Easter Monday and a little hand-drawn cartoon of Jesus jumping down from the cross saying “It’s OK boys I’m not dead”!
I was up half the night with the screaming shits, but by 10:00 hrs. I felt stable enough to brave walking to the Post Office. I posted the letter to Glenn and bought some Peruvian stamps to stick in my logbook for souvenirs. Lima Post Office is a huge building with a multitude of departments and an old colonial-style décor.
I headed off down the busy Jirón Union to the Plaza San Martin which was packed as usual with moneychangers chanting “change dollars” and gleefully waving wads of Inti banknotes. I found the Booke Exchange at Ocoña and spent ages trying to find a couple of books worth swapping.
When I finally settled on two books, I found out that it was a bit of a rip-off really. I exchanged three decent books in good condition for two tatty ones and still had to pay an extra 650 I/- Intis. I got “City of the Dead” by Herbert Lieberman and “Dead Zone” by Stephen King, hopefully both entertaining reads.
I also changed a $50 US dollar American Express Travellers Cheque on the premises at 99 Intis per $1 US dollar. My next task was to discover where the buses and collectivos left for the airport. I walked along Avenida Nicolas de Pierola from the grubby east end with it’s pavement stalls, including men with typewriters doing typing to order, to the affluent west end approaching the Plaza Dos De Mayo.
The May 2nd Square (Spanish: Plaza Dos de Mayo) is a square located in the historic centre of Lima. Its construction was commissioned by the Peruvian government in the 1870s to commemorate the Battle of Callao, which had taken place on May 2, 1866. It was built over a previous square known as the Oval of the Queen (Spanish: Óvalo de la Reina), located near the gates of the city, which had since been overrun by urban growth.
The square is dominated by a central monument, built in France and reassembled in Peru between 1873 and 1874, allowing the square to be inaugurated in July 1874. The architect was Edmond Guillaume; the sculptor of the finial figure of Nike and the historical and allegorical bronzes was Louis-Léon Cugnot.
Here were situated airline offices, cinemas and the more upmarket hotels, shops and cafés. I was told that colectivos leave from the junction of N. de Pierola and Avenida Garcilasa de la Vega (Wilson). This was later confirmed by the Tourist Office.
Colectivo minibuses, also known as combis, can squeeze in twice as many people, or often more. In the cities, particularly in Lima, colectivos (especially colectivo minibuses) have an appalling reputation for safety. There are crashes reported in the Lima press every week, mostly caused by the highly competitive nature of the business.
A mass of buses jockeyed for position as they hurtled around the roundabout that was Plaza Dos de Mayo. I headed back towards Plaza San Martin and popped into the office of VARIG. VARIG (acronym for Viação Aérea RIo-Grandense, Rio Grandean Airways) was the first airline founded in Brazil, in 1927. From 1965 until 1990, it was Brazil's leading airline, and virtually its only international one.
I wanted to find out about their Air Pass. For $330 US dollars you could get unlimited flights within Brazil for 21 days. The catch was that you had to fly into Brazil on a VARIG flight. I picked up a VARIG route map to investigate the possibilities further.
I passed a Chinese Restaurante and couldn’t resist the cerbiche. Cerbiche and Cerveza Cusqueña beer was not the best thing for a dodgy tummy, but I hoped that the acidic meal would kill off a few bugs.
Next, I went into the well camouflaged offices of Faucett to confirm my flight for Wednesday. The last task was a visit to the Dirección General de Tourismo at 1066 Union (Belén). On the way I bumped into Aneka and Ana who had flown into Lima from Tumbes this morning.
We exchanged news as we walked down to the Tourist Office where we got free booklets with maps and information on Peru, especially Cuzco. I went with the girls to the Aeroflot Office by the wide Paseo de la Republica to confirm their flights back to Europe and then we walked along the bustling Jirón Union where one street vendor was selling green lizards as pets. We went to Jerry’s on Carabaya for cold Pepsi Colas and a huge lasagne each.
At 17:30 hrs. the girls retired to their hotel to catch up on some sleep. I returned to my hot hotel room, which smelt as if there had been a recent fire in it, to sift through the mound of leaflets, maps, books and brochures that I had picked up today.
I had also bought a map of South America, which included Central America and the Yucatán of Mexico for 120 I/-. Bollocks! I’ve just stuck the stamps on the wrong page of my logbook. I left the last page blank for them.
I sat down to write my log and listen to the radio while a busy crowd milled about outside my window, bustling in and out of the huge, solid church of San Francisco. I had a much needed, wonderful hot (!!!) shower and then walked across the Plaza de Armas to the Bijou Cinema to see “RoboCop”.
Verhoeven emphasized violence throughout the film, making it so outlandish it became comical. This turned out to be an orgy of violence with some sickening special effects, but quite entertaining. The locals loved RoboCop, it was right up their street. Before the main film there were a couple of short awful local films. ¡Que Mierda! (what shit) was the verdict of the audience on these.
I walked back across the deserted plaza and now, at 23:15 hrs. there was no traffic. By the huge San Francisco Monastery a team of street cleaners in orange coats were sweeping up the rubbish.
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