An Anecdote from Lima

I’m on my way home.  End of an era I think, but hey, everything’s got its end.  It’s what makes everything special.  Open-ended travelling has its advantages, but appreciation comes from the break from day-to-day routine, not having travel become your day-to-day routine.

Anyway, I met an American from St. Louis who had met up with a long time friend of his that he met in New York, and it being my last night in Lima, we had a couple of beers at the hostel.  No biggie.

A couple of beers, as it most inevitably does, turned into many drinks.  You see, it was happy hour, and who can resist two pisco sours for the price of one?

After losing a game of pool that I don’t remember much of, I threw in the towel and went to try and sleep.  I managed it, but was awake around 7am.  Lima isn’t without its fair shair of noise, and given that the hostel is located right at a throughfare of traffic.  In true Liman style, the locals like to let each other, specifically everybody within a 3 block radius, know that their horn is working perfectly well.  I think that if someone’s horn were to break, they simply wouldn’t drive.

Anyway, when I woke up from my half-sleep daze at around 9 (head pounding and knees not quite working right) the American from St. Louis got back from his night out.  I let him sleep, but because of the noise, he was up before 11:30, and had already attacked the coffee before they could take it away.

His night had been slightly more interesting than mine, as you can probably imagine.

After I’d gone to bed, he’d stayed at the hostel bar until they closed around 2am, then went out with two of the guys who worked at the hostel.  What they hadn’t told him beforehand was that they were going to a gay discotheque, and that certain substances (most consumers of these certain substances believing that alcohol is for the weak) may or not have been involved.  When the discotheque closed, for whatever reason, a massive fight broke out outside.  The two guys from the hostel got involved, and one of the employees tried to beat up the other.  My friend from the USA got involved (insert funny remark about the USA not being able to stay out of people’s business here), and they ran off before the police got involved, because in Peruvian prison, the best you can hope for is a beating.  He ended up at the appartment of two gay guys that he neglected to mention how he’d met.  Before long, the two gay guys were “having fun,” so he left and tried to make his way back to the hostel.  At some point he lost all of his money, and only had about 10US on him, which at least paid for a taxi ride back home, until he crashed in at 9am.

I hope I meet this guy again.  He was quite the character.

You can expect one more post from me after I get home.