Lima, The Last Chapter

If they say that going from a small, impoverished town to a large, urban big city is cultural shock, their wrong. Going from Cajamarca to Lima was  pretty similar to hoping on the highway and coming home from the cabin, leaving farm land and large open areas to go to the skyscrapers and busy streets. 

Leaving to go to Lima was quite an adventure. As we arrived to the airport we were greeted by a two man wall thick of fully armed national police out side the airport, along with about 30 more of these machine gun laden men inside a building on the inside of the compound. Now many of you might be wondering why there was such a fuss around the airport. Well, the city of Cajamarca is a mining town, home base to many mining companies that have mines in the surrounding hills. A new mine is scheduled to be opened soon called Conga, this mine has been approved by the government and set to start shortly. The problem is that many people in Cajamarca do not want this mine to be made due to "environment" issues. What they don't understand is that the mining company making the new mine is one of the top environmentally safe companies and is going to create new reservoirs to make up for the lakes they are destroying. Regardless of everything their doing to make it safe and healthy people in the city don't see it that way. They have been planning a strike against the mine that was supposed to start the day we left Cajamarca. They have had another strike this past November about the same issue, the strike lasted 5 weeks and all the ExPats had to be evacuated due to the resulting violence that happened.

Once we left Cajamarca we kept a close eye on what was happening. This was just the first day of the strike, the day after we had left.



In Lima, Amy and I did everything we possibly could in under two days. the first full day that we were there we went to the Inca market, which was just like a typical flea market in the United States, vendors were selling pretty much the same things at every booth and you had to pick and choose things you wanted. That same day we went on a bus tour of Lima. We were very excited to be full tourists and were sad that we didn't remember to bring our fanny packs. We enjoyed some of the most lovely sites in Lima from atop of the two decker bus and had fun touring the catacombs in a church and meeting some nice people from Prague.

The second day we were in Lima, we went and visited of the small parks the line the cost line, I liked the Parque del Amor because of all the fun colors! We then went on a 4+ mile journey of the city, walking way more then our feet could handle. We stopped for lunch and then made our way back to the hotel to wait for Eric to get done with work. Before Eric and I got on the plane I wanted to go see the magic fountains. They were amazing. These fountains (all 13 of them) were massive structures that spanned two different sides of the street. One was longer then a football field and some you could walk through. It was a very perfect way to end our time in Peru.

Now I must say that Lima is a very nice city, if you want to stay there for two days. If you want to stay there for more, you are insane. The weather in Lima is constantly the same, grey and cloudy and very humid. The traffic is the worst part of the city. Cabbies are in love with their horns and use them at every possible moment of the day as they whip through the traffic and almost get hit every thirty seconds or so. Ridding in them can almost give you a heart attack if you aren't already having a coughing fit from the smog that is attacking you through the window. That is all I have to vent about right now I should say. Now its time to go home to Minnesota!