Every city has it extraordinary, if not unusual institutions created out of its own needs, necessities;  and Lima, Peru is no different, it has its brazier population, and to a stranger, like me, now not so much so, but several years ago, it is was most  peculiar: the strange vending carts that sell candy, make anticuchos and picarones, and the brush man, papaya man, the rag man, all interwoven and tightly nicely nit up city, sprawling with  millions of people, living in little neighborhoods, where most everyone know their own street venders. Where mountains and the Pacific Ocean surround the city, and people traveling here and there and going nowhere; warm hospitality and endless prospects for new exploration. Cockfights and bullfights, and potholes and the Pan American Highway in ones backyard, gold and silver, copper and oil, and poverty, and painters on the streets, jewelry making,  and so many contrasts it is hard to digest.   

       Thus, life commences at an early hour—and people can be seen on every pathway, in any and every court and alley and between buildings and houses, large and tenement, empty and full.  When the work is done, most folks go home to the family. Hungry-looking men and women. Bags or baskets slung over their shoulders, or briefcases hung onto tightly, as they probe and examine, and make their way home on large and small buses and taxies.  Lima is a city of centralization-and centralization often produces classification, which it has a tinge of both closely allied, perhaps more so in the past.  

       Much of the city is analogous or grouped together, and if examined closely, one can see radiating, long arms with innumerable   tentacles—in the political area and self interest (the politicians), except for a few, carry this burden.  In the center of this entire gigantic head is a wide-ranging brain and an insatiable mouth to gulp with (yes indeed, a city with an appetite, and a good digestion, with a lot of fish to eat, and I don’t mean fish per se). Lima is the octopus of Peru, and its center has its devil fish.  

        A city of eight-million, counting all its population –with all its outer edges:  the intelligent tourists who come, and many seem to be flocking to Peru these days, come through Lima, and are often puzzled to know in this city one can buy a dinner for $100-dollars, or at the market, for $1.00.  They need no longer to wonder, if they wish to consider this, simply go to the market.  The Lima of 2007, is the Lima I’m talking about, the new Paris to be of South America, goodbye, Buenos Aires, things are changing.  The state of things just 20-years ago in Lima, are hardly realized today by the younger generation, it is almost covered up by the dust.

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