FIVE DAYS IN LIMA PERU

Day One

After a pleasant flight from Newark to Fort Lauderdale on Jet Blue, we literally walked off that plane and onto the connecting flight to Lima – smooth. We were fortunate to have arranged for a pick-up taxi online with a company highly recommended, Taxidatum, and a very nice man named Leo, who spoke perfect English, took us to his taxi and gave us a running commentary during our ½ hour ride to our hotel. The hotel we stayed in for 4 nights was the Radisson Miraflores Hotel It was very modern and classy (although our window looked out over an air shaft). From the rooftop pool, the view was quite wonderful, overlooking a gorge with tennis courts.

The next morning we explored our neighborhood, to find it was a classy district with many hotels. Nearby was the “Malecon”, a walk along the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which was strewn with beautiful parks. The views off the cliffs were breathtaking. The first park we came to was Parque de Amor in the center of which as a huge sculpture of an embracing couple. This seemed appropriate for our “honeymoon”.

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One thing we noticed about Miraflores was that everyone loved dogs. Everywhere we went we saw people walking their dogs and cleaning up after them. We also noted how friendly the Lima people were. We got smiles and “hola”s from anyone we made eye contact with. A group of young people were particularly intrigued by these two “gringos” and practiced their English on us.

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We ended our Malecon cliff walk at the lighthouse rock, which was very impressive.

For our afternoon exploration, we decided to find out about the Metropolitano bus service to downtown Lima. It is an express bus with a dedicated lane on the main automobile highway. When the bus whished into the stop, we saw it was standing room only, and tightly packed at that. We squeezed in and although the bus went very fast, it was a long ride. I also think we were the only gringos to travel these buses when we did.

This trip to downtown was impressive as far as the buildings were concerned and the elegant people we saw in the major business district. Our primarily goal was the National Art Museum, which had one gallery with Pre-Hispanic (never say “pre-Columbia” in South America) artifacts from one particular archeological site. But other than that, there wasn’t much of interest.

After another tortuous Metro ride back to Miraflores, we planned to spend the evening at a much lauded place called “Larcomar”, which turned out to just a modern American-style mall, though it happened to be on the ocean bluff. However, our goal was really the Cineplex, to see a movie, so it didn’t much matter. We ate in a food court, with pretty good Peruvian food, and saw “Divergent”.

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Day Two

We began the day walking south on the Malecon again, passing the Larcomar Mall and heading to another district south of Miraflores called Baranco.

The first destination in Baranco was a modern art museum, the Museo de Art Contemporario (MAC), which had a lovely park, with sculptures and a bizarre bit of performance art. We saw a young man playing the cello, and next to him was a woman who was doing supplicating actions in front of a large tree. She then took out one dress after another, modeling them for the tree, before she decided which one the “tree liked best”. After the tree chose one, she climbed up a ladder into the tree and proceeded to change into this dress and dance to the music of the cello.

Having to walk the long way around two ravines coming in from the ocean, we finally got to the center of Baranco. This district is considered the “artistic” part of town with many galleries and quaint architecture. A common occurrence in Lima were pianos in public squares, with a sign “Play Me” on them. Baranca had the most imaginative one (see below). But the main attraction that drew us to Baranca was “The Bridge of Sighs”, which straddled the primary ravine in this district.

After lunch we proceeded to the Baranco Metro stop, to go back into downtown Lima to see the Plaza des Armas, where the government palace and the largest cathedral are located. We took the wrong bus, getting off at a further stop, it made a more interesting expedition. The first thing we encountered was a huge musical instrument mall, with a large collection of shops selling all types of instruments.

Since our Google Map stopped before the plaza we were searching for (and we weren’t online to extend it), we trudged on toward where we thought it would be. But we found ourselves in a poorer area that was definitely not a touristy destination. It was a little scary, even though we’d not experienced any unfriendly people. Finally we came to a police station and we asked directions to the plaza. A nice policeman, who didn’t speak English, was assigned to walk us to the touristy area. So we were grateful for this and we ultimately arrived at our destination, about an hour after we’d planned.

How fortunate we were to arrive when we did, because as we walked into the square a folk festival parade was just beginning. We were able to see all the elaborate peasant costumes and hear the dreadful band of musicians, pounding away the same tune over and over, while the dancers danced. It was fabulous, and we would have missed it had we arrived when we planned to.

