Lima City Tour....or, Pam Loves A Parade

So we signed up for a city tour of Lima today. As we have been travelling, we have met only one person who thought we should use any of our time in Lima. We were told that it was just a big city and that we would do better elsewhere. We decided to at least look and were very surprised by what we found. 

a foggy pic from our morning walk along the malocon this morning

First, we found this little Italian place around the corner from our hotel in the Miraflores area of Lima that is ran by a family from Sicily. Their Osso Bucco sauce was the most delicately prepared and complete pasta sauce we have ever eaten – including my all day cooked sauces. I had their homemade ravioli with the sauce and Pam had the gnocchi. I’ll get over her sauce being better than mine sooner or later.

Next we found a beautiful, clean city with a ton of Colonial architecture and charm, next door to towering new buildings and lots of parks. Dogs are on leashes, and they don’t even use their horns as much here.   We haven’t even heard a rooster sound off once today! 

We are certainly not hanging in the outer barrios here in Miraflores, but this area definitely feels safe to walk in. There is almost always fog in Lima from May until December due to the Pacific Ocean being right here and the Andes to the east. It nearly never rains here. This does lead to a problem in a city of 9+ million people – smog. There are a lot of cars here, and they sell both an 84 octane gasoline (the low in the US is 87) and number 2 diesel (which we don’t use anymore in the US – in the early 80’s you could still use it in forklifts and tractors, etc.). Luckily, we are here for the weekend and head to Trujillo Monday at noon.

Back to the tour. So our bus/van takes us through the different municipalities between Miraflores and our goal, Lima municipality (there are 43 total – all with their own governors), and we get out at the Plaza de Armas (I mentioned in prior posts that there is one everywhere)... 

...just in time for a parade complete with bands and brightly dressed dancers.  Our guide let us spend 15 minutes or so taking pictures of the festivities.

We then walked through the Plaza, saw the changing of the Guard, and make our way to a Franciscan Monastery to tour catacombs. I don’t like mummies and bones – they freak me out, but I sucked it up and tagged along. When we were done we had them drop us off at another Italian restaurant in Miraflores that was pretty great as well, but my Bolognese sauce is better than theirs – so neener neener neener.

We finally found a big store (it was so modern that it reminded us of the large grocery stores in Mexico.  We bought some necessities for our time further up the coast:  a couple bottles of vino, dried nuts and some chocolate.

Off to Trujillo….