Blogs from Lima, Lima, Lima, Peru, South America - page 9

I had the opportunity to spend the night on Thursday and Friday at the two Puntos Corazon houses in Barrios Altos and Ensenada where the missionaries (from France, Honduras, U.S., Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany) live. Though only a very short time, it was beautiful to witness their community life, to be able to pray with them, and to spend time with the local people of the communities. One of my favorite moments was praying the rosary with the missionaries and kids in Barrios Altos. Though it was probably the rosary with the most interruptions and opportunities for distractions that I have ever prayer, it was amazing to see young kids (4-10 years old more or less) come to pray the rosary. One kid wanted to lead one of the mysteries but was not behaving well and ... read more

By the time we're ready to leave Huaraz for the bright lights of Lima our legs are about to pack up - the Cordillera Blanca has been a stupendously beautiful backdrop to the last few days, but there are limits to how much our feet can take... Although most people travel the eight or nine hours between Huaraz and Lima by night, Peruvian bus companies' persistent and infuriating habit of timetabling overnight departures to arrive at ungodly morning hours firmly puts us off the idea. Given that the first three or four hours of the journey are a stomach-churningly twisty descent from the heights of the Cordillera, it's just as well. Sleeping while being rolled from one side of your seat to the other is no easy task! The bus reaches the outskirts of Lima by ... read more

Day 2: Sundary, August 12th, 2012 - Lima, Peru Today, my sister and I decided to explore the city of Lima, Peru. We woke up early thinking that Lacromar, the tourist mall, would be opened by 10:00am but that we not the case. So we decided to take a stroll down Miraflores beachside. We found a park called Love Park. There we found a status in the middle of the park of two lovers embracing surrounded by walls of romantic quotes scripted in mosaic tiles. I went a little camera crazy and took a lot of pictures of the park ;-) When we returned to Lacromar we book a city tour of Lima and a night tour including the Magic Water Circuit with Citysightseeing. The tour left at 2:15pm so we had plenty of time to ... read more

A good friend from USC, Eddie, is visiting family in Lima so we met up to go exploring and decided it would also be a day for a "food tour." We went to the two main plazas (Plaza de San Martin & Plaza de Armas), a few churches (Santo Domingo, Convento de San Francisco, Casa de San Martin de Porres), and a park (Parque de la Muralla) See pictures for more descriptions. We took a tour of the Saint Francis Convent and Catacombs - my favorite part was probably the library filled with tons of old books. New foods that I tried - turrón (super sweet dessert made of layers of cookies and honey with sprinkles and candies on top), sweet potato chips, empanada de pollo, and rocoto relleno (sort of like a stuffed bell pepper, ... read more

When you visit somewhere and have low expectations, it is nice to be pleasantly surprised. So when my expectations of Lima were exceeded, I felt we could easily have spent more time there. Part of the reason for wanting to spend more time in this interesting city was that we spent most of our time organising onward travel - two days in fact. It is surprising how much time it takes to organise travel! We stayed in the premier suburb of Miraflores, which we liked and would recommend to other travellers. Our Hostel ‘151 Backpackers’ was nice. The only aspect we did not like was the staff members’ area was situated in the travellers’ common room and you felt watched and uncomfortable; difficult to describe but other travellers have made the same comment. We saw billboards ... read more