After four days, three hostels, and countless restaurants and taxis, I can say without reservation that Lima is underrated, and should be considered much more than a layover en route to Cusco. I will be the first to admit that it is hard to look past the smog filled air (we didn´t see the sun once while we were in Lima!), but as dirty as your lungs may feel, it is not something that should be held against the city and its people. Every hour of the day there are city employees, clad in green jump suits, constantly sweeping the streets and sidewalks. The city is clean; it is the air that makes it so easy to pass quick judgments on the city. Look beyond the dirty cabs (that in reality were hand scrubbed only hours before… again, air pollution is the culprit), beyond the smog, the commotion, and the disorientation, and you will find a diverse city filled with interesting sites, incredible food, and diversity not seen in most of the rest of the country.

We spent our first night in the Pirwa Hostel in Miraflores, we had a mouse hole sized double room with a bizarre smell, lots of noise, little light, and a slightly sketchy walk home at night. To say the least we switched hostels the next night, and stayed in one of the Flying Dog Hostels. The hostel was immaculately clean, had a beautiful view of Parque Kennedy (again in Miraflores), a big clean kitchen (that we didn´t put to use), and was nice and quiet. We spent the first few days mostly walking around Miraflores, getting reacquainted with the Spanish language, trying ¨Chifas¨ (Peruvian Chinese food), becoming addicted to Lomo Saltado (a beef dish served with rice and French fries, done slightly differently at every restaurant),the hustle and bustle of the city, and preparing for six weeks of pure adventure!

On Thursday we found our way over to Huaca Pucllana, pre-Incan ruins located in the middle of residential Miraflores. Not long ago the ruins appeared to simply be a large dirt pile, but it was then discovered that there were actual ruins underneath the rubble, how cool!? The strangest part of the experience is that within 100 yds of the ruins on all sides are residential homes, it was a very strange image to take in completely. Kelsey and I laughed at the thought that the ruins were fake and just some tourist trap because how bizarre it all was, although I´m ALMOST certain that is not true.

After the ruins we checked into a new hostel in Barranco, to give us a different taste of the city (The Point Hostel) ate a delicious dinner at Las Mesitas, which was a cute little place with bow tie clad waiters, an old piano, and delicious Lomo Saltado, and enjoyed the ocean views from across the street. Thursday night we fought through what must have been at least 200 of the tallest people in all of Lima, all waving signs with names on them and squeezing into spaces not meant for grown men.
After stopping at the hostel office Friday morning to find out how much we should pay for a taxi to the centro (taxis down here are not meter based, you agree on a fair before leaving for your destination), we met a guy from New Zealand who was headed in the same direction as us, so we caught a taxi together. He was going to ¨Polvo Azules¨ which is Lima´s black market, and without any schedule to keep to we decided to tag along. The sign outside read ¨Centro commercial¨(mall), and that’s exactly what it was. Each person had a legitimate store front (can the black market be called legitimate?), and the stores sold everything from bootleg iPods, to new in the box (presumably stolen) digital cameras, and sewn on designer logo polos and sweaters. Without any money to spare, I was simply looking, but it was still a fun experience! After the market, we headed deeper into the Centro, looked at the Cathedral from the outside (a church is a church right? We are poor art students, and we felt the entrance fee too high), walked around the Plaza de Armas a little, and then headed over to the Convento y Museo de San Francisco. The architecture was beautiful, and in the basement of the convent there was a series of catacombs that were truly incredible. They had a well that is about 30m deep, with actual original human bones piled more than 10m high. There were also several grave structures in the catacombs, all filled with the original bones. One thing that I noticed is different here than it is in the United States it that when things are renovated and restored here, they do not try to leave things in their original places. For example, the bones of the catacombs were often placed in really corner obviously man made circles, and other corny formations, which took away from the experience slightly, but nonetheless, the original human bones were there, SWEEEEEEET.

We flew out to Cusco first thing Saturday morning for Cusco, more to come soon!

Advertisement