Yesterday Michael and I spent just under two hours in DIGEMIN - Dirección General de Migraciones y Naturalización: the office for migration and naturalisation, i.e. where you go to have your expiring visa renewed.
The building was a maze of queues, information desks, very important people, surprisingly friendly security staff, offices, waiting rooms, a bank office for paying fees and a section for taking passport photos. I had enough after about ten minutes when we had to stand in the scorching sun in the inner court to queue for the bank people to relieve me of 20 USD and 27 soles. But then i remembered my nice new wooden 2-sol fan, and was instantly much more at ease, and could laugh at the chaos that always ensues when people are queueing at a distance from the counter and other people arrive and try to sneak up to the counter, whereupon there is a lot of shouting.
I have to say that it was a much nicer experience than acquiring my residence permit in Germany, where you are certainly made to feel as if you should apologize for wanting to come and pay taxes to a retirement fund you're not even entitled to.....the Peruvian official even smiled as she gave me my passport back!
In the end, it turned out that if I hadn't renewed my visa, I would have had to pay 1USD per day until I choose to board the plane for France in March, i.e. about 30 USD. I almost regretted my endeavours to stay legal.
I'm starting to get better at predicting the summer weather based on the morning outlook:
Cold and foggy: it's going to be hot, damp and sunny
Nice cool breeze and sunshine: it's going to be even hotter and sunnier
Overcast: expect hot and overcast
Overcast with distressingly dark clouds: clammy with possibility of two raindrops in the late afternoon
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