At long last, the round-the-world trip begins. I touched down in Lima just after the stroke of midnight on Halloween morning. Not necessarily a place I wanted to try to navigate for the first time in the wee hours of the morning by myself, but I had transportation scheduled to take me to my hostal so I figured it´d be OK. About 10 minutes into my stay in Lima, my driver tried to kill me.
Seems my illustrious driver (a.k.a. desk clerk for the hostal) had trouble seeing at night which was compounded by the layer of grime on his windshield. Thus, he ran head on, at speed, into a ¨Construction Ahead¨ sign just a few miles outside the airport. The steel pole and cement block to which it was attached put a nice dent in his fender as it whirled toward the windshield and eventually landed on the roof spinning around to leave a nice set of scratches all over.
Of course, he did this in front of the construction crew working about 20 feet away as well as the local Policia stationed there. Nice way to start the trip. I was then treated to the first experience, and probably not the last, of bribery on my trip. After arguing with the cop for a couple minutes, he mentioned that the cop wanted a ¨tip¨which he quickly paid (I wasn´t paying!). Curiously, the cop gave it to a construction worker. With that, we were on the way again with me peering keenly out the window for every possible obstacle until we reached the hostal.
The hostal turned out to be just fine as did Lima. I´ll write more about Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu in the next few days. But, for now my internet time is running out.
Hasta Luego (My Spanish has not been as good as I´d hoped, but I´m getting by).
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