Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Lima, Perù

Lima, more than 8 millions of population, an high crime rate, and lots of poor people. It's not a nice city, I spent there one day and was enough to see what Lima has to offer. But you know what, it's charming to me. Lima has a huge urban sprawl, with a true middle-eastern taste, dusty gravel roads and mountains surrounding the city. I climbed to the top of Cerro San Cristobal, to see the skyline of the city as well as the poorest neighbouroods: I found them charming, I don't know why. Should be great to walk around those areas catching pics of he people, talking with them and listen to all the stories they have to tell. Yeah, should be great, but it's not time for me to be killed just for few pics and stories, the view from above is enough for now. By the way, on the road heading to the top there was the writing you see in the picture on the left side (which literrally means, Pantani lives on). Pantani was my favourite cyclist ever, when he was attacking the steep uphills of Alpes was such a fun I never had anymore watching a cycling competition, I don't care if he was doped or not, was a great show and a great athlete, that's all. His story impressed me a lot: during his career he has always been extremely unlucky, many accidents avoided him to win as much as expected, and when he won the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France the same year, he was treated in Italy like a living God, everybody was talking about the phenomenal Pantani, the newspapers were writing daily how great he was. Then, the year later he has been disqualified from Giro d'Italia when he was first: nobody talked anymore about him, people started insulting him and saying that all the competitions he won was just because of EPO and the other drugs used. From that point he started his endless way down. The epilogue was dramatic: he was found dead for cocaine and benzodiazepines overdose, alone, in an awful hotel near Rimini, the Saint Valentine's day at the age of 34.
I loved to read that in Peru', a country so far away from Italy, someone still remember him.

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