I'm in Lima… yay! It’s almost starting to feel real now,
but not quite. This is my first time out of the United States and my first time
flying alone. I got lucky on my plane ride from Houston to Lima. The woman I
sat next to was a sweet little old lady. She is originally from Peru but has
lived in the U.S. for over 50 years. She goes every year to visit her mother
and sister in Lima. She told me lots of stories and gave me advice, and we
found out that we share a love of KitKat bars. We both brought some with us for
our trip. She said she always brings them to give to her family. She also told
me that I had to try a fruit called chirimoya because it was her favorite. It
is green and heart shaped and the meat inside is kind of like a pear. I got to
try it the yesterday at lunch.
On Friday we went to the campus of La Pontificia Universidad
Católica
del Perú
(PUCP), the school I will be attending. It is a large gated area in the middle
of the city and there are guards at the main gate you go in through. There were
also security guards standing around all over the place. Someone from my group
said they heard that if you drop a piece of paper on the ground a guard will
immediately come and pick it up to keep the campus clean. It is really
beautiful. There are all sorts of trees everywhere: regular trees, flowering
trees, palm trees, and cacti all mingled together and lot of flowers. There are
deer that wander around campus too. We saw them following around the gardeners
and trying to eat the plants out of the wheelbarrow they were using.
Coming from Iowa, it amazes me how open all the buildings
are. Most of the buildings have hallways and stairwells that are open to the
outside. There is even a mall that is built into the side of a cliff. If you
stand on the street at the top you can look down to the bottom level and see
everyone walking around on the bottom level. And just beyond the mall is the
Pacific Ocean. I just imagine a huge rain storm or snow every time I see a
place with no roof. But they don’t get snow and it hardly ever rains so it
works for them. Most places actually keep windows open because they don’t have
air conditioning everywhere like we do in the states.
Traffic in Lima is crazy! Everyone just weaves around each
other. At one point on the ride from the airport, our taxi was sitting across 3
lanes waiting for a red light because he wanted to turn. Cars have to push
their way in if they turn onto a busy street and there a people honking all the
time. Some of us where walked to the mall last night and the taxis would slow
down and honk whenever they passed us to see if we wanted a ride. “Pedestrians
have the right of way” is pretty much non-existent here. Even if you have a
crosswalk light, the cars that are turning right will just honk at you and threaten
to plow you down if you don’t get out of the way.
Saturday we went to a
huge buffet and tried a lot of Peruvian food and then took a tour of some of
the districts of Lima. We drove down to the beach and I got to see an ocean in
daylight for the first time. I’m already sunburnt, so I’m a little afraid to go
to the beach. I have a feeling I’m going to go through a lot of sunblock in the
next few months.
