Lima Part 2

Wow, yesterday was quite a day. We took it easy at first and went down to the local plaza/park place where it is quite touristy. After lunch tho, me alby and andrew decided to cab it down to the main cathedral in the main square of lima, and what a ride it was.

There was apparently some kinda parade on and so we ended up stuck in traffic, and the areas taht we went through were the poor areas of lima, which i think is the real lima. all the parks and neat hedges is all a facade by the government to show the tourists a "friendly" lima which can be used as photos on adds. The real lima is quite poor, and got up close and personal to these people in our ride downtown.

Its hard to describe what made it so threatening but i can liken it to driving through harlem. There were a lot of people just standing aroud, and it was obvious that if a tourist walked in that area, and you looked like you had money, it would be very danagerous. In fact, our hotel receptionist told us EXPLICITLY not to walk in these areas.

The taxi driver was quite good tho, he had nice car, a mazda 3, which is about 10000000 times better than any other car in the area. The driving here is worse than i originally thought, cars turn from across 2 lanes in heavy traffic, noone cars about lane markings, and noone has heard of indicating. we had at least 20 close calls by less than 10 cms on the way to the cathedral.

I feel a lot more comfortable in lima now, i realise taht our area here is the safest its gonna get, and although we stick out like sore thumbs here, i think its best to just take what precautions you can and prepare for the worst, ie, get robbed and lose your money.

so far, this trip has no dissapointed in the slightest, images of that poor area will stay with me my whole life, and the real tour of macchu pichy hasnt even started. I will be out of contact for a few days i think, so take care everyone..