Oh what fun it is to ride

My Grandma Denny and Aunt Susan are visiting me in Peru right now. It is very interesting to re-experience Lima culture with them.

Tonight the taxi driver who took us home was a bit more of a crazy driver than Grandma and Aunt had experienced before. He flew through busy intersections and swerved passed slow vehicles as if he owned the streets of Lima.

At one time, we stopped at a red light and our driver pulled the taxi into the green arrow turning lane asking, “So I turn here, no?”

“Well, it’s faster to go straight but it’s too late now,” I responded. But I had forgotten that it is never too late in Lima.

The driver shrugged his shoulders, stepped on the gas and illegally flew around the cars who had waited their turn at the red light.

“Whoops!” said Grandma, and then she and Aunt Susan laughed nervously.

The driver laughed at their reactions, “‘Whoops’? What do you mean ‘whoops?’ Where are you all from?” now realizing they weren’t from around here.

“They are my relatives visiting me from the United States,” I said.

The driver smiled, “They speak wonderful English.”

I laughed, “Yes, they do.”

“So they aren’t used to driving in Lima.”

Aunt Susan then decided to use her Spanish, “Es divertido! (it’s fun!).”

The driver laughed at Aunt Susan’s comment on the traffic being fun just as he was cut off by a huge bus and was forced to swerve to the side of the road, “It’s fun!” he said repeating Aunt Susan’s phrase in a cheerful voice laced with sarcasm.

A car then slammed on his breaks right in front of us forcing us to stop, “Whoops!” the driver said, repeating Grandma’s phrase, then he added, “How fun this is!”