On the last morning in Santiago I had a few hours to fill in, so I trolled the CBD for a while, calling into the cathedral for a rest.

There was a rite of some sort going on, a few priestly types in full regalia sitting around that altar on which there was a monstrance. There was a small group of nuns doing the prayers and singing.

Their singing, amplified throughout the place, was unearthly…so pure and beautiful. I was going to video a bit, but a stern sign, and an even sterner invigilator suggested that that was not the best plan.

I then went to the favourite salmon place, La Terraza, for lunch. Usually I had been there around 2 when the place was crowded, but at the earlier time there weren’t many there. My favourite waiter greeted me with a big smile, and commented that I was earlier than usual, so I told him the whole enchilada on the school, going to Peru, etc. and we had a good conversation, all in Spanish, and most of the time I could, or thought I could, understand. Here he is…his name is José, he said….or Pepe. Which, I wondered?

I checked up to see what the deal was…how is José related to Pepe?

Well, José is Joseph, the putative father of JC. Now this, in Latin, is pater putativus, which is abbreviated to pp whenever that José is talked about. Now p in Spanish is pronounced pe as in petrol, so José is called Pepe as a nickname.

It’s waiters like he is who make you want to return to a place. The others did their job, but this guy shows a real joy in interacting with people. Once again, these experiences only happen after a while.

The flight to Lima on Thursday was largely effortless on my part: three and a half hours of slightly bumpy ride. My confidence in the airline was tested a little when the ‘your journey’ map on the screen showed this, for the whole trip…

Maybe reality had split into two, and there is another blog called ‘texintimbuktu’ being written as well. Which are you in? Which am I in? What is reality?

Being slightly fed up with the deal of having to go to a shop to get a new SIM card in every new country, I decided to get an esim, online. My phone is a 2020 model, and is compatible, so they’ve been around for a while. Maybe I’m just catching up with what everyone knows about already, but there’s nothing new there!

So…I downloaded the deal while still in Santiago, got everything set up, imagining that, when I landed in Lima, the phone would search the airwaves for the network I had chosen and Pepe would be your uncle.

Once I hit the tarmac I switched out of airline mode on the phone…it searched…and …searched…but

no signal was the outcome.

Bugger!

All my plans came to nought. No easy swanning through the airport, connected to the whole of Peru in an instant. The spectre of another trip to a shop, vaguely understanding the language but not the plethora of plans and options available, haunted me like the Sword of Damocockles. (mixed metaphors…so what!)

I went over the procedure for the setup once again later…tick this box, turn that on, select option A, press button B…and found that the data roaming box was still unticked.

With trembling finger I ticked it.

Searching, searching, came up, and…

suddenly…

the cosmic wheels of destiny clicked into place, and all was connected; in a flash the esim was working.

There is probably an alternate universe in which it still isn’t working, possibly in Timbuktu, but let’s not go there just now.

I don’t know if it would be cheaper to get a physical SIM here, but frankly I don’t care.

The Airbnb place is on the 35th floor of a modern apartment building. The bloke, Marc, is very welcoming and there is a large dog which is gradually starting to trust me.

Its misty mostly, but it rains only a few mm a year! A cold current in the ocean sweeps up from Antarctica and meets warmer air from the desert and mist forms. The city’s water comes from the Andes, but the glaciers are disappearing, and the nearly 12 million people here, some of them denying the reality of climate change I have no doubt, have something unpalatable on the horizon sometime in the future. The temperature is pretty constant,

but the humidity is high. An interesting situation. Lima is classed as a desert city, the Atacama desert is only a stone’s throw to the south.

The public transport system is a mess. There are several different bus companies and a limited metro…but no coordination of fares, separate cards for each. There are shared minibuses and taxis, but that’s a bit hard for me. Such a contrast to the situation in Santiago. There is Uber here and it is cheap enough if the feet are too sore to continue.

Food is definitely cheaper here. On Friday I had a splendid sanger and huge, excellent coffee for about $6.

In Santiago de Chile the pedestrian crossing is a sacred place, where even the rabid bus jockeys won’t cross while someone’s on it. No such niceties here. The white lines of the crossing seem to be there so that the vehicle will be able to be more accurate in taking you out.

There are main arterials are very crowded,

(The tall building on the left is where I’m staying)

but the smaller streets are serener.

There are lots of grand buildings in the historical centre, the cathedral being one of them in the Plaza de Armas.

It’s the third manifestation after the previous two, the first of which was built in the 16th century, were flattened by earthquakes. Pizarro, the guy who led the tiny band of conquistadors who conquered the Inca empire, is buried there.

Inside is pretty swish as you might imagine…

In front of a palace, on another side of the square, there was a band playing pretty wild music. I suppose that’s the reason they are behind bars…

I like this place.

That’s too much for today.

I’ll be going to Cuzco, high in the mountains, on Tuesday next week. It was the capital of the Inca empire until it, the empire, was crushed by Pizarro and the Conquistadors (there’s a name for a band) in the 16th century.

All the best,

Ciao Ciao as they say here too

T