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Published: April 4th 2005
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Miraflores
This wsa the view of a built up area just over the beach. Pretty close to home huh? Hi everyone out there who is reading this... surprisingly a lot of you from the looks of it and all the wonderful comments we have been receiving!!
thank you very much everyone for your great comments and messages!! Being away is a real blast, but you can feel isolated and we absolutely love hearing from all of you!! Except for one of you... look Adrian or whatever you name is, I DON'T want a university degree for $100, so can you please take me off your list?? So stop emailing me already....
So to the rest of you, apart from Adrian, here's our next update. It's been a while because in Peru, you don't really go out after dark, and hey, that's when we usually did our blogging... so sorry about the delay.
ok, gotta start writing now.
We landed in Lima on the 4th. Lima has got the misfortune to be famous for its beans, and in my head, I couldn't think of much else as we were flying in on the way. I think Catherine was ready to kill me if I made one more 'human beans' pun 😊
Anyway, Lima is a lot
Bizarre Lima street sigh
ok, now I have seen the sign to beat all signs. Watch where you step!! more than a place named after a bean. Or is the bean named after the place?? Either way makes no sense, as LIMA GROWS NO BEANS!!
So anyway, we landed at the airport. Our trusty Lonely Planet had done nothing in boosting our confidence about the safety about the place. Choice phrases like "don't go out after dark" and "they aren't going to harm you physically, but you will most likely get mugged if you catch the wrong cab" were already dancing in our heads as we got out of the rather modern looking airport. Thankfully our hostel had organised a driver to pick us up - we were told to look for a guy carrying a placard, with our names on it. And then, just to make sure he was legit (I mean, there just
might be another thambiratnam staying in lima right??), we had to give him a passphrase, and then he had to respond with another. Wow. Felt like some kind of super CIA agent.
Except we forgot the passphrase. So we just took the first guy that had Thambiratnam written on the placard. Thankfully there was only one.
We drove into Lima. Our
Temple of the Moon
sorry, couldn't find a better picture. But you can see the temple right next to the building. Weird. hostel had warned us not to be too worried as we drove to the hostel as we would "pass through some poor areas". She wasn't kidding. Lima gets hit by earthquakes almost as much as it rains in Sydney. OK maybe not as little as that, but the point is - they have these 1 storey squat brown brick buildings, with missing second storeys where the building has fallen over in the last earthquake. So everywhere you look these oddly truncated houses are sitting around in a very dry and brown street. Every other house seems to use their newly formed rooftop as a place to hang laundry, that is, if they have replaced the roof. But you'll be happy to know they've all got cable tv.
So we're going through the poor section of town, trying not to gawk too much like overprotected western tourists. Eventually we get to Miraflores, which is a somewhat richer area. This area was gorgeous - lovely manicured lawns, green grass, clean roads, it was cleaner and neater than Sydney. Which I guess isn't too hard but you get the point. Most tourists stay in this area, and our hostel was right in
Lost in translation
This lady is the patron of Lima - and her statue is a great example of how requirements can get lost in translation. Basically, the Spanish (who commissioned the statue) had instructions for the lady's head to be crowned with "llama" which means "tongues of fire". Anyway, the hapless Peruvian workmen translated this literally and put a llama on her head! the heart of it. The thing about Miraflores - it is so done up, it almost feels like being back home. Except we can't even afford to eat at Hungry Jacks here (Burger King for the americans reading this). I mean, $10US for a whopper meal??
It was very weird. It's such a strange combination to see abject poverty, and then next minute you're in this little touristy haven. I bet lots of tourists come to Lima, stay in Miraflores, and then move on, and tell people about what a beautiful place Lima is.
But not us. Being the hardened adventurers that we are, we decided to do a bit more exploring - so we headed into town. Lima is another old town with lots of historical buildings. Massive churches, great important looking buildings with far too few windows and far too big doors...
We tried a few local dishes - Catherine had this cool thing with potates (cold) with cheese sauce (disgusting) poured over it. It looked bad and more like what she was going to do after eating it. We also have been eating alpaca, which is related to the 'demon' llama (pronounced yama -
Guinea pig... yum!
Another culinary feat by Dave T. if you don't know what one of those are, go watch "The Emperor's New Groove" which I'm ashamed to say is a Disney cartoon and the source of most of our prior knowledge about Peru) I also got to eat guinea pig, which was kinda a mixture between chicken and pork. And too many bones. (see pic). Overall we aren't that enthused with Peruvian food. But I guess it's good to try everything if we're going to be world-class adventurers 😊
Oh I forgot to mention the temple of the moon that we saw in Miraflores. Get this: there's been this massive mountain with a ruined temple sticking out of it sitting square in the middle of the city. And nobody really cared, so people used to just go play soccer in there, take their girlfriends out there (to watch the soccer of course), and ride their motorbikes. But around 1980, somebody said "hey look here's a valuable part of our heritage let's dig it up and see if we can make some money off it!'. End result - you've got this massive archeological project going on, surrounded by suburban houses and parks. It's very surreal. Imagine telling people who are coming to your place - "oh just head down the street, turn left at the pyramid, and we're the first house on your right". These limenos are crazy!!
Our next stop is Arequipa, where we are going to go see the world's second largest canyon, and the andean condor. Whoohoo!
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anonymous
non-member comment
Pure inspiration...
After reading your first entry over the shoulder of Elle, i decided to be a part of this adventure (i promise this isn't meant to sound corney)... After reading your blogs that now get sent straight ot my inbox, i always feel a sense of envy, as i wish i could to be in Lima eating a run over guinea pig... man, these blogs seriously mae me want to travel!!! :) - Anneka of the Kelly's