Travel Diary ~ Lingering in Lima Peru

I met Mr. C. in Lima as it is midway between us.

About a five hour flight for each of us. One of my friends

had recently been in Lima and liked it very much. On the

Pacific as it is, he felt it compared in many ways to Los

Angeles in weather-wise and its upscale section, Miraflores,

was for him very much better parts of L.A. also. He gave

me a list of restaurants and nightspots he had visited and

information on hotels and shopping high points. I had

Left my Peru guidebook and the hotel Antigua Mira Flores sounded

like a very good choice. A former palatial home, now extended

to include additional rooms and at a very encouraging nightly

prices. Overall, prices in Lima are a good bit lower than in

Miami and much lower than Brazilian cities like Rio de Janeiro

and Sao Paulo.

I set out on a Sunday afternoon so as to be in Lima in the

morning the next day when Mr. C. arrived. Lima and Miami are

in the same time zone and a car had been sent for me so my

passage through the very crowded airport was uneventful.

Although it was ten o’clock at night the airport was jammed and

many planes were arriving. And as in all South American cities

the entire family is always there to greet each arrival. A mad

house but we escaped, got to the small and pleasant hotel and

although my room wasn’t the one requested I fell into bed, deciding 

to straighten things out with the front desk in the morning.

In the morning I called Mr. C. at a time when I thought

he should have cleared customs to reassure him that a car had

been sent for him. The same driver as I had had the night be-

fore. About an hour later I went down to the desk and heard one

of the receptionists mentioning my name. She was on the phone

with the driver who could not find Mr. C. I told her to reassure

him his passenger was there as I had spoken to him at the airport

earlier. I think called Mr. C. again and as I spoke to him he

encountered the driver. This kind of contretemps was to become

familiar in our days in Lima.

Peru is a country...and Lima is a city.. .that has too many

things unexplained. It’s history, it’s population, certainly

it’s traffic.

I waited at the lobby entrance until Mr. C. arrived. Neither

he or the driver could explain how they had missed each other at

the airport for more than an hour. Mr. C. suspected the driver

wasn’t actually there.

We ate lunch across the street in a quite smart restaurant

and then walked down to the edge of the city. No one told me

about Lima. It is quite dramatic. it is~ perched on a perhaps

ten story tall]~ cliff, very raw and red with few ways to reach

the beach below. The night before I had come in from the

airport along this beach and then drove up a kind of gully

that ran up into the heart of Mlraflores. We now walked back

to the cliff edge, across a bridge that spanned this gully and

on to where a great hotel rose high above the cliff and a

very ultra-smart shopping mall descended downward. All the

smart international stores were represented here but not the

luxury tops like Prada and Bulgari. These may have been across

the street at the lavish hotel.

What one is struck by immediately in Lima is the traffic.

The streets are packed with taxis and buses. If there is an

official public transportation system it is not readily discern-

ible. There are large buses, small buses, and miniscule buses. 

They line up and a kind of town crier stands by the door calling out

their destinations. People cram in. In the very small buses one

can see people so tightly packed in they cannot sit up straight.

There are also few traffic lights by most big city standards. The 

many taxes also range from small to smaller and they have no meters. 

You must lean in and bargain with the driver as to how many soles 

you are willing to pay to reach your address. There are about two 

and a half soles to the dollar. We found drivers were very consistent 

and rides were five or ten or fifteen soles for the most part. There 

wasn’t a lot of argie-bargie with the driver about what you were going to pay.

That night at the hotel in the room we had been given as

originally reserved we discovered that the guests were for the

most part young back-packers on their way to Cuzco and Machu

Picchu. They were laughing, talking and marching about until

late in the evening. In the old mansion walls were not thick and

floorboards creaked. Then in the night whoever was overhead began

a series of hurried and panicky steps across their room. A

pause. Then hurried and panicky steps back. A pause. A return.

A pause. They darted back and forth most of the night. Pacing?

Repacking? What. I was tempted to go upstairs, rap on the door

and ask what the hell they were doing. I really wanted to know

what was prompting that scuttling to one side of the room, the

pause and then the scuttling back. I didn’t. But at breakfast

Mr. C. announced, “We must go to another hotel. This hotel does

not have enough privacy.” He was right. It was as though the

other guests were omnipresent, whether in our room or not.

