After the beautiful hikes and landscapes around Huaraz, I don’t think either of us were entirely looking forward to the big city. Especially one which doesn’t get brilliant write ups in most travel blogs, unless they are talking about gastronomical delights, which isn’t exactly the reason we’d headed to South America!
However, we were trying to keep an open mind as we headed to the metropolis that is a Lima, and had signed ourselves up to a free walking tour of the historic centre, hoping to get some insights into the city and find out a bit more about the best places to explore further on our own.
Strolling out in the morning to find ourselves some breakfast before the walking tour, we headed for the nearest coffee shop to our hostel that had decent reviews. Whilst it was fine, it was doing a good impression of being a Starbucks or similar, and combined with the grey clouds and drizzle, we almost felt like we were back in the UK! Oh well, we were sure the tour would show us some local sights with a more Peruvian feel!
Unfortunately the tour didn’t start so well when us and an American couple we were chatting to eventually realised after 20+ mins of waiting at the designated point that somehow we’d probably missed the street of the tour! Turns out the tour started from inside the tourist information centre rather than outside like the email said! Thankfully a man from the tourist info centre offered to take us to catch up with the main tour and whilst talking to him I found out he was originally from Glossop and what’s more he’d previously lived in Manchester on the same road as Richard! Talk about a small world!
Anyway, I digress. In the end I think maybe we would have done just as well to have missed the tour. It wasn’t great (unlike the few we’d taken in other cities, which had been great). However, the city centre of Lima does have a few impressive colonial buildings and churches and it was actually quite nice to have a slightly more European feel (by that I essentially mean a little less manic and in your face) than some other South American cities we’d been to.
Following the tour, we decided to visit the city’s catacombs in the afternoon. This also started badly when we got shoved into a Spanish speaking tour despite the catacombs own website clearly stating that they provided both spanish and english speaking guides. After some discussion with the ticket lady, who did a good impression of being confused by us wanting an English speaking tour despite that being one of the only two languages they provide we finally got a tour round the catacombs that we could understand!
(Admin – you’d think after 2 1/2 months in South America and months before on Duolingo they’d have grasped at least a little Spanish!)
Ultimately we both enjoyed the tour of the catacombs and the monastery that sits above them.
After our day in the city centre, instead of getting the trolley bus back, we decided to splash out on an Uber. And that is where the cosmopolitan vibe of the centre gave way to the whacky races of the arterial roads between the districts! I can’t say that our driver was unsafe, but it was a totally mad ride! I couldn’t decide whether I thought everyone on the road was a terrible driver, or that everyone must in fact be an amazing driver to avoid crashing into each other given the utter lack of road rules (out at least any being adhered to)!
On day two we decided to explore the districts of Miraflores (where we were staying) and Barranco, immediately next to it, which is meant to have a chilled, bohemian, arty vibe with lots of cool cafes and museums/galleries to visit. Having spent the day wandering both areas, we’re not sure if we just missed all the cool stuff, or if (as we think most likely) it’s just been totally over-hyped! Whilst there was some interesting street art, a few hipster feeling bars, and a couple of overpriced and slightly middle of the road art/crafts shops, we were generally pretty underwhelmed!
On the way to Barranco, we also walked to the coast, which is meant to be scenic, only to find ourselves looking out at a grey sea and sky, next to a shopping centre with Trafford Centre vibes!
Oh, and it turns out I was getting ill, so that probably didn’t help!
Thankfully, we’d only got a couple of days in Lima, so we left feeling we’d seen more than enough and looking forward to getting to the coast for something a bit more peaceful (and hoping that I’d recover quickly enough from being ill to enjoy it).
Sloth Journeys 