Nearby was another cathedral, the San Francisco, which was quite impressive. On our way back to the Metro, we encountered a street mime/comic covered in gold, who “spoke” in a weird computerized voice. He was quite funny. When I went in to give him a donation, he insisted that we get a photo.

Day Three

We had heard that the most impressive museum on Pre-Hispanic Art was the Museo Larco, so that was our first destination for this day. It was unreachable by Metro, so we had to take a taxi. We didn’t heed the advice about not getting licensed taxis, but although the taxi was rather beat up and the back seat was shredded and uncomfortable, we decided it was okay for the price. So we off set off for an exciting ride through streets we never would have seen.

We arrived at the museum without incident, and upon entering we were immediately impressed with the floral beauty of the grounds. But it was nothing to the astounding collection of artifacts from various Inca and pre-Inca civilizations. Room upon room of stacks and stacks of gorgeous pottery and silver/gold jewelry and funereal finery.

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Then there is the

with its pottery of a very different nature:

And the signs for the rest rooms:

We could have spent all day in this wonderful museum because there was more to see than can be imagined, and all authentic antiques from before Columbus came across the Atlantic. We did have lunch in the beautiful garden before we left.

That afternoon, however, we wanted to see the new “Amazting Spiderman” movie. So the taxi we got from the museum was directed back to the Larcoma Mall where the Cineplex was. He took a different route than we had seen which included going down to shore level, and the views up the bluff were great.

And from the mall we saw another view of the beach that was perfect for our last day in Miraflores.

In the evening we went to a Water Park, that was well spoken of, and that we should see it at night. Upon entering the park, we asked how much it cost, and the girl asked us how old we were. We told her and she said it was free to us seniors. It was a large park, with huge fountains over the whole area. The park was built in the 1920’s and had gone to seed, until just recently the city decided to renovate and computerize it. There were at least 10 amazing fountains. The most fun was a fountain that created an orange arch, through which people could walk.

The main event was a laser show at the biggest fountain. It had splendid dancing waters all the time, but at 9:00 the show was really spectacular. My favorite thing about the park is that it wasn’t for tourists, but we mingled with hundreds of local folk from Lima, having a wonderful, romantic Sunday night.

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Day Four

We moved to a new hotel in a different part of Lima for our last night. The first thing we wanted was a Lavenderia to get our clothes washed before we got on the ship. We knew one was near, but as we searched for it we were approached by a little, white haired man in a Hawaiian shirt. He insisted that he show us to the Laundromat, which wasn’t necessary, so we tried to get rid of him, but he was insistent. He spoke very good English and knew the people who ran the Laundromat, therefore helped us tell them what we wanted. We took him for coffe and walking to the café we heard lots of things about our guide, Pedro. He claims to have lived in Queens many years ago and played with Sammy Davis, Jr. at the Copacabana. He showed us around the neighborhood and a great market that had the “best restaurant for Ceviche”. He definitely made our morning interesting.

The afternoon we set out to find the Huaca Pulcinia, an adobe brick temple structure. It was an ancient Inca pyramid made mud bricks, set up in a “book shelf” method. It was covered up by rubble for centuries, but archeologists have been carefully uncovering it and have made a museum of it with diorama figures depicting the life of the original inhabitants.

We met a very nice Dutch fellow at the ruins, who came out to lunch with us. His name was Freek (pronounced Frek)

The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring our new neighborhood. The area was very interesting and different from Miraflores. There was lots of street art and murals.

Day Five

This was the day to move to our ship, The Marina, and our taxi driver was going to pick us up at around noon. So the morning was spent packing and exploring other areas of our neighborhood. We went the opposite direction from the day before and discovered fancy shops that we hadn’t seen before. It also had a charming park named after JFK, which was a wonderful “Cat Park”.

There were literally hundreds of cats, very well fed (by the government) and friendly (when they wanted to be.)

It was then time to get our taxi and begin our cruise up the coast of South America, through the Panama Canal, up to Mexico, Key West and then up the Eastern Coast to New York City. Our overall impression of Lima was that it was a terrific city and we were glad we had so many days to enjoy it.

Go to the Cruise’s Ports of Call

Go to The Marina

Go to David’s Travel Page