Throughout South America
we have been warned about the dangers of driving. In Santiago, the main
drag has 3 lanes in each direction for buses only, and the bus-drivers--who
work on commision--drive at a breakneck pace often stopping within inches
of one another. By the time a red light turns green, drivers are half-way
through the intersection. Before going to Argentina we had heard horror
stories about the drivers in Buenos Aires. In fact one of the guidebooks
claims that traffic fatalities are the #1 cause of death for males 18-25
in Argentina. It seems that the strategy there is to straddle the white
lines on the street so one can take advantage of whichever lane of traffic
moves first. The yellow lines that northamerican drivers might interpret
as being there to seperate traffic going in one direction from that going
in the opposite direction seem to be merely a suggestion. Nowhere, however,
have we encountered ruder more aggresive drivers than in Peru's larger
cities. To make matters worse, clearly half of all the cars in Lima are
taxis. Cars stuck in traffic that is frequenly at a standstill begin to
blow there horns the minute the light turns green. It is also the practice
of cab drivers without a fare to blow the horn at anybody walking
to announce their availability. The result is a cacauphony that begins
at daylight and lasts until about midnight.
We spent most of our time
in the relatively quiet residential neighborhood of Miraflores about 7
kilometers from the cities center. Our stay in Lima was made worthwhile
by the wealth of archaeology exhibits at Lima's many fine museums. We were
also successful in getting several good interviews--one with the Andean
regional director of the Swiss based International Organizartion for Migration--and
another with a woman in Peru's Ministerio de la Mujer who heads a program
called Programa de Apoyo al Repoblamiento. That organization functions
to resettle rural peoples that have been displaced by more than a decade
of armed conflict between the Peruvian Government and the Sendero Luminosa.
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