Lima, Peru
18-28 March 2010
My intention was to spend 4 days in Lima, I wanted to finally spend a weekend dancing Salsa and other latin styles, and so I figured, arrive on Thursday, dance all nights possible, see the sights and leave ... because I don´t much like cities.
But it wasn´t to be. I arrived Thursday, met a local who said he knew where to go dancing, went dancing and it wasn´t much 'chop', went sightseeing the next day, got to the Museum of the Inquisition (the very building and equipment they used to torture people who didn´t seem to be quite on the right track), fell up some stairs, and then couldn´t walk, let alone dance. I had to stay in Lima and rest. Boring! (And you can perhaps see haw this post got it´s title.)
The damage was to the middle toe of my left foot. Eventually I decided I had better get it X-Rayed, and it wasn´t broken, but seriously damaged (my Spanish and the doctors English may have stopped me getting a good definition here). At least I was staying in a nice area (very like New Farm in Brisbane), had a nice private room, and a big TV, Cable, and DVD player. I am writing this 12 days later, I finally moved on, but walking still hurts and tires me a lot. I never really got to dance, and didn´t see a lot of the sights either.
Prior to falling, I went to a museum with lots of Pre-Columbian Artifacts. At first I wondered about the seeming impracticality of water vessels such as this, but it is actually very clever. As you pour from it, it whistles like a flute.
The museum of Inquisition has a fantastic roof, but I wasn´t even looking at it when I tripped.
Lima´s main Cathedral.
The view from Larcomar, the very Global shopping centre near where I was accommodated. The shopping centre had everything you´d expect in the western world.
I liked this! At nights in the Parque de la Reserva they have a fantastic fountains and lights show. Ok, it is a very wasteful use of resources, but it´s very well done too. And we´ve seen play fountains for kids, this one is for adults... you try to get to the middle without getting wet as the fountain constantly changes. Being that I was having trouble walking I didn´t try, but if I am ever back there....
My Limeño friend, Juan Carlos, took me sightseeing. He obviously was impressed by the Saints buried in the church, but I liked the tile work and the gardens.
Housing, Lima style.
View of Lima. All that area of white even boxes.. well, that´s the cemetary.
Forget the traffic lights, many street corners have someone in a box (middle of photo, behind the car) guiding traffic.
Saw a baptism in the surf. And they say that the water is unsafe for swimming in Lima.
I had trouble capturing this photo from the bus window, but curved blue buildings like this surround a big round-a-bout, very impressive.
The Drive North out of Lima, sand dunes right to the pacific ocean.
Another difficult bus window photo. But all these roofs are those of chicken sheds. Each shed apparently held 5000 chickens, most clusters were of 12-18 sheds, there were clusters every 5-15 kms for probably 200 kms. Apparently they have the distance between them to stop the spread of disease. I learnt last year that currently they are maturing chickens in 8 weeks.... that´s a lot of chickens being processed right here.
Notes:
Accommodation in Miraflores, Lima, Friends House, $11 Private Room, shared bath, breakfast included. *****
Bus Pisco to Lima $4 with PeruBus… no rest on this bus, every 15 minutes another person gets on and checks you have a ticket.
