Peru !

Uber Fails: Getting to Lima was a chore. We had trouble scheduling connecting flights so had to stay the night in Miami on 3/1, check in 11 PM, leave 5 hrs later. The Uber we scheduled before going to bed was a no show, but we realized it quickly and had one there to get us only 20 minutes later. We breezed through the Miami airport and were on our way. We waited about an hour in a long immigration line in Bogota only to find it was the wrong line. We found the correct line and still made our connection to Lima with time to spare. But going from the Lima airport exit to get the Uber we called for was an experience. At the end of the cross walk which you must take leaving the airport are a dozen or more nice cars with Uber signs on them, and dozens of well dressed young men with Uber logo shirts accosting you to get in one of these cars. Something didn’t seem right about it. Well for one, none of them was the person we called. These well dressed professional looking men insisted they were Uber but were closer to the airport than the official Uber pick up station. I was about to throw in the towel when Peggy saw a slovenly, unfriendly guy walking towards us. He was our real Uber driver. I asked him about all the young men we were walking away from, he matter of factly said “Oh, they are the illegal Ubers”. This was late Monday afternoon 3/2. We got to Holiday Inn Miraflores around 6:30, and ate a block away at Rasto’s where I had my first authentic Peruvian Lomo Saltado.

Lima: Tuesday 3/3 was a half day city tour in the morning. Here we are at the Basilica de Lima, left, and outside the municipal building with our guide Aura, right.

Much of this tour was walking through the San Francisco Church, Monastery and catacombs, no pictures allowed. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of skulls stacked in the catacombs under the church. For about 2 centuries, mid-1,500’s to about 1,800 it was the only consecrated burial grounds so everyone got put there. The smell of decomposing bodies got so bad a new governor of the province designated a new burial ground made “kosher” by the catholic church ending the practice of entombing bodies under the church.

The tour dropped us off at Parque de Amor, Love Park. We teamed up with Ayesha, a single women on the tour (her husband was in a business meeting) and went for lunch at Republica del Pisco, seen here:

Notice the effigies hanging above. They seem to have a fascination with el muerte in Peru, no idea why. We walked around Barranca, an artsy neighborhood, then headed back to Parque de Amor. These are the views of Lima, a city of 12 million, from the cliff overlooking the ocean.

The beach is only a few yards deep and rocks, not sand but the few sandy spots are jammed with people. Here is the famous, semi-pornographic statue at Love Park:

And a pic of us in the photo spot with the statue behind us.

Looking at these pictures it’s surprising to think that Lima is in a desert. It last rained 3 years ago, and the previous rain was 11 year before that. The city is completely unprepared for rain. There are no storm sewers to take rain water away, all roofs are flat. Fresh water is not in short supply however, rivers from the Andes provide enough water.

We ate at Rincon Shami that night, a place an Evansville acquaintance of mine who is originally from Lima recommended. It’s not a place we would have ever picked ourselves but was very good. We ate at a sidewalk table and an SUV slammed into a bollard about 10 feet away from us providing a little excitement.

We went bird watching at a wetland just south of Lima on Wednesday 3/4, Refugio los Pantanos. No pictures, we saw 35 species, 17 life birds for me. Went back to town around 2 PM, ate at el Parquetito along Kennedy park, at two block urban park renamed for JFK several years ago. I saw two life birds there, Cordilleran Parakeets and a Southern Beardless Tyranulet. We got our luggage from the hotel and headed to the airport for Cuzco. Got to the airport in plenty of time even though our Uber driver was pulled over by the police, reason ???, we never knew.