Front row seat in history

Peruvians will make history tomorrow when they elect a new president: choosing between a political ingenu and a former president.
It's been a beautiful day here - clear blue skies and weather warmer than you'd expect for this time of year. I hope this isn't symbolic of the calm before the storm. There have been predictions of violence during and after the elections, but today the people of Miraflores were going about their lives, apparently without a care in the world.
The cliff-top road was packed with people enjoying the Indian summer and the Larcomar shopping centre, which is perched overlooking the Pacific, had attracted more than its usual share of tourists and Peruvians: the rich who had to foresake their beach houses for the weekend because they have to vote in Lima tomorrow and the poor from the shanty towns who had probably come to escape the oppressive desert heat of the city's outskirts and have a family day out.
I have had an easy day, punctuated by work and visits to my favourite local coffee shop.
I filed an early story for the BBC about the presidential campaign, which has been one of the dirtiest and aggressive many Peruvians remember. Then I had a lovely walk along the cliff-top this morning, bumping into a couple of friends, and then headed back to Starbucks.
After filing another story for tomorrow morning, saying Peruvians were going to the polls, I met up with Dan, once again in Starbucks and we organised our plans for tomorrow.
The day is going to start early, with a visit to one of the main polling stations in Lima, where both of the presidential candidates are going to be voting. The polling stations open at eight and close at four, so within 24 hours we should have a pretty good idea of who will be Peru's president for the next five years.
It's likely to be Alan Garcia, the former president, who is expected to get six or seven percent more than his rival. The electoral body has promised that by Monday 95 percent of the vote will have been counted and many people are saying that the exit polls which are expected at around four tomorrow afternoon will probably be pretty conclusive.
But, one of the big threats to democracy is democracy itself. This country has found itself in a situation where it has two candidates that are both relatively unpopular and many people in Peru say they are so unhappy with the choices that they are going to spoil their ballot papers. That blank vote cannot be counted and even now there are large numbers of people who are apparently undecided or say they don't like either man and they are voting for the one they see as the lesser of two evils.
If the results are closer than predicted, or they are not conclusive, it's quite likely there will be protests - especially in the slightly more rebellious south, where many of Peru's poor live and where Ollanta Humala has his base of support. Both candidates allegedly have groups of militants, so hopefully the police can keep a lid on any unrest.
I may be busy for a while, so for now I am going to go and enjoy myself. Hal and Lorna have invited me out for dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant. Although the sale of booze is banned for several days over the electoral period, it doesn't bother me and it should be a fun evening. I am pretty tired, especially after a relatively late night last night, when there was a party for the journalists at Mary's house, but as I said, I've been taking it easy today.
I'll post again soon.
H
xxx