Having not known much about Lima before this trip, I have always thought that Lima was rather backwards and undeveloped, and after having been to La Paz, I thought Lima would be rather similar to La Paz, maybe just a little more developed.
So from the 1st day I got into Lima till today, I have been time after time greatly surprised by the developments and how modern Lima actually is! There are so many gardens and parks dotting around the city, and all extremely well landscaped and very well taken care of.
I think it can actually compete with Singapore on being a green city, and I must say that the landscaping is in some places way much better than Singapore.
It is also extremely HUGE! I had initially plan to stay only 4 days here, but ended up staying one extra day, and still have not been able to cover all that can be seen. For example, I have yet to see the Central Business District, Sao Cristobal, San Isidro and a few other places!
It was also not as dangerous as I thought it would be. Well, downtown can seem a little dangerous in some areas, but definitely feel very much safer than being in La Paz!
Considering that Peru is still regarded a developing country, it is going to be a real wonder how Lima is going to change and improve further still over the next 10 – 20 years.
For one, I know they are already in the midst of developing the train lines across the city. I have also heard that they are setting up proper bus transportation within the city and connecting it in a more orderly manner (currently the city bus transportation is via micros, which are privately run and ply certain routes. You probably won’t know which routes they run, unless you are a local in the area, and I would have gotten lost on my own taking the micros if it wasn’t for Marco guiding me on them!)
As for intercity / state buses, currently there is no centralised bus terminal and all bus companies are scattered across the city (there are MANY companies!). So for example, in order to get my bus ticket to Trujillo, I had to do an internet search online for all the possible companies that go to Trujillo and check out the possible seat availabilities before looking up the address of the company and heading over to buy my bus ticket. Hopefully they set up a central terminal soon!
Lima (and of course Peru) is one place I definitely would love to come back again to see the developments and changes.
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