Day 2 in Lima

Friday, June 26, 2009

After arriving at our hotel, Jose Antonio, we had breakfast and then slept for a couple of hours before we went on our orientation walk of downtown Miraflores which means ¨Look at the flowers.¨

Our hotel is very comfortable and the staff is very pleasant and helpful. The room is spacious enough for us and the beds are nice and firm like we like it. We slept like babies. We were both blissfully snoring away.

Since Peru is a developing country, their sewer system is not yet capable of accepting toilet paper. It´s something that everyone, no matter what economic status one is, has to deal with. At least they have western style toilets, which wasn´t always the case in Beijing.

Today we took about a 5 mile trek around Miraflores, a middle class area of Lima. There are 42 districts with each having it´s own mayors. Most tourists stay in this district. It is safe to walk around day or night.

We took more time than anticipated as their was much to see and about half of our on the tour are avid photographers. Several of them have very high tech and have all of the lenses and camera gear. I can´t wait to see them. We will be sharing pictures with each other after the tour is over. This will definitely be to my advantage. Their cameras are so much more sophisticated.

Our hotel is about 6 blocks from the Pacific Ocean. There are many casinos and places to eat. The food here is yummy. I´ve enjoyed everything I´ve eaten. The tour includes meals in nice restaurants and also allows us to eat in places of our choosing. We ate in a Chefia restaurant which is a blend of Chinese and Peruvian cuisine. It was excellent, but many of us commented that it tasted like a really good Chinese restaurant in the US. We were stuffed and decided to walk home. It was about 1.5 miles away. I think that many of the people in our group were freaked out by the taxi ride to the restaurant. I was used to it since I have had similar experiences in the Philippines and China. I felt perfectly safe. Others were on edge. The walk was really nice because it gave us the opportunity to see the city at night and the temperature was perfect for a stroll in the park. Crossing the streets were more harrowing than riding in the taxi. There are very few signal lights and most intersection didn´t have stop signs. Basically it´s everyone for themselves. As my driver´s ed teacher used to say, ¨He who hesitates waits.¨

We saw several parks. Miraflores Park is next to Kennedy Park named after JFK. Peruvians credit JFK for beginning the development projects in Peru. The park is a gathering place for the locals as well as the tourists. There is a playground in Kennedy Park and may artists bring their wares to Miraflores Park to sell daily for about 5pm to 10pm.

Another park we walked to during our tour is called Lovers Park. There is a beautiful wall full of mosaic designs and saying and thoughts that people here have about love. It is located high atop a cliff that is next to Coastal Verde, ¨The Green Coast¨. In the center of the park there is a large clay sculpture of to lovers kissing passionately. I was able to snap a picture of two couples making-out near a tree.

We had a fun time walking around the area. We were all tired and ready for bed because many of us were running on less than 6 hours sleep in the last day and a half.