New Year´s Day in Lima

  Lima, Peru
Friday, January 2, 2009

Old photographý studio in Lima

New Yearīs Day and the streets were quiet and deserted. Wewalked to the corner of the street and had a wonderful breakfast of fruit salad chopped up and piled high with dollops of yoghurt and honey sliding down the mountain of fruit.And then set abpout being tourists for the day and following the example of the lima residents we wandered around the central streets, ate wonderful ice cream, took photos and took a mini bus from the Plaza de Armas up the sheer sides of Cerro San Cristobal, a 400 m high hill with a lookout at the top with views of Lima stretching off into the coastal mists. The petite woman driver held the steering wheel casually with her manisured left hand whilst using the right hand to hold the mobile phone, talk, sometimes hold the guideīs microphone while he lept out to remove things in our path.Remembering Home End School days and our mini bus trips, I couldnīt believe that the bus would make it up the incline , past brightly painted , unfinished buildings. But we did. And there was no sign of previous mini buses down the steep sheer drops at the side of the road so I thought we must be fairly safe.

view from Cerro San Cristobal

Cerro San Cristobal

We went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner and had a huge plate of rice and vegetables for the price of a blue-ginger muffin!Walked through the streets with everyone else in Lima( or so it seemed) and restrained Lisa who fell in love with the wonderful boots in a shoe shop.They would be great for  Mama Mia/Abba themed party!
All the shops were shut of course today, so I couldnīt go and source some alpaca to send home from here, but the main offices of the alpaca places seem to be in Araquipa, and as we are going there it seems a good idea to do that instead as we are both looking forward to setting off by bus to Pisco this lunchtime. So Rob -the place you bought alpaca from is also in Araquipa -so weīll find it there.
Of course thereīs loads of places and things we havenīt done in Lima , so a return trip has to be planned and two experiences definately on the list will be to have dinner at L'Eau Vive, a restaurant run by nuns who apparently sing Ave Maria at closing time, and a Pisco Sour at the Gran Hotel Bolivar. But as we are heading off to Pisco today we can try Pisco Sours in Pisco! Surely that will be good!
And sorry to mention the temperature, but itīs so lovely to be warm and sticky and having cold fruit juice to cool down!