What You Do on your Second Visit to Lima

Sunday September 8, 2013

I wish I had more fun stories to tell you from the half day we spent in Cusco after getting dropped backed off there after our visit to Puno, but there are none.  It turns out that when you have 30 lb backpacks strapped to you all day because there’s no place to leave them, you don’t go very far.  We didn’t see much more than the inside of McDonald’s for the better part of our time there.  Then it was off to catch yet another bus to bring us back to Lima in the span of 22 hours.  Luckily this bus held only VIP seats where they reclined 20 degrees more than the other ones we were used to, and there was a handy little screen with movies and music built right into the seat in front of me.  There were two things I learned on this bus ride.  The views from Cusco to Lima are amazing, and sunsets over mountains, even trough a bus window, can still make a heart swell.  The other thing I learned is that there is no parental guidance system in the movies you get to watch on your own portable player, so little kids are free to watch the full frontal nudity shown at the beginning of ‘Flight’.

Once we got to Lima with 24 hours on our hands before leaving again, we just did lots of walking.  Trying to see places we hadn’t before, and re-enjoying the places we like from the first time.  Here’s a quick rundown on our second visit to Lima.

• You try to enjoy a nice lunch of leftover Pizza Hut while sitting in the San Martin Plaza when you are greeted with a sight you never want to see again in your life, especially while eating.  Just as you’re digging into a slice of your supreme, a homeless woman wearing only a shirt, but no pants or underwear, wanders right up to your face and ask you for money.  You’re sitting down, she’s standing up.  Parts that should never bee seen by mankind are now hovering mere inches from your food.  Shooing her away you look back at your pizza and decide that, yes, it’s still worth eating.

• After you’ve finished eating, you take to the pedestrian mall where you see this homeless/pantless woman ambling around a few hundred feet from you.  It turns into a game where you try to guess the facial expressions from other people that notice her for the first time.  Peruvians, seem pretty used to this behavior.  Gringos, lots of stealthy pointing and hands covering slack jawed mouths.

• Wandering the streets you know that it’s Sunday and there has to be some kind of parade going on somewhere.  Come on, these people celebrate everything.  Sure enough you randomly stumble upon one and watch the people in a variety of costumes pass by, even though you know the meaning or significance of none of them.

•  Wanting to see the parade from the beginning, you squeeze through all the people watching on the street and make way for where the parade is heading, the Plaza de Armas.  From here you join hundreds more people, making it much harder to see the parade you have already been watching.  Crouching down, you find that if you basically sit at everyone else’s feet, you can find a spot up front.

• You try to unsuspectingly sneak up behind a little girl that’s watching the parade on her dad’s shoulder’s and snap a photo of her because she is just too darn cute,  while pretending that you’re actually trying to catch the action of the parade over her dad’s shoulders.  All lies!

• While doing some good people watching in the Plaza de Armas, you are approached by a school girl and her friend wielding a video camera, and she asks you questions about your feelings on Peru as you stumble through answers on such questions as ‘What is your favorite Peruvian food?’ and ‘What don’t you like about the country?’.

• After leaving the Plaza de Armas, you realize to took no photos of the fountain or building facades, and remind yourself to scan through photos of your previous visit there so you can get at least one up on the blog.  I’m sure people would like to see it.

• You come up to yet another church, and your spouse asks you why you take so many photos of seemingly insignificant things, yet you won’t break out your camera for this.  Exasperated, you reply that you already have dozens of photos from churches in Lima, and you don’t need another one.  Yet you still pull out your camera, snap a shot, and put it up on your blog because, well, now you have a photo of it.

(I actually found this building next to the church much more interesting)