Because I was not really tired, I decided to stay up till the early evening to avoid jetlag. So I enjoyed my breakfest and the very friendly owner of the hostel gave me a map of the area and explained how to get to the important places. I went to a supermarket to buy a few things and get some soles. Fruits are really cheap here (0.50€ per kg of melons for example), but things like ham and juice (whyever) are really expensive (apple juice starts from about 1.40€ per liter which gets you organic juice in Germany).

Afterwards I was tempted to go to the beach, but decided it might be smarter to explore the way to the office without my laptop. I was told there was a microbus running from only two blocks away until a few streets away of IBM, but I couldn’t find the right line and decided to walk to a metro station, because I wanted to try it anyway. It was about 2.5 kilometers, but the area felt save to walk. The metro works like in New York, you only get on with a valid card which you can preload with money. Every ride costs 1.50 soles, less than 40 cents.

Buying the card was a bit difficult, because I didn’t have my passport or ID, but after some discussion it somehow worked without it. The trains and stations are in operation only since a few months and look really clean and well-maintained. Trains run every 15 minutes and are very punctual. I went three stops to a really big road called “Javier Prado” where I finally had the courage to try a microbus.

It’s a really interesting experience. You have multiple lines going through the city and the buses very from very old and rusty to new and big with up to 40 seats. Some just show a number on it, most also some places they’ll be driving to. There is always a driver and a – let’s call him conductor. The conductor always stands in the door and operates it manually. At every stop or simply when there are people on the sideway he tries to get people on the bus by shouting places it goes by. Also those conductors try to speed up people getting on and off by shouting things like “baja, baja, baja” at them. During the drive the conductor also collects the money from people (as far as I figured out between 1 sol and 2.50 soles depending on the trip lenght).

The second one I asked whether it goes to the end of Javier Prado said yes and even offered to tell me when I had to get off to walk to IBM. That worked perfectly, I paid my 1 sol and walked to the office to take a few pictures.

On the way back I wasn’t this lucky and got on the wrong bus, which went to Miraflores (I had asked for that), but not near where I wanted to go. Fortunately I had Google Maps so I got off when it became clear we were heading to the wrong direction and walked about 7 kilometers home, which was nice to see the city and take a few pictures. In general it feels very save (I haven’t been to bad areas though) and is also amazingly clean, you see guards, cleaners, gardeners and policemen everywhere.