Playing chicken in Lima

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Hola!

After arriving in Lima, Carlos - the driver sent by our hotel met us at the airport and gave us a speedy ride into the Miraflores district of Lima. We are staying in Hotel del Posada Marquez (pink colonial architecture - very pretty). We settled into our room for the night - after a few difficulties locking the door and finding the window beside our bed didn´t lock....slept well and awoke feeling rested after the last few tiring days. Breakfast was interesting....dinner rolls, butter, scrambled eggs and coffee which was thick and dark like molasses. All in all, a GREAT wake up and start to our day.

We decided to go for a walk on our own to begin our journey around Lima. We are staying in the Miraflores district which is an upper-class neighborhood and very artsy, with nice shops, restaurants and parks. We first visited "Lovers Park" which is located along the high cliff overlooking the Pacific coast. The coastline along Miraflores/Lima is very beautiful - beaches, surfers, paragliders etc. We took many photos and enjoyed the scenery.

For the afternoon we took a very extensive and informative tour of key areas in Lima. Our guide, Enrique shared with us many interesting facts about the city and country. Lima-centro has brightly coloured buildings, mostly yellow and interesting architecture (moorish, baroque, colonial-Peruvian). We visited a cultural museum with artifacts of gold and pottery. Then we went to the Plaza Major which is the main square in the city and surround by old beautiful buildings (presidential palace, elite social clubs, and the main Lima cathedral). Next we toured the San Francisco Monestary (very beautiful tile-work, carved ceilings, and paintings), and walked through the Catacombes. Thousands of bones and skulls on display! It was an excellent tour and we now feel well informed about Lima.

A few interesting facts around Lima which we found out are - Lima has 43 different districts or neighborhoods (the main four we toured this afternoon), some very upper class and some extremely poor. It is a city of 8.5 million people and 200,000 taxis!! We were told this was because of the lack of professional employment positions in Lima, so anyone with a car becomes a taxi driver to pay the rent. The traffic is very busy. It is difficult to cross roads as a pedestrian as there do not seem to be any road signs indicating cross-walks or stop signs. Watching collectivos, taxis and buses on the roads is very exciting - everyone pulls into the intersection to see who can maneuover their vehicle through and around the others the fastest. Mom described it as "it seems like they are playing chicken" lol.

Tomorrow morning, Carlos will be picking us up again and taking us back to the Lima airport for our flight to Iquitos in the northern jungle area of Peru. We will be in the Amazon for 5 days and may not be able to reach a computer since for four of these five days we will be without electricity....

Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the hot summer weather, it´s winter here in Lima and temperatures we about 15 degrees today.

We are off to find some dinner - perhaps a Peruvian dish of cuy (guinea pig). We will be intouch with a report of the Amazon adventure soon!

- McCrae Ladies

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Comments

[delly9]

These 2 rock!!
Sounds like a blast so far, enjoy the jungle