June 22: Lima

Peru: Ancient land of dead civilizations, master stone masons, indigenous people who eat guinea pigs and build boats from reeds. Also land of little infrastructure, constant anti-government crusades, and extraordinarily literal divides of wealth and poverty.

American Airlines (also known as The Worst Airline Known To Man) cancelled my lovely 12pm flight from New York to Lima, forcing me to depart three hours ahead of schedule and out of a different state. In my rush to get to the New Jersey airport before my plane took off, I forgot my camera tripod, all of my fleecy jackets, and the list of addresses I had printed out for handy postcard mailings. No matter - I was on my way to Peru!

Lima is a HUGE city, sprawling sprawl on top of sprawl. It has all the traffic of Los Angeles and all the total disregard for road signs of New York. 1 out of every 7 cars in Lima is some form of taxi, and the one that took me from the airport to my hotel at 11pm didn't stop for a single red light. It was like the streetlights were mere suggestions and lines on the road didn't exist.

In addition to the taxis, there's also a massive population of buses and minibuses, mostly of Japanese make and model. This is apparently a holdover from a president of Japanese descent, Fujimori, who came to power in the early 80s. And believe me, the Peruvian fleet of vehicles hasn't seen any kind of updating since then. Men, holding on to the door of the bus, lean out into the street and yell things like "Ovalo Ovalo Arequipa Miraflores Ovalo Arequipa Miraflores!" and, depending what they say, you can take a bus to either the city center or its surrounding neighborhoods for a mere S/1 (one sole, equivalent to about 30 cents). Quite convenient once you get over your fear of being robbed, mugged, raped, or murdered, none of which happened to me. I found Peruvians quite helpful, especially on the bus. Not quite so much on the street where men whistle or make comments at every single solo female. And I don't even have blond hair.

I stayed south of Exposition Park (or Parque de la Cultura, depending on who you ask) which was home to a bizarre population of birds that looked like turkeys with blue faces.
After a typical Peruvian breakfast of bread and jam with coffee, I went off to explore Lima's San Francisco Monastery, which houses a creepy ossuary in its catacombs. All of the church practitioners had been buried in the catacombs and, hundreds of years later when they finally exhumed them, the restorers neatly stacked the bones in grotesque piles according to bone type. So there were huge bins of femurs, of ribs, of pelvic bones, of skulls... And in some parts the bones had been arranged into lovely designs. Like a pile of skulls with ulnas radiating from it. Charming.

From my brief time in New York, I've learned one very important thing about city birds: DON'T FEED THE PIGEONS. When you do, they come together in giant flocks and take over public squares like the Red Army. This used to be the fountain in front of the San Francisco. Now it's a birdbath.
Also visited the main cathedral in the Plaza de Armas (the main square). Every Peruvian town has a Plaza de Armas and, no matter how small or poor the town is, their plaza is usually quite nice with flowers and benches and maybe a statue. The weather in Lima was crap though. Because it was winter in South America, the coastal fog just lingers over the city like a wet blanket. So no nice pictures of the outside, but Pizarro (the Spanish conquistador who conquered the Incas) is supposedly buried inside. There was quite a nice station of the cross with a gorgeously ornate Virgin Mary.
To be honest, I found Lima a bit depressing with its pollution and its constant even level of gray. The next day I left on a bus to Paracas National Reserve.