“Knowing Lima’s Streets”
Trish Hare
I bought my only map of Lima the day I left, thinking it would help me remember the city. For ten weeks, I had walked, ridden, and biked through the streets, learning the parallel streets from the winding highways, the intimate neighborhoods and the bustling downtown. But I barely recognized the map without the familiar landmarks. Where was the Mr. Pizza at the bus stop on Brasil and República Dominicana or the theater that told you that you’d arrived at Ricardo Palma and Arequipa? No, this piece of paper was not the Lima I knew. My Lima was at eye-level. It was the smile of a familiar bus stop watchman. It was the threat of a stray dog on the moonlit sidewalk. It was the adrenaline of surfing the streets in a bus, standing with my knees slightly bent, leaning and feeling every curve of the city.
***
My host mother, Juana, was the first to introduce me to the micros, the buses and vans that constitute Lima’s informal yet organized system of public transportation. It was my first day of school and she wanted to show me how to take the bus. I stood a good head taller than Juana, and it didn’t help that she had slumped-over shoulders. Her wrinkled eyes tracked the cars in the street as we crossed side-by-side, each with one hand on our purses. She was merely resting her arm on the strap but I held my satchel in a death grip. My body couldn’t decide whether to be big or small; my shoulders were thrust back with the confidence of a female kick-boxer but my hung head belonged to the middle-school girl that knew she wouldn’t be asked to dance. Me? Oh, I’m just walking with my Peruvian mother like I do every day. No passports or valuable foreigners to take hostage here.
At the bus stop, I noticed that the micros only stopped as long as they needed to, depositing a handful of passengers and collecting others, before racing down the highway. And they were all sizes. Most were vans that had the original interior removed to make way for a few rows of red plastic-covered seats and an aisle. The newer busses could fit upwards of sixty passengers on a good day. And on the sides of every micro were their destinations painted in loud primary colors: Canadá, Brasil, México… Just how far did these buses travel?
A cobrador was rambling off street names as he hung from the doorway of a van, waving around a book-sized wooden tile that had street names on either side. He quickly listed the destinations to the waiting commuters and, seeing no takers, hit his sign against the driver’s seat. The driver threw the van into gear and was replaced not even a single second later by a larger bus. The voices of multiple cobradores bombarded the bus stop with their destinations, the information hitting my eardrums at machine gun tempo.
I tapped my mother’s shoulder. In the chaos, I had picked out the name of the street we needed: El dos de mayo. But she looked where I was pointing and shook her head. That wasn’t the right bus.
“Aren’t we looking for El dos de mayo?” I asked her in Spanish, watching the bus pull away without us.
“We need one that also says Brasil. That one will go where we need it to.”
“How do you know the route the bus takes if it only says the street names?”
She kept her eyes and ears tuned to the cobradores. “You know.”
Seconds later, the bus we needed squealed to a stop and Juana ushered me into the doorway. She eased herself up the steps and I followed behind to the female cobrador’s shouts of sube, sube, sube. Get on, get on, get on. She rapped her wooden sign on the frame of the vehicle, listing off the street names and, not seeing any takers, whistled to her driver. The van lurched forward and all I could do was tumble into the aisle. Juana dragged me into the seat next to her as I patted my pockets – front, front, back, back, purse – to make sure I was still in one piece.
“How much do we pay?”
“Hmm, only una china, I would think.”
“A what?” I sputtered over the honking in the street, wondering if she’d actually said the ride would cost one Chinese girl.
“Una china,” she replied, “The 50 cent coin.”
I rifled through the mess of coins in my pocket, asking, “How do you know the price to get to your stop?” instead of, “Why is the 50 cent coin called a Chinese girl?”
“You know.”
We swerved down the street, shifting into higher gear at every available opportunity. At each stop, more and more passengers pile into the van. Juana gestured for me to give my seat to an older woman that got on a few stops later, so I stood and braced myself against the vertical poles lining the aisle. During a particularly long stretch of road, the cobrador came by smacking coins in her hand together. Juana and I paid our 50 cents and the woman nodded and moved down the aisle, clink-clinking the coins.
“Do we get a ticket or receipt?
“Sometimes.”
“But how do they know who paid and who didn’t?”
Juana just shrugs.
“They know.”
The entire system was just a game with no official rulebook. You made your move and learned very quickly if it was allowed or not. And after that, you just knew.
***
The guitarist belts out his song above the honking in the street as cars, buses, vans, and cyclists elbow their way through the rush hour traffic. I hum along. Juráme… cuén-ta-me sobre tu vida… The purse in my lap bulges with an alpaca sweater from the discount souvenir market I found all on my own. I have come a long way since Juana took me on my first micro, now confident enough to explore Lima’s limits without her by my side. The middle of my back doesn’t even touch the plastic bus seat as pride for my navigational skills pushes my shoulders back and chest forward.
