Day 665: PeruCat

This is not a park cat. Or real.

So far, where Guatemala was the land of dogs, Peru (or Lima, at least) is the land of cats. In Kennedy Park, just a few blocks from where I'm staying, there's a veritable (lovely) plague of them. Skinny and confident, most of them. They lounge on the grass as if on a lap or a sofa. They allow people to stroke them, but they don't seem to care whether they do or not, really. They occupy the park as their home and they give the place taste. I like them.

Peru is the country of horn too. Not like that (not in my experience, anyway). There's a huge amount of bipping and swerving on the roads, and yet a polite sweetness about it nevertheless. Drivers make noise, but they don't mow each other down and when you look at the people who've just made the noise, you don't see waving fists or furrowed foreheads, just people in their cars, smiling or not, getting on with their day. The beeping is just part of it, that's all. 

Also not a park cat

It's not just drivers who make noise. Where I am in Lima, there's noise everywhere. The tv is always, always on, in every establishment. It's totally acceptable to watch TV on your tablet wherever you are without headphones and with the volume up high. And the drilling (not like that). There's drilling and boring and crashing and banging everywhere. The hostel i'm in isnt' really closed in - it has roofish parts, and the rooms themselves are actual rooms, but I can hang out on top of the building and not be encumbered by having to open doors. That makes the noise more ... noisy. 

I came to Peru partly to get out of London and so far, I've made the choice to spend a week in Lima kind of just being here like I do in London, only without the friends, the pond, the greenness of the city and right now, the sun. I'm interested in why I've chosen this, and i have, and it's fine. All will reveal itself. And it's becoming clearer and clearer that while I can exist in a city, I want to live in the country (probably in the mountains), where the light is clear and the air is too.

I spent a very entertaining evening with a new friend last night, lovely Susana, artist, performer, committed creative. We were in a bar for a friend of hers' birthday. There was a lot of laughing and shouting and some lovely people. I spoke to Cuban Liz - stunningly beautiful, warm, confident, friendly. She told me about her love of cats and how many she has already adopted from the Kennedy cat-run park. Maybe this evening, I'll go and see a Japanese Butoh show. In Lima. Cool.

* Cat Explanation *
I have discovered that I can reuse pictures from previous blogs. I found some cats. One is bigger than a startrooper and the other is dressed as a princess. 
Bonus.