Lima the Great
On my way into Lima from the south, I got a taste of the traffic and chaos of a big South American city. But as I entered the central third of the city, the streets became calmer and tree-lined as the buildings got taller. It was refreshing to spend a week living urban life in Lima, after getting pretty grimy in the mountains and along the desert coast.
Lima is a patchwork of different municipalities. Think of each neighborhood having it’s own city government. Only some of them have invested in bike infrastructure, which does make some connections challenging, and the inequality very evident. But for the (wealthier) places with bikeways, I was quite impressed. It was also evident how many were added, or improved, during the pandemic.
On Sundays, a few streets are closed to automobile traffic. I’ve shared time-lapse videos of ciclovía events before, but this one is in real-time with sound. It’s incredible how peaceful a city can be. Listen to the birds, music, footsteps, and tires!
Lima has also built its first BRT and metro lines. These connect north-south but not to each other. In plans and construction are other lines, which could create a grid of high quality transit! In present day, I took some formal and informal buses, where you just read, or ask, where they are going. They come frequently and are well used.
Here are a few tourist photos of the city. Lima is known meteorologically as “Lima the Grey” due to the cold ocean current bringing fog. Despite being at sea level near the equator, the temperatures were quite pleasant. But the fog does wash out photos, and gives the appearance of smog.
