Listen to 80s music? Love palm trees? Join us here in Peru via the immigration process. Granted, you may reach your grave faster than a carnet de extranjería will get to you, but who doesn’t love new life experiences, right?
Quite frankly I have been putting off writing this piece for a while, mostly due to my very limited knowledge and extremely biassed inner conflict. Lima is an absolutely stunning city that will humble you at every single turn, especially if you are a northerner. While very thrilled to finally be a legal alien, I still feel like an Englishman in New York, very visibly out of place.
When we arrived at our Airbnb the first thing our concierge did was make sure that we were not at a native level Spanish and then proceeded to insult us loudly while announcing our arrival on the phone with the apartment owner. Bienvenido al Perú, gringos. I would like to wholeheartedly thank Gaby from the Desperate Housewives for the ability to recognize that we were being loudly mocked. Due to the fact that we had booked an extended stay in the apartment, we had previously agreed with the owner that housekeeping service would be carried out on Fridays, once every two weeks. Now, a great example of describing our experience here would be me being woken up from a nap, scared shitless, on a Wednesday afternoon by a person standing in front of our bed and talking to me in Spanish. As the comic Tom Segura (whose mom is Peruvian, by the way) would say: “Wakey wakey, little turd.” Limpieza SWAT taskforce does not give a single fuck about your arrangements with the owner, in fact, they tried to enter the apartment every single workday, despite repeatedly being politely asked not to clean daily, completely ignoring the “do not disturb” note and the door locked from the inside.
During our months in San Isidro I also got to get a taste of our first local protests. The first one was quite peculiar. About 3 people were walking down the street with flyers, suddenly stopped at an apartment building and took out Anonymous masks and loudspeakers. While they were shouting “Terroristas!” out of nowhere a crowd of about 40 appeared, all in costumes. Most of them were devils led by a blonde lady in a green dress. There was a whole scene where all the devils attacked the woman and shoved her down along the street. Honestly, my first reaction was thinking that they were about to protest against foreigners, apparently so thought everyone else watching the event from their balconies, as we simultaneously disappeared into the safety of our homes. Only after a very dramatic kicking of the woman in the green dress did they think to give her a paper with a printed out picture of scales of justice hence making her out to be Lady Justice. While the performance was at its peak, two police trucks with policemen in their gear and shields appeared. I have now been educated by our friends that if there is no local version of a SWAT team with guns present at the protest, then it is considered to be calm and peaceful and one should not worry much about it. Writing this now, after about half a year in Lima, protests do not scare me anymore. I have witnessed so many of them on the streets and on TikTok live streams, that they are just a daily occurrence at this point.
After initial months in San Isidro we moved to Magdalena for a bit while we were on a hunt for our new home. For me, Magdalena was really beautiful and green, full of office buildings and people constantly on the move. A tendency that I have noticed is if you want to scout an area for safety, greenery is a valid criteria to consider. The greener the district the safer it usually is. The same goes for the other way around, the dustier and dryer the district the more vigilant you should be. While usually only bus drivers in north of Lima and policemen get executed on the street by the cartels, petty crime is still very common here – keep your belongings close to you, create a fake wallet and carry it around and buy a chain or a phone-bag for your phone to protect yourself against purse-phone snatchers or as I like to mockingly call them ‘PP snatchers’. There are many people that drive on their bikes and grab phones from victims walking on the sidewalks.
The climate here is wonderful, especially if you are from a country that has cold winters. This year had a very cold winter with +13C during the nights and about +20C during the days with an occasional sunny one. Now, be smarter than I was and do not be fooled – the humidity is at 99%, especially if you are residing next to the ocean. The 13C will chill you to the bone. Due to limited luggage space I had either donated or thrown out all of my wool sweaters before moving here and that was a grave mistake as there is no central heating. Your only two options are either to buy an electric heater, which feels insane with the prices for electricity or just layer all the clothing that you own. For about 2 to 3 months I was walking around the house in 3 layers of sweats and a small blanket, wrapped as a cape, just to shiver less. The sunny days, however, are a dream. The local flora, the ocean, the overall feeling is inexplicable. Best way I could attempt to describe it is when you are standing outside at -25C, waiting for the train that is half an hour late, crappy station takeaway coffee in one hand, a Bounty bar in the other, the first bite of the coconut candy makes you think about a warm destination where the cold does not hurt your face.. Sunny days here are it. To me it feels like true serenity.
