 |
| Cathedral |
Fill ‘er up!
Our stop in the port of Callao which is a district of Lima
signaled the end of the first segment of our World Cruise. About 400 passengers
would be leaving us and 400 new guests arriving to fill their places. It was
also time for filling the gas tank again. There were four sea days ahead before
we would get to Easter Island our next stop. Oh, and we’d run out of
strawberries (and I’m sure other things as well) so there were several
containers of foodstuffs and supplies waiting to be loaded onto the ship.
Staying overnight in the port gave us ample time to do our laundry and still
get out to see some of the city of Lima.
For our entertainment on the night of our stay, a local
group of traditional dancers and singers came aboard and performed. The
costumes were colorful, the music lively, and the drummer amazing as he played
a solo on some sort of box shaped drum. One fellow played what looked like a
recorder the whole time and another was fast fingered on a ukulele.
Saturday morning we boarded a bus for our panoramic tour of
Lima. The tour took us through the colonial part of the city and to the town
square where the stately government buildings and the cathedral are and where
we were able to spend a few minutes walking about.
In front of the palace of
the president were folklore performers from the mountain areas all in their
local costuming and dancing in the courtyard.
 |
| Palace |
Street vendors carried large
trays of churros which had some sort of filling in them, maybe chocolate and
tempted the crowd with them. Just before the bus rounded the corner at our
pickup spot, we were able to duck into a church and see some of the interior
before we had to scurry aboard the bus again.
Lima is divided into
43 districts and as we passed through several of them just as in any large
city, the housing and population varied. The Miraflores district is probably
the fanciest and is where all the large hotels are located. It is right on the
shoreline which is bordered by a cliff that extends much of the way along the
beach.
Here we got to get out of the bus again and walked through
the “Love Park.” Mosaic tiled walls decorated the park area and surrounded the
main attraction, a sculpture called The Kiss. Here on Valentine’s Day there
will be a contest for the longest kiss. 
The bus stopped once again in front of the huge Marriott
hotel where the shuttle from our ship was taking people and dropping them off
for a walk about town. In the area there are lots of shopping opportunities—all
underground. Our guide said there were four levels of restaurants and shops. As
I’ve said before, I’m not a shopper so we continued on with the tour bus as it
wound its way down to a highway by the beach and we started back to the ship.
The scenery changed once again from fancy buildings and nice
apartments to poorer areas where buildings were in disrepair. It was
interesting to note that some very basic housing, perhaps cast off building
materials, topped off some of the buildings.
As if the contrast wasn’t enough in the housing, we passed
two hospitals, one for those who had insurance and one for those who didn’t who
had to pay for all services or work their debt off. Our guide indicated that
average income was around $600-700 a month and about $1200 for professionals
like doctors.
As I write this, I’m looking out my stateroom window onto
the top of the bunker that is supplying our fuel and feeling a little vibration
and wondering if that is coming from the bunker or the pumps that are filling
those tanks up. As long as it gets us to our next ports it’s fine. Wonder if
the captain just yells, “fill ‘er up.” Even more interesting: Does he pay with
a credit card at the pump?
No comments:
Post a Comment