We struck out and went to the Doubletree El Pardo Hotel,

not too far. We called first, they had a room, we walked over

and booked it, then went back and checked out. The very nice

girls at the desk were sorry to see us go but didn’t question

our departure.

Mr. C. was much happier at the El Pardo. It had a gym, a

pool on the roof and certainly privacy. You could not hear the

people in the next room. We explored about, made a reservation

at the Huaca Pucliana restaurant and examined the historical

site. Here there were the remains of a giant pyramid built of

brick sometime between the third and fourth century A.D. Long

before the Incas.

What you also learn in Peru is that there was a high level

of civilization before the Spaniards arrived in the 15th century

and knocked it all apart. The Incas were only the dominant

culture in the last century before the Spanish invasion.

Before then there any number of other cultures who developed

the use of terraces for the cultivation of foodstuffs which

allowed them to live high in the mountains and on the steep

hillsides that make up much of northern Peru. I am just beginning 

to understand the geography of South America, but on the Pacific 

side of the Andes Chile to the south and Peru to the north dominate 

the coast. Bolivia is inland from Peru with only a small coastal outlet. 

Then there is Colombia on the bulge to

the north and Ecuador on the very, top. The result is that Peru

ranges from mountains and valleys down to deserts and under

t~-ie Incas the culture also extended across the Andes into

the tropical forests of the upper Amazon. They had no written

language or use of money but kept track of the work people did

and they shared food and building materials and other materials

according to how much work they had contributed. The family was

paramount in the providing of workers. They had no horses but

shipped some materials long distances by rafts with sails up and

down the coast. The Spaniards pretty much demolished this culture 

and diseases desimated the native population.

I should point out that in the streets of Lima I was. among

the tallest people. There are an enormous number of tourists in

Peru, passing through Lima on their way to Macchu Picchu and

other historic spots. They and the many men in suits and ties

about were taller. Another some 50 per cent were obviously the

Inca descendants; much shorter, large features, prominent noses.

It almost had the feeling of an occupied country. You felt the

native peoples were definitely here and very much in evidence.

In other South American countries I have been in the indigenous

population seems much more assimilated. Even in San Salvador

Bahia in Brazil with its large black population the people

seemed to know each other, eat lunch together, be very much

more mixed together. Here, no.

At dinner that night at Huaca Pucilana we saw the monied

Lima-ites and well-dressed tourists. It really wasn’t like

Buenos Aires or Rio, which seem much more European. This was

more provincial. Lima is a city of the upper class and then the

others.

Wednesday we took a taxi down to the old city to the great

central square where Pizzaro founded the original city. I should

also add I found the weather brisk and overcast, very much like

San Francisco. Lima is kind of a mix of San Francisco and Rome

50 years ago. The chill of the Pacific and the hazardous madness

of the traffic. In Rome years ago I always crossed the streets

implanting myself in the center of seven or eight people. That

way someone else would be hit first. And there were enough of us

to intimidate the driver. Here one had to do the same thing and

even so there were still looneys veering madly around the corner

you least expected them.

At the vast cathedral they wanted ten soles to enter. I said

to the ticket taker, “What do you think Jesus would have thought 

of having to pay to enter a church?” He looked at me and said,

“You’re still beautiful and in good health. What do you have to

complain about?” I said, ”Here’s your ten soles.” The church

has enormous side chapels filled with elaborate carvings and gilt

and paintings. Amazing what the Catholic church created here in

this distant wilderness so long ago.

            From the cathedral we proceeded to the post office near

the corner of the square. An amazing place I thought was some

kind of Victorian shopping center. Very ornate facades on each

side of a passage lined with tourist shops. Above are the

postal offices. All this in a kind of orangey pink like some

big frou-frou cake. At the far end the real business of the post

office was compress into a quite small space where you could

mail packages, pick up mail and buy stamps. Ahead of me at the

stamp lady were four German tourists arguing violently with the

stamp vendor. She finally reluctantly returned a miniscule coin

to them. I spoke Spanish to her and she looked at Mr. C. all

the time. “She doesn’t understand a work I’m saying, does she?”

I demanded of him. He answered, “No, but she says you’re cute.”

I guess being tall and blond is the way to get ahead in Lima.

We then visited the former train station, at which one

descends a very steep flight of stairs to a waiting room with

a wonderful stained glass ceiling and out onto the quay. There

are no trains anymore but there is a narrow river valley behind

Lima right here and the original tracks ran along the edge of

the river. All this is preserved but unused now.

