Travel the World!: First post from Lima - *Warning Very Long Post*

This is madness, it’s MADNESS I TELL YOU!!! Ok, I did plagiarize this from Phoebe Buffet from Friends but who can blame me? It’s a classic and also pretty accurately sums up the thoughts I’ve mainly had while going around Lima in these first couple weeks. It’s lawless, it’s chaotic, it’s bordering on torture. I’m talking, of course, about the traffic here.

Now you might think “Isn’t that a bit over the top?” but let me assure you I am exactly as passionate about it as the situation requires. Figuring out traffic and the etiquette will take any new visitor a fair amount of time. Here’s what I found out so far:

If you’re worried about boredom, don’t be. You’ll have a concert of horns honking accompanying you wherever you go 24/7. The speed limit is however fast traffic allows you to go. If traffic is low you zoom through Lima, no questions asked. That includes ignoring speed bumps and the like, so you’re gonna’ be thrown around the bus like you’re on a very rocky rollercoaster. This is helped by the fact that you never break until it is absolutely necessary, lest you have to let another car cut in front of you. Now, the (good?) thing is you usually don’t have to worry about that, for there are very few hours a day when the streets are not completely clogged. So if you have an appointment think about how long it might take you to get to your destination… and then add 1 – 1.5 hours.

So, all you Europeans: Patience. That being said, good luck figuring out how the hell to get to your destination in the first place. Take a bus or van, of course, which is the only public transport. Thing is, the writing on the sides of the buses only give you a broad idea where they are headed. Sometimes buses with the same writing will go different routes and sometimes the exact same bus or van might decide to change their route for no apparent reason. Schedules and route maps don’t exist. But hey, you can always ask if they are going to the specific place you’d like to end up in… if you speak Spanish. There’s barely a person here that talks English. And even if you speak Spanish there is no guarantee that they understand you or care, as long as you get in and pay the fare.

In short the whole traffic and public transport situation is one big adventure-mystery tour.

I LOVE IT!

I could write much more about traffic but let’s get on to the next – and last – topic for today. Of course that is because I know that most of you readers are super busy and have much better things to do than read a book on traffic. (Except for you Kira, you’re just lazy) But mostly it’s because I don’t feel like writing for too much longer.

So far I have managed one trip outside of Lima. Naturally I have also roamed Lima quite a bit, but the description of it’s various districts would lead too far for this post, or any one single post at that. So I’ll spread that out over several updates whenever something special is going on in one of the neighborhoods.

The looong day trip brought me to “Las Islas Ballestas” and “Huacachina”. Both are cities in the desert – as is Lima, by the way – and two of the more frequented spots by tourists. The tour got me a little bit further on my lifelong journey to skin cancer, fucked up my camera, and earned me a free bottle of wine. But let’s start at the beginning. At 5:30 am we left Lima towards Paracas in a way too small bus for an average European-sized person. Four very uncomfortable hours later we’d made it to the starting point to the “Islas Ballestas”. I’m gonna keep this part rather short, since I kinda stole that from Lisa. For 20 minutes we made our way to the island in a speed boat where you can marvel at humbold penguins, sea lions and, if you’re lucky (which I was), dolphins. The ride got pretty windy and chilly, so if you looked around you could see another rare species. The orange human turtle. Nobody was dressed warm enough, so all passengers were sticking every body part they could manage inside their orange life vests.

On the way to the Island we passed “El Candelabro”, a supersized drawing in the sand reminiscent of the more famous Nazca Lines. Although I don’t quite know why they call it the chandelier. I don’t know if they even had those back then. In all likelihood it’s a cactus, but who am I to judge? Anyway those old indigenous people must have been really bored. Who takes time to make such a gigantic thing (180m long, 60m wide, up to 3,2m deep)??? Afterwards we got back on the bus and drove to Ica, famous for their wine and especially pisco, the national drink. We got a quick tour of how the stuff is made and then enjoyed a wine tasting. One of the wines is said to be a natural viagra and they sell fitting but inappropriate souvenirs. We got only very small portions of each drink, though. Not like the tastings Prof. Merten arranges. And probably it’s better that way, too.

Next up, Huacachina. It is an oasis in the middle of the desert, where we went racing around the huge dunes in buggies. Rollercoaster, baby! Finally we got out of the dune buggies for a bit and tried our hand at sand boarding. And when I say sand boarding I mean, we were allowed to lie down on the board like on a sled and then slide down the dunes. It looked mighty uncool, but was quite fun for the short time it lasted. Sadly it did destroy my camera. There was so much sand in my pockets afterwards that a bit got into my camera bag and “disabled” the flash function.

But well “En bissl Schwund isch imma”.

On the way back to Lima, the tour guides walked around asking for people who had taken selfies with the “Candelabro”, an oddly specific thing to ask. I also saw one of the guides get out a bottle of wine in the front of the bus. And with a little delay I found a photo of me with the sand-painting. Wasn’t really a selfie but it could be one if you don’t look at it too closely. So, yes I cheated. Of course I did. In war and love all is fair and I love alcohol. And I will fight anyone who tries to take it from me. Needless to say, I won.