My hotel, on the Plaza San Martin, is called the Grand Bolivar.
The emergence from Jorge Chavez International Airport into life in Lima, Peru, comes with one definitive statement: Everything here is different.
From the hoards of taxi drivers, bus touts and energetic money-grubbers beseiging newly arrived passengers, through smog-filled streets and past gun-turreted factories, the message amplifies. This is a wholly different world.
Excluding tourists, I don't think I've seen a person taller than 5 foot 9. The disparity in wealth weighs in clearly. The wealthy, fewer in number, flaunt their material status. The poor, much, much greater in number, scam, strive and steal anything and everywhere.
I´ve been warned four times today -- by a waitress, by a clerk in photo shop (no Internet cafes have machines that can take a memory card; I had to copy pics to a disc), by a cop and by a bartender -- to hold onto the camera that I had placed in front of me for less than a minute.
Yet this city has its upside -- most people stay up late and on Sabado morning -- nothing is open till 10 a.m. After that, the streets downtown fill up rapidly.
After flashing several smiles, and showing her ability to read people by switching to English without my ever saying a word, Elena sold me a little fabric lapel pin of an Inca couple for un sole (about 33 cents) -- and earned an extra sole for this pose.
The "I still got it -- even in Espanol" moment of the day: On the Plaza de Armas, I was approached by four women about 20 years old in uniforms, somewhat resembling flight attendants, who were surveying turistas for a semi-state agency. After being caught off-guard by my stunted Espanol, one of them asked me to try writing my answers on their sheet. Question 1 was nationality. Question 2 was the name of the airline one arrived on, and a couple of other similar items followed. Then they asked what attraction brought one here: Macchu Piccu, Cordillero Blanco, Lake Titicaca, or other. Naturally, I selected other -- and two looked at each other questioningly. I wrote las mujeres de Peru and I swear two of these dark-skinned lovelies blushed beet red. They all laughed and asked to document the surveyee.
This young woman was selected by her survey-crew peers to pose with the tall, ghostly guy with the exquisite wardrobe choice.
Manana: El autobus a Pisco, a small coastal town devastated by earthquake a couple of years ago.
5 comments:
I predict that this blog will be of monumental social value to the world. Years from now, students will study the gradual conversion of TOS from a relatively societalized American to slightly unstable, disassociated tourist, to enthusiastic ex-pat and on down to it's natural TOS conclusion of becoming "Subcommandante Sheil," the anglo leader of a small band of rag-tag Central American revolutionaries seeking to overthrow whatever country in which Tim finally ran out of money. Basically, this blog will be "Heart of Darkness," but told from the viewpoint of Kurtz. Necessarily, because of the unfortunate viewpoint of the narrator, we will miss out on the gory details of how "errand boy" John Smith, an enthusiastic young intern in the Obama White House, comes to do Sheil in, but hey, we've already heard that viewpoint, right?
Seriously, Sheil, this blog is awesome. Keep in touch and come back alive because I still owe you a dinner, and I intend to learn how, in my property class this semester, to make that "future interest" non-transferrable.
--Rob Olmstead
Why am I not surprised that your first pics would be of women, very young women?!! Good God, man, they're young enough to be your daughter! Keep working on that Spanish, though, and maybe you'll attract one more your own age -- or at least less likely to put you at the point of a possessive daddy's gun.
Most excellent, Sr. Sheil. Next up, get yourself a motorcycle - a Norton International, perhaps - and a buddy and start riding around down there. After nine months or so, you'll be primed to make your own mark on the world. Cuba, for instance, may be about ready for another revolución about then. Then we'll all make big money selling T-shirts with a stylized image of your mug on them. Viva la revolución! Viva el SHEIL!
Kidding aside, I'm hooked after the first post. Write on, sir.
I'm sorry I haven't been on top of this blog from the get-go. i have some catching up to do.. it looks like a wild ride so far - thanks for the nudge via email. I love the LeClaire post, I'll have to forward that to him.
"tall ghostly guy..." hilarious!
nice pics! Me and my mom enjoyed them!!
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