Shiny, pretty, civilised Lima...

Travelling is certainly a journey of self-discovery as well as discovering about the world, and one of the things that I recently learnt about myself was that I am a bit of a fraud… For all my talk of staying off the beaten track, and the road less travelled, I have managed to stay pretty much on the standard gringo trail (the name given to the journey taken by most of the tourists in South America) for the entire trip. I realised this when I was in the camp on day three of the Inca Trail, in the middle of nowhere, and I ran into two different sets of people that I had met at hostels along that way, who both happened to be travelling along the same path through South America as me, all the way from Buenos Aires onward, and just happened to start the Inca Trail the same day as me!

But that wasn’t the biggest shock! Yesterday I made another discovery about myself. While Bolivia is possibly my favourite country so far, as well as the least developed, I have also come to realise how much I love development too…. Arriving into Lima yesterday, I found myself unbelievably excited by the prospect of supermarkets, shopping malls and yes, even McDonalds… It’s official. I’m a traitor to myself!

After nearly ten weeks travelling, the last major city I was in was Buenos Aires, about 8 weeks ago. In Santiago and Buenos Aires I was quite blasé about the shops and malls, as I had come fairly directly from Melbourne, so all I really wanted to see in those cities was churches, parks, museums, culture, culture, culture…

But after two months away from civilization, arriving into Lima was both intoxicating and exhilarating… I went for a short walk from my hotel with the idea of being gone an hour, and ended up walking for the entire day. It apparently has some of the best cathedrals and historical sites in Peru, but the first thing that caught my eye was a supermarket… huge, sparkling clean and full of food! I can’t remember the last time I was in a supermarket and so had forgotten how much I love them. So many different types of food in the one place! There were people giving free samples of different products, and I reckon if stayed there long enough I could probably have skipped lunch! And they even sold Havana Alfajores, which I haven’t seen since Argentina… I had a huge grin on my face as I wandered every aisle, and the attendants all looked at me very strangely like I was from outer space or on drugs or something to be so pleased by a supermarket.

I got a bit distracted there by all the yummy goodies in the nice clean supermarket, but after I found my way out again I kept walking and found… a department store! Multi-storey, and BEAUTIFUL. Full of CLOTHES! And shoes! And bags! And all kinds of beautiful, colourful things that distracted me a bit more… And after the department store I kept walking and realised that there was something definitely wrong with me when I found a McDonalds and felt like I just HAD to go in! Admittedly it was to use the bathroom, but I couldn’t go past without using it… It was so pretty.

But along the same street I found a Burger King, and found myself tempted by a burger for the first time in years, so I stopped and had my lunch there. It was so clean, but the whopper burger didn’t taste as good as I remember… I was even excited by Payless Shoes, God help me! Oh, and almost every second shop was a spa or a beauty salon… I wish I had known that before getting my legs waxed at a beauty salon in Arequipa on boxing day. It was seriously one of the most torturous moments in my life. The lady had clearly NEVER used wax before… It was that type of doesn’t use wax strips, but you put it on really thick and it is like the wax is the strip as well, if that makes sense. Anyway, she put it on way too hot, so it burned going on, but then it was applied too thinly in the wrong direction, and she kind of tugged at it to get it to come off. Then when it didn’t all come off she would scrape at the bits that didn’t come off with her fingernails to try and get the wax to come off. I suffered through as much as I could before it becoming so painful that I just left, hairy legs and all!

Back in Lima, I had a map full of historic sites and other locations to visit, but the only things that really interested me were the supermarkets and shiny, modern things that I hadn’t seen in months! So I walked aimlessly, occasionally spying what looked like a shopping centre in the distance and walking towards it like it was a mirage in the desert. At one point I was certain that I saw a big red ‘W’ sign that signifies a Westfield Shopping Mall… I couldn't believe there might be a Westfield in Peru, but I was surprised by Payless Shoes so decided that I would check it out. Well, it wasn't a decision, exactly. It was like I was attached to a magnet and the big W sign was a fridge…

When I finally reached the big W sign I was a little disappointed to find that it wasn’t a mall, but a hypermarket called ‘Wong’. It was beautiful though, and I bought myself a shiny packet of wax strips so I could do it myself and never need to set foot in a Peruvian salon again!

And after exploring every supermarket in walking distance of the hotel, I set off today in a bus to explore central Lima. But after making a token effort of checking out the main cathedral and a museum or two, I went back to what I really wanted to do. I sat in Starbucks, read the paper and had a cappuccino, then looked at books in bookshops that had trashy novels in English. And while I am a little ashamed to admit this, I’m being truthful, so I will write it anyway. Tomorrow I fully intend to go to McDonalds for breakfast in the morning. After spending YEARS without choosing to go into Maccas of my own accord I suddenly find myself craving a meal of hotcakes and syrup! Maybe that will be the cure for my sudden unexplained onset of civilisation-itis...