Day 1 Lima: Walking Tour

We arrived in Lima on Saturday night, 17:20, but our bags didn't make it. So after arrival at the hotel, we went shopping first ... two shirts for us and some shoes for Cynthia as she only wore thongs on the plane ... But finally we went to the lounge in the hotel, where we were greated with a glass of champagne, which we definitely deserved!
Sunday we booked our private tour guide Sara for a full day walking tour through Lima, the "non-touristic" way ... here Cynthia putting on her new "clown" shoes ... she thought the tip goes upwards, but at least they were very comfy ...
So we started walking along the shore in Miraflores ...
... one beautiful park after another ... here the love park with an "interesting" sculpture ...
After walking the first stop was actually the apartment house, which is mentioned on Cynthia's birth certificate, i. e. where her parents lived back then (she lived her first nine months there). To our surprise it wasn't knocked down and still existed ...
It was apartment 203 ... but neither the tour guide nor Cynthia wanted to ring ... so Thomas said several times "we're here now, just ring, what can happen"?
So finally Thomas managed to convince Cynthia to ring (it was Sunday, 10:30) and actually someone answered. After Cynthia explained the whereabouts, he said "I'll get dressed and come down" ... he was still in his pyjamas!
So after 10 minutes he showed up and let us into the apartment ... here the possible "production room" of Cynthia ;-)))
What Cynthia also still had was this faded photo, which shows her dad and - probably - her older sister Glynis on a terrace ... on Sundays they played "Washy washy daddy" ...
And here it is: The terrace on the photo and Cynthia holding a printout of the above photo!!!
Here's the really nice guy who currently lives in that apartment and let us in ... we had a feeling he got a kick out of it too ...
This is actually the street, Calle Teruel 156, Miraflores ...
Thomas photographed a lot of cars, but we'll only bother you with one picture ... why? There are still a lot of beetles driving around, but we saw none with the original mirrors ... those are really modern ...
On we walked through San Isidro, where originally the hospital was, where Cynthia was born; unfortunately we couldn't track down, what happened to "Clinica Lozada" ... here a nice park there ..
Full service for the dogs ;-)... a drinking hole ...
Here us with Sara on the Plaza Mayor in the centre of Lima ...
Everything pretty well guarded ...
... and on that Sunday - by accident - we could watch that show ... a whole orchestra on horses ...
Not far from the Plaza Mayor, we could have crossed a bridge to some slums in Lima ... we thought it's a better idea to turn around ...
Here a poor soul in Lima ...
On we went to some local markets around Miraflores / San Isidro ... only to find a German sign for chocolate ;-)
The "mothers" of that quarter home cooked meals and sold them ...
As you can see they're very popular with the local people ...
What we saw everywhere was something like this: evacuation plans or signs where to stand in case of an earthquake ...
Fresh fruit and vegetables ... some in sizes we don't know of in Germany or Australia ...
And while leaving the market we saw this really "cool" lady selling baking forms ...
On the way back we came across this park, where huge amounts of homeless cats live ... but they're looked after as people bring food for them ...
Last stop of this tour was Barranco, here a church which was never rebuilt after an earthquake ...
We saw this too ... a dog having his afternoon siesta ... covered by a surfboard ...
Barranco is mainly know for its cafes and artists ... here the bridge of sighs (Venice!) ...

Day 2 Lima: Drive to Pisco (South of Lima) with a hire-car

We had the super idea to hire a car for a day ... it was a normal car, but it would have been better if we had hired a SUV ... these are roads in the outskirts of Lima ...
The original idea was to drive to Pisco and Parracas, maybe to pop over to some islands with birds and seals ... here on the Panamericana ... What you can see everywhere in Peru are painted (!) ads for next year's elections ...
Finally we entered the "toll"-part of the Panamericana ... as it cost money, it was empty ...
But unfortunately that's what we found in Picso ... horrible roads and damaged buildings.
The road to Parracas was closed for renovation (sic!), so we were diverted to roads, where you were lucky to do 5-10 km/h. Our poor car had to survive some bumps and holes ...
So as there was just nothing that could have made us stop, we turned around and drove back ... this is a scene in Chincha, on the way back to Lima ... amazing what you can convert a motorbike to ...
Also in Chincha we found the restaurant Carola ;-)))
At least that night we booked a table in the restaurant "Brujas de Cachiche" ... fantastic! We enjoyed great "Ceviche" (raw fish marinated in lemon juice) and two really nice lobsters ...

Day 3 Lima: Long Walk and "Official" Tour

Before the official tour we had a long walk on our own along the coastline ...
Mostly high rise buildings (pretty expensive as we heard), but this one house here prevailed ...
This is a car workshop ... the pit is just beside the walkway including some mirrors ...
After the extra two days in Lima, the original booked tour through Peru started in the afternoon. We started again at the Plaza Mayor in the city centre of Lima ...
This is what you can see ... and photograph when you've got a fast camera ...
This road reminded us of Calle Florida in Buenos Aires ... just - sadly - in much better shape ...
The Presidential Palace ... btw. without kidding, we had great weather every single day of the whole trip ... but ... when angels travel ... ;-)
Another side of the Plaza Mayor ... the Cathedral of Lima ...
The end of the tour brought us to the archaeological museum "Larco" ... unfortunately we ran out of time, so it was a quick run-through ...
But this photo we took (it was part of a special exibition about sexuality) ... amazing how open the society was 3,500 years ago ... and these days in the US every "fuck" is bleeped out and every nipple carefully hidden ...
Finally we arrived at our dinner place "Huaca Pucllana"; a restaurant integrated in an archeological site ... food was good and ...
... the company as well ... here one of our guides, Richard, joining us for dinner ...