Lima

This has been my little home for the last week in Lima. My hostel is a very peculiar place. It´s a very enchanting building and my room is nice and has plenty of room to swing a cat...and my own bathroom, which is more useful than the cat thing.

Aside from the creepy reception guy and the ice-queen who mans the front desk during the day, the main problem with this place is that it´s so hard to meet poeple here. I cornered a man in the restaurant next door who I´d given directions to the laundry (so he was obliged to talk to me) and he´s also travelling alone and has found the same problem here. People are travelling in couples or small groups and don´t seem willing to talk to others.

The city is crazy...it´s loud, very loud. People are always beeping their horns, at the same time, for a long time. It´s totally pointless and deafeningwhen you´re in the main plaza or main roads. It´s very polluted and they haven´t got unleaded yet so yiou feel the need for a hankie over your mouth most of the time. It´s manic in a way that is alien to an english person. If I go into a shop in England and they come up to me and show me their merchandise and tell me about their offers I think they´re being pushy and I´ll probably leave becasue it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Here it´s like you don´t even go in the shop, they stand outside shouting things at you, and street sellers come up to you and follow you with their things and try and get you to buy from them. Kids begging, people selling anything form phone cards to sweets to fluffy toys with red lit-up eyes (?)...it´s incessant and coupled with the beeping, a bit too much for little old me.
It´s also a bit dangersou here. I met a local on the plane, a very sweet girl called Vicky. I went to her house for dinner yesterday, which was lovely and her brother who is a well-built 26yr old said he doesn´t go to central Lima becasue its too dangerous. I guess I thought it wouldn´t be such a big deal because I thought I´d be with people. As it is I´ve spent a couple of days in the company of others, but people are always just passing through so I´ve spent alot of my time here alone....it´s really not safe for a lone white woman to walk in certain areas of the city at any time and not really anywhere at night. I knew that there were dangers here when I researched my trip, but it´s so different in reality.....the feeling of being unsafe or at risk...no me lo gusta (I don´t like it).
Everyone speaks Spanish here and no English so that´s been great for improving my Spanish in a hurry. I´m proud of myself that I´ve managed to make myself understood, I do struggle to understand most of the time, but I´m getting better.
One week was way too long to spendhere and I´m so glad that I´m going to Cusco tomorrow. I think It´s goign to be so much better there. I can´t wait to do the inca trail and my volunteering....then I have big decisions to make.