I arrived in Lima on Thursday and made my way in to central Lima to meet Henry as he'd offered me a lift home, in part as he's a good guy and in part because anything else would be expensive and difficult (taxi's from Lima treat going to Callao in the same way a London cabbie treats "going that side of the river at this time of night", along with added permit issues). As was, getting my rucksacks through Lima's public transport (the "metro" buses - they are kinda like the tube, but with buses; thus no expensive underground infrastructure to build and maintain, in an earthquake prone region) at rush hour was excitement enough.
I met Henry at Starbucks (crap coffee, but easy to find and has free WiFi) and we headed home.
Whilst driving back, still firmly in the centre of the city, we drive down what he described as "one the most dangerous roads in Lima" - where there were plenty of women, and surprisingly for a very conservative country which has cultural issues with non hetrosexual interactions, a few men negotiating their virtue along the road; nothing different from pretty much every other (capital) city in the world. Nothing surprising or note worthy.
What was note worthy is that Henry mentioned that the traffic around there gets bad (not because of the services for sale, traffic in Lima is just bad - makes London look free-flowing) and that when this happens the prostitutes start to direct and control traffic, unblocking the roads.
The reason? No free movement of traffic results in less trade for them - so they fix the traffic problems.
