Lima

We touched down in Lima via plane—a small concession after hours of harrowing bus rides. Time was running short on our travels. As it was, we only had 2 days to explore this mammoth metropolis.

At 10 million, Lima is bigger than any U.S. city. There are 4-lane highways that span its girth, snaking past countless neighborhoods. A full third of Peru’s populous lives in the former Inca capital.

The shear density of Lima made Quito seem almost provincial. While the buses were replaced by smaller combis, the traffic and its testosterone was much worse. The bars and nightclubs—like the stylized 80’s new wave/industrial club we went to, aptly called Bauhaus—were swankier. Rows of European cafes and modern high-rises catered to a more visible elite. And beggars were more forceful in their approach.

And a political fever was palpable in Lima. The newsstands featured competing papers trying to out-scoop the other’s headlines about government scandal. While not as outrageous as the Onion, humor papers blatantly satirized prominent politicians. And the people in the streets reflected that bent.
Within hours of arriving in Lima, while wandering around the older city section, we stumbled onto a protest. Its target was logical enough: Alejandro Toledo, Peru’s current president—with a pathetic approval rating of about 15%. We mentioned to a limeño amigo about our exciting activist discovery. “Oh, those happen about everyday,” he said without hesitation.

There was also a procession of marchers that night. They commemorated those killed by the Shinning Path in Lima’s one instance of violence during the decade-long guerilla conflict (which killed 69,000 mostly Quichuan campesinos). The scars can still be felt in Lima, with barbed wire lining most of the houses. The midnight curfew was just recently repealed.

Lima has a certain mystic to it. It’s most famous church, El Convento de San Francisco, is cavernous and grand. Home once to St. Francis of Assisi and his Franciscan order, Moorish tiles and dark paintings from Ruben’s school line the walls of the sprawling 17th-century structure. It’s also the home to some 25,000 bodies. Into the catacombs we went with our petite but dramatic tour guide. There, under precariously low archways, were stacks and stacks of femurs arranged in geometric formations. The occasional skull lined the walls. Still more are yet to be unearthed in this storehouse used for centuries—until, in 1808, an earthly cemetery was built.

Two days is an absurd amount of time to allot to this city. I had just started to get into the frenzy of soccer matches when we left. But it is a hard, more jaded place. Fresh-faced tourists aren’t greeted with the sincere curiosity widely displayed in Ecuador. It did, though, make a more natural transition back to New York’s similar duality: an unpredictable magic encased in a edgy aloofness.

	La Parque Amazonico La

Mochilero’s Backpackers hotel, a converted mansion in the hip Barranco neighborhood, was our grand but drafty longing in Lima. A well-manicured plaza was about a block away.

Scenes from Santa Clara, a vibrant market district in Quito.

		La Parque Amazonico La
While originally buried in coffins, now these human remains are just nameless geometric patterns.