Peru: Lima

Welcome to Lima, this very sunny, foggy/smoggy, 9 million bodied capital city of Peru on the Pacific Coast. We arrived here in the middle of the night our first night and were at once smacked in the face by the humidity and traffic. We spent one full day in Lime before our excursion to Cusco and then returned for another almost week. Our first day is not really worth mentioning as we spent most of the day trying to figure out our SIM card situation for our phones – very different than Europe or the US, and realizing just how lost we were with the language barrier.

While we made our way into a couple of the other more up scale neighborhoods of Lima (San Isidro and La Molina) we stayed in a fantastic AirBnB apartment in Miraflores. Not being as adventurous we did stick to primarily tourist or expat areas. One things I will note is that it was much hotter (mainly because of the 90% humidity) than I thought and there is definitely not AC everywhere – I was also battling on and off travelers illness. I definitely missed my dry desert climate.

The second week back we stayed nearer to the beach and lots of fantastic restaurants – two coming up, the current #4 and #14 restaurants in the world. We spent much of the week as we do most vacations walking around, exploring, all while waiting for the next meal.

Here are just some snaps of our time in Lima.

Parque Kennedy in Miraflores – also home to (likely) hundreds of feral cats that appear to be well fed and just lounge in the sun all day.

The typical breakfast – three classes of beverages (water, tea, and juice), some sort of egg, and bread or toast.

The central government square – Plaza de Armas. After which we also stopped at the catacombs (but no pictures were allowed).

The cutest coffee shop – Arabica, which we finally stopped in for a beverage our last day.

The best breakfast arepa (sandwich) at Arepa Cafe Miraflores. Owned by a very friendly Venezuelan guy who lived in Miami for a while previously.

Of course you can’t talk about Peru without mentioning the ceviche. I’m totally sold.

We had a fantastic seafood dinner at Alfresco.

After a walk along the beach we stopped in for milkshakes. Maybe not the best idea for someone with moderate lactose intolerance, but it was tasty.

A tremendous plate of meat from Rustica. And yes, those are chicken kidneys and hearts.

Our last lunch of the trip all together was spent at Amaz. Lots of good food that I probably can’t remember everything at this point. I do however remember being all fished out. I didn’t even know that could happen, but after so many meals from the sea I was ready for some land mammals.