Phase two of our South American exploration landed us in Lima, Peru. Lima sits atop a steep cliff and the weather pattern is like the Pacific Northwestern coast of the United States. Each day, we would be greeted by fog that would burn off midday and we only had a few sprinkles here and there. Day one was a trip through the historic city center. We started at the Convent of San Francisco which was famous for having lots of skeletons in the catacombs. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the convent but I did manage to cheat and sneak one pic of some bones. If I had taken pictures of all the bones, we would have been there awhile! After the skeleton tour, we headed to the Plaza de Armas (every city in South America has a Plaza de Armas) and went on another church tour of the Lima Cathedral. The cathedral had an amazing art collection and the bones of Francisco Pizarro. Pizarro was a Spaniard who founded the city of Lima and the locals in Lima seem fonder of the Spanish in their history than the Sacred Valley folks. We are not sure why Pizarro was so loved because he seemed like a conquistador to us and there was a lot of killing involved in his history until he was killed by his own people. In spite of his questionable history, he had his own mausoleum and place of honor at the cathedral so we kept our confusion to ourselves. The next stop was China town. Peru has a large population of Chinese immigrants but we think they must have blended into the society well because we did not see one Chinese person in China town. Every Peruvian was in China town and getting through the crowded streets was an adventure. They sold everything you could imagine and every store claimed to have the best deal of the day. We took a break from the chaos and ate at one of the local Chinese restaurants but we found the food to be a bit bland and voted that we liked Americanized Chinese food more. After lunch, we went on a hunt for shoes. We were both in need of new tennis shoes so we had decided not to pack our old shoes since we could just buy new ones in Lima. Mistake. We failed to consider that the Peruvians are a tiny people. When I told them my shoe size was an American size 9, they shook their heads and said I would need to buy “hombre shoes” because their women did not have size 9 feet. After several stores, I settled on a pair of shoes and my shopping was done. Bill’s saga was just beginning. We made our way through dozens of stores. He needed a size 12 wide and the hunt was not going well. One store had a determined young woman who kept bringing out size 11 shoes and insisting they were going to fit. After about 10 tries, Bill decided to move the hunt out of China town. As our exhausting day of church tours and shoe hunting ended, we headed back to the hotel, ordered a pizza from across the street and watched the Georgia game on our Ipad. Day two in Lima was a lovely walk through the Miraflores area. Miraflores sits at the edge of the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We started our walk in Kennedy Park. The park was named after JFK and had become the home of dozens of stray cats. A volunteer group takes care of the cats by feeding them, having them spayed and neutered and finding them adoptive homes when possible. It seemed to be a daily pastime of the locals to go to the park and play with the cats and they even called the park “Parque de Gato” most of the time. Our next park was Love Park which had a lovely malacon along the top of the cliff down to the lighthouse. Last time I was in Lima, there were dozens of paragliders jumping off the cliffs but I guess the weather was not good for them to take flight this visit. Our best meal in Lima was at a local fish restaurant that specialized in ceviche. We had a good laugh that the kind of music played in the restaurant seemed dependent on the current dining population. When we first arrived, Latin music was playing but as more tourists flooded in, the music selection suddenly became 70s American rock music. So, good food and good music…. can’t complain! After lunch our shoe search continued. In the heart of Miraflores, we found a department store that reminded us of Macy’s. They had a huge shoe department but no size 12 wide shoes to be found. Bill asked the salesperson if she knew of another store we might try. At this time, all Bill had was flip flops so we knew the next leg of the trip was going to be challenging for him in flip flops. A local woman overheard the question and she stopped shopping, gestured for us to follow her and headed out of the store. I told her we only spoke a little Spanish but that did not stop her from carrying on quite the conversation for the next 15 minutes as we walked down the street. I did not get much of what she said but I did understand that the politicians in Peru were crooked, she was a policewoman and Kennedy Park should be called Kennedy Park because Cat Park was disrespectful to JFK. As my ears were on the verge of a breakdown from so much chatter, she stopped in front of a Marathon sporting goods store, pointed at Bill’s feet and ushered us into the store. After hugs all around, she said something else in Spanish and floated out the door like our fairy godmother. Marathon had one pair of size 12 wide shoes in the store. I told Bill I did not care if they had pink polka dots on them, he was going to be wearing them. Luckily for him, they were black and fit perfectly! So, the shoe saga ended successfully. For our evening entertainment, we headed to the Fountain of Lights show. Lima claimed it was the largest fountain light show in the world according to Guiness World Records. The park had 13 fountains that were lovely. As the show began, we discovered we were on the wrong side of the fountain so we made our way around through the crowd to the other side. As far as fountain light shows go, it was a bit underwhelming and Bill and I both questioned whether the show was bigger than the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas. Considering it only cost us $4.00 each and taxi ride, we decided it was an enjoyable evening. Day 3 in Lima we booked a boat ride to Palominos Island. Palominos Island was known for a sea lion colony and penguins. As we made our way further offshore, the sun came out and we enjoyed chatting with everyone on the boat. We saw the island in the distance but we smelled the sea lions long before we saw them. Who knew sea lions could smell so bad? As we approached the island, we saw hundreds of sea lions on the rocks. The sea lions were very curious and dove into the water to greet us. Bill and I decided not to swim due to the cold-water temperature so we stayed on the boat. Bill oversaw taking everyone’s pictures with their phones and I was in charge of trying to get close up pictures of the sea lions with my camera. We only saw one penguin during our trip and our guide said that during an El Nino year the penguins tend not to be in the area. I think that might have been a blessing because bird guano added to the sea lion smell might have been too much. Prior to leaving on our trip, we watched a documentary on Peru and how guano made them one of the richest countries in the world in the 1930s. Peru teamed up with Bolivia and started a war with Chile to steal their guano but Chile won the war and that is why Bolivia has no coastline today. Very interesting watch on Youtube if you want to see how millions of dollars can be made from bird poop! Our last morning in Lima, we took a quick walk over to the flower show in Kennedy Park. We had been watching them set up all week and I wanted to get some flower pictures. It was a small flower event but the vendors had gone all out setting up their displays and it was a nice walk before our flight. We only had one issue with the flight to Cusco and that involved both boarding pass QR codes having Bill’s name on them….another reason to always print boarding passes the old fashioned way! Join us next week for Part 2 Peru: The Sacred Valley ***More pics on Pictures tab
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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