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| Lima! |
Having
never travelled out of my birth state of Western Australia I was far
from knowing what to expect when arriving in Peru. People thought I was
crazy (as did I), my first
trip out of my home state and I go to a non-english speaking country,
land in a city which is far larger than I have ever experienced, and
alone! What was I thinking?
So
far it has been such an awesome experience! I arrived early in my host
country and spent a few days in Lima, the capital of Peru before going
to Cusco for the program.
I was alone and at first was nervous. My hostel-organised taxi ride was
crazy, I went through some dodgy looking areas and the road rules
seemed more like guidelines however, I arrived safe and sound. Getting
through the language barrier has been
interesting but not too big of an issue, I recommend having
your flight info, accommodation booking info and confirmation emails
etc handy as this helped a great deal when checking into my
accommodation when the people
did not speak English.
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| Just your average road in Lima |
Over
the few days I was in Lima I did a lot of walking around, getting the
feel for the area and finding where to buy food and water as well as
looking at the various sites.
I stayed in a really beautiful area of Lima called Miraflores, which
was close to the beach and had some magnificent cliffs with very pretty
parks along them, this made for a great area to walk and take in some of
the sites. Lima itself was a very different
place depending on where you visited, with many historic churches as
well as historic ritual sites dating back to 200AD right in the centre
of the metropolis and residential areas.
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| The gorgeous beach views near Miraflores |
Walking
to most areas was easy although I did visit the local zoo which
required a taxi ride. At first I was very nervous about the taxis having
read some scary things however,
I was advised by a fellow hostel resident what to look for in a good
taxi so after was a little more confident. Another issue I encountered
was the chances of receiving counterfeit money, I had changed by money
at the airport so didn’t consider this an issue
until I tried to use some. This did not end up being too disastrous as
not everyone appeared to know what was counterfeit or in fact it may not
have actually been so, as others were happy to accept the money.
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| Huaca Pucllana |
Buying
food in another country… even the menus were in Spanish, as such I had
to be a brave with the menus, thankfully I had received some important
info
from a fellow hostel resident, pollo meant chicken. Although there were
still some surprises with the menu such as receiving soup on a warm day
was interesting then to have chunks of chicken foot and bone in my soup
(obviously used to make the broth) was another.
All was fine though, I now know that caldo means soup.
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| Huaca Pucllana |
All
in all these last few days have been amazing and I am very thankful
that I was able to come on this trip. I can’t wait to see what the rest
of Peru
has in store for me.
Kerri-Ann Hudson
Kerri-Ann Hudson is participating on our Biodiversity in Peru program this January 2013. Kerri-Ann is in her third year of a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Management at Edith Cowan University
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