Blog Post 12 - Lima, Peru

October 25, 2023

We arrived in Lima at about 10.30 pm, got a taxi to our apartment and what a place. 16th story with a view out over the city to the north. A great spot to explore the city from and all for $NZ64 per night.

They have a great bus transport system here. With a central bus system that runs along its own roadway down the middle of the main central road system. We are only a 5 minute walk to the nearest bus stop. The main road, just below our apartment has 6 lanes with two additional lanes on each side separated from the main road that allows local traffic to go about its business without affecting the main flow of traffic.

The sky never seems to clear here with a low cover of white cloud that hides all the buildings in the early morning but not until the afternoon does it lift away enough to think there may be some blue sky there somewhere. It almost never rains here. The last rain of any significance was in 1971. The roads don’t have gutters like at home and the houses don’t have spouting.

Despite no rain the city has quite a number of trees and green area that are very regularly watered by the council.

As you will see in the photos, the city is a mix of modern high rise with more traditional 2 or 3 story houses in between. No one appears to have a back yard.

We were not looking forward to our stay in Lima. We had not heard good things about it, but we have really enjoyed it and have had a good time. It is huge with a population of 11 million so clearly we have only seen a small part of it so I expect there will be areas that are not safe to venture into.

We headed into the centre of the old town the first day and explored the area well. It was full of local people enjoying the day out. We even arrived in time to see the changing of the guards at the presidential palace. Lots of marching and stomping and straight leg high kick walking made is a bit of a spectacle.

The city is very different to the other places we have been in up to now. There are large supermarkets and flash high end shops mixed in with smaller service businesses but the urban streets are more like home and not full of wee shops like in Chile, Bolivia and Equador.

The next day we visited the 5th century Huca Puciliana, which was a temple site if a civilisation that was here in the 5th century, some 10,000 years before the Incas. Its structure is basically a low pyramid made of mud bricks and has survived here for 1500 years because is basically never rains here. It was rediscover in 1980 beneath a small hill. It had been covered over with soil for a very long time which had protected it.

Then in the afternoon we went on a walking tour in the Miraflores which is a popular nice part of the city which buts up against the Pacific Ocean. Generally the walking tours we had been on have been great with very knowledgeable guides but the guide on this one this was useless or worse than useless. There was a Kiwi and and Irish girl on the tour and we enjoyed our time with them on the tour and an over a Pisco Sour in a bar at the end. A Pisco Sour is a national cocktail in Peru local alcoholic drink made with white rum, Lime juice, syrup, egg white and bitters.

Yesterday we walked out to the coast and down to an arty area decorated with large colourful murals.

We passed a nice old hose and paused to have a closer look and was invited in by this old lady to see her gallery. She sold and collected indigenous folk art. She was Welsh but had lived in Lima since marring a local way back. She passionately showed us through her gallery with no expectation that we bought anything and then into her home to see her private collection. Quite extraordinary. See photos.

Last night we went out at about 9pm to buy me some new tea shirts that we had seen. They appear to be well made and fully cotton. Two for $28. Then a snow freeze at McDonalds for a late desert.

Today we catch a flight at about 6pm to Santiago and then on south to Puerto Montt, where we pick our rental car for out 30 day drive around Patagonia. Unfortunately we have a 6 hour stopover in the airport in Santiago from about midnight to 6am which we are not particularly looking forward to.

We plan catch a a local but to a museum for a few hours before heading onto the airport.

We are looking forward to our time in Patagonia. It will be cold but we are hoping for a good amount of fine weather. Patagonia has a climate a bit like the West Coast of NZ.