IN PERU

PJ and I are here in Lima, Peru. Lima is way better than I expected ... I was waiting for a dirty, noisy, sprawling city that would make me feel trapped and nervous. And that is exactly what Lima is ... and I LOVE it.

The buildings are every color and style and they run right up against the narrow streets like protective relatives. Little doorways cut into sheets of metal lead down to hidden resturants and bakeries as cars drive by you on a tiled sidewalk. We walked two blocks from our hostel this morning and evetything opened up to a huge plaza with enormous baroque-esque buildings and clusters of middle-school age school children in uniforms moving with their field trips.

Maybe its the air ... which smells like the ocean. Or at least feels like it ... my nose is pretty stuffed up. After the sharp cold of rainy Buenos Aires, the thick, humid marine layer hit us both like a wall as we left the airport at 1 30 am last night (last morning?) to get into a taxi going to a hostel for which we had no reservations at all. But we read it in our Peru book. And they said it had hot water.

The hostel is tall and narrow with wooden staircases and painted walls. Our beds have little wooden frames and bright, striped woven bedspreads. Our shower smells, our pillows are lumpy, and the yellow curtains block almost no light ... and certainly no sound when they start playing music at 8 30 in the morning.

BUT. Hot water.

I LOVE IT.

Love,
Me.