I continue humming as the bus fills with men loosening their ties and women changing out of their heels; the blessed end of the workday a universal understanding between cultures. These weekday evenings are a precious opportunity for micro performers to earn more coins at each performance. But for me, these musicians and vendors of plastic ballpoint pens are simply welcome distractions from the monotony of travel.
The guitarist finishes with a resounding strum and bows, proceeding to stride down the aisle with his hat outstretched for tips. I meet his gaze with a smile, drop un sol into the khaki fedora, and share a muy bien as he thanks me. At the next stop, he leaves out the back as two girls enter in the front, one with a guitar as well.
The girls are sisters, aspiring musicians, and I’m feeling generous. I fish them out each un sol from my coin purse.
Then a transgender woman boards and explains that she is human like the rest of us, seeking peace and understanding from Lima’s working class. I can’t ignore this act of bravery in a relatively conservative city, but my anemic coin purse advises a smaller tip. She only gets una china – half of what I gave to the musicians.
I turn to watch the sunset during a vendor’s sales pitch—“This pen can fill two notebooks, guaranteed!”—and suddenly realize where I am. The business district’s shiny buildings throw sinking sunlight onto the highway. The National Museum looms a block ahead, a fortress of immense stone columns adorned with a golden Incan sun. And scattered between the giants are lowly restaurants, repair shops, and school supplies stores. They huddle together for warmth.
I recognize the area, but only because we’d been here once before on a field trip to the National Museum. I must have gotten on a bus heading in the exact wrong direction I needed.
“Baja,” I call suddenly from the aisle so the driver knows I need to get off. Traffic is so slow that he opens the door for me while still in the left lane and I leap off, weaving between stalled cars to cross the street. I’m so far into the city that I barely recognize the street names the cobradores are shouting from their micros. My throat tightens and a worried fist crushes my purse strap. My other hand flaps frantically in the air to hail a taxi.
“How much to get me to Brasil and Javier Prado?” I ask a cab driver. He itches his stubble.
“30 soles?”
“What?” You have to be tough with the drivers. They expect a haggle. But even so, he’s asking over 5 times the usual price.
“It’s rush hour. 29 is the best I can do.”
I shoo him away and signal to the next cab to pull up. The driver turns down the radio and, hearing me say that my destination is nearly seven miles away in rush hour traffic, laughs, turns the radio right back up, and pulls away from the curb.
The next cab wants 35 soles.
“I only have 8,” I say, the tightness in my throat migrating to my eyes.
“Sorry, querida.” And he, too, drives off looking for someone worth his time.
By now, the sky is melting into a rainbow sherbet evening and the streetlamps are aglow. I’m alone with less than three American dollars’ worth of coins and only a vague idea of which bus I need to take. If I take the wrong one, I’ll be in danger of wandering around lost in the streets at night. I hug my sides. My body has become decidedly small.
My feet drag back to the bus stop and I flag down a micro with streets I recognize. With weary eyes, I ask the cobrador if he’s going down all of Brasil, the street I need to get home. He nods his head yes. “Yes, all of Brasil.”
I hand over dos soles and climb in, sliding into a seat next to a businessman. He stiffens up as I sniffle and slump against the window, clutching my purse tight to my stomach for comfort more than security.
We crawl through the asphyxiated streets. I watch concrete buildings roll by in slow motion. Once we turn onto Brasil and I know I’m headed home, I alternate resting my head against the window and on my pillow of a purse.
My head is against the window when we take a sudden right turn.
“Excuse me,” I step over the now-sleeping businessman and walk my way up to the cobrador in the front. “I thought you said you went down all of Brasil?”
He shrugs.
“You lied to me?” I ask, my voice a cracking eggshell.
“Baja,” he says and opens the door.
I stumble out of the micro and it inches back into traffic. I kick the bench at the bus stop before I sink into it with my face in my hands, wondering when the last time I was physically angry was. My shoulders shake. My nails dig into my palms. I breathe in Lima’s exhaust as if through a straw.
***
Minutes pass before I am able to stand, start down the block back to Brasil, pass the bus stop, and start walking the twenty blocks to home. Is it my feet or my head that’s pounding? I wade in and out of streetlight. Dark figures pass but I am not afraid; there’s no room for feeling inside me anymore. I am only one foot in front of the other.
***
When I open the door three hours after I was expected home, Juana rushes into the family room still wearing her apron. She has questions in her eyes but stops when she sees me drop my bloated purse on the ground. Exhausted tears break open and suddenly I’m sobbing in broken Spanish, stammering, “I’m so tired,” and, “he lied,” and, “it hurts,” as she examines me at arm’s length like all mothers do. She runs a hand over my hair and then pulls my head down to her shoulder for a hug.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Now you know.”
