Our adventure in Peru began a bit uncomfortably. Our beds were small. The blankets did not cover us and we were quite cold. And as always, I was awake by 6:30 AM. And to top it off, the showers…not hot water. So guess who took the coldest shower of his life. It was really rough but I made it through that. Once Scott, Michelle and Denise were up, Scott contacted the host as we needed hot water and more towels. The host responded quickly and eventually a young man knocked on our door and showed us where the switch was to turn on a water heater. Yeah! We have hot water. While we were gone, someone came by and left a key to closet where more supplies were including towels. Yeah…we’ll have more towels for tomorrows showers!
At about 9:45 AM, Scott and I set out to find a Mercado. We headed up the street passing lots of street vendors and small tiendas. But we never found anything significant. But on the way, by a bank, a man was buying dollars and gave a pretty good conversion rate. Scott sold some dollars to get some Soles. The rate was 41 soles for every dollar. The man was very nice, even made sure got all his money down to the penny…or whatever their smallest unit is…as Scott turned away without all his money. The man was very honest. We kept walking down the street looking for a big Mercado. We found one…but it was more of an open air, crazy market kind of place. On the street, we asked someone about a SuperMercado and if one was close. He said to go to the Metro down the street. Now we thought he meant the subway. But it turns out that Metro is the name of a SuperMercado….and there was one on the other side of the overpass that we were by as it turns out. We never saw it and never got there. We finally found a little tienda as we could not return without anything for our walk. Scott was looking for Yoghurt for Michelle and this tienda had the liquid form for 2.50 soles. I decided to get one for Denise too. I thought 2.50 meant 250 Soles…which would have been almost $60. Fortunately the lady was honest and showed me that it was only 2.5 soles…..60 cents in US dollars. Crazy. I lucked out with their honesty.
Enrique wanted to take us into town, the center of Lima. The driving here is pretty crazy. And it was extremely busy getting down town. It had something to do with some month long celebration. But I believe was do more to the protesting that was going on concerning dignitaries that were visiting the Presidential Palace on the Plaza De Armas. As a matter of fact, we could not get into the Plaza De Armas due to the tight security around 1 PM. But the police told us around 3 PM it should be open. So we went to a church where the catacombs are where some 25k people are entombed.
I think the tour cost 10 soles per person ($2.50)…pretty cheap. The Iglesia de San Francisco was huge and pretty impressive. And the catacombs were pretty cool too. But the highlight for us was probably the Churros we found and ate on the street before entering the church. They were awesome! 2.5 Soles….you do the math…60 cents. We shared one it was so good. I hope we find these again somewhere in our travels tomorrow. Anyway after the tour, we came out to a plaza where a man had something that caught our eye that he was selling…some butterfly toys. We bought one for each grand child…they are pretty cool. Anyway, we asked about where to eat and this guy says, come one, I will take you. Off we went to a place where there were some ancient house foundations on the river that apparently run clear out to the river. But what caught our eye was across the way was a mountain that had such colorful housing. Scott asked him what people paid to live there thinking that was where the rich and affluent lived. But he said that was where the poor people live. Totally opposite to the USA. Those who have great views pay lots of money to get that. Not here. Anyway, the restaurant he took us to was pretty awesome. The food was really yummy. And as it turns out, that was both lunch and dinner as it was nearly 4 PM.
After eating, we went back to the Plaza de Armas to walk around and get pictures. It was finally open and the protests and such had died down. It is a very large and pretty plaza with really cool buildings all around. Lots of police because of those in the Presidential Palace whose motorcades were waiting for them to exit. Who knows who was here. Anyway, after hitting the bathroom (and they all cost .50 Soles to use), we started our long walk to the Magical Water Show in a park. The 2.1 mile walk took a long time. But what was interesting was the fact that Peru was playing Chile (or Ecuador) in a soccer match in the big National Stadium and to get to this water park, we had to walk right by it. By now, with was around 6:30 PM and the traffic and crowds were getting large. It was pretty crazy getting through it all. We finally made it to the water park around 7 PM. The water show was going to start at 7:30 PM.
The water show was like Disney’s Fantasia with blades of water being a movie screen for pictures of Peru and such being shown. I did not follow the story well, but the water show was pretty and done well. It was nice to sit and just relax as it felt as though we had been walking all day long. After the show, Scott and Michelle wanted to walk to a Starbucks to get a hot chocolate. So off we went walking the streets of Lima again. We eventually found it and enjoyed some muffins and hot chocolate. At the end, we summoned an Uber which worked out great. Only 15 Soles for about a 20 minute ride. That is less than 4 bucks. Pretty cheap if that is indeed the price given.
We arrived back at our place around 9:30 AM. But we were not done.. Guess what, you know that Super Mercado we wanted to find in the morning? Well if we had turned to our right instead of our left, we would have found a large Super Mercado only one block from our condo complex1 We just laughed. Anyway, we went there and bought some supplies for our breakfast in the morning.
It is now 11:22 PM. Last night the condo complex was so quite. Tonight…they are all partying. So loud outside. I guess they are thrilled that Peru won 2-0. It is time for me to retire. I’m beat. Tomorrow we plan to head to Miraflores…where we will do some beach time.
Pictures:
Washing porch by the kitchen in our condo. Kind of interesting this place is.
If you look closely, one of the chairs looks like a ‘butt’ chair. We found that funny.
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