What could be better on a Monday morning than a trip to the park with little Salvador? We decided that immigration would be too busy today so we're going to go midweek instead. The 'Park of Friendship' in Surco beckoned with its lovely mini-train for Salvador to ride on, ducks to look at and Koi carp to feed. They do lovely iced mango drinks too. All of that and more Tuesday to Sunday, we arrived at the park full of anticipation to find out it was shut on Monday, how very Peruvian and not much 'friendship' involved either. It's the middle of summer and the best park in Lima for children is closed. We went instead to the Wong supermarket opposite, who also sell delicious iced mango drinks, but it wasn't quite the same. From there we decided to see if it was any cooler by the sea so we went to Larcomar, a shopping centre that overlooks the Pacific. It was just as hot but Salvador was able to terrorise the staff of the fast food outlets there and get whizzed around on some toys in the amusement arcade.
Late this afternoon we went to Jockey Plaza after Salvador had been on the paddling pool again. We searched for sandals and eventually got a pair that almost fit him. Leaving the shops we made the classic mistake of accepting a taxi ride without seeing the car first, when Esther sneezed halfway back I thought that the doors were going to fall off. I will spare the gore of Chaska's medical stories from yesterday because in truth the savage reality of her tales lies not in blood and guts but in the value of human life here. One woman when told her new born was Downs Syndrome, said a normal baby would be hard enough work and disappeared. A girl who gave birth to twins said two was too many and she also evaporated into the night, both leaving thier tiny babies to a more uncertain future than normal. Sticking on the same theme, on Saturday night a bus fell off the road near Arequipa killing at least 26 people, the report featured on about page twenty of the newspaper. Life is certainly cheap here and no-one is doing anything to change that.