Alas, it is finally, finally time to divulge the details of
my Peruvian peregrination. It was a very long eight-day journey, llena
(yay-nah: adj. full) with activity, illness, frustration, and natural wonders.
I’ll try to break it down simply but keep it as entertainingly verbose as
possible:
LIMA PERU: 10/27- 10/30
("lee-mah"...not to be confused with Lima, Ohio)
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| Central Lima |
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| My favorite church |
Two of my friends and I (both nicknamed D, which makes for a
very entertaining yet challenging way to get their attention) took a bus from
the bus station in Viña del Mar to Santiago where you change buses and
eventually get to the airport (dreading this process when I eventually fly home
with copious amounts of luggage!). Unfortunately, all three of us were sick:
both D’s with stomach illnesses of some sort, and I with God-awful congestion and
two overwhelming earaches. The flight from Santiago to Lima is about 3.5 hours
long and barely feels like an international fligh,t aside from the fun options
on the TV screens on the seat in front of you that show you where in the world
your plane is currently located or a few movies that are still in limbo between
the theater and DVD. We finally
arrived at our hostel, La Casona Roja, late at night, in the safer, young,
bar-hopping neighborhood of Barranco.
The
next morning, I still could not completely hear out of both of my ears. Waiting
for your ears to pop is worse than the combined anticipation of Christmas
morning as a six year old and praying for a crippling headache to subside.
Aside from my woes, we ate the typical free hostel breakfast of hearty
carbohydrates (2 pieces of bread) and juice. We figured out the clean,
organized Lima metro/bus system (not sure exactly what it was) and made our way
to Central Lima. We ate ¼ pollo ("poy-yo" n. chicken) lunch/dinner that was unbelievably
cheap in Peruvian soles ("soul-As") and experienced a 7.0 magnitude “earthquake” while
eating that felt more like a tremor to our well-trained Chilean selves (we all
immediately received emails telling us to notify our families that we were
alive…hardly anyone on the street or in the restaurant even noticed the quake
at all).
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| Goofing around with wax figures! |
On
full bellies we explored our way into the “Museo de la Inquisición” which was
more or less a building of wax-figure torture demonstrations and dim lighting.
There was one mysterious, damp, dungeon-like passageway we walked through, but
aside from that brief moment of interest, the tour guide spoke incredibly
softly and seemed rather irritated with the gringas that didn’t want to read
every plaque in every room like the middle school children begrudgingly
following her around at the direction of their equally bored teachers.
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| Wax tortures! |
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| Francisco de Solano: photos strictly forbidden inside |
The
high point of the day was the San Francisco de Solano Monastery. The large
monastery featured an ancient library with 25,000 old books on dusty shelves
raising two stories, reachable only by two spiral staircases in the center. Two
large tomes displayed at the front of the room were said to weigh over 30 kilos
(double that and then some for pounds). We were good kids and chose the
Spanish-speaking tour guide and actually asked her a lot of questions. She took
us to the basement level where the catacombs eerily rest…and those of you not
familiar with catacombs should know that they are more or less giant community
funeral pits. No individual markings, some sorted into bone categories later on
by archaeologists in smaller pits. One pit contained 25,000 bodies in a pit
that was over 10m deep. These catacombs lie directly beneath the cathedral,
with a grate that directly looks onto the pulpit…and undoubtedly released an
awful stench upon the unsuspecting church-goers. It all sounds incredibly
revolting, but it was fascinating. Monks receive no special treatment in the
eyes of God and were tossed right into these pits along with the general
Catholic public. Above ground, furthermore, everything is quite peaceful, with
incredibly Spanish influenced central gardens surrounded by huge murals (one
recently discovered with missing, whited-out faces!?).
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| MANGO TIME |
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| Who knows |
Finally,
when we were all sufficiently entranced and creeped out, we continued exploring
and ran into a jugo ("who-go": n. juice) natural stand where we were served PINTS of
freshly squeezed mango juice. We later stuffed some Chinese food down at the
hostel (there are a lot of Chinese immigrants in Peru as they were once slaves
there). Everyone retired early
from continuing illness and exhaustion.
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| Can you see PERU carved into the hillside? |
On
our final day in Lima we went shopping in the trendy Miraflores neighborhood.
We hit the artisan markets where I bought many of you your Christmas presents.
We of course hit the typical tourist argument over where to eat lunch before
finally settling on the recommendation of a random gringo we met on the street
who works as a tour guide in Peru. Our lasagna was more like a baked cheese
blob with one thin piece of pasta at the bottom. No matter, we eventually ended
up back at our hostel where they were throwing a Halloween party at their
little bar, but it was a bit “fome” (foam-ay: adj. boring) because no one knew
each other and few spoke the same language. One of the Ds and I had a
heart-to-heart of sorts (about life, about one of my friends on the trip who
inexplicably seemed to dislike me and frequently snapped at me for no reason)
before our third friend, another L (so much name confusion!) arrived at 1am. We
all hit the sack (aka bunkbeds) in our room with Ecuadorian Nelson and his
girlfriend (who we all hated because Nelson was a movie-star quality man who
spent 12 years in the USA and understood all of our jokes) before CUSCO in the
morning.
Keep checking back for updates on CUSCO, AGUAS CALIENTES,
and MACHU PICCHU to come ASAP!
Sorry to keep you all on your toes, but there’s just too
much to make you read all at once and I’ll know you’re all a busy folk.
Buenas Noches, besitos.
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