Our flight had a 4-hour (not 12-hour as we had thought) stop-over in Mexico City. Mexico City is huge. From the plane we saw thousands of red clay roof tops that extended in all directions as far as we could see. Aside from the interior of their fabulous airport, however, that was all we were able to see of Mexico City. Right before the entrance to the jetway for our plane to Lima, all the passengers were lightly frisked and briefly questioned by a police officer of some kind (there seemed to be several kinds at the airport). Once we were in our seats I proudly reported to Jen how well I handled his questions about how much money I was carrying, and what my profession was (I had said “a professor of secondary school” in Spanish). Jen said they only asked her what her purpose for traveling was, which made me a little suspicious that that's what they'd asked me also. Whatever it was they asked and whatever I said, they'd already let me on.
We landed in Lime a little ahead of schedule (about 11:45pm) and quickly got through customs. There was a huge crowd waiting past the customs gate, but our name was not among those listed in the numerous signs. We thought that since we had been a little early, maybe our pre-arranged taxi service from the hotel hadn't arrived yet. We ended up waiting until about 12:30, periodically walking around calling out “Hotel Espana? Algien de Hotel Espana?” to no avail. There was also a small group of suited taxi service representatives who would descend on us about every 5 minutes to ask knowingly if we wanted a taxi. I thought one of them in particular looked rather smug. Jen finally figured out how to use the public phone to call the hotel and was very proud to have successfully communicated our needs to them entirely in Spanish. Apparently the taxi driver had been there somewhere, and the hotel called his cell-phone and directed him to meet us near the public phones.
Jen chatted excitedly with him in Spanish (I had a terrible headache and was pretty tired) while he directed us to one of the most broken-down cars I've ever ridden in. It was awesome. We motored through an industrial zone, and down a number of narrow streets lined with tall buildings in various states of disrepair. Their ground-floor entrances were all completely sealed with corregated metal covers giving a barren and forbidding effect. This, combined with the fact that visibly armed men were often to be seen standing on street corners wasn't terribly reassuring.
Quite suddenly we emerged into a grand, well-lit square with a large and ornate building we were told was the president's house. Our driver also informed us (in Spanish the whole time) that the armed men were state police, and the surrounding area was very safe because it was so well patrolled. Our hotel appeared about 5 blocks from the president's house.
The hotel is a spectacle of dilapidated magnificence. The hallways are lined with framed oil paintings. It has brightly patterened tile floors, with a lot of ornate woodwork and smartly painted metal railings. Everywhere you look there are numerous statues of all sizes on pedestals. Yet everything is slightly irregular and haphazardly placed. The stairs aren't quite even, and the paintings are all hung at slightly different heights. The sheer number of statues that appear crammed into every corner give common areas something of the appearance of an art dealer's back room. We love it.
Another pleasant feature of the hotel is its vertical construction. Though the hotel is relatively narrow, there are four stories of rooms, which gives us the feeling of navigating an ornately decorated maze. Our path is constantly winding and beautiful things past their prime bare down on us from all sides. The 3rd story of the hotel is actually the roof, which they've converted into a small rooftop garden restaurant, complete with chirping birds, a lazy cat, well-behaved dog, and several indifferent turtles (though we have seen a few people feed them lettuce). We were surprised to discover that the wide spiral staircase which runs from the ground floor to the roof is exposed to the sky, with only a sort of carport awning to prevent rain from falling directly into the common-room 3 stories below.
We didn't find any of this out until the next morning, however. After we arrived, we unpacked our things and finally got to bed around 2am. At 10:45 the next morning, we were the last customers to arrive for breakfast in the rooftop garden restaurant. The owner of the hotel was finishing his breakfast and warmly greeted us, calling “jóvenes!”--young people!--and inviting us to sit and eat. Later, as we were finishing our own meal, he introduced the dog, whose name is “Luquesa”, telling us that she is a lady, a very noble dog, like royalty. As if on queue, the nobel Luquesa waggingly urinated in the corner of the patio, causing our host to affect dismay and pretend to chase the dog who clearly enjoyed the game.
Most of our first day was spent wandering around central Lima, getting our bearings and attending to a few errands. A few distinctive things we noticed: Many of the shops, and most of the restaurants have open fronts with many street vendors on the sidewalks outside. Twice today we've ordered something inside, only to watch the shop's proprietor run outside and do a quick business transaction with someone on the sidewalk or a neighboring shop—once to make change, and another time to buy a bottle of water we ordered with dinner. The streets are narrow for the most part and arranged in a grid, with some exclusively pedestrian walkways.
We began to notice that the stores are arranged in districts, sort-of. Jen was curious that we hadn't seen any bookstores, and then we stumbled on a street lined with only bookstores of all sizes and kinds. In a different area I saw a shop that looked like it might sell beads, and as we walked, the next 6 shops on both sides of the street were also exclusively bead shops. Further on we found what must have been the money changing street. Many of the small store-fronts were banks, but most of the money changing seemed to be happening between individuals on the sidewalks holding 6-10 inch stacks of cash (dollars, euros, soles) openly in their hands. It was without a doubt the most exposed cash I have ever seen. Jen said that's only because I didn't go to Las Vegas with her.
So far all of our business has been conducted entirely in Spanish. I understand virtually all of what's been said, but Jen does most of the talking. I occasionally chip in a question or clarification. I think that I could probably get by with the Spanish I have, but with a lot more confusion and a perhaps greater failure rate. After Jen kept up a 15 minute conversation with our Taxi driver where she did most of the talking, he asked her where she had learned to speak Spanish. Later she said to me that she had felt very complimented by the question, and I was and am duly impressed. Though we are able to communicate ourselves, we know our Spanish is probably quite idiosyncratic. The only indication of this, however, (besides the fact that we sometimes have to repeat ourselves using different words) was that our young waiter at dinner seemed only barely to be containing his merriment at what we could only presume was our Spanish. We considered putting on a show of carefully studying our Spanish-English dictionary, and announcing “Our hovercraft is full of eels!” Maybe at tomorrow's dinner.
Tomorrow we'll adventure further out into the city to find the headquarters of the South American Explorer's club. We'll probably take a “combi colectivo” which are they very small, very crowded buses we see everywhere. Our guidebook describes them this way:
“Quickest of all Lima trasport, combi colectivos race from one street corner to another. Colectivos dash dangerously fast (frequently crashing), and speed off before their passengers have got both feet into the vehicle, and might be anything from a ramshackle Doge Coronet to a plush fifteen-seat minibus; wave one down from the corner of any major street and pay the flat fare (around 20 cents).”
We will be posting a few videos and photos of our first day, soon!
