The high point of the journey was our first glimpse of the ocean! All the South Americans on the bus started yelling and shouting, and I don´t know what they were saying because my Spanish is still appalling, but I like to think it was Óh my god, look, it´s the bloody ocean!´because that is what I was thinking.
As we finally drove into Lima, I started to panic a bit. It looked horrible; all grey buildings, grey sky and dirty shacks. ´This is where I´m going to live for months? Why did I do this to myself? How quickly can I leave and go somewhere clean?´ Those are some of the thoughts I was having. It was 3pm when we arrived. Jo and I unfolded ourselves, gathered up various possessions that had become spread around the bus and stood on a dirty Liman pavement, feeling quite at a loss.
As all travellers will know, the best thing to do when at a loss is the head for the nearest internet cafe. So that is what we did. And there is something about the internet that is warmly reassuring - you have facebook, BBC news, blogs of friends, emails from family etc. and so you just don´t feel so lost anymore.
Jo and I gathered our thoughts, girded our loins, and booked into a hostel - The Flying Dog Hostel, well recommended by guidebooks, cousin Claire and various others. And now I shall recommend it to you, although if any of you come to Lima you wont need a hostel because you can stay with me! But yes, it is a lovely place full of lovely people who have been very nice and welcoming. Although I suppose that´s their job. In which case, they´re very good at their job.
The view from the hostel balcony^^The next few days, we ambled around Lima and realised that in fact parts of it are really really pretty and nice. So I stopped panicking about how I was going to cope whilst living here. We went to Barranco, a beachy suburb, and paddled in the ocean (and got sunburnt). I wrote a LOT of postcards. We saw some Inca ruin-y type things (see facebook photo album), and some posh palace-y architecure-y type things (ditto). Most interestingly, I signed up to a website called Couchsurfing.org. On couch-surfing.org, a lot of very kind-hearted and brave people offer their spare-rooms/couches for travellers to sleep in. Also, some people don´t have space for someone to stay, but are very happy to meet up for a coffee/tea/drink and a chat, and give advice and guidance and friendship. Right, I thought. I need friends. I am going to be in Lima for a year, and I can´t spend a year making friends only with people in the hostel, who promptly leave as soon as you get to know them. So I emailed about 10 different people explaining who I was, why I was here, and would they like to meet up for coffee and a chat.
Yes yes yes, it is a bit dodgy meeting people off the internet. But I´m not stupid; I only messaged girls, we met in public places and I told the guys at the hostel where I was headed and what time I thought I´d be back. So it was fine. And I met Sosina, who is really friendly and has offered to teach me how to cook Peruvian dishes (yay!) and her parents don´t even speak Spanish as a first language, they speak Quechan, which is the pre-spanish invasion language. So Sosina is a proper proper Peruvian, which I think is very cool and exciting. But Sosina speaks English very well, which is good, and maybe when I get spanish lessons I can practice with her. And I met Nohelia, who is also Peruvian and also really friendly, and she has been very helpful in my apartment-hunting endeavors. Although her aunt did give me egg soup for lunch, and I ate it and everything but good grief it was disgusting. Egg soup? Who ever heard of such a thing.
I have also made lots of friends with people in the hostel, although ´friends´might be pushing it because many of them have left now, never to be heard from again probably. But such is travelling, and I enjoyed meeting Jennifer (US); Tina and Naomi (Australian); Neve and Emma and the other I´ve forgotten the name of (Irish); Hannie (dutch); Thea and Arti (Norwegian); that Columbian boy I also can´t remember the name of; Joel (also columbian); and Steve, Prescott, Randy and Mather (US - but you can tell that just from their names. Randy?! Mather?! Ahahaha, ridiculously American. Of course they think I´m ridiculously English as well. Which is true. But they say ´dude´and áwesome´and stuff. It´s very funny.)... Umm, yes, well anyway, I enjoyed meeting them all however briefly. (See, Joe Sandys, I AM being friendly, I´m not hiding away under my covers with a book... OK, so I may have done that the first few nights. But now I´m well into the swing of things).
Slightly less temporarily, I´ve also gotten to know the people who work at the hostel, such as Beto (short for Alberto) who has been ridiculously helpful in my apartment-hunt. Because I don´t speak Spanish, he rings up all the landlords etc. for me to organise viewings, and then comes with me to the viewings so I don´t get lost. And Neto (short for Nelson) who I went for a walk with and ended up in this really cool tea-bar that did all sorts of different teas. And Harry, who is mad and takes groups of people out dancing every night, hurrah, I love dancing! Salsa, anyone?
Right, umm, oh dear, this has been a rather long post. My next one will be short and snappy, I promise.
Oh, and I have my first class tomorrow evening. I´m terrified, I´ve forgotten how to teach! But the place where I´m working seems really good, very professional and organised. Which is reassuring.
And here is another photo, because otherwise this post will be hideously text-heavy.
That´s me, that is ^^Bye bye for now
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