Ai, Lima.
If
there ever was a city that should be swept into the sea,
this is it. I have been to some pretty ugly cities, Cairo,
Nairobi, Naples, but this one takes the cake. It is a
falling-down, stupifyingly filthy, smog-ridden, hot and
humid garbage dump. No, I’ve seen garbage dumps with more
atmosphere than Lima. I feel more than pity for its
residents. They should all go to heaven when they die,
because they have spent their time in hell.
I woke up this morning in Cuzco, showered, had breakfast
and was picked up by Ivonne from the travel agency
precisely at seven. She escorted me to the airport, took
care of the formalities, and ushered me to the gate. I gave
her a tip for her troubles; she really had done a great
job, and boarded the plane to Lima. The old woman in the
seat next to mine crossed herself as we taxied for takeoff.
This I could ignore, but when she took out a rosary and
started praying while we were enroute, I began to wonder if
she knew something I didn’t.
Nevertheless, we landed in Lima without incident, and I
went about taking care of the few details I had set for
myself, mailing my postcards, stashing my bags, changing
some money, and getting a taxi to the South American
Explorer’s Club, where I hoped to get information about
Aconcagua. I was greeted there by an American, Bill, who
turned out to be from San Francisco, and Jane, a Brit,
from, well, Britain. They were very friendly and helpful,
letting me store my daypack, and showed me the filing
cabinet where they kept trip reports and magazine articles,
filed by country and region.
I found two stuffed folders full of items on Aconcagua,
most of them a few years old, but a lot of them very
interesting, and sometimes sobering. There were some
magazine articles that made the climb seem like an exercise
in self-torture, and they left me with a number of doubts
about this whole idea, doubts that I had been able to
ignore until now. I sure hope I am able to avoid some of
the experiences I read about today, which ranged from bouts
of constant retching to painful and miserable death. What
fun.
After having my enthusiasm and optimism tempered like that,
I decided I needed some lunch, so I strolled over to a
nearby seafood restaurant that Jane had recommended, and
had a delicious white fish of some sort in a spicy sauce. I
ordered a beer from the waiter, and he apparently asked me
if I wanted a dark beer. I mistook his question for a
statement that all they had was dark beer, and said sure,
I’ll have the dark beer, though I really wasn’t in the mood
for one. My mood hadn’t changed when he showed up with a
whole liter of some dark stuff that tasted just like
Guinness stout. Now ordinarily I enjoy a stout, but on a
hot, humid day in a smoggy city, it wasn’t what I wanted
for lunch. Still, I’d rather suffer than suffer
embarrassment, so I drank about two thirds of the bottle
before I could take no more, and after finishing my fish
and paying the check, I staggered out into the sweltering
street.
That’s when my experience with Lima really began. Oh sure,
on the taxi ride from the airport I saw some of the less
attractive parts of the city, including a human body washed
up on the banks of what apparently is a river. I say
apparently because it could very well have been a garbage
dump with a body of water in the middle of it, but we did
cross this body of water on a bridge, so my guess is that
it was a river. Anyway, there was definitely a human body
lying in it. Now, I have yet to find a trip from an airport
to the downtown of a major city to be an opportunity for
sight-seeing, but this one took the
cake.
Walking down the street in downtown Lima, it seemed as if I
was in a cross between a Breughel painting, and a Costa
Gavras movie. In addition to the stifling heat and the
piles of garbage strewn all over the sidewalks, there were
armored personnel carriers on almost every corner, and
young toughs in uniform, shouldering automatic weapons,
guarding every office building. The sidewalks were aswarm
with glassy-eyed zombies, sweating in the steamy heat, and
dirty-faced urchins in rags huddled against the walls, and
crouched in the doorways. Then there were the beggars, some
blind, some with missing limbs, pitifully holding out their
hands, if they had any. They didn’t speak, they just mutely
pleaded from passersby, as if they had lost the will in the
heat and humidity to vocalize their plight. I tossed my
coins at them and waved down a taxi to flee the scene.
I wanted to go to the Inca market to pick up a few
souvenirs, and on the way over the taxi driver asked me
where I was from, and when I told him that I was from the
States, he proceeded to complain about how cheap Americans
are, always looking for a bargain, and trying to lower the
price of everything. He may have been right, but I wasn’t
in the mood to hear his complaints, and decided not to tip
him.
He dropped me off at the market, and I idly strolled
through the stalls, looking at the same cheap trinkets in
every stall I entered. I did manage to find a couple of
things that caught my eye, but I regretted following Lonely
Planet’s advice and not checking out the Inca market in
Cuzco, because most of what I saw looked like the same
trash you can buy in any tourist trap in the world.
I stayed there until about four, and flagged down a taxi
and rode back to the Explorer’s Club to pick up my bag.
When I got there, Bill cornered me for a while to talk
about the Bay Area. He acted as if he hated the place and
was glad to be gone from there, but his hunger for news
from home gave the lie to his attitude. We talked about the
baseball strike, and Prop. 187, and the Republicans’ sweep
of Congress, and when five o’clock rolled around, and the
club was closing for the day, I got the feeling that he
could have stayed on a lot longer and picked my brain. But
I lied and said I had a plane to catch, so we said good-bye
and I walked out to the street to catch a ride to the
airport.
This
taxi driver didn’t complain about Americans, in fact he
hardly said two words during the whole twenty-minute ride,
but his horn was sounding almost non-stop. He honked when
he turned a corner, when pulling alongside another car,
when approaching an intersection, he even honked when we
were all alone on a side street. It seemed as if the car
needed to honk constantly or it would stop running. In the
end, we drove bleating up to the terminal, and I paid him
and got out.
Immediately I was accosted by
at least twenty porters, touts and even other taxi-drivers,
all offering their services. I told them I was on my way
out tonight, and if I had a bit of glee in my expression, I
don’t think I should be judged too harshly. I couldn’t get
out of this hell-hole fast enough.
Unfortunately, my flight didn’t leave until 1:40 in the
morning, so I had a lot of time to kill. Naturally, the
first thing I did was head for the bar. There’s a drink
that is served in Peru that is some sort of national drink,
called a Pisco Sour. I’m not exactly sure what’s in it,
brandy, I think, and an egg or something, but what I got
tasted so much like a margarita, that if you told me that
that’s what it was, I wouldn’t have disputed the fact.
I gulped it down, but since I was still thirsty as hell, I
ordered a Coke, and then another. In fact, I’m still
sitting in this steamy bar—the airport terminal isn’t air
conditioned—downing Coke after Coke, hoping the caffeine
will keep me awake until my flight leaves.
Spending the day in Lima has certainly dimmed my enthusiasm
for Peru, and I don’t think I’ll ever set foot in this city
again if I have anything to say about it. But what the
hell, there’s probably worse places in the world. I’ve
heard pretty bad things about Bombay, and Port-au-Prince,
and I think I’ll keep my distance from Mogadishu too. So
Lima, it’s nothing personal, but...