Cuzco vs. Lima

Something that struck me about Lima almost immediately was the noise. This is not to say that it was a particularly noisy city, or that Cuzco was particularly quiet, but the two sounded very different. In Cuzco, it was not unusual to hear dogs barking, people chatting in many languages, and salespeople asking you to pass through their stores. It felt as though around every corner someone was asking you to feel the chompa they were selling or join their bus tour (probably because it literally was around every corner). Lima, however, sounded completely different. The echo of dogs barking was replaced by the footsteps of power-walking pedestrians (although one could still find the occasional dog barking. The chirp of salespeople was replaced by the splashing of ocean waves and call of churro salesmen (sidenote: those churros were delicious). The holler of street vendors was replaced by the honking call of passing taxi cabs (speaking of which, the idea that taxi cabs honk to let you know they are available is extremely irritating and inefficient, in my opinion). All in all, both Cuzco and Lima sounded like hustling, bustling cities, just in different ways. While Cuzco felt like an old world Andean city, Lima was its modern coastal counterpart. I feel very lucky that our class got to explore both because they were so different and each gave us a different taste of Peru.