Just Arrived to Lima!!

I just arrived to Lima yesterday in the morning. After dealing with a--very--delayed plane which kept me up through most of the night, I arrived to Lima, Peru close to 7 AM in the morning. (Originally I was supposed to arrive at 4 AM). A taxi driver from Taxi Seguro was waiting for me at the gates and took me to my ¨house¨ (poor guy must have been waiting so long for me). As we weaved in and out of the useless white lines that supposedly represent different lanes, I got my first glimpse of Lima: a foggy, cloudy, polluted, and cold city. This is not to say that I don´t like Lima, but its strength most definitely does not lie on its beauty but its strong history and its economic strength. Nevertheless, I am really excited to be here finally. It is incredible that after so much planning and so many problems I had to work out, I am finally here!

The woman who is housing me is really nice and immediately led me to my room, who (bless her) realized how tired I must feel and made sure I was comfortable as soon as I got in. I slept for like 30 minutes then was picked up by a friend of the family which wanted to give me a tour of Miraflores. The quick nap was enough for me to enjoy the tour. Miraflores is a bustling--err, suburb I guess, though that word does not quite capture what it is--which is safe and has everything you could possibly need. Three blocks from my house is an internet cafe which charges only 50 cents every 30 minutes. The computers even have copies of World of Warcraft (if I was so inclined, though I doubt I will use that here unless I am truly, truly bored) installed. Two blocks from the cafe is the Ovalo Gutierrez which has a giant supermarket which tops any supermarket I have ever seen even in the States. This place has everything and then some. Need a cell phone? Go to E. Wong´s? Need toys? Go to E. Wong´s? Need a pharmacy, a grocery store, a restaurant? You get the point. The supermarket is huge and beautiful too! The whole store is decorated with morrocan tiles, wooden floors, and even fountains in between some of the aisles. I have never seen such a place. It´s like a Target, except...erm, nice and not as cheap.

In the ¨ovalo¨ you will also find a McDonalds, a Fridays, a Chili´s (all quite expensive for Peruvian standards), an elegant Peruvian restaurant called La Bohemia, and a movie theater (12 soles, i.e. like 3 dollars, per movie). Nearby there are some cheaper restaurants with very good quality, original cuisine for 5-7 soles ($1.50-2) which I like a lot. My friend giving me the tour took me to one of these retaurants were I ate a baked empanada (Peruvians don´t fry it apparently) and a dessert whose name I cannot remember but it involved passion fruit mousse, creme of milk, and biscuits. It was very good.

After the tour a took a very long and needed nap and then woke up to my fellow housemates --two American girls who have been studying Spanish here--asking me if I wanted to go bar hopping with them. I said ¨sure¨ got dressed, ate dinner inside ¨home¨ (chicha morada as a drink, yellow mashed potatoes, and sausages) and left at about 11 to a Bar called Si Señor. Now this, was a little bit of a experience. Unfortunately for the girls, since they look very american being blonde and all and speak rudimentary spanish, had a hard time finding a taxi driver that would take them for a fair price. I was not much help since I did not know the area at all, unfortunately. Finally, 15 soles later between the four of us, we arrive to the bar, drank a local light beer called ¨Cristal¨and headed out to Barranco. Barranco is another ¨suburban¨area in Peru, except that it´s populated by bars, night clubs, and cevicherias. During the day, I imagine, it must be pretty nice since it is right next to the ocean. At night, though, it´s a clubbers heaven with thousands of clubs with no bouncers at all...in fact, instead of bouncers, the clubs pay people to accost you in the street and try to get you to come into their night club because it is the ¨best¨one in town. I didn´t stay very long though since I was very tired, so I called a cab after another beer and got home at 1:30 AM eager to go sleep.

Anyway, that was my day yesterday. Right now I am in an internet cafe wasting a bit of time before going back to E.Wong´s and getting some prepaid minutes for my cellphone. (I bought this cheap, refurbished phone and got a ¨prepago¨plan). I will eventually get the courage to take photos, though I still don´t feel confident enough where I can walk around with a camera without looking like such a tourist. For now, I´ll just write as much as I can. All of my entries might not be as detailed as this one--some more, some much much less--but I will try to be consistent with them nonetheless. I will be going every morning to this internet cafe to check my e-mail and update the blog. Check back soon and often!