Gamarra

I couldn't take pictures for you today because I was in one of the more dangerous places I've ever visited, and to break out a camera would rank up there as one of the more stupid things I've done in my 32 years. I'm currently overstimulated, I think I have a fever, and I daresay the lettuce I ate today was tainted. It was also iceberg lettuce. I'm going to have to cook my own veggies if I am to consume them.

Back to the dangerous place ... Gamarra is a "fashion district" of sorts. It is where mass, and I mean mass, quantities of Peruvian-made clothes go to die. I needed jungley clothes, for I am going to the Amazon soon, and cotton does not behave well in the intense humidity I will face there in "la selva." So ... polyester shorts were in order. Gamarra is the area that most Peruvians go when they need fabric, a bridesmaid dress, T-shirts, knock-off jeans, whatever. The same clothes are available for about four times as much in the Chilean-owned Ripley or Saga Favella franchises, so if Limeños have time, they hit Gamarra first.

Today is Saturday and Gamarra is the craziest place I have ever been. Tijuana times ten? I can't explain. I don't expect to be treated like an asshole anymore. But here in this place I am a child. I have earned the respect of a child. For I am an asshole, staggering, clutching my Coach bag desperately close to my hip.

I stagger around: newspaper vendors, thieves, taxis, aggressive combis, dogs, cats, children, beggars, blind men, and charity workers soliciting centimos. There are rotting vegetables, piles of trash, yards and yards of glittery sateen polyester, lanyards, knock-off Adidas shoes and belts for sale. You can't even walk for fear of running into another person's ass or tits. It is MAYHEM. There is simply no other word. And it doesn't help any that I am the only foreigner in the vicinity (don't go! Don't go!). And I am blond.