44. Lima, Peru

44.

Lima, Peru:

There are three and a half million people in this ghastly town. Most of them seem dedicated to self-extermination.

Apparently there are no anti-pollution regulations and trucks and busses make the air blue with poison carbon monoxide gas. I breathe in shallow gasps. The common people seem to survive on a diet of coffee and bread, morning, noon and night and since I am living like the common people, I subsist on their fare. After a few days my energy level descends to new, undreamed-of lows. As always in big cities, prices are high and quality is low. Why do people choose to live in big cities? For the work? For the cultural advantages? For the thrills and excitement?

Maybe Lima should be demolished and started all over again. I really don’t see any other way to change the disastrous trending of this city. To me it seems that only the dead can live in Lima.

At its apogee of power, Lima must have been a delight of Baroque architecture, statuary, silver and gold; now it is a super-bummer! The people need to go in a better direction fast. They are killing themselves—and me!

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