After this visits to two other churches which were closed

for lunch (yes!) and then a terrible lunch in another historic

square. After this a long and futile search for the national

art museum which when finally found only had one room open with

contemporary artists. This was as much as Mr. C. was willing

to contribute to my pursuit of historic and artistic Lima. We

went back to the hotel and I wrote postcards and Mr. C. went

to the gym and the pool. Gym:good. Pool:freezing. On to dinner

at a quite nice restaurant directly across from the hjotel. The

food in Lima is its big attraction. It really has very good

seafood and great variety on the menus, unlike the other

side of the Andes which is very meat oriented.

One thing I forgot to mention about the Cathedral. There was

a chapel dedicated to Pizzaro where his tomb is found. On the

walls were photographs of his skeleton and the its condition

separated to pre-his murder and post his murder. He was killed in

the streets by his own people but my historical readings haven’t

discovered why yet. Pre showed that he had spinal deviation,

stuff like that. Post chowed all the cuts on the bones from the

murder. Pius very lengthy medical reports on both evaluations.

I found this curious and somewhat out of place in an atmosphere

of worship. Overall there wasn’t much feeling of piety~ in this

very large cathedral, although I believe Perui s a very Catholic

country.

Thursday we walked down through the town and down the

narrow valley that led down to the seashore. Heading to the res—

La Rosa Nautica for lunch. Down and down we went. Really a long

and steep descent to reach the shore. Steps down through grass

covered hills on each side of the highway that, rushes up the

valley to the upper level. At the bottom I told Mr. C. that I

was definitely to climbing back up, although there were quite

a few people doing so. We walked past the surfers, hurling themselves 

into the sea. My feeling that the weather was brisk was confirmed by all

of them in their wet suits. There were a number of people in

shorts walking about Lima and I counted them. “Four” I would

shout. “Five”. I don’t think I ever got above five and I think~

they were all tourists. My. C. was striding about in a T-shirt

while I was enveloped in a jacket and sweater but he is very

hot-blooded.

 Some of the surfers had their wet suits peeled down and they

Definitely did not have the kind of bodies one expects to see on 

our own East Coast. The surge was not too formidable either. 

A number were going in with instructors. A young woman 

seemed to be the most able.

Our restaurant, La Rosa Nautica, was a kind of ornamental

Victorian gazebo at the end of a long stone pier out into the

water. Very charming, very expensive and the food wasn’t great.

This may be a tourist attraction here in Lima rather than where

Lima-zines go. I kind of confirmed this as the taxi driver wanted

15 soles to get back on top of the cliffs. Expensive here. When

we demurred he said, ”You just ate here. You can afford it.”

Getting back up was major as the coast road has few turnarounds

and had to go about two miles south to turn around and come five

miles back before finding one of the few streets that mount to

the top. The coast road is very cut off from the cliff top.

We then went to the shopping mall and went wild and returned

to our hotel with the booty. That evening we ate a restaurant we

had noticed during the day. La Tiendacita Blanca. Not fancy but

very good food. I love a restaurant that is not crowded, quiet,

and brightly lit enough so I can really see my food.

I should mention that our hotel was near the John F. Kennedy

park and we were surprised to see many stray cats in the park.

This is a smallish park, very manicured with many benches and

children’s play areas. The cats all look clean, well fed, calm

and very used to all the people around. They sit under the benches

where people are perching ignoring them. There must be people

coming to feed them every day. At another park there was a :1:11

yellow cat sprawled out on the sidewalk sleeping near the entrance

as many people walked around. I’ve seen dogs do that in

South America but never cats. A first.

Friday we were allowed to stay in the hotel until we went

to the airport about six o’clock in the evening. We sort of

hung around. Mr. C. studied for a test he has coming up. I

rad and snoozed getting ready for my overnight flight.

 The airport was an astounding mess and our plan to have

dinner there went awry. Mr. C. checked in as his flight was

just before ten o’clock. I was not able to check in for my

11:30 flight as no American Airlines employees were there. We

sat together and waited until they finally showed up but then he

had to go through passport and go to his flight. I was able to

check in and dashed through passport to get to his departure gate

but just missed him. My flight wad delayed an hour. These over-

nights back to Miami are always the flight from hell. But I

departed. Called him once back in Miami.

And that my darlings, is Lima, Peru!