Peru Pt. 1 - Lima

For the most part, every hostel I’ve stayed in has been fairly nice. My layover in Cartagena, however, was not. Having spent two days in Santa Marta, I had to get back to Cartagena for my early morning flight the next day. I found a cheap hostel and booked it for just a night. What a mistake.

The hostel’s atmosphere was cool and most people were American. However, a 12 person dorm room had barely enough floor space for beds and baggage. You literally had to climb over other people’s backpacks to get into bed. When I awoke at 530am, there were 13 people in this room. Someone had pulled out a mattress and was sleeping in the middle of the floor. It was hard not to step on him as I climbed out of the room.

I stepped into the reception area to find all the lights off, no one awake and the gate to the front door padlocked. My first thought:

            “How the hell am I going to get out of here?”

My second thought:

            “If there’s a fire, we’re all fucked.”

I looked around to find another group of five or six people asleep on the floor of the common area. After about five minutes of searching to find a way out, the hostel receptionist woke up and came out of the common area. She unlocked the door, called me a cab and I was finally on my way. If there’s one good thing about this whole adventure, it’s that getting up at 530am allows you to watch the sunrise over the city. Awesome.

One flight to Bogota, one flight to Lima and my passport was stamped yet again. But I’m just going to be brutally honest about Lima here. It sucks.

From the cab ride to the hostel in Miraflores (the nicer part of town), I had made my decision: I wasn’t gonna waste more than a day here.

At the hostel I met Andrew, another American, who had just arrived and was also headed south in Peru. So, we did what any sensible person who’s travelling alone does. We started travelling together.

My one full day in Peru consisted of really only two things: The catacombs at the Franciscan church and Larcomar. After breakfast, Andrew and I hopped on the Metropolitano (aka. The bus) and took the 45 minute ride to downtown. This is where we quickly realized how much this was just another dirty South American city. We wandered around the main square where the capitol building is and saw the changing of the guard (which wasn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds). The square was bustling with people and there were even performers, as the city was setting up for a big anniversary celebration that evening. What’s the anniversary? 477 years…

The Franciscan church and catacombs were actually kind of cool. The building had been there for nearly 500 years and some parts were even dated as such. The whole place was a very serene setting in such an insane city, but the most interesting part was the catacombs. I’d never seen skeletons. Now I’ve seen a good hundred.

Andrew and I had lunch at a nearby tavern that’s famous for their Pisco Sour, which is the big Peruvian drink. Pisco is a liquor made from grapes, which is then mixed with sour mix and raw egg. It’s nothing special. We kept wandering around downtown, including Chinatown, and bussed back to Miraflores.

The next event we did was walk down to Larcomar around 630pm to watch the sunset and wander the shops. For those unfamiliar with Lima, the city is built along a bluff that overlooks the ocean. Larcomar is an outdoor shopping mall that’s built into the bluff. From the streets, you walk up to it then down inside. It’s a pretty cool design, but it’s just another westernized mall.

We went back to the hostel for dinner, then hung out for a little bit before heading back to Larcomar to go clubbing. South American girls have a much better knack for dancing than the American style of grinding. Whatever is bred into their culture allows for girls to have no qualms about taking lead. They’re always on a 3 step beat, rather than the back and forth two step that is more common in America. This makes for an some odd missteps at times when dancing.

The next day, Andrew and I were off to the little desert oasis of Huacachina.