Introduction/Getting There & Checking In

Hello. RT here. This report covers my 12th trip to Lima, 26-31 January 2007.

Lima's a great city, where the people are real nice, the women are pretty and actually seem to like sex, the food's great, things are cheap, the electricity stays on, and yeah - prostitution is legal. Also, it's a big metropolitan city, so there's plenty to do on your down time if you're so inclined.

Spanish is the language there, and fewer people speak English than in any other country I've visited. Whatever slot machine salesman has Peru on his route will never have to worry about sending his kids to college - slot casinos are all throughout this huge city, but there are only six casinos with table games. It is summer right now, and I caught what passed for a heat wave; most places are not air-conditioned, as it's not really necessary 95% of the time. These days made up a part of the other 5%.

There are many different P4P options in Peru, ranging from huge industrial whorehouses, to incall escorts, to Turkish Baths and your more standard massage parlors. You can also order up a girl over the phone, pick one up on the street (for not very much money), or pick up a girl at a bar with on-site rooms (at prices ranging from 20 Soles for a half hour/no salida to US$100 for two hours plus a $40 salida), all the way to getting a free-lancer at a disco and bringing her home with you (at prices ranging from $50 s/t to $100 TLN). Supply clearly outweighs demand, and the demand is huge. Also, the scene is moving 24/7, so there's always someone to scratch your itch.

The Nuevo Sol is the local currency. It is trading for about 3.2 to 1. If I note a price with a "US" in front of it, I was quoted dollars. Otherwise, I paid for whatever it was in soles.

Even though I have been there many times and have a cell phone full of phone numbers, I still believe that research is the key to a successful trip. I spent a lot of time researching the Spanish board on PeruTops (www.perutops.com), I checked a couple of escort mall websites to select some finalists, and I searched a couple of classified ad sites to see what the current choices were. I only wound up with two girls from my research, but it allowed me to focus, and it gave me something to do in the week before the trip instead of working.

In a moment of insanity, I also invested $39 and joined Adult Friend Finder. For me, it turned out to be a waste of money. Unless I am too thick to break the code on the hooker ads, it seemed to be a lot of amateur women looking for men. The few P4P advertisers that I was able to dope out did not reply to my inquiries. I browsed a few other countries, and the ads were more blatant, so maybe Peru was a bad test sample for that site.

A quick note about civilian women: There's a ton of 'em out there, and with any work at all, they're ripe for the pickin'. You may not wind up with a civilian stunner, but your fairly pretty girls are usually open to advances from older, out of shape, not all that handsome Americans. We're seen as exotic, rich, and a lot better prospect than the local guys. I've said it before: The second I step off of that airplane, I get ten years younger, lose 30 pounds, and my hair grows. And all the girls are not looking to hit home runs with a walking green card (although that is the motivation for some). Many of them are just happy to have met a guy that will spring for dinner before jumping her bones. Hell, I knew that I had sealed the deal with one girl when she just melted because I refilled her drink from a pitcher at lunch.

The down side is that they get pretty clingy pretty fast. It has always ended fairly ugly, with me having to explain that I have other 'friends' in Peru and I can't spend every second with her, or me declining to fund mom's series of US$500 operations.

My previous trip saw a successful civilian conquest surrounded by a lot of sitting around and waiting for her to show up/get off work, decide what she would do, etc. This trip, I will have none of that. I'm here with a very short agenda: Eat. Screw. Gamble. And repeat as necessary.

GETTING THERE/CHECKING IN
On my last few trips, I have bypassed the non-stop flights out of Miami on Lan and American Airlines in favor of Copa Air, with a plane change in Panama. I prefer the Copa trip for a few reasons:

• Price: The flight is running around $550, vs. prices in the $700s on the other airlines.
• Arrival time: The Copa flight gets in at 2 in the afternoon; the others land either around midnight or at 5 in the morning. Both those times screws up the day for me.
• Departure time: The flight leaves for Panama at 3 in the afternoon. This allows me a last-morning session with a minimum of rush.
• My AAdvantage gold membership has expired, so I no longer get the perks of being an elite member (priority check-in & boarding).