Days 12-15 - Being Lazy in Lima

The following takes place between Thursday, December 9 and Sunday, December 12, 2010

In regular Western Hemisphere countries, like Canada and the United States, people get, on average, two weeks of vacation a year. These usually involve short trips that are filled to the brim with plans(Day one this, day two that, GO GO GO). Vacations are rarely used to relax. Sure, if you go to a resort, you’re relaxing. But is it really that relaxing? You know you have to return at the end of that 7 day trip. By the time you truly relax, it’s time to stress again to catch that flight home so you can get back home, into your suit, and back to the office.

Why am I saying this?

Because I just finished my “two week vacation.” And I spent it completely, truly, relaxing.

And it’s still going.

On the Thursday I left Mauricio’s place for the hostel I had booked. After three nights with Mauricio and his family, it was time I set out on my own. I’ve had it easy so far on this trip, not really needing to fend for myself other than those few days in Ottawa(which isn’t hard at all), so I figured I should start. I said goodbye to Mauricio’s parents (Julie and Raul) before Mauricio drove me down to the Miraflores area.

The hostel I had booked, Condor’s House, was just what I needed. It had a beautiful commons area, both indoors and out, a large kitchen, and a very eclectic group of people. When I first arrived, I had been wearing my Saskatchewan Roughriders bandana. It was a good thing too, as one of the girls staying in the hostel was from a tiny town in South Eastern Saskatchewan. What a small world! We didn’t get much time to chat as she was in and out of the hostel getting her visa for Brazil as well as heading to the bus station to head up north.

The next few days were . . . well . . . lazy. Get up late. Wander down to the kitchen to eat some of the provided breakfast. Play cards. Wander down to the ocean a couple times. Wander around the area with Daniel, a German traveling by motorcycle(left Germany 10.5 months ago. Drove through the Midde East and Africa and much of South America).

On Saturday I took taxi downtown to see the Museo de la Nacion(Museum of the Nation). I wasn’t really confident enough to take a combi bus, which is a bus that goes on a rather informal route between two points. You flag one down, or, if you’re lazy and patient, you can stand at a bus stop and wait for one to stop and for the worker on the bus to start yelling at you as to where it’s going. Super cheap, but like I said, I wasn’t confident enough to use it.

The museum was actually really interesting(and free).  One floor housed artefacts from the many different cultures that inhabited ancient Peru(Moche, Nasca, Inca, etc) including clay pottery, jewellery, weavings, and paintings. Seeing the different art forms that were used across the cultures made for interesting comparisons. What one culture revered over another. How the human form was portrayed, etc.

The other exhibit I wandered through was a extremely graphic photographic timeline of a time in Peru’s very recent history(1980s to 2000) when the government police force clashed with a communist faction known as the Shining Path. It was an intensive internal struggle with massacres, false jailings, and much more. The images on the walls were sometimes hard to look at, images of dead bodies either dug up from mass graves or freshly killed by gunfire on the street(how the photographers are able to disassociate themselves from the scene is beyond me). But fascinating in a “I didn’t know that” kind of way.

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying some cake for Daniel’s birthday on Saturday night, walking to a shopping mall nearby with a texan named Jullian to buy the bus ticket to Nazca(she to Ica), seeing Daniel off Sunday afternoon, and enjoying a hostel bbq on Sunday night, the night before I left.

Plus, laying on a hammock isn’t too bad either.