When life gives you Lima, make Limanade

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Ola,

First off, we apologize for the pun. It was Val's idea. It wasn't actually Val's idea, but she is still asleep currently and can't defend herself so for the moment, it was Val's idea.

We survived the 24 hourbus ride, which actually turned into a 26 hour bus ride before we had arrived in Lima.

The road through southern Ecuador passed through manay banana plantations that stretched for as far as the eye could see. The border was fairly straight forward on the Ecuadorian side, but a little more interesting on the Peruvian side. We entered the town where the border was, but there was a market blocking the road so we had to take back alleys and side streets, in a massive bus, until we could get on the bridge that went over the trickle of water that was the border. Even though we were now in Tumbes, we had to force our way through the rest of the market until we could reach the customs office. We coninued down the orad afterwards withot issue.

The bus ride was surprisingly comfortable. We had heard mixed reviews of Ormeño, but we were pleasantly surprised. The seats were semi-cama. so they were wide and reclined quite a bit, there were many movies played and some of them were halfway decent and they served us three edible meals, which was completely unexpeted. The scenery in Peru was also great. The coastline is mostly desert but there are many little coves where large waves from the Pacific crash on to sharp rocks and isolated, pristine beaches. All in all, the ridiculously long bus ride was much better than expected.

We arrived in Lima, and Peter managed to piss off the cabbie immediately by refusing to pay his price and demanding to pay half. We arrived in Miraflores, one of the nicer neighbourhoods in town, and instantly felt comfortable. We walked down to the ocean and it was the first time that either of us had seen the Pacific since we had left Vancouver. The eroded cliffs and myriad paragliders added a nice touch to the image.

For our first full day in Lima we went to the historic centr. The cabbie on the way up played nothing but mid 90s dance music, so we had a little party on the way to the centre. The Plaza de Armas was full of trees and surrounded by warm, yellow buildings with large, overhanging balconies. We went into the cathedral and saw the tomb of Francisco Pizzarro, the conquistador qho conquered Peru, before watching the changing of the guard at the Palacio del Gobierno. The changing of the guard lasted for half and hour and, as far as we could tell, it was a collection of soldiers in full regalia playing instruments and we're still not sure if we acutally saw any guards change but that's what we were told was happening. We continued over to the Monasterio de San Francisco, which wasn't too exciting until we entered the catacombs and the crypt where the bones of 25,000 people remain visible to anyone who wanders through. It remined us quite a bit of the bone church in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic.

We continued down to Plaza San Martin where the statue of Madre Patria is. The funny thing about the statue is that the spanish word for "flame" has a double meaning and can also mean "llama" so, instead of a flame, the confused artist put a little llama on top of the statue's head. We then enjoyed a pisco sour, a local drink made with grape brandy, in the splendid edifice of the Gran Hotel Bolivar.

We then headed off to the Museo de Historia Natural, where we got to see the fragments of skull and jaw bone from the massive prehistoric carnivorous whale Leviathen that they recently discovered in Peru. It was cool seeing it on the news a couple of months ago and then actually seeing it up close.

We walked back from the museum to Miraflores, passing the adobe pyramid ruin of Huana Pullaca, which was built by the Moche people almost 1600 years ago.

We went out to dinner at a place reccommended by Lonely Planet and when the waiter found out we were Canadian, he put on Canadian music. It happened to be Celine Dion, "My heart will go on", but it's the thought that counts right? We then went to a cafe called "Manolo" where we had chocolate con churros. They gave us each 6 fresh from the oven churros do dip into our chocolate which was essentially melted chocolate. It was so thick and so rich that we just savoured every drop of it for as long as we could!

The next day, Val and Peter played the married couple card and went and looked at real estate for the fun of it. We went to CMI International, and the people happened to be French so Val did most of the talking. We didn't buy anything but it's nice to know that one can buy a seaview, 3 bedroom apartment that is 1100 square feet for under 500,000 US. Take that Yaletown!!!

For lunch, we went to a restaurant called Punta Azul which came highly recommended. We had an awesome seafood risotto and then we both tried ceviche. For those who don't know, ceviche is raw, marinated fish. It was AMAZING!!! We savoured every last bite and even contemplated ordering more. It was even better than sushi in Vancouver. For desert, we had more churros from Manolo's, but these were filled with vanilla, chocolate or arequipe. It is impossible to explain how amazing these churros actually were. They were little bites of heaven and, of course, extremely healthy!!!

After dinner, we went to be early because we were catching an early morning bus to Nazca.

Bye for now,
Peter and Val


Things we learned in Lima:
-NEVER let the Lebanese guy go through customs first!
-We are celebrities in Lima as children ran up to us after we exited the cathedral and asked us to write our names in their books.
-Churros are just about the best food ever made. Well, maybe ceviche is. Just don't combine the two...

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Comments

[Katrina]

Ohhhhhh, I'm drooling reading this! I had that churro snack in Madrid - SOOOO good! And I want to try all the other food. I wonder if there is a peruvian eatery in vancouver somewhere...