"I went for a good gallop along the beach... " a Lima Travel Page by skywalkerbeth

After what I've seen, be very glad you were born were you were. more than 50% are below the poverty line, and the ones at/just above are not exactly driving Lexuses. imagine a city with 8 million people, 4 million of whom do not have running water or enough food to eat or likely a place to live. to actually have a real job, education and a decent car to drive makes you upper class. it also makes you a possible target for being kidnapped. When you stop at a stoplight, they swarm your car trying to sell things. The little kids clean your windows with a dirty rag and peer in waiting for you to give them money. But they tell you not to roll your windows down b/c they will steal from you - they will grab something and run. Supposedly after dark it is legal to go through stop lights b/c otherwise it's too dangerous to sit and wait. If there even is a stoplight, most intersections don't even have them. (this makes for interesting driving and even just observing the drivers).

Imagine driving past what looks like a beautiful colonial house only to see it falling down on the other side. Imagine seeing houses perched on a crumbling cliff and they look close to crumbling into dust themselves.

I went horseback riding on the beach south of Lima - it was really fabulous. (I lost my poor little Leica in the surf, but that's a whole nother story. I was able to salvage the memory card so I may get pics out of it, but the camera was half buried by sand and water by the time I was able to find it half an hour later).

the ride through the mountains was another story though - garbage strewn everywhere, people living in tarpaper/wood huts and shacks and dogs and children and chickens running everywhere. The poor kids were playing in all the dirt hills and were completely filthy and you bet they weren't going home to clean up before beddie bye. The mountains were actually big sand hills, evidently they deforested it to get $$ and never replanted anything. All that is left is utterly barren.

That said, I do want to go back. I still want to see Machu Picchu and Nazca Lines and other things besides Lima. The people are so warm and friendly and of all the Latin American countries I've now visited, Peru has by far the best food - although the ceviche made me a little sick twice - the first time I thought it was b/c it was we had it at a beach hut (it's raw fish with lemon and spices and all - yummy) but the second time was at the hotel so mmm, maybe not, for as good as it tasted... I think the huge amounts of lemon juice curdled my stomach!

And the ride? thrilling! the horse completely loved running along the edge of the water (didn't like to get his feet wet, there were a few almost-oopsies when the surf hit his feet & he jumped sideways but it was a BLAST. I was laughing uncontrollably the whole way (ka-thump, giggle, ka-thump, giggle, ka-thump, giggle, ka-thump). almost like a little repeating rollercoaster it was.) Mamacona is where the Peruvian Paso club is in that area, I really recommend checking it out.