December 31, 2011

Flight at 12:45am. Of course. I was pretty upset thinking that I would be spending the night on a plane to Peru, but that didn’t turn out to be true. The first half of the plane ride was uneventful. Basically, I spent the time watching Kevin Hart, trying to sleep, and listening to more Adele. Four hours of that. I was pretty bored. We got to San Salvador and luckily, we found out we would be on the same plane to Lima. We waited at the gate for about an hour and boarded again. Fortunately this flight wasn’t as booked as our previous one, so we were all able to sit relatively near one another. But that was a little pointless since the extra space made it more conducive to sleeping. I knocked out for the entire four hours. Once we landed in Lima, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. My Spanish was still really rusty so it took me a while and a few “Que?” questions to get back into the flow of things. I didn’t have to go through customs since they do a random customs check. We met up with Alberto, one of the MEDLIFE staff and rode taxis to the hostel.

The taxi ride to the youth hostel was uneventful, but breathtaking. Driving from the airport, I saw a lot of things that were reminiscent of Ecuador. The buildings had similar designs and were painted in the same colorful way. We wove in and out of the city and finally after a series of sketchy-looking alleys, we found ourselves along the coast. The sight was amazing. Since its summer in Peru right now, the sun was shining and the sky was clear. We drove along the coast for a while, seeing different shops, restaurants, hotels, and even a place surrounded by fireworks in preparation for the night’s celebrations. We then entered the city again, arriving in Miraflores, and stopped at our hotel room. Once we got there, we all unpacked out of the car and got in.

The hostel was nothing like what I expected it to be. I was expecting something really shady and not clean at all. I was taken aback by the Christmas decorations that were still up and the really warm atmosphere. We all checked in, and it turned out that I was staying in the room with 12 other Berkeley girls. I was one of the first girls to get there so I quickly reserved my bunk and passed out for a little on my bed.

Later, Sophia, one of the MEDLIFE staff, took us to Wong to buy supplies. Wong (funnily named for a business in Peru) is similar to Walmart: they have electronics, groceries, etc. I bought some water and miscellaneous hygiene supplies. I got some money exchanged from that; we then headed back toward the hostel and got some directions for dinner places. Alberto suggested La Lucha, a supposedly delicious place that made the “best sandwiches in the world.” So we, along with some other girls from NY area that had already arrived, walked toward one of the central districts. It was a bustling place lined with more and more shoes and clothes shops. I don’t know if it was because it was NYE or if it was because it was just always busy. Funnily, we discovered a bunch of casinos like “Atlantic City” and “Fiesta,” giving Miraflores a very Las Vegas-y vibe. We got to this big park surrounded by both Peruvian and American restaurants and wandered like lost children until we finally found La Lucha.

We were all a little apprehensive to order initially, especially since the line of cashiers behind the counter looked so intimidating. Fortunately one of the cashiers spoke a little bit of English so we were able to order and get our food. It took a while, since they wouldn’t take any crumpled or ripped American dollars. It was a bit of a hassle to find a crisp new bill, but we later found out that it was because the exchange rate for them is lower if they try to exchange a damaged bill for soles.

We found a nice circular, tiered, bench on the park grounds, sat, ate, and people-watched. There were, strangely, a lot of wild cats wandering around. Two adorable black kittens even came and sat near us while we ate. We finished and explored the park. We did the usual tourist-y stuff and took pictures at the cathedral and fountain. We stopped briefly for some shoe shopping and an ice cream break and made our way back to the hotel.

Once here, we planned to go down to the beach around 10 to watch the fireworks, but one MEDLIFE staffer said we couldn’t leave the hostel after 10:30 since it was dangerous, especially on NYE. I was ridiculously upset by this; especially since at this point I was cranky from the lack of sleep but also hoping I could start off the year right. We are in Peru, aren’t we? Why can’t we celebrate? So I was starting to get pretty grumpy at this point and I complained a bit to David online. We were ridiculously bored, but it got better when we ordered Pizza Hut, pigged out, and decided to buy some beer from the hostel’s stock and went on the roof. Some Berkeley brigaders who had gotten to Peru a few days earlier had bought fireworks so we lit some fireworks on the roof. The hostel staff was kind enough to bring out a prepared set of balloons and crazy hats / masks. I donned a pink masquerade mask and we lit a bunch of fireworks on the roof. It wasn’t too bad after all, but I really started to miss David since I wasn’t able to spend this NYE with him. They opened up a dance floor in the hostel lobby and made us some shots. It was strange, a  combination of lemonade, vodka, and a shot of chili sauce in each. They were pretty delicious though. I had two and people began talking about how my face was turning red.

At this point I was ridiculously tired, so I headed upstairs to shower and to my embarrassment it turned out the pink masquerade mask had left pink ink marks all over my face that people were mistaking for Asian Glow. T____________T I was mortified. I tried scrubbing it off and was able to get most of it off, but some of it remained. I decided to turn in for the night and tried to sleep over the music that was raging downstairs.

At around 2:30am, the rest of the people came. They woke us up and we weren’t upset at them, but at the fact that they were still partying and making noise downstairs. They were playing the music and partying way until 4:30. I was EXTREMELY grumpy at this point. Girls coming in and out of the room kept leaving the door open as well. I wanted to punch someone in the face. I’m usually a pretty passive person, but if you do ANYTHING to disrupt my sleep I will break you.

All in all, it was a meh day. There was nothing exciting about it. I just thought about how DIFFERENT Peru was from Ecuador, not only in terms of the city, but also in terms of how MEDLIFE is structured. Everything is more structured and controlled. I was expecting everything to be a lot more relaxed, like how it was in Riobamba. Well who knows, maybe it’ll get better tomorrow?