Lima: 'the strangest, saddest city thou can´st see'

'Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide field of leaning spires, wrenched copestones, and crosses all adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets); her suburban avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;--it is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest, saddest city thou can´st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerfull greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distorions.'

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Woah. This is Melville treating the color of his whale, the terror of all things white. It's a little heady to find these words in the novel I just finished. But I'm not going to mess around with the 'white' thing- Pizarro and me, oh god. The rest of what Melville writes about Lima is as true today as it was in 1851. It's the earthquakes that do this- they are the only regular part of Lima's history, the cycle of trauma that bleeds the city white.

So I'm going to Lima today. My brain is still working its way around the last 15 days in Mazac, and there will soon be video and blog. For now my time has become purposeful. I will survive the earthquakes and get myself ready for the next challenge--> New York. Stay tuned.