So far, two things are not surprising: (1) Time is passing quickly. (2) I wish I had brushed up on my Spanish more. I´m definitely able to get by and understand what´s going on, but it´d be really nice to actually have a conversation with some of the people we´ve met. Good thing Eric´s here for that.
We arrived in Lima late Saturday night and stayed for two nights at the Pay Purix Hostel in Callao (a suburb/outer neighborhood of Lima), which is right by the airport. For our first day in Lima, we slept in late, walked around the neighborhood to find lunch and dinner, and hung out at the hostel so I could get my butt beat in ping pong, fuseball and pool. There was a nice rooftop area with hammocks, so we chilled there a bit, practicing spanish with one another and consulting our guide book, Lonely Planet´s South America on a Shoestring (or as we call it, ´The Book´), for our Lima activities.
On Monday we took a taxi from Callao to Miraflores, a trendy, safe neighborhood in Lima where many of the hostels (along with restaraunts, shopping, etc.) are. I would say it´s the Lima equivalent of Uptown in Minneapolis--the Hennepin Ave. side.
We´ve stayed three nights at the Red Psycho Llama hostel, which The Book reviewed. It´s an environmentally minded hostel - repurposed items like a castiron bathtub split in two to make benches, low flow toilets, recycling, etc. The staff has been really nice; Eric was up late hanging out with one of the guys. We stayed in a 6-bed dorm here, and only had one roommate for two of the nights. He´s moving from Colombia to Uruguay and taking a bus the whole way, stopping in different places along the way to hang out. For some perspective on taking a bus that far: our bus trip to Cusco, Peru, today will take 21 hours. Look it up on a map. Cusco doesn´t look that far from Lima.
After we arrived in Miraflores on Monday, we braved public transportation in Lima to go into Central Lima to buy our bus tickets to Cusco. Minibuses, or ´cambis,´ are the main form of public transport from what I can tell, though there are some buses more like what we´re used to in the states. There´s a driver and what I will call a conductor, who stands in the doorway of the bus, and shouts the route at each stop, trying to encourage people to get on. See, there are usually a few other buses going a similar direction at each stop, though some branch off onto other streets. Most of our rides have taken us down Arequipa, which connects Miraflores and Central Lima, so all our conductors have been yelling, ´Arequipa! Arequipa! Todo Arequipa (all of Arequipa)´at every stop along the way. Every couple of stops he or she will walk through the bus or lean through the mass of bodies depending on how busy it is and collect the fare, which for our trips has been 1.20 soles each, which is about $0.40. Not bad.
Monday night we ate at a Chinese-Peruvian restraunt (these are really common, at least around Lima) near Parque Kennedy. Fried rice is called chaufa and is served very often. We´ve also eaten a ton of chicken, though prepared in lots of different ways. We found a street with some bars (Berlin, maybe?) and stopped at one after dinner.
Tuesday we hit up some museums. We took a bus up Arequipa that also went down ´Todo Bolivar´to get to the Anthropological Museum and to el Museo Larco. Both focused on pre-Spanish archeology. Lots of ceramics, weavings and the like. The Anthropological Museum was larger, but only two exhibits were translated into English. Museo Larco was much fancier and the whole exhibit was translated into several languages, but it was only a few rooms. They complemented each other very well.
Wednesday we planned to hit up Central Lima to explore the plazas, cathedrals and some other museums. Traffic was horrible and our bus ride took almost twice as long, but we soon figured out why. A political march was making it´s way through the first plaza we intended to visit, Plaza San Martin. We rushed off ahead of it and ducked into a cafe for lunch. It was clearly organized with a police escort, but we decided to be cautious and stay out of the way until we actually knew what was up. After lunch we tried heading toward some cathedrals and museums we wanted to see, but the march had stopped right in that area. So we headed over to the Plaza de Armas or Plaza Mayor which is where the main cathedral and Governor´s Palace is. We were able to hang out for a bit and take pictures, but the police started restricting access to the plaza while we were there. Nothing was actually happening -- the march wasn´t even in the area yet -- so, parents, there´s nothing to be concered about. We played it safe.
We headed back toward the first Plaza de San Martin since we knew the march had passed it, and from there went to the Museo Nacional de la Cultural Peruana, a two-room museum that was hosting an exhibit on an botanical artist from the mid-1800s who documented Peruvian plansts. Then we went to the nearby Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI), which was free (yay!) and had three really interesting exhibits.
The first was focused on the painting The Funeral of Atahualpa by Luis Montero, the first Latin American artist to paint historical paintings in the European style about Latin American history. MALI is currently restoring the painting while it´s on display. The second was on Gordon Matta-Clark, an American artist who worked with photography and film exploring space. Basically, he would cut giant holes into buildings that were going to be demolished and take pictues from crazy angles. Look him up if you like art. The third was on textiles of anchient peruvian culutures.
That bring us about up to speed. As I said, we´re heading out on a bus trip to Cusco this afternoon. We leave at two and should arrive there before noon tomorrow. We went with a nicer, more comfortable (and safer) bus line, so hopefully we can sleep for a lot of it. I´ll try loading pictures soon, but I think I took too long writing to do it now. Have to go pack and wake Eric up. And let someone else use the computer.
