Lima

First off, it doesn´t hurt to throw the following down:

Disclaimer
This blog represents a personal Peace Corps narrative. The opinions expressed here are my responsibility and are not intended to reflect the official views or policies of the US Peace Corps.

This was stolen verbatim from one of my compañeros blogs, and it´s good to throw out there because we´ve been warned about what we post on our blogs. I don´t forsee putting up something that will reflect badly on the Peace Corps, but just in case...

Anway, I just got back from my second visit to Lima. We are technically not in Lima, but in one of the outlying towns. It takes about an hour and a half by very bumpy and stop and go bus to get to the city center. Traffic is insane here, with two lane roads being converted to three/three and a half lane ones with regularity. We actually are prohibited from driving during our term, but I wouldn´t if they let me. Anyway, the transportation situation isn´t ideal and can be intensely frustrating (like when I had to stand for more than an hour of the trip back from last week, exchanging what was pretty much tender embraces with the random other people packed like sardines with me). That was really the only bad experience, and if you get a seat you´ll find that the breakneck driving doesn´t bother you that much.

As for Lima, we had a few activities involving talking to people about the neighborhood, safety, etc, and then we were on our own. We started in Miraflores, where we were able to hunt down a Starbucks and later a Burger King. This is kind of sad to say, but both were really nice after just two weeks of new thing after new thing. Not that I have any complaints about the Peruvian food; as posted before it´s excellent. Miraflores is the definite nicest part of town, and besides the spectacular ocean view is a bit on the boring side sightseeing-wise. About the ocean, as I was looking at it it ocurred to me that I had never seen the Pacific Ocean before. The experience got all the cooler after that.

After our activities we went to the center of Lima, which was my second visit. We saw Catedral and the presidencial palace again and then broke up a bit. I went with two others, which was ideal because traveling in groups of more than three is more of a bother than it´s worth. One can get things done more efficiently and better enjoy the experience when there aren´t so many people yapping in your ear or pointing in opposite directions. Anyway, we went to the Iglesia San Francisco, a Franciscan church with a mudejar, or southern spanish, design. To see the architecture of Andalucia again did my heart good, and there was plenty of interesting art, including a painting of the last supper where the main dish was cuy (guinea pig). Underneath the church are extensive catacombs, which we also toured, and they didn´t cop out by removing the bones like in Rome. Very macabre, but interesting.

After that we went on a shopping jaunt to get some things that my compañeros, Jason and Camila, needed and then some stuff that piqued my interest. I may have mentioned this before, but central Lima is set up like a giant mall, with entire streets dedicated to products like eyeglasses and school supplies. On a street there will be dozens of stores selling pretty much the same thing pretty cheaply and tons of people everywhere. In a previous trip I picked up a cheap guitar which I´m going to try to learn in my prodigious free time at site (since we have to create our structure at site we will suddenly have more time than we know what to do with). There are several excellent players in our group from which to get some tips over the next three months. Today I grabbed another outlet converter, a fedora since I lost my baseball cap on the way down somehow (kinda lame but practical considering the sun and I think it looks good), and a Barce (Barcelona soccer club) jersey on the extreme cheap. Not a bad day altogether and I´ll have to come back to check out the rest of the tourist sights before too long.

Speaking of soccer, I have really taken to it all over again. I just thoroughly enjoyed my first 0-0 game, which I never thought would happen. The aesthetics of the game are really interesting and there is always something going on, although on the bad side they do do a lot of play-acting injuries like in basketball. World Cup qualifying is going on right now and all the national teams in South America are playing eachother. Peru´s is particularly poor, but the games are interesting nonetheless.

Well, that was quite a bit. I´ll have to make a point to be pretty regular now, because when I get to site I will probably only be able to post once a week...