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thetravellingvagrant · 5 years

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Day 3: Lima - In Which I Visit Pisscat Park

After my first proper, uninterrupted sleep in...god knows how many days at this point, you'd think that I might have woken up to my first full day in Lima – and indeed Peru as a whole – with a spring in my step and a song in my heart (a welcome change from the limp and funeral dirge pounding away in my guts that I normally have to endure), however this was unfortunately not the case. Be it from jetlag, overexertion or just my chronic and inexplicable inability to ever feel good, I felt thoroughly and irredeemably mangled.

I peeled myself from the bed and oozed my way to the bathroom. The toilet sported a sign above it which warned me against putting sanitary towels or toilet paper into it. Laughing, I pointed this out to Sam, believing it to be a translation error. I mean where else was I supposed to put my toilet paper, right?

“In the bin.” Came her response.

I laughed again.

“I'm not joking. You're supposed to put toilet paper in the bin, here.”

I stopped laughing and instead slinked, silently deciding then and there to pretty much just ignore that rule when such a time came that it might be pertinent. It's not my sewage system, after all; why should I care if it breaks? 1-0, Lawrence.

The Airbnb in which we were staying was decked out with almost none of the amenities you'd realistically want for preparing food, so, after our breakfast of children's cereal, eaten out of a mug, without a spoon, we were fairly keen to see the back of it and head out into the city for a bit of exploring.

I had pieced together a fairly relaxed agenda for the day, which led us round some of the nicer, less stabby areas of Lima. We walked first along the seafront boulevard, which afforded us both our first ever glimpse of the Pacific Ocean with our own two (four?) eyes

Wow, cool...

oohing and ahhing at the various sights, sounds and smells that the boulevard had to offer

Ooh...

Ahh...

while dodging and weaving through a haze of remarkably persistent tat-peddlers, all trying desperately to part us from our money in exchange for pieces of gaudy turquoise jewellery or stale muffins, sold from broken, leaking plastic containers; dismissing each one with a curt “no, gracias” and the quiet hope that they wouldn't mug us.

Shockingly, our cup full of chocolate cereal didn't do much to satify our hunger for very long, and so we ducked into a seafront creperie for some food, which I am loathe to describe as brunch and which, to be honest, wasn't particularly good, either. I ordered the ceasar salad crepe, which, honestly probably only met its own description by the barest minimum of standards. The sauce was watery and insipid, the chicken overcooked and the crepe itself tasted very strongly of banana. It felt a little like eating everything left in the fridge at the same time, the day before a big food shop. Still finished the whole thing though. I'm not a proud man.

Our walk then continued through an outdoor shopping mall, which was carved, picturesquely into the seafront, which, comparative to other malls in which I've been, was very nice, but was still...pretty much just a shopping centre and offered essentially the same views as the rest of the boulevard did, but with added gaudy designer clothing outlets, so, honestly, it probably wasn't really worth visiting, at all. We did meet Paddington there, however

Paddington, back in his native land after unfortunately being deported due to bear-brexit.

so that was nice.

Continuing our tour of things-that-weren't-as-good-as-we-expected, we walked some fair distance to our next stop: Barranco, which we were told was an artsy little community, full of galleries and artisanal shops and all that hipster bollocks

pictured: wank

however, the parts we saw, at least, seemed to be little more than a motorway (which, of course, we walked down the side of- keeping the vagrant tradition alive) with a couple of museums of contemporary art and the like dotted alongside it, which, both Sam and I unanimously agreed we could not be fucked visiting. We did see the odd, quite impressive mural, painted on the sides of various buildings, though, which were fairly lovely, if still not quite worth the incredibly long walk to see

I mean, if you’re into space-birds or whatever...

Aside from these murals, however, Barranco didn't strike us as particularly different from any of the other areas which we had visited, thus far and so, not wishing to pour any more of our day into that particular time-sink, we headed back to Miraflores and to our next stop, Kennedy Park.

From what we had read about the fairly modestly sized park in the pre-amble to this trip, it was the home of nearly the entirety of Miraflores' stray cat population. This was obviously a tremendously exciting prospect for me as, as fans of this blog will know, nothing makes me feel closer to what I imagine happiness feels like, than befriending a stray cat, and them all being in the same park at the same time was essentially like having a captive audience.

I can't really fault the park, to be honest; it was, as described, full to bursting with strays, all asleep on the grass and raking through bins, like the worlds least well organised cat cafe. Quickly though, it became quite apparent that a lot of them were really not very friendly

10/10 would not touch

and the ones that were, were generally, to describe them in the nicest possible way, unforgivably manky and all fucked up to buggery

Eugh, no.

and all of them, without exception absolutely reeked of piss. I plucked up enough courage, at one point, to give one a stroke along the back of its neck and, genuinely, my hand still faintly smells of its urine, nearly a week later. At least I hope that's what it is...

After sitting for a while, eating a nice bit of cake with my non-dominant, non-pissy hand, we bade farewell to the cats of Kennedy park, receiving a sea of several hundred, furry middle fingers in response, and moved on to our penultimate stop of the day; some pre-incan ruins which were, unusually nestled right in the heart of the city, whose name I can't remember and honestly, wouldn't be able to spell, even if I did.

We walked for so, so very long to get there (to be clear though, geographically they were really very close to Kennedy Park, but every junction and crossing in Lima takes about five solid minutes to cross, thanks to the incredibly heavy and wildly unregulated traffic that, to be totally honest lost its novelty after the second road we had to cross. If I never hear another car horn, ever again in my life, it will be too soon) and eventually, found ourselves standing outside the ruins, peering in through the fence, as is the vagrant way.

...Close enough!

We traced our way back to the actual entrance and were greeted by a stern, chubby looking man who told us that you needed to have a guide to enter the ruins and that the last English speaking tour of the day was set to depart in the next few minutes. We quickly debated whether or not to go for it, but to be honest, we were still very tired from the previous day's travels and, given that we had clocked up, at that point, 25,000 steps on my pedometer, both unanimously decided that we couldn't be fucked, though this time at least, we did vow to return later in the trip, because it did actually look pretty neat.

We hobbled back to our apartment, where we rested only briefly, before heading out into the city once more to a restaurant which Sam had picked out for us. A plan, with which I saw no obvious flaws with at its inception.

Now basically dragging our broken little legs behind us, using our hands as sort of rudimentary claws for another twenty minutes, we arrived exhausted and sore at the restaurant. It was only then, that I remembered that Sam is a salty, Geordie fish lady and had therefore chosen a place that almost exclusively served seafood, which, to be totally honest, I was not really in the mood for. Being the hero and very good and supportive boyfriend that I am though and having neither the energy to walk somewhere else nor complain, I silently relented and begrudgingly took my seat.

The place was really very heavily sea-themed, as you might expect of a seafood restaurant, but was only about 8% as classy in reality as it thought it was. I'm not sure how they expected waiters wearing Hawaiian shirts, or seats made from a sawn-in-half rowboat to scream elegance, but it was pitifully apparent that they did. We were served a free taster of ceviche (the national dish of Peru; raw(ish) fish, cooked by some chemical reaction it has to lime juice or something) which was basically fine and an equally free, very alcoholic sour little cocktail thing, which I obviously didn't drink, meaning that Sam had to have mine as well as hers in order to save me (but mostly her) from embarrassment.

I perused (pun intended) the menu and decided that, given that I was in South America, should be a little more daring than I usually would. I didn't really fancy a full plate of Ceviche, however, and so instead, opted for fried calamari with spaghetti and squid-ink sauce after making one hundred per cent certain with the waiter that I would be served rings of calamari and not, as I have seen so often, entire baby squid, which I refuse to eat, because I am a gastric coward.

Obviously, fucking obviously the plate that was plopped down in front of me was positively riddled with fully formed, tiny little baby squid, staring up at me with their sad, black eyes. Perfect. I ate around them, picking out the ones I could see and heaping them onto Sam's plate - who was not so concerned about fully ingesting entire offspring – though even that was made more difficult than it should have been due to spaghetti, blackened by the squid ink, looking remarkably similar to baby squid tentacles. In the end, I probably had about five mouthfuls of spaghetti and a big sulk. After eating only a crepe and a cup of cereal throughout the day, this was not even close to enough to keep me going, (which is weird because normally a good sulk can sustain me for days). Thus, out of equal parts hunger and spite, I ordered myself a pudding. I'm not sure what it was called, but it was a creamy, cinnamony, biscuity, dulce de leche-y tart thing and it was so good that it single-handedly saved the entire holiday, which, after that meal, I was pretty prepared to just throw in the bin, to be totally honest.

After our meal, the fatigue set in once more (or more accurately just...worsened) and so we paid our far-more-expensive-than-I'd-have-liked-to-have-paid-for-food-I-didn't-really-enjoy bill, hobbled the requisite twenty minutes back home and passed out almost immediately. To be honest, I may even have passed out on the way for all I know. I genuinely remember that little of it.

#lima #peru #travelling #vagrant #iquitos #cusco #malecon #pacific #photography #squid #restaurant #ceviche #walking #barranco #miraflores #travel #grumpy

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