Lima, Peru

Upon arriving in Peru we spent a day and a half exploring Lima. It is such a big city, hosting a third of Peru’ population with 11 million people.

We stayed in the popular tourist neighborhood of Miraflores. Often cited as one of the only safe places for tourists to stay. We arrived around 9/10 on Saturday night and made our way through the streets to our air b&b. Situated on the 17th floor overlooking the city.

In the morning we had the classic peruano breakfast of a chincharon sandwich. Then we made our way to the tourist center to begin the free walking tour. We chose to do the walking tour that explored the historical city center. We took a 35 min bus ride to the plaza de San Martin then walked through Lima’s most popular street to the plaza de armas.

This part has a deep European history and much if the arquitectura reflects this. This part of town is actually significantly cheaper to live in than Miraflores. The outsides of the buildings look nice and fancy but many of the insides are falling apart.

We ended our tour with a Pisco tasting. Pisco is the national drink of Peru and comes from grapes. We then went to the central market which was crowded and narrow me full of vendors selling fruits, vegetables, meats, fishes and anything else you could ever think of. We tried to buy fruit but did not have small enough money.

We made our way out of there and went to Chinatown. The street was so crowded with people and vendors. Some of the lines were way down the street. Many Chinese immigrants came to Peru to work after there was a shortage when one of their presidents freed all of the slaves. So now there is are many Chinese Peruvians and a very large distinct china town. they call their fried rice Chaufa and we got a plate of pollo Chaufa at a restaurant without a line. It was so hot in there.

You can’t drink the water from the tap in South America so we had been buying bottle water but ran out of it at this point in time. I had a headache all day from not drinking enough. We made our way through the crowded streets and I eventually bought another bottle of water. We then walked towards the Catacombs where there are a bunch of burried bones from centuries before.

We looked at all the shacks on the mountain across the river then went to go into the catacomb museum. We weren’t sure if we really wanted to go but tried to sneak in with a large group of Russians already on the tour. They noticed there were two extra people and were looking for us so we left before we could get in any trouble.

We then made our way back to Miraflores on the public bus that was jam packed full of people. We were sandwiched in there like sardines. Nick was right at my back but he had a larger peruano directly behind him that he would run into at every start and stop.

We stopped at el parque Kennedy and looked at all the art work vendors were selling and stoped by a group of peruanos dancing. We danced a bit on the outside, trying to remember how to salsa or whatever they were doing. Some peruanos thought the gringos trying to dance was funny and we caught a few filming us.

We were pretty exhausted from the day so made our way back to our apartment for an early night. We bought a couple of large bottles of water on the way and got ready to call it a night.

The next day we went to check out the ocean. We went to the parque del amor where a famous kissing statue is and kissed in front of it. We then walked along the cliff line, overlooking the ocean and the many clay tennis courts. We walked through Chinese park then made our way through the neighborhood. Nick wanted to buy a sim chip so we went to the store but it was too long of a line.

We got out some money at the atm then bought a chicken and a baguette and went back to our apartment to eat it. Limas the food capital of the world yet we still found ourselves being a bit cheap.

We checked out then went back to the cell phone store. Where Nick waited an hour and a half only to buy a chip that he wasn’t able to put in his phone because he has the latest iPhone without physical chips. He wasn’t able to get a refund with so he was pretty bummed out.

We then bought a couple beers and had them discretely on the street before getting our luggage and heading to the airport.

Off to Tarapoto now where we will take a colectivo to Yarimagus then a speed boat down the Amazon to Lagunas.