oh yeah, and Roberto (nephew of mongo) was released straight away

Tonight I spend in Pisco, a, I don´t know, town? about 3 hours south of Lima. This place takes its name from a brandy like distilled grape drink (or perhaps it´s the other way round, much like my appostrophies which this samsung magic station just doesn´t want to treat me to). The plan was to come here in a couple more days, as there´s supposidley a festival of pisco and other grapish delights of an alcoholic nature next week, but from my luck, or perhaps other´s lack (of organisation in the festival department) who can say, really. The last three days were spent chasing the verano negro festival, I find it very difficult to type that, which is a yearly festival said to eclipse Chincha and neighbouring El Carmen in the rhythm and wonder of the Afro Peruvian population . Despite a town plastered in posters, and an information, or perhaps more appropriately, T Shirt stand, every event I tried to attend had been dissapeared. No music, no dancing, no banners, and strangely, no others looking expectantly. So bizzare! 3 days and 5 events.... gone! It became a festival of taxis that knew just where it was and hotels with prices doubled in festival season. ¡Que raro! Perhaps I´ll go back for the 'grand parade' that everybody is 'practising for' on Sunday.
I popped over to Paracas for the afternoon, and saw my first flock of pelicans. There's a grand national park on the coast with flamingos and no doubt all sorts of other surprises all ready for tomorrow.
Peru itself I'm not really sure about. First destination in SOUTH america, and the big noticable difference for me was a distinct lack of toothy whistling sounds accompanied by ¨hey baby¨ and ¨guapa¨ that I'm still having a great deal of trouble keeping my middle finger in my pocket about. The reason, I've discovered, isn't a great deal more respect for the only blonde on the block, rather, camera phones. It's stressful enough thinking about the cleanliness of the rather viscous pool water I was working my way through this morning, without groups of hombres making phonecalls a meter away from their ears in my direction. My Spanish was a little overloaded in said situation, so I took to swearing at them in English. The most frustrating part is that as a tourist I'm generally über careful that I recieve the permission of anyone I would like to take a photo of. In the Chiapas region of Mexico for example, many people believe that the photograph takes a part of your soul, and is totally taboo. But me in the pool, the street, a bar, the art museum, no no, there's another low quality blur for the collection. Ugh!
I stayed with a fellow couchsurfer in Lima, which was just brilliant. Lima sprawls further than even someone from Christchurch can imagine, and is South America's number one crime destination as voted by travellers I've met so far. Thanks to Vasco, I stayed in an extremely safe, well patrolled and McDonalded part of town close to expansive book shops and a supermarket with all the tropical fruits and grains of my wildest dreams. Yummo!
Vasco's an interesting chap. He just finished law school, and is working for an NGO which, at the moment, involves digging up dirt on corrupt judges trying to make their way into the supreme court. Of the 12 vying for a place, he has leads of the 2 million dollar bribe variety on 10 of them. There's most certainly an interview in that one should I head back to Lima.
Heading into Lima, on another note, is quite a sight. It's incredibly dry in parts, and likewise, incredibly poor. These two elements have bred an incredible maze of mud brick slims? suburbs? which, from the air, appear as a giant sepia coloured tetris. You can tell they're occupied if they have a roof.
What a hard time my brain is having putting all this together.