Lima

The higlights of Lima, Peru

Where to start... this place is full of hustle, bustle, colour, culture and mucho passion! We arrived to Lima airport greeted by what felt like thousands of signs in a sea of people. Luckily Tu found a sign with our name on it. A sigh of relief to know that we were to be looked after by our tour company transfer that we organised. The transfer itself to our hotel was more than we could have imagined (!!!) and we could finally sleep in a comfy bed after what felt like 2 days of no sleep.

We awoke to a sensory overload of noise, tooting of horns, espanol, and a smell of fresh pastries. That was our breakfast cooking :) We set out to explore Miraflores and found ourselves on a block or two full of Inca and Cuzco market places. Extraordinary art pieces, paintings, weavings, blankets, bags, alpaca clothing and more. It was hard not to spend all our soles (Peruvian dollar) in one day.

Of course no day of shopping is complete without some nourishing food to sustain the bodies so we visited Cafe Haiti - an up market cafe where the waiters could speak English... it should be noted that at this point we did pretty well to communicate effectively to market staff and others who didn't understand a word of English, but by our hand signals, our smiles and some spanish phrases we had learnt, we were able to break through the language barrier. So back to lunch.

We tried beers from Lima and Cuzco and had a delicious meal. Learning the spanish phrases for "it's delicious" and "can we have the check please" has been a real help. The food is amazing and there's so many options, many with the international flavours that we're used to but most with a Peruvian menu, so we have pointed to one and tried it out - and being really pleased with the choices :)

Lima comes alive at night time... it's still crazy with its unpredictable traffic and vehicles all wrestling their way through the traffic, but it takes on an exciting charm at night time. Tried our first pisco sours at dinner, a Lomo Saltado and some seafood... Cebiche is on the list of things to try apopo!

Day 3 one more day of exploring. We set out for Larcomar it's like a mall on the coast of Miraflores with great places to eat and sit and watch the moana. After being here not half an hour, Tu was itching to get out of the tourist areas and into the heart of Lima so we taxi'd into Lima to the National Museum and saw some amazing ceramics of the Indigenous people of Peru, including the Inca people.

We then learnt some truths about Peru's history through the 'Shining Path' regime that devasted and disenfranchised the people of Peru through terrorism and genocide. We both felt sad that we didn't know of this history before coming to Lima and now have more of an understanding of this ancient place and it's past.

Lunch back at Larcoma and our first try of 'Cebiche' (raw fish, Peruvian style!) it was amazing. The food is truly good here and the price is really good too.

Despite feeling like we fall short every time someone speaks to us in Spanish and we can only partially understand and/or respond, we are working our way through the language barrier but know that next time we come back, we must learn their reo.

For now, we're resting up for the Inca Trail that begins tomorrow in Cuzco.

Adios!