Lima Peru – First Day in Peru

We arrived at the pier area in Callou, Peru on time at 10:00 a.m. on Day 18 of our cruise. It's a huge port, the largest in Peru but that’s understandable when you consider that both Lima and Callou City have a population of over ten (10) million people. It’s quite an improvement over Trujillo, but then what wouldn’t be?

We have forty-four people on two buses today for our tour that’s supposed to be seven hours but ultimately turns out to be about nine hours – probably about three hours of that time was in traffic. It’s horrendous here in Lima. While New York City has 100,000 cabs, Lima has 200,000 so you can imagine the confusion. The reason for all the cabs is that it’s just such an easy job to apply for and get. A few years ago when the inflation rate in Peru topped 2,000% - everyone needed to get work, no matter what it was – taxi driving seemed to be the logical alternative for many Limanian’s. The overall transportation system here in Lima is absolutely crazy – while large metropolitan areas like Vancouver or Toronto have ONE transportation provider in their city – Limanian’s operates with over five hundred individual bus companies alone – some buses are painted red, green, yellow or blue. It’s crazy. Lima was founded in the early 1500’s and is a very colonial city with very old buildings with very ornate balconies. It’s a desert climate here, similar to Trujillo – it never rains – maybe once every four years or so they might get less than one inch of rain – but the humidity is bad. They get all their water from aqueducts from the river and they have pretty sophisticated irrigation systems throughout the city, as things are generally pretty green around town.

There are forty-four political "districts" here in Lima and they all need their mayors – elections were just held and there were 26 candidates for each district – that’s quite a lot of advertising on the walls and fences throughout the city. Apparently it’s one of the better jobs here as they get paid about $4,000 - $5,000 per month – much better than the average population.

Lima is a very class oriented city – with classes A, B, C, D, E, F and G – most people would fall in the last three categories. Here in Peru, you can choose to be a citizen in formal (legal) standing or informal (illegal) status – most choose the latter because they don’t have to pay taxes. Peru is an open market – there are no set prices – things are sold based on whatever the market will bear. Whether it is gas, groceries or beer – the price could be different on one side of the city to the other. A teacher normally gets around $500.00 per month in wages,

All the roofs are flat here in Lima, basically because they get no rain, there is no need for sloped roofs here.

We got into the center of Lima just in time to see the changing of the guard at 12:00 noon. There was quite the crowd that collected outside the main gates of the palace. From there it’s off to a monastery for our next tour, and then down into the catacombs under Basilica San Francisco; where there were over 25,000 people entombed into mass graves and family plots for the rich.