Lima

ihana.com - big trip - diary - peru - may 2003

Sunday 25 - Tuesday 27 May

We had a great welcome in Lima and felt right at home. This is the third time we've been to the capital, the last time being a couple of years ago in 2001. Tom's and Magaly's parents were getting along fine, language barriers easily felled with a few beers and liberal quantities of after dinner brandy. T and M took the opportunity to announce their engagement (bloody hell!) and get lashed on champagne too.

No visit to Peru is complete without eating a cuy, home bred ones are the best of course. These are otherwise known as guinea pigs, more familiar to westerners as household pets than a roast platter. We think they're more useful as pets as the chicken-like meat is hardly enough to fill a hungry traveller.

As T's parents were here we went round the familiar sights, for the first time entering the main cathedral which is pretty impressive inside. In the old railway station there was an excellent exhibition of the artistry and lifestyle of Peru's Amazonian people. The exhibits were all the more special as they were freshly made and actually used, some of the jungle dwellers operating a stall selling their wares too. Ceremonial necklaces made from whole, brightly coloured birds, fearsome spears, bows and arrows, weavings and everyday objects all direct from the jungle, great stuff.

A popular place to visit is the church of San Francisco which has cloisters with intricate tiled walls and bone-filled catacombs down below where the dead Limeños were buried before the main cemetery was ready.

Lima seems much the same as it was before, perhaps with less old american cars on the road and more Daewoo Ticos and white Toyota estates. Probably 80% of the vehicles on the roads are either taxis or buses. The deeply unpopular government passed a law prohibiting the import of used car spares which, surprisingly enough, has caused a huge increase in the amount of car theft as spares get harder and harder to find. One acquaintance even had the radiator stolen from his Toyota while he was off looking for other spare parts.

While in Lima we met up with Rick who's travelled down from the US on a backpacking journey round the world. He originally started out in a Toyota 4x4 but had it nicked in Los Angeles. He rightly reckons that a landy is the way forward and might be buying one when he gets to England. Check out his site at travelhead.com.

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