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Published: August 15th 2008
We arrived in Lima at about 2am and breezed through customs to find a car waiting for us. Steve splurged a bit and reserved us a room in one of the nicest hotels here, the Miraflores Park Hotel. It was so glorious to sleep on a large, fluffy bed after a week of camping out on couches leading up to the wedding.
We stuffed ourselves thoroughly at the breakfast buffet and didn´t need to eat again until dinner.
We walked around the waterfront a bit until we spotted some ruins poking up between the buildings and took off to explore them. We took a guided tour of the Inca ruins at Huaca Pucllana, which was totally intrigued my long-dormant inner anthropologist! The pyramids and other structures there were all composed of small, hand formed ¨bricks" with slight spaces between each. This was designed so that the Earth could breath through the structure. Evidence of human sacrifice (over twenty young women´s bodies) and offerings to the gods (shark and other food) were excavated here.
After we left the ruins, we boarded a minibus and rode downtown for about thirty cents. The roads were clogged with these buses fighting for space in the unlit intersections, and they all had a money collector who hung out the door screaming for passengers. Poor Steve did not fit in the miniature seats!
Central Lima has beautiful architecture, but the air quality is terrible. We walked around the President´s residence, several parks, the oldest cathedral and university in the country, and a clogged pedestrian street before stopping to rest on some steps. While we were there, a musician came up to invite us to hear his band that night. We chatted for a bit and discovered that not only does his friend own a bar just blocks from our house (Madam´s Organ) but he used to live near Steve in New Jersey. Very small world!
While we were still sitting on the steps, a bus pulled up that was travelling to San Cristobal, the highest point in Lima. The price was only about $1.40 each for the round trip tour, so we hopped on board. We were very excited as the bus took off toward the mount, but then we turned back around the park we were at. Ten minutes later, we arrived back at the stairs while the money collecter frantically yelled for more passengers. After four more passes around the park, we were finally full and took off. (Now we know not to get in empty buses) The road was a single lane, steep ascent up a crumbling mountainside. The guardrail (where it existed) was twisted in various spots from vehicles tumbling over. Poor Steve did NOT want to come back down the same way, but the footpath looked even more frightening!
I was very surprised by how different I felt traveling around Latin America with a tall husband than with a few blond girlfriends, as I did in college. There were no catcalls at all! I´m taking Steve everywhere with me!
The highlight of yesterday definitely had to be taking the dirty, loud minibus back to the nicest hotel in Lima. The driver looked positively shocked when I asked him to stop there!
I can´t quite figure out how to upload pictures from my new camera yet, but I´ll post some as soon as I do.
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Jessie
non-member comment
Good thing...
Sounds like an awesome time so far! I'm glad you plan on taking Steve everywhere, since you married him and all :)