New Year's in Lima, Peru
Days 2 - 4
December 30, 2017 - January 1, 2018
Lima, Peru
I checked out of the hostel where I spent my first night in
Peru and opted to take public transportation rather than a cab. It was less expensive and more eventful. The city center of Lima during the day is a
sharp contrast to the city at night. I
walked three kilometers to the bus station and crammed myself and backpack onto
a bus with locals. Just as I thought I
would be the last one that could fit on, twelve others piled in with us. I should have learned my lesson in the Marine
Corps: there is always room for one more.
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| While walking through downtown Lima, I spotted a literal snake oil salesman |
I walked through the main tourist region on my way from the
bus stop to Dragonfly hostel. I had to
wait until 2:00 PM to check in, so I left my backpack in storage with them and
walked down to the beach. Lima is
literally a city on a cliff, which is being constantly being eroded by the powerful
Pacific Ocean. Between the crashing
waves, the steep cliffs, the overgrowing foliage on the retaining nets, and the
gridlocked traffic across six lanes of shoreline highway, the Lima coastline is
quite dramatic.
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| At this part of the walkway, the cliffs are eroding underneath the concrete. |
While unpacking my things, I met Ed, a traveler from Eugene,
Oregon who quit his job several months ago and is travelling the world
indefinitely. He formerly worked as a
researcher in a chemistry lab and hated his job, so he decided to give up his
career and travel the world. “This is
the perfect time to be doing this.”
Thirty minutes later, his friends Ethan and Ned arrived. Ethan and Ed have been friends since high
school, have been traveling together for months, and met Ned a month ago. Ned is from Colorado and is on hiatus from
his teaching career to travel the world and learn as much as possible. We exchanged greetings and I joined them on a
walk towards the beach, exploring more of the coastline and watching the sunset
together, my first sunset south of the equator.
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| Ethan getting down on some Burger King soft serve |
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| Ned is an animated story teller with a good sense of humor. |
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| Ed is wishing everyone a happy New Year! |
I awoke early on New Year’s Eve, did a short yoga routine on
the rooftop of the hostel, and then had breakfast. That morning, I met two other travelers. Hope is a graduate student pursuing her
masters in agriculture at the Southern University of Chile. Quite the adventurous and self-reliant type,
she is on her summer break and is traveling through the rest of South America. Anne is a fiery Irish woman with the Irish
Rage hidden inside her. Her wits were
quick and her tongue was wicked; she gave Ned enough flak to make me blush for
him. We all spent the day hanging out
and exploring town together, making preparations for New Year’s.
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| Hope, the adventurous Virginia native who is currently a graduate student living in Chile. |
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| Anne posing with bottles of imitation champagne for New Year's |
Ethan, who is quite the cook, prepared spaghetti carbonara for
a dinner of good company on the hostel rooftop.
We made friends with a few others on the rooftop who came out to
celebrate New Year’s with us. Lynzee is
an MBA student living in Tahoe after spending the last five years in Las
Vegas. She may not get much time off,
but she takes every moment she has to travel and enjoy the world.
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| Ethan, the resident chef at the hostel, prepared a delicious dinner of spaghetti carbonara. From left to right: me, Ethan, Hope, Ned, Ed, Anne, and Clara. |
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| Lynzee, the adventurous soul from California, currently lives in Tahoe and is pursuing her MBA |
After dinner, we went down to the nearby Kennedy Park, a
central social location in Miraflores. A
large group of locals was playing music and salsa dancing, so many of us joined
in. We walked down to the beach to watch
the fireworks before midnight. There were
plenty of fireworks in the air already, and this spectacle grew as midnight
drew closer. Shortly after arriving at
the cliffs, I saw a low flying bat hit a woman in the face. At first I didn’t believe it, but then I saw
the bat flying away. No one else had
witnessed this once in a lifetime experience, and it was only by pointing out
the bat on its exit route that I had any legitimacy to my claim.
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| Everyone pretending to like each other. From left to right: Ed, me, Ethan, and Hope. |
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| Ed rocking his track suit, mustache, and fake gold watch. Quote of the night by Hope: "Do you run track?" |
The fireworks show took off after midnight. While there were constant explosions going
off, the pace rapidly picked up. At the
end of the peninsula, where they kept the giant cross and the giant Jesus,
there was a massive fireworks display.
The fireworks consumed the whole coastline, with multiple individual
locations each shooting off their own fireworks display. One of these happened to be behind us, and I
had an experience of being much closer to exploding fireworks than at any time
in the past. There were a few
pucker-factor instances where the fireworks either exploded on the ground or
shot sideways over our heads, exploding close enough to cause concern.
The next morning, many businesses and locations were
closed. Upon suggestion from Lynzee, we
walked to Parque Municipal de Baranco, a cultural district south of Miraflores featuring
outdoor sculptures and paintings by local artists. On our way out there, we walked an hour along
the coastline, admiring the sheer beauty of nature along the way. It was on this walk that we discovered the
Arbol Divina (Divine Tree), an abstract sculpture that was ironically covered
in bird shit.
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| The "Arbol Divino," or Divine Tree, which, naturally, is covered in bird shit. |
The first piece that
greeted us at Baranco was a version of a nativity set complete with Latino
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. But this one
had a few twists. The llamas with baby
faces were adapted from Aztec artwork, and two of the disciples were carrying
machine guns. Continuing into the rest
of the square, we started with pictures and finished with appreciation of the
artwork itself. We stared in fascination
at walls. We smiled and laughed almost
uncontrollably. We excused the
unpleasantries of local overcrowding.
It’s amazing what effects aesthetic environments can have on the human
mind.
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| The version of the Christmas story you never heard: the three wise men come well-armed with machine guns and an Aztec mace used in ritual killings. |
A narrow pathway funneled us into the general population and
down towards the beach. Hope had brought
her swimsuit with her, and insisted on putting her feet into the Pacific
Ocean. Fist sized ellipsoid rocks were
the majority occupants of the beach, with an occasional rusty scrap of iron
prompting caution while walking barefoot; few there dared leave the comfort of
the dryer rocks to face the waters. A sharp
angle defined the beachhead ingress, and Hope found herself mostly immersed in
the water within the first few steps.
The crashing waves completed the immersion.
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| Hope on her approach to the ocean. |
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| Hope spotted a unique heart-shaped rock. |
We sat on the beach for a while, enchanted by the unique
sound of the waves there. The retreating
oceans flowing over the rocks intensified a sound similar to a shallow rocky
river rapid. We stayed until the
encroaching tide cornered us with our backs to the eroding cliff side.
In light of the artwork and scenery, it was the conversation
and company that stole the show for the day.
Each experience was made more vivid by the wit, humor, banter, and
laughter of each person there. This is
one of the many joys of travel: the intensity of friendships. The urgent finality of such relationships
gives all parties permission to sidestep the small talk and insecurities
commonplace with new acquaintance and substitute a severe desire to embellish the
art of enjoying the company of others.
My new year was off to a wonderful start.
After lunch, Hope parted ways with us, opting to explore the
region more thoroughly while the rest of us walked back to the hostel. Gridlocked traffic warded us away from taking the
bus, so we moved towards the coastline to walk along the cliff again. We took our time on our way back, stopping
often to just admire what we had the privilege of observing with our own eyes. We made a brief stop at the hostel, then
returned to the beach to watch the sunset. My time in Lima was coming to a close, and I
chose to spend the rest of it with the friends I made during my brief stay.
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| Ned found a shortcut down the side of one of the net-covered cliffs. |
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| Lynzee really loves sunsets. |
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