I´M AT: The Point Hostal, Barranco, Lima. $9 including a small breakfast. Bar, pool table, BBQs, no locks on the doors, and our dorm was called White Vinyl. Cool. Too cool for me to stay longer than two nights.
Lima´s a city of 8 million people, many of them living in stinging poverty. The lifestyles here are more sharply contrasting than anywhere else I´ve been in South America so far.
The weather´s also pretty grim at the moment. We plodded along the cliffs by the crashing Pacific, in the grey mist, through our Beverley Hills-style barrio, all white skin, shiny bikes and fat salaries. The coast road took us into Miraflores, another rich district and one where most tourists stay - there´s a very swish cliffside shopping centre called Larcomar here, where we chucked a couple of credits into the Daytona machine. Paragliders zipped around overhead, too close to the nearby glass skyscrapers.
From here we got a ten-minute VW Beetle to the city centre. The guy tried to sting us for a $8 ride - not the last attempted scam of the day. We walked around the posh Plaza Mayor, cathedrals, monestaries, government offices, buildings like iced battenburgs. A bearded guy asked us where we from and flipped out a wallet containing colourful woven dolls, supposedly knitted by kids with down´s syndrome. It was impossible to tell whether this was true or not. We next bumped into two Limeño guys, one with a daughter in Bristol who´d been deported, and another who spoke German with Mark. They asked if we wanted a beer, maybe to sit down with them for ceviche? We moved on politely, the choking traffic racing in every direction, until another bloke came up, black bouffant. Woman? Woman? Woman? Then mumbling something about God and Jesus.
I wanted to see a famous stone bridge crossing the River Rimac (Lima is a Spanish corruption of the Inca name Rimac). It was disappointing. And it led to a real slum area, just minutes walk from the palatial splendor of the Plaza. Windows smashed, drunks bumbling, eyes staring. Walked past a food stall on the street and a woman with a purple birthmark on her face rushed over, concerned..."¡regraso, regraso....es peligrosso!" (return, return, it´s dangerous!). We looked up and saw a beaten-up Policia 4x4 hastily driven onto the pavement up the way. A raid. Men on the roof, semi-naked. Making signs of the devil at us as we walked past. Another man on the corner, pointing for us to go in the other direction. "regraso, regraso....". We got the fuck outta dodge.
The San Francisco monastery was a small walk away, so we visited that as part of a tour group. The guide showed us Moorish tiling in the main courtyard, wooden tributes to the deeds of St Francis, a carved wooden copula, and a catacomb full of grey bones. We stared at a circular arrangement of many skulls and femurs.
From here tried to find Chinatown, but instead hit a street market full of food stalls, and had a bite of Papas Rellenas, a mashed potato reformed with cooked beef, an olive, and a boiled egg inside, then deep fried until golden and crispy. I had another spud feast, Papas de la Huancaina, something I remember was recommended by Tina - boiled slices in a hollandaise-type sauce, with aji. Gorgeous.
Then to San Cristobal, the hill overlooking the city. From the top, where there´s an ornate cross studded with halogen lamps, you can see the vast expanse of shantytowns and skyscrapers, mud flats and well-cut parks. A strange place.
After a quick spell down a massively crowded shopping street, Jiron de la Union, we got a taxi back, to change, then out again for the most expensive meal I´ve had in months, at the Nautica Rosa restaurant. It´s built on its own pier so you walk past crashing, salty waves to get there, passing craft shops and bright lights. The ocean below the restaurant is lit by searchlights, and we were by far the youngest there - all else were lawyers and doctors, resplendant in their finery. Swordfish, tuna, asparagus, risotto, pecan pie, lucuma cream, a holy bread man, too much cutlery, a $8 splash of wine in a crystal glass. Fantastic food, and the bill was 174 soles, about $60. It´d be a ton back home.
We wanted a couple of beers to finish off and asked the taxi by the start of the pier to take us back to Barranco, but he told us all the bars were shut, and that he would take us to the Eclipse instead, a place full of chicas, in San Isidro, a barrio north of ours. The Eclipse turned out to be a strip club, charging 50 soles entry. So we got straight back in the cab, went to where we wanted to go in the first place, found out the bars were in fact open, and Mark stiffed the driver with the fake 50 sol note he´d picked up in Trujillo.
Lima eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment