Our plane touched down jarringly at about 1:30 AM this morning. None of us had a real idea of what things might look like beyond the confines of the aluminum tube that had brought us across seas, deserts, mountain ranges and at last, to the humid Lima airport, four thousand miles from home. We negotiated customs with relative ease and learned that the beagle, in all its ferocity, is Peru’s canine of choice at the airport for keeping unwanted produce and food items from entering the country. We were finally ushered into a cab and the cab driver, with the assistance of Mr. Johnson, bested the trunk and our bags in a life size game of Tetris, slammed the truck triumphantly, and we were off.
Quickly we were plunged into a vivid, humid subequatorial city. I rolled the window down to better appreciate what Lima had to offer from an olfactory and auditory standpoint as well as a visual one. Nostrils were flooded at first by the industrial soup of diesel and gasoline exhaust that, due to the thick wet air, were made all the more pungent. The hydrocarbon stew eventually gave way to fresh sea air. The sound of the surf and the smell of ocean air was extremely reviving after 8 hours in a tube. The further we drove the more agreeable the sights and sounds became. We found ourselves coming out of a web of houses to face an enormous wall of blackness that the driver informed us was the Pacific ocean. The cabby brought the car up to higher speeds as the road grew long, straight and free of speed bumps, the smells grew less intense, and the world outside the car began to fly by. We arrived at the hotel at approximately 2:10 AM and after fighting through a slight language barrier to get checked in, we were in bed sleeping like rocks.
The morning began with a simple hotel breakfast and a quick preparation for our trip to the conference center. The bus ride was a breeze and the sights of an average day in Lima began to bombard us as we rode the bus through the city. Lima is a much less mysterious and much more colorful place during the day. After passing through a few check points chalked full of Peruvian policemen we were in and out of the conference center, fancy new credentials in hand, within ten minutes.
After the bus ride back to the area we were staying in, we followed the advice of a local and dined at an very refined yet inexpensive restaurant named Panchita. After eating as if we were hedge fund managers for the price of your average toaster we traversed the fourteen blocks to the hotel on foot. On our way back we happened across an art show set up on the sidewalk. Beautiful paintings of the sea, of farmers in their fields and everything in between occupied an entire block. This however was by no means the most interesting aspect of our walk. We came upon a park called John F. Kennedy Park. While the park is named after the American president, it had less to do with JFK than it had to do with cats. Everywhere in this park cats abounded, sleeping in piles amongst the flower beds, sprawled out in rag doll like fashion in the middle the grass. Dozens of cats all called this park home.
A few hours later, after we returned to the hotel and rested a while, we went out again to explore the area. We went to the local mall which is built into the side of a cliff overlooking the bay. After a short walk through the mall we went on a hunt for iconic things to photograph and a smoothie stand. Both were discovered with ease and our mission was complete. Now after a long day spent getting our bearings and adjusting to South America and all its vivid characteristics we are eagerly anticipating jumping into the melting pot of COP 20 tomorrow morning Wish us luck and good night all.
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