Peru calling! Touchdown in Lima.

Peru calling! Touchdown in Lima.

Hola! My dear, here we are!!!! In Peru! On the other side of the world. As I told you, from now on my sweetheart Jonathan is with me and it is so great to share lovely travelling experiences, so I am really lucky and happy it worked out that he is with me for this trip. It is his first time in South America, and also my first time for holidays over here. For business, I have been to Mexico several times and to Panama once but this is it. So for both of us very exciting!!! Needless to say that we DO NOT speak a word Spanish. Oh wait, Despacito, we now… (coming back to this song later…). So after a horriblen 13hours and kind of endless flight with KLM (awful food), we touched down in Lima, the capital of Peru. Lima`s estimated population is 9,751,717 and these almost 10 million people (!!!) live in 43 districts in Metropolitan Lima. Lima is not only the largest city of Peru, it is also the fifth largest city in the Americas. Lima`s Metro area is also the 27th most populous in the world! Metropolitan Lima stretches north to south for 80km along the Pacific Ocean and from west to east for 40km from the Pacific to the Andes Mountains. Just to give you an impression of the size we found over here. Big Lima! So, we arrived in the evening and really, this is the best. Because with your jetlag you just fall into bed and sleep like a baby. So did we. The next morning, we had a great breakfast in our hotel Belmond Miraflores Park, in beautiful district Miraflores – overlooking the Pacific Ocean (if it would not have been so foggy…). Miraflores is also known to be a very safe district in Peru and safety is something which you really still should not underestimate. After a super healthy and delicious breakfast we headed downtown Lima to the colonial center. We had beautiful weather with about 23C degrees and sunshine. We strolled around, saw the different beautiful churches and squares, visited some nice tiny museums with Peruvian arts, and had our first CEVICHE for lunch! I could die for this dish – it is so delicious and after eating so much fish in Japan this is a great itineration so to say. We took plenty of pictures and spent the whole day downtown. Lima – meaning the old town, was really surprisingly clean and also we were surprised by the many security people we saw. Probably for a good reason. But we felt safe. We bought beautiful paintings from an artist to bring home and first time fell in love with the Andean colors that are so typical for Peru and generally for South America of course. Happy about our city trip we headed back to the hotel. It took us again approximately 30minutes as the traffic is also horrible in Lima. And taxi really is the only way to go. For dinner, we chose the Malabar restaurant, one of the best in Lima. We need to tell you that Lima has a great international reputation for fine dining meanwhile. For the last years the best ranked restaurants in South America were all Peruvian ones, all in Lima. The restaurant of the year 2017 was Central – here you have to book at least 60 days in advance. Just saying in case, you plan to go to Peru. We had another Ceviche (…) and although we almost slept at the table it was delicious. Guys, I can tell you, with a jetlag coming from a time difference of 14 hours but the other way round (as on the other part on the earth), it feels like you are on drugs. We went to bed early and the good thing is, you are a really early bird the next day. As you know, I normally love to sleep long but it is really cool to be awake at 5am – fit like a sneaker (Denglish). Gerhard, now I see your point. So for the second day, we enjoyed breakfast again and then went from Miraflores to Barranco, the bohemian district in Lima. Oh, my god, so lovely. Beautiful colonial houses paired with super-cool street art. Barranco is also known to be safe so we could walk the whole day. Jonathan fulfilled my wish, namely to go the the MATE museum: The Mario Testino Museum (!!!). Mate (as the locals call him) is a born Barranco, so Peruvian Native – did you know that? I actually did not know, although I adore this photographer for his great portraits and fashion shots. So we spent time there and admired a beautiful selection of his best shots. Then we had a coffee time in a lovely café and looked at several small shops to see what Peruvian things are like. We had read about an old lady who owns a huge collection of wonderful things from all over Peru that she is partly selling in her own house and backyard. She is even under the attention of Sotheby’s from London as her selection is outstanding and unique in Peru. We met her daughter and their very old dog and also were even allowed to see their beautiful living room. In their collection she was only selling unique pieces and you know that I am addicted to fashion. We found an extraordinary Poncho for a reasonable price – an unique piece that she was selling, handmade in Puno, southern part of Peru. The both of us (really the both!) thought we have to buy this one because you never know if you see things like this again. So well, you will see this poncho on almost every picture from now as I really LOVE it. And you know what? Wherever we went to – the Natives (!)  asked where this Poncho is from – so we really made the right decision. We went back to the hotel (me jumping because so happy about that Poncho) and had another Ceviche in the lovely hotel BlueBar. As a goodbye gift the lovely lady in the bar gave us a zip bag with Coca leaves when she heard that we are going to Southern Peru. We laughed but she insisted that we should take it because it would really help against the altitude sickness (later more on this…). So we took the gift, hoped it would be fine with the customs and went to the airport. Not so sad because we knew that we will (hopefully) see Lima again at the end of our trip. So two full days are a perfect start in Peru. Our next destination is AREQUIPA – on 2500m over sea level. We flew with LATAM airline and had a very good impression of them, arriving safely and on-time in Arequipa (no probs with the Coca leaves in our hand luggage) where we fell in bed as again on day 3 the jetlag was just killing us. Buenos Noches (learnt!).