The cab bucks to a stop on a lively two-way street with a of couple neighborhood farmacias.
Is this the place where they bury the touristas? Should I flee? Say something. "Uh, finito?"
The driver pulls his phone down from his face. "Sí."
Car horns blare from behind as I bungle paying the cab fare. Scooting my travel gear towards a pasteleria, I watch the taxi bolt off, becoming just another four-wheeled missile in Lima's public highway arsenal. Then, a sudden, primal urge to kiss the sidewalk for blessed, sweet life.
"How was your ride?" A heavily-accented female voice.
"Huh?"
A lithe Peruvian in her early twenties. "I'm Maria, Auntie M's niece. How was your ride?"
I wanna play it off casual, but all I can muster is a nervous smile. "Uh. . . I'm here."
A hearty laugh. She wipes the long bangs from her green-rimmed glasses, then opens a heavily fortified door to a cramped, open air courtyard where a black Toyota Yaris is parked.
She points with her chin up at a spiral staircase beyond another small gate and yells above the buzz of traffic. "We're going up."
Taking in the climb with a sigh, I drop my traveling gear next to a hanging bike rack.
As we ascend, Maria explains how a last-second job and Lima's unyielding traffic conspired against Auntie M meeting me at the airport. Stymied, she tried out some seat-of-the-pants improvisation and called in for the taxi reinforcement.
Maria leads me into a small second floor apartment, and casually points down the hall. "Second room on the left, but be quiet. She's in her Hobbit House."
"Hobbit House?"
A furball pomeranian pup latches onto my Achilles tendon like a bloodlusting pit bull. "Owww!"
"Oh, Pimienta." Maria lovingly picks the bundle of monstrosity up, making baby talk as it licks her nose. After shaking out my leg and shaking off my pride, I step up to the doorway, before turning to Maria.
She cradles Pimienta in one arm, then places her pointer finger to her mouth. "SHHHhhhhhhh."
Nodding, I tease the door open, then carefully poke my head in. The Hobbit House is a sound baffle and cardboard recording space nestled in a nooklet the size of a ventriloquist dummy's walk-in closet. Tiptoeing in, I listen to a beautiful voice lilt in a smooth Spanish sing song as she acts out the copy material.
Swift typing hands clack at a keyboard from inside the makeshift studio. Dead tired, I slowly drape myself on the frilly white bed. A voice from the tiny fortress of silence. "Hola?"
"Auntie M?"
She carefully pops open a Hobbit House ceiling panel, stands up off her chair and pokes her head out. A broad, reassuring face set on a round chin. "Dougito!"
"Hi."
The small door opens, and Auntie M's diminutive frame steps out. She looks like a human blueberry, wearing cotton pajamas covered with little indigo llama patterns. Unkinking her neck, she stretches out her hand. "Bienvenidos a Peru, Mistah Dougito. Welcome to my office."
I give an admiring look-see over at the Hobbit House, then back at her and smile. "I like it." A glance down at her fluffy llama-head slippers, each sporting goofy eyes and ruby-red felt tongues.
She grins, showing off her full cheeks as she beams at her slippers, then back at me. "Perks of the job."
"I thought you were my tour guide?"
"My other job." Her smile disappears as she scans me up and down. "Did you wear that on the plane?"
Looking down self-consciously at my brown corduroy pants and silver and red checkerboard sneakers, I wince. "Yeah."
"Interesting." The smile reappears. "Better take what you need for your hotel."
I nod. "It's all downstairs."
"Perfecto." She fishes her car keys out of a small change jar.
Blood drains from my face. "We're going back out there?" My voice misbehaves like it's going through a second puberty.
She chuckles, showing deep dimples, like a forty-year-old school girl. "You came here to see my country, no?"