Now I´ve Almost Seen Everything!

Tonight we went to meet another couple who had their visa interview earlier this week. We went out to dinner to hear about their experience (He´s 26 and she´s 51 so they didn´t have an easy time). On the way there, we had a very agressive taxi driver. I actually had to close my eyes--I haven´t had to do that in quite a while.

After we picked the couple up at their hotel (he´s from Iquitos, in the jungle), we walked to the street to get in another taxi to go to a more popular spot with a variety of restaurants. We had to take the highway because our destination was a ways away and it was rush hour.

Our taxi was in the far left lane and we were stopped. Our taxi driver had his window down (they all do, all year long) and he kept looking out the window, back behind him and down toward the road. I thought he might be looking at his back tire. He looked and looked and when the cars started to move up, he started inching more to the left. I realized what he was going to do--he was going to drive in the newly-constructed buses-only lane in the middle of the highway, the one that isn´t complete or open yet! He drove over the 5 inch "curb" and took off down the open lane. Cars were furiously honking at him. I told the woman sitting next to me that I had seen almost every driving violation in Peru, but I had never seen anyone do this before! Pedro asked him what he was doing and how he was going to get back over to the highway. The driver said that there was too much traffic and he knew a way. I was a little worried because as we drove further, the edge of the lane became higher and higher! Finally, he came to a place where it looked like many others had driven through the dirt back to the main road, although I assume they were from work trucks, but in Peru, who really knows. I guess I´d be naive to think he was the first one to do this. Anyway, we slowly edged back onto the main road (there was no traffic at this point, so cars were flying by!) and took the next exit to our destination. It was quite an interesting night!