Traffic Jam

As the time came to a close in Cusco, I was ready to return to an altitude in which I could go up a flight of stairs without gasping for air as if I had just climbed 10 flights. I figured that in our trip to Lima, we would have a bit more space- wider sidewalks and roads, more spread out hotels, more space in between one car and the next. I remember even noticing a spacious baggage claim area. However, my previous thoughts were shattered when we began our van ride to the hotel that we would be staying at in Miraflores. Hundreds of cars honked their horns as they disregarded any lane markings, swerving and sliding across the roads. The roads may have gotten way bigger, but I soon learned that just means more cars will fill in the space, to the point of traffic jams in intersections as I write this.

Having now been the passenger on quite a few rides through Lima and the surrounding areas, I can confidently say that each time I sat in the car, I almost felt as if I was white knuckle gripping the steering wheel myself. However, I wasn’t, and, to my surprise, the drivers weren’t either. They sat in their seats, relaxed and occasionally glancing in mirrors before sweeping lanes, and passing inches from the next car’s side. One even managed to FaceTime, shift gears, and talk to us as he drove without missing a beat or seeming the slightest bit nervous. Repeated horn sounds are as mundane as can be here, and are even helpful to the drivers, yet each horn had me looking every which way to see if we were soon going to be involved in a large collision. What else struck me as odd, is that despite having stoplights, I didn’t seem to notice any stop signs on many of the Lima roads, forcing drivers to butt their way into the intersections, with more honking and zero slowing down for pedestrians or other vehicles, motorized bikes included. Dogs jog down the sides of roads and jump in between cars, and they themselves seem to be plenty fine with the overall “closeness” and much smaller personal space bubbles that seem to exist when it comes to travel.

What first seemed to me to just be a whole lot of crazy drivers soon came to make sense to me, being that it’s just what people are used to in Lima. During my first ride, I was shocked that there were no accidents, and expected them to happen at any second, and expected enraged and much different drivers. As time went on, I was able to see that the close calls and honking horns are simply integral to their driving experience, and aren’t signs of imminent danger as I would perceive them to be.