lima let die
i´ve never had the pleasure of flying iberia before but had not imagined that it would be more early 90s aeroflot than 21st century singapore airlines. from the slightly creaking plane complete with mustard interior to the surly overly made up hostesses to the plastic chicken nestled amongst semi frozen peas, the whole 11 hour flight to lima bought oh so repressed memories of ten hour struggles from moscow to calcutta (albeit without the yelping hanoi bound dogs) tumbling back. the other thing which was noticeable was the nature of my fellow passengers. i had been living under the impression that piling onto planes laden down with multiple pieces of oversized hand luggage was a subcontinental anomaly peculiar to indians taking home the obligatory annual supplies of quality street and marks and spencers biscuits. who would have thought that it is the brits, with our regulation size carry ons and civilized after-you approach to overhead luggage racks, that are clearly the minority.having said that the flight, complete with the loving spanish lady in front of me´s seat jammed back into my chin for ten and a half hours of it, was not actually that painful and vicki and i arrived in lima feeling ready for the next three months. i´ve heard numerous reports of lima, exclusively negative, but i thought i would at least give it a bit of a try. as it turns out however nothing in the few hours last night we spent wandering around could convince me that my initial hunch, that this was somewhere to be passed through rather than savoured, was wrong. we´ve only wandered around miraflores, the ostensibly arty, and definitely backpackery, district but the honking horns (piped directly into our room) and mcdonalds have left me a little cold. i´ve always had a view that some cities have an innate personality that draws you in regardless of what there is to see or do and lima hasn´t shown that side of itself to me at all. as such we are going to head out today to huacachina to stock up on sand and sore limbs for the next few weeks as we no doubt embarrass ourselves with what i confidently predict will be shoddy attempts at sandboarding.
posted by bicrom @ 11:21 am
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