First Day In Peru

Yesterday was a pretty typical first day for a trip like this. I relaxed, checked out some sights, ate some really great local food, and of course, had to deal with something that went incredibly awry. More on that later though.

Anyway, I got into Lima Friday night, or Saturday morning depending on how you look at it. It was 1:30AM by the time I got here so I was exhausted. I'm staying in a relatively affluent suburb of Lima called Miraflores. It actually feels a lot like Buenos Aires, maybe because it's more well to do than I figured Lima would be.

After sleeping in for a while I went out for what turned out to be a great breakfast - two pancakes filled with sliced mango, pears and bananas, drizzled with honey and covered with powdered sugar. Awesome. I walked around for a while after that, then later headed down to the ocean to a development Jorge recommended called Larco Mar. It's built right into the cliffs and was pretty neat to visit.

I checked out an exhibition from the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) here in town that featured gold artifacts from before Christ to a few hundred years ago. There was also a photography exhibition by a Peruvian photographer. The work was really great, but the thing that was most memorable about it was the photographer's self portrait, a giant 12x18 print. Because it was that big something became very apparent, his fly was down. Hilarious.

From there I grabbed lunch, ceviche and a beer and waited for the Peru Rail office to open. I had forgotten to print my ticket to Machu Picchu so I wanted to see if they could pull it up for me. They could, and that's where things went way wrong...my ticket was for May 23rd, not June 23rd. Considering this was the very high season for Machu Picchu, this was definitely an "Oh shit" type situation.

The girl at the counter was very helpful though and immediately looked to see if they had any openings. While doing so she advised me to contact my travel agent for a refund. I'll get right on that, I thought. (I made my reservation) Fortunately, they had one seat left on the train Tuesday morning when I originally intended to go. Good so far. Thursday they had nothing. Oh shit. She said she could have me back Saturday night, but since I have to fly back to Lima Saturday that wouldn't work. She said the only other option was the ultra-luxurious (Peruvian for ultra-expensive) Hiram Bingham train. I weighed my options and decided to go for it.

All in all, it was a $370 f-up. But I guess I'll get to experience one of the world's great rail journeys in style. We'll see.

From there I took a cab to see the archaelogical musem, another Jorge recommendation. I was still smarting from being so stupid to have booked the wrong dates, and also still not quite believing I did, so it helped to have an absolutely hilarious cab driver. He advised me on all things Lima, mainly where not to go. After riding with him I thought I should hole up in my room until my flight out. He even told me absolutely not to go to a place Jorge recommended, a street in Miraflores known for its pizza shops. (Sorry Jorge, but if someone crazy enough to make a living zipping around the streets of Lima in a barely running '95 Nissan advises you not to go somewhere, you don't go there.)

Anyway, today I am off to Cusco. The city sits about 10,000' up in the Andes so it will be a fun couple of days of acclimatizing before I head to Machu Picchu on Tuesday. Let's hope we have no more train issues.