Lima

Lima, city of millions of taxis, can show you many faces in a very small area. This town has everything from rich quarters with business centers to poor slums where tourists dare not to venture out. Most visitors stay in the part called Miraflores which is fairly safe and has a feeling of any other bigger city. We decided to stay in Miraflores House, which turned out to be a very comfortable and safe hostel with a funny talkative owner, Francis.

As we have found out many times on our trip, the world is really small. We ended up meeting a Swedish couple we met at our tour of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. We celebrated our get together with a couple of games of bowling and some litres of Cristal beer. Well, we ain't bowlers, so the Swedes won, however, Jenni didn't mind as she was content with the Finnish hockey team beating Sweden in this years world champs.

There are plenty of museums in Lima which can satisfy a variety of tastes, however, we decided we had had enough of the Inca ceramics and history and not being big art lovers either, we skipped the museum scene. Instead, we got on a local green bus 73A which took us almost directly to the main square (Plaza Mayor). The same day we were there, the euro-latinamerican summit about global warming was in town, so the streets were buzzing with cops and barricades to prevent cars from entering the center. We managed to sneak a peak at a Lima Cathedral where the supposed remains of Francisco Pizzaro are found. After that we headed to the San Franciscan monastery and its catacombs to explore the local Spanish influence. We continued our tour to the San Martin square with a statue of Saint Martin on his horse and then took a crowded green bus back to Miraflores. It is interesting that already a few streets over from Plaza Mayor there are poorer areas of the town where it is not recommended for tourists to venture out. Very weird contrast.

The next day we wanted to get out of Lima, so booked a tour with Mira Bus agency to the ruins of Pachacamac. The Pachacamac culture was in this area way before Incas, however, the Incas then took over the Pachacamac keep once their reign began. Well, it really wasn't all that exciting. Except a few walls from mud bricks, there is really not much else to see than rubble and sand along with a nearby fallen-apart village. The tour ended at the Temple of the Sun which was one of the only ruins that had a few intact walls. I'd say that unless one is really interested in architecture, skipping this attraction is really not a sin.

On our final day we visited the Park of Love (Pargue del Amor) and took a look at the surfer dudes catching some waves under the smoggy cloudy sky. To be a bit positive about Lima, I'd have to give it props for the cuisine here. We managed to eat very well and if one goes off the beaten track, the prices are very very cheap, starting at one euro per full meal with soup and drink. One can eat anything imaginable from normal chicken to chicken hearts or stomachs.:) Next stop Argentina.