Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Lima and Guayaquil

The bus to Lima was 24 hours, I was the only Gringo on board. The scenery was nice enough, descending through the Andes to the coast. I had the front seat at the top so I had a good view. The bus was comfortable but a bit manky. All the locals were chewing coca leaves and the floor was pretty covered with discarded stalks by the end. It got pretty cold at night and the woman next to me was kind enough to share her blanket.

I got into Lima in the afternoon, checked into the Loki hostel, which was fairly lively. After eating I headed to the Museo Larco, which again had a lot of high quality pre-columbian art, with less pseudy captions this time. There store rooms were also open to the public where you could see row upon row of artefacts just stacked up, including hundreds off zoomorphic jars, divided into sections for different animals; pumas, owls and so on. However, the highlight of the museum is its collection of erotic pre-columbian pottery - I kid you not! There was some weird stuff here. As well as every available orifice being put to use, there were also skeletons getting in on the act (I'm pretty sure there isn't actually a bone there), animals, diseases, and a weird selection where the woman was breastfeeding a child at the time. And yes I have photos of some of that.

To get out to the museum was almost an hour in a little mini-bus (due to traffic rather than distance). I was happy to save on the taxi and Lima seemed pretty safe to me, contrary to the lonely planet etc. That night I went to the bar in the hostel. I played a bit of pool and then got talking to various people including some guys that worked in London and some Welsh girls. In the end I headed out to a club in the Barranco district called Dragon, with Katie from Fenwick and Edel from Ireland. We were promised 80´s and 90's music, but when we got there the music was pretty dire, until they played about 5 good songs, then it faded. Anyway it was a good night, but we headed back at an almost civilised hour as Katie and Edel were heading home. I somehow ended up with Edel's alarm clock that her ex-boyfriend gave her that I have to dispose of in a suitably dramatic fashion. As you do.

The next day I headed into central Lima. wandered around the square and visited the cathedral and the San Francisco monastery, where the tour takes you into the catacombs below where the bones of 27000 people are, buried hundreds of years ago. I also went to the museum of the Inquisition, which was pretty small and mediocre. After that I strolled in the drizzle to another of the plazas, which features a statue of a woman with a small llama on here head (a crown of flames was commissioned, but llamas is the word for both in Spanish apparently). I then went into the posh bar in the Hotel Bolivar for one of their famous pisco sours (I'd already had a pisco sour ice-cream that day). It was of course excellent. Then I headed back to the hostel and again went to the bar in the evening where it was fairly quiet at first, but I got 3 free large beers and 2 tequilas just for blowing up some balloons and tying them up for a party that was happening the next night. Perhaps that was why although I went to a club later on with all the bar people (called Sargento Piemenientos, Sargent Peppers!) and I was dancing, I couldn't even tell you what kind of music they played. I came home in a cab with some Peruvians, at some point we realised we didn't have any common language. That night in the bar had seen the appearance of these three characters who were travelling around in matching white Adidas tracksuits smoking cigars and in possession of a giant cookie monster outfit (yes there are photos). That's travelling in style!

The next day with a slightly fuzzy head I went to the Inca Pyramid thing called Huaca Pullanca. There was a quite informative guided tour, but the site wasn't hugely impressive. There had been human sacrifices found there. My bus to Guayaquil left just after lunch and was another 24 hour affair (it actually took 29!) this time it was quite a luxurious bus and half empty, and there was 2 French Canadian and 2 German girls on board as well. For the second time I saw a Spanish movie about a boy who has a Loch Ness monster for a bet (Mi Mascota est un Monster, or something like that). It was later than I planned when I got into Guayaquil, Ecuador`s biggest city, and I managed to get myself a shitty hotel in a dodgy neighbourhood with a joke of a shower! I walked down to the Malecon 2000, the developed waterfront, which was actually quite nice of an evening, and had my tea, got some cash and intenetted before getting some much needed sleep. Next morning the flight to the Galapagos left at 10am, so I was up at 7, and got to the airport no problem, ready for the next exciting trip!


Err, some of the tamer erotic pottery.

Crown of llamas!

Another evening in the Loki hostel in Lima.

1 comment:

mono arana said...

Hey traveler!
I've been doing some research to get some tickets from Lima to Guayaquil(I have family there). Unfortunatly, the web pages are not very helpful.

I'm originaly from Peru, but I live in the bay area the past 5 years.
Love to travel too.
Good luck!