June 28th, 2006 | The lowdown by Bryan Fox

Lima: Don't Just Use It As A Plane Stop On The Way To Cusco.

Lima has a lot more character than many people and most guidebooks give it credit for. If you possess a modicum of Spanish (or even if you don't) and want to see how 33% of the population of the country lives, take a few days here and don't just hole yourself up in an albergue in Miraflores waiting until happy hour allows you to drink pisco sours again.

Lima is a doughnut - there is a hole in the centre. The old city had long been maligned as having fallen from grace and was considered to be unsafe and generally not worth staying in, but the city got a new mayor in 2003 and he's done wonders cleaning up the place. The area surrounding the Plaza de Armas is clean and picturesque. There are several hostels worth the price; two called Hostal Espana and Hosta San Francisco on Calle Azangaro are clean and worth the money, and one called Hostal La Union is not so clean but is still worth the money, as it gives you the opportunity to stay in the main plaza itself and get a balcony with a view of the whole square for not much more than $10 a night. Prices are ALWAYS negotiable; the better you speak and/or the more adamant you are, the less you'll pay.

The great thing about the centre is that at night, all the tourists vacate it, so you can get a wonderful sense of what it is to be limeno - young couples strolling the shop-heavy promenade of Jiron de la Union off the main plaza. Street performers with curious crowds and vendors selling all manner of robust-smelling carnes and fritos flood the square behind the Palacio de Justicia. Even during the day, walking 4 blocks east of the Plaza de Armas will get you to the Mercado Central, a sensory overload of locals hawking anything and everything, and the beautiful part is that nobody will bother you by asking if you need a hotel, a meal, or a tour because they don't get tourism in these parts. (Just resist the temptation to order a fresh jugo - they look good, but cleanliness is at a premium)

Ride a combi just for the fun of it. They cost about 1.50 soles, but the thrill of being in a vehicle that quite possibly does not have functioning brakes and a driver who would refuse to use them even if it did is quite a blast. A young guy hanging out the open door of a moving bus banging on the side of the ride in an effort to coax customers aboard is quite a sight. And the steady stream of the busses means that Lima has probably one of the most efficient (if not state-sanctioned) public transport systems in the world - you never have to wait more than about 2 minutes to get a bus to where you're going. The line that calls out 'Tacna' goes up the Avenida Arequipa between Miraflores and the centre-and that's pretty much the only one you'll need to know.

Most people who go to Lima just stay in Miraflores, and it is cleaner and safer and yes, there are nightspots there. The jefe in the Oficina de Turismo lamented to me that the average stay in Lima for foreigners is only 36 hours (probably just long enough to book at flight to Cusco). But take a day or two and stay in the centre - it's quite possibly the least touristed urban area in the country.