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Published: December 19th 2007
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1st off - There are no dogs on the streets!! What a relief! (although there are none in Ayacucho either, it’s just in Vista Alegre/Carmen Alto).
2nd off - The shopping is unbelievable!! Honestly, I am a city girl at heart and I am at my best in shopping malls.
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t planning or expecting to spend two days at a mall, but the family that I was staying with (more particularly the mom and the brothers) didn’t feel comfortable letting me roam Lima alone and taking taxis alone (for fear of being kidnapped and what not) and they didn’t have so much time to show me around so shopping was a perfect activity. The mall I spent the most time at was Jockey Plaza. Located next to the University of Lima (what a message to send to students!), from the outside the mall looks hideous. More resembling a huge parking lot than a mall, its treasure lies on the inside. As the Lonely Planet guide says, once inside you will forget that you are in Peru. And it’s so true! I would have easily mistaken it for an American shopping mall except that
LarcoMar
The posh shopping mall! everybody spoke Spanish. I mean there was even a
Starbucks and a RadioShack store.
I spent hours going in and out of stores, eating at the food court, and watching movies at the mall’s cinema. As funny as it may sound it was such a soul fulfilling experience. It was so wonderful to go into a store, look at the products, look at the prices, and take an hour if I wanted to decide whether I wanted to buy something or not. No pressure, no bargaining necessary. Pure bliss! And the silence resulting of the lack of mamitas yelling after me
gringa, comprame algo was music to my ears.
To my delight the large supermarket at the mall also had Nutella! I bought two Nutellas and another chocolate spread.
I even found Moonlighting DVDs but I contained myself from buying them. They will have to wait for March.
I also bought waterproof mountain shoes, a sleeping bag, and a bunch of other necessities. Needless to say I spent way too much money at Jockey Plaza but after being deprived of a real shopping experience for two months, being at Jockey Plaza with
a credit card was chicken soup for my soul.
The second shopping mall that I visited was
LarcoMar. Very posh and located at a fantastic location at the edge of Lima’s Miraflores district, LarcoMar is situated on a cliff and boasts a spectacular view of the sea and horizon. The most expensive of all the malls and in the vicinity of Lima’s Marriott Hotel, LarcoMar architecture is also more adapted to Peru - my impression was that the design was a modern interpretation of Peru’s Inca heritage. Earthy colors combined with rounded staircases made softened its modernity without it looking neo-Inca.
Apart from shopping I did get to do one touristy thing. I went to the
Museo de la Nacion . Quite large and supposedly the best museum to discover the development of the pre-Colombian civilizations of Peru, it did not boast many original artifacts. Apart from pots (I am SO sick of seeing pottery in museums, I cannot find them interesting), the majority of the other things were just setups with the original stuff found on location.
A few things did appeal to me.
At the entrance of the museum there is
a
large chart of the development of the civilizations in the Central Andes. It provided a great overview.
I also found the
gold artifacts appealing. Who doesn’t like shiny stuff?!
What I found most interesting at the museum were two real
trophy heads of warriors found in the Nazca region. The heads of defeated warriors were mummified and used in ceremonies and rites of magic.
Also very important for visitors, the bathrooms were very well kept 😉
I got to walk through the neighborhood of Miraflores and eat at the McDonald’s - their fries have never tasted that good as that day. I visited the Mercado Indio, also known as the Mercado Artesanal of Lima. Although more expensive than its Ayacucho counterpart it had a lot more choice and seemed to go on forever. You turn one corner thinking it’s the exit and there is a whole other line of stores. By the time I left my head was spinning from so many colors.
That is basically what I got to see from Lima the second time around. I have a list of a few other things I want to see in Lima before
I leave, but I have time.
The last photos of the entry are random photos of Lima streets.
Spanish Word of the Day: cabezas trofeo =
trophy heads Ta-ta.
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Ivanchica
non-member comment
I don't think your allowed to take photos of stuff in museums :P or is ti just here in Croatia? haha