"No one owns an umbrella in Lima," I recall Javier saying long time ago. It is true. In Lima there is no rain, they have never experienced a thunderstorm, and they don't know what it means to hear the windows rumble to the vibration of thunder. "That is why no one cares to clean their rooftops," Johnny exclaimed as we stood by the window at Javier's apartment overlooking Callao. Humidity turns into garua, a permanent drizzle that penetrates your bones during winter time. Lima's grey sky lasts from March and until November when the horizon starts turning blue. "We say our sky looks like a donkey's belly; a solid grey," Javier says without any concern or apology to the sun-lovers. There is of course a romantic melancholy to this monochromatic state. As we drove from Callao to Miraflores we could see the islands that spread along the coast almost fade in the backdrop as the surfers along the beach were getting ready to ride the waves. In Miraflores all the high-rise buildings were covered by an intense fog and I couldn't stop singing that famous waltz inside my head. Déjame que te cuente limeño, ahora que aún perfuma el recuerdo, ahora que aún se mece en un sueño, el viejo puente, el rio y la alameda. For a moment I wished I had a story with a scent, a dream and an old bridge slowly covered by this fading fog.