Arriving in Peru

With 60 dollars in my pocket and no visa – or credit cards, I arrived in Peru the 16^th of January, 2011. I bet my wallet is still at San Francisco airport where I clumsily left it.

On my plane from San Francisco to El Salvador and finally to Lima, I sat next to a fantastic couple who were kind enough to loan me 20 dollars. The remaining 40 dollars I loaned from an amazing man from Lima. Thank you so much!!  

When I came out into the entrance hall of Lima’s airport, I found a sign with my name on it and a man carrying it. The hotel had sent a car to pick me up, as ordered. On the way to the hotel the driver tried to teach me Spanish in 10 minutes. Touched as I am by the confidence he showed in me, I am disappointed to say that I will need more time to become a professional Spanish speaker. I picked up some useful words though: gracias, aqua, “donde es el baño?” and comida; thank you, water, “where is the toilet?” and food.

At the hotel I desperately tried to explain my situation with English, hands and the rest of my body: That I had lost my wallet at the airport in San Francisco, and didn’t have any money at the moment to pay for the hotel. If the receptionist did not want to understand me or simply did not understand me I will never know. As I was about to give up explaining everything, I heard someone speaking to me… in Norwegian. “What? How can this be, in the middle of Lima?” He introduced himself as Gerrat from Holland. We talked for a little while and it turned out that Gerrat has lived for quite some years in Norway, and that his daughter still lives in Stavanger. He asked me what was wrong, and I let him in on the situation. This is where miss Fortuna shows her great mercy on me… again. Gerrat, the sweet man that he is, said he would pay for my hotel and loan me a serious amount of dollars, and then my (beautiful, amazing, fantastic) parents could transfer money to his daughters bank account. Saved!!! =)

Later that night, me and Gerrat went to Miraflores, one of the better parts of Lima, for some food. We ate, had a beer and then went back to the hotel for a good night’s rest. I could feel that after flying and waiting at airports for about 10 hours, I was tired.

The little I saw of Miraflores from the taxi and the street where we ate was beautiful. I think I would like to go back to Lima later to see some more of the city.