Gamarra or Gomorrah?

I was taken to a most fascinating part of Lima yesterday, called Gamarra. It's almost a city within a city, except that no-one lives there. It consists of at least 70 city blocks in which almost the sole business is the selling (mostly) and manufacture of clothing and other textiles. This is just one part of one street.


Here's a map of the zone:


There are some parts not marked on the map, so the 70 blocks I counted is probably an underestimate.

A typical "storefront" might look like this:


When you get inside, there's a maze of maybe a couple of hundred locales, small shops, usually staffed by a single person, many no bigger than a walk-in closet.


(These are actually a bit on the large side.)

Gamarra has the reputation for being a bit dodgy, but also as a place where you can find any kind of clothing that you want, at decent quality and at reasonable prices. Because of its size, it's a huge economic generator for the city of Lima.

Peru, like the country

Well, I'm back in South America, in Lima, Peru. I arrived last night at around 11.

So I went through Immigration and asked the agent for an 183-day stamp. He asked me what I was going to do for six months and when I said "vacation" he seemed to look askance at that: "30 days is a vacation", he said. Then he asked me what I did for a living and whether I intended to work here. I said "programmer" ("bum¨ woul be more accurate) and "no". Anyway I got my six month stamp but with a stern warning that the visa did not permit me to work and that if I were caught working I would be expelled and never allowed back in. Obviously he didn't understand my aversion to gainful employment.

Customs was uneventful. You have to press a button that displays a green or red light and if you get red your bags are checked. I got green. I suppose I could have been busted for carrying four memory cards for my camera instead of the prescribed two.

When I exited Customs the "taxi" from my hotel was waiting: in reality a young man with a van who works for the hotel. No matter, he got me there, cost 40 soles ($14). When I got there a small bait-and-switch took place: I had reserved a room with bathroom but none were available. At midnight I wasn't going to look around for better so I took it. Supposedly the room I wanted will be available today.

The hotel looks to be a big old mansion that is now a rabbit warren of hotel rooms. Charming enough, I guess. I don't know how long I'll stay there, though: I'm having trouble connecting to the internet, both on my laptop and Kindle. The laptop appears to connect and the signal strength is "Very Good" but I can't load any pages. I'm addicted enough that I don't know if I can handle it without access. Right now I'm at an internet cafe (cost 1 sol--35 cents--per hour).

The temperature is in the mid-20s...woo hoo...and even last night when I arrived it was 19--a change from those cold nights in the mountains. I think it was -10 or something when I left Toronto, and I gather from my friends' Facebook comments that it snowed again yesterday in amounts that may or may not have been a snowstorm (in Toronto, you never can tell).