The power of a (or the) good book

I'm staying in Miraflores in Lima. There's an area around a few parks (one of which is Parque Kennedy) all of which have lots of cats in them, although that's a whole different blog entry. Lots of gringos stay in the area and so it attracts people that want to do business with them - ranging from money-changers and restauranteurs to ladies of the night. Depending on the time of day you can walk down the west side of the park and be propositioned multiple times by each of these business-people, looking for a customer. However, for the last couple of days I've been able to walk through these as if I have an invisibility cloak on.

It could be that after this long on the road, despite the blond hair and blue eyes, I now pass as a local - however I doubt that. Instead I think it's the fact that in Sao Paulo I bought a copy of Anna Karenina. Let me explain... I bought it for a few reasons - I have enjoyed the Tolstoy I've read before[1], it's a book I've been meaning to read for a long time, it's long (and so should keep me entertained for a while[2]) and most importantly - the edition I was looking at, although hardback, was compact, meaning I could actually fit it in my bags. It also had a handy ribbon place-marker (books should really have these more often) and very attractive gilt edging. A combination of the size and the gilt edging meant that someone working at the hostel said that if she hadn't seen the cover she'd have thought it was a copy of the bible. I'm pretty sure that carrying this around (I like reading over lunch/supper and in the park afterwards with a cat in my lap) has protected me from the advances in Miraflores (an understandable response from the money changers and I suppose there's a mixed track record between the Bible and restaurant owners and prostitutes). Now all I need to do is wear my black jacket and white shirt[2] and I'll have people fleeing away from me...

Notes:
1. Seriously. War and Peace is epic, and is written in bite size chapters so ideal for commuting.
2. Not sure this is working. Less than a week after purchase and I'm about a third of my way through.
3. I had these on a coat-hanger in Rio de Janeiro and a Brazilian lady asked me if I was a Mormon. I think I need to grow the beard back.

Catching up

I'm aware that I'm very behind. I've got a few days free (I'm currently in Lima and will be here for another 6 days) and will hopefully be able to start the catch up process (although I have a bunch of other things to work on as well, so we'll wait and see how successful I am.

I'll post the backward looking posts with the dates that I did them - which will make the timeline on the blog make sense but won't necessarily mean they come out in the order I did them - if that makes any sense!