Preface: This entry (and let's be honest, probably every entry to come) is a long one because there is just so much to see, describe and tell! Feel free to skim and/or read as much or as little as you'd like!
The time is closing on my first full day in Lima, Peru. It was a wild ride with many adventures, and it flew by. We started off the day by doing an orientation meeting with the leaders of our small little study abroad group. They talked about the city, safety, money, which was all very routine but still important.
The fun started when Marion (a super sweet lady who runs the CIEE program and has basically been our lifeline thus far) told us that we were all going to get lunch, which meant leaving the relative familiarity of our little hotel. We are situated in the Miraflores district of Lima, which is a super nice neighborhood full of trendy shops, restaurants, pretty houses, and tall, crowded buildings. We were going for lunch at an amazing place called Puro Peru in the neighboring nightlife district of Barranco.
Marion led us out of the hotel, through the bustling streets of Miraflores (think downtown Manhattan with narrower sidewalks, far fewer traffic lights, and twice the amount of blaring car horns and you'll come close to getting a feel for it), and came to a stop outside a small park. In Spanish, Marion started to explain to us that we will be taking the
micro, a tiny, cramped bus that has extensive routes all over the city. The
micros don't have route maps, have fewer stops, and are private lines. As she passed out 1
sol coins to all of us, she explained that in order to ride the
micro, you must first ask the driver if the bus is traveling in the direction that you want to go. If the bus is not going that way, you better hope you didn't already climb on and instead must get off pronto. She told us that we were headed to Barranco, and we all crowded inside. A
micro looks like a VW bus that someone redid inside to have enough seats for at least 20 people to sit in. The rest of us crowded into the aisle and held on to the poles for dear life as the tiny bus thundered through the city.
In Lima, traffic is a nightmare. A nightmare filled with blaring horns and swerving cars and where things like proper traffic lights, crosswalks and blinkers are few and far between. The
micro lurches forward with surprising speed, meaning you get a full upper body workout as you try to keep from crashing into people on either side of you. While all of this is going on (and while at the same time you are meant to be guarding yourself against thieves) a man who works for the bus pushes his way through and asks each person where specifically they are going. You have to tell him, and then he tells you how much you pay. He then gives you this little piece of paper that you must keep for some reason. Since there is no set route, you must also watch out the windows for where you are going and holler up at the driver when and where you want to get off. All of this chaos is worth it, however, because the
micros only cost less than fifty U.S. cents to ride.
I emerged from the
micro quite shaken and had no idea what was going on. We were in a completely different area of the city, but in many aspects, it still all looked the same. There were still tons of shops, tons of people, and tons of cars barreling through the streets. Marion led us on foot for a while, until we suddenly turned into this little doorway that was pretty much indistinguishable from the colorless buildings around it. Inside, however, was a beautiful restaurant, decorated with all sorts of boat parts and ropes, with huge chalkboards displaying what was on offer and long black tables with brightly colored napkins. It was very elegant, very classy, and very busy. It was called Puro Peru, a buffet style restaurant serving the best and most delicious of Peruvian cuisine. We got to wander around the huge place, picking out anything that looked good and getting a feel for what Peruvian food looked like and tasted like. You could see the Asian influence in some of the dishes, as well as the Peruvian chefs taking advantage of the sea being so close and using a variety of seafood. After a delicious lunch, we returned to the hotel to complete some final orientation things.
For dinner, we were left to our own devices to find some food somewhere in the city, and so our group of CIEE students decided we would walk the several blocks down to the seaside cliffs to a shopping center called Lacromar. Lacromar is cut into the cliff side, giving it some spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean. We went at night and well after the winter fog had settled in, so we weren't able to see much, but the site will definitely require future trips in the day time. At Lacromar, some of the girls and I went to a little Peruvian fast food chain called Bembos, which is similar to a McDonalds.
We finished up our first day in Peru by stopping at a bar on the way home. The guys ordered beer and my roommate from the hotel, Natalie, and I each ordered a pisco sour, which can basically be considered as Peru's national drink. It tasted like quite a few thinks mixed together, had a slight fizz, and was coolly refreshing. After our drinks, we all headed back to the hotel to catch some sleep before we took the Spanish language placement exam on Saturday morning.
