Livin' La Vida Loca in Lima

We had travelled into the depths of the Sacred Valley of the Incas and now we had to traverse back via Ollantaytambo and Cuzco to Lima. For the hour-and-a-half train trip to Ollantaytambo, we sat across from a (slightly younger), Spanish Anna Wintour wannabe, with a face full of fillers and botox that made it difficult to gauge whether she was happy or sad. We're fairly certain she wasn't happy with the snack and drink that was provided on Inca Rail – probably too many carbs, gluten and definitely more calories than dust or air.

We arrived at Cuzco Airport with about an hour to spare. As we checked into budget LC Peru, we were offered an earlier flight if we could get to the gate immediately. Taking off, we bolted to the gate to wait in line for another twenty minutes. So much for that earlier flight! The so-called earlier flight ended up arriving at the originally scheduled time, minus some of our luggage. When we collected our baggage, Jason noticed that his bag felt lighter. It wasn't until we arrived at our accommodation that he realised that his bag had been opened and he was missing his “valuable” toiletries bag. Maybe the baggage handlers really needed the clippers and tweezers to do some manscaping. Or was it the washing powder that they mistook for Peruvian marching powder (a.k.a cocaine). Whatever prompted the theft, they certainly won't be retiring on their bounty, unless three cotton buds, some band-aids, washing powder, clippers and tweezers fetch higher prices on the black market.

The area of Miraflores in Lima became our home for the next ten days. For the first two days, we spent time hanging out with our Canadian friends, Dave and Terrie, who we had met in Mendoza, and wandered the streets almost aimlessly in search of bakeries, restaurants and anything to (try to) satisfy our insatiable appetites. In comparison with most other parts of the city, the area appeared much more affluent, though it still had the same traffic problems. The drivers in Cuzco had nothing on the driving abilities of the Limeños. It seemed anything goes on the road. But there is one thing that is for certain, the cars need good brakes and a loud horn to tackle the mayhem and chaos. Even at night, we were kept awake by the tooting of the traffic and the general hustle and bustle on the streets. There is a clear hierarchy on the streets, with cars and motorbikes at the top and cyclists, runners and pedestrians at the bottom (in that order). Pedestrian crossings exist throughout the city but they are merely a suggestion and purely ornamental. Don't think for a second that a motorist will stop for you, even if the little “green man” is flashing at the traffic lights. The roads are more like an arena for bullfighting with pedestrians used as the red flag. Pedestrians are lucky if they hear the car horn as the driver speeds towards them.

Within the carpark that is Lima traffic, there are some oases in the form of parks, so-called places for people to rest and play. As we walked through Kennedy Park in Miraflores, we overhead a man on a nearby bench call out: “you're too tall for here. Where are you from?”. We just ignored him and kept walking until he continued yelling insults at us, calling us arseholes. A few days later we ran into the same guy who opened with the same line again but with a added twist: “welcome to the neighbourhood!”. Over the course of ten days, this wouldn't be the only odd experience we had with one of the locals.

As we walked around the historical centre of Lima, admiring the colonial-style buildings, we ran into another local, Pedro, who spoke English. The conversation started off innocently enough with questions about where we came from and how long we were in Lima. Then, Pedro asked if we were brothers or friends. To make things simple, we just said friends. We've come out of the closet enough in our lifetime; there wasn't a need to do it all over again with a stranger. Pedro then went on a rant about how people in Lima were open-minded and then asked how long we had been together. He proceeded to say that he had been married and has a 27 year “child” but was now “like us”. He certainly didn't mean fair and tall. Maybe he meant travelling itinerants! By this stage, we were fairly certain that at some point he was going to hit us up for money; that is, before he hit on us. Pedro complimented Jason on his Spanish. He then turned to Ricky and said he liked Ricky's arse, and with those words slapped him on his arse. Violated on the streets and then violated again on the crowded bus as we squeezed on-board to get home.

The next episode involved an interaction with a guy who was a cross between a Peruvian Dustin Hoffman from rainman and Eddie McGuire from the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The guy started to ask questions and immediately Jason put his head down into his phone and ignored him, leaving Ricky to do all the talking. Ricky and the game-show host covered all kinds of topics from geography, language, Australian imports and exports and even famous performers. At one point, Ricky needed to phone a friend but that friend was unfortunately unreachable (or just ignoring the call for help), leaving Ricky stranded and without answers or an escape route. The security guard in the park even got concerned and positioned himself nearby but never offered a lifeline, just like the phone-a-friend. After a while, we excused ourselves and said that we needed to be elsewhere. Almost immediately, we ran into another guy who asked where we were from and, by this stage, we had become sceptical of strangers and made a quick exit back to our hotel.

On our sixth day in Lima, we were booked into different accommodation but we had not heard back from our Airbnb host. We started to get concerned and so we walked around to the accommodation to confirm that it actually existed. We happened to see someone entering the apartment complex, who turned out to be the sister-in-law of our Airbnb host. She made a few calls but she wasn't able to connect with our host. Things were not looking good and we started to mentally prepare ourselves that we might be sharing accommodation with the refuge cats in Kennedy Park. It turns out that the host denied receiving our booking. Apparently the host had not been recently seen by her family and was not well. We suspect that this was code for “she’s gone on a drug-induced bender and had gone AWOL”.

The last few days of our stay in Lima were spent Indiana-Jones-style exploring the ancient ruins of Huaca Huallamarca and Huaca Pucllana, which were built by the Lima culture between the third century BCE and the third century CE. Most of the ruins have been reconstructed but the colossal pyramids give a great perspective on previous cultures in Lima and a great perspective of the surrounding city. We followed up our exploration of the ruins with a trip to the Larco Museum, which houses some of the most important artefacts from the previous civilisations of Peru; most notable and interesting were artefacts with “erotic” decorations. Most people are familiar with the Inca civilisation, but until the early to mid-twentieth century little was known of the other 20+ cultures from the past 12,000-10,000 years that have left material remains in Peru. Surviving the temple of doom, without being a human sacrifice to the gods, it was time to pack-up once again and hit the road.

Next stop: Trujillo.Read more