Location: Lima, Peru

Last night, the hostel owner drove me to the bus station for my midnight bus from Nasca to Lima. Thankfully, I was not car sick during this trip although I was disturbed by loud snoring.

It was around 6:30am when the bus rolled into Lima. The sky was grey and it looked like it rained. The bus stopped at two stops, mine was the last at La Victoria.

I haggled with a cabbie (30 soles to 25 soles) for a ride to my hostel. It took a while to find the hostel because the addresses in the area weren’t in order.

After a call to the hostel, we found the place. The place that I’m staying at is actually someone’s apartment turned into a hostel. It’s really pretty inside but a bit far from the main bus station (6 blocks!)

I explored a bit of Lima’s historical center when I went to run an errand.

Picking up mail in Lima

I don’t plan to do much sightseeing in Lima for the two days that I am in the capital.

Since I’ve seen Machu Picchu, pretty much everything else is dull. However, there is an interesting museum that I might go to if I can figure out where it is exactly.

However, I do have a very important errand to run. My friend, D, in Singapore has sent me a package using a poste restante service. It means that the post office keeps your mail for you and you collect it by showing your passport.

Ever since I’ve read about poste restante, I’ve wanted to use the service to collect mail in a place where I do not have an address. For me, this is really romantic.

It took a while for me to find the central post office but it was really easy to pick up my package. The lady looked at my name and went in search in the “L” box which did not have anything for me and in the “Y” box which had an envelope for me.

Woopee!

Bus system in Lima

The hostel owner, Marco* (his real name), passed me a transportation card for Lima. I went off to explore the public bus system on my own.

Here in Lima there are different types of buses. The one I took was the Metropolitano which reminded me very much of TransJakarta, the public bus in Jakarta.

There are levitated platforms in the middle of the road where the buses stop. Here in Lima, you’ll need to tap your transportation card, paying 2 soles for one entrance.

There are several doors for the buses which are quite long. Then there are different doors for different routes but sometimes these are shared among different routes.

It’s easy to take the bus but it’s difficult to get on since there seems to be a lot of people already on the bus.