Lima

The next day’s driving was a stretch we’d been dreading, but it was also our last long stretch before we got to stop and relax in Ica/Pisco/Nasca. We hopped onto the big fast toll highway through Lima. North of Lima, everything is bleak desert, houses are tiny shacks in the desert, and the people appear to have *nothing*. Lima itself is a megalopolis of 8 million. It holds almost a third of Peru’s population, and has spawned endless ‘pueblos jovenes’, or young towns on its edges that are mostly collections of shacks. And when I say ‘shack’, I really mean shack. Most of them look barely big enough to lie down in, maybe 6’ by 6’. The nicer ones are made of adobe bricks, and have a flat sheet of something on top, held down by a neat row of small rocks, so the roof won’t fly off. Some of them, however, are made of the reed mats we use for a rug in the van, hung over a frame of bamboo poles – little better than a tent. I’ve even seen a single mat rolled into a tube and pegged down, so the owner can presumably sleep in the middle.

We passed through Lima without too much trouble – the highway was fast and straight, and mostly bypassed town traffic (though not entirely – see the crazy video of Lima traffic, which is pretty standard for Latin American cities – thank god Douglas is a mountain biker and good at avoiding obstacles). Here is a short video of Lima traffic. Note the fluidity of the 'lanes':



Lima spat us out into a landscape entirely different from what we’d seen to the north. Beach resort followed fancy beach resort, interspersed with gated communities of fancy beach houses. Porsche SUVs, 30 sole ($10) lunches on the beach, and a grocery store the likes of which we haven’t seen since America were a shock to our sensibilities, having passed through days’ worth of shack communities. We stopped at the grocery store to see what they had, and stocked up on olive oil, tabasco sauce, and Lindt chocolate, all the while feeling shocked by the luxury and excess.