spent the first day walking around to
orient ourselves, but it is a big sprawling city with lots of different barrios from the upscale to the very poor. And we were advised to take a bus or a taxi wherever we went since it's not particularly safe, especially in the evening. Headed in the direction of Miraflores because we heard it was a nice area by the beach, but all we found were very touristy, very pricey hotels, restaurants and gift shops.
The next day we thought we should give it another chance and got on a bus for downtown Lima. Found it crowded, dirty, noisy and stinky. Sound familiar? Despite the fact that I've lived most of my life in New York, after spending the better part of our travels enjoying small towns and villages, I am finding the large cities way too stressful for this petite delicate flower. Plus two days of sun deprivation was putting me in a mean mood so we decided to get outta dodge.
One kooky t
hing while walking around in Central Lima... we were approached several times by young kids who seemed to be wearing school uniforms, but had “Conquistador” on their sleeves. They gave us leaflets with information on how to find God on the internet by going to http://www.esperanzaweb.com/. As we entered into Plaza de Armas, there were literally hundreds of them walking around in groups of four and five with arms linked, eating ice cream and handing out these leaflets to everyone. After about the 14th time, I stopped tossing them, kept one and waved it at them anytime they came near us, and they reacted with shrieks of joy and laughter and gave us the thumbs up... was glad to make them happy, but the experience was a bit disconcerting.
We wanted to take the Ferrocarril (train), from Lima to Huancayo (a city in the mountains of Central Peru), which boasts the highest point in the world you can travel to on a train. But the problem was that there is only one every two weeks, and the next one wasn't leaving until Friday, six whole days later... ARGH! The thought of spending another six days in Lima was way too depressing so we decided to go up north to a small town called Casma. With very little information about it, we didn't know what to expect, but thought it's gotta be better than Lima...
Erik:
Yes, it's hard to imagine just how depressing the perpetual fog is. It's an eerie, greenish mist, half natural and half smog, I think. Cars are constantly honking everywhere you go, and they do not give way to pedestrians. Still, we did manage to find an excellent and friendly cebicheria in our wanderings, where we enjoyed an excellent cebiche mixto (raw fish and seafood in a lime sauce) and a superb grilled fish fillet. That meal seemed to lighten up a little yet another dreary day...
We didn't take many photos, just a handful... http://picasaweb.google.com/erikandtalor/LimaPeru#
Woke up to a gray day, and we were hoping for the sun to show itself, but that was not to be because Lima is covered by a perpetual fog 24/7, nine months out of the year and so everything looks drab and boring. Spent the first day walking around to
orient ourselves, but it is a big sprawling city with lots of different barrios from the upscale to the very poor. And we were advised to take a bus or a taxi wherever we went since it's not particularly safe, especially in the evening. Headed in the direction of Miraflores because we heard it was a nice area by the beach, but all we found were very touristy, very pricey hotels, restaurants and gift shops.The next day we thought we should give it another chance and got on a bus for downtown Lima. Found it crowded, dirty, noisy and stinky. Sound familiar? Despite the fact that I've lived most of my life in New York, after spending the better part of our travels enjoying small towns and villages, I am finding the large cities way too stressful for this petite delicate flower. Plus two days of sun deprivation was putting me in a mean mood so we decided to get outta dodge.
One kooky t
hing while walking around in Central Lima... we were approached several times by young kids who seemed to be wearing school uniforms, but had “Conquistador” on their sleeves. They gave us leaflets with information on how to find God on the internet by going to http://www.esperanzaweb.com/. As we entered into Plaza de Armas, there were literally hundreds of them walking around in groups of four and five with arms linked, eating ice cream and handing out these leaflets to everyone. After about the 14th time, I stopped tossing them, kept one and waved it at them anytime they came near us, and they reacted with shrieks of joy and laughter and gave us the thumbs up... was glad to make them happy, but the experience was a bit disconcerting.We wanted to take the Ferrocarril (train), from Lima to Huancayo (a city in the mountains of Central Peru), which boasts the highest point in the world you can travel to on a train. But the problem was that there is only one every two weeks, and the next one wasn't leaving until Friday, six whole days later... ARGH! The thought of spending another six days in Lima was way too depressing so we decided to go up north to a small town called Casma. With very little information about it, we didn't know what to expect, but thought it's gotta be better than Lima...
Erik:
Yes, it's hard to imagine just how depressing the perpetual fog is. It's an eerie, greenish mist, half natural and half smog, I think. Cars are constantly honking everywhere you go, and they do not give way to pedestrians. Still, we did manage to find an excellent and friendly cebicheria in our wanderings, where we enjoyed an excellent cebiche mixto (raw fish and seafood in a lime sauce) and a superb grilled fish fillet. That meal seemed to lighten up a little yet another dreary day...
We didn't take many photos, just a handful... http://picasaweb.google.com/erikandtalor/LimaPeru#
No comments:
Post a Comment