Two streams of traffic cross at the junction and knot. Cars nose across the shared space, inches apart. They thrust themselves between slow moving vehicles and edge forward. They advance two metres and are blocked, as they in turn are blocking. Drivers lower their windows and shout abuse. Forty cars fight each other to a standstill, whilst two empty highways stretch ahead.
And they sit in immovable traffic, pounding on their horns, adding more anxiety and anger to a city already toxic.
They do not use their indicators here. “What’s in it for me?” they ask.
After three months in Lima, looking for a reason to escape from the poisonous grey city, I hear of an ancient engraved stone, of uncertain meaning, in a country village.
“I remember seeing it when I was a small girl, visiting an uncle outside Lima,” Alla tells me, as she puts in front of me a plate of lomo saltado, stir-fried beef and onion.
“It was as high as me, but much longer, a broad flat rock, on a rise looking down on the village. Help yourself to tacu-tacu.”