#mqexchange

I made it! I woke up around 7am local time and chatted with Mum and Dad on whatsapp. I had a really filling brekky of eggs and fruit and cereal which was much better than plane food! I actually ended up going back to my room and chilling for a few hours, then napping for another few! Jetlag certainly caught up with me and I was just super super tired.

I got out of bed at about 1:30pm and got ready for my Lima city tour. I had a hotel pick-up at around 2:30pm, so there was heaps of time. Alas, I went down to the lobby at 2:10pm thinking I could organise with the hotel a wake-up call for the following morning and found that the tour guide was already there and waiting. Thus, I left the hotel, hopped into the mini van and my exploration of Lima City began!

I had one fellow tourist, an American Lady who was accompanying her husband on one of his business trips. She spoke both English and Spanish fluently, which meant that at times I had no idea what was being said and at other times she helped me by translating! 

Our tour guide was hilarious. He went to great lengths to explain how and why Peru was the best country in the world and went into minute detail about how Lima, as a city, was vastly improving and would therefore be the best place in the world to be. The area of Miraflores, where I am staying, was exceptionally clean due to Local Council initiatives and he pointed out the new bus system working across the city that had been introduced because Lima was hosting the Pan-American games next year. He also defended Lima, stating that the constant cloud cover is NOT pollution, but rather the constant humidity. Apparently it never rains in Lima (due to the humidity) and some buildings don’t even have roods! It last rained in the 1980′s, and apparently when it did rain it absolutely poured.

En route to our first stop, we drove past a pre-Inca pyramid. It was nothing like the infamous Egyptian pyramids. There was no spaces, or anything inside this pyramid. Instead, as our guide explained, the flat top of the pyramid was used for religious purposes and around the bottom of the pyramid were markets and other social gathering points. The pyramid was made from mud brick and according to google earth (as search by my fellow passenger) the pyramid stretched for nearly a mile. 

Our first stop was the main square of Peru. It is really quite large and the european influences were very evident! We headed into the main Church, the Cathedral of Lima. It was a beautiful church inside, whereas the exterior of the building was a mix of styles because it had collapsed in various earthquakes and was then rebuilt. One interesting fact is that the Church is actually made out of wood. The walls are mainly bamboo that are then covered/rendered in stucco to protect the wood from humidity and rotting. The lime in the stucco also repels termites.The remains of the Spanish Conquisador, Pisaro, can be found inside the Church in a coffin and the lead box in which his head was found separately is also displayed. This church also boasts the oldest statue of the Virgin Mary in America. She is some 400 and something years old, and despite looking like marble she was carved out of cedar! The statue was then rendered in stucco to protect the wood from the humidity and have that stone finish. We went down into the crypt underneath the alter and saw the tombs of Peru’s archbishops and other noble Peruvians. We walked through a very narrow entrance way that led into a large void. Our guide explained this void was a technique used by the Spanish to absorb the shocks of earthquakes and to assist in preventing the building collapse. 

Our small tour of three returned to the main square where we had a good look at the fountain in the middle. It is the oldest piece of construction in Peru because most colonial buildings collapsed during the various earthquakes. We also admired the Government Palace, which was built by Pisaro as his house. Peru’s government consists of 130 senators,18 governmental departments and affiliated ministers and 1 president. Apparently the president only works, as opposed to reside in the Government Palace. 

We left the main square by foot and walked a few blocks down to Saint Dominic Priory, the Sanctuary of Peruvian Saints. The first room we walked into had a ceiling made of over 9,000 individual pieces of wood that was held together by tongue and groove joints, as opposed to glue. It looked like one large block of chocolate!! We continued out into ta compluvium sort of area, a garden situated in the middle of a building. Very Roman!! At the centre of the garden was a beautiful water fountain and surrounding rose garden. The verandas were all covered in tiles, which were all had made, painted and glazed and dated back to the 17th century. The moorish influence continued on the second floor balconies which were entirely wood!   

We left this outside space and hit a LIBRARY. Oh the excitement, it was literature heaven! The books in that library spanned over four centuries, were written in all the known European languages as well as the Incan Quechua language and it remains to be a working library today. A particular highlight was the hymn book on display. It was more than 300years old, was written in Latin and the pages were sheep skins.

We then visited a room, and then the crypt chapel dedicated to San Rosa of Lima. She was a nun who became famous for the miracles she worked. Apparently many used to come to her to be healed, and it is said that she once summoned a storm to banish pirates from the coastal waters around Lima. 

After a bit more looking around, we left the Priory and headed to the coastal part of Miraflores. We drove past the Palace of Justice on our way and I promised Mum that I would try to look in if I had the chance. Its a bit of a tradition in our family to always visit the Courts of any town or city we visit #nerds. 

The view from the Miraflores coast was spectacular! The Pacific Ocean was beautiful and misty, but looked very cold! Our guide picked these flowers from a nearby bush and we sucked out the honey of the flower. We then walked around the headland to the Parque del Amor, which is famous for its mosaics and statue of a couple in passionate embrace. After we had looked around and enjoyed the view, it was about 5:15pm. We walked across a bridge connecting the headlands of Miraflores (also known as the death bridge...barriers had to be constructed for reasons I purposefully will not explain here) over to Larcomar shopping centre. Our tour finished, but my fellow passenger and I continued on and looked around the local artisan markets and the shops in Larcomar shopping centre. Together we grabbed some dinner at a restaurant called ‘Popular’ and I tried my first Pisco Sour flavoured with Passionfruit! I didn’t even make it half-way through the drink in order to avoid any of the effects of alcohol. The cocktail has frothed egg white on top, which sounds gross but it takes on the taste of the drink! 

After 28hours, or something fun like that, I’m in Lima! The customs and immigration checkpoints at the airport were not difficult at all. I got my bags scanned and there was clearly nothing suspicious that came up on the scanners...so I pretty much walked straight out of the airport!

I had a hotel transfer arranged to take me from the airport to my accommodation. But I did laps of the arrival area but couldn’t see anyone standing there and holding a sign with my name on it. It was also super humid (at about 19degrees celcius) and I was wearing my super warm jacket. I was starting to feel the heat and so I decided that rather than standing there stressing, I’ll go back inside the airport and book a green (and legit) taxi. As I walked to the taxi stand and made the purchase, I thought to myself that (murphey’s law), I’ll now find a driver standing at arrivals with my name on the sign. Alas I was right! I took the hotel transfer because it was pre-arranged and therefore safer in my mind and ended up paying for the same trip twice! The other green taxi driver must have been stoked at such a generous tip he ended up receiving. I also didn’t want to get to the hotel and make the concierge realise that I’d left their driver stranded at international arrivals.

My hotel driver was really nice, but he had as much english as I do spanish. I don’t think I was very successful in explaining that he should be careful of his back lifting my bag into the boot of his car because they were so heavy. 

It was very muggy, and the constant cloud cover was a slight brown or copper colour, which I think was the combination of both pollution and light pollution. We had the windows rolled down in the car to get some ‘fresh air’. The air constantly smelt of petrol and car fumes and the noises of a very busy city, particularly for 10:45pm on a Monday night! We drove past some construction work and the RMS would have totally gone to town on it if it were in Australia. there was only a cyclone fence separating the freeway from the building site and the sand being moved by machinery filled the surrounding air so it was all you could smell, taste and breathe! 

But oh dear, driving was an experience in itself and it did take a good 45minutes to get to my hotel! Driving in Sydney is, comparatively, very structured, predictable and regulated. In Lima, collisions are narrowly avoided every minute. Here, there is no conception of personal space or a safe stopping distance between cars. The roads we drove on were usually about three lanes each way. At traffic lights, drivers are close enough to high five or shake hands with the passengers in other vehicles without either leaving their seats. Often drivers (and mine included!) would drive straight down the middle of two lanes. Only the bad drivers ever used blinkers. There was one moment where there were three cars coming from different directions all trying to enter the same two lane road. I hope my driver didn’t mind when I winced because we were the car in the middle and I thought my passenger side door was about to be re-moulded like clay. There was also a lot of stray dogs on the road, as in sleeping on the road. They only moved out of the way to let cars pass when they were honked at. Many cars and most of the buses I saw were looked as though they should have been retired about 10 years ago and by the sounds of their engine, were also a few years overdue for a service. There was a ute I saw that had the flap to the tray half hanging off! Quite a few vehicles also had flashing brake lights to communicate to other drivers when they were slowing down, as opposed to the block lights we have on